‘Oh, yes,’ said Jepson. ‘I think this government’s going to get a hell of a shock.’

He was interviewing returned soldiers nearly every week, now; the paper thought it gave a bit of lift to the front page (‘Home Again for Holloway Man’). Some had been liberated from prisoner-of-war camps by the Allied advance or had chanced an escape in the chaos of the German retreat; some were merely on leave, having crossed continents to get home; all of them, however convoluted or lengthy their journeys, had seemed shocked by the dismal grind of London life, the V-2s still slamming down, the queues for fuel, the frozen rubble. They were impatient for the end and scenting change; tin medals weren’t going to be enough this time round.

Mrs Birrell came back in. ‘Can I get you another cup of tea?’

‘No, thanks,’ said Jepson, checking his watch. ‘I’m off somewhere shortly. Just a couple more questions?’

She settled on the arm of her husband’s chair and Birrell rested a hand on her hip, an easy, tender gesture. Their faces were alike, in expression if not feature – they shared a straightforwardness, an air of unselfconscious decency; one would hope, thought Jepson, that they stood a good chance of happiness. Since the end, just a year ago, of his own, terrible marriage he found himself studying other couples, like someone conning an aircraft recognition chart – spotting those tics and phrases that signalled contempt or boredom or fear, and when he saw those, he wanted to take one or other of the pair aside, and say, ‘Finish it now. Don’t do what I did, and let it drag on for a couple of decades.’ But then, would he himself have listened? For a long time, he’d thought that those odd moments of shining joy were worth all the rest. It was only since Della had left, abruptly and irrevocably, that he’d seen the whole truth of it, as if those decades were a crumpled sheet of newsprint he’d smoothed out and made legible again.

‘So do you know where you’re being sent next?’ he asked.

Private Birrell shrugged. ‘I’m in no hurry,’ he said. ‘They’ll tell me when they want me. With any luck, I’ll get to Berlin just in time to spit in Hitler’s bunker.’

‘With any luck, you won’t get further than Dover,’ added his wife. ‘You’ve done your bit.’

Jepson typed up the piece at the office, entitled it ‘The Son He’d Never Met’ and gave it to the sub, who eschewed poetry and who would almost certainly change the heading to ‘Home Again for Caledonian Road Man’.

‘Fancy a pint?’ called Longford, from his desk in the corner, where he was sorting glumly through a sheaf of letters. Ninety per cent would be about the inadequacy of the council repairs department.

‘No, I’ve said I’ll go to the Hampstead Methodist Christmas Party.’

‘Really?’ Longford looked aghast. ‘Never took you for the religious type.’

‘You probably never took me for the tombola type either, but that’s what I’m in charge of.’