‘I’m not quite an invalid, you know,’ he said mildly. ‘Can’t have a girl ordering the drinks, even if she is my stroppy little sister.’

Laura almost argued back out of deeply ingrained habit, but then could see that his pride would be hurt unless she gave way. So for once she didn’t press the point, but let him speak to the barman and carry the glasses out to the garden, where they saw that the table in the corner was free. She waited until he was seated comfortably before taking the wooden bench opposite. There was a gentle breeze blowing the leaves of the neatly trimmed privet hedge. She waited for a moment to see if he would start, but then her patience ran out. ‘Well? What’s happened? Where were you, when did you get back and how did you know where I’d be …’

‘All right, Laura, I’ll start at the beginning and tell you as much as I can remember,’ he said, giving way to the inevitable, ‘but I warn you, there will be gaps. You’ll have noticed I’m not quite the man I was, and there are some bits of the story I simply can’t remember. So go easy on me.’ He rubbed his hand across his face and blond hair, making more of it stick up.

‘Of course, of course,’ said Laura, eager to reassure him and to know more as soon as possible.

‘Well … I was sent on a mission to fly over France,’ he began haltingly. Then, as if the floodgates had opened, he described waking up in a field, his plane on fire beside him, faces staring down at him, speaking a language he could barely understand. The people had argued about whether to leave him, and some of them thought he was already dead. Then the one who appeared to be their leader came closer, realised he was still breathing, and ordered a piece of sacking to be fetched to use as a stretcher. He had been taken to a nearby barn. There he had stayed, he had no idea for how long. He’d drifted in and out of consciousness and had been so ill he hadn’t even worried about where he was or if he was safe.