In spite of my own laughter I felt uneasy.

“It doesn’t matter,” replied Armande. “It’s still you that’s doing it. Look at all the changes; me, Luc, Caro, the folks out on the river”– she jerked her head sharply in the direction, of Les Marauds – “even him in his ivory tower across the square. All of us changing. Speeding up. Like an old clock being wound up after years of telling the same time.”

It was too close to my own thoughts of the week before. I shook my head emphatically.

“That isn’t me,” I protested. “It’s him. Reynaud. Not me.”

A sudden image at the back of my mind, like the turn of a card. The Black Man in his clock tower, turning the machinery faster and faster, ringing the changes, ringing the alarum, ringing us out of town… And with that unsettling image came one of an old man on a bed, tubes in his nose and arms, and the Black Man standing over him in grief or triumph, while at his back, fire burned.

“Is it his father?” I said the first words which came into my head. “I mean – the old man he visits. In the hospital. Who is it?”

Armande gave me a sharp look of surprise.

“How do you know about that?”

“Sometimes I have – feelings – about people.”

For some reason I was reluctant to admit to scrying with the chocolate, reluctant to use the terminology with which my mother had made me so familiar.

“Feelings.”

Armande looked curious, but did not question me further.

“So there is an old man, then?” I could not shake off the thought that I had stumbled upon something important. Some weapon, perhaps, in my secret struggle against Reynaud. “Who is he?” I insisted.

Armande gave a shrug.

“Another priest,” she said, with dismissive contempt, and would say no more.

When i opened this morning roux was waiting at the door. He was wearing denim overalls, and his hair was tied back with string. He looked to have been waiting for some time, because his hair and shoulders were furred with droplets from the morning mist. He gave me something that was not quite a smile, then looked behind me into the shop where Anouk was playing.

“Hello, little stranger,” he said to her. This time the smile was real enough, lighting his wary face briefly.

“Do come in.” I beckoned him inside. “You should have knocked. I didn’t see you out there.”

Roux muttered something in his thick Marseille accent and crossed the threshold rather self-consciously. He moves with an odd combination of grace and clumsiness, as if he feels uncomfortable indoors.

I poured him a tall glass of black chocolate laced with kahlua.

“You should have brought your friends,” I told him lightly.

He gave a shrug in reply. I could see him looking around, taking in his surroundings with keen, if suspicious, interest.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

I asked, pointing to the stools at the counter. Roux shook his head.

“Thanks.” He took a mouthful of the chocolate. “Actually, I wondered if you’d be able to help me. Us.” He sounded embarrassed and angry at the same time. “It isn’t money,” he added quickly, as if to prevent me from speaking. “We’d pay for it all right: It’s just the – organization – we’re having difficulty with.” He shot me a look of unfocused resentment. “Armande – Madame Voizin – said you’d help,” he said.

He explained the situation as I listened quietly, nodding encouragement on occasion. I began to understand that what I had taken for inarticulacy was simply a deep dislike of having to ask for help. Through the thick accent Roux spoke like an intelligent man. He had promised Armande that he would repair her roof, he explained. It was a relatively easy job which would take only a couple of days. Unfortunately the only local supplier of wood, paint and the other materials needed to complete the task was Georges Clairmont, who flatly refused to supply them to either Armande or Roux. If Mother wanted repairs to her roof, he told her reasonably, then she should ask him, not a bunch of swindling vagrants. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been asking – begging – her to let him do the work free of charge for years. Let the gypsies into her house and God only knew what might happen. Valuables looted, money stolen… It wasn’t unknown for an old woman to be beaten or killed for the sake of her few poor possessions. No. It was an absurd scheme, and in all conscience he couldn’t?