‘Are you Corsican?’ he asked, almost automatically.

‘Yes. At heart, I think.’

‘Are you related to Cassanu Idrissi?’

‘I’m his granddaughter.’

Cadenat allowed a beat.

‘Ah …’

The butterfly had settled on a cactus! The three-quarter back froze like a policeman who had just heard the name Vito Corleone. A moment later, he was energetically stamping the administrative documents. As the last stamp hung in the air, the policeman slowly looked up at Clotilde. It was a compassionate look. The butterfly had left the cactus for a rose.

‘God, I’m so stupid.’

‘Sorry?’

The captain stammered, his fingers fidgeting with the stamp.

‘You’re the …’

He tried to find the right word. Clotilde guessed the ones he couldn’t bring himself to utter:

The survivor.

The miracle girl.

The orphan.

‘You’re Paul Idrissi’s daughter,’ he finally managed to say. ‘Your father died on that accident out on Revellata, along with your mother and your brother.’

Clotilde’s thoughts ran wild. This Occitan had only been working on the island for three years. The accident had happened twenty-seven years before. Since then, dozens of other accidents, all equally fatal, must have happened on those deadly winding roads. So how come this young man knew all about …

The officer interrupted her thoughts.

‘Is the sergeant aware that you’re here?’

The sergeant?

Cesareu?

Cesareu Garcia?

Clotilde had very clear memories of the policeman who had carried out the investigation into her parents’ accident. Cesareu Garcia. His good-natured calm, the delicate modesty of the questions he had asked her as she lay on her hospital bed. His physique, as wide as his voice was gentle. Two chairs to sit on and a whole box of Kleenex to mop his forehead and his neck during the three hours that the conversation had lasted at Balagne Emergency Medical Centre.

She also remembered his daughter, of course, one of the teenagers at the Euproctes campsite: Aurélia Garcia, the tribe’s biggest killjoy.

‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t think so. Cervone Spinello told me he’d retired.’

‘Yes, some years ago. I expect you’d remember him, though. You don’t forget a physique like his! He would have made a terrific prop forward if these Corsicans realised that a ball can be oval as well as round. I should warn you, since he retired, he’s put on another ten kilos a year.

The three-quarter back came a little closer to Clotilde. The butterfly trembled, as if wary of a pretty but carnivorous plant.

‘Miss Idrissi, you should go and see him.’

Clotilde stared back at him, uncomprehending.