‘I know. I’ve been trying to work out why that might be.’ Georgia runs her fingers along the sealed edge. ‘It was in Annie’s jewellery box, so she knew about it, but she didn’t open it either. I’ve been trying to imagine what I might have done if I’d been in Ursula’s shoes. If a letter arrived for someone who was missing. A personal letter for someone I thought of as my son. Would I open it? And what if I wasn’t totally convinced the person was dead? Would that make a difference?’

Tess frowned. ‘You might keep it safe for them, for when they got home?’

‘You can see how that might happen.’

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Georgia gets up quickly, as though there are suddenly a hundred things to be done. Her phone, which is lying on the table, gets caught in her sleeve as she stands and is launched across the room. It lands with a thud on the corner of the stone hearth and they both watch in horror as the screen smashes.

Georgia is first to speak. ‘Well, that changes things a bit. There won’t be enough time to get it fixed before I leave. I suppose I’ll just have to print off all my tickets and hotel reservations. It will be quite like the old days to be going away without being in touch with the world back home.’

Chapter 72

September 2011

The maître d’ of the small hotel where she is staying has provided Georgia with a map, and circled her destinations in incongruous purple pencil.

She walks along the pavement, following the route he has suggested. At the edge of the village, past the last of the houses, she sees the tree-green sign.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

She opens the low gate and steps into the cemetery. It’s a warm day. Above her are swifts, swooping across the blue sky. They do not scream. The grass is closely mown. This is a place that’s looked after with pride, she thinks. She sits on a bench near the side wall for almost half an hour, feeling no pressing need to wander among the graves, no urge to read the names so carefully carved on the headstones. It’s enough to simply be present.

Eventually, she gets to her feet and begins to walk along the rows. A lesson in regimental history, and in lives cut short, unfolds with each step. Every so often she comes upon a stone without a name. And another, and another, and another.

She makes her way along every row, finding more and more nameless white slabs.

‘Is this you, Finlay?’ she says to each one. ‘Is this you?’