‘Possibly. She said that if for some reason he couldn’t tell anyone he was on his way home, she might miss him. He might arrive on the train at Waverley and walk up from the station to surprise them, and find the door locked. Ursula was worried that if he couldn’t get into the house he might go away again and they would never know, so the scullery door was never locked, just the kitchen door. And there was always a chair set aside every evening, and a piece of bread in a tin, and a bottle of ale.’

‘In a tin?’

‘To stop the mice.’

‘But he was dead?’

‘She never believed it. She was convinced he was still alive.’

‘I suppose you can see how she might have thought that, if he was never found.’ Tess turns the black disc over in her hands and reads the inscription.

‘It was a compulsion. She told me that in the end everyone stopped commenting and just let her do it. And I suppose if it allowed her to sleep at night, then what was the harm?’

‘You leave the door open now.’

‘It’s what I grew up with. I just continued with it. And occasionally a lodger has stayed out late or lost a key and I have found them asleep on the chair in the scullery in the morning.’ Georgia smiles. ‘But I don’t leave bread and ale out for them.’

‘Is there anything else in there?’

‘There is a photograph of him. That’s the last thing.’ Georgia studies the black and white photo and automatically unpinches her fingers over it, as though to enlarge the image. ‘He looks like a fine young man. Most of them were.’ She draws it closer to her face. ‘He has grown a moustache, see? And he’s in his uniform. I think he wants to look like an officer who leads his men.’ She props the photograph up against a pile of cookery books on the dresser. ‘Welcome home, Finlay. I’ll get you a proper frame very soon.’

‘What do you want to do with his medals?’ Tess says gently.

‘Back in the box for now. They’ll be safe there. And the Dead Man’s Penny as well.’ She pulls herself back to the present. ‘We can do the last box after lunch. We’ll eat in the garden, under Finlay’s tree.’

Chapter 65

July 2011

The lettering on the last box is clear.

GEORGIA

There are school jotters marked ‘History’ and ‘Mathematics’, English essays, sports day awards, and two school ties. And there is a file containing birth and marriage and death certificates, including one for a Louise Black in 1909.

Georgia opens one of many school reports at random and reads it out loud. ‘“Georgia is a most interesting and talented young lady.”’ She laughs. ‘I am quite sure that “interesting” wasn’t meant as a compliment.’

‘What else is there?’