Evander felt a return of the terror he had so valiantly suppressed. These men were no different from their American counterparts. No different from the people who rode up in the night and burnt out black shanties. Their sort was the same the world over. Red necks with cockney accents. He smiled in the darkness, watching the streets pass by, trying to figure out where he was.

‘I wonder what that means?’ Archie Tubby’s voice was genuinely interested.

‘What? Ku Klux Klan?’

‘Yeah, funny name, ain’t it?’

‘It’s Greek. It comes from the Greek, Kukos, meaning circle. Klan is from the Scottish clan. The first four Klansmen were confederate soldiers, descendants of the Scottish settlers.’

‘How do you know that?’ Tubby’s voice was nasty now. He couldn’t write his own name. A black man being educated was alien to him.

‘A white lady told me, a long time ago when I was a child. I just never forgot it.’

Kevin Carter laughed.

‘You won’t forget tonight, either, you black ponce. What the fuck did you think you was playing at, dipping your wick with a white girl? You’re scum, you’re shit beneath my shoes, you’re nothing. And you thought you could take a decent white girl and soil her? Well, you’re going to learn a big lesson tonight, mate.’

The mood in the car was ugly, the atmosphere heavy with malice. Kevin Carter stopped the car in the East India Docks. They walked a now terrified Evander into a small warehouse. Kevin Carter picked up a large pickaxe handle, and when the two Tubby brothers had forced him to the ground, proceeded to beat Evander mercilessly across the back of the legs. Finally, when he was unconscious, they broke every one of his fingers. An hour later, they were banging on Glennford’s door. When it was opened they threw Evander’s bloodied and bleeding form on to the bare floor.

‘Here’s your tickets, you lot fuck off tonight! You’re to be gone by the morning or there’ll be more trouble.’

Glennford nodded, wanting to fight but knowing since his years of childhood and manhood it was a fight he could never win. Instead, he did as he was bidden.

They were all gone by first light.

Briony was impressed by Sea View. It was a large rambling Victorian house on the seafront at Southend. It had two large turrets either side of the roof, which provided bedrooms with windows that looked over the Thames estuary towards Kent. The round bedroom to the right of the building was to be Eileen’s.

As Briony unpacked her sister’s things, she noticed that Eileen was sitting on a window seat gazing out to sea.

‘It’s beautiful here, isn’t it, Eileen?’

She nodded, her feet tucked underneath her. She looked like a child again.

‘I like it here, Briony, it smells nice.’