Ella smiled to herself. It’s like having the best of both worlds here, she thought, an open stretch of green before me and, close by, a city.

The food was excellent, the bed comfortable and the room clean, but Ella could not sleep for excitement. What if he’d changed his mind after all this time? What if he didn’t believe she was his daughter? A million anxieties crowded her restless mind until she slept uneasily at last, but only to dream of a man standing beneath the trees and weeping over a grave; only the man looked more like Uncle Danny than the face in the wartime snapshot.

After lunch, dressed in an open-necked check shirt, trousers and with a sweater round her shoulders, Ella set off, the precious scrap of paper in her pocket. Armed with a street map she soon found the tree-lined avenue, with detached houses set back a little from the road. She pulled a comical face to herself; just the sort of exclusive houses she would imagine a group captain inhabiting.

She found the number given on the paper and stood staring up at the house for a long time: a double-fronted, white-painted red-brick house with a polished mahogany door and a gleaming brass knocker.

‘Oh, heck!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Now what do I do?’

Her heart was thudding in her chest and her palms were sweaty with excitement. Should she just walk boldly up to the door and knock? But what if his wife answered? How could she ask for Mr Trent? And should she say ‘Mister’? Was he still in the RAF or what? Oh dear, this wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought. She turned and walked a little way down the road and leant against a low wall, watching the house.

She’d better move again, she thought, else someone in this select neighbourhood would begin to think she was ‘loitering with intent’.

She was about to wander further down the road again when she had an idea. Could she pretend she was a student from a local college doing research about the last war? About the RAF perhaps? It was worth a try.

She walked back towards the house and hesitated once again at the gate. Then, taking a deep breath, she walked up the driveway and, before her courage could flee, knocked at the door. She waited, balancing on the balls of her feet, ready for flight.

The door opened and an elderly woman stood there. She was at least seventy. Ella’s heart sank. She was far too old to be the wife of Philip Trent.

‘Not today, thank you,’ the woman said crisply, though not unpleasantly. The door was already beginning to close.

‘I – I’m not selling anything,’ Ella blurted out. ‘I’m looking for someone.’