‘Can’t I tempt you? I’m off to a party tomorrow night at Les Danseuses.’

‘Well, I’m off to a party myself tomorrow night. A dance at the American air base.’ I paused.

‘What is it, chérie?’ Clarisse’s voice was soft and smoky. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I need to ask a favour of you, boss.’

She let loose a short surprised whistle that shot down the line. ‘Now that’s a first. What do you want?’

‘I need information on two men. They both live in Paris, but they work in Intelligence so they are good at being invisible. Both big, both in suits, both French. Their names are Gilles Bertin and Maurice Piquet. Bertin has a pencil moustache and keeps his hands clean. The other one, Piquet, is pure beef muscle.’

‘And why are you searching for information on these men?’ I said nothing.

‘Okay,’ Clarisse muttered. She sighed elaborately.

‘They are dangerous, so take care,’ I warned her. ‘They are what our American friends call tough cookies.’

‘So am I.’

Clarisse hung up.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Americans do not dance as well as Frenchmen. I learned that much.

They stepped on my feet with as little finesse as America stepping on France. But they did it with such broad smiles and with so much laughter that I put aside all my fury and fear, and I laughed with them. They proved to be an unexpected combination of bold teeth and respectful hands, of tall stories and secret confidences. And they called me ‘ma’am’ – yes ma’am, no ma’am, would you care to dance, ma’am? Which made me want to kiss them. They didn’t seem to give a damn about my face scar either. But maybe when you have hundreds of men from the United States Air Force on a base and only a handful of women, some in uniform, some not, well, what’s a little scar between friends?

I drank beer, something I would normally never touch. But this wasn’t normal, was it? This felt like a bite out of the future, a quick taste of what was coming our way. The evening in the recreation hall was buzzing with its bright yellow chairs on chrome legs and lamps that looked more like space rockets, its pulsing music and its young men convinced they could kick down worlds and rebuild them with their chewing gum, their Hershey bars and their big cars.