‘Oh Hinny, I can’t tell you how distressing this is to witness. Please, open your eyes.’

Gradually, painfully, I let my eyelids creak open. I was in a farm building. Tumbledown walls and rotten mounds of damp hay, chocolate-brown oak timbers holding up a roof full of holes. Walt was sitting on a picnic chair a couple of feet in front of me, a torch on his knee throwing a great cone of light into the space between us. I couldn’t tell if it was the torchlight or the head injury but everything seemed to flicker; to shrink and grow, ripple and tear itself in two. The blackness beyond the glow of the torch seemed to shimmer like ink and it was impossible to properly discern Walt’s features – the angle of the torch creating unnatural hollows and distortions. It was like talking to a pumpkin lantern.

‘I thought we were friends,’ I whispered, and it came out thick and blurry and the taste of blood on my tongue became more pronounced. I sniffed back snot and tears and blood. Hated myself for my weakness. Tried to find enough anger to show some fight.

He shook his head at me – an act of almost paternal exasperation. My thoughts became a maelstrom of conflicting impulses and emotions. I was scared almost witless, of course, but more than anything else I was confused. Why me? Why here? Why any of this? Memories started rising: scraps of recollection that floated on the still water of my consciousness like dead fish. Had the rumours really been true? Was Walt really working for the enemy? Was he the dissident, the Soviet sympathizer and national traitor that superiors and underlings alike had whispered about? The thought sickened me, though whether it was a betrayal of his country or simply disgust at my own naiveté, I was in too much pain to work out.

He ran a hand through his hair. The movement changed the angle of the light so I could make out what he was wearing. He looked smart. Fitted suit, tastefully patterned tie, white shirt. He wore a dark overcoat and had teased his hair into a neat side-parting. His skin still had that puffed-up, unhealthy look about it, but the scruffy little mess of my acquaintance had been replaced by somebody who looked every inch the professional.

‘Cordelia,’ he said, tiredness in his voice. ‘A friend, you say?’ He looked skyward, cocking his head as if listening to a voice. Sucked on the thought as if it were a boiled sweet. ‘I don’t think I have such a simplistic thing as a friend, my dear. I’m not sure I would have a use for such a person. But yes, there are those of whom I think warmly. And I do count you among that number.’