When Andrew had pictured this moment of coming home for good - and he'd pictured it many times over the past five years - he'd imagined something dramatic. He'd thought he might not even be able to get his key in the lock. He'd thought he might come through the door and faint, or be sick, or sit down on the hall floor and howl like an infant. But the door opened easily, his kit bag settled naturally by the coat tree, and his hat went smoothly onto the same hook where he'd hung his school cap.

"Dad?" His voice echoed back from the quiet rooms. No trilby on the rack, no keys in the dish: Dad was out. If he hadn't been so tired Andrew would have laughed at the anticlimax of it all.

There were new curtains in the sitting room; or, more precisely, the old curtains, the ones Mum had just replaced the Christmas before she died, were back up. Andrew remembered, now that he thought of it, Dad writing something about giving away some furnishings. He wandered through to the larder (potatoes, carrots, half a loaf of brown bread, a jar of Bovril, a packet of dried eggs and two jars of quince jam - oh, Dad, never change), then back to the hall and up the stairs. On the landing a faint smell of sun-warmed wood gave him a flash of vertigo as it suddenly seemed that beyond the near door he'd find, not the spare room, but Mum's studio, and maybe Mum herself.

I'm old, Mum. I'm old and my eyes are buggered and I'm… He turned sharply and went to his own room. Tidy though it was, it felt crowded with toys, picture books, and textbooks; with the aggregate detritus of his own past. He crossed to the window, pushed back the blackout curtain, and raised the sash. A smell of cut grass and damp earth came up from the garden. On the closest branch of the oak that had been Andrew's private staircase, a few of last year's leaves hung on amid the soft new growth. He leaned out, squinting in the sunshine, and shook the branch. The bark rasped against his palms just as it always had. Not a dream, then. He was home.

He went for his kit bag and hauled it upstairs, frowning as the effort brought back the dull pain in his cheekbones and around his left eye. It would pass off, the last quack had assured him, but it would take time. Well, he had plenty of that.

The bureau drawers were full. He had to turn them out before he could unpack. How had he ever found a use for so many pullovers, or so many ties? In the bottom drawer he found his scholar's gown, the poplin creased from the careless way he'd rolled it up in 1940. Shaken out and draped over the end of the bed, it looked like a shroud. He made space for his other uniform and his demob suit in the top drawer, then crammed as many of his old clothes as would fit in around them. The rest he piled on the bed beside his gown.

At the bottom of his bag, under his flight jacket, he had three books, two notebooks, an untidy packet of letters, and a pair of photographs. The books went easily into the bookshelf, but the desk drawers were already full of paper. Andrew poked, halfheartedly, at a sheaf of first-year essays that should have gone for salvage years ago, then shut the drawer. Opened it. Shut it. "Words," he muttered aloud. "Words, words, words…" I was good at them, once. He put the letters in a jigsaw box on the bookshelf, but left the notebooks and the photos on the desk. Sam stared up at him from the top one, solemn in her uniform, her chin a little raised and her dark eyes watchful. She'd slept in this room, back in '43 when Dad was ill. When he thought of that, it seemed to make a little more space for him there.

Somehow an hour had passed since he'd looked at his watch on the way up Steep Lane. Too long for Dad to be out getting a paper. He went back to the window and stared down through the leaves at the garden. A rise in the breeze brought the smell of earth up to him more strongly, raising memories of mud and waders. Andrew shook his head at his own slowness. Unless there was a case on, there was only one place Dad would be on a Saturday morning in May.

He felt conspicuous on the familiar road, but no one knew to question his wings, and he saw no one he recognized, though every fair-haired woman made his head turn. Could I turn from the trees as they bend in the breeze… how had he ever been young enough to think that, much less say it out loud? But if that had been so long ago, how could he have already known Sam then? And if the hundreds of other times he'd walked the road to the river - sometimes brimming with pleasure to be on an outing with Dad, sometimes shuffling his feet in moody resentment - felt so close, how could those be before Sam?

It was warm in the sunlight, but cool in the dappled shade at the edges of the fields and in the hollows, cool enough for trout to be rising even in midmorning. Something familiar happened in his chest as he left the road and picked his way along the bank, but he couldn't place the sensation, or even recognize it as pleasant or painful. It welled up more strongly when his eyes found a figure in the stream, and he realized it was both at once.

Andrew couldn't see the fly now, but he could see the graceful swing of the rod as Dad cast, and imagine the fly (or lure, whichever it might be, he'd never mastered the difference) trembling on the surface as Dad played the line with his left hand. For a moment he just watched, and then said, not too loudly, "Dad."

Dad had his feet planted, but he turned not only his head but his whole upper body, and for a moment just looked at Andrew with a serious taking-in gaze. Then he blinked, and the lines around his mouth deepened with the start of a smile. The rod drooped in his suddenly slack hands.

