Were hard to keep my head up that day. Rain was falling straight down and every drop seemed to be looking for the back of my neck. I were probably wearing the headscarf that John had brought back from Carlisle. Nice silky material, all gold and red, like a fire. No bloody good in the rain but it was better than nothing and if I’m honest, I think I liked being the only splash of colour in that sea of grey. The sky looked like a coalman’s bathwater and the streets had rivers in every gutter. The leaves had been falling for a couple of months so there was no end of muck and mulch being carried in the gullies and it didn’t take long for the drains to fill up. Even at the bus stop by the post office I could hear the River Irthing, gurgling and mumbling like a sleeping drunk.

‘You think it’ll come?’

Pat had to ask it twice before I realized she was talking to me. My head was full of Fairfax. Full of footprints in dust and crumpled pages that smelled of smoke. Full of dead Frenchmen and hot coins.

‘Got your head in the clouds, Felicity? Be careful, you’ll drown.’

I told myself to smile. I’d always got on with Pat. Weren’t her fault she were born a little hard of thinking.

‘Sorry Pat, load of things on my mind. What was you asking?’

‘Brampton bus,’ she said. ‘Think it’ll come?’

‘Came last winter when we had five feet of snow,’ I said. ‘It’ll manage rain.’

She seemed relieved at that, as if I were the wireless and given her some official bulletin. In truth, I wasn’t sure. Didn’t even know if I wanted it to turn up. I should have spoken to John first off. Told him what I’d found and what I’d read. Should have walked up the hill and knocked on Cordelia’s door. Mrs Green in the post office said she’d been at Samson’s the previous night, bold as brass. Asking questions. Giving Chivers a pasting behind his back. She wasn’t letting it drop. She should know what I knew. She should at least be allowed to give me her opinions on the scraps of paper I’d found hidden in the church floor. She’d been to university, after all. Had a good big brain. I think I was just frightened of seeing the look on her face. I hadn’t supported her. Had been too busy snivelling and trying to make it all into a lie.