‘Which just goes to prove that fiction is more frightening than fact,’ said Tommy. The kettle had boiled and he was pouring the steaming water into the teapot, giving it a good stir. ‘Another culinary success.’ He carried the tray to his desk and sat down. ‘How did you get on with Forster’s A Passage to India?’

‘I thought it was thrilling. It made me want to go to India.’

‘It’s a wonderful place. Joan and I were married there. And wonderful people – they have nothing but would give you anything. In India, it is hard to live, but easy to exist; here in England it is easy to live but harder to exist – a Maharajah told me that as he sat in his many-roomed palace, and he wasn’t wrong.’ He poured the tea and passed her cup over. ‘What news on your parents? How is your stepfather’s hip?’

Family and friends had become another topic of conversation in the dungeons.

‘It’s a little better, I think. At least, that is what he told the doctor, or else he wouldn’t have been able to join the Home Guard for Fife.’ She said the last bit with comic pride.

‘A Fife Home Guard – how about that! Your mother must be very proud.’

‘Oh, she is. He has been part of a team manning the road blocks that Polish soldiers have organized.’

‘Goodness.’ Tommy stirred sugar into his cup ‘Quite right too. I hear that Fife is the chosen destination for Herr Hitler’s invasion of our sceptred isle.’

Crawfie laughed. ‘Once I would have thought you were awful, telling jokes like that. Now that kind of humour is the only thing that gets us through.’

Tommy dropped his gaze to his cup and asked carefully, ‘And George? How is he?’

‘Oh, he’s all right,’ she was saying now. ‘His work at the relief agency is going well. I told you about that, didn’t I? He coordinates the supply of food, medicines, fuel and shelter to victims of war. Isn’t that marvellous? You can imagine how relieved I was when the army turned him down for re-entry. Eyesight too poor. I told him it was because he’d strained them looking at all those lines of tiny numbers on the bank’s sheets.’ She gave a small laugh then frowned. ‘I think he’s glad to be away from the bank for a time. He’s a funny old stick.’

‘Hmm,’ Tommy answered. ‘Jolly good.’

‘And how about you? How are Joan and the children?’

‘They are all in fine fettle. My dear wife will be coming to live with me in London when it’s safer and the children are off her hands a bit. The trouble is, she might find me to have become a bit of a bachelor – used to coming and going as I please with very little of anything in the larder.’ He looked off into the middle distance. ‘It is my son, John, she worries about.’

‘Oh. Which service?’