Roz turned back. In her heart she rather hoped he might find the courage to kiss her more firmly, but he was holding out an envelope for her to take. ‘It’s a letter from Adele. She sent it with mine seeing as she can’t write to you here.’

‘Oh, how wonderful!’ said Roz. ‘Will you please explain that it’s difficult for me to write back with no paper or pencils at the Haggartys’?’

He nodded. ‘Don’t worry, she knows.’

Putting the epistle into her pocket, Roz began to climb up the stairs to the loft, then looked back to see Felix waving to her from the pavement. Waving back, she headed through the door. Inside, Suzie was already in bed, snoring softly, and there was no sign of Callum or Lilith. Roz assumed they must still be down the Pig and Whistle. Glad that she didn’t have to face an inquisition, she padded over to the table and pulled Adele’s letter from her pocket.

Dear Roz,

I do hope you’re having a better Christmas this year. Felix said it was pretty rotten for you last time, which is such a shame as I was really hoping the Haggartys would give you a proper Christmas. As you know, I was really lucky with the family that took me in, and they have a huge tree, so big they have to use ladders to put the star on the top!

Roz continued to read the letter which told of her friend’s happiness and her wishes for Roz to get away from the Haggartys sooner rather than later. Once finished, she slipped out of her clothes and got into her bed beside Suzie. She couldn’t explain why, but she had a feeling that things were soon going to get better.

It was the summer of 1940 and Hitler had stepped up his bombing campaign. Anyone who lived near docks or train lines lived in constant fear of being bombed. Liverpool had, so far, been lucky, with the main targets being London and the south.

Despite the imminent danger, Callum refused to move his family away from the docks.

‘It’ll be another false alarm,’ he’d snap at Lilith, who invariably complained about the long trek down the rickety steps to the air raid shelter in Mercer Court.

‘Then why are we bothering to leave?’ Lilith would retort. ‘You can’t see a damned thing in this blackout – I’m in more danger of breaking me bleedin’ neck getting to the air raid shelter than I am of actually getting bombed.’

Callum never bothered to reply – not that he needed to, for Roz knew only too well why they bothered to leave. It was so that Callum could take them down to the shelter, make a big show of ensuring his mother was comfortable, have a good look to see who was already there, then make himself scarce. Often he would use the excuse that he had to keep an eye on the coal to stop would-be looters from helping themselves, which in Roz’s opinion was laughable. Not because people weren’t looting, but because Callum was one of the ones doing the looting. At first she had only suspected this to be the case, but after hearing a family talking of how they’d been looted the last time they’d had a false air raid, she knew her suspicions were valid.