‘Why? What happened to …’ Olivia paused as she said her daughter’s name for the first time, ‘… Jess?’

‘Nothing. She and Ruby were considered old enough to be in the NAAFI. I got kicked out of my battery, as I had inadvertently given them the heads-up that I, too, was under age.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess you reap what you sow, and I deserved what I got.’

Olivia looked doubtful. ‘I wouldn’t say you deserved to get kicked out …’

Bonnie was shaking her head. ‘I did. Because I reported George as well – he was a pal of theirs with whom I’d had a run-in. Only they didn’t take kindly to George lying to them, and they sent him overseas under age.’ She looked at them gravely. ‘I would never have done it had I known those would be the consequences. I was being stupid and petty over something that happened when we were kids.’

‘Does Jess know what you did?’ said Olivia.

Bonnie nodded miserably. ‘Tom told her, after giving me a right dressing-down. He wanted me to ring her and apologise directly, but I told him that after what I’d done, Jess deserved an apology in person. Tom, being part of an ack-ack battery, moved on shortly afterwards and I’ve not seen him since.’

‘But you’d be able to get in contact with him if you really needed to?’ Olivia said hopefully.

Bonnie smiled. ‘I reckon I could, because I stayed in contact with some of the girls from my old battery.’

‘How quickly can you get in touch with these girls?’ Olivia asked.

‘I’ll try a couple of them tonight,’ said Bonnie. ‘It’s a lot harder to contact people in batteries than it is if they’re on a base like this, but I’ll do my best, and with a bit of luck we might know where Tom is by tomorrow.’

Olivia gave her a grateful smile. ‘Thanks, Bonnie, and if it’s any consolation, the measure of a good person is knowing when they’ve done wrong, and that’s what you’ve done, unlike my father who still refuses to tell the truth.’

Bonnie eyed her curiously. ‘Is it too nosy for me to ask what happened? Only my mother said your father was rich, so he assumed that Jess was born out of wedlock – to his mistress or something similar – but obviously that wasn’t the case.’

Olivia relayed the tale of her time in Glasgow.

Bonnie nodded slowly. ‘So Mam was partly right. He was a rich Scouser, and Jess was born out of wedlock. She said he got angry when she accused him of being the father, so that’ll be why.’

‘It would have been too close for comfort,’ Olivia agreed. ‘The less you all knew, the better. That’s why he chose to leave Jess on the doorstep. The last thing he wanted was for someone to record his details, because that way I might have found my daughter or she might have found me, and everything he had done would have been for naught.’