“When’s your lunch break?”

“Half past twelve—yes, may I help you, sir?”

“May …? Oh, yes,” he said, thankfully not looking over at Miss Snelgrove, who’d suddenly appeared. “I’d like to see some stockings.”

“Yes, sir,” Polly said, bringing out a box and opening it. “These are very nice, sir.”

He leaned forward to finger them. “Do you have these in any other colors?” he asked, and then, under his breath, “I’ll meet you and Eileen at twelve-thirty at Lyons Corner House.”

“Yes, sir. They also come in powder pink and ecru,” and, to give him an exit opportunity, “I’m afraid we’re out of ivory.”

“Oh, too bad. My girl had her heart set on ivory,” he said, and left, mouthing “Twelve-thirty” at her.

Eileen still wasn’t back by then. Polly left a note for her and went to tell Mike, who’d got them a table in a secluded corner.

“I told her to meet us here,” she said, shrugging off her coat.

He handed her the menu. “I’m afraid they’re out of everything but the fish-paste sandwich.”

“Which is still better than anything at Mrs. Rickett’s,” Polly said. She handed him a sheet of paper.

“More airfield names?”

“No, the upcoming raids. The worst one’s on the twelfth. Sloane Square Underground station, seventy-nine casualties.”

“And no break in the nightly raids, I see,” he said, looking at the list.

“Not till next week. Then they shift to the industrial cities—Coventry and then Birmingham and Wolverhamp—”

“Coventry?”

“Yes. It was hit on the fourteenth. What’s the matter?”

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” he said excitedly. “We’ve only been considering the historians who are here right now, not the ones who were here earlier.”

“Before 1940, you mean?”

“No, not earlier now,” he said. “Earlier in Oxford time. Historians who had World War II assignments last year. Or ten years ago. Like Ned Henry and Verity Kindle. Weren’t they in Coventry the night it was bombed?”

“Yes, but that was two years ago … Oh,” she said, seeing what he was getting at. It didn’t matter when historians had done it in their past. This was time travel. Here in 1940, they would do it two weeks from now.

“But there’s no way we could get to Ned and Verity. We don’t know where they were except that they were in the middle of Coventry, in the heart of the fire. And it’s much too dangerous—”

“Not any more dangerous than Dunkirk,” Mike said. “And we know one place they were—in the cathedral.”

“As it was burning down,” Polly said. “You can’t be thinking of trying to go there. The area around the cathedral was nearly a firestorm.”

“It might also be our fastest way out. We wouldn’t necessarily have to find Ned and Verity. The drop was inside the cathedral, wasn’t it? All we have to do is find it.”

“Mike, we can’t go through their drop.”

“Why not? We know it was working.”

“But we can’t use it because it was two years ago. We can’t go through to a time we’re already in. Their drop opens on Oxford two years ago, and two years ago—”