Katie’s pulse quickened. What on earth was the matter? Michael was perfectly fine, as obviously were Maudie and Sybil Routh, and there was no one else she could think of to worry about.

‘Ah – Katie,’ Sybil said, limping towards her. She suffered with her feet and was, as usual, wearing slippers with her smudgy green frock. In the bright sun, her grey hair seemed to have a yellow tinge. ‘Bit of a do, I’m afraid. We’ve lost Mr Gudgeon.’

‘Lost him?’ Katie wondered for a split second whether he had ambled off somewhere.

‘Dead in his bed,’ Sybil said with her usual directness. Katie heard Edna Arbuckle make a slight sound of protest. Edna would always have whispered passed away. Or even fallen asleep, which would only have confused things further. ‘I had to have him carted away in an ambulance.’ This phrasing provoked another squeak from the other side of the wall.

‘The poor, poor man,’ Edna said, mopping her eyes. Susan looked weepy and pink-cheeked too. If Sybil was upset, it would have been hard to tell, but Katie knew that was the way with Sybil. She didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve. Michael, still chewing on his bit of bun, was staring up at them all in fascination.

A thought made Edna perk up. ‘I suppose you’ll be looking for another lodger now, won’t you, Miss Routh?’

‘Oh, I dare say.’ Sybil held the gate open for Katie and Michael and, as if grateful to have a reason to escape, ushered them into the house and shut the door.

‘Oh!’ she declared. ‘That woman – how she does keep on! I’m all behind myself, but I have got a stew pot on. I expect you need a cup of tea . . .’

Katie followed her shuffling figure – so familiar now, with her baggy clothes, hair pinned up in a bun – to the back kitchen, from where there was a delicious smell of stew. Sybil was good at making food tasty, even on short rations. In fact, despite her bad hands and feet, Sybil ran the house very competently.

She made tea, then fished about in the kitchen cupboard. ‘I could do with a nip of something stronger . . . Want some?’ She held out a bottle of malt whisky, which she only ever drank on very special occasions.

‘Oh, no thanks,’ Katie said. She didn’t like even the smell of whisky, and certainly didn’t want to deprive Sybil.

‘Ah!’ She took a nip and sank down on a chair with an outrush of breath. ‘That’s the ticket.’

Katie sat Michael down and poured a helping of tea into her saucer for him.

‘So – whatever happened? To Mr Gudgeon, I mean?’

‘Oh, well, the old boy never got up this morning is the long and short of it. Must have gone in his sleep. The awful thing is, I didn’t notice, because as you know he didn’t always rise early, and I was going up to the shops myself today. I went off smartish, so as not to be right at the back of that beastly meat queue – hence . . .’ and she gestured at the stew pot. ‘It was only later, when I’d got back and was looking to see if I had any pearl barley . . . I realized the house was quiet. You know, a different sort of quiet from usual. Eventually I went up and tapped on his door, and there was no reply. The poor old fellow was stiff as a board by then, no teeth in – oh dear, oh dear. I mean, he was going on for eighty, but it’s always a shock when it happens.’