On the other hand it might hurt her, disappoint her. I don’t know why I feel that, I just do and I wouldn’t want to hurt her by one fraction of a fraction. Never that. I wouldn’t want her to look at me with different eyes. See a shadow there. Plenty of shadows lurking in those strange blue eyes; but not when she looks at me. Never then. As clear, as calm, as deep as a summer lake. Only with me. If anyone was really looking they’d think it was a dead giveaway. Archie Charlie this evening walking down to the point after dinner. Was he saying so?

‘It’s very pleasant, isn’t it? Looking across the bay without all those wretched fairy lights on that damned ship. Very pleasant.’ Archie Charlie, one hand in his pocket, in the other a glass of brandy. The air, warm and sweet, smelled of oleanders and broom. ‘I don’t know if you like the stuff you’re drinking. Prefer a brandy?’

‘No,’ said Marcus. ‘No, this is super. Williams?’

‘Made from pears. Get a fearful kick if you take too much. Laid me out once in Switzerland, in my salad days.’ He looked back towards the sea. ‘Yes. Much nicer without it. A thoroughly disturbing influence, I’d say. Cuckoo was really dreadfully fussed all the time it was there. I have a shrewd feeling that she was worried that you might get involved somehow.’

‘Involved?’

‘The Italian fellow. Grottorosso. Rather impressed by your looks at the picnic, I seem to remember.’

‘Oh that. Yes. The l’Aiglon look. All fizzled out after the accident.’

‘Ah, yes. The young German chap? I really didn’t register him.’

‘That was the whole trouble. No one did.’

‘I’m usually pretty good at that sort of thing. Noticing. The little things. Do you know? The little things that other people overlook. My job of course, sifting out the fragments; as an historian. Putting what may seem to be irrelevant little pieces together to form a whole. Very satisfying; sometimes. I don’t miss very much.’

‘The German boy?’

‘Well, I suppose I hardly met him. Such a day of crowds.’

They had reached the end of the lawns at the point by the crumbling urn. Archie Charlie stood for a moment, his hands resting on the stone wall looking out across the sea, to the distant lights of Cap d’Antibes sparkling like diamonds on tremblers.

‘I really don’t know how to thank you for what you did that first evening,’ he said suddenly. ‘Really most deeply grateful. I hope that you know that?’

‘Yes, I do. Thank you. I really wasn’t anything. She was in no danger. Just a slip, that’s all.’

‘I am very much in your debt. I know that.’

‘And I’m in yours. All this time here, your hospitality …’