The Lollipop Shoes (41 page)

Now for the sacrifice – frankincense and myrrh. That’s what the Magi brought, you know, for the Jesus-baby in his crib. I guess if it was good enough for the Jesus-baby, then it’s good enough for us. And gold – well, I’ve got some chocolate squares wrapped in gold paper, which ought to be OK, don’t you think? Zozie says the Aztecs always used to offer chocolate to the gods. And blood, of course – though I’m hoping they won’t want much of that. A pinprick –
ouch
– OK, that’s all – light the incense and we’re ready to go.

Now sit in the circle, legs crossed, and take your peg-dolls one in each hand. You’ll need a bag of red sugar crystals to scatter on the floor for drawing in.

First comes the sign of Lady Moon Rabbit. Pantoufle can keep that sign for me, here at the edge of the chalk circle. Then we draw Blue Hummingbird Tezcatlipoca, for the sky on my left side, and Red Monkey Tezcatlipoca, for the earth, on yours. Bam stands guard on that side, with the sign of One Monkey next to him.

There. That’s ready. Isn’t it fun? We did this once before, remember? But something went wrong. It won’t this time. This time we’re calling the right wind. Not the Hurakan, but the Changing Wind, because there’s something here we need to change.

OK? Now draw the spiral sign in the red sugar on the floor.

Now for the invocation. I know you don’t know the words, but you can join in the song all the same if you’d like. Sing—

V’là l’bon vent, v’là l’joli vent

That’s right. Softly, though.

Good. Now the peg-dolls. That one’s Roux. You don’t know Roux, but you will soon. And that’s Maman, see? Maman in her pretty red dress. Her real name is Vianne Rocher. That’s what I whispered in her ear. And who’s this, with the mango hair and the big green eyes? That’s you, Rosette. That’s you. And we’ll stand them all here in the circle together, with the candles burning and the sign of Ehecatl in the middle. Because they belong together, like the people in the Nativity house. And soon they’ll be together again, and we can be a family—

And this – who’s this outside the yellow circle? That’s Thierry, with his mobile phone. We don’t want the wind to hurt Thierry, but he can’t be here with us any more, because you can only have one father, Rosette, and he’s not the one. So he has to go. Sorry, Thierry.

Can you hear the wind outside? That’s the Wind of Change on its way. Zozie says you can ride the wind; that it’s like a wild horse that can be tamed and trained to do just what you want it to. You can be a kite, a bird; you can grant wishes; you can find your heart’s desire—

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Come on, Rosette. Let’s ride.

7

Saturday, 15th December

IT’S AMAZING, ISN’T
it, how deceitful a child can be? Like a domestic cat, purring on the sofa by day, but by night, a strutting queen, a natural killer, disdainful of her other life.

Anouk is no killer – at least, not yet – but she does have that feral side to her. I’m delighted to know that, of course – I’m not in the market for a household pet – but I’ll need to keep a close eye on her, if she’s going to take action behind my back.

First, she invoked Ehecatl without me. I do not resent this at all – in fact I’m rather proud of her. She’s imaginative; ingenious; making up rituals where existing ones do not satisfy – a natural Chaoist, in short.

Secondly, however – and rather more importantly – she went to see Roux yesterday, in secret and against my advice. Fortunately she wrote it all down in her diary, which I monitor on a regular basis. It’s easy to do: like her mother, she keeps her secrets in a shoe-box at the back of
her wardrobe – predictable, but convenient – and I’ve been checking both since I arrived.

And a good thing too, as it turns out. She’s meeting him today, she says, in the cemetery at three o’clock. In a way, it couldn’t be better; my plans for Vianne are nearing completion, and it’s nearly time for the next stage. But stealing a life is so much easier on paper than in the flesh – a few discarded household bills, a passport lifted from a handbag at the airport, even the name on a fresh gravestone and the job’s practically done for me. But this time I want more than a name, more than credit details, much more than money.

It’s a game of strategy, of course. Like so many games of strategy, it’s based on putting the pieces in place without letting the opponent suspect what’s happening, then deciding which pieces to sacrifice in order to emerge the winner. After that, it’s one-on-one – a battle of wills between Yanne and me – and I have to say I’m looking forward to it even more than I could have imagined. To face her at last in the final round, knowing what’s at stake for both of us—

Now
that
will be a game worth playing.

Let’s recap the moves so far. Between my other interests, I have been working very hard on the contents of Yanne’s
piñata
, and I have discovered a number of things.

One, she is not Yanne Charbonneau.

Well, we already knew that, of course. But more interestingly, she is not Vianne Rocher – or so the contents of her box would suggest. I knew there was something important I’d missed, and the other day, when she was out, I eventually found what I’d been looking for.

Actually, I’d seen it before, and overlooked its
importance as I focused on Vianne Rocher. But it’s there in the box, tied with a piece of faded red ribbon: a silver charm that might equally have come from a cheap bracelet or a Christmas cracker; shaped like a cat and blackened with time. It’s there in Vianne’s shoe-box, with a packet of sandalwood and some Tarot cards that have seen better days.

Like myself, Vianne travels light. Nothing she keeps is trivial. Every item in this box has been kept for a reason, and none less so than this silver charm. It’s mentioned in the newspaper clipping, so brittle and brown that I’d not dared to unfold it completely: the account of the disappearance of eighteen-month-old Sylviane Caillou from outside a chemist’s, more than thirty years ago.

