‘Does that always happen?’

‘Just occasionally it doesn’t work and then the male – it is always the male – flies away when you release them. Sometimes the poor female has to fly in pursuit and herd him back.’

He was aware that she was smiling. ‘Sometimes it happens that the female – and it’s usually the female – will tear her unwilling partner to shreds. But don’t worry – I don’t think you will witness any bloodshed today. What bird would be insensitive enough to reject such a good home? Such a beautiful mate?’

She took the dove from his hands, spoke softly to her and released her. Taking the second dove from the basket she held him up to show the bronze markings on his feathers. ‘This breed is very rare. Very handsome. They were brought back from eastern lands by Crusaders who went off with Good King Louis – or so I’m told. Off you go and join your mate!’

The dove fluttered upwards, bronze streaks glinting in a shaft of sunlight which bisected the tower far above their heads.

‘’I shall always think of them as Joe’s doves. Why don’t you give them a name, Joe?’ she invited.

‘Well, if it’s a pair of timeless lovers we’re contemplating – what about Abélard and Héloïse?’ he suggested.

As he spoke the two birds began instantly to dispute possession of the same nesting hole with loud squawks and much flapping and pushing.

‘Or should that be Punch and Judy?’

‘Oh, dear!’ He heard her gentle laughter. ‘Not a good start! Well, let’s hope for the best. They have two weeks in which to settle their differences. And when we’ve got a whole flock of them going we’ll collect up the droppings – wonderful manure for the flower beds.’

He was happy to hear her common-sense tone and dropped his guard, to be taken unawares by her next question.

‘You know I lured you in here so that we could be alone and not overheard by anyone? Impossible in the house to snatch a moment’s intimacy! Come and sit with me over here.’

She went to settle on the bottom tread of the circular wooden ladder that revolved around the building providing access to the nesting holes, and Joe seated himself tentatively in the straw at her feet.

‘There are two things you must understand about this sorry business, Joe. Firstly, my son declares that the patient is not his father. I think quite honestly that the boy has a damned cheek! And if I didn’t love my son so much I’d box his ears. How dare he! He saw his father so few times and with the eyes of a child all those years ago . . . how can he possibly say that he can identify him more accurately than I? It’s my theory that he expects Clovis to be unchanged from the glamorous and heroic figure swishing about in black-plumed helmet that he remembers. He cannot adjust to the idea that his father is now a wreck of a man and will, most probably, remain so for ever.

‘Secondly, my cousin by marriage, Charles-Auguste, is a dear man. We quarrel, we sometimes disagree about the running of the business but much more often we agree. He’s an inspired wine-maker. I couldn’t have made the firm so profitable without his assistance. He’s also a clever businessman and this is still a world where the word “man” is important. He feels, I know, that his position here would be threatened were Clovis to be brought back. Nonsense, of course. I have tried to reassure him but I don’t think I have succeeded. And once again I must think – how dare he! He was never particularly intimate with his cousin before his disappearance and to deny him so firmly now speaks of priorities other than discovering the truth. Well, there you are. They will each confide in you, no doubt, and you will draw your own conclusions.’

‘Tell me why you want him back, Aline.’

She leaned forward in astonishment at the question, trying to catch his expression. ‘I love him. He’s my husband. Whatever state he’s in, he’s mine and always will be.’ She looked at him with curiosity. ‘Are you married?’

Joe shook his head, dismissing the irrelevant and intrusive enquiry.

‘Are you in love?’ she persisted. ‘Have you been in love?’ She turned to him, grey eyes black and huge in the gloom, and scanned his face. ‘Ah! I thought not. It’s no good shaking your head and squirming with embarrassment and preparing to tell me this is not police business! As long as you are a policeman and your word on the matter is heard by the authorities it is police business and it is mine to make certain that you understand. Hop up here and sit next to me, I can’t speak to you when you’re wriggling about in front of me like a five-year-old.’

Resentfully, Joe toyed with the notion of disobedience. In that moment she was for him nanny, mother, mistress, sister. A beam of sunlight knifing through the slats made a golden helmet of her Titian hair and he added to his list of tormentors – goddess. He sighed and obeyed.

Joe perched uneasily shoulder to shoulder with Aline on one half of the tread. He glanced up at the doves over their heads, still, with a hundred holes to choose from, disputing possession of the same hole. Blood and feathers would soon begin to fly . ‘Know how you feel, old mate!’ he thought grimly, identifying with the male bird. But his unkind thoughts vanished in a moment when abruptly Aline began to weep. ‘I had thought that showing you the doves would explain more clearly than words what I feel,’ she whispered. ‘As with them, it was for life. I fell in love . . . and it didn’t take two weeks to know it. Two seconds. It was enough.’

So completely had her voice changed he felt he could be listening to a different woman. The self-confidence, the mocking insouciance had gone and he was hearing the hesitations of a girl racked with emotion, a girl struggling and failing to find words that could bear the weight of the intensity of her feelings.

‘It’s painful, shattering, inconvenient even, but if you have never had the experience of falling completely in love, I pray that you will. Now – is that a prayer or a curse, I wonder? But don’t think ill of me for it – I do believe any life is a half-life until you have. A man’s eyes on yours, his arms around you and your souls spiralling away into the ether together . . .’

The words were fanciful, ingenuous even, but the emotion behind them was true and deep. He knew he was hearing a woman talking of a love so overwhelming that she had remained through the years possessed by it. He knew instinctively that for Aline nothing else – home, family, the war – nothing ever was able to – or would – rival it in power.

‘So, my reason for bringing the man back here to his home is a simple one. Elemental. It springs from love.’

‘I understand all that you have to say, madame,’ said Joe. ‘And am well able to feel for you in your sorrow. I must ask though, if I’m to do my job adequately, whether there are any indications of a practical rather than emotional identification of the patient. Look, I wonder if you were aware that the doctor in Reims, who, I do believe, has grown fond of our man, calls him Thibaud. Would it offend you to use that name for the time being?’

‘Not at all. Thibaud. A good name. I approve of that. And yes, there are aspects of Clovis’s body that are distinctive and could well prove that he and Thibaud are one and the same. We could hardly look for mental similarities though I do wonder whether all possibilities have been explored. I have thought, Joe, that we might be able to have him, Thibaud, taken to Austria to a clinic. Or even to London. You must advise me. I understand that wonderful results in cases like his have been achieved through hypnotism. The process is not much practised here in France but I would like to try it and will pay all expenses incurred.’

‘It is an avenue which, I think, should be explored,’ said Joe.

‘But in the meantime all we have to go on is physical clues. I have provided the obvious information like size and colouring, supported by photographs of course. That ought, along with my word, to have been sufficient but I understand that there are now three other claimants vying for him. I shall have to play cards I was holding in reserve.’