‘Bit late to be out, sir,’ says the soldier.

‘I’m heading for Koumoundourou Square,’ says Tom. ‘Classified business.’ The lie comes easily and he feels nothing as he says it.

‘Can’t let you go any further in the dark, Major,’ says the captain who Tom finds in command of the tanks. ‘But I’m sending out a patrol at 0600 hours and you can tag along. Make yourself comfortable.’ He waves to where a tarpaulin has been stretched between two tanks. A brazier glows in the shadows, picking out seated figures in its faint, slightly infernal light.

He spends the night rolled up in a borrowed blanket under one of the tanks. He obviously sleeps, because he remembers nothing, just a cold blackness, because he is woken by someone tapping politely on the toe of one of his boots. A tank is revving its engine and the captain is giving orders to the commander. They set off, Tom holding on behind the turret, and in a few minutes are at the end of Evripidou Street. The commander points into the darkness.

‘If you’re looking for the Royal Welch OP, it’s down there, sir. Round this corner, turn right into the square, it’s about ten yards along in a row of shops.’

Tom steps out into the street and immediately an English voice hisses, ‘Who goes there?’

‘Major Collyer, 4th Battalion,’ Tom says. A soldier with the butt of his rifle tucked into his shoulder steps out of a narrow street opposite, followed by another man. ‘I’m looking for OP Beans.’

A building has collapsed on the north side of the street, and the soldiers lead him over the fallen wall, through a jagged thicket of beams and tiles and into a tiny courtyard. They knock on a door. Tom steps into a room filled with men, tobacco smoke and the smell of rancid olive oil.

The lieutenant in charge of the rifle section is almost comically puzzled by Tom’s presence. ‘I’m here for two reasons,’ Tom explains. ‘Intelligence gathering, and my other job, which is Official War Artist.’

‘War artist?’ The lieutenant looks suspicious. Tom is used to that.

‘I won’t get in your way,’ he says, as he has said countless times to countless pleasant-faced young officers. ‘As to the intelligence, I understand that you found some civilian bodies around here.’

‘That’s right, sir,’ says the lieutenant, obviously relieved to be on familiar ground. ‘There’s a fresh grave out there in the middle of the square. Whoever was doing the burying didn’t get to finish the job.’

‘And you sent the identification you found on to Military Intelligence.’

‘I did, sir.’

‘Good work,’ he says. Just let me see her, he wants to shout. Let me see her, and I don’t care what happens after that. ‘I’ll take a look when it gets light enough,’ is what he does say.