It was his stillness that finally caught my attention. Parisians are like shoals of fish – if they stop moving, even for a moment, they die. But he was just standing there, half-hidden in the harlequin light of the red neon sign in a café window. Watching in silence, waiting for something. Waiting for me—

I ran across the square to him. Threw my arms around him, and for a moment feared he would not respond. I could feel the tension in his body, see the crease between his brows – and in that harsh light he looked like a stranger.

And then he put his arms around me, reluctantly at first, I thought, then with a fierceness that belied his words. ‘You shouldn’t be here, Vianne,’ he said.

There’s a place in the curve of his left shoulder that matches my forehead perfectly. I found it again, and rested my head. He smelt of the night, and of engine oil, and cedarwood and patchouli and chocolate and tar and wool and the simple unique scent of him, something as elusive and familiar as a recurring dream.

‘I know,’ I said.

And yet I couldn’t let him go. A word would have done it; a warning; a frown. I’m with Thierry now. Don’t mess things up. To try to suggest anything else would be pointless and painful and doomed from the start. And yet—

‘It’s good to see you, Vianne.’ His voice, though soft, was curiously charged.

I smiled. ‘You too. But why now? After all this time?’

A shrug from Roux conveys many things. Indifference, contempt, ignorance, even humour. In any case it dislodged my forehead from its cradle and brought me back to earth with a jolt.

‘Would knowing make a difference?’

‘It might.’

He shrugged again. ‘No reason,’ he said. ‘Are you happy here?’

‘Of course.’ It’s all I’ve ever wanted. The shop; the house; schools for the children. The view from my window every day. And Thierry—

‘It’s just that I never imagined you here. I thought it was just a matter of time. That one day, you’d—’

‘What? See sense? Give up? Live on the move, from day to day, from place to place, like you and the other river rats?’

‘I’d rather be a rat than a bird in a cage.’

He was getting angry, I thought. His voice was still soft, but his Midi accent had become more pronounced, as it often does when his temper is roused. It struck me that perhaps I wanted to make him angry, to force him into a confrontation that would leave neither of us with any choice. It hurt to think it, but perhaps it was true. And perhaps he sensed it too, because he looked at me then, and shot me a grin.

‘What if I told you I’d changed?’ he said.

‘You haven’t changed.’

‘You don’t know that.’