During the next two days, as they awaited the arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Carter from HQ, Samuel meticulously went over all he’d previously covered with Rupert Barrett, Amos Cole and Willie Parker while the MP lieutenant noted down for the record every single word of every single interview.

The tediousness of the days was broken up, however, by the sheer joy that awaited Samuel each night, and each morning too when he awoke to find her beside him. They slept in Amelia’s quarters now. They had since the night of his return when she’d led him to her bedroom.

As if they’d been lovers for years, Samuel and Amelia had embraced their affair to the fullest. They’d made no particular declaration to one another, there seemed no need, but Samuel couldn’t help recalling Rupert Barrett’s simple statement regarding Kasey Davis and young Betty. It wasn’t just an affair. There was a bond between them, they truly loved each other. That’s us, he thought with a sense of wonderment, that’s Amelia and me.

A private man who rarely shared his feelings, yet who now appeared to have no qualms at all about revealing himself – to Amelia anyway – Samuel wondered how he’d come to reach the ripe age of thirty-two without ever experiencing love. Certainly he’d had affairs with women, which he’d enjoyed both sexually and companionably and which he’d presumed to be love, or at least love of a sort, but he was now proven wrong. It was obvious Amelia too had blossomed and in much the same way, no longer withdrawn, shedding her inhibitions to become a different person altogether. Extraordinary, he thought. We’re like two broken pieces of something that have come together to form a whole.

‘I find it amazing that I don’t feel even the smallest shred of guilt,’ he mused as they lay in each other’s arms, naked and sated, her thigh still slung wantonly over his. It was Wednesday night. Lieutenant Colonel Carter would be arriving in the morning, but he wasn’t going to think about that yet.

‘Why should you feel guilty?’ she asked, studying him in the light of the bed lamp. Amelia liked the bed lamp left on as they made love. She liked to see him. The sexual experiences of her marriage had always been conducted in total darkness.

He stroked her hair and smiled. ‘Because what I’m doing is against military regulations, that’s why. I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself.’

‘I’d have thought I’m the one who should feel guilty,’ she said lightly, ‘certainly the one who should be thoroughly ashamed. I’m still a married woman, after all. Martin hasn’t been officially declared dead yet.’

Her statement, bold as it was, shocked him, yet she’d made it as casually as he’d professed his own lack of guilt. He remained silent, staring up at the ceiling, not sure what to say. Finally, ‘Do you feel guilty?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she answered without a moment’s hesitation.