Just talking about the hopeful future for Ella was having an effect. There was a marked difference in her. Her face had filled with colour and her eyes had renewed hope.

‘Well, I’ll leave you two to talk. I have a mission to accomplish.’

As Flors left, Ella surprised Mags by giggling. ‘They’d better watch out at that home – Flors is coming.’

Mags giggled with her at this, then took Ella’s hand. ‘Everything is going to turn out all right, Ella. I promise.’

Flors didn’t find her mission easy. Seeing Lonia was heartbreaking. The funny, adorable little minx that Lonia had been was no longer. Her eyes were inexpressive, her tears never far away, her spirit all but dead. But if anything could be worse than all this, it was the awful silence. Lonia wouldn’t utter a word.

Even seeing Flors didn’t lift her, though Flors could tell that Lonia did gain a little hope, as she clung to Flors’s neck and wouldn’t let go until Flors prised her away. ‘Darling, believe me, I’m going to make everything right. Your mama is getting better, and we have plans for you both.’ She told Lonia about Mags’s home. ‘You love Mags, don’t you? When she visits us in France, you hardly leave her side. And her girls, Beth and Belinda. They will be home from school for the Easter holidays soon, and you will have lots of fun with them, like you do in France.’

A glimmer of hope entered Flors as Lonia nodded at this and, for a fleeting second, a small smile visited her lips.

Tackling the matron of the home wasn’t easy, either. ‘Taking a child from here isn’t simply a matter of turning up and saying you can give her a home, Mrs Harpinham. There are legal requirements.’

‘I expected as much, but I am not asking to adopt the child, just to take her back to her mother.’

‘But I understand the mother isn’t well enough to take care of her child.’

‘Lonia and her mama will be in safe hands, very comfortable and cared for. One cannot get better without the other – they need to be together. Don’t you think they’ve been through enough? Having to run away from their home and their family, being captured and put into a concentration camp where they faced death, as they are of Jewish descent? Please, Matron, if you never do another thing for a child, move heaven and earth for this one.’

‘All of the children in my care have been through hell, Mrs Harpinham.’