Orlando groaned. ‘I don’t want Dorcas to be hurt. And there’s every chance that she might be if you go on with this ferreting. Hopes may be raised only to be dashed. Even worse—you may find her mother and discover that the woman herself has changed. Hadn’t it occurred to you? What do you think life will have been like for a fallen girl with no protector? She’ll be something quite other after thirteen years. Dorcas has a picture in her mind of a young and lovely dancer. Laure might look by this time more like that raddled pouter-pigeon of a duenna that Petrovsky hauls about with him. Did you notice her at the dinner table?’

‘Spanish-looking? Blue-black hair, wearing something purple and rather décolleté?’

‘That’s the one. Half a ton of gaudy stones cascading down the slopes of an ample bosom!’ Orlando shuddered. ‘Suppose my lovely Laure had turned into her! And she could have, you know! She’s the right age. Doesn’t bear thinking about. And, anyway, it’s the last thing she would want—to be presented with a grown-up daughter and an ageing ne’er-do-well foreign lover she discarded in disgust before the war. Listen! If we’re going to do this, and I see from that granite-jawed, mulish expression on your ugly mug that we are, there’s a proviso. A sine qua bloody non!’

‘Go on, I’m listening.’

‘If you find her … I insist on being the first to be told. Before Dorcas has any inkling. I insist on the right to assess the woman she is now before you start making the introductions.’

‘I understand. I too would place Dorcas’s peace of mind above all else. Including yours.’

‘Well, that’s honest enough!’ Orlando looked thoughtfully at Joe. ‘The child knew what she was doing, I’m thinking, when she decided to sink her hooks into you. She saw Sir Lancelot riding over the hill, flashing warrant cards, clinking handcuffs and reading the Riot Act to her granny and thought, “That’s for me!” Watch it, Joe … she’s a manipulative rascal.’

‘Don’t I know it!’ Joe agreed easily. ‘Now, come on! The story! And I’ve never enjoyed the love duets from La Bohème much so spare me all the romantic rubbish. I want facts. Names. Locations. A village, you said? Near Avignon? Which village? Think! In the Lubéron hills, is that all you know? Vast area. Did she mention her parents? Why had they thrown her out? Did she mention her school life? The name of a teacher? A best friend?’

‘Crikey! Do leave off! I feel like a rat between the jaws of a terrier. You’re shaking me to bits!’

‘I’ve barely started. The girl was with you for two years, Orlando. She must have got a word or two in edgeways in your conversations. No one can talk without giving away something about themselves. Just one name or one fact remembered could give us the key. Life in village France is organized around the parish—the town hall, the school and the church. Let’s start there. Was Laure religious?’

‘Not very. Occasionally she’d ask me to take her into the local Catholic church for confession. She insisted on having Dorcas christened.’

‘Then she was certainly a communicant. On somebody’s parish records. Look—every French girl talks of her first communion—did she mention the name of her village church? We could check the rolls if we had a name.’

Orlando stopped walking abruptly. ‘Good Lord! Sometimes I see why they call you a detective … It was the only photograph she had. I brought it with me … in case. I keep it here, in my wallet.’

He took a leather note-case from his inside pocket and produced a dog-eared sepia print. Joe had seen hundreds like it in every photographer’s studio window. Four twelve-year-old girls were standing together in a row, wearing long white dresses and veils. Downcast eyes looking shyly in the direction of the camera, they were clutching a white book in one gloved hand and a small bouquet of flowers in the other. A communion group. And taken by a professional photographer in a studio, judging by the painted backcloth showing the inevitable ruined temple on a wooded hillside. Joe looked for the photographer’s name and found to his annoyance that it had been scratched out.

He pointed to the defacement.

‘I told you—she was determined I shouldn’t know anything of her former life. I think she had something to hide.’

Joe was beginning to enjoy the challenge set so many years before by this unknown dark Provençal girl.

‘Well, we could start by showing this to the photographic establishments in the nearest big town which would be Avignon and asking if anyone recognized the scenery—’ Joe began.

‘I’ve done that. And the photographers of Arles and Aix and Marseille. You’d be surprised how many shut up shop in the war. The ones who struggled through didn’t recognize it.’

‘It’s all we’ve got. There must be … Hang on! Only four girls! Four!’

‘So what? Four friends. All the same age and size.’

‘But not the same in looks. I’d say these two here on the left are twins. This beauty next to them rather fancies herself as a dancer—do you see how she’s standing—quite deliberately, I’d say—with her feet in the at-ease ballet position?’

Orlando peered over his shoulder. ‘Oh, yes. Never noticed. And now I can’t see anything else of course. The photographer must have been a bit miffed when he developed it.’

‘But she’s not your Laure. I’m going to guess she’s the one on the right.’

‘You’ve got her!’

‘It’s a very small number for a communion class. That tells us it was a very small village. She was how old when you met her? … Seventeen? … In 1911? And she would have been twelve when this was taken. So we’re looking for a village in the Lubéron which had in 1906 a tiny class of communicants. Every young girl remembers the priest who instructed her. Think, Orlando, did she ever mention the name of—’

‘Ignace. Father Ignace.’ The words fell, leaden, from Orlando’s lips before Joe had finished his sentence. He closed his eyes in a childlike effort to remember or squeeze back an unmanly tear. ‘She once said, “Father Ignace would not approve.” And I’m sure she was quite right,’ he added with a haunted and melancholy smile. ‘It was the first of many things she did that would have raised a priestly eyebrow!’

‘May I keep this?’

Orlando began to splutter, clearly not keen to have the photograph leave his possession, but Joe was already sliding it away into his own wallet. As the last girl in the row, the small one at the end, the only one of the four not to have looked down in modesty, disappeared from sight, it seemed that she caught his eye and he knew he’d seen that look of mock innocence before.

Chapter Twelve

‘Opulent quarters provided for Monsieur Petrovsky! He may not impress us but he would seem to merit some consideration from the lord?’

They climbed the staircase of one of the round towers, possibly the most ancient part of the château. The house was perfectly silent, the full company at lunch in the great hall.

‘Yes. He gets a set. It’s said the lord has a considerable financial investment as well as aesthetic interest in Petrovsky’s undertakings. Perhaps the rooms and hospitality are a quid pro quo of some kind. In here on the lower level, there’s what it pleases him to call his estude. Do you want to sneak a look?’

And what a pleasant study it made, with southern light flooding in from the window on to the desk, bookshelves full of interesting volumes and comforting Turkey carpets on the floor. Joe took a moment to open each of the drawers of the desk with gloved hands. He inspected the neatly arranged documents on the desk top, turning over several envelopes to read the address of the sender on the reverse flap. He moved on to a drawing board, set up on an easel beyond the desk and tilted at an angle to catch the light. After a moment he began to make sense of the pencilled notes and watercoloured sketches.