Of course I did. Everyone knew about the iron angel that watched over London, with her searchlights sweeping the water of the Thames at night to prevent American spies coming over to our side. It was aboard her that the first Soviet troops had arrived in 1945. ‘Yes.’ I paused. Before we started chatting about the Archangel and all the other strange things that had fallen on London, there was something I needed to ask. Sally was always getting in trouble with married men, and it had made me cautious. ‘You’re not married, are you?’ I said.

He hesitated before bursting out laughing. ‘Well, you’re direct. All right, the truth is I’m getting divorced, but it’s not yet final. And I have a daughter. She’s a lovely girl. Very sensitive. Not like her mother.’

I wasn’t sure how I felt about all that. ‘You sound like you can’t wait for the divorce.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Is she that bad? What’s she like?’ I tried not to sound jealous.

‘An actress. She was a bit of a star for a couple of years.’

‘Fancy.’ I hated her.

‘Sometimes. But not me, I’m just your average family doctor.’

‘You’re not, though, are you?’ I said, meaning it. ‘Average, I mean.’

‘Well, who wants to be average?’ He thrust his hands in his pockets and suddenly he seemed like one of the boys I had had to tell off for making the others giggle in class. ‘Right, well, let’s head for Covent Garden. Scene of drunks and reprobates for four hundred years.’

‘All right.’

We spent the day wandering around Covent Garden, watching the musicians and Punch and Judy shows. The big theatre there was once Britain’s finest opera house, Nick told me. Now it sported mass entertainment for the workers’ tastes – vaudeville acts, gay singers and slapstick comedy. We arrived back at Waterloo Station as the sun was setting but didn’t say much – we were a bit too thoughtful, I think. I climbed up to the carriage and leaned out the window.

‘I would like to see you again,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I asked. I genuinely couldn’t understand why someone like him would be interested in someone like me.

‘Kindred spirit,’ he said.

7

Checking to make sure that the waitress was in the café kitchen, I flicked quickly through Lorelei’s book. It was written in watery ink, spread through twenty-odd sections. Each section was separated from the next by a blank page. Each had two columns. The first was a column of strings of two letters followed by thirteen digits. The second was a column of three-letter strings.

The first section in the book had four lines. They remained throughout the book, but more lines were added from time to time, growing to seven lines in the final section: