‘“I saw the fog grow thick, which soon made blind my ken; it made tall men of boys, and giants of tall men.”’

‘Ooh, more poetry!’ said Miss Appleby, with a giggle. ‘I don’t know how you remember—’

‘“I clutched my throat,”’ continued Mr Reddish, clutching his throat. ‘“I coughed. Nothing was in my head. Except two heavy eyes, like balls … of burning … LEAD.”’

There was a tiny pause, while everyone waited to see if there was going to be another verse. ‘Salt?’ asked Vee again.

‘I recall I was once lost in the fog with a young lady,’ said Mr Reddish, abandoning his pose. ‘What an experience that was!’

‘I know that poetry shouldn’t be treated as if it were factual,’ said Noel, ‘but I really don’t see why the eyeballs are referred to as “burning” when fog’s notoriously cold and clammy. In any case, lead actually only burns when it’s powdered, in which case it’s pyrophoric, and ignites spontaneously at room temperature.’

‘Excellent, Noel,’ murmured Dr Parry-Jones.

Mr Jepson looked up from his plate and, with a gesture that was habitual, gave his moustache a quick stroke. It was a sparse affair – more like an eyebrow than a moustache – but it caught the gaze because, unlike the hair on his head (brown threaded with grey), it was ginger. Vee suspected that he’d grown it in order to draw attention from his missing ear.

‘The trouble is that “like balls of lead” wouldn’t scan,’ he said. ‘It needs a couple of syllables in there for the rhythm of the writing. Perhaps “balls of molten lead” would have been an improvement.’

Noel shook his head. ‘If they were molten, they’d no longer be balls and they’d simply dribble out of his eye sockets.’

‘Well, how about “burnished”? No, I think maybe “burnished” only applies to bronze. I’ll have to check that in Chambers.’ Mr Jepson extracted a tiny notebook from his breast pocket, and made a tiny note with an equally tiny pencil. He wrote features for the North London Press and never had to ask Noel what on earth he was on about. ‘By the way, the stew is excellent,’ he said, picking up his cutlery again.

‘Yes, very nice, Noel,’ said Miss Zawadska, approvingly. ‘And I taste pepper!’

‘Someone told me a grocer in Tufnell Park had a delivery,’ said Vee. ‘I hurried over there and got the last packet!’

‘And mushrooms,’ said Miss Zawadska, continuing to address the culinary wunderkind and ignoring the woman who actually did all the queuing and shopping.

‘I found a cluster of them just by the tumulus on the Heath,’ said Noel. ‘Obviously, I was extremely careful about identification. I have an illustrated guide.’

‘Ooh,’ said Miss Appleby, with a giggle, ‘I hope they’re not death caps!’

‘No, we’d already be in the initial stages of irreversible kidney damage if that were the case,’ said Noel. ‘They’re shaggy ink-caps, which are completely harmless unless taken with alcohol.’

Mr Jepson gave a hiss of amusement. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’