‘It’s full of chickens,’ said Vee. ‘How do you know there’s a summerhouse?’

‘Because I used to work here when I was a girl. I was Dr Simpkin’s char.’

And as she spoke, as the implication of her words broke like a bottle over Vee’s head, they both heard Noel’s voice from the far end of the garden, the clearly enunciated phrase ‘Prevention of Fowl Pox’ floating towards them as if borne on a zephyr, and Vee said, ‘Conservatory!’ and found herself scurrying after the visitor up the scullery passage and through the hall and the drawing room towards the glassed-in lean-to at the back of the house.

It was not a room that Vee sat in very often; it was either, as Noel put it, Bergen or Caracas, depending on the season, and she hadn’t noticed till now that the wet spring had sent a densely leafed creeper growing up and over the roof, so that the place had the dim, greenish tint of an undersea grotto.

Neither of them sat down.

‘My name is Ida Pearse,’ said the woman. She stood with her hands clasped in front of her, as if about to give a formal address.

‘I know,’ said Vee. ‘I know who you are.’

‘Did you meet Simeon Foster? Did he give you my name?’

‘No, I didn’t meet him. Only Noel met him. What do you want?’

‘I don’t want anything – or, at least, nothing specific.’ She had one of those quiet voices that carried, the sort of voice possessed by people who are used to being listened to.

‘So why are you here?’ Vee’s own voice was a defiant squeak, the sound of a surviving mouse who has just discovered that the household has bought a replacement cat. ‘I thought you were abroad.’

‘I was. I am. I came across with a hospital ship, repatriating serious burns cases, but I’m sailing back tonight. I’m here because I wanted to meet you.’

‘Me? Not Noel?’

‘I don’t feel …’ For the first time, the visitor sounded uncertain. ‘I don’t feel I have any right to meet Noel.’

‘No,’ agreed Vee, a little thrown by this unexpected concession. In the momentary silence, they looked at each other, Vee searching the other woman’s features for a trace of Noel and seeing it only in the steady self-possession of her gaze.

‘You’ve never come before,’ she said.

‘I haven’t been to England for eleven years.’ Ida was standing with her back to the garden, her view comprising the conservatory door, the study beyond it, the tall oak bookcase at the far end, its bottom shelf filled with a set of morocco-bound encyclopaedias; every inch and angle of the rooms were familiar; the only strangeness was Margery Overs, whose existence she’d known of for less than two months.

‘Thank you for your letter,’ the reply from Pomeroy and Clarkson had read. ‘Unfortunately, we cannot pass your enquiry on to Dr Simpkin, as our client is deceased. Since her death in 1939, her ward has been under the guardianship of Mrs Margery Overs, a widowed cousin of Dr Simpkin.’