In a series of still shots the plane flashed across the screen, up into its take-off, black smoke billowing behind.

‘Now the Boeing B-50 Superfortress.’

A large four-engine bomber loomed up on screen and a murmur ran through the crowd. Léon caught a quick movement by the headmistress next to him. She took out a camera from her bag on the floor at her feet, but before it got anywhere near her eye, it was removed by a polite young sergeant with a firm shake of the head.

‘Handsome beasts, aren’t they?’ The colonel smiled with pride. ‘And as soon as the extended runways are constructed, the new B-47 Stratojet will be deployed here. Designed by Boeing with thirty-five-degree swept-wings to fly at high speed and high altitude . . .’

The CO’s voice rumbled on but Léon’s focus was on the faces around him. Seeking out any flash-point. One man with a deep scowl and his bottom teeth clenched on his moustache, locking in any words. The bank manager in his pin-striped suit, his head pulled back as far as it would go. An angry hooded pair of eyes at the end of the next row of seats. Elsewhere a shake of a head. And a blank expression nearby, except for a tight click of back teeth over and over.

‘. . . six turbojets . . .’

The headmistress was sitting on her hands as though to keep them from striking out.

‘. . . primary mission is as a nuclear bomber capable of striking the Soviet Union . . .’

On the other side of Léon sat five eager young men who ran the local football club. Mouths open. Eyes shining. Hanging on Colonel Masson’s every word.

‘. . . altitude of thirty-five thousand feet . . . mainstay of Strategic Air Command’s bomber strength . . .’

Léon couldn’t see Eloïse’s face, though he’d tried. She was seated at the front beside her father. Clarisse on her right. Around the edge of the room stood a phalanx of American airmen, observing their French visitors with an attitude that Léon could only describe as professional but condescending, like the investigator into Mickey Ashton’s murder. Léon was well aware that in American minds the French were inefficient, impolite and still had public lavatories that were little more than a hole in the ground. Americans were obsessed with plumbing. Plumbing and weapons. They were good at both.

‘Now the big one,’ Colonel Masson announced before pressing the button for the next slide. ‘Our giant of the skies.’

He paused for dramatic effect. Léon saw Eloïse turn her head and say something to Clarisse, who smiled in response. Eloïse’s profile looked tense and her hand brushed across her scar, just as the image of a gigantic aircraft burst on to the screen. Immediately the man in front of Léon cheered and a smattering of applause followed it.