Frankly, that disappointed me. I’d been looking forward to seeing her reaction when I told her, and although I wasn’t exactly expecting approval, I’d hoped for something more from a person of her intellectual calibre.

But all I got was disbelief, and that rictus in her staring face – never pretty at the best of times – so that if I’d been a susceptible person I might have seen her again in my dreams, and heard the choking sounds she made as she struggled vainly against the draught that did for Socrates.

Nice touch, I thought. But wasted on my poor Françoise, who sadly discovered her zest for life only minutes before its end. And I was left, once again, with a sense of regret. Once more, it had been too easy for me. Françoise was no challenge at all. A silver mouse charm on my bracelet. Natural prey to one such as myself.

Which brings me to Vianne Rocher.

Now there’s an opponent worthy of me – a witch, no less, and a powerful one, for all her silly scruples and guilt. Perhaps the only worthy opponent that I have ever encountered thus far. And here she is, waiting for me with that quiet knowledge in her eyes, and I know she sees me clearly at last, sees me in my true colours, and there’s no sensation quite as fine as that first true moment of intimacy—

‘Hello, Vianne.’

‘Hello, Zozie.’

I sit down at the table opposite her. She looks cold, bundled up in her shapeless dark sweater, her white lips pinched with unsaid words. I smile at her, and her colours shine out – strange, how much affection I feel, now that the knives are drawn at last.

Outside, the wind is riding high. A killer wind, charged with snow. Sleepers in doorways will die tonight. Dogs will howl; doors slam. Young lovers will look into each other’s eyes and for the first time will silently question their vows. Eternity is such a long time – and here, at the dead-end of the year, Death seems suddenly very close.

But isn’t that what it’s all about, this festival of winter lights? This little defiance in the face of the dark? Call it Christmas if you like, but you and I know it’s older than that. And beneath all the tinsel and the carol-singing and the glad tidings and the gifts lies a bleaker and more visceral truth.

This is a time of essential loss; of the sacrifice of innocents; of fear, darkness, barrenness, death. The Aztecs knew, and so did the Maya, that, far from wanting to save the world, their gods were bent on its destruction, and that only the blood of sacrifice could appease them for a little while . . .

We sat there in silence, like old friends. I fingered the charms on my bracelet; she stared into her chocolate-cup. Finally she looked at me.