Laura cleared her throat and for a moment couldn’t quite say the words. Then she looked up at them with a broad smile. ‘It’s Marjorie,’ she said. ‘She’s managed to get in touch with Freddy. Don’t ask me how or where she’s been, we simply don’t know, but she’s alive and she’s coming home. Isn’t that marvellous?’

‘Oh, Laura.’ Kitty shook her head and then was filled with almost incredulous joy. ‘Is it really true? She’s alive, after all this time? Does he really not say anything more?’

Laura pulled a face. ‘He can be a man of few words, my brother, but this time I think he genuinely doesn’t know. He would have said, or at least told me where I could phone him from here. I’m going to try to see him later on. But anyway, it’s just such a relief to hear she has not been killed off in a Resistance cell somewhere. That’s what I feared, I can tell you that now.’

Kitty nodded. ‘I never wanted to say either, but that’s what I was scared might have happened too. We know she must have gone in undercover – it doesn’t bear thinking about what might have happened to her. She was so brave before she went, though. So determined.’

‘Yes, underneath that quiet exterior, she always was as stubborn as a mule,’ said Laura cheerfully. ‘No doubt that’s stood her in good stead. Frank, I’m sorry, you don’t know this person, but she’s been like a sister to Kitty and me ever since we did our initial training, and she’s been missing for ages. So you see, it’s rather good news.’

Kitty sighed. ‘It’s almost too much to take in. Frank, you’d like her, she’s terribly clever. She’d love you too – I mean she’d admire you, and would probably want to know exactly what you do at work. It would get her brain cells ticking and she likes nothing better.’

Frank nodded. ‘I’m glad she’s all right, then. It’s not much fun waiting to hear if someone you love has made it or not, is it?’

There was moment of silence as Laura recalled the years she’d agonised over Freddy’s fate, and then over Marjorie’s. Kitty recalled the awful time near the beginning of the war when they’d thought Jack was lost at sea, and then the terrible blow of Eddy’s death. That Marjorie had somehow survived her secret mission was nothing short of a miracle.

‘Right, time to celebrate,’ said Laura, heading with habitual accuracy to the cocktail cabinet. ‘Frank, have you seen the admiral’s treasure chest here? What will you have? Kitty, don’t tell me, you still don’t care for them.’

‘I’ll have whatever you’re having,’ said Frank bravely.