‘Little Bo Peep!’ she says delightedly. ‘This book had lovely pictures, and I think …’ Her face falls. ‘I think I don’t remember my mother. I remember this girl. Do you see? All these things were coming back to me, hearing you Englishmen. And it made me sad, which …’ She sighs. ‘Which made me angry with you. How stupid.’

‘What happened?’ Tom asks softly. ‘If you want to tell me, that is.’

‘My father had a yacht – that is why I remember his sailor cap – and we used to sail out into the bay for parties and things in the summer. So when the Turks came, he took everything from his shop, all the jewellery, all the money, everything, and put it all on the yacht. Then we sailed off, at night. I can remember looking back, Tom. At Smyrna, burning. The whole city.’ He feels a shudder go right through her. ‘But we were safe. Sailing towards Athens. We would have just started again here. My father would have had a lot of clients: rich Athenians used to go across to Smyrna to buy things you couldn’t find in Greece. It would have been a little different, but it would have been fine.’ She sighs. ‘But instead, we were sailing through the night, and we were getting very near. And then …’

‘You don’t have to go on,’ Tom says, concerned. Her skin has gone damp under his hand, and she is shivering.

‘No. I want to tell you. I was asleep. But I have imagined this so many times. He was sailing along, through the Cyclades islands. There was a mist, but it was calm and he was a very good sailor. He had done this crossing many times. I was lying on the deck, by the … the bowsprit. It is strange what things you remember, and the things you do not. Bowsprit. In any case, my father is sailing along, and my mother is standing next to him. And a big ship, a warship, perhaps, is suddenly there, coming out of the mist. They haven’t seen our little boat. And in a moment …’

‘You were thrown clear.’

‘I must have been. They found me clinging on to the bowsprit. It was a ship that was carrying refugees from Smyrna. A ferry, I suppose, or something like that, but packed, completely packed. They just pulled me out and put me with all the rest. And the next morning we came into Piraeus. That is where Katina Valavani found me.’

‘Because she knew you?’