“Peggy? How strange. Why doesn’t she talk about it?”

“Nothing very much happened.”

“I can’t believe that. How long were you and Peggy there?”

“Three years. I never think about it.”

“Perhaps you should.” Using an American ballpoint pen shaped like a silver rocketship, she checked off my entries, eyebrows raised as her fingers flicked through the beads. “Then you came to England and went to the Leys School—I can imagine how you felt about that.”

“It was fine. Just like the camp, only the food was worse.”

“God, I know, school food. I refuse to eat ours. I practically led a riot last week.” She lowered her voice. “I only come here for Richard’s chocolates. He calls me his Hershey bar girl.”

“Why do you work for him?”

She picked at the stain on her tunic, showing off her breast for me. “I used to hang around here after school—it’s easily the most interesting department. I go to a lot of lectures—Leavis, Ryle, Leach. Richard’s are the best. One day he gave me a lift in his car.” She smiled at the memory.

“You’re going to read psychology here?”

“No fear! I’ve spent enough time in Cambridge. My father’s the bursar at Fitzwilliam Hall. I want to be a cocktail waitress in New York, or live on a desert island with three strange men. Anything to get out of here.”

“I have a motorbike. Why don’t you?”

“I will!” Aware that I might be sceptical, she said with some pride: “I tried to join the RAF. Richard’s taken me up in his Tiger Moth and says I have a real flair for flying. The RAF had the nerve to turn me down, something about the lack of toilet facilities in the V-bomber force. Jesus, if I can fly a plane I can learn to pee in a milk bottle.”

“Well … Professor Harris says anatomy is the basis of everything.”

“He’s right. So why are you doing medicine?”

“I’ve forgotten already. I thought that I wanted to be a psychiatrist.”

“But why? What do you need to cure? Something to do with the war?”

I hesitated, unsettled by this bright schoolgirl and her shrewd questions. “That might be true. I haven’t found out yet.”

“Well, you will.” She spoke with a robust confidence in me. “And now you’re cutting up your first corpse. Treat him with respect.”

“Of course. In fact, it’s a woman.”

“A woman?” She whistled through a chipped tooth. “You’re my first necrophile.”

“In a way, that’s not far from the truth.”

“Go on. This is being secretly recorded.”

“Nothing. You can get very close. It turns into a sort of weird marriage.”