‘Shut up!’ snapped Felicite, wondering how good the American girl’s French was.

‘Take me back to Brussels immediately!’ demanded Mary again, in English, giving the woman no indication of her language comprehension.

Felicite managed to pat Mary’s leg, before the child pulled away. ‘Don’t be a silly girl.’

‘You’ll get into dreadful trouble, both of you.’

Cool took the Beveren road, better to bypass Antwerp, but too abruptly. The tyres screeched, the rear of the car sliding slightly. Felicite said: ‘Almost there now.’ To the man at the wheel, whose eyes were more often in the rearview mirror than on the road in front, she said: ‘I told you to slow down!’

‘Do something! Get us out of this!’ said Cool. His voice was cracked.

‘I make the decisions. You do the driving. So drive.’

‘What’s your name?’ Mary demanded of the woman at the opposite end of the seat.

Felicite laughed. ‘I know yours but you can’t know mine. It’s my secret.’

‘I know what you are! What you’re going to do!’ This was an adventure. Much better than riding the Metro.

‘Do you?’ smiled Felicite, aware of Henri’s startled reflection.

‘My father will pay. He’s very rich.’

The woman’s smile widened; the child’s remark chimed with the idea that had already occurred to her. ‘Of course he’ll pay for someone as pretty as you.’

‘So you understand?’ demanded the child.

‘Totally.’

‘I meant what I said, about no one slapping me.’

‘I’m sure you did.’

‘So don’t forget!’ Abruptly, reading the signpost as they passed, she said: ‘Antwerp. Is that where we’re going?’

‘To a big house on the river. You’ll like it.’

‘I won’t.’

‘We’ll see.’

The child looked away, to stare out of the car. The rain had started almost as soon as they left Brussels and the clouds were thicker, heavier, nearer the coast, ushering in the night-time darkness.