Mrs Windrush, her hair bound up in a headscarf and her mouth full of pegs, waved from her garden, where she was putting out her washing. She was proud of her little patch of grass, although she wished that her husband could afford a maid.

‘Perhaps next year,’ she always said when she and Bernice chatted. They’d been married a year, and Mrs W kept dropping hints about the pattering of little feet, so it was probably just as well that Mr W was up for promotion at his office job in Norwich.

Benny had to wait at the T-junction for Mr Hodges’ wagon to trundle by, the horses already sweating in the sunshine. Hodges was a greengrocer, and delivered door to door every morning. His and Benny’s routines had become so predictable that they had started to nod at each other, and complain if the other was late.

‘Give you a penny for your boots!’ he called out this time, winking. Benny smiled back, wondering just how vulgar the catchphrase was. She probably ought to have blushed.

Bernice’s target was the Lyons teahouse in the centre of town. A convenient cycle-rack stood on the wall near by, which she reached, as she always did, just as the town-hall clock was striking its precise twelve o’clock. She dismounted carefully, remembering when she’d ripped the hem out of a skirt by catching it on a pedal.

The fashions of 1914 were a lot easier to wear than Victorian gowns would have been, at least. There wasn’t any upholstery under the skirt, and no bustle to deal with. Electing to be the paragon of fashion today, she’d chosen a (rather extraordinary) black and navy-blue checked skirt, with a buttoned jacket and lace collar. She had toyed with the idea of a mourning band, to hint that she was well-connected enough to miss the Duke of Argyll, but there was the possibility that somebody would think it was more personal than that and ask about it, and that would be too horrid. She untied the ribbon on her hat, and propped it on the handlebars, shaking her hair extensions to and fro. They still didn’t feel natural, but her own short bob would have required some vast and incredible explanation.

The teahouse served a wonderful fruit-cake. Benny ordered a slice with her customary pot of tea.

‘Will that be all, madam?’ the smartly uniformed waitress asked her.

‘Yes, thanks. That’s a strange accent, where are you from?’

‘Germany.’ The waitress giggled. ‘I am from Baden Baden, and I am working here for the summer. Mr Condon, the manager, he is my uncle.’

‘Oh, right, well, that’s… good.’ Benny flashed the woman a smile. She curtsied and went back to the till.