I guess he won’t have to keep it a secret much longer. Once we’re gone from here, we can afford to let people know the truth . Then he can be thanked properly for taking us in .

Then again, maybe not. Once the secret ’s out, we lose the chance to ever use this place again .

‘My favourite thing,’ said Thomas, presumably for the fifth time in the conversation, ‘was when Mum told off McCormick for farting at dinner, and he just answered her with another fart!’

Ewan leaned against the wall, and gave a reluctant smile. If the conversation gave Thomas a chance to talk about his dead mother and laugh, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea.

‘Rosanne was nice,’ said Jack, referring to a lady in her seventies who had passed away long ago. ‘She gave a “nice old lady” vibe to the place which I don’t think we’ve had since. No offence, Lorraine.’

The room went ‘ooooh’ and gave nervous laughs in response. Lorraine, aged only fifty-two, clouted him round the back of the head.

‘OK,’ said Jack, ‘let’s move on quickly. What’s yours, McCormick?’

‘Honestly,’ McCormick replied, ‘I think mine might be the night Shannon arrived.’

Shannon, sitting on the floor next to Thomas, widened her eyes.

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying it,’ McCormick continued, ‘but it revealed a lot about what kind of community we are. This war had taken a toll on all of us, but we remained the type of people who would welcome a stranger and do our best to make her comfortable.’

‘You did a better job than I was expecting,’ said Shannon, a comment which raised a few smiles. Then she offered a moment of eye contact with Ewan, and a discreet grin. Perhaps all was well.

An hour passed before McCormick brought the conversation to a close. He took a step forward, deeper into the crowd, and straightened his back. And just like that, the group knew the discussion was over.

‘Half an hour from now,’ he began, ‘we’ll be leaving Spitfire’s Rise. Before we say our final goodbyes to the house, we should establish who will be going where. My route into New London has space for four people. I need three of you on comms, and that leaves the other four to find us a new home.’

Simon held up three fingers, a confused expression on his face.