‘But if I hadn’t been there…’

‘Then she might have hit someone else further down. Maybe with even worse consequences.’ He shook his head. ‘If it had been a family…’ He closed his eyes, as if to shut out a tragedy that could have been. ‘We’re all grateful that you were there, Jessica, and that you somehow prevented what could have been a lot, lot worse.’

‘But your fiancée…’

‘Yes.’ His eyes were open again now, and behind their cool, appraising look she could see pain. And something else. Despair? Defeat? ‘But we move on.’

‘Edouard will stay with me,’ his mother said softly and Jess frowned at this strange twist in the conversation. ‘We will fight for him. We must.’

Jess was lost. Edouard? Fighting?

Was this yet another tragedy? She pulled her covers even higher, in a gesture of protection that was as crazy as it was unhelpful.

‘I’ve been lying here for too long,’ she managed and Louise smiled.

‘My dear, it’s been six days. You were concussed and you dislocated your shoulder. But Dr Briet says-and Raoul concurs-that you seem to have been suffering more than that. He says you seem exhausted. You were taken initially to the Vesey hospital but when it was clear that all you needed to do was to sleep, it seemed best to bring you here.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s not possible to keep the Press away anywhere else, and Raoul has been on hand if needed.’

This was making less and less sense. ‘You’ve been very good,’ Jess managed, ‘in the face of your own tragedy.’ She hesitated, but there was more to be said. Edouard. The name had brought back a memory now, remembrance of news reports she’d read surely less than a month ago. ‘And it’s not just Sarah, is it?’