‘Joe! I had no idea you were so popular!’ said Inspector Bonnefoye. ‘Welcome to Paris! The car’s over there. Let me take your bags.’ He gestured to a police car parked, lights on, engine running and pointing in the direction of the city with the driver at the wheel. They pushed their way over to it and threw the bags into the back seat.

‘Bonnefoye! Never more pleased to see you, old man!’

‘But you didn’t tell me you were to be accompanied?’ Bonnefoye was eyeing Miss Watkins with interest.

‘A fellow passenger separated from her group. Miss Watkins,’ said Joe, surprised to find that she’d followed him but relieved to see she’d abandoned her notion of staying to see Lindbergh touch down. ‘I say, would you have room for her? She’s bound for the city centre also. Her taxi doesn’t seem to have made it through.’

‘I’m sure I can squeeze Miss Watkins in the back,’ said Bonnefoye easily, and Joe was amused to hear the automatic gallantry in his voice.

Before they could get in they were startled by the whining and coughing sound of an engine low over their heads, making for the runway. The crowd screamed and pushed its way to the sides as the monoplane, gleaming briefly silver as it passed between the searchlights, throttled back noisily and set down on the runway, continuing onwards towards a dark part of the airfield. In evident confusion, the pilot stopped and turned the plane around, nose pointing back to the hangars. But before he had gone far in this direction, he cut the engine abruptly, no doubt in regard for the crowd as people surged back again, risking loss of limbs, unaware of the danger of the scything propeller blades. For a moment the Spirit of St Louis stood in the middle of the track way, small, battered, oil- and salt-caked and unimpressive once out of its element of air. And then, as the engine spluttered its last, souvenir-hunters moved in and began to pull strips of canvas from the wings, tugging anything that yielded from the framework of the plane. Press camera bulbs flashed and popped, trained on the door.

‘For God’s sake!’ Joe shouted, horrified. ‘Do something, Bonnefoye! Those maniacs will tear the poor bugger apart! He’s been flying solo in an open cockpit for a day and a half over the Atlantic – he won’t be in any fit state to face up to a reception like this!’

As he spoke, the pair of them were already shouldering their way back through the crowd, using their height and aggressive energy to forge their way through to the door. Flourishing their warrant cards in a valiant attempt to keep the masses at bay, they stood together, arms extended, holding an uncomfortably small space free in front of the plane. After a moment, a window slid open and a voice called uncertainly: ‘Does anyone here speak English?’

‘We do!’ Joe shouted back. ‘Captain Lindbergh! Welcome and congratulations! I think it might be a good idea if you were to get out, sir, and we’ll escort you to the hangar.’

The door opened and the tall figure of Charles Lindbergh appeared, blinking in the spotlights and the flash of the cameras. With a cry of concern, Bonnefoye put an arm under his shoulders and helped him to the ground, murmuring words of welcome. The pilot was pale and weary and looked much less than his twenty-five years. He stared in dismay at the jostling mass between him and safety and Joe remembered that, by all accounts, the young man was terrified of crowds. Taking his other arm, Joe felt his panic and the stiffness of his limbs and came to a decision.

‘Captain, this is an impossible situation you’ve flown into. Idiotic, unplanned and damned dangerous! If only we could get you over to the hangar . . . Look – why don’t you give me your flying helmet and take my hat instead?’

Lindbergh’s eyes brightened with instant understanding. ‘A decoy? That what you have it in mind to be, sir?’

‘Might work. I’m tall. I can keep my hair covered, shout cheerful platitudes in English. That’s all they want. In any case, I don’t suppose they’ve any idea what you look like. Anyone in a flying helmet and talking English is going to get the attention of this crowd. Let’s give them a run for their money, shall we?’

The American grinned and nodded. ‘Well, I’d call that a very sporting offer . . . and good luck to you, sir . . .’

They ducked down and, crouching under cover of the wing, swapped headgear.

‘They’ll never think of chasing after a couple,’ said a confident English voice and Heather Watkins pushed forward. She stood on tiptoe and adjusted the black fedora firmly over the aviator’s golden hair. Companionably, she tucked an arm through his. ‘Right, er, Charles, the hangar’s that way. And just by it there’s a police car with its engine running and a driver who knows where he’s going. How about it?’

They strolled off, unimpeded, and Joe heard with amusement her cheerful voice: ‘Now – tell me – how was your flight?’

And the laconic response: ‘Why, just fine – and yours?’

Joe had no time to hear more. He straightened and moved to arrange himself with a tentative wave in the searchlight now trained on the cockpit door, helmet strap dangling provocatively. ‘Well, hi there, folks! I guess this must be Paris . . .’

He got no further. In a second he was swept up with a howl of triumph on to the shoulders of two men in the crowd and carried off in parade down the runway towards the terminal building. The throng on the viewing gallery cheered. Joe turned this way and that, nodding and waving to his admirers, shouting the occasional greeting or navigational direction in English. Worse than riding an elephant. His back was slapped repeatedly, his hands wrung, he was lowered and hoisted on to fresh shoulders several times. A painful experience and not one to be endured for long.

Eventually, after spending what he considered an overgenerous amount of his time on this performance, he bent and informed his bearers that after more than thirty hours in the air he needed to have a pee. Urgently. He reckoned they had ten seconds to set him down. It seemed to work. Once his feet were on the ground, he made off at speed towards the hangar, tearing off the helmet as he ran. The front door of Bonnefoye’s car opened at his approach and he flung himself inside. Bonnefoye and Miss Watkins were sitting together on the back seat.

‘What have you done with our hero?’ panted Joe.

‘Dropped him off at Reception in the hangar. He’ll be all right. The American Ambassador’s taken cover in there with him, offering medical aid, engineering assistance and a bed and breakfast at the Embassy when they can make a break for it. And now, Sandilands, if you’ve quite finished horsing around and showing off, perhaps we can extricate ourselves from this mêlée and get ahead of the crowd before they all block the road back into Paris.’ Bonnefoye looked anxiously at his watch. ‘If you’d taken many more curtain calls we’d have missed the best of the entertainment at Zelli’s, which is where I’m planning we’ll make a start.’

Chapter Five

Act followed act and George settled to enjoy himself. Music Hall. This was something he could respond to. And the quality of the turns was high – the best the world had to offer, he would have thought, and lavishly staged. He admired especially a slender woman in a tight black sheath, and was moved to wiping a sentimental tear from his eye as she sang of the fickleness of men. He wasn’t quite sure about the androgynous creature who swung out over the audience on a Watteau-like, flower-bedecked swing and, at the end of the act, peeled off a blonde wig to reveal a man’s hairless scalp. Not entertaining. But he enjoyed the lines of chorus girls, performing complex manoeuvres to the split second. Some backstage drill sergeant deserved a commendation, George reckoned.

To huge enthusiasm, Josephine Baker made a second appearance just before the interval but this time she sang. Coming forward and involving the audience with a touching directness she warbled in a thin, little-girl’s voice, strange but, once heard, unforgettable, of her two loves: J’ai deux amours, Mon pays et Paris . . .