‘Just the lights gone off. That’s all,’ Tibbot reiterated, calmly. He stayed where he was, as she looked between us with her chest rising and falling. ‘Happens all the time, doesn’t it? Tomorrow the radio will say it was the Americans tampering with the lines or something.’ Her breathing slowly returned to normal, and she timidly pushed herself away from the wall. The lighter threw a strange, elongated silhouette of her on to the wall.

She edged back to the table, with tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘That’s right,’ I said. I took my handkerchief from my sleeve and handed it to her to wipe away the salt water. ‘That’s right. We’re fine now.’ I sat her down, and we all took our places again in the amber glow from the lighter. ‘Rachel.’ I put my hand on her wrist. ‘I have to know. Was Nick Cawson part of what you were doing?’

She rubbed the sides of her head, as if she were in pain. Under her fingers I saw little patches on each side of her skull that had recently been shaved and now had a thin coating of stubble. ‘Shocks,’ Tibbot said under his breath. I tried to say something but couldn’t find the words. It seemed barely human.

‘Rachel,’ I said again. ‘Can you remember if Nick Cawson was part of it?’ She looked down at herself with such sadness. ‘Rachel …’

Perhaps my frustration was coming through in my voice, because Tibbot told me quietly to leave her for a minute. His breath made the lighter flame flicker. ‘Who brought you here, Rachel?’ he asked.

‘A blue,’ she mumbled.

‘A policeman brought you here?’ The bulb above us came back on, making us all wince, and Tibbot snapped off his lighter. ‘Was he a local officer?’ She nodded. ‘How did he find out about you?’

‘The nurse told him. The nurse. Another hospital.’

‘Before this one?’

‘Yes. For this.’ The tip of her middle finger brushed along the line of pale dead flesh.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘We fought. I said it was too dangerous, the Soviets …’ She became confused again. ‘She pushed me and I fell.’

‘Did you fall against something?’

She nodded. ‘Then I was in the hospital.’

What had she been before the War? A shop owner? A soldier’s daughter? A theatre seamstress? I looked at her left hand, but could see no evidence of a ring. The only mark of a life before was the thin white one running through her skin. That was all that she had been allowed to keep.

‘Why did she do it?’ I asked more gently. ‘This … work. What was Lorelei doing it for?’

‘Money,’ she said quietly. ‘Excitement.’

They say that during the War half our agents in France were there for the thrill. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange that Lorelei would do the same.