‘I have a country home in the woods near Hirson. The Germans are being driven back. I’ll follow our armies till I get to my other home.’

‘That’s halfway to Germany,’ Aimee explained to Marius. To the woman she said, ‘Marius here would make a good servant. He can look after the donkey... protect your treasures from bandits on the road...’

‘Bandits?’ the woman screeched.

‘Yes. German bandits. Enemy soldiers who’ve deserted their army and live by robbing refugees like you.’

‘I am not a refugee. I am just going for a summer holiday. I am Madame Clare and no one would dare attack me.’

Aimee just spread her hands. ‘If you say so, Madame Clare.’

The woman’s crimson mouth turned down as if she’d supped on vinegar wine. ‘But there would be no harm in the boy coming along. And you could come too... mend my clothes, cook my meals, wash my undergarments.’

Aimee was about to say, ‘I would rather die,’ when she saw the man with the silver hand at the end of the street strewn with rubble. He was asking a dust-stained policeman some questions. Aimee spoke quickly. ‘Yes we’ll do all of those things, but only if you can get us out of Peronne now. There is a man chasing us because he thinks we stole some secret plans.’

‘Stole? You’re thieves?’ the woman hissed.

‘No, we are heroes of France. He’s a British traitor. But we need to get away. Let us hide on your cart amongst the furniture. If you get us out of Peronne we’ll see you safely to Hirson.’

‘I can’t pay you,’ the woman said quickly.

‘We’ll work for free. We’ll be better than slaves. Just get us out of here.’

‘Hide in that wardrobe,’ the woman said.

Marius scrambled on the cart after Aimee, slid under the canvas cover and crouched inside the wardrobe. They closed the door on a darkness that smelled of mothballs.

September 1918: The road from Peronne

The wagon creaked and moved. Peronne smouldered like a dying ember while poison gas hung from the trees like tinsel.

Aimee peered through a crack in the door of the wardrobe. They were in a train of refugees. Some heading east to return to their homes now that the German invaders were leaving. Some following the armies in the hope of making money or finding work. She was sure no one else was heading towards a summer home in the forests of the east, like Madame Clare.

But there was no sign of the man with the silver hand, trailing behind like a shadow of death.

For a moment Aimee thought she had a glimpse of the man with the long black cloak and the walking cane. The man who had saved her as she hid in the wood. But she blinked and he had disappeared.