‘Six francs a night up here. Eight downstairs, which includes breakfast. Minimum stay is three nights and a ten-franc deposit on your sheets. Any messing around and you’re out on your arse. No refunds.’

Marc nodded uncertainly.

After a few moments’ silence, Madame Raquel lost her cool. ‘So?’ she shouted. ‘Haven’t got all day. Do you want a bed or not?’

Marc shuddered with fright. Raquel scared him and he felt his hand drifting obediently towards the money in his trousers, but then he heard steps behind him and he saw that the old man now stood naked in the doorway of his bedroom.

‘Put some clothes on, you dirty old bastard,’ Raquel shouted.

Marc knew there was no way he could stay here, but he was too scared to say so in case Madame Raquel had a go at him.

‘I don’t have my money with me,’ Marc said weakly. ‘I’ll come back later.’

He turned to hurry down the stairs, but the naked man was ahead of him and he was forced to watch as the old tramp staggered down to the toilet, while Madame Raquel gave him a stare that made his face hot.

‘You won’t find anywhere cheaper,’ she shouted, as Marc finally had a chance to run down the staircase. He stepped out on to the doorstep and inhaled fresh air as if his life depended upon it. He hadn’t touched anything inside the house, but just being in there made his skin crawl and he’d sooner have spent a night in the cowshed on Morel’s farm.

Marc started walking back down the hill. He was disappointed that he hadn’t solved the accommodation problem and wondered about going back to the café and asking the friendly man if he knew of a slightly more upmarket dorm. But his paranoid side put him off: maybe the waiter knew how vile the Dormitory Raquel was and had sent him there as a joke.

The sky was now black, but Marc didn’t mind the prospect of rain. The atmosphere was smoky from the bombing and he thought it would clear the air. By the time he was halfway down the hill a few spots had started hitting the pavement. They seemed unusually dark, but he wasn’t alarmed until a drop ran down his forehead and touched his eyelid.

Suddenly his eye was stinging and, as the rain grew harder, he noticed that each drop hitting his shirt left a grey stain behind. The fires that had burned after the previous night’s air raid had sent millions of tonnes of smoke and ash into the atmosphere and now it was falling as black rain.