He was saying that now. Earlier he had been less keen on my joining him. Even so, I was glad to have caught up with him. Like it or not, we were a double act – at least while we were on the island – and without him I felt very alone. We went over to Anne Cleary and Judith Matheson, who introduced me to the other man. ‘This is George Elkin,’ she said, adding, ‘I was sorry not to see you at his talk. It was a brilliant start to the festival.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ I said. ‘We had to work . . .’

I had included Hawthorne in my excuse and I thought he’d be grateful but he looked at me in surprise. ‘No. I was there, Tony. I found it very interesting.’ He turned to Elkin. ‘You mentioned that your grandfather was in the Sylt concentration camp.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘He was one of the very few Channel Islanders who refused to leave in 1940, although my grandmother did make it to England. It was only when she arrived that she discovered she was pregnant.’ It was a story he had told many times and there was little emotion in his voice. ‘My grandfather was considered a troublemaker and was sent to Sylt. We don’t know when he died.’

‘Was Sylt a labour camp or a concentration camp?’ Anne asked. ‘I can never remember the difference.’

‘It was run by the SS. It followed a policy of Vernichtung durch Arbeit, which means “extermination through work”. There was almost no chance of survival.’

‘So it was a concentration camp.’

Elkin frowned. ‘You could say that the entire island was a concentration camp. More than forty thousand people died. They’re buried all over Alderney, but mainly in the area of Longis Common.’

It was a cheerful conversation for a literary drinks party and I was searching for a way out of it when there was a bray of laughter and a voice called out: ‘My God! I don’t believe it! It’s Tea Leaf!’

We all looked round.

The speaker was a very handsome man with thick, prematurely grey hair falling in waves from a high forehead. He had already announced himself with a loud public-school accent and it fitted his aristocratic looks: clean-shaven with an aquiline nose and bright blue eyes. He was expensively dressed. It was impossible not to notice the cashmere polo neck, the Armani jacket, the brand-new jeans and loafers, the chunky Rolex watch weighing down his wrist. He had the perfect tan of the yachtsman or the millionaire. He was quite probably both. He was about forty years old, slim, athletic, pleased with himself.

He had rounded on Marc Bellamy, who was gaping at him with a mixture of shock and resignation. The crowd had parted as if to give them space for the encounter.