There was another crash, and when he looked in the direction of the sound he saw that the Tiffy had hit the ground. It was burning, but the fuselage had not broken up. The pilot might be alive.

He ran towards the plane, and Cigare and Legionnaire followed.

The downed aircraft lay on its belly. One wing had snapped in half. Smoke came from the single engine. The perspex dome was blackened by soot and Lloyd could not see the pilot.

He stepped on the wing and unfastened the hood catch. Cigare did the same on the other side. Together, they slid the dome back on its rails.

The pilot was unconscious. He wore a helmet and goggles, and an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Lloyd could not tell whether it was someone he knew.

He wondered where the oxygen tank was, and whether it had yet burst.

Legionnaire had a similar thought. ‘We have to get him out before the plane blows up,’ he said.

Lloyd reached inside and unfastened the safety harness. Then he put his hands under the pilot’s arms and pulled. The man was completely limp. Lloyd had no way of knowing what his injuries might be. He was not even sure the man was alive.

He dragged the pilot out of the cockpit, then got him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him a safe distance from the burning wreckage. As gently as he could, he laid the man on the ground face up.

He heard a noise that was a cross between a whoosh and a thump, and looked back to see that the whole plane was ablaze.

He bent over the pilot and carefully removed the goggles and the oxygen mask, revealing a face that was shockingly familiar.

The pilot was Boy Fitzherbert.

And he was breathing.

Lloyd wiped blood from Boy’s nose and mouth.

Boy opened his eyes. At first there seemed no intelligence behind them. Then, after a minute, his expression altered and he said: ‘You.’

‘We blew up the train,’ Lloyd said.

Boy seemed unable to move anything but his eyes and mouth. ‘Small world,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it?’

Cigare said: ‘Who is he?’

Lloyd hesitated, then said: ‘My brother.’

‘My God.’

Boy’s eyes closed.

Lloyd said to Legionnaire: ‘We have to bring a doctor.’

Legionnaire shook his head. ‘We must get out of here. The Germans will be coming to investigate the train crash within minutes.’

Lloyd knew he was right. ‘We’ll have to take him with us.’

Boy opened his eyes and said: ‘Williams.’

‘What is it, Boy?’

Boy seemed to grin. ‘You can marry the bitch now,’ he said.

Then he died.

(viii)

Daisy cried when she heard. Boy had been a rotter, and treated her badly, but she had loved him once, and he had taught her a lot about sex; and she felt sad that he had been killed.

His brother, Andy, was now a viscount and heir to the earldom; Andy’s wife, May, was a viscountess; and Daisy’s name, according to the elaborate rules of the aristocracy, was the Dowager Viscountess Aberowen – until she married Lloyd, when she would be relieved to become plain Mrs Williams.