"I thought I'd find you here," Andrew said, blinking himself. "Don't stop," he added as Dad began to reel in his line.

"Meeting this afternoon, would've stopped soon anyway." In five quick strides Dad was out of the river and up the bank. He fumbled his rod into his left hand in order to reach for Andrew with his right; Andrew accepted the handshake, but then used it to pull Dad in for a hug. It startled him all over again that his father only came up to his ear, though under the worn corduroy coat Dad's shoulders still felt as oak-solid as when Andrew used to ride on them, and Dad's hand struck firmly in the middle of Andrew's back with three or four steady pats before he drew back. "When, um. When did you…?"

"Just now. Well, a couple hours. Came down to Chailey last night and had to loaf about waiting for a lift this morning. You catching anything?"

"Nothing worth keeping." Dad led him to a nearby tree where the creel sat empty but a thermos flask showed he'd been fishing for some time. "Been to the house?" He laid his rod down and began to peel off his waders.

"Just left my bag." Andrew watched Dad crouch to tidy his lures and tie down his line, then stand to shake the water from his waders. The thick, curly hair at the back of his neck was grayer now, his hands were more weathered, and the skin hung a little looser at his jaw, but he moved as smoothly as ever. "The street was looking very festive."

Dad made a wry face. "Half the population seems to be trying to whip up more excitement; other half seems terrified everyone's going to riot. You come through London?" He went on, after Andrew's nod, "How is it up there?"

They walked home slowly, talking of London and transport. Andrew carried the creel. Standing on the front steps holding it while Dad unlocked the front door felt so timelessly familiar that it gave him another instant of disorientation. "No, haven't had lunch," he said, dragging his mind to the present. "Is anything open Saturdays? I've seen the larder."

"The larder's fine, Andrew, you're very difficult to please." Dad dropped his keys into the dish with exaggerated disgust, and they grinned at each other. The moment stretched, and something shifted around Dad's eyes, making his gaze both sad and piercing. I'd have laughed, before, Andrew realized. He thought about trying, but it was much too late. Dad went on, "There's any number of places, must be half a dozen opened or re-opened this past month alone." He shrugged off his coat and hung up his hat. "Can give you a drink, at least, if you'd…?"

"Please."

Dad smiled and tilted his head towards the sitting room. "Your chair's where you left it."

Andrew didn't sit, but stood in the middle of the sitting room, carefully not fidgeting while Dad poured. Mum's picture was on the desk and his own, the serious formal portrait from when he got his wings, stood on the table by Dad's chair. Andrew thought he probably ought to feel something about that beyond distaste at his own pompous expression in the photograph, but he couldn't muster up the energy for it.

"Here."

"Cheers, Dad." Andrew raised the glass, and then raised his eyebrows when he saw the drinks tray on the table. "A full bottle of scotch! Where on earth did you get that?"

"It's bourbon."

"Oh. Your American pal?" Andrew could picture the bluff, cheerful face, but it took him a moment to find the name. "Captain Kieffer?"

Dad gave a sideways nod with a little twist of his mouth. "Major, now."

"How is he?" Andrew sat down and tasted the bourbon. Rough, but not smoky at all. It burned comfortingly going down.

"Eager to get back to his family." Dad brought his own drink through to the sitting room. "So, is this just a visit, or are you back for good?"

"I'm not flying anymore." He wanted to leave it at that, but he'd need to explain sometime. "I had a touch of sinusitis a couple of months ago."

Dad stood still, looking at him.

"Well, more than a touch," Andrew admitted. "Four days in hospital."

The pattern of Dad's tie shimmered as he drew a quick breath, but all he said was, "Cured?"

Depends on what you mean. He managed, just, not to rub at his left eye. "Don't ask. It was bloody painful. Then the Group Captain sent me home." He took another drink, bracing himself for questions, but Dad seemed to take the 'don't ask' to heart.

"So you're out of it?" he said, at length.

Andrew nodded. "Yes. I made it."

Dad looked down with a small, close-mouthed smile that made his face suddenly soft.

"I keep thinking…" Andrew stopped, but it was too late. Dad was watching him again. "About all the ones that didn't. Rex Talbot. Charlie Page." And the ones I've forgotten. And the ones whose names I never knew. "So many of them. They were my friends, and yet it's like…" They never lived. "I hardly knew them. Here one day, gone the next. The best of the best."

Dad took a drink, then studied the inside of his glass. He drew a breath like an audible quotation mark. "Why them, not you?" He fixed his shrewd gaze on Andrew.

It was an uncomfortable relief to be laid so bare. Andrew let out a sigh. "That's what I wonder all the time." He felt his face pull into a mirthless smile. "They say the real fliers, the ones who knew what they were doing, they were the easiest to bring down. It was the lazy bastards, the ones who cut corners, who didn't do it by the book - we got away with it because Jerry didn't know what to expect."

