Outside all was calm. The cicadas weren’t singing yet, but there were a few bursts of birdsong. He could only recognise the characteristic notes of the cuckoo. He could not identify the others, whose musical calls were totally mysterious to him, but the area was surprisingly peaceful despite that, without even the slightest sign of civilisation.

Yesterday evening, he and Lise had gone to bed late. The soft air after midnight had enticed them to stay outside, enjoying the coolness that had finally descended. The air had become a soothing balm that provided some respite from the heat of the day. Franck remained sitting on the chair after one of Lise’s fragrant herbal teas, feet up on the table and arms dangling. He stayed like this for a long time as if he were weightless, overwhelmed by feeling of well-being. The dog hadn’t been back since the afternoon. Franck had had to resign himself to the fact that he couldn’t play with it, though he had made a second attempt by throwing a large stick, again flinging it far off down the slope. Just like the cone, the dog ran to fetch the piece of wood and brought it back clenched between its jaws, but again it didn’t want to give it back. It was keeping the stick for itself, starting to eat it as if it wanted to grind it to shreds. Franck had done his best to get it back, but the dog had started snarling at him, suddenly unrecognisable, as if furious. It was stubbornly ripping apart the stick, bizarrely determined, so Franck turned his back and left it there, partly to show his disapproval and partly because he was frightened of the dog, which had growled aggressively every time he reached out to it. At one point Franck had thought it was going to bite him.

That was why he had left the dog there, next to the water tank. The dog, too, was sulking, continuing to chew the stick, until it was completely destroyed, after which it did not move, offended at having been left behind. An hour later, Franck saw it going slowly down the hill, tail lowered and clearly disappointed. It crossed the entire meadow before going into the woods lower down, no doubt in order to come out again on the other side of the hill, and yet there was no path over there, much less a road, and certainly no houses. It was strange that the dog always went off in that direction, where it was wildest.

Neither he nor Lise had seen it again in the evening. Franck thought back to the luminous mark they had spotted on Google Earth the day she had shown him the advert. From memory, that large light area must be to the east, over there on the other side of the hills. That was where the dog returned to every time.