‘Yes,’ Barbara said. She was looking Dora in the eye, standing up to her, tears gone. ‘Yes, I am.’ She shifted her weight. ‘I don’t want to upset you,’ she went on. ‘It wouldn’t take long. Why don’t we meet for tea? There’s a little café in Bury Place, opposite the British Museum. It will be my treat. Perhaps tomorrow?’

Dora calculated. She was planning to go to the new exhibition on Aztec treasures after lunch anyway. She wasn’t sure this woman would take no for an answer. She’d have to meet her sooner or later and Dora didn’t want to spend any more time fretting. Quick cup of tea together. Get it over and done with.

‘I know the café,’ Dora said. ‘This afternoon. At four. Goodbye.’ Shut the door before Barbara could answer.

She went into the sitting room, watched through the window as Barbara walked down the path and headed up the hill. She waited until she was out of sight, then turned to go into the kitchen, catching sight of the silver coffee set that sat on the console table to the right of the door. Her colleagues had clubbed together and bought it for her from John Lewis when she retired. It was plate, but they’d had it engraved. To Dora Simon, Housing Administration Officer, University of London 1949 to 1975.

The design, they told her, was a copy of a Bauscher Weiden coffee-pot. Her father had had the same. How were they to know? They also gave her a travel poster, a rare and elegant 1930s original, framed, simple art deco lines of sea and sand and sky. Jersey. The sunny Channel Island.

‘Now you have all the time in the world,’ they said.

She’d cried when they gave it to her.

Dora walked to the window of the café and stood with her back to Barbara, studying the photo. It was a mugshot. The sides had curled and the image was specked with mildew. Her hair had been fair then, her eyes, even in the grainy picture, were light. Her lip was swollen and there was a graze on her chin, though you had to look carefully. The dress had been red, rayon, a cocktail dress before the war. It was backless. From the front, it looked demure with a high halterneck. In the photo, it looked grey. Lifeless.

She returned to the table, her shoulders rising and falling with her breath.

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ Dora said, handing back the photograph. She wanted to say, Where did you get this? But that would unleash too much and she wasn’t ready. She could hear those demons already howling to be let out.

‘Joseph O’Cleary said it was you.’