"Mm." Dad tilted his head at the angle that meant acknowledgement but not agreement. "Who're 'they?'" he asked after a moment.

"People." Andrew sniffed his bourbon and took another sip, then changed the subject. "How's Sam?"

Dad widened his eyes. "Didn't think you'd need to ask me that."

"I know what she writes." Andrew ran a thumb along the base of his tumbler. "I don't know… how much she worries about worrying me." He watched Dad consider the question with the familiar twitch of his mouth, and the same vertigo that had grabbed him on the stairs caught him again. I had the strangest dream, Dad, I dreamed I was grown up and there was a war and Mum was dead. But they were drinking bourbon, and the curtains were wrong, so it was all real.

"She's been well," Dad said. "Doing some voluntary work at SSAFA." He pulled his mouth down at the corners. "Nagging me to reconsider leaving."

"But you're not. Reconsidering, I mean."

He shook his head. "Can't wait."

"Is she going home to Lyminster? Once you don't need her?"

He raised his eyebrows and gave Andrew a sideways look. "Nnnot… exactly my place to say, is it?"

"Dad," Andrew protested. Under the steady blue gaze he put his glass down. "All right, that's fair," he said. "But I won't apologize for asking. I'm just… trying to get my bearings."

"She know you were ill?" There was the slightest emphasis on she.

"Is that your place to ask?" He looked at the carpet, but what he saw was Sam's neat, round writing on Dad's notepaper. ...your father's been taken ill… An echo of the shudder that had gone through him that noontime in the mess at Debden ran again down his back and his left leg. He pushed his foot into the floor to still it. "I told her I felt rotten and was going to sick call. Told her I was grounded for a bit." He hooked his fingers together in his lap. "Haven't written since. Almost a month." The clock ticked. In the street a car sputtered past. "Stupid bloody war," he added, almost involuntarily, under his breath. "Dad…" His voice sounded pleading and childish; he swallowed and tried to bring it down to something ordinary. "Do you think it was worth it?"

Silence. "Well." Now Dad was looking at the carpet. He tilted his head. "We've all paid a price, some more than others, but I have... absolutely no doubt whatsoever."

Of course that's the right answer. Of course. Andrew picked up his drink again, but a dull raw feeling under his sternum kept him from taking a swallow. "Yes," he said quietly.

Dad raised his eyes. "And I'm very glad you're back." He lifted his glass slightly, and the corners of his mouth tightened again.

Andrew nodded, and tried to smile.

"Look," Dad straightened up in his chair. "I'm sorry I've got to go to this committee meeting. Should be done by five; why don't you come down, meet me at the museum, and we'll have a walk, find some supper out? Can't promise anything about menus, but it'll have to be better than the larder."

Andrew nodded with what he hoped looked like enthusiasm. "Yes, sounds good. Sorry, I'm a bit… head in the clouds." Or… not. "Sam coming for you?"

"Not on the weekend. I'll walk. Should change, though…" He stood, glass still in hand. "Cafe on Broad Street's not bad these days. Lunch for you," he added. "D'you need…?"

"No. No, fine for cash, but I'll have bread and jam or something, if we're going out later."

"There's only…"

"Quince. I saw. Well, I'll know I'm home." Quince was Dad's favorite; Andrew used to complain that there was always more of it in the larder than anything else and Dad used to retort that it was because Andrew put away half jars of raspberry or strawberry at a sitting. It was hard, now, to imagine being that hungry.

Dad nodded. He paused beside Andrew's chair and put a hand on the corner of the back. "Very glad," he said again, roughly, and turned away.

Andrew stared down at the trembling surface of his drink until he heard Dad's step on the stairs, then took a gulp to feel the burn again, to feel something that made sense.

The Messerschmitt dropped away in one of those impossibly steep dives that a Spitfire couldn't reliably follow without stalling, and Andrew stomped on his rudder to turn as he pulled up, scanning the sky for other planes. The steady blast of his oxygen line made his throat dry and his chin cold even as his scarf stuck to his sweaty throat. "Yellow Three, this is Yellow Leader, any bandits, over?"

Before Tom could answer a blot appeared in Andrew's mirror and he tightened his stomach muscles against the lightheadedness as he turned faster and the blot spread, growing wings before it slid out of the mirror and appeared even larger in the corner of his eye. He flexed his thumb over his firing button.

His R/T fizzed in his ears, and the same fizz seemed to fill up his vision, though his oxygen was still blasting and he was curving out of the sharp turn into a shallower one. He swiped at his goggles, then at the coop over his head, but his arm moved like a sack of sand and he couldn't see any clearer. He blinked; no help. Fog on his goggles, or on the canopy, or in his eyes, or outside; he couldn't tell. With faraway fingers he made sure the oxygen was on full, sucked down a deep breath, squinched his eyes shut and forced them open.

