She shook her head.

‘Oh, yes you are. You’re very good. Maybe better than me. A gift—’

‘Yeah, right.’ She spoke in a low, tense voice. ‘Some gift. I’d rather be good at dancing, or watercolours.’ A thought occurred to her, and she flinched. ‘You won’t tell Maman?’

‘Why should I?’ I said. ‘What? You think you’re the only one who can keep a secret?’

She studied my face for a long time.

Outside, I heard the wind-chimes ring.

‘They’ve gone,’ said Annie.

She was right; looking inside, I could see that the girls were gone, leaving only their scattered chairs, their half-empty Coke cans and a faint aroma of bubble gum and hairspray and the biscuity scent of teenage sweat.

‘They’ll be back,’ I said softly.

‘They might not,’ said Annie.

‘Well, if you need help . . .’

‘I’ll ask,’ she said.

Ask, ask. What am I, a fairy godmother?

I searched for Les Laveuses, of course, starting with the internet, and got nothing; not even a tourist information site, not the slightest reference to a festival or a chocolate shop. Looking further, a single mention of a local crêperie, quoted in a food magazine. The owner, a widow: Françoise Simon.

Could she have been Vianne under another name? It’s possible; though there is no mention in the piece of the woman herself. But a phone call later, and the thread has already run out. Françoise herself answers the phone. Her voice on the phone is dry and suspicious; the voice of a woman in her seventies. I tell her I am a journalist. She tells me that she has never heard of Vianne Rocher. Yanne Charbonneau? Likewise. Goodbye.

Les Laveuses is a tiny place, barely a village, I understand. It has a church, a couple of shops, the crêperie, the café, the war memorial. The land around is mostly farmland: sunflowers, maize and fruit trees. The river runs beside it like a long brown dog. A nothing place, or so you’d think – yet there’s something about it that resonates. Some gleam of memory – some squib in the news . . .

I went to the library; asked for the archives. They have every issue of Ouest-France, stored on disk and microfilm. I began last night, at six o’clock. Searched for two hours, then went to work. Tomorrow I’ll do the same – and again – until I find whatever it is. That place is the key – Les Laveuses, by the Loire. And once I have it, who knows what secrets that key may unlock?

My mind keeps going back to Annie. I’ll ask, she promised me last night. But to ask for help, there must be a need – a genuine need far beyond the petty annoyances of the Lycée Jules Renard. Something to throw caution to the wind and to send both of them running into the arms of their good friend Zozie.