By the time that I realised what was going on my world had transformed into the climax of a Stieg Larsson thriller. To ensure that there was no doubt about the death of TPR two coffins had been ordered and filled: one in the south of France, and the other in the north. In reality, of course, the bodies inside were of random strangers and TPR was fit and healthy elsewhere. We just had to give the impression that he was dead. The other corpses were disposed of quickly: one thrown down a ravine, another destroyed in an exploding car.

Afterwards a girl who resembled Lisbeth Salander asked me to microwave some fish for her, with a request for home-made cheese sauce, and the F family confessed that they could no longer cope without a nanny for T and K.