‘Then thank you,’ she said. ‘A meal would be nice. I’d like that.’

If he boiled up another potato and put some pearl barley in the stew, he reckoned it would stretch to three.

‘Then we’d best be going,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve got a lot to do.’

‘I can help,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t need a woman in the kitchen.’

He looked beyond her, out to sea, where thick black clouds were building on the horizon. A fork of lightning flashed in the distance. Joe began to count, waiting for the thunderclap, a second for every mile. They couldn’t dawdle long. The squall would whip up the sea, gulp it down and spit it out. Joe knew the coastal storms well.

‘I was wondering, though,’ she said. She put her head to one side, and Joe was sure she was going to ask him if he was her father. ‘How come you had Dora Simon’s address?’

There was a roar of thunder. Thor’s anvil, all right.

‘Well, now.’ Joe wasn’t expecting this question. ‘That’s another story.’

He hadn’t told that story to anyone, and wasn’t sure he had a right to now.

‘I’m listening.’

He was disappointed. He didn’t want to talk about Dora. This was his daughter, and the war was a long time ago. Still, he could understand her curiosity. After all, it was finding Dora’s picture that had started her off.

‘If I tell you–’ His words were reluctant. ‘Will you promise me you won’t say a word? To anyone. Not Geoffrey. No one.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But I’m curious.’ She rubbed the sole of one foot against her leg, brushing off the sand.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Now, let me see.’ He paused to gather his thoughts, jagged memories that had sharpened their edge now that he knew their significance. ‘The war had been over a few weeks. It was June, I remember that.’ A clear, soft sun and the land green and fresh, its ripeness not yet fulfilled. ‘My favourite time of year. Do you like June, Barbara?’ He hoped she did, father and daughter. He wanted to get to know her. This was as good a place as any to start, with the little things to share. And perhaps, he thought, he could distract her, take her round the long way so maybe she’d get lost and forget she ever asked. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes,’ Barbara said. ‘But go on.’

‘Well, I was sad to leave the farm, I’ll say that. I tried to keep the place in order. It was the least I could do. I thought, if Geoffrey comes back, he’d find it in good trim, more or less, and Pierre had been right. The farm was remote, and the Germans didn’t suspect anyone like me would be there.’

‘Weren’t you lonely?’