There are days, even in the bad times, even the worst of them, when you can still believe in the future, like that six o’clock in the morning three weeks ago when the bell rang and Dominique was there. Dominique, pale, wretchedly thin, exhausted, his hair cropped, but nevertheless Dominique. Lannes held him in his arms, neither able for a moment to speak…

With his son’s safe return, Superintendent Lannes and his wife can, at last, have some joy amid the grim reality of Vichy France. Not that the unexplained murders seem to have stopped.