For God’s sake. Aaron had watched him unstrap the prosthesis before they left, with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that had to do with intrusion, and the strange absence of the missing hand, and the look of leather straps on pale skin. He simply hadn’t made the connection. “Sorry,” he said.

“I don’t actually mind you calling me a vegetarian,” Wildsmith assured him. “I do object to being called a Spiritualist, because I’m neither a gullible idiot nor a crook. Whatever you may think.”

“I don’t believe you’re either of those things.”

“Then why the test?”

“If I was positive you were a crook, I wouldn’t go to these lengths,” Aaron said. “I’m open to the possibility that you’re unusually gifted.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Possibility,” Aaron repeated. “I am not inclined to believe without evidence, but I won’t shut my eyes to what the evidence shows.”

“Not a Spiritualist either, then.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Aaron said. “A lot of Spiritualists aren’t unduly gullible, or wilfully blind to the truth. It’s a way to deal with grief.”

“And it offers them hope: I know that. But seeing a medium who claims they can speak to your dead son is like me going to a doctor who promises to grow my hand back. Sometimes you just have to live with things.”

He spoke with a sort of determined cheeriness that didn’t really mask strong feeling. Aaron said, “May I ask what happened?”

“To my hand? Oh, funny story: I was shaving, someone startled me...”

“What?”

Wildsmith rolled his eyes. “Stray Jerry bullet, you berk.”

“Where were you?”

“129 Field Ambulance. Flanders. Stretcher-bearer. I was waving for attention, and I got it. Took off most of the palm. There were a couple of carpal bones left, the ones at the base of the hand, and they thought they could save something but after a lot of faffing about—infection, whatnot—they gave up and removed the rest. It was relatively tidy as these things go and the forearm bones were undamaged. Could be worse.”

Aaron didn’t like to think how much time and pain the ‘faffing about’ had entailed. “I’m sorry.”

“Worse things happen at sea. Well, you’d know: you were Navy. Where?”

“Grand Fleet, in the North Sea. Blockade work.”

“How was it?”

“Cold and wet, mostly. After Jutland, Jerry didn’t make much effort to break the blockade. We were twiddling our thumbs for the last couple of years. It had to be done, but...” He hadn’t wanted to be in the thick of desperate fighting: he wasn’t insane. But he had undeniably felt guilty about finding himself in a relatively uneventful post when others were enduring so much worse. “It did rather feel like sitting around, sometimes. In a cold, wet, stormy sort of way.”