The word idyllic didn't do justice to the countryside as I sped through pale-coloured hills, alongside ancient orchards and past hidden wineries towards the busy suburb of the city where Mark and Elaine live.
My taxi pulled to a halt at the side of the street. I paid it off, took my journalist's bag from the back seat and walked up the short stone-paved path. I knocked on the blue painted wooden front door and as I waited for it to be answered, took stock of my surroundings.
I was in a very pleasant, traditional suburb of a beautiful French city where the houses, whatever their age, looked as if they had stood there for centuries. There were fruit trees in front gardens, there were faded shutters on windows to match the equally faded doors. There was warmth and dust in the afternoon air.
My attention was jerked back to the house where the front door was being quietly opened. To my relief, the face that appeared was instantly recognisable from the pictures we had exchanged over the internet. I was in the right place.
A tall, slim man I placed in his early thirties stood in the doorway. His large dark eyes, handsome features and short brown hair combined to produce an even more attractive individual than I had expected and for a second I was wrong-footed.
"Rachel?" he asked with an engaging smile.
"Hi Mark," I replied. "Sorry I'm a bit late."
"That's no problem. Time works differently here," he grinned, opening the door wide. "Come in."
As I followed through the doorway and into the house, its contents took me by surprise. I had expected a quaint traditionally French interior with lots of wood and old tiled floors. What I found was modern, minimalist and for a city girl like me, familiar in style. It was attractive, functional but from an atmospheric point of view, rather disappointing.
"Elaine and the kids are in the garden."
Mark ushered me through tall, glazed doors and onto a rear patio which in turn opened onto a large garden. A game of football was taking place between four young boys, all of whom were shouting to each other in fluent, locally accented French.
"Those two are ours," Mark grinned as the game became heated. "The two trying to break each other's legs."
A very pretty, slender woman with the same dark hair and eyes as Mark and dressed in a short, embroidered, white cotton summer dress rose from her chair to greet me.
"Hi," she said with a warm smile. "I'm Elaine."
The introduction was unnecessary after our Skype call, but it was nice to feel so welcome. She offered me her hand. I shook it then we kissed awkwardly on both cheeks.
"When in France..." Elaine joked, gesturing to one of the old wooden chairs that surrounded a large rustic table.
I placed my bag on the floor and sat, accepting the long cool glass of rose wine that was offered. It tasted wonderful; clean and clear in the heat of the afternoon.
"How was your journey?" Mark asked, settling into a chair opposite me.
"Surprisingly smooth," I replied. "And what a place to come to."
We chatted lightly and pleasantly for a while about travel, about the area and its incredible beauty, about the city with its history spanning millennia; about what my husband and I might do for the next couple of days on our holiday.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. Mark and Elaine seemed a perfectly normal, perfectly pleasant couple. As we sat and talked it became harder and harder to believe that I was actually there to interview two criminals, hiding from British justice.
But in the UK at least, the perfect family life I was witnessing could have resulted in imprisonment for Elaine and Mark, and their children being taken into care.
For Elaine and Mark are brother and sister.
***
"Perhaps we should get the formalities over," I said.
The second glass of wine had been poured and the atmosphere had become even more relaxed. I picked up my satchel and pulled out a plastic sleeve containing two copies of a closely-typed document.
"This is exactly as we agreed," I said. "It's binding on us all. You promise to tell me only the truth; I can't publish anything you tell me without your prior written agreement. Everything would be anonymised."
I placed my passport on the table before them. Elaine picked it up and turned to the picture page as I signed both copies of the document before them. Then she compared the picture to my face and the signature on the passport with the fresh one on the document.
"Looks okay," she declared, smiling.
In response, Mark passed two passports to me along with two other documents. The passports were British and in their real names; the photos matched the two faces before me as well as passport photos ever do. The surname was the same on both.
The other documents were certified copies of birth certificates in identical names to those on the passports. Each bore a date the same as the passports and showed that the individuals concerned had been born in the same English town to exactly the same parents.
There was no doubting that the couple before me were full blooded brother and sister.
There was barely a year's gap between their dates of birth. To my surprise and despite appearances, Elaine was older.
"There!" she said, returning both copies of the document. I slipped one back into the plastic sleeve and returned the other to Elaine.
"Now we can all relax," Mark smiled, raising his glass.
For a while we sat quietly in the afternoon sun wondering how to begin, watching the four boys tire of football then disappear to their friends' house to play video games.
"They could be French," I observed.
"They are French," their mother smiled. "They were born here. We've been here so long they hardly know the UK at all. They only go there to visit their Grandma."
"Does that happen often?" I asked.
"Not often. Mum usually comes here."
"Because of the British authorities?"
"Partly," Elaine replied. "They don't know about us and we want to keep it that way."
"But your mother knows everything?"
"She knows the important bits," Mark replied.
"She doesn't approve of course," Elaine added. "That's putting it mildly. But now we have kids she wants what's best for all of us and she can see how well things are going here. I think she feels a little responsible too, so she does all she can to make things work."
"So how do you want this interview to go?" Mark asked in a business-like way. "Now the kids have gone we should take advantage of the privacy."
"Why don't we start at the beginning?" I suggested. "Why did you get in touch with me in the first place?"
The two siblings looked at each other as if deciding who should take the lead. From their body language I suspected this sort of silent negotiation was routine in their relationship and spoke of a lifetime of familiarity. In the end it was Elaine who spoke.
