Page 77 of Vianne

It was dark by the time we got back. Looking up at the clock on the wall, I realized with a jolt that it was already past five o’clock.

In the bar, the lights were off, except for the one in the kitchen.

The door sign read Closed . The keys to the bistrot were by the till, a bunch of rusty, headless blooms. Emile was sitting in the dark, only discernible by the red tip of his lit Gitane , and the nimbus of smoke that surrounded him. He looked at me.

‘You found him, then.’

‘I did. Emile, this is Lo?c Poirier. Lo?c, this is your father’s friend. He knew your mother, too, Margot.’

Lo?c gave a smile like a mirrorball. ‘You did? I’m so glad. That makes you sort of my uncle, or something!’

Emile gave him a wary look. I could see him, reading Lo?c’s face, trying to find a trace of Margot in those open features. Lo?c stepped forward and flung his arms around Emile in a great hug.

Emile protested. ‘Let me go!’

I should perhaps have warned Lo?c that Emile avoids physical contact.

Where others kiss, he is content with a simple handshake.

But Lo?c was too excited to care. He kissed Emile on both cheeks with what I am starting to understand is his usual exuberance.

Emile pulled away, looking shaken, but there was no anger in his face.

Instead he looked almost awed, as if he too had recognized Margot in the young man’s features.

‘I told Lo?c he could stay here,’ I said. ‘There’s a guest room he can use. Maybe you could stay here, too? Mind the place till Louis gets back?’

Lo?c looked uncertain. ‘Vianne, don’t go. You were going to show me my mother’s kitchen.’

Emile made an explosive sound. ‘If you think Louis will stand for that—’

‘Louis isn’t here,’ I said. ‘And Lo?c needs somewhere to stay. Would you stay with him tonight? I’m needed at the chocolaterie, but I’ll be back in the morning.’ I saw him hesitate. ‘Emile. Please. I’m trying to help. I know it may not seem that way, but—’

I thought I saw his colours shift back to their usual gas-jet blue.

But then Lo?c put a hand on his arm and said: ‘Please, monsieur. I don’t want to stay here all night, all on my own.

’ And then I was sure I saw him fork a little sign against his palm, casting a brightness onto the wall.

Maybe Margot’s son has inherited more than just her smile.

I saw Emile’s discomfort, but there was no anger in him now, and the permanent scowl that seemed to be so much a part of his natural expression was gone. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘But you’d better come back in the morning. I’m not cooking lunch.’

I smiled. ‘Lo?c and I can cook lunch,’ I said. ‘We’ll make your favourite. Pissaladière.’

After that I went back home, where Allée du Pieu was lit up for the night.

The Happy Noodles sign was casting scarlet shadows.

Strings of paper lanterns hang between the buildings, and there are tiny Christmas lights twisted around shutters and doors.

More Christmas lights in the front of the shop; and although the display window remains hidden behind sheets of paper, the window has been lit from inside, giving it a lantern shine.

But when I looked for Guy and Mahmed, neither of them were home. Instead I found Stéphane in the back, looking drawn and anxious. ‘Where’s Guy?’

Stéphane shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He went out this morning.’

‘Where?’

‘He didn’t say.’

That was odd. But then, Guy has been odd over the past few days. I said: ‘Did anything happen? Did he quarrel with Mahmed?’

Stéphane shook his head. ‘But there was a man. He talked with Guy for a long time.’

‘What kind of a man? Did you see him?’

‘Not really. He was an older man. Wearing a long black winter coat.’

I thought of the man I’d seen last week, and felt the hairs on my arms rise. ‘Do you know what they talked about?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I stayed out of the way. But I heard them go out soon after that, and Guy hasn’t been back since. And as for Mahmed –’ He shrugged again. ‘Who the hell knows where he goes?’

This was worrying, I thought. Stéphane’s description of the man in black was too close to the man I’d seen looking in through the window.

And Guy has been so quiet and strange – I should have noticed something was wrong.

But my mind has been so full of other things, and now that I have found Edmond—

The world demands its balance, ’Viane. There is no gift without a loss. My mother’s voice, so clear in the night, is like the wind from the rooftops. There is no gift without a loss . Does that mean, that by calling one friend, I have lost another?