‘I’d love to,’ Tony said with alacrity. ‘There are lots of allotments in south-east London and my old man used to have a huge one. He grew potatoes, carrots, leeks, parsnips and cabbage. As a nipper I helped him whenever I could.’

‘And did your father grow fruit as well?’ Adam asked with interest as they headed out of the room, Heini and Emily Elise hard on their heels.

The last thing Hugo heard, as the door closed behind them, was Tony saying, ‘Only rhubarb—which he always called roobubbery.’

His mother had already left the room in order to put the kettle on for a pot of tea and, glad to be on his own for a few minutes, Hugo walked across to the fireplace and lifted down the silver-framed photograph of Hester that had pride of place.

It was over four years since he had lost her and his grief was no easier for him to bear now than it had been in the early days. He knew his mother longed for him to fall in love again and perhaps marry, but he was certain he would never do so. Hester had been his life. He couldn’t even begin to imagine anyone replacing her.

It was a photograph he had taken himself, in the Tiergarten. It had been autumn and the suit she was wearing was chocolate-brown with a small fur collar and neat fur cuffs. She was leaning against one of the railings that fronted the lake, laughing at something he had said, the breeze tugging at her shoulder-length dark hair.

Remembering the pure, perfect happiness of that moment he wanted to weep. The people who had told him that time was a great healer, had been wrong. His pain was constant and intolerable and as deep as it had ever been. Introverted by nature, he had become even more so. With immaculate politeness he shunned everyone who tried to get close to him. Only at Shuttleworth Hall did he come close to relaxing—and even there questions tormented him.

How had his beloved wife died? Had she been shot? Hanged? Beheaded? When had her execution taken place? Where? Nightmare images nearly robbed him of his reason. It seemed impossible to him that anyone could suffer mentally, as he was suffering, and yet still remain sane. The total concentration needed when flying had been his salvation. In the cockpit of the Lancasters he had flown on bombing sorties over German naval targets and north Germany, he had found some kind of bizarre relief, his hatred of all Hitler stood for superseding—for a short time at least—his grief.

With unsteady hands he put the photograph back on the mantelshelf. The bombing sorties he had coped with, even welcomed. What was far more difficult were the kind of operations he had been assigned to since his move from Lancasters to Mosquitos. Mossies had initially been designed as fast, unarmed light bombers, but the Mossie he and Tony flew was part of an elite Pathfinder Squadron. Their task was to fly ahead of the main night-bombing force and to locate and then mark targets with flares for the bombers to home in on.