I saw the way he looked at them. The way a parent looks at a beloved child singing on stage, pride and joy gleaming on his face. Clarisse had been swept into a different group but I’d made straight for this one the moment I saw he was to be its escort. Interestingly, so did the mayor. He came to stand right next to me.

‘You have been asking too many questions, Eloïse,’ he said, leaning too close, checking my reactions. ‘Getting in the way.’

No preamble. No charm. No, ‘Nice to see you here, Eloïse.’ I didn’t back away.

‘Getting in the way of what?’ I asked.

‘In the way of things you don’t understand. Of people you don’t know.’ He added with emphasis, ‘People you don’t want to know.’

His eyes were hard and leaden. If he thought he could frighten me, he was right. Blood pounded in my chest.

I gave him a smile. ‘I’m surprised you don’t have your camera with you today.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Well, I know how you like to keep photographs in your desk.’

I was stirring. Stirring hard.

His teeth bit down on his lower lip, so fiercely he must have tasted blood. It effectively stopped any words rushing out, but the expression in his eyes made the pounding rise to my throat.

‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,’ Major Dirke said, raising his voice over the increasing noise of the aircraft engines, ‘let me introduce you to the elephant walk.’

Several people laughed.

‘Elephant walk is a USAF term for when a number of aircraft taxi in close formation down the runway for minimum interval take-off.’ He smiled at me. I didn’t smile back.

Twelve silver planes were rolling towards us. In the lead came six fighters in pairs, with six huge bombers tight behind them, with ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ emblazoned in huge letters on their sides in case we should forget who was laying on this show for us today. I glanced round for Léon, wanting him at my side, but he was standing behind the four groups, deep in conversation with Colonel Masson. Discussing the Mickey Ashton murder, I guessed, but all talk was forced to cease as the brain-drilling whine of the jets grew louder.

A phalanx of raw power roared past us as the first two fighters surged up into the air together with such unimaginable force that I could feel it pressing down on my body. Rattling my lungs and pushing against my eyeballs. Vibrating the ground under my feet. Shaking me up. Adrenaline pulsing. As the next pair of fighters accelerated with a blast at our eardrums, I looked around at the faces in the crowd, all transfixed. Except one.