I tried to warn Zozie yesterday. To explain why she mustn’t interfere. But I couldn’t. The box of secrets, once opened, may never again be closed. And she finds me unreasonable, I sense that. As mean as she is generous, like the miserly baker in the old tale who charged for the smell of the baking bread.

What harm is there? I know she’d say. What do we lose from helping them?

Oh, I came so close to telling her. But every time, I stopped myself. Besides, it might be coincidence.

But something else happened today. Something that confirmed my doubts. The unlikely catalyst – Laurent Pinson. I’ve noticed him in Le Rocher de Montmartre several times already this week. That’s hardly news; and unless I’m much mistaken, it is not our chocolate that brings him here.

But he was here again this morning; peering at the chocolates in their glass cases; sniffing at the price tags; taking in every detail of our improvements with a sour face and an occasional grunt of barely concealed disapproval.

‘Mweh.’

It was one of those sunny November days, all the more precious for being so few. Still as midsummer, with that high clear sky, and the vapour-trails like scratches against the blue.

‘Nice day,’ I said.

‘Mweh,’ said Laurent.

‘Just browsing, or shall I get you a drink?’

‘At those prices?’

‘On the house.’

Some people are incapable of turning down a free drink. Grudgingly Laurent sat down, accepted a cup of coffee and a praline, and began his usual litany.

‘To close me down, at this time of year – it’s bloody victimization, that’s what it is. Someone’s out to ruin me.’

‘What happened?’ I said.

He poured out his woes. Someone had complained about him microwaving leftovers; some idiot had fallen ill; they had sent him an environmental health inspector who could barely speak proper French and although Laurent had been perfectly civil to the fellow, he’d taken offence at something he’d said and—

‘Bang! Closed! Just like that! I mean, what is the country coming to, when a perfectly decent café – a café that’s been here decades – can be shut down by some bloody pied-noir . . .’

I pretended to listen, whilst itemizing in my mind the chocolates that had sold best, and the ones where stock was running low. I pretended, too, not to notice when Laurent helped himself to another of my pralines without being asked. I could afford it. And he needed to talk.

After a while, Zozie came out of the kitchen, where she’d been helping me with the chocolate logs. Abruptly Laurent ceased his tirade and flushed to the creases in his earlobes.

‘Zozie, good day,’ he said, with exaggerated dignity.