Franck glanced at the board hanging above the bar. Apparently, the place was vegetarian – at least, there was no meat on the menu, though they still had pike and trout. Franck was encouraged by this and leant on the counter and asked for a second coffee.

‘Another espresso?

‘Yes, but a double.’

The owner was tall and blond with a Rasta hairstyle, dreadlocks tied in a bun. When he had chosen this café the day before, Franck had felt uncomfortable with the young man who had greeted him with a cold ‘bonjour’. At first glance, Franck saw a thirty-something in a too-short T-shirt with tattooed arms who was probably some kind of anti-globalisation warrior. His discomfort had meant that Franck had barely said hello, either yesterday or today. To the owner, he must have seemed like a churlish holidaymaker, the customer who deliberately positions himself right at the back to avoid talking to the locals. Franck was not that reclusive and unfriendly, but he felt unsettled in this little town where he was completely out of his comfort zone and everything was unfamiliar and disorientating. That’s the terrible thing about being ill at ease, you think everybody can see it and nothing else, and you start resenting them for having figured you out so easily. But the young owner turned out to be friendly. He took the coffees from the machine and put them on the bar, as a way of inviting Franck to chat.

‘Look, I need to print a few pages. Where do you think I could do that?’

‘That depends. How many are there?’

‘I’d say about thirty lots of a hundred pages.’

‘Seriously?’