‘If you’re not, there’s a posse of us who will gladly deck the bastard,’ Josh said. His triteness, blended with affection, making Cat smile at last. ‘Now, journaliste McCabe, you have your final report to write. Here – blow.’ Josh held out a handkerchief and dutifully, Cat blew her nose sonorously into it. Unflinchingly, Josh tucked it, sodden, back into his pocket. He had loads of washing to take home tomorrow as it was. And anyway, it’s one friend’s duty to wipe away the tears of another.

Rachel McEwen was at the team vehicles in the Place de la Concorde, using half her brain to double-check she had plenty of everything whilst using the other half to make lists of items to audit, order and pack in the coming weeks of racing. She was aware that someone stood near by, watching her, but she was used to this and presumed it to be a fan hopeful of a free baseball cap or bidon. When her name was breathed huskily, with the ‘R’ rolled around leisurely at the back of the throat, the ‘1’ licked from tongue to teeth, she knew instinctively to whom the voice belonged.

‘Monsieur Le Grand,’ she said courteously, ‘ça va?’

‘Bien. Jules – please,’ he replied, swiping away the sides of his jacket as he slipped his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘I have something for you, Rachel,’ he said with great mystery, savouring her name on his tongue as if it was an oyster. From one pocket, he brought out a small package and gave it to Rachel, coming close within her personal space and changing the air around her from heavy with embrocation to scented with an inordinate amount of Gucci aftershave.

‘For me?’ Rachel asked, wondering what and why.

‘Open,’ he commanded, his eyes fixed on the package, ‘please.’

His gift, rather predictably, was Chanel Eau de Parfum. An ostentatiously large bottle. ‘Call it a bribe,’ he shrugged, ‘but I want you to come and work for me, for Système Vipère. I make you this offer because I respect you as a soigneur. I give you this gift because I respect you as a woman.’

Och, what a load of tosh, Rachel thought to herself whilst smiling sweetly out loud, wait till I tell Cat.

‘Jules,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Shh,’ he said on the verge of seductively placing his index finger against Rachel’s lips, which parted flabbergasted whilst her eyes danced in disbelief. ‘Just consider it.’

With that he was gone. But he’d been gone from the Système Vipère vehicles long enough for the Zucca directeur and chief mechanic to have paid a visit to André Ferrette. They did not flatter him with expensive scent or guttural overtones. They merely reasoned that, as he and their soigneur were now an item, wouldn’t it be great for everyone concerned if he came over to work for Zucca MV?

The last laps of the Champs-Elysées. The last minutes of the race. The closing metres of the Tour de France. The peloton stream around the circuit wowing the crowds. The pace is fast and during the laps opportunists regularly pelt off the front, driving the crowds wild in the process. Though the likelihood of a Stage win by such riders, from so far out, is minuscule, the attention they attract curries great favour with their sponsors too, most of them ensconced in VIP enclosures.