Her shoes are enormous platform boots that look far too heavy for her little stick-legs. Her favourite is milk chocolate fudge, though she always buys the plain dark squares because they contain only half the calories. Her colours are gilded with anxiety.

‘Something smells good,’ she said, sniffing the air.

‘Yanne’s making chocolates,’ I told her.

‘Making them? She can do that?’

I sat her down in the old armchair I found in a skip down Rue de Clichy. It’s shabby, but quite comfortable; and like the shop, I intend to make something of it within the next few days.

‘Try one,’ I said. ‘It’s on the house.’

Her eyes gleamed. ‘I shouldn’t, you know.’

‘I’ll cut it in half. We’ll share it,’ I said, perching on the arm of the chair. So easy to scratch the seductive sign of the Cacao Bean with my fingernail; so easy to watch her through the Smoking Mirror as she pecked at her truffle like a baby bird.

I know her well. I’ve seen her before. An anxious child; always aware of not being good enough, of not being entirely like the others. Her parents are good people, but they are ambitious, they are demanding; they make it plain that failure is not an option, that nothing can ever be too good for them and for their little girl. One day, she misses dinner. It makes her feel good – emptied, somehow, of all the fears that weigh her down. She misses breakfast, dizzy with that new, exhilarating feeling of control. She tests herself and finds herself wanting. Rewards herself for being so good. And here she is now – such a good girl, trying so hard – twenty-three and still looks thirteen, and still not quite good enough, still not quite there—

She finished the truffle. ‘Mmmm,’ she said.

I made sure she saw me eat one too.

‘It must be so hard, working here.’

‘Hard?’ I said.

‘I mean, dangerous.’ She flushed a little. ‘I know that sounds stupid, but that’s how I’d feel. Having to look at chocolates all day – handling chocolates – and always with the smell of chocolate . . .’ She was losing some of her shyness now. ‘How do you do it? How come you’re not just eating chocolates all day long?’

I grinned. ‘What makes you think I don’t?’

‘You’re thin,’ said Alice. (In fact I could easily give her fifty pounds.)

I laughed. ‘Forbidden fruits,’ I said. ‘So much more tempting than the ordinary kind. Here, have another.’

She shook her head.