I lay back against the pillow and talked him through it, step by step. When I say ‘talked him through it’, that’s not quite true. There were several times when I found my eyes shut and my talking was all inside my head, so I had to backtrack. But he was patient. Gentle. Kinder than he’d been since the crash. We talked about Madeleine Caron. Deceased. Shot dead. ‘She was a raving Communist,’ he said, ‘and she certainly made her point. That will be millions of dollars worth of damage she caused to the planes and the runway. I don’t think Colonel Masson will be inviting locals around again in a hurry.’

I told him about my conversation with Mayor Durand. I left it till last because I knew he would be angry.

‘You told him you knew about the copied documents in his desk? Are you crazy, Eloïse? Why the hell did you do that?’

‘Because I am sick to death of having my life threatened. Can’t you see that? I am sick of having people hiding in shadows, stalking my movements and making my mind spiral down into black holes. I want to drag them out of the shadows. To hold them up to the light where I can get a good look at the bastards.’

I was shaking. Not with fear this time. Not with shock. I was shaking with gut-wrenching rage. ‘I’m not like you, André,’ I said fiercely. ‘I thought I was. But too many people are getting hurt. Including you. I can’t accept it as a necessary part of the job, I can’t live with them hovering round my bed at night. I thought I could but I was wrong.’

‘Eloïse, hush, let it go.’ He stroked my arm where the blisters from the stable fire had left their mark. ‘Rest now. It’s almost morning, it will be light soon and then the shadows will melt away and you’ll feel like my brave Eloïse again.’

But it wasn’t true, I knew that. I would never feel like that Eloïse again. I’d lost something in that blast yesterday that I wouldn’t be getting back.

‘I told Mayor Durand that I knew about the top-secret documents in his desk because I wanted to frighten him, to panic him into making a mistake. It’s the only way he’ll ever reveal his source of Intelligence at the air base.’

‘They are scared of you, Eloïse.’

‘That’s good. Because I’m scared of them.’

He studied me by the dim light of the lamp. ‘But they don’t know you,’ he said softly, ‘like I know you.’ He patted my hand. ‘Now go to sleep. It won’t feel so bad when you wake up.’

I let myself believe him.

‘I’ll read you to sleep.’