Roux pretended not to hear.

‘What are you, deaf or daft?’ said Thierry. ‘We’re on a bloody schedule, in case you forgot. And check the levels before you start. Those boards are oak, not half-inch pinewood.’

‘Is that the way you talk to Vianne?’

Roux’s accent comes and goes with his moods. Today it was almost exotic, a burr of lazy gutturals. Thierry, with his Parisian twang, can barely understand a word.

‘What?’

Roux made his voice insolently slow. ‘I said, do you talk to Vianne like that?’

I saw Thierry’s face darken a little. ‘Yanne is the person I’m doing this for.’

‘Now I can see what she sees in you.’

Thierry gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘I’ll ask her about it tonight, shall I? As it happens, I’m seeing her then. I’m thinking of asking her out for a meal. Somewhere that doesn’t serve pizza by the slice.’

And at that he set off up the street, leaving Roux to make an obscene gesture at his retreating back. Quickly I ducked round the side of the van, feeling foolish, but not wanting either of them to know I was there. Thierry passed by within six feet, features compressed between anger, dislike and a kind of spiteful satisfaction. It made him look older, a stranger somehow; and for a moment I felt like a child caught looking through a forbidden door. Then he was gone, and Roux was alone.

I watched him for a few minutes more. Unobserved, people tend to show unexpected aspects of themselves – I’d seen that already in Thierry as he strode past me up the street. But Roux sat down on the side of the kerb and stayed there, not moving, eyes on the ground, looking more tired than anything else, although it’s hard to tell with Roux.

I ought to go back to the shop, I thought. Anouk would be home in less than an hour, Rosette would need her afternoon snack, and if Thierry was coming round—

Instead I stepped out from behind the van.

‘Roux.’

He jumped to his feet, briefly unguarded, lit up with that radiant smile of his. Then wariness took over again. ‘Thierry’s not here, if that’s what you want.’

‘I know,’ I said.

The smile returned.

‘Roux—’ I began. But he held out his arms, and I found myself there as I had before, with my head against his shoulder, and the warm soft scent of him – something quite separate from the smell of cut wood, or polish, or sweat – like an eiderdown over us both.

‘Come inside. You’re shivering.’