Well, of course, I can see that. I see other things, too, now that I happen to look for them. The sky-blue door hides a number of things that regular customers overlook. First, the place is old and in some considerable disrepair. The window is attractive enough with its display of pretty little tins and boxes, and the walls are painted a cheerful yellow, but even so the damp awaits, lurking in corners and beneath the floor, speaking of too little money and not enough time. Some care has been taken to hide this: a scrawl of cobweb-gold across a nest of cracks, a welcoming shimmer in the doorway, a luscious quality to the air that promises more than those second-rate chocolates.

Try me. Test me.

Discreetly, with my left hand, I conjured the Eye of Black Tezcatlipoca. Around me, the colours flared, confirming my suspicions on that first day. Someone has been at work here, and I don’t think it was Yanne Charbonneau. There is a youthful, naïve, exuberant aspect to this glamour that speaks of a mind as yet untrained.

Annie? Who else? And the mother? Well. There’s something about her that needles me, something I’ve seen only once – on that first day, as she opened the door at the sound of her name. She had brighter colours then, all right; and something tells me she has them still, even though she chooses to conceal them.

On the floor, Rosette was drawing, still singing her little wordless song. ‘Bam-bam-bammm . . . Bam-badda-bammm . . .’

‘Come on, Rosette. Time for your nap.’

Rosette did not look up from her drawing. The singing grew a little louder, now accompanied by the rhythmic thumping of a sandalled foot against the floor. ‘Bam-bam-bamm . . .’

‘Now, Rosette,’ said Yanne gently. ‘Time to put the crayons away.’

Still no reaction from Rosette.

‘Bam-bam-bamm . . . Bam-badda-bammm . . .’ At the same time, her colours bloomed from chrysanthemum-gold to brilliant orange, and she laughed, reaching out as if to grasp falling petals. ‘Bam-bam-bamm . . . Bam-badda-bamm . . .’

‘Shh, Rosette!’

And now I could feel a tension in Yanne. It was not just the embarrassment of a mother whose child will not behave, but more like the sense of approaching danger. She picked up Rosette – still warbling unconcerned – flinging me a grimace of apology as she did so.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘She gets like this when she’s overtired.’

‘It’s OK. She’s cute,’ I said.

A pot of pencils fell from the counter-top. Pencils rolled across the floor.

‘Bam,’ said Rosette, pointing at the fallen pencils.

‘I need to put her to bed now,’ said Yanne. ‘She gets too excited if she doesn’t have her nap.’

I looked at Rosette again. She didn’t look tired at all, I thought. It was the mother who looked exhausted: pale and washed-out with her too-sharp haircut and her cheap black sweater that made her face seem paler still.

‘Are you all right?’ I said.

She nodded.