Cervone Spinello was more than a suspect. He was starting to look like the guilty party. The death of her father, her mother and her brother would be avenged. Light had been cast on the areas in shadow. Why had her wallet been stolen from their bungalow? Why had that breakfast table been laid? The letters signed with a P? To conceal the murder of her family twenty-seven years ago? Clotilde, in the end, would know, would understand, would start her life afresh.

The crowd on the beach continued to thin out the further they went from the neon signs of the Tropi-Kalliste. Clotilde took advantage of the fact to take out her phone.

She would deal with Cervone later on.

Tomorrow morning, at dawn.

Before that, she wanted to make the most of this night.

She let go of Natale’s hand and moved a little further away. He stood slightly off to one side, studying the groups of teenagers, viewing with apparent envy the bottles of alcohol that were being passed from lip to lip.

Where are you?

Clotilde had just pressed the ‘resend’ button on her phone: she had already sent the message to Franck and Valentine ten times that day, but had received no answer from her daughter or her husband. She waited for a few moments. Still nothing.

Perhaps they didn’t have much network coverage on the high seas, but Franck and Valou wouldn’t be sailing at night. Valentine’s indifference was nothing new, she rarely replied to her mother before she’d received ten texts from her, and even more rarely on the same day.

Franck, on the other hand …

Clotilde examined the blank screen one last time, then looked up towards the black and deserted part of the beach, closed off by jagged rocks that looked like hairy monsters. As they strode over the first few rocks, tufts of samphire crunched under her feet. A few metres from the shore, at the foot of the sleeping reefs, the shadow of a little moored fishing boat danced. The Aryon was waiting, rocked by the peaceful waves, attached to its rusty ring by a threadbare rope.

The music behind them was like a powerful wind, driving them out towards the sea.

Clotilde gripped Natale’s hand.

‘Take me to the boat.’

Natale stared at her and smiled. Without a word, he rolled his trousers up above the knee. Then he led her through the darkness, as if he knew by heart each undulation in the sand, each rock that they climbed, and suddenly, before plunging into the water, he lifted her in his arms, trying to keep her dry for those last few metres that separated them from the boat.