‘He’ll deny ratting on Kristjan.’

‘But when he denies it, will we know whether he’s lying or not?’

‘Maybe. Probably.’

‘I’ll settle for that.’

‘OK, then. We’ll go. But, Nick …’ She hesitated.

‘What?’

‘You’re looking for your father, right? Are you sure you’re ready to find out he’s a scumbag?’

‘I’m ready for the truth, Erla. Whatever it is.’

‘I let my job become my life, Miss Wada,’ Caldwell said ruefully as his reminiscences about the insurance business wound back on themselves. ‘It was only when I retired that I realized how empty my existence was. My fault, of course. No one else’s. You think there’s time to put right your mistakes, to alter the way you present yourself to the world. Then, suddenly, time runs out. And you find yourself facing a dismal old age.’ He was talking to himself as much as to Wada now.

‘Moving back into the house that holds so many memories of when I was young and my friends were young probably wasn’t a good idea. The past is always there, despite how much the building’s been altered. It’s always waiting to tap me on the shoulder. And it doesn’t stop at Barnfield Hill. There was an army surplus store round the corner, in Magdalen Road. It’s long gone. But whenever I walk past where it was I remember the brass-buttoned greatcoat I bought there that I thought made me look so cool. If I go into the Mount Radford, the pub at the end of the road, I’ll remember the gang sitting round the table with me, though I’m not sure all eight of us were ever actually there at the same time.

‘Alison in particular is never far away. I adored her. I loved her as I’ve never loved anyone else. I’ve probably idealized her, of course. It’s easy to do that with the dead, especially those who died young. But her energy, her passion, her determination, were … intoxicating. I’d have done anything for her. For the nine months we lived under the same roof I was a completely different person from what I was before or have been since. I know it was me, but sometimes I can’t quite convince myself of that. I believed in the things she believed in. I was committed to the causes she was committed to.

‘So were the others. Well, Caro and April anyway. And Peter, of course. He was older than us. And wiser, as we thought. He enjoyed planning our campaigns and seeing them carried through. He was adrift, after Cambridge and his parents’ deaths. He needed a purpose, a mission. We helped him find one.