Harry’s hand is on the gate when he sees the man. He is in the field beyond, moving away with what is unmistakably a camera and tripod in his arms. There is something about the man’s gait. He walks awkwardly, jerkily, as though he has sustained an injury to a leg at some time, but the way he moves is familiar, and Harry finds himself following.

Though it is a warm autumn day, and Harry is sweating in shirtsleeves, the man is dressed as if it is December. He wears a black overcoat and a homburg hat that looks like it has seen better days. He stops every few paces and looks about. Harry, following, supposes that the man is looking for the right angle for his photograph.

He leans in the shadow of a wall as he watches the figure’s halting progress across the field. The valley falls away below, tapering into a funnel of trees. There is a lone ash tree ahead, an antique, noble tree. If Harry was taking the photograph he would center the composition in on that tree. As he watches the man setting up the camera and tripod, he can’t help but approach. It is a glass-plate camera, old but quality apparatus, heavy kit.

He is just yards behind the photographer now. He can hear him breathing, smell his breath. Harry realizes that he is holding his own breath. Hands—familiar hands?—adjust the focus. The man steps back to swap over the plates. He half turns as he does so.

“Who is there?” says a voice that Harry recognizes.

He doesn’t know quite what it is that makes him run, but suddenly Harry is back pounding through the village streets, past the butcher’s and the baker’s and the twenty-eight names, his heart banging, pulling away as fast as he is able.

Chapter Sixty-Three: Edie

Chapter Sixty-Three

Edie

Cheshire, October 1921

CAPTAIN ROSE? I’M SORRY, DEAR, HE’S LONG GONE.” THE WOMAN leans in the doorway. Edie’s hand had shaken as she had rung the bell, she had felt light-headed as the door opened, and, as the woman pushes her spectacles up her nose now, Edie knows that she can see her foolishness.

“He died?” she asks.

“Heavens, no. Whatever gave you that notion?” The woman laughs and then apologizes. “I just meant that he’s moved on. Moved to Altrincham. Not moved to the other side.”

“I’m sorry. I really wasn’t sure. Do forgive me for disturbing you.” She turns to go. She has spent the journey framing questions, rehearsing one side of a conversation, working her way through iterations of possibility, but now it all falls away and she finds herself struggling for the next word. “Only, I don’t suppose that he left a forwarding address?”