‘But I won’t have to be in court, will I?’

‘Well, it’s … it’s …’ She could see him framing the word ‘likely’ and then clocking her expression and changing the shape of his mouth. ‘Possible,’ he said.

Court. Court.

‘So I’d have to stand up in the box and swear my name on the Bible and—’ She could feel rather than see Noel’s warning look, and she took a breath, and tried to look like someone so consistently law-abiding that she’d only ever read about such things.

‘If there was a white star on the door, it must have been an American lorry,’ said Noel, taking the egg-box and a dish of pallid sausages out of the larder. ‘And that’ll be why he was driving on the wrong side of the road. Would that be manslaughter, Mr Jepson?’

‘I doubt it will get that far. I’ve been at the court for a couple of similar incidents, and the American army look after their own.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Vee, tea cup halfway to her mouth.

‘It’s quite likely that the driver in question will be sent out on manoeuvres, or some such, and won’t turn up on the day, so that everything has to be postponed, or shelved altogether.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ That was a bit better, then. Jepson went off somewhere and Vee sat and drank her tea, and watched Noel cracking eggs.

‘Toad in the hole, is it?’

He nodded, intent on his work.

‘How was your lesson with the doctor?’

‘Quite interesting. Until William Harvey, the general belief was that blood moved up and down the body like a tide. That was Galen’s theory – he was a Roman – and for sixteen hundred years that belief persisted, until one experiment changed everything.’

There was an abrupt rumble somewhere to the west of the house. The floor vibrated for a second or two and from the larder came the clink of jars.

‘Kilburn,’ said Noel. ‘Or maybe Willesden.’

‘I did something stupid,’ said Vee. ‘I bought you that book you wanted for your birthday and then, in all the fuss, I went and left it in the street.’

Noel shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll get it out of the library.’

She smiled faintly. ‘You’re a good boy.’

He looked up at her, rather startled, and she felt suddenly close to tears again, and this time it wasn’t the fate of the old chap that was setting her off, but the nearness of her own death, because if she died now, she’d never know what would happen to Noel, and it would be like walking out of a cinema halfway through the feature, just as the plot was starting to unwind. Whatever the afterlife might be like – and a thousand chapel Sundays had still left her with no clear impression beyond general radiance and a preponderance of thrones – Vee was absolutely certain that it didn’t offer a balcony view of the world below.