A strike back against the people who had taken his daughter from him. Yes, it wasn’t much but it was something. What he wasn’t speaking of, but I could sense, was the guilt he felt over his daughter’s death, the guilt that he hadn’t been there to protect her.

And that meant that I was taking advantage of a decent man’s burden. Like everyone else, I suppose, I thought of myself as a good person but the new era had brought about changes. ‘You’re not frightened of them?’ I asked.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Oh, what can they do to an old man like me?’

I thought for a second. There was the ageing man I had seen holding up a banner in Liberation Square, thrown into the back of an army truck.

The truth, really, was that they could do a lot.

It felt different being in Lorelei’s house with someone else – this time the weeds outside were just weeds, rather than creatures to grab hold of me; the seeping smog was just the weather and not some smothering blanket. ‘Nice place,’ Tibbot said under his breath as we moved through. ‘Hardly noticed it yesterday.’

‘Nick lived here, with her,’ I said.

‘Very nice.’

As I passed the bathroom door, I couldn’t help but look in. A thin shard of smoky light was slipping through the gap between the curtains and glittering in the long gilt mirror. Dust seemed to swim hypnotically in it, and, as I stared at the dark glass, straining to make myself out, pressure built in my head. And then, without warning, another figure slipped in from the edge of the glass, just as it had the first time I had seen it, when the room had been hot and damp and Lorelei’s eyes shone under the water. I yelled and spun around straight into his outstretched hands.

‘What’s wrong?’ Tibbot said urgently, searching my face for the cause of my fear.

I pushed away from him. ‘Nothing,’ I said, shaking my head, annoyed at myself. ‘Nothing. Let’s just get on with this.’ He stood back and watched as I hurried to Lorelei’s bedroom. ‘There,’ I said, as he entered the room, doing my best to sound grounded. I pointed to the posters on the wall. ‘That’s where the key comes from.’ I showed him the list of codes I had copied from the book.

‘Look at the first letters: DD; VN twice; TW; AM; DO; TL.’ For each one, I indicated the corresponding poster on the wall: ‘Daisy, Daisy; Victory 1945; The Whole Deal; A Month in the Country; Double or Quits; The Lucky Lady.’