Did she ever try to go back? Instinct tells me she did not.
You choose your family
, as she says, and that girl, her mother, whose name does not even appear in the clipping – is nothing to her but DNA. To me, however—

Call me curious. I looked her up on the internet. It took a little time – children vanish every day, and this was an old case, long since closed and without great interest – but I found it at last, and with it the name of Sylviane’s mother, twenty-one when the baby was taken, now forty-nine according to her school reunion website; divorced, no kids, still living in Paris near Père Lachaise and managing a little hotel.

It’s called Le Stendhal, and you can find it on the corner of Avenue Gambetta and Rue Matisse. No more than a dozen bedrooms in all; a balding tinsel Christmas tree and an extravagantly over-chintzed interior. By the fireplace there is a small round table upon which a china doll in a pink silk dress stands stiffly under a glass cloche.
Another doll, this one dressed as a bride, stands watch at the foot of the stairs. A third – blue-eyed, in a red fur-trimmed coat and hat – is perched on the reception desk.

And there, behind the desk, Madame herself: a big-bodied woman with the drawn face and thinning hair of the habitual dieter and a look of her daughter in the eyes—

‘Madame?’

‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m from Le Rocher de Montmartre. We’re doing a special promotion on hand-made chocolates, and I wonder if I could give you these samples to try—’

Madame’s face went sour at once. ‘I’m not interested,’ she said.

‘There’s no obligation. Just try a few, and—’

‘Thank you, no.’

Of course, I’d been expecting that. Parisians are deeply suspicious folk, and it did sound rather too good to be true. All the same, I took out a box of our specials and opened it on the desk-top. Twelve truffles, rolled in cocoa powder, each nestled in its bassinet of crinkly gold paper, a yellow rose on the corner of the box; the symbol of Lady Blood Moon scratched on to the side of the lid.

‘There’s a calling card inside,’ I said. ‘If you like them, you can order direct. If not—’ I shrugged. ‘They’re on the house. Go on. Try one. See what you think.’

Madame hesitated. I could see her natural suspicion at war with the scent that came from the box: the smoky, espresso-scent of cacao; the hint of clove; of cardamom; of vanilla; the fleeting aroma of Armagnac – a fragrance like lost time; a bitter-sweetness like childhood’s end.

‘So, are you giving these out to every hotel in Paris? You’re not going to make much of a profit if you are.’

I smiled. ‘Speculate to accumulate, that’s what I say.’

She picked a truffle from its bed.

Bit into it.

‘Hm. Not bad.’

In fact, I think it’s more than that. Her eyes half-close; her thin mouth moistens.

‘You like it?’

She should; the seductive sign of Lady Blood Moon lights up her face with its rosy glow. I can see Vianne in her more clearly now; but a Vianne grown old and tired somehow; embittered by the pursuit of wealth; a childless Vianne with no outlet for her love but her hotel and her china dolls.

‘It’s certainly something,’ said Madame.

‘The card’s inside. Come visit us.’

Eyes closed, Madame nodded dreamily.

‘Merry Christmas,’ I said.

Madame did not answer.

And beneath the cloche, the blue-eyed doll in the fur coat and hat smiled serenely out at me, like a child frozen in a bubble of ice.

8

Saturday, 15th December

I COULD HARDLY
wait to see Roux today. To see if things were different; to see if I’d managed to change the wind. I’d expected a sign. Snow or something, or northern lights, or a weird weather change, but when I got up this morning it was the same yellow sky and the same wet road, and although I kept an eye on Maman, she didn’t look any different, but worked in the kitchen like she always does, with her hair tied back sensibly and an apron over her black dress.

Still, you have to give these things time to work. Things don’t change so quickly, and I guess it wasn’t reasonable for me to expect everything to happen – for Roux to come back, and Maman to wake up to the truth about Thierry,
and
for it to snow – all at once in a single night. And so I stayed cool; went out with Jean-Loup; all the time waiting for three o’clock.

Three o’clock, by Dalida’s tomb. You can’t miss it – it’s a lifesized sculpture, though I’m not quite sure who Dalida
was – some kind of actress, probably. I got there a few minutes late, and Roux was waiting for me. At ten past three it was already quite dark, and as I ran up the steps towards the tomb, I could just see him sitting on a gravestone nearby, looking a bit like a sculpture himself, very still in his long grey coat.

‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ I gave him a hug. ‘I had to get rid of Jean-Loup, you see.’

He grinned at that. ‘You make it sound so sinister. Who’s he?’

I explained, feeling a bit embarrassed to say. ‘A friend from school. He loves this place. He likes to take photographs here. Thinks he’s going to see a ghost some day.’

‘Well, he’s in the right place,’ said Roux. He looked at me. ‘So. What’s going on?’

Oh, boy. Well, I didn’t even know where to start. So many things have happened over the past few weeks, and—

‘Actually, we had a fight.’

Stupid, I know, but my eyes were watering. Nothing to do with Roux, of course, and I hadn’t meant to mention it, but now that I had—

‘What about?’ he said.

‘Something stupid. Nothing,’ I said.

Roux gave me the kind of smile you sometimes see on the faces of church statues. Not that he looks anything like an angel, of course. But – kind of patient, if you know what I mean – a kind of
I-can-wait-all-day-here-if-I-have-to
smile.

‘Well, he won’t come round to the
chocolaterie
,’ I said, feeling cross and a bit weepy, and especially cross that I’d told Roux. ‘Says he doesn’t feel comfortable.’

Actually, that’s not all he said. But the rest of it was so stupid, and so wrong that I couldn’t bear to say it again. I mean, I really like Jean-Loup. But Zozie’s my best friend – apart from Roux and Maman, of course – and it bothers me that he’s so unfair.