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‘The risk is greater for you and even though I shouldn’t ask it, here I am asking it of you.’

‘I can’t see you for the reason we both know is too laden with guilt.’

The disappointment was so acute he felt it like a pang of fear. She was going to deny him even looking upon her again . . .

‘But I see no reason why we can’t meet to discuss this woman you’re looking for. I’d like to help you lay Tom Fletcher fully to rest.’

Harry’s spirits lifted like the doves he witnessed being released in a small village in France at the end of the war – one for each of the men who had been lost from the village. He could recall now the clap of their wings as two dozen or more rock doves were released into an unblemished, brilliantly sapphire sky. That’s how he felt now, soaring into a clear dome of blue weightlessness.

‘Thank you. I would appreciate that help. Should I meet you at the factory?’

‘You could, or you could take a train to Harrogate tomorrow morning and I could pick you up in my motor car with a packed picnic.’

He smiled at the receiver. ‘Perfect.’

‘Ten-thirty sharp.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Good evening, Harry.’ The phone clicked off and he heard a few beeps and whirrs before he was plunged back into the thick silence and it was filled with anticipation.

‘Did you get onto her?’ Charles asked when Harry returned.

‘Yes, sir, thank you. We’re meeting tomorrow and she’s giving up her day, by the sounds of it, to help me track down the person I’m hunting.’

‘Good show.’ Charles beamed. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t care to join us for dinner, Harry?’

‘No, but thank you. I think I’ll head back for an early night. Big day tomorrow. And I can find my way out, sir. Thank you for your time tonight. It was a pleasure.’

A dinner gong sounded.

‘Don’t mention it. You’re most welcome to visit here during your stay. I can sign you in any time, old chap.’

A waiter stepped up. ‘Your table’s ready, Sir Charles.’

‘Ah, very good. Where’s James? I wanted to say something to him about tonight’s whisky.’

‘I do believe he’s gone for the evening, sir.’

‘Never mind.’ He returned his gaze to Harry. ‘Well, goodnight then, old chap. Perhaps we’ll see you again?’

Harry shook the older man’s hand. ‘I’m not sure, sir, but please pass on my best to Lady Frobisher.’

Alex’s father touched a hand to his head and Harry headed out through the main hall heavy with the aromas of rich beef gravy and the more delicate scent of fish. Rationing clearly hadn’t profoundly affected the menu at the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Club. With a distant sound of silver clinking against china, he waited at the cloakroom briefly for his hat and coat. He left the club, nodding at the doorman.

The main doors were swung closed behind him and Harry paused in the small arcade that formed the porch at the front of the building known as River House. He peered into the dense night to assess the weather, sensing that the skies would open shortly as it was cold yet too mild to snow and that meant rain. He carried no brolly but was undeterred; rain had been a near constant during the war and he’d carried no umbrella then either. As Harry stepped down the shallow flight of three broad stairs, he paused again on the last beneath the main stone arch that was daintily inscribed with a pattern either side of its keystone. Those decorations, pretty in their swirls, were a foil for the eight marble columns, four either side, that solidly flanked him to hold up the classical structure. He gazed absently at the club’s somewhat grand entrance. He took this time to flick a scarf around his mouth and tuck its ends into his collar. With shoulders hunched, he stepped out onto the pavement and turned right, to head over the Lendal Bridge. Night had crept over York and the few people out on the streets were moving with purpose to get out of the cold as soon as possible.

By contrast he was in no hurry to be in his room at the guesthouse; he might even look for a pub where he could chew on a sandwich over ale for half an hour before he headed back. As he thought this he felt the effect of the chill and the mellowing tingle of the single malt doing battle. He wasn’t light-headed from the liquor but he did suddenly decide it may well be a better idea to eat in the guesthouse tonight, even if they sent up a tray. Plus a drizzle was now underway as the skies kept their promise and opened up. He looked to them now, seeing the shower illuminated in a gaslight as he passed. He noticed a man cut out of a side street behind the club and hurry diagonally across the road ahead of him. He was a tall man, hunched in coat and hat. Harry pulled up the collar of his own coat, increased his pace and also skipped across the road to see if he could take a shortcut through the gardens, but they were closing the gates just as he arrived. With a shrug he nodded at the fellow in charge and pressed on undeterred; in fact, he was feeling a slight bounce in his step at the thought of seeing Alex tomorrow . . . alone . . . in a car with the ability to head away from York and prying eyes.

As he lost himself in these pressing thoughts, his gaze lingered on the back of the man up ahead, whom he now realised he was following since the gardens had been closed to him.

It was only as he cast a hopeful look around for a tram or cab and came up wanting, blinking into the heavier rain now, that he realised he recognised the fellow. He knew he was right simply from the man’s distinctive lope. It was the obsequious James. Harry frowned into the night, wondering why he had taken such an instant dislike to the waiter. It was as though James was enjoying some fine jest at Harry’s expense; no, at the expense of Charles Frobisher. Sir Charles perhaps didn’t notice but to Harry the aloof air of disdain emanating from the waiter had felt obvious and made all the more snide because of the man’s sycophantic manner. And then there was that almost proprietorial air he didn’t manage to disguise when it came to Matthew Britten-Jones. If anything, James’s attitude had made Harry far more intrigued than he might have been.

He looked ahead for James and noted he’d turned a corner. Without hesitating and led by fresh curiosity, his stride turned into a slight jog until he too had turned the corner and sighted James again. It seemed they were headed into the same district anyway. He continued in James’s footsteps, compelled to glimpse the Bristol man’s home in York, for no other reason than he was vaguely captivated by the waiter’s mysteriously protective manner towards Britten-Jones. Alex’s husband intrigued him.

Harry told himself to cut away soon and head to his guesthouse. He bent his head against the rain and followed the shadowy figure in front, which now appeared like someone sketched out in paint from one of the indistinct watercolours of the masters. The shape was a person but it no longer had firm lines or indeed any colour as the night and drenching of the streets had fused it into little more than a dark smudge.

Harry noted the blurred figure angle down a side street that was not far from the city’s walls. His guesthouse was barely a five-minute walk away. He paused at the same corner and watched James, glad to feel his momentary blood rush leaking away like the water trickling along the street gutter. He began to shift his thoughts to a hot meal, an ale and perhaps even a bath to warm up: all luxuries that this time last year would have been painful to daydream over. He let James move far from his reach and realised the man was now clearly in a hurry; Harry watched him break into a jaunt before leaping up a small flight of stairs that led into one of the elegant terraced houses. There was an overhead lamp on the porch and Harry glimpsed another figure – clearly a man – emerge from the doorway. He couldn’t hear what was said but the way the man held his body, the manner in which he opened up his arms, told him it was obviously a bleat at being kept waiting. Harry was barely aware of taking a few steps deeper into the shadows and he could hear them now, although the words were indistinct. It sounded like James was explaining why he was late.