‘I can’t think about that now,’ John said. ‘But I won’t ask you to lie for me.’

He took another sip of the brandy, filled his lungs with the cigarette. His head began to swim.

‘Corporal Lennox here,’ Arthur said. ‘He’s commandeered another house. All clear this time. Not a soul. Not a dicky bird. Not a picture of Hitler or a single swastika. Buried them all, I reckon. They do that, you know, sir. Hide the evidence. Pretend they never swallowed all that rubbish hook, line and sinker.’

Arthur’s banter danced in John’s head. He was exhausted, a huge wave of fatigue rolling over him.

‘I’d like to go there now,’ John said.

‘Not long been occupied,’ Arthur was saying as they walked towards the accommodation on a side street off the square. ‘Beds, sheets, the works. Even a cellar. Full of fine brandy. We’ve decided, sir, that you’re to take the master bedroom, with the big fluffy eiderdown.’

John smiled. Arthur opened the door, led John upstairs. He flopped on the oversized bed, shut his eyes, aware that Arthur was taking off his boots and covering him with the bedding.

‘I reckon you’ll sleep like a baby, sir.’

The pillow was soft, smelled of hair oil, of home.

CHAPTER NINE

Hatfield: July 1958

He was still an athletic man, kept himself in trim, exercises morning and evening. He was on his knees now, poking round the pansies at the base of the old Anderson shelter with a garden fork. Her mother had had pansies in her wedding bouquet, a waterfall of purple and yellow. Mrs H liked pansies too, made posies from them and put them on the breakfast table, like a cheap B & B.

A newfangled transistor radio rested on the grass beside him. She could hear the reverential timbres of John Arlott rising and falling. Her father’s lips moved soundlessly, as they did when he was thinking. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and was wearing his old grey gardening trousers that were once part of a suit. The lawnmower squatted behind him and the grass smelled sweet and freshly cut. She’d grown used to the purr of the blades as they rotated, the steady rhythm as her father pushed and pulled. It was the sound of England. He cut the lawn twice a week, checking for weeds or moss, neat stripes, up down, up down. How little she knew him really. He had never allowed her inside.

‘Who’s winning?’

‘England. Cowdrey going into bat.’ He lifted the transistor to his ear. Betty waited a moment.

‘No cricket?’