Utterly exhausted, Sybil fell asleep against a sailor, who in turn was half leaning on her. The pair dozed throughout the last leg of the journey, only to be woken by the heavy clanking of the steam train as it rumbled and hooted its way into Euston Station.

‘Sorry, miss,’ said the sailor when he awoke. Shuffling with embarrassment, he stood up to retrieve his duffle bag from the luggage rack above his head, where his mate lay stretched out full length in a deep sleep. ‘Oi, we’re in London!’ he said to his pal, as he rudely shook him awake and the train rumbled to its final stop.

Sybil waited for the worst of the crush to pass before disembarking and making her way out of the station, just as Ronnie and Sally had done only days earlier. Hailing a taxi, Sybil gratefully settled in the back seat, where she was regaled by the taxi driver with gory details of Hitler’s bombing sprees. When he stopped at the destination Sybil had given him, she looked around the vast bomb-site littered as far as the eye could see with mountains of rubble, brick, twisted metal and broken pipes.

‘Is this Gladstone Gardens?’ she cried in despair.

‘It is, or rather was,’ the driver answered. ‘Hitler had a fair bash at this too,’ he added bitterly.

‘But, b … I was hoping to meet somebody here,’ she stammered in confusion.

‘Well, you can see there ain’t nobody here to meet, sweetheart, unless you have an appointment with a rat,’ he said, as he nodded towards a skinny rat slinking its way through the debris.

‘Where has everybody gone?’ she asked. ‘The residents who lived here?’

The driver shrugged. ‘Who knows? They could be anywhere.’ Aware of her condition and her pale, strained face, he added sympathetically, ‘Shall I drop you off at Finsbury Park, love? There’s a few pubs down that way and a couple of cafs,’ he suggested.

Feeling utterly deflated, Sybil gave a feeble nod. ‘Yes – yes, please.’

Sitting at a Lyons’ Corner House, drinking strong tea and eating toast and margarine, Sybil considered her next move. She had come this far – she had to see it through and at least keep looking for the missing children. Right now, with her aching back, sore feet and throbbing headache, she could have cheerfully shaken the pair of them.

‘What on earth possessed them to run away in the first place?’ she thought for the umpteenth time. ‘What hare-brained idea got into their silly little heads?’