‘Plenty of people have big mouths, Father,’ Pierre said. ‘And sharp eyes. Keen imaginations, too, some of them. There’s nothing like an occupying army for settling old scores.’

Joe looked up at Pierre. ‘It was me. I was here. I saw it all. They murdered a boy.’

‘From what I understand,’ Pierre said, ‘you tried to save Geoffrey and the nurse. And you put yourself in the firing line. You weren’t to blame. You weren’t to know, if it’s any consolation.’ He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, lit one and offered it to Joe. Joe took it, smelled the coarse black tobacco, breathed in the heady smoke. He felt dizzy, grabbed the side of the door for support. Coughed.

‘What happened to you?’ Pierre said.

Joe stubbed out the cigarette on the floor of Pierre’s van. He had no words for where he’d been, no shape to the story of what happened.

‘I’ve done terrible things, Pierre.’

He’d got used to it. The humdrum horror of it. That was a terrible thing, too.

‘I killed a man.’ He was quaking, out of control, as if a palsy, or the devil himself, had taken over his body.

‘Did you have a choice?’

Choice?Joe hadn’t thought.

‘There was no temptation, if that’s what you mean,’ Joe said. His spirit had hardened, atrophied. He saw corpses on the floor. ‘And no remorse, either.’

He was tired, an unfathomable weariness that could slay him. He couldn’t return, ever. He’d throw himself off a cliff, hang himself on a beam.

‘Will you turn me in?’ Joe said.

‘No,’ Pierre said.

Joe hesitated. Pierre supped with the devil when it suited him, Joe knew.

‘Will you give me a chance to escape, if you change your mind?’

‘I won’t change my mind,’ Pierre said.

‘Only I couldn’t go back. No. That I couldn’t.’

He pushed himself forward again, dangled his legs over the end of the van.

‘Lightning never strikes twice.’ Pierre was smiling. ‘This is the safest place you can be.’

Perhaps, Joe thought. He’d dreamed about a day like this, after all.

Chapter Fifteen: Dora

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DORA

London: June 1985

Dora tugged at her skirt, smoothing its apron. She needed time to steady herself. She went upstairs to the bathroom, peered into the mirror. She had aged like her father, his lines criss-crossing her cheeks, his jaw, hers. Vati. What would he have done? She pulled at the toilet roll, blew her nose hard and flushed the tissue down the loo. Opened the cabinet and dabbed on some lipstick, went downstairs and walked back out into the garden.

‘Apologies,’ she said. ‘An old friend.’