It has been four years since she drank my hot chocolate. But this time she drank it without complaint. Wrapped in a blanket, she was already half-asleep; and she could not tell us what she had seen during those few minutes outside in the snow, nor could she explain Zozie’s disappearance, nor the strange feeling I’d had at the end of hearing their voices from far away—

Outside, Nico had found something.

‘Hey, folks. She lost a shoe.’ He shook the melting snow from his boots and put the shoe on the table between us. ‘Whoa. Chocolate. Excellent!’ He poured himself a generous cup.

Meanwhile Anouk had picked up the shoe. A single shoe in luscious red velvet, stack-heeled and peep-toed and stitched all through with glamours and charms fit for an adventuress on the run—

Try me, it says.

Try me. Test me.

For a second, Anouk frowns. Then she drops the shoe to the floor. ‘Don’t you know it’s bad luck to put shoes on a table?’

I hide a smile behind my hand.

‘Nearly midnight,’ I tell her. ‘Are you ready to open your presents?’

To my surprise, Roux shakes his head. ‘I nearly forgot. It’s getting late. If we hurry, we’ll just have time.’

‘Time for what?’

‘Surprise,’ says Roux.

‘Better than presents?’ says Anouk.

Roux grins. ‘You’ll have to see.’

19

Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. Midnight

THE PORT DE L’ARSENAL is ten minutes’ walk from place de la Bastille. We took the last Métro from Pigalle, arriving just minutes before twelve. The clouds had mostly cleared by then, and I could see slices of starry sky, bracketed with orange and gold. A faint scent of smoke distressed the air, and in the eerie luminescence of the fallen snow, the pale spires of Notre-Dame were just visible in the middle distance.

‘What are we doing here?’ I said.

Roux grinned and put a finger to his lips. He was carrying Rosette, who looked quite alert, watching everything with the wide-eyed interest of a child up long past her bedtime and enjoying every minute of it. Anouk, too, looked wide-awake, although there was a tension in her face that led me to think that whatever had happened in Place des Faux-Monnayeurs was not quite over. Most of our guests had stayed in Montmartre, but Michèle was with us, looking almost afraid to follow the group, as if someone might think she had no right. Every now and again she would touch my arm, as if by accident, or stroke Rosette’s hair, and look at her hands, as if she expected to see something there – a mark, a stain – to prove to herself that it was all real.

‘Would you like to hold Rosette?’