I know what they fear.

But what do they need?

This afternoon, alone in the shop while Vianne took Rosette for a walk, I went upstairs to explore her things. Delicately, you understand – my object is not simple theft, but something infinitely more far-reaching. As it turns out, she doesn’t have much: a wardrobe more elementary than my own; a framed picture on the wall (probably bought from the marché aux puces); a patchwork bedspread (I’d guess home-made); three pairs of shoes – all black, how dull is that? And finally, under the bed, gold: a wooden box the size of a shoe-box, filled with assorted junk.

Not that Vianne Rocher would think it so. I’m used to living out of boxes and bags; and I know that these people gather no moss. The things inside the wooden box are the jigsaw pieces of her life; things she could never leave behind; her past, her life, her secret heart.

I opened it with the greatest of care. Vianne is secretive, which makes her suspicious. She’ll know the precise arrangement of every piece of paper, every object, every thread, every scrap, every particle of dust. She’ll know if something has been disturbed; but I have an excellent visual memory, and I do not mean to disturb anything.

Out they come, one by one. Vianne Rocher in abridgement. First, a set of Tarot cards – nothing special, just the Marseille pack, but clearly well-used and yellowed with age.

Underneath, there are documents – passports in the name of Vianne Rocher and a birth certificate for Anouk of the same surname. So Anouk has become Annie, I thought; as Vianne became Yanne. No papers for Rosette, which is odd, but an out-of-date passport in the name of Jeanne Rocher, that I guess may have belonged to Vianne’s mother. From her photograph I can see that she doesn’t look a lot like Vianne – but then, Anouk doesn’t look much like Rosette. A piece of faded ribbon, on which hangs a lucky charm in the shape of a cat. A couple of photographs come next – barely a dozen in all. In them I recognize a younger Anouk; a younger Vianne; a younger Jeanne in black-and-white. All carefully stored and secured with a ribbon, along with some rather old letters and a thin wedge of newspaper clippings. Carefully flicking through, cautious of yellowed edges and brittle folds, I recognize an account of the chocolate festival in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, taken from a local paper. Much the same as what I have already seen, but the photograph is larger, and shows Vianne with two other people – a man and a woman, she long-haired and wearing some kind of tartan coat, he smiling with discomfort in the camera’s eye. Friends, perhaps? There are no names in the article.