Gwen does not wait to hear Jack’s response. She strides out across the yard, putting as much distance as she can between herself and the barn and whatever is going on inside. She does not want to know. She wants no part of it. She is breathing rapidly by the time she reaches the stable block. She plunges into the dreary interior, fusty with the smell of horse muck and hay, and pushes open the tack room door.

The camp bed is neatly made, its corners tucked in with military precision, while the makeshift workbench has been covered with a horse blanket. Jack’s kitbag is on the floor and his khaki uniform is draped across the arched back of the chair. She lets out a sigh and picks up the jacket but feels at once the bulk of its pockets. It seems intrusive to empty them but it has to be done. She removes a few coins and a box of matches, a penknife and a small tin of mints. She thinks she has finished, but as she gathers it to her something crinkles in the breast pocket. Laying it flat on the bed, she undoes its brass button and pushes back the flap.

She withdraws a photograph, a monochrome image trimmed in white, crumpled and creased, and catches her breath as she sees her own smiling face in pale shades of grey. She is crouched down with Tom clutched to her side, his head tilted so that it rests against hers as he squints up at the camera. She remembers the photograph being taken, by Nora, in the summer of ’43, and how she included it with a single-page letter when she could think of nothing else to write. She had, after all, made a promise years before that a letter now and then, and a picture of the growing child, was not too much to do for the man who had saved her from social disgrace. It had never crossed her mind, not even for a second, that the photograph might be carried in a breast pocket, or that it might one day show such signs of cherishment.

There is a rusty smudge on one corner, the fine lines of a fingerprint caught in its midst, and suspecting it to be blood, she gasps. The photograph flutters from her fingers to land askew upon the jacket. The kitbag in the corner beckons her.

She advances on it slowly, drawn in by something beyond simple curiosity. She checks behind her, conscious suddenly that her actions are invasive, but she cannot rein herself in, she is unable to stop herself. Loosening the cord threaded through the eyelets at the top of the bag she sees clothing. She pushes aside the spare shirt, the rolled socks and braces, and underneath she comes across envelopes – letters – tied together with string.