Her words catch him out and he looks down. When he shaves he is aware of his bones, how they are more visible now, how they more obviously determine the shape of his face. He sees Francis in the shape of his bones, in the angle of his cheeks and the line of his jaw. He considers what Francis would look like now, four years on. It more troubles than reassures him that he sees Francis in his own face.

“Just occasionally,” she goes on, “in a certain light, it’s like you’re him.”

“I’m sorry, Edie.”

It surprises him that she laughs. “Sorry again, eh? Why sorry?”

“That I’m not him.”

“And that’s just it. The bones and the muscles are all the same, but your expressions are completely different—what’s going on below the surface is completely different—and the worst of it is that I’m not sure whether I’m glad of that or not.” She looks up at him as if she expects his judgment. He looks down at the bag of chips. “Oh dear. I’ve had too much to drink, haven’t I?”

“It’s this place,” says Harry.

He’s noticed that she looks at him a lot. He catches her sometimes, sees her reflected eyes following him in mirrors and windowpanes. He does the same to her. He is frightened sometimes that if he takes his eyes off her she won’t be there when he looks again.

“We should just go home,” she says, “and pretend all of this never happened. Not look back. Refuse to remember. Make ourselves deaf to the doubts. Just start completely new lives.” When she turns to him her eyelashes are full of tears. She blinks and they fall.

“You need to sleep.”

She leans her forehead against his shoulder as they stand at the bottom of the stairs. He can feel the rhythm of her breath and wants to both break away and stay like this forever. He remembers her laughing mouth spinning in a long-ago garden and the confusion of feelings that had whirled around him in that instant. There is no laughter in her face now, though, as she looks at him. He watches Edie’s up-close eyes scan across his face. Is she searching to find Francis there?

“I have to phone Mr. Lee tonight,” he says.

Edie nods slowly. “You must do what you have to.”

He leans against the wall as soon as he is out of the hotel door and lights a cigarette. The match shakes in his hand. He kicks at the wall.

Mr. Lee’s faraway voice spells out names and regimental numbers and issues directions to cemeteries. Harry draws merry-go-round horses and angels around the names and numbers. He draws question marks around Francis’s name.