She sang it to me. It’s an old song – a love song, I think – wistful, just a little sad. Vianne sings it still – I hear her sometimes as she talks to Rosette or works at her tempering in the kitchen.

V’là l’bon vent, v’là l’joli vent

V’là l’bon vent, ma mie m’appelle—

‘I see,’ I said. ‘And now you’re afraid you’ll raise the wind.’

Slowly, she nodded. ‘It’s stupid. I know.’

‘No it isn’t,’ I said. ‘Folk have believed it for hundreds of years. In English folklore, witches raised the wind by combing their hair. The Aborigines believe the good wind Bara is held captive for half the year by the bad wind, Mamariga, and every year they have to sing it free. As for the Aztecs . . .’ I smiled at her. ‘They knew the power of the wind, whose breath moves the sun and drives away rain. Ehecatl was his name, and they worshipped him with chocolate.’

‘But – didn’t they make human sacrifices as well?’

‘Don’t we all, in our own way?’

Human sacrifice. Such a loaded phrase. But isn’t that just what Vianne Rocher has done, sacrificing her children to the fat gods of contentment? Desire demands a sacrifice – the Aztecs knew it; and the Maya. They knew the terrible greed of the gods; their insatiable greed for blood and death. And they understood the world a lot better, you might say, than those worshippers in the Sacré-Coeur, the big white hot-air balloon at the top of the Butte. But scratch the icing on the cake, and underneath there’s the same dark, bitter centre.

Because wasn’t every stone of the Sacré-Coeur built upon the fear of death? And are the pictures of Christ exposing his heart so very dissimilar to the images of hearts being cut out of sacrificial victims? And is the ritual of Communion, where the blood and the flesh of the Christ is shared, any less cruel or gruesome than these?

Anouk was watching me, wide-eyed.

‘It was Ehecatl who gave mankind the ability to love,’ I said. ‘It was he who breathed life into the world. Wind was important to the Aztecs; more so than rain, even more important than the sun. Because wind means change; and without change, the world will die.’

She nodded like the bright pupil she was, and I felt a startling swell of affection for her, something almost tender – dangerously maternal—

Oh, I’m in no danger of losing my head. But there’s an undeniable pleasure in being with Anouk; in teaching her; in telling her the old tales. I remember my own excitement at that first trip to Mexico City; at the colours; the sun; the masks; the chants; the sense of coming home at last—

‘You’ve heard of that phrase – a wind of change?’

Again, she nodded.