One of the pilots who had been flying with David on the night of the storm was still in Changi Hospital. He sent an emotional tribute from his hospital bed. He had managed to crash-land his helicopter just before David came down.

But it was Fergus who made people weep with his happy and funny memories of a man who had been his friend as long and as far back as he could remember. Fergus had also flown that terrible night and felt the sharp guilt of a survivor.

Peter, feeling Fleur begin to tremble, reached for her hand. Her eyes were riveted to Fergus’s face, but Fergus could not look directly at Fleur in case he broke down.

Laura had not come to the service but had stayed behind to look after the twins. They were too young to attend another tribute to their father, to be constantly reminded of all they had lost.

Everyone went back to the colonel’s house afterwards. He and Peter had decided the house would feel more personal than the mess. It stood on stilts, high on a hill looking directly out towards Malaysia. Bougainvillaea coated the front and from the lawns behind the house they could all watch the sun set behind the horizon.

Fleur went straight up to the room she was sharing with the twins because they would not sleep without her. It faced the garden and the sea. Voices floated up to her, glasses clinked, people laughed and called to one another as they faced the bruised and magnificent setting sun. Somewhere, far below her, she heard the twins’ voices.

Fleur knew she must go down. She could not stay here safe in her room. She wanted to turn and run; to find a little nest for herself and the twins and hole down and let the world go on turning without her. She did not want her father’s anxiousness or her mother’s restless sympathy. She did not want to go downstairs and be brave and bright and not let herself down.

She felt a blind terror of the future and what it now held. She was left with two little girls and no money. They had lived on David’s income. Her money from teaching dance, with no formal qualifications, was pocket money. There would be a small army pension, but not enough to bring up two children. She had never worked for a living. She had married David.

She would have to go back downstairs or someone would come looking for her. She could see groups of people glancing back towards the house as if wondering where she had got to. There was Fergus and a group of David’s friends standing awkwardly on the lawn. Fleur swallowed. Fergus. How strained and unreal things were between them. They were both shrouded in a deep and separate misery.

Fleur turned from the window and made her way down the wide staircase. As she emerged into the last golden rays of the sun, she caught Fergus’s eye as he stood by the swing with the twins. Had he been waiting for her? She almost ran for his bear-like hug. But she couldn’t. She had hurt him. She hadn’t set out to use him to wound David as David had wounded her, but that is what she had done. In a way she had betrayed them both.