He kept the air conditioning on full blast as he drove. It was barely midday and the thermometer on the dashboard said it was thirty-one degrees. Again he didn’t come across anybody on the way. He reached the beginning of the track that went up to the gîte, but decided to carry on driving until he got to the farm. He wanted to say a few things to the Dauclercqs; he knew the dog was theirs and wanted to know why they had sent it to spy on them. As he was preparing to go into the yard, he realised his mistake. A big dog was standing just in front of the kennel, a big brown dog that was a bit bedraggled and dirty, nothing like the other one. The dog stiffened when it saw the car, pulling its chain taut and barking, so Franck backed up. He wasn’t scared, but he now had the answer to his question. The wolf dog up on the hill did not belong to the Dauclercqs. The kennel here was not its kennel. Franck was about to turn around, but Monsieur Dauclercq was already coming towards him. He was coming from the left so must have come out of the shed, where a tractor sat in shadow. Franck had no choice but to stop. Monsieur Dauclercq came up to the car. Franck lowered his window.

‘Do you need something?’

‘No, thank you. It’s just that I missed the track, so I’m turning around.’

‘Really? You’re a long way from the track …’

‘It’s easy to get lost when you don’t know the area.’

The dog had an enormous head and was almost as tall as its kennel. It was observing them from a distance. The most disturbing thing was that its head was so large that it seemed human, and it wore an expression of total hostility.

‘What kind of dog is it?’

‘A Rhodesian ridgeback, but he’s old.’

‘They’re used for following blood trails, right?’

‘They can be; he has a good sense of smell, but ridgebacks were originally for hunting lions.’

Franck looked at him coldly, angry at being taken for an idiot, and in fact he nearly told him that, but he stopped himself.

‘In Africa, when dogs are looking after livestock, they may come across lions and cheetahs. They rely on the ridgebacks to drive away wild animals.’

‘But what are you doing with a dog like that, what do you need it for? There are no lions around here …’

‘No, but I used to have livestock.’