Tom takes a sip of his coffee, already tepid. He winces and lights a cigarette instead. He studies McCall through the smoke. The journalist is waving at the waiter for another Amber Moon. Tom decides, on the spur of the moment, to trust him. McCall strikes him as one of life’s romantics: something about the way the man studied the globe of yolk hanging like a setting sun in its whisky sky, perhaps? Or the way he fell silent, shaking his head, at the memory of Ben Webster’s tenor saxophone.

‘There’s a girl …’ Tom sighs. The warp and weft of his life, reduced to that ripest of clichés. He starts again. ‘I was in Greece before. In 1941. You know about our Greek adventure?’ McCall nods. Tom lays out the bones of the story. ‘Then I managed to find the club again and they took me in. I stayed with …’ He takes a deep breath. ‘With Zoë. Until her friends got me on a boat. Not for long, only a couple of days.’

‘But long enough.’ McCall’s drink has arrived. ‘She was a singer, right?’ He contemplates the liquid sunset again, then raises the glass to his lips and throws back his head. The sun vanishes. He winces. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Let’s go to Little Moscow.’

‘Really? I wasn’t going to ask …’

‘Yeah, you were. And if you hadn’t, well, I’d have been disappointed. That’s some story you’ve been dragging about with you. And you’ve been busy, too.’ McCall gestures with an unlit cigarette towards the medal ribbons on Tom’s tunic. ‘You didn’t get that for doing pretty pictures, Major. April 1941 … you’ve had plenty of time to forget about your singer. But you haven’t. I like that.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Sure.’ McCall lights up and sighs, smokily. ‘I’ve been chasing this war almost as long as you, Major Collyer.’

‘You’d better call me Tom.’

‘OK, Tom. So I’m the kind of guy who wants to do the best he can. They pay me to write about the war, so I get as close as possible. You know exactly what I’ve seen, Tom. And you know that isn’t what I write for the folks back home. If every war correspondent actually did his job and wrote about what he’s seen, or heard, or – Jesus Christ! – smelt, there’d be world peace tomorrow. Anyhow … you’re alive. You’re back here. You’ve got a medal. There’s a girl. That’s the first thing I’ve heard in a fucking eternity that hasn’t made me want to climb into a warm bath and slit my wrists.’