Apparently it’s about a cheque. Thierry says he gave it to Roux – he kept the stub and everything – and Roux tried to alter it before putting the money into his account, so that he’d get a lot more money than the cheque was actually for.

A thousand euros, they said. This is called fraud, Thierry says, and you can go to prison for it, especially if you use a different name to open the account and take out the money before anyone finds out, then disappear without a trace, not even leaving a forwarding address.

So that’s what they’re saying about Roux. Which is stupid, because everyone knows Roux doesn’t have a bank account, and would never steal anything, even from Thierry. But he has vanished without a trace. Apparently he hasn’t been seen in the hostel since Friday, and obviously he hasn’t been to work. That means I might be the last person to have seen him. It also means he can’t come back here, because if he does, he’ll be arrested. Stupid Thierry. I hate him. I wouldn’t put it past him to have made all this up just to get at Roux.

Maman and he quarrelled about it when the two policemen had gone. I could hear Thierry shouting all the way up the stairs. Maman was being reasonable – saying there must have been some mistake. And I could hear Thierry getting more and more worked up, saying: I don’t see how you can still take his side, and calling Roux a criminal and a degenerate – which means a layabout and not-to-be-trusted – and saying Yanne, it’s not too late. Until at last Maman told him to go, and he did, leaving a blurry cloud of his colours behind him in the front of the shop, like a bad smell.

Maman was crying when I came back downstairs. She said she wasn’t, but I knew. And her colours were all confused and dark, and her face was white except for two red spots under her eyes, and she said not to worry, that things were going to be OK, but I knew she was lying. I always know.

It’s funny, isn’t it, what adults tell kids? There’s nothing wrong. It’s going to be fine. I don’t blame you, it was an Accident – but all the time that Thierry was here I was thinking about the time I’d met Roux by Dalida’s tomb, and how grungy he’d looked, and how I’d given him the Ear of Maize to give him wealth and good fortune—

And now I wonder what I did. I can almost see it in my mind’s eye: the last cheque from Thierry’s bank, and Roux saying I’ve got a few things to sort out first, and just adding zero to the sum—