Andrew snapped his head around, looking for the blot, or vapor trails, or the fast-growing flyspecks of other aircraft. But he saw only wallpaper. Pale green wallpaper with darker medallions. His wallpaper; his bedroom. The pressure on his chest was his twisted braces, not his life vest and Sutton harness. He dropped back on the pillow, breathing hard, willing his heart to slow down, and grimacing at the way his shirt stuck to his skin.

"Andrew," Dad said, very mildly, from the foot of the bed.

Oh hell. Oh bloody hell. Through the window the oak tree was gilded with evening sunlight, and Dad was watching him with an all-too-familiar look of restrained worry. "Sorry." Andrew ran a hand over his face and let out a long breath. "Fell asleep," he added, unnecessarily, as he swung his legs to the floor and into the tangle of old clothes he'd pushed off the bed when when he lay down intending just to rest his eyes. How long was he watching me? Did I shout? "Sorry, Dad. I meant to come meet you."

"Doesn't matter." Dad pulled his mouth to one side, considering.

Don't ask, Andrew thought fervently. Don't ask. "You wait for me long?"

"Not at all. Hungry now? Can bring you something."

"I'm not ill," Andrew snapped, rubbing the aching spot between his left eye and his nose.

"No, no, no. Course not. But if you're tired…"

"No. No, I'll come down, just... give me a minute to wash and… change my shirt." He hauled himself up from the bed, sidled past Dad to the dresser, and escaped to the bathroom. In the mirror his own face looked puffy and pale aside from the red marks the folds of the counterpane had left on his cheek. He needed a shave, but he settled for splashing cold water over his face and scrubbing under his arms. The sweat of fear always stank worse than any other kind. He'd forgotten to get a towel from the airing cupboard, so he used the drier bits of his soiled shirt before buttoning himself into the clean one.

When he came back, Dad was still in his bedroom, standing at the desk, the much-traveled photographs from Andrew's kit bag in his hands. "Where'd you get this?"

"Which?"

Dad put down the leatherette case with the formal picture of him and mum, and held up the other.

"Oh. Sam gave it to me. When we were in Lyminster. I wanted a snap of her."

"Her parents didn't have anything less…" Dad tilted his head. " I mean, this was just Studdock larking about with the Kodak when he should have been photographing tire marks. She's not even smiling."

"I know. But I like it. Her parents have loads but half of them are formal family portraits and the rest… just show a pretty country vicar's daughter. Not..." Not my Sam. "Not how tough she is." He put out his hand and Dad passed the picture over. "Kept it in my pocket," Andrew admitted, running a finger along the crease that went through Sam's hat and Dad's shoulder. "When I flew." In the silence after that it occurred to him to wonder that Dad, usually so scrupulous about waiting for an invitation, hadn't stayed in the doorway, by the head of the bed, but come all the way into the room. As if he knew a voice from behind would be worse.

"But you, um." Dad rolled his lower lip under his teeth. "Haven't written her? Since you were grounded?"

"I kept… waiting to have something solid to say. They kept bumping me along to different quacks before deciding I was done." In the notebooks just inches from Dad's hand he'd started half a dozen letters and abandoned them all. "Seemed easier just to come home." With every day that passed the fact of not-writing had grown bigger, rapidly overwhelming the weight of anything he had failed to write. The longer he left it, the more important it became to write a proper letter, which seemed harder and harder to do when he seemed to be always packing and unpacking, or dressing and undressing, and carrying chits around sprawling hospitals in search of a Captain Such-and-such in Radio-something or Matron This in Ocular That.

He rubbed the photo again. Out of the past two years they'd had less than a fortnight together, all told, when you added up the days in Hastings while Dad was ill, her visit to Debden and his to Lyminster, and one day in London. In that time they'd managed more real conversations than they'd had in the six months they'd been walking out in Hastings before he… before. And they'd written, and phoned when they could. And it was more time than most men in the services were lucky enough to have with their girls, or even wives. But it was hard not to worry that it was very little reality to hold against an idea of someone.

"Well," said Dad. "As you said before, not my business. I'm sorry."

"What?" Andrew looked up. "No. I mean… that's all right. It's good of you, too," he added, motioning with the photo.

"Is it?"

"It's as if you're thinking, 'Andrew, what mess have you got into this time.' And already thinking how to help me get out."

Dad dropped his chin and his eyes. His mouth drew in small, then curved into a smile. "Potato and carrot soup all right?" he said, after a moment.

"Yeah."

"Right. You lay the table." He jerked his chin towards the stairs

Dad put the gramophone on rather than the wireless - something French and faintly familiar. They talked of general things: the committee on victory celebrations, the neighbors, and the announcement that the FