‘No.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You can be sorry if you like. I really don’t mind not being a grandfather.’

Cesareu rose up a little bit more above the water. Clotilde imagined that he must be sitting on a sort of step-ladder, and had brought his buttocks up a step.

‘So, Cesareu? What’s this big secret of yours?’

For a long time Cesareu looked around the pocket garden, the fence, the open door to the house and the floating curtains, as if his home were being bugged by the intelligence services.

‘You know, my lovely, because you are incredibly lovely, Clotilde, I think I’m not the first person to tell you that since you came back to the island. You were lovely then too, by the way, but you didn’t know it. A girl’s charm is like happiness, miracles, talismans, all that nonsense – you just have to believe in it for it to work. Really believe, believe in it stupidly, like those fakirs who can walk on fire without burning themselves.’

Clotilde didn’t even try to conceal her irritation. She waved her hand around as if swatting an invisible fly, then rose to her feet and walked around the hole, taking a position behind the sergeant’s back.

‘Why did you ask me to come here, Cesareu?’

Wedged in his tub, the former policeman could only hear Clotilde now. He tried to twist himself round, then gave up.

‘You remember, Clotilde, I was in charge of the investigation at the time. Just me. There was an incredible amount of pressure, believe me. Three people killed at the height of summer. Even though the Corsicans drive like lunatics, that’s rare. Not to mention the fact that your father wasn’t just anyone. The son of Cassanu Idrissi. At the time, Cassanu owned half of the district, and you know what they say about Corsican districts, they’re bigger than some of the regions on the mainland, they extend from the line of the mountain ridge to the horizon, you can go alpine skiing in winter and water-skiing in the summer.’

Clotilde interrupted him.

‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, an accident, of course. An accident, and everyone’s happy.’