I said nothing, and Roux sniggered. In the kitchen I could hear Josephine's little radio playing. For a few seconds there was no sound but the tinny squeak of the speaker against the tiles.

`Come on,' said Caro to her friend. Joline looked uncertain, hesitant.

`I said come on!' With a gesture of irritation she swept out of the shop with Joline in her wake. `Don't think I don't know what you're playing at,' she spat in lieu of goodbye, then they were both gone, their high heels clacking against the stones as they crossed the square to St Jerome's The next day we found the first of the leaflets. Scrunched up into a ball and tossed into the street, Josephine picked it up as she was sweeping the pavement and brought it into the shop. A single page of typescript, photocopied onto pink paper then folded into two. It was unsigned, but something about the style suggested its possible author. The title: `Easter and the Return to Faith'. I scanned the sheet quickly. Much of the text was predictable. Rejoicing and self-purification, sin and the joys of absolution and prayer. But halfway down the page; in bolder text than the rest, was a sub-heading which caught my eye.

The New Revivalists: Corrupting the Spirit of Easter. There will always be a small minority of people who attempt to use our Holy traditions for personal gain. The greetings card industry. The supermarket chains. Even more sinister are those people who claim to revive ancient traditions, involving our children in pagan practices in the guise of amusement. Too many of us see these. as harmless, and view them with tolerance. Why else should our community have allowed a so-called Chocolate Festival to take place outside our church on the very morning of Easter Sunday? This makes a mockery of everything Easter stands for. We urge you to colt this so-called Festival and all similar events, for the sake of your innocent children. CHURCH, not CHOCOLATE, is the TRUE MESSAGE of EASTER! `Church, not chocolate.’

I laughed. `Actually, that's a pretty good slogan. Don't you think?’

Josephine was looking anxious. `I don't understand you,' she said. `You don't seem worried at all.’

`Why should I worry?’

I shrugged. `It's only a leaflet. And I'm certain I know who produced it.’

She nodded. 'Caro.’

Her tone was emphatic. 'Caro and Joline. It's exactly their style. All that stuff about their innocent children.’

She gave a snort of derision. `But people listen to them, Vianne. It might make people think twice about coming. Joline's our schoolteacher. And Caro's a member of the Residents' Committee.’

`Oh?’ I didn't know there even was a Residents' Committee. Self-important bigots with a taste for gossip. `So what can they do? Arrest everybody?’

Josephine shook her head. `Paul's on that committee, too,' she said in a low voice.

So.

`So you know what he can do,' said Josephine desperately. I have noticed that in times of stress she reverts to her old mannerisms, digging her thumbs into her breastbone. `He's crazy, you know he is: He's just-' She broke off miserably, fists clenched. Again I had the impression that she wanted to tell me something, that she knew something. I touched her hand, reaching gently for her thoughts, but saw nothing more than before: smoke, grey and greasy, against a purple sky.

Smoke! My hand tightened around hers. Smoke! Now that I knew what I was seeing I could make out details: his face a pale blur in the dark, his slicing, triumphant grin. She looked at me in silence, her eyes dark with knowledge.

`Why didn't you tell me?’ I said at last.

`You can't prove it,' said Josephine `I didn't tell you anything.’

`You didn't need to. Is that why you're afraid of Roux? Because of what Paul did?’

She put up her chin stubbornly. `I'm not afraid of him.’

`But you won't talk to him. You won't even stay in the same room with him. You can't look him in the eye.’

Josephine folded her arms with the look of a woman who has nothing more to say.

Josephine I turned her face towards mine, forced her to look at me. 'Josephine?’

`All right.’

Her voice was harsh and sullen. `I knew, all right? I knew what Paul was going to do. I told him I'd tell if he tried anything, I'd warn them. That was when he hit me.’

She gave me a venomous look, her mouth halfbroken with unshed tears. 'So I'm a coward,' she said in a loud, shapeless voice. `Now you know what I am; I'm not brave like you, I'm a liar and a coward. I let him do it, someone could have been killed, Roux could have been killed or Zezette or her baby and it would all have been my fault!' She took a long grating breath.

`Don't tell him,' she said. `I couldn't stand it.’

`I won't tell Roux,' I told her gently. `You're going to do that.’

She shook her head wildly. `I'm not. I'm not. I couldn't.’

`It's all right, Josephine I coaxed. `It wasn't your fault. And no-one was killed, were they?’

Stubbornly: `I couldn't. I can't.’

`Roux isn't like Paul,' I said. `He's more like you than you imagine.’

`I wouldn't know what to say.’

Her hands twisted. `I wish he'd just leave,' she said fiercely. `I wish he could just take his money and go somewhere else.’

`No you don't,' I told her. `Besides, he isn't going to.’

I told her what he had said to me about his job with Narcisse, and about the boat in Agen. `He deserves at least to know who's responsible,' I insisted. `That way he'll understand that only Muscat is to blame for what happened, and that no-one else hates him here. You should understand that, Josephine. You know what it's like to feel the way he feels.’

Josephine sighed.

`Not today,' she said. `I'll tell him, but some other time. OK?’

'It won't ever be any easier than it is today,' I warned. `Do you want me to come with you?’

She stared at me. `Well, he'll be due a break soon,' I explained. `You could take him a cup of chocolate.’

A pause. Her face was blank and pale. Her gunslinger's hands were trembling at her sides. I took a rocher noir from a pile at my side and popped it into her half-open mouth before she had time to speak.

`Give you courage,' I explained, turning to pour the chocolate into a large cup. 'Go on then. Chew.’

I heard her make a tiny sound, half-laughter. I gave her the cup. `Ready?’

`I suppose.’ Voice thick with chocolate. `I'll try.’

I left them alone. I reread the leaflet Josephine had found in the street. Church, not Chocolate. It's really quite funny. The Black Man finds a sense of humour at last.

It was warm outside in spite of the wind. Les Marauds glittered in the sunlight. I walked slowly down towards the Tannes, relishing the heat of the sun on my back. Spring has come with little prelude, like turning a rocky comer into a valley, and gardens and borders have blossomed suddenly, lush with daffodils, irises,, tulips. Even the derelict houses of Les Marauds are touched with colour, but here the ordered gardens have-run to rampant eccentricity: a flowering elder growing from the balcony of a house overlooking the water; a roof carpeted, with dandelions; violets poking out of a crumbling facade. Once-cultivated plants have reverted to their wild state, small leggy geraniums thrusting between hemlock-umbels, self-seeded poppies scattered at random and bastardized from their original red to orange to palest mauve. A few days' sunshine is enough to coax them from sleep; after the rain they stretch and raise their heads towards the light. Pull out a handful of these supposed weeds and there are sages and irises, pinks and lavenders under the docks and ragwort. I wandered by the river for long enough for Josephine and Roux to make up their differences, then I made my way gently home through the back streets, up the Ruelle des Freres de la Revolution and Rue des Pokes with its close, dark, almost windowless walls, broken only by the washing-lines slung casually from balcony to balcony or by a single window box trailing green festoons of convolvulus.