That’s Thierry in hospital. Younger by twenty years or more, he’s waiting outside a closed door. He has two gift packs of cigars in his hand, each tied with a ribbon – one pink, one blue. He has covered every base.

Now it’s another waiting-room. There are murals of cartoon characters on the walls. A woman sits close, with a child in her arms. The boy is maybe six years old. He stares vacantly at the ceiling throughout, and nothing – not Pooh or Tigger or Mickey Mouse – brings the smallest gleam to his eye.

A building, not quite a hospital. And a boy – no, a young man – on the arm of a pretty nurse. The young man looks about twenty-five. Bulky like his father, he stoops, his head too heavy for his neck, his smile as vacant as a sunflower’s.

And now at last I understand. This is the secret he has tried to hide. I understand that broad, bright smile, like a man selling false religion door-to-door; the way he never speaks of his son; his intense perfectionism; the way he sometimes looks at Rosette – or rather, how he doesn’t look at her—

I gave a sigh.

‘Thierry,’ I said. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to lie to me any more.’

‘Lie to you?’

‘About your son.’

He stiffened then, and even without the granite slab I could see the agitation growing in him. His face was pale; he started to sweat, and the anger that his fear had displaced came rushing back like an evil wind. He stood up, bearlike suddenly, knocking over his coffee-cup and scattering the chocolates in their brightly coloured wrappers all over the table-top.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my son,’ he said, rather too loudly for the room. ‘Alan’s in the building trade. A real chip off the old block. I don’t see him much, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect me – doesn’t mean I’m not proud of him.’ He was shouting now, making Rosette cover her ears. ‘Who’s been saying anything else? Was it Roux? Has that bastard been snooping around?’

‘It’s nothing to do with Roux,’ I said. ‘If you’re ashamed of your own son, then how can you ever care for Rosette?’

‘Yanne, please. It’s not like that. I’m not ashamed. But he was my son, Sarah couldn’t have any more children, and I just wanted him to be . . .’

‘Perfect. I know.’

He took my hands. ‘I can live with it, Yanne. I promise I can. We’ll get a specialist on the case. She’ll have everything she could ever want. Nannies, toys—’

More gifts, I thought. As if that would change the way he feels. I shook my head. The heart doesn’t change. You can lie, hope, pretend to yourself – but in the end, can you ever escape the element to which you were born?