‘I’m telling you this so you know. Stay close to the house and don’t wander too far into the hills. It’s best not to get involved with all that.’

‘But why?’

‘There are animals … Just remember, there are animals.’

Franck registered this without saying anything. Maybe he was being funny, he didn’t know. He had a last quick look at the barn, which the dog still hadn’t come out of, but he wasn’t going to ask any more questions; he would leave it there. He felt the old man was taking a perverse pleasure in playing with him by avoiding his questions or exaggerating, doing everything he could to worry him. He didn’t want to give him any further opportunity. He put the key in the ignition and hit the accelerator, making the three hundred horsepower roar. He knew the man would be impressed by that.

As he manoeuvred the 4×4 through the yard, Franck couldn’t help calling through the open window: ‘Still, it’s a big kennel.’

‘It needs to be!’

He could see in his rear-view mirror that the Dauclercqs hadn’t moved and were still watching him as he left the yard. It was a bit like the panning shot at the end of a Western that settles on the natives, the indigenous people watching the rider thunder away on his horse, a harbinger of the unrest to come. He was a cowboy provoking the Native Americans on their own land. Yet he knew he had everything to fear from these natives, from their curses and from their allies, whose souls had perhaps been reincarnated in all sorts of wild animals.

Franck focused on the brambles that scratched the car as he drove back up the track, physically affected by the long screeching sounds. He hadn’t played any music since the morning; he hadn’t touched the car radio since he arrived. Though he was hooked on information and felt an overwhelming need to listen to multiple news bulletins every day, he hadn’t even thought of switching it on since the morning. The silence suited him perfectly, as did the noise he was creating. The wheels slipped on the stones in some places, causing them to spray up violently into the air. Inside the car he was shaken about as if he were in a spaceship travelling through the atmosphere, or in a kayak hurtling over rapids … Actually, he was enjoying himself. He had to concentrate though, to avoid the big holes in the ground and stay on the track, with the steep hillside on his left lined by trees but overlooking empty space. If he skidded or swerved to the left, he would plunge into the oaks and box trees below, which would not take the weight of the Audi. The trees disappeared completely in places, so even veering off course slightly would mean plummeting off the side.