‘How much of the herd is left?’

Mrs Timms paused and pursed her lips. ‘I can’t rightly say,’ she said.

‘It’s all right,’ Verity said, seated at the big wooden table. ‘I know how bad it’s been. Peter hinted. I’m fine now, really. I just want to know about what’s happened in town.’ She cast around for a better way of getting information out of the housekeeper. ‘Town’ was too vague. ‘Did the Americans come and help?’

Mrs Timms nodded grimly. ‘Oh they were heroes, Miss, real heroes. They lost so much. Say what you like about them and I wasn’t keen myself when they first came, I don’t mind admitting it, but they were there for us in our time of need.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. But what did they lose exactly?’

‘Didn’t you know? Some of their lodgings, where the families were, was completely destroyed. Like the prefabs. Oh that was terrible, that was. All them homes, smashed like dolls’ houses. All them people, still with nowhere to go.’

‘Yes. That’s awful. What happened – to the Americans?’

‘Some of them died in the flood and some lost all their possessions. Same as the people in town. Thank the Lord we was spared.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling at that point, as if God himself were looking down from the drying racks.

‘Some of them – died?’

‘Whole families. Terrible.’ Mrs Timms shook her head, then turned and whacked the meat with such force that it jumped off the table.

‘Where were they though, Mrs Timms? I didn’t think the Air Force families were lodged near here.’

‘Over in Hunstanton. But some of them came down here to help too. Oh, did you hear about the train?’

Verity picked at her sandwich, chewing slowly, and only half listened to Mrs Timms telling her about the bungalow that had crashed into the train causing it to come off the tracks. ‘Went right into the bungalows of the American families,’ she said. Families, not single men. Jack bunked at the base. And Hunstanton was too far away. Jack wouldn’t have gone there. Instead, she pictured him at the marsh shack, trying to save his camera. The shack would be defiled, like everything else. No, he didn’t keep the camera there. He must have helped the Air Force like all the others. He’d have been in Wells, she was certain. He’d been there already, at the dance, and the flood was coming then. He wouldn’t have had time to get back to the base. She had a sudden thought: what would have happened if the flood had reached the airbase with its deadly cargo? But it hadn’t happened. She would ask Jack about it when she saw him, though. She would ask him straight out. No more evasions. It felt like the flood was a warning.