While most of Paris fretted over its destiny, Marc Kilgour had enjoyed the most exciting week of his life. He’d been to the cinema every afternoon, watching The Wizard of Oz four times, along with propaganda-packed news bulletins, American westerns and French detective movies. He’d ridden the Metro, visited the Champs Elysées and stood at the base of the Eiffel Tower. He would have gone to the top, but it was closed because of the air raids.

Charles Henderson’s home provided him with electric light, cooking gas and hot water. There was even a telephone and he’d briefly considered ringing the orphanage to tease Director Tomas about how he was spending his savings. But Marc didn’t know the orphanage number and wasn’t sure if the call might somehow give his location away.

He slept on a comfortable bed with Egyptian cotton sheets and after a dodgy start he’d even prepared a couple of reasonable meals. But with the north cut off by Germans and the roads south clogged with refugees and French troops, you had to queue for even the simplest items and armed police stood outside bakeries to stop bread queues from turning violent.

Marc had gradually gained a sense of how much things cost and had worked out that Director Tomas’ savings would last him for two to three months; as long as he didn’t have to worry about paying rent. Unlike the elderly and impoverished citizens who remained in Paris – the young and wealthy having mostly got out – Marc could afford to eat in cafés, which seemed to be suffering from a lack of customers rather than food.

Waiters also provided rare opportunities for conversation, because the biggest problem with Marc’s new lifestyle was loneliness. He never imagined that he’d miss the constant buzz of the orphanage, but he often found himself craving a friend and when he was alone in the house he voiced his most poignant thoughts to an imaginary Jae Morel.

The air raids were worst at night, but mostly concentrated on the city centre. Cafés and cinemas were forced to shut at six o’clock, so he spent most evenings reading in Henderson’s living room, with the bay window open and occasional interruptions from insects flying inside from the overgrown garden.

Marc had always enjoyed books, but there were none at the orphanage and even when he had a reading book from school he could only find peace to read in the fields out back. So far he’d got through two of Henderson’s French novels and struggled with an antique book of folk tales written in German.