Morag straightened up and checked the name on the medical card fixed to the bed. “Mrs Docherty, is it? I’m the police. It’s safe to come out now.”

Those rheumy eyes turned again, distrustful. “The police?”

“Yes.” She showed Mrs Docherty her warrant card.

“I didn’t hear the all-clear.”

Morag made herself smile. “How’s your hearing, Mrs Docherty?”

“Not what it was…” Mrs Docherty reached out a thin hand.

It took some time and care to get Mrs Docherty out and on her feet.

Together they began to shuffle to the door. Mrs Docherty wouldn’t go anywhere without her handbag.

“That’s what we had to do in the war. Stay under the bed.”

“I know. You did the right thing.”

Mrs Docherty’s hair was a tangle of white, her body a sagging sack, pulled down by gravity; she could barely walk. But, Morag noted absently, she had good, high cheekbones. A beauty, in her day.

She thought of the people she’d walked past in the street, before coming here, in the end, to assist this old lady. Which of those others might have been a better choice to spend her time on? Which a better investment, for the human race? Was there some lost Einstein, someone who might have figured out the truth of this disaster? Or even somebody who might have been able to go on and help someone else in turn?

Someone, in short, she admitted to herself, who was of more use than this old dear…

But even if that was so, who was she, Morag, to choose? What did useful mean? To a husband or daughter or grandchild, this old lady might be the most valuable person in the world.

So she held Mrs Docherty’s arm as they made their slow, difficult way along the corridors.

“…I rather enjoyed the war,” Mrs Docherty was saying. “Old Winnie. Bit of a lad, we always thought. One of us. Of course I was only a girl…”

They reached the exit, and Morag handed her over to a nurse.

The traffic lights were either out altogether, or scrambled. The pain in Ted’s chest, as he tried to control the car at speeds of no more than a few miles an hour, was blinding.

Jack sat in the front seat beside him, belted in, clutching his box of books and toys. The boy was silent, Jack thought. Too silent. But there was nothing he could do about that for now; the lad was going to see a lot more nasty stuff before they were done with all this.

If, he thought through his pain, they ever were.

Ted called by a camping gear shop, but it was as empty as if it had been looted. Same with an Army surplus store.