‘I don’t know …’ he stammers, but what he is thinking is that she is British. How utterly amazing! That means he’ll be safe. And it must be – of course – why he had picked her out among all those other people. ‘I just heard you singing.’ The girl gives him one more desperate glare and bursts into tears. But Tom is too overcome with relief and surprise – she is English, so that means he is safe – that he doesn’t notice. He squats down next to her. ‘What’s your name? What were you singing?’

The girl buries her face in her hands. Her shoulders are heaving. Tom has no brothers and sisters; his playmates have been the children of his parents’ Indian servants, who would never dream of crying in front of a little sahib. To his distress, he finds he doesn’t know what to do.

‘I bet you’ll find them in no time,’ he says briskly. ‘What’s your name? Mine’s Tommy. Tommy Collyer. I’m from India.’

‘My name is Zoë Haggitiris,’ the girl mumbles hollowly through her cupped hands. She sniffs. Her shoulders are still quivering. ‘I live in …’ She lifts her head and swallows with a great effort. ‘I live at number 32 in the Street of the English Church … in Bournabat,’ she adds, frowning, as though he is an idiot for not knowing.

‘I’m from India,’ he repeats. ‘Is your house near here, then?’

‘India?’ She frowns, and the dirt around her eyes cracks into tiny lines. ‘Mama has a ring from India. Don’t you know where Bournabat is? It’s in Smyrna.’

‘Oh.’ Tom racks his brains. He’s sure he has heard the grown-ups mention that word. A faint memory surfaces. ‘Do you have lots of figs there, or something?’

The girl frowns. ‘Figs?’ But Tom, overcome with relief that she isn’t crying any more, rambles on.

‘Smyrna … Do they have giant butterflies in Smyrna? In Koovappally – that’s my home – they have butterflies as big as this!’ He spreads his hands.

‘Ooh.’ The girl’s eyes narrow, and Tom knows instantly that she is picturing the butterflies, the drifting, lazy beauty of them.

‘Transparent yellow.’ He is so happy to have cheered her up that he forgets he is speaking. ‘Indian yellow. Cadmium scarlet. French ultramarine.’

‘What are you saying?’ The girl is listening intently.

‘Oh!’ He has been running his fingers across the paintbox in his mind, chanting the name of each shiny square that he might use to paint a butterfly. ‘Colours,’ he says, a bit embarrassed. ‘Um … gold ochre …’

‘I saw a horrible red,’ the girl says, drawing her knees up under her chin. Her feet are bare and filthy. ‘The most horrible red. Like the mouth of a monster.’

‘Crikey.’ Tom closes his eyes and thinks, touches a cube of paint, reads its label. ‘Like alizarin crimson?’