‘It isn’t that. They’d think me a liar, but they’d cast me out for the very same reason those men mobbed me. Because my family are Jewish.’ He stopped, momentarily unable to go on. ‘You know the circles our Lord Edgerton moves in. You’ve seen the sort of men he entertains here at our hotel. Damn my eyes, I entertain them too. I danced with Unity Mitford. I clasped hands with Gräfin Schecht and twirled her around my dance floor. And all the while their friends and colleagues in that union of theirs are marching against people like me, people like my brother. And that’s why, Nancy. That’s why they must never know who I really am. I’ve been lying to myself all along. I tell everyone who’ll listen that, once you’re inside the Grand, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you were born. All that matters is the dance. But it’s wrong, isn’t it? They marched through my old neighbourhood this week. My brother was up on the barricades, brawling with the Metropolitan Police and those fascists they came to protect – and all the while here I am, dressed up to the nines and dancing with the very same people . . .’

Nancy could see the way the idea was tearing him apart. She went to sit beside him, on the edge of the bed. She took his hand. It was a revelation to see him so shaken. Maybe you’re not the man you said you were, but maybe you’re no worse for it. Suddenly it made sense: why he had so admired the way she’d dressed up and entered the ballroom, even though it was no place for a working-class girl like her. All of his talk about secrets and stories, right here in the Buckingham Hotel.

‘You can’t hate yourself for it, Raymond. You . . . you got out of there, the only way you knew how. What if you hadn’t been able to dance? Is it more honourable to steal and fight than it is to, what, foxtrot and waltz with people you find distasteful? I want to tell you something, Raymond. I know what hard work is. I’ve done it all of my life. You have a talent. You’re allowed to use it. And you’re allowed not to feel guilty about it as well. We all have to get on the best we can.’

Raymond was still.

‘You’ve been strong, Nancy Nettleton.’

Nancy smiled. ‘And then I come here and being strong isn’t what they want. You have to learn to be meek and quiet. You have to learn not to be noticed. You have to be something other than yourself.’