‘I just can’t believe he’s gone.’ He wiped his cheeks roughly with his knuckles.

She struggled for words of comfort. ‘He was such a great guy, so full of life and energy. We’ll all miss him, you know.’

‘More than you’ll ever know, little sister. More than you’ll ever know.’ He began to sob again, noisily, interspersed with moans. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’ And then, ‘Go away, Kath. I need to be on my own.’ She’d never seen a man cry before today, and now she’d found herself comforting two of them in one evening. The world had turned upside down, and nothing would ever be the same again.

When Mark didn’t appear for supper they found him sound asleep on his bed, fully clothed.

‘Poor boy,’ Ma whispered. ‘He was ever so fond of Ray.’

Perhaps a little too fond, Kath thought to herself. ‘We all were. He was a great fellow.’

‘I just hope it puts him off, Kath.’

‘Off what?’ For a second, Kath was thrown off balance. Surely Mark hadn’t told Ma about their relationship?

‘Becoming a pilot.’

Kath doubted very much that it would deter Mark at all. If anything, it would leave him even more determined to emulate his hero.

Around death, just as in life, the secrets of the Manor were carefully hidden. No one spoke of any loss and Kath never repeated to anyone, not even Ma, Mark’s unguarded words about ‘one of those Bawdsey boffins’ having been on board the plane that day. Nevertheless, she sensed the pall of grief hanging over the Manor: in the kitchen everyone was subdued. In the dining room, the men queued for their meals in silence and spoke in hushed whispers at their tables.

When she tried to ask, Mr Brunetti just shook his head. ‘It’s not for us to know these things, Miss Motts,’ he said. But she couldn’t help thinking about Vic, hoping that someone was looking after him. She’d seen nothing of him since that evening and assumed that he’d been given leave, until Ma told her that the man called Scott had requested sandwiches, fruit and other snacks that he took to a room in the Red Tower.

The only other person who failed to appear was Vic’s friend, the kindly older man, Johnnie Palmer; the one who always had a joke or a compliment as he took his food. Kath reluctantly came to assume that it must have been him who’d been killed in the plane crash, alongside Captain Burrows and the other crew members. She missed his cheery face at the lunch table, and the way he’d showed genuine affection for his friend Vic.

It was the first time that anyone close to her had died – apart from her grandparents – and she felt the loss keenly. She might not have known these two men well, but she’d come to admire both of them for their vitality and wit and the way everyone had held them in such high regard. What a terrible waste it seemed.