Mr Clarke thanked the man again and looked around at the kids in the back. ‘Looks like we’re going to be stuck here for a good while. How about we wander into town? We might be able to get some decent food and if the post office is open I might even have another stab at calling Henderson.’

‘I thought he’d left the Embassy for good,’ Paul said.

‘I expect he has,’ Mr Clarke said, nodding. ‘But I’ve got his home number. There’s a chance I’ll catch him there.’

‘What about the car?’ Rosie asked. ‘Is it safe to leave our things here? What if the Germans catch up with us?’

‘We’re still in French territory,’ Mr Clarke said, as he got out and slammed his door. ‘Our things should be safe for half an hour if we lock all the doors. The Germans didn’t follow us out of Paris and their chances of finding us with so many people on the road are slim to nil.’

It was a glorious morning and although Tours had been bombed, the damage was light compared with the cities further north. What’s more, it had been some time since the last air raid and there was a noticeable absence of smoke or the smell of burning.

For a few hundred metres Paul could almost imagine that the trip was part of a holiday outing. The illusion was shattered when they left the road and began clambering up a gravel embankment leading towards the railway tracks.

An old lady with horrible leg ulcers had made it up with two heavy bags, but the strain had done her in and she’d keeled over when she reached the top. She lay on her back, convulsing, while her tearful husband held her hand and dabbed her forehead with a handkerchief.

Like everyone else, Clarke and his children avoided eye contact as they walked by. Small acts of kindness were possible – helping to repair a broken cart, or carrying a crying child for a few kilometres – but nobody had the resources to deal with major crises and the only way to cope with the suffering was by shutting it out.

Once the Clarkes were across the bridge, a short scramble down a railway embankment and a gap in a wire fence took them into the commercial district on the south side of town.

‘Used to be a big electrical store along there,’ Mr Clarke said, aiming his pointing finger down a side street. ‘The old girl who ran it would only deal with French or American companies. I could never sell the old buzzard a damned thing.’

Paul and Rosie both smiled as they brushed past displaced people. The locals and refugees who’d travelled by car were hard to tell apart, but the ones who’d come on foot were stooped, dusty figures that lingered in every courtyard and doorway like a plague.