He walked back towards the gate and then heard her voice calling him. ‘There won’t be anyone next door,’ she said, pointing at number 25.

‘At the moment? You mean they’ve gone out for the day?’ He had a lengthening list of not-at-homes who would need another visit later in the week.

‘No, I mean they aren’t there. They’ve gone away to France, I think, or maybe Belgium?’ She looked over her shoulder.

‘France,’ said her father. ‘Not that there’s much left of the place, by all accounts.’

The collector nodded. There wasn’t a need for further explanation. ‘Do you happen to know if their maid went with them?’

‘I don’t think so. The place is locked up. I can check with Jane if you need to know exactly where she is?’

‘That won’t be necessary. The enumerator for her district will deal with it.’ He nodded a goodbye and closed the gate carefully behind him before continuing his route.

The garden of number 25 looked tired; no flowers here, he thought. The shutters were closed and the house seemed forlorn, as though the life had gone from it. There would be many missing names on the census forms this year. Men who had been listed in 1911 as schoolboys or stonemasons, bankers or butchers, who no longer commanded a line on the government document. Or at least, not on this document. They would be listed in other places, he hoped.

He lifted the latch on the gate of number 27. It squeaked into life as he pushed it open, and he could hear the laughter and squeals of excited children as he walked up the path.

A cornflower-blue door this time, the colour of fresh flowers and summer skies.

1931

Chapter 32

February 1931

Ann was so preoccupied with mental arithmetic as she walked home from the shops that at first she didn’t see the man standing outside 25 Library Terrace. She only became aware of him when he reached for the latch on the gate. He looked up the path to the front door, and she saw him hesitate.

Her heart quickened. This was only to be expected after so many years, she thought.

He paused, and then stood up straight as though on parade, opened the gate and started to walk along the path. She held her breath, and watched, transfixed, as he stopped halfway and looked across to the cherry tree she had planted with Father in 1908. The flower bed beneath the tree was in an abandoned state, a tangle of dried-up geranium stalks that she should have tidied up last autumn.