‘Oh,’ she said frowning, as if trying to remember. ‘You must mean Luke Goddard. He’s just a friend of a friend. I brought him here once actually. He met Dad. Didn’t you meet him then?’
‘No. I’m sure I’d have remembered. What did Tom make of him? Not exactly ideal husband material, is he?’
‘Ken! Luke’s just a friend. As a matter of fact Dad and he hit it off really well. They got talking politics. Luke’s really left wing. He supports loads of really worthwhile causes.’
She stopped herself. She was sounding too enthusiastic.
‘And?’ Ken was watching her face, a teasing smile on his lips.
‘Like I said, he’s just a friend,’ she said looking down, studying the dregs of tea. ‘There’s nothing in it.’
Ken raised an eyebrow.
‘If you say so.’
The streets were surprisingly quiet as the taxi hurtled through Islington and Clerkenwell. Laura saw a few people standing outside the pubs drinking, and little groups of men walking quickly together as the cab rattled through Smithfield Market and headed up Cheapside. As the cab neared the Bank district, it passed a row of buildings that were under construction. Workers and cranes operated by floodlight.
The taxi drew up outside the hi-tech apartment block next to the Barbican. Laura paid the driver and took the lift to the tenth floor. The flat was smelt unfamiliar as she let herself in, of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol.
‘Luke?’ she said tentatively.
She switched on the light. There were dirty cups and half-finished pizzas in cardboard boxes on the coffee table. Newspapers were scattered around. She noticed a week-old copy of the Socialist Worker. She glanced at the headline: ‘Police Use Heavy Tactics on Innocent Protesters.’ An overflowing ash tray and several lager cans were on the floor, spilling their contents onto the white carpet. A grubby duvet and pillows lay on one of her leather sofas, as if someone had been sleeping there.
‘What the hell?’ Luke really was the limit. She’d said he could stay here if he needed to, but this was a bit much.
In the galley kitchen dirty plates were piled on the side while the tap dripped into scummy water in the sink.
She went through to the bedroom. Perhaps he was asleep in there. She switched on the light.
There was a shape under the bedcovers. Laura felt a wave of relief and a shiver of excitement, despite the state of her flat. She would surprise him. She kicked off her shoes and rushed forward, realising how much she had missed his touch in the weeks they’d been apart.
‘Luke,’ she pulled back the covers.
‘My God!’ She jumped back in shock.
It wasn’t Luke in her bed, but a younger man. His thin face was pale, and purple bruises ringed the flesh beneath his eyes. His blond hair was matted and dry. He was snoring gently through half-open lips that were crusted with sores. Grunting at the intrusion he rolled over and his eyes flickered open for a second. He raised a bony arm to shield his eyes from the light. On the inside of his wrists, Laura saw red needle punctures lining his veins.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked.
He stared back at her vacantly through bloodshot eyes.
5
Tom glanced at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. It was nearly time for him to meet Harry and Ian at the latrines and give them his answer. Miraculously, he still had the watch that his father had given him when he first set off for Malaya in 1938. Each time he glanced at it he was reminded of the look on his father’s face, severe behind his dark-rimmed glasses, as he had given the watch to him.
‘I sincerely hope that this next episode in your life will be rather more successful than the last, Thomas,’ he’d said drily.
‘Thank you, Father,’ was all Tom had said in response.
What would Father be doing now? His routine had probably changed little. He would still be taking the tram each morning from Gordon Square to his office in the city, dressed in a pin-striped suit and bowler hat, carrying his umbrella, briefcase and rolled up copy of The Times. There had been no letters from home since Tom had been captured. Had the house in Bloomsbury suffered in the Blitz?
It was hard to imagine, here in the jungle, that life still went on in grey London. Despite the hardships of his incarceration, he did not miss the city. He merely thought about it sometimes, in a detached way.
He had a clear image of when he had taken the decision to leave home. And it was more than just a decision to leave, it was a decision to go a long way away from there and never return. It had been building up for years, had been working up to that point ever since his father had called him into his study that evening a few months after he had left school.
He had spent that summer of 1933 with a bunch of school friends. They were all delighted to be free of the constraints and tedium of their public school, where countless hours were spent reciting Latin verbs and poring over the poems of Tennyson and Wordsworth, or shivering on the playing field. Schooldays had been unremarkable and uneventful for Tom, except for his friendship with David Lambert, and his hatred of one master, Doctor Sharp, who took sadistic delight in the physical punishment of boys who misbehaved. Sharp would have made an excellent Japanese soldier, Tom thought now.
During those months after he left school, Tom had nothing particular to do. He spent endless lazy summer days in the company of David and a group of others, including David’s older sister Elsie, whom Tom found himself attracted to. They all used
