Ben gazed around curiously. Calais looked tired, like the Sparrowhawk two months ago when he came back to live on her, faded and battered and in need of paint and repair, but it was exciting to be here. Ben jumped aside at the loud clanging bell of a tram, he stared up at the tall narrow houses with shuttered windows. They walked past a café. He breathed in the smells of tobacco and coffee, and felt his blood run a little faster.

“It’s so different from home,” he said.

“It’s certainly shabbier than I remember,” mused Lotti, sidestepping an overflowing dustbin. “I expect that’s the war, like in England. Or maybe it’s just that I was seven when I was last here. There’s a lot you don’t notice when you’re seven.”

The first thing they bought in town was a map, which they studied on the street outside the shop.

“I reckon two days to get to the hospital site,” said Ben. “So we’ll buy provisions to last at least that. Once we’re off, I don’t want to stop again except to sleep.”

“Let’s find food supplies, then,” said Lotti. “I’ll ask someone. Oh, Ben—look!”

She took his arm and dragged him across the street to a pâtisserie, with a dazzling array of cakes in the window.

“That’s not shabby!” she said. “Come on, I’m going to buy you an éclair.”

“Lotti, there’s no time for cake!”

“Ben!” Lotti was shocked. “There is always time for cake!”

In a little square shaded with sycamore trees by the pâtisserie, while Federico stalked pigeons, Ben and Lotti sat on a bench to eat their cakes. Biting into her chocolate éclair, Lotti felt the years peel back. She was seven years old again, sitting with Papa in a café in the market square at Armande on the last day of the holidays, and he had bought her a cake as a treat.

“Don’t tell Moune or Mama,” Papa had said, with a twinkle in his eye. “You know how they feel about eating between meals.”

“It spoils the appetite for lunch,” seven-year-old Lotti had recited, hollowing the cream out of her éclair with a finger.

Oh, those summer holidays! And if Lotti were to eat cake in Armande again, would it taste the same without Papa?

She’s different here, thought Ben, watching Lotti. More French, like this was where she belonged, just like he belonged on the Sparrowhawk, but also more restless, like she was searching for something.

For the first time, it occurred to him that Lotti had never spoken of what she would do once they had found Sam.