‘Not much,’ the owner said. The sky was still darkened with smoke but the fireball from the massive explosion was burning itself out. The old lady took up the answer to Marc’s question as Livia’s dad followed the first of his customers back inside the cramped café.

‘The army has closed all roads out of Paris to civilians so they can get their equipment out, and the Germans have promised to enter the city in a dignified manner and harm nobody,’ the old lady said. Then her lips thinned and she tossed curls of grey hair off her face. ‘I guess we’ll know in an hour.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Tours was on the main route between Paris and the south. A few well-placed bombs here could disrupt road and rail traffic through central France and force military supplies and troops to divert hundreds of kilometres through the countryside, causing delay and wasting increasingly scarce fuel supplies.

Ten days of intense bombing had turned the heart of the town into hell, destroying more than a third of the buildings, taking out all of the major bridges and cutting off supplies of gas, water and electricity. There wasn’t an unbroken window within two kilometres of the town centre.

But you didn’t have to venture far into the surrounding countryside for all signs of war to vanish. Rosie and Paul had found refuge in a small farmhouse belonging to a retired priest and his spinster sister. At this moment, Rosie was running at full pelt across a meadow, gaining ground on Hugo, who wore a headdress made from a piece of knotted rag and chicken feathers.

‘Can’t get me!’ Hugo shouted. But he shrieked as he looked behind and saw that Rosie was almost within touching distance.

‘Gotcha, monster,’ Rosie growled, as she grabbed the small boy around the waist and hoisted him high into the air with his legs kicking frantically.

Hugo was grinning and breathless as she put him down. ‘Again?’ he asked.

Rosie liked playing with Hugo because it gave her a chance to act stupid and forget about all the bad stuff. The trouble was, he never wanted to stop.

‘OK,’ Rosie said, putting her hands over her eyes. ‘One last time.’

‘Three more times,’ Hugo demanded.

‘Once more, or not at all. I’ve played with you for nearly an hour.’

‘OK …’ the boy huffed, before spinning around and darting off into the long grass.

‘One, two, three …’ Rosie counted, but gave up the pretence once Hugo was out of earshot. It was too hot for all this running around and she was getting a stitch down her side.

She looked across the meadow and immediately noticed Hugo’s head peeking over the top of the ditch. But she knew if she found Hugo too quickly he’d insist on playing again, so she looked mystified for a few moments before starting to stroll towards the ditch.