‘I liked your husband,’ she said. ‘Even though not everyone in my family shared that opinion. We came back as soon as we heard.’

Anika smiled.

‘Was your sailing trip good?’

‘Yeah …’

The answer wasn’t too convincing.

‘Isn’t your dad around?’

‘I don’t know.’

Anika didn’t have the strength to continue, she was lost in her thoughts, far away, years earlier, when she had given up windsurfing and washed up on these shores like a lost mermaid, only to be gathered up by Cervone.

‘You wanted to see me, Anika?’

The woman seemed already to have forgotten. She tried to concentrate.

‘Oh, yes, sorry. I had a message for you. You’re to go up to Arcanu. It’s urgent, your mum’s waiting for you there.’

~

Three police vans were parked outside the campsite, but just around the corner there was nobody about. The contrast was striking. As if the cicadas, the crickets, and the grasshoppers were ignoring all the excitement and just getting on with their lives. Valentine understood why it was so easy to get lost in the maquis: you only had to run a few metres into the scrubland and, hey presto, job done, nobody would ever come looking for you again. Not even a police dog, with all those scented flowers around to cover your trail.

Now she was climbing straight up towards Arcanu along the path. After the turning where the path crossed the road, she saw the parked car. At first she didn’t make the connection, even though she was intrigued by the vehicle, it seemed to bring back a vague memory. More of an image. Its shape, its colour. Perhaps it was like the vintage car that belonged to some television detective. She went on walking towards the road, wondering what her mother might want. ‘Urgent’, Anika Spinello had said. Valentine sighed. She’d had it with all these stories, Arcanu, her grandparents, her great-grandparents, her mother, ghosts, the dead …

That’s it!

Now she remembered. The car. She had seen it in old photographs, Maman sometimes got them out at home. A … Valentine got annoyed with herself, the name was on the tip of her tongue. What was that stupid red-and-black car called? It had a weird name, something slightly Latino …

She walked over. An old woman was sitting in the car on her own, in the passenger seat. Valentine had never seen her before, but when her eye came to rest on the figure, a shiver ran down her spine.

She had just encountered a ghost.

She tried to chase the impossible idea from her mind – this old woman looked just like her! For a moment, Valentine thought she was looking at herself in a mirror, a mirror that aged her; recognising herself, but in sixty years’ time.

Stupid.