He slid the MAB 38 from his pocket and waited for the car to slow. It was travelling at a measured pace, but that didn’t mean it was Farek. The engine sounded powerful. It drifted by without stopping, tyres crunching on soil washed off the slope across the road by the last rain. Rocco lifted his head and caught a glimpse of two men against the reflected aura of the headlights. Neither looked towards the house.

He ducked out of the car and quietly shut the door, then crouched down, waiting. If they had dropped a man further down the lane, he wouldn’t be long in coming for a closer look.

Fifteen minutes later he was still waiting and feeling foolish.

He stood up, bones protesting, and returned to the house, where Nicole was waiting at the kitchen table. She was barefoot and seemed unperturbed by the chill settling on the room now the fire had died down. Her coat was wrapped tightly around her, but he couldn’t help but imagine that she wore very little underneath.

It was an unsettling thought. He went up to the attic to join the fruit rats, closing the door firmly behind him.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Morning brought a renewed cold snap and a layer of frost on the garden. Rocco was wide awake at six and went out to set fire to the pump. It involved packing straw around the base where it came out of the ground, then lighting it to melt the ice in the pipe. He was watched by a wide-eyed Massi from the safety of the kitchen. He took the filled jug indoors, then told Nicole to lock the door behind him and stay inside.

‘Where are you going?’ She touched his arm and he realised that the coming of day with its cold, clear light had filled her with a renewed sense of fear. She was right to worry; this house was no fortress and would be easy to penetrate by a determined attacker.

‘Just taking a look,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t go far.’ He checked his gun and stepped outside. It was cold and clear, with an unusual clarity to the air. He walked out of the front gate and looked to his right towards the village. The lane was empty, scarred by the trench where the new water pipes had been laid but not yet covered. An elderly lady appeared down near the square, carrying a small milk churn and wrapped against the chill in an enormous, black overcoat. To his left, the direction the car had driven earlier, the lane disappeared into open countryside.

He walked past the front of the orchard, eyeing the trees. They were rarely cultivated, and full of fruit in summer, a haven for fat, lazy insects and greedy birds. Now there was nothing moving, as if the cold had beaten down every living thing. Even the grass was flat, the long, frost-covered blades now curved downwards under the weight of winter’s approach.

He stepped off the lane and listened, his antennae tingling.

Not a sound.

He swivelled, wondering if he’d somehow lost touch with the usual sounds of a Poissons morning: a cock crowing, a cow bellowing to be milked, the clatter of an early tractor chugging out to the fields to collect a herd, the chatter and cheeping of birds in the trees.

But there was none of that.

He walked back through the gate and checked the rear garden, where it butted onto a field rarely used and given over to weeds and wild flowers. If there was anything moving out there, it was being very careful not to be seen. He scanned the field all the way across, mentally dividing it into sections and checking each one, as he’d been trained in the army when searching for snipers. He was looking for signs of a recent passage made through the icy grass, where it would show darker against the pale grey.

Nothing.

Yet something didn’t feel right.

He went to the front door. As he was about to go inside, he saw Mme Denis standing at the fence between the two properties. She beckoned him across, looking unusually furtive, even for her. She was fully dressed, bundled in layers against the cold.

‘Nice young woman,’ she said. But he could tell that wasn’t what she wanted to talk about. Her next words confirmed it. ‘Someone’s been watching you.’

‘Who?’

She kept her eyes on Rocco’s face and said, ‘Don’t turn your head, but look past me. Do you see the thicket across the lane – halfway up the slope?’

He flicked a glance past her head, taking in the lane and the undeveloped piece of land opposite, which was a mixture of tall, spindly acers, untamed chestnut and clusters of blackthorn, the tips of the branches bleached with frost.

‘What am I looking for?’ He couldn’t see anyone but hadn’t expected to. If a watcher had been sent, they would have gone to ground by now with the coming of light.

‘He’s not an angry husband, I know that much.’ Mme Denis handed him some eggs in a bag. ‘I saw a man standing up there when I got up at four to make some tea. I don’t sleep so well some nights – a condition of age. You’ll be the same one day, if you survive that long. He was standing among the trees but I saw him move. Must be cold up there.’ She narrowed her eyes in warning. ‘And before you treat me like a mad old woman who’s lost her grip on reality, young man, you never asked me what I did during the war.’

Rocco smiled. Warning him of snoopers one second, challenging him to doubt her the next. Among other things,

she was part of what made living here such a pleasure. Outwardly crusty on occasion, she had a warm heart and he wasn’t surprised that she had made Nicole and her son so readily welcome.

‘You’re right, I never did. I figured it was none of my business.’ He waited for her to say something, but she merely cocked her head, waiting. ‘So what did you do during the war?’

‘Mind your own business. Now get in there and look after your guests.’ With a sly wink, she turned and hurried back to her cottage, shooing away some chickens trying to follow her inside.

Rocco went inside and told Nicole that they would have to leave – and soon.

‘Why?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Is it Farek?’ She looked round for Massi, who was busy listening for the fruit rats at the attic door.

‘Not yet, but he sent a watcher. In the trees across the lane.’ He put down the eggs and picked up the telephone. When Claude answered, he explained about the man Mme Denis had seen.

‘That explains it,’ said Claude. ‘I saw a car from out of the area parked outside the café last night. I thought it might be a traveller but it was too late to wake them up and ask. I’ll be right down. Leave the back open.’

Rocco put down the telephone and found Nicole staring at him. Perhaps the full realisation of what she was facing had finally hit her. Farek, her husband, was never going to let go of this. He would keep coming, no matter what, and if he couldn’t come himself, he’d send men who could. It would be like holding back the tide.

He wondered what it was all for.

‘Why is he chasing you?’ The question came out sharper than he’d intended, the thought given voice. She looked surprised, which made him feel like a bully, but it had to be asked.

She blinked. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I told you why: he wants me back. Or dead.’

‘Yes. Honour. I understand that. But why else?’

Her reaction was to close down, her eyes going cool and distant, and her body retreating from him. ‘I don’t know. He’s obsessive … driven by the need to control. Like most men.’

‘That I also get. Although most men don’t have gunmen working alongside them. Most men don’t put a bullet down someone’s throat just because they disagree with what they say.’ He waited, but she remained silent. ‘Farek’s put the word out on you – just as you said. He’s followed your trail, gathering up the men who arranged it along the way.’

‘Gathering?’

‘Killing. That sounds more than an outraged husband to me. Are you certain there’s nothing else he wants you for?’