‘I just came in to say that there’s a mouse in my room,’ said Miss Appleby, still blushing. ‘It’s dead,’ she added.

‘I’ll come and clear it up,’ said Vee.

‘Thanks.’ Miss Appleby left again.

‘Thursday?’ asked Noel.

‘Sorry?’ Vee was examining the syrup tins.

‘Did he say he was coming back on Thursday?’

‘He says he wants to take me out, just to say thank you.’

‘It’s the Methodist Christmas Party on Thursday.’

‘Oh, I forgot.’

‘I spent three evenings last week writing the prize quiz, after you asked me to.’

‘It went right out of my mind.’

‘Anyway, what does he want to thank you for?’

‘Well …’ Vee opened a cupboard and started to rearrange the contents with unconvincing concentration. ‘It was something about the coroner’s ruling,’ she said, her back to Noel.

‘What was the ruling?’

‘Oh, it was … let me think …’

‘Accidental death?’

‘Yes.’

‘So he got off. Because of your evidence.’

Vee turned to face him, suddenly indignant. ‘I did my best. I went there and I got a grilling. I could have told them it was all a blur in my memory, but I didn’t, so don’t go shaming me, Noel Bostock. I wasn’t the one driving the lorry.’

‘But he was. And now you’re going out with him to celebrate.’

‘It’s not a celebration, it’s a …’

She looked around the kitchen as if an alternative word might be written on the wall.

‘Celebration,’ said Noel, flatly.

‘I’m not arguing with you,’ said Vee. ‘I don’t have your knack with words. The corporal told me he was very sorry about what happened, and that he’d written a letter to Mrs Embleton, but if he’d been charged and gone to prison, how would that have made anything better? I didn’t mean to help him, but when it comes to it, I’m not sorry I did.’

‘And how did he find out where we lived?’

‘He spoke to the stenographer. And he knows the area, he said. He likes walking.’

‘You mean he likes walking when he’s not driving a gigantic lorry on the wrong side of the road?’

Vee pinched her lips and buried the tins of syrup right at the back of the cupboard, well out of Mr Reddish’s eyeline, should he choose to open the door. The lingering taste of the whole astonishing visit – the wild largesse, the exoticism of an American sitting at her table, the funny stories, the hole punched into her grey routine, the giddy lightness, as if the kitchen had been filled with laughing gas – had all dissipated.

‘I sold some golf balls,’ said Noel.

‘Is that so?’ Vee shut the cupboard and, without looking at him, took the cigarettes and hid them in the scullery, under a folded oil-cloth. When she returned, the kitchen was empty, but there was a small pile of money at the centre of the table.

‘Thank you!’ she called along the passage.

There was no reply.