‘Tunstall?’ The hitch in her voice speaks volumes. His ignorance has led him into a mistake. ‘Goodness. That’s a nice area,’ she says a little too brightly, while wearing the perplexed look of a shopkeeper who has discovered a discrepancy in the day’s takings. ‘You must miss it.’

‘He doesn’t miss it, do you, Jack?’ Jim’s robust voice echoes in his head. ‘He prefers farming to the shipyards, I’m sure.’

‘You were employed in the yards, were you? What did you do?’

Her ongoing confusion is now ill-disguised and Jack can see she is intent on prising apart his story. She does not approve of its construction; there are elements which, to her eyes – with her knowledge – are misaligned. By breaking them apart, perhaps she hopes to reconstruct them in a manner that will make more sense to her. But Jack is aware her well-meant enquiries are in danger of stripping away his cover – his ability to hide is in jeopardy. Desperate, he gropes for a suitable role, a role a man from Tunstall might conceivably have at the yards, but he cannot think of one. He suddenly feels weary.

‘Riveter.’

He sees at once his honest answer has reinforced her doubts. She seems almost embarrassed by it, as if it is an unwelcome gift. She blusters a moment, deciding what to do with it, before kindly saying – ‘That’s tough work, isn’t it? I’ve family who are shipbuilders, hard men all of them.’

‘Aye, it is.’

‘I don’t know much about the Sunderland yards, mind, but my uncle was an overseer at Swan Hunters. That’s how it is up there, isn’t it? Coal or shipping. My dad went down the mines. Mind you, I think he was more than relieved when my brother Bob decided to join the police rather than follow in his footsteps.’

‘I didn’t know you had a brother in the force, Iris,’ Ted pipes up.

‘Yes, indeed. Well, it was him who introduced me to Vic. Vic was in the military police, weren’t you Vic, and Bob was his sergeant.’

‘Never.’

‘That’s right. He’s done well for himself, our Bob. He left the army after the war and joined the civilian force and he’s a detective now,’ she turns back to Jack, ‘up in Newcastle.’

‘Is that right?’ Jack resists the temptation to tug at his collar. It feels tighter than when he left the house. He puts it down to the heat.

‘He picks up a lot of work around the shipyards, he says. There’s some rough streets down by the river … some of the things he’s seen,’ she makes a soft tutting noise as she shakes her head, ‘terrible. He always tells Vic he doesn’t know how lucky he is, having a quiet country patch like this.’