“Mrs. Blythe—dear lovely Mrs. Blythe! Please excuse the incursion, only the young lady at the reception desk was kind enough to let me have your room number.”

“She did?”

“It’s not a liberty, is it? Can you forgive me the liberty?”

His smile fixes on her face. She’s not sure why Michael Dillon’s smile makes her tremble. “Do you have something to tell me, Mr. Dillon? There is something more, isn’t there?”

“Oh, well,” he says. He shrugs. He takes his hat off and turns it in his hands. “It might be nothing, now.”

It is only at that moment that she notices the bag over his shoulder. It is a canvas khaki haversack, of the sort that Francis came home with all that time ago. She can still picture Francis’s bag waiting in the hallway. He had shrugged it off there when he came through the door, and she had hardly dared to touch it in the days that followed. Could this be the same bag? If Dillon has this, then surely it’s true that he met Francis. Does Dillon now know where Francis is?

“It’s his?” she asks.

She watches as Dillon swings the pack off and holds it out toward her. Once again, she finds herself afraid to touch it.

“I don’t know about that, miss.”

“The man who gave you that bag—do you know where he is?” She watches it swing, suspended between them. Eventually he puts it down on the floor.

“The young chap who you’re with is the spit of him, isn’t he? For a moment I thought it was the same man walking back into the shop.”

“Then you have met Francis.” She stares at the bag on the floor. “He’s here? You’ve seen him recently?”

“No, Mrs. Blythe. Don’t misunderstand me. I was running a store of sorts, back in the day—razor blades, pencils, writing paper, bars of soap, bars of chocolate—all the requisites that your fighting man might need, you see? Well, we all did what we could. I bought and sold and did a bit of barter. I seem to recall that your man exchanged it for a bottle of beer, but it was a rum deal. It was no bargain. It’s only papers inside, see? Apart from your old Saint Chris, there was nothing worth having. The trinket was yours, miss, wasn’t it? Has the old feller found his way back to you? Call me a tender heart, but I do like a happy ending.”

“When was Francis here? When did you see him?”

Dillon runs his hands through his hair and then shakes his head.

“Please?”