‘I can manage now,’ she says, but aware of the drink coursing through her veins and her heightened emotion, Jack shakes his head.

‘I’ll go up first and open the window wide for you.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘That may be so.’ He already has his boot on the second rung.

The ladder dips and wobbles under his weight. Once alongside the window he reaches across and knocks up the stay, then draws the casement wide. Conscious of the drop, he wonders how safe it is for Gwen to try and clamber in but, short of waking her father, he sees no other way.

‘Are you sure?’ he asks as he reaches the bottom. His unguarded admission appears to have sobered her.

‘I’ve done it before.’ She pushes past him and begins to climb. He holds the ladder steady, weighting the bottom rung with his booted foot, careful not to look up until she has reached the window. He watches with naked concern as she stretches across, one hand on the window frame, one hand on the ladder. His breath catches as she pitches herself through the gap, her feet scrabbling against the render as she slithers inside head first. She manages the perilous manoeuvre with such aplomb he wonders how many times she has executed it – how often has he slept through her comings and goings? How many more secret rendezvous with Gordon Allingham has she had?

He continues to watch the window. When she finally appears she does not call down her thanks or acknowledge him in any way. She merely reaches for the stay and pulls the casement to, then draws the curtains, signalling the end of the evening’s performance.

Kip does not stir when Jack returns the ladder to the shed. As he makes his way back across the yard to the stable block, he looks up at Gwen’s window for a final time, his heart heavy with knowledge it would rather not hold.

Chapter Twenty

Jack

July 1939

Gwen is standing by the range reading an oat-coloured pamphlet when Jack and Jim come in for lunch. The paper quivers in her hand.

‘You should probably read that,’ she says to her father, placing it on the kitchen table before him. Jack notices how pale she has gone.

Jim reaches for the pamphlet. ‘Some things you should know if war should come,’ he quotes in a monotone. ‘Public information leaflet number one.’ He shakes his head with slow resignation. ‘Number one of how many, I wonder.’

Gwen carries the kettle from the range to the sink, but she seems to forget her purpose and stands staring out of the window, the kettle in her hand. Jack moves forward to take it from her, startling her from her reverie. She looks at him blankly, then retreats from the drainer.