‘Why?’ Geoffrey said. ‘You had nothing to do with it. You couldn’t have stopped it.’

Well no, Joe thought, maybe not from the field, not as he watched it all unfold. But before, there was plenty of time. If he’d never fallen in love, if he’d never broken his vows, none of it would have happened.

‘But don’t you see?’ Joe said. ‘I had–’ he hesitated. Tell the truth. Get it off your chest. ‘Trude. I shouldn’t have, I know. I was a priest.’ He looked at Geoffrey, but Geoffrey sat, impassive. ‘She was a German,’ Joe went on. ‘Don’t you understand? With the German army. Not like your nurse, with the British. I took her with me, birdwatching. In your field. I’m sorry. Had I realised–’ he paused, swallowed. ‘She knew.’

Geoffrey laughed. ‘But how would she know, unless she had been spying on me for months?’

‘Well, you see,’ Joe said, ‘I think now that’s just what she did. I think she went there at night, spied on you. She’d hoodwinked me. Tempted me. She was a Jezebel, for sure. And I gave her Naboth.’

Why blame someone else? He alone was responsible.

‘I fell for her womanly wiles,’ Joe said. ‘I was as guilty and as gullible as Ahab. Or Adam.’

‘No, Joe,’ Geoffrey said. ‘More likely one of the men we helped was caught, and talked. Or was a spy. They knew exactly where to come.’

Pierre had hinted, too, that anyone could have betrayed them. People with a grudge. And here was Geoffrey wiping away his sin, absolving him.

‘And you tried to save us,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Even though it cost you dearly.’

Well, Joe thought, he had tried to undo it, after all, and had ended up a prisoner for his pains. Perhaps he had made too much of it. Why had he thought he was the only one to blame? Flagellated himself over it for all these years? Confessing made it easier, lighter, absolved him in some way.

‘I hope I’ve made amends,’ Joe said. ‘Guilty or not.’

‘You’re a fine man,’ Geoffrey said. ‘A true friend.’

‘I tried,’ Joe said.

Geoffrey reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He wiped his mouth. He’d been drooling of late, as if his muscles had lost their clinch. ‘When I’m gone, will you promise me one thing?’

Joe hated when Geoffrey spoke like that. When I’m gone. The hints at his mortality. This will see me out.

‘And what would that be?’

‘That you move into this house,’ Geoffrey said. ‘And tuck yourself up at night in a warm bed. That leaky old caravan is no good for old bones.’

Joe laughed. ‘Is that all?’ he said. ‘I’ll gladly do that. That I will.’