“Yes,” Polly said, latching on to the explanation. “He’s twelve.”

“My little brother spends all his time scanning the skies for Heinkels and Stukas.”

“So does my nephew,” Polly said, and worked the conversation around to airfields. She got several more names from her and another one on her lunch break, though none had two words of which the second began with a P.

But when she returned to her counter, there was good news. Miss Snelgrove had told Doreen that Marjorie was being released from hospital and would be coming back to Townsend Brothers soon. Which meant this was just like her other assignment—it had looked like she’d altered events, but in the end things had worked out. She should have had more faith in time-travel theory and in the complexity of a chaotic system.

And she should have remembered her history lessons. The code for the D-Day invasion had been broken by the Nazis, which could have been catastrophic for the Allies—but when the wireless operator had shown Field Marshal von Rundstedt the Verlaine poem, he’d ignored it. “I hardly think the Allies will announce the invasion over the wireless,” he’d said.

And there were hundreds of examples like that scattered throughout history. “All’s well that ends well,” Polly thought, quoting Shakespeare and Sir Godfrey, and focused on quizzing Sarah Steinberg, whose brother was in the RAF, about airfields.

By the end of the day, she’d obtained a dozen names. She tried them out on Eileen when she came back from Bethnal Green, with no luck. Eileen hadn’t been able to get an identity card either. “The clerk in Bethnal Green told me I had to go to the National Registration office, but it isn’t open on Monday.”

“It’s probably just as well,” Polly said. “Mrs. Rickett serves trench pie on Monday night.”

“What’s that?”

“No one knows. Mr. Dorming’s convinced she makes it out of rats.”

“It can’t possibly be that bad,” Eileen said. “And at any rate, I don’t care. I can bear anything now that I’ve found you and Mike. I’d be willing to eat sawdust.”

“That would be Mrs. Rickett’s victory loaf, which we have on Thursdays,” Polly said. She tried to give Eileen some money for lunch, but she refused it.

“We’ll need all our money for our train fare to the airfield,” Eileen said, and went off to see if Selfridges had an ABC.

It didn’t. And neither did the Daily Herald’s office. When Polly got off work, Eileen and Mike were both waiting for her outside the staff entrance, and they reported no luck in finding one.

And no luck with the drop. “I stayed there till two,” Mike said, “and nary a shimmer of a shimmer.”

He’d spent the rest of the afternoon at the Herald, going through July and August editions for airfield names. As soon as they got to Notting Hill Gate and the emergency staircase—which was colder than ever—he tried them on Eileen. “Bedford?”

“No,” Eileen said. “I’m convinced it was two words.”