Mr Bell, parking askew so that he took up two spaces, looked vaguely affronted, but the others were too busy sorting out their luggage to soothe hurt feelings. Instead, Tess and Jonty hurried to the ticket office where Tess produced the telegram and the station master himself spread out timetables and helped them to plan the route which would bring them to Liverpool Lime Street most rapidly.

Because they had missed the train Tess would normally have caught they had several changes, but provided the services were more or less on time they should reach their destination by early evening at the latest. Mrs Bell had packed them some sandwiches and apples but nothing to drink, because she knew that vendors of tea, coffee and lemonade lined the platforms at most country stations in order that travellers might quench their thirst.

Tess and Jonty made full use of these facilities but even so, by the time their train drew in to Liverpool Lime Street, they were hot and tired and Tess’s anxiety had grown to nightmare proportions. She fairly tumbled out of the carriage, festooned with bags and baskets, and looked wildly round the platform. She did not expect to see Albert, knowing that he could have little idea of her possible time of arrival, but she thought he might have arranged for one of Gran’s colleagues at the bakery to meet each train. However, there wasn’t a face she recognised to be seen, so she was doubly glad of Jonty’s calming presence. He helped her to collect everything – his own possessions were in the rucksack on his back – and then the two of them set off. They had reached Lime Street itself and were staring rather hopelessly at the lengthy queue for taxis when Tess’s attention was caught by the headline on the fly sheet behind which a newspaper seller was offering copies of that day’s Echo. The fly sheet said, in enormous black letters: Coach overturns, many injured.

Tess gasped and grabbed Jonty’s arm. ‘That must be when Gran was hurt. Buy a copy, Jonty,’ she begged. ‘No wonder Albert sent us that telegram! I pray my poor darling gran isn’t badly hurt! She and I are such a happy little family . . . Oh, if anything happens to Gran . . .’

‘Join the queue,’ Jonty ordered. ‘I’ll get the paper.’

He left her, and Tess had turned to join the queue when, further up it, she saw someone she knew. He was staring straight ahead, not acknowledging her, behaving, in fact, the way he had always behaved since their falling out three years previously. But now, in her thirst for information, Tess would have questioned the Devil himself, had he been present. She abandoned her luggage and went over to the tall, fair-haired figure already halfway up the queue.

‘Snowy! Oh, Snowy, I’m in the most dreadful trouble. Have you read the Echo this evening? Yes, of course you have, you’ve got a copy. I’ve been away, but Mr Payne sent me a telegram to say my gran was in hospital after being injured in a coach accident. I don’t know which hospital she’s in, so I suppose I’ll have to go straight to Heyworth Street, unless . . . oh, Snowy, do you know where they took the injured?’