“I know he was shot. I was there. I saw it. He had a gunshot wound to his chest. In 1917 I had no doubt, but his body was never recovered. When the dead and wounded were brought in, he wasn’t there.”

“So there’s a chance?”

“For four years I’ve gone around seizing the sleeves of half-familiar strangers and jumping at shadows. But, no, I’ve no proper reason to doubt any more now than I did in 1917. Time passes, we search, and still nothing surfaces. But that’s not enough for his wife.”

“I understand. And I’m sorry,” says Rachel.

“Aren’t we all?” he replies.

THE VOLUME RISES in the café that night. A party of French colonial troops, bright soldiers in uniforms of bold red and blue, have pushed the tables together and are now singing something about Paris, beating a ragtime rhythm with their soup spoons. Their songs and their laughter are loud, and soon everyone in the café seems to be shouting. Rachel’s fingers tap along with the rhythm. Harry can see how she is drinking to try to forget, and forcing herself to smile at him over the rim of her glass. Only suddenly that effort of will seems to fail.

“What am I doing, Harry? This is foolish, isn’t it? He’s not coming home. I’m never going to find him. You don’t think I will, do you?”

“I honestly don’t know.” He says it as kindly as he can. “But I do understand why you have to try.”

Harry wonders: If he hadn’t come home, would Edie have come to look for him? Would she have made the journey to identify his eyes and his belt buckle?

“If he is alive, why doesn’t he let me know?”

“Maybe he can’t. Maybe he doesn’t remember where home is. Maybe he isn’t ready yet. I didn’t go home until a year after I was demobbed.”

“But you did. You eventually did go home.”

“Briefly. And then left again,” he says. “It’s difficult. So much has changed. We have changed. There’s so much complication.”

“David isn’t complicated.”

“Isn’t he?”

She turns her glass. “What do I do?”

“I admire you for coming here. I understand your reasons and I think you’re brave, but would David really want you to spend the next decade of your life searching? To sacrifice whatever chance of happiness you might now have?”

“I can’t mourn him,” says Rachel. “I can’t wear black. I envy other women having a grave to go to, if I’m honest. I envy their knowing. They are putting it in stone now: the missing. It is as if it’s over, like the balance sheet has now been totaled up and signed off, as if those that will be found have been found, as if they’ve decided now that it’s done.”