An aeroplane – civilian – rushed overhead in the direction of the coast. Flying in the other direction, a grey-and-black jackdaw soared and dipped, then came to a sudden swooping stop on one of the broken timbers that poked from the house’s upper storey into the void a few metres above the ground – the remnants of what had been knocked down by a doodlebug in ’44.

Above those exposed bones of the house was the uneven and ugly replacement back wall, thrown together in the months that had followed the peace. The lines of the bricks weren’t straight, and the weather or subsidence had combined with the poor workmanship to prise apart two jagged expanses of them at the rear of Nick’s study. He once told me that the gap led to the wall cavity, where the birds roosted at night.

The bird I was watching hopped along the projecting timber to the wall, sat for a while without moving, as if waiting for something to happen, then fluttered through the breach. I stared up at the brickwork, wondering. In the corner of the garden there was an old Anderson shelter that served to store some of Nick’s larger junk, and inside I found a rickety and paint-splattered folding ladder. As I propped it up against the wall, the jackdaw emerged, looked down at me as if I had disturbed it and flew away.

The ladder shifted a bit as I climbed, but I kept on up until my face was level with the broken floorboards jutting out. The wood, I saw, had been baked and lashed with rain so many times since the night of the German air raid that it resembled something from a shipwreck, and when I took it in my hand, a piece tore away. I reached up to the gap.

‘What are you doing?’ I jerked my hand back and grabbed the sides of the ladder. Our young neighbour, Patricia, was framed by her open window.

‘I … there’s a birds’ nest.’

‘So?’

‘They were making a noise. Disturbing Hazel. Nick’s daughter.’

She looked doubtful. ‘Where is Dr Cawson?’ she asked. She had watched me and Tibbot leave the house yesterday. Someone might have told her to note down our comings and goings.

‘He’s at work.’

She crossed her arms. ‘I heard one of Churchill’s lying broadcasts coming from his daughter’s room. Through the wall. Do you let her listen to that rubbish?’

‘Oh, God, no. I’ll make sure that’s the last time.’

‘It was this morning. My husband said we should speak to you.’

‘Thank you. Yes. She’s just a girl, doesn’t know what she’s doing. I expect we were the same at her age.’

‘Were you?’

‘Oh, I was a horror. But thank you for letting me know. I’ll have a word with her.’ Go away, I wanted to shout at her. Just leave us alone.

‘She has read The Compass?’