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already hot and close. She stuffed a swimsuit into her bag along with her notebook and papers and marched down towards the harbour and the cycle hire shop. The machine they offered her had five simple gears and a comfortably well-used saddle. She nodded, pleased to have a measure of independence from the unpredictable modes of transport offered by the de Fayols estate.
    A wide path led out of the village, past signs to beaches she had still not visited. She took the long way round, wanting to see more of the west side of the island and to work out exactly how the Domaine de Fayols sat in the landscape. The bicycle tyres crunched on small sandy stones as she followed the trail between green oak and pines: the Aleppo and the parasol pine. She spotted an arquebusier , a strawberry tree, and pulled off the path to have a closer look.
    On the southwestern side of the island the path opened out into a small bay, reinforced by jagged rocks. All seemed at peace. It was too early in the year for tourist hordes; here was freedom from the modern world, for a while at least. There was a timelessness about being on an island so small that it seemed closed in on itself; the sense of being adrift, not quite connected to the rest of the world.
    She pedalled along the coast path to the Calanque de l’Indienne. It was a small bay rather than a cliff inlet. On the west side was the lighthouse; on the other, the house at the Domaine de Fayols rose above the trees and green terraces of its garden. Ellie dismounted. Small brown crickets scattered as she walked the bike across tough grass.
    On the sea below a boat was tied up by the end of a steep path; the turquoise water was so clear that the hull was fully visible over the pale ghosts of submerged rock.
    From here, trees screened the high dark hedges that surrounded the memorial garden and the other outdoor rooms. Those gardens still puzzled her: the sense that they were the wrong structures in the wrong place persisted. Why would anyone have wanted to enclose gardens in this place of wide horizons in the first place? It didn’t make sense, but perhaps she was overthinking. Perhaps there was no reason, or it was deliberately counterintuitive. Perhaps not until the reconstruction began would the answers become obvious. She had only the faded photographs to work from, and they were like looking into tarnished mirrors.
    Some of the sculptural elements clearly held some past meaning, plotting the line back to the past and the doctor’s passion for ancient history. But surely that could have been achieved more naturally in more open spaces, like the classical temples built on hillsides surrounded by light and air? If it had been left to her to create from scratch, she might well have chosen the same site above the sea, but the design would have embraced the elements, and announced itself proudly. As it was, the memorial garden was hidden away like a secret to be protected.
    She made a few notes, a quick sketch of an arch that might frame rather than block the sea view, while alluding to the heavy original. When she looked up again, a man was watching her from the de Fayols side of the bay.
    It might have been Laurent, so she waved. He did not respond.
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    T he lighthouse was set on a great solid base, like a chimney rising from a bunker. What looked elegantly well proportioned when framed by the arch of the memorial garden was a monumental structure closer up.
    Ellie pushed the bicycle towards it. Birds shrieked from high trees, among them the Wasp-eater, the Thin-Beak, and the Stormy Petrel, according to the guidebook. Giant fennel plants, showstoppers of the plant kingdom, offered globes composed of hundreds of yellow flowers; the towering stalks of these relatives of the hemlock contained a resin that could sicken grazing livestock and even kill. There was no sign of livestock here.
    She walked around two sides of the lighthouse before she saw the door. The handle was rusty, but it