13All the dinner party guests were of course long gone, as well as Merla and Ophélie, the coroner, and the gendarmes. But the Valette household, as might be imagined, was hardly a place of calm or relaxation that Saturday morning after the storm. Chloë was intermittently gripped by wild sobbing to the point of hysteria. Raphael kept shouting for someone to bring him a baguette with butter and ham, or a drink of Perrier, or his scissors. Camille was a zombie—no expression, no emotion, utterly shut down.
Simon was left to run from one to the other, trying to soothe and placate. He sorely missed the staff they had had in Paris but thought they wouldn’t need in Castillac; someone to tidy up would be a big help. Someone to cook and look after the girls. Someone to make this new horrible proble
