I exhaled shakily. Regarded her with huge relief. Helena had stopped too, and I think she’d heard the exchange and understood. A shadow cleared from her face, in recognition. Being my sister, it’s possible she’d asked the same question of her niece in the past. I blew my nose and we made to move on, to follow Ant, Ned and the twins, not to the Sydney Arms, the obvious watering hole which Michael’s Soho mates might fall into, but to the Builders Arms in Britten Street.

We still hadn’t got past the vast church. It was enormous. We quickened our step. Ahead of us, a side door opened. I stiffened in alarm. The hymn hadn’t finished; it was still in its final throes. Yet someone appeared to be leaving early. A blonde woman emerged on her own. She was wearing a short, pale grey suit with a fox fur collar. As she turned to go in the other direction, taking the path through the churchyard to Andrews Street, I saw her profile. I realized it was Ingrid Schroeder.

19

The pub was disappointingly full. Everyone was eating and looking pretty permanent, but luckily, at a large table in the far corner, a party of youngsters were looking set to leave. My sister’s no slouch at this sort of manoeuvre: she’s got very sharp elbows. She hovered and pretended she hadn’t seen the group at the bar also set to stage an ambush, and had her bottom on a chair the moment someone moved theirs. Ant, well used to such an operation, deftly cleared away the glasses and popped them on the bar, ignoring the glares of the usurped party. He then ordered gin and tonics all round and brought them to our table. The twins, thinking for one mad moment they’d got one too, sipped, and realized it was lemonade.

‘You could have made an exception today, Ant,’ Maudie reproved him hotly. ‘We’ve had a very traumatic day. In fact, I think I’ve got PTSD.’

‘Bollocks, you’ve enjoyed yourselves enormously. You love a bit of drama. And anyway, I have made an exception. It’s lemonade, not water.’

‘You’re only saying bollocks because Imo did,’ Tess told him. ‘It’s not something you usually say.’ She turned, starry-eyed, to her cousin. ‘I thought you were magnificent, by the way.’

‘Magnificent,’ her sister echoed.

Imo grinned sheepishly and sank into her gin. ‘Can’t believe I actually did that,’ she said in amazement. ‘I mean – where did that come from?’

‘The heart,’ Helena told her. ‘And if you hadn’t done it, I might well have done it myself. Why should we all sit there listening to her lies? Our silence giving credence to them? You were right, she thought she had us trapped.’