“Come along,” she said. “Merope and I will make you some nice hot tea and some supper.”

He shook his head. “There’s something I must tell you.”

“You can tell me at home.” She buttoned up his coat as if he were a child and helped him to his feet. “We need to go. The sirens will be going soon, and we mustn’t be caught out in the raids.”

He shook his head. “The raids won’t start till midnight tonight. Over Wapping.”

He knew when the raids were, and where. Thank God. She needn’t worry about their house or Alf and Binnie’s school being blown up anymore. Or about having changed the future beyond all recognition. Or losing the war. The only thing I have to worry about is getting him home, she thought.

“We still need to go. We don’t want to be out in the blackout,” she said, taking his arm, but he was looking at the painting. “Mr. Dunworthy—”

“It will never open,” he said, sinking back down on the chair.

If only Mr. Humphreys was here to help her, but there was no sign of him. “I’ll be back straightaway,” she told Mr. Dunworthy, and hurried across to the north transept, but the verger wasn’t there, or in the nave. He must have taken the sailors up to the Whispering Gallery. She hurried back.

Mr. Dunworthy was gone.

She ran down the south aisle.

He was nearly to the door. “Where are you going?” she asked, but it was obvious. He’d intended to steal away while she was gone.

He’s much more ill than I realized, she thought. Perhaps I should take him to hospital.

But he would never agree to that. He was already opening the heavy door, going out onto the porch. It was raining. He couldn’t be out in this, even for the short walk to the tube station. It would have to be the taxi.

“Stay here,” Polly ordered, “and I’ll go hail a taxicab,” but he was already starting down the steps. “It’s raining,” she said, grabbing his arm to stop him. “Go back up on the porch.”

“No,” he said, shivering. “There are things you don’t know.”

“You can tell me at home.”

“No. After I’ve told you, you won’t want—”

“Of course we’ll want you,” she said, truly alarmed now. “You’re talking nonsense. You can tell me on the way.”

“No. Now.” He began to cough.

“All right,” she said hastily, “but we can’t do it standing out here in this freezing rain. We need to find somewhere warm. The place you’ve been staying, is it near here?”

He didn’t answer.

He doesn’t want me to know where he lives, she thought. He doesn’t want me to be able to find him. Which meant at the first opportunity he intended to attempt to get away from her again. She had to get him somewhere warm before he had the chance.

But everything along Paternoster Row had burnt down the night of the twenty-ninth. She’d seen a pub off Newgate on her way home from St. Paul’s that first Sunday. She’d have to hope it was still there.