At last.

Clotilde walked a metre away.

‘Franck. Are you back?’

Her husband’s voice was halting, and out of breath. It sounded as if he had been running, or the wind was blowing around him. They hadn’t spoken for two days, but he didn’t even say hello.

‘Is Valentine with you?’

‘No, why?’

‘I’m at the campsite, at reception, with Anika. You left a message, you asked Valentine to go up to Arcanu, you said it was urgent.’

The ground fell away beneath her feet. She clung on to the bench to keep her balance.

‘That wasn’t me, Franck! I never left any message.’

‘Maybe your grandfather did, then? Someone else at Arcanu?’

‘I don’t know, it’s strange. Wait, I’ll ask.’

Clotilde went and stood in front of Lisabetta, but even before she could question her, her grandmother managed to finish her sentence.

‘The evening of the accident, your notebook. I was the one who picked it up.’

59

23 August 2016, 7.48 p.m.

The Fuego drove carefully along the narrow, stony track. Almost every metre, a low-hanging branch scraped against its paintwork, leaving long iron scratch-marks scented with resin. The Castani brothers wouldn’t have appreciated the way he was treating the collector’s piece he’d just bought.

More likely, they wouldn’t have cared.

Nor did he.

In a few hours’ time, what would be left of the paintwork …?

In one hour and fourteen minutes, to be precise.

The same car.

Same time, to the minute.

Same place.

Same passengers.

Same corpses, when the police found them. Disfigured.

Since he had to put an end to it, he might as well go out with a bang. He might as well finish as he had started, taking his revenge on fate, defying it, closing the trunk with a double lock and dropping it to the very bottom of the Mediterranean.

He reassured himself, checking in the rear-view mirror, that the car couldn’t be seen, either from the D81 or from the hiking path a few metres further up; the track was used only by bulldozers from the quarry and it was closed today. No tourist would venture all the way out here. Still less a local. He had time to check out the area. He’d had twenty-seven years to do that.

8.30 p.m.

He was going to wait here until zero hour; peacefully, calmly, serenely. And if the girls got bored, he had brought along some reading.

For Valentine in particular.

He chose the shade of a large Corsican pine, switched off the engine, put on the handbrake and then turned to his right.

‘Second-to-last stage, Madame Idrissi. I hope you’re going to like it. I’ve organised everything, really, so you won’t be disappointed.’

Of course, Palma Idrissi didn’t reply. He leaned towards the passenger sitting on the seat next to him.

‘Excuse me, Palma.’