To make sure she thoroughly worried everyone Mary decided to take the most roundabout route possible to get home. She would use the Metro, and let her mother find the ticket in her pocket. Mary was absolutely forbidden to use the system – had never in her life been on an underground train anywhere in the world – but was sure she could work it out from the map at the street entrance. They’d hardly be able to believe it in class tomorrow when she told them. She knew all the other girls admired her: she wasn’t frightened of doing things, as they all were. That’s why she was the leader, the person they all copied. It would cause one of those fights between mom and dad, too.

Mary never reached the Metro, although she could see a station at the next road junction. She frowned sideways at the car that suddenly drew up beside her, irritated at the disruption of her plans and by the shape of the Mercedes, different from the car that normally picked her up. Her escort wasn’t normally a woman, either. Mary didn’t recognize this one although she knew there were women among the embassy’s security detachment. A car behind them began sounding its horn impatiently.

‘Are you from my father?’ Mary demanded imperiously. They’d already know they were in trouble for being late.

‘Yes,’ lied Felicite Galan, speaking in English because the child had. ‘Get in.’

‘Where’s Bill and Claude?’ asked Mary, demandingly offering her backpack for the woman to take before sliding into the rear beside Felicite. It was grown-up to address the men who normally came for her by their given names: would let these two know how they had to behave. The car behind hooted again.

‘They had to do something else,’ improvised Felicite. She was looking intently at the girl, smiling in anticipation. To Henri Cool, at the wheel, Felicite said in French: ‘She’s lovely. We’ve done well.’

Mary couldn’t remember any of her escorts talking French, which she knew well enough to interpret the remark although not understand it. ‘You’re going to get into trouble for being late.’