‘Pa, what is it?’

Billy’s father sensed the wariness in his son’s voice. He hesitated before going on.

‘I’m worried for you, son. That’s what it is. You don’t fool me. We look the other way, but maybe that’s not right either. Maybe we’re all complicit. Robbing from where you work, it’s . . . not the Christian thing. There’s right and there’s wrong. Now, what those toffs of yours are throwing away, well, maybe that’s not theft. Who knows? Maybe that hunk o’ red deer got dropped on the kitchen floor, and your dandies are too proud to eat it, all because of a bit of dirt. Well, I’ll never say no to that. I’m a proud man, but not so much as I’d deny my children. But . . . there are lines in life, son. Do you know what I’m saying? There are lines we mustn’t cross, not if we’re good, God-fearing people. And, son, when you come home with your pockets full of silver—’

‘Oh, Pa!’ Billy exploded. ‘It’s Christmas night! You might just say thank you and—’

‘Now, Billy—’

‘No, Pa. You listen. I’m helping. I want to help. Those bairns deserve everything I got, and more. So do you, and so does Ma. So why don’t you just let me? I’m sorry, Pa. I’m sorry if I’m doing better than y—’ Billy stopped. His father’s face was suddenly crestfallen. Perhaps he had taken it too far. He set his glass down and muttered, ‘Sorry, Pa, this bourbon’s stronger than I reckoned. It’s gone straight to my head. I’m going to bed now. It’s Christmas in the morning. I always loved Christmas.’

Billy did not turn back, not even as his mother came back into the room. Upstairs, he threw himself onto his bed, with fists clenched at his side. Through the walls his brothers and sisters were still chattering. By God, he missed the pure innocent magic of Christmas.

Innocence. Now, there was a word. Billy tried to ignore it, but he could still hear his father as he closed his eyes to go to sleep. There’s right and there’s wrong. Well, Billy had always known it. And taking tips from Mr Charles for eavesdropping on Lord Edgerton and his Fascist Union friends, copying down the contents of a few envelopes passed here and there, taking careful note of what Graf and Gräfin Schecht said about Mr Baldwin and Mr Chamberlain when they gathered for drinks in the hotel bars, had never seemed so very wrong to him. Billy was too young to remember the Great War, but he was not young enough that he couldn’t see the impression a war like that left on his father. Who would want the world to slide into another war like that? And if the titbits he picked up in the hotel might help Mr Charles in whatever glorious endeavour he was engaged in, well, Billy was proud to do it.