‘Sai, what on earth?’ she demanded. ‘What are you doing? That’s Adi’s department. I thought you were the sensible one.’

‘No, Titi darling, the sensible one is you,’ Jelly told her.

‘What a time for Schumann to choose to get in touch with you. Couldn’t he have tried before there were Nazis? It would have been so much easier… I wonder why he decided to do it now. Has he said?’

Jelly didn’t need her sister’s barbed words just then.

‘Seriously,’ Hortense added, ‘if you need any help, Ralph has friends.’

Jelly’s second brother-in-law was as well connected as anybody in the country. ‘That’s kind of you, but don’t worry. I’m fine. Absolutely fine.’

The phone rang as soon as she put it down, time after time. Her sometime pianist, Ethel Hobday. Madge’s sister, Jane. Norman Hartnell, in person. Everyone had heard the broadcast. Everyone was worried about Jelly. Perhaps that meant she needed to be worried too.

‘They hardly mentioned Erik’s book,’ Adila grumbled.

‘This is ridiculous.’ Alec took charge, fighting his cough. ‘It’s nearly midnight. Some of us have to work tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough.’ He pulled the telephone receiver off its stand and left it dangling by the cable, swinging like a pendulum. The light switches were next, one by one, in the music room, drawing room and dining room, turning the house stage by stage from gold to grey, charcoal to black. ‘Come on, ladies. Time for bed.’

The sisters paused in the dark entrance hall; Jelly reached for Adila’s hand, which closed warm and strong around hers. ‘Adi… This is going to be bad, isn’t it?’

‘It will pass – and we will win, because we have the truth. Whatever happens, remember that, little sister.’

*

Before nine o’clock in the morning, the phone, reconnected, started to ring. Adrienne, at her new boarding school, was in tears in the headmistress’s office. ‘They won’t shut up about it,’ she howled to Adila. ‘They won’t leave me alone. They’re teasing me about ghosts.’

‘It’s nothing to do with you!’ Adila stormed. ‘Let me speak to that blasted headmistress.’

Jelly retreated to her room, dizzy and nauseous, with no appetite for breakfast beyond half a cup of coffee. Brushing her teeth, she nearly threw up what she’d managed to swallow. She sat on the edge of the bath, trying to calm her breathing, vaguely remembering that today she had not heard Adila make any reference to an impending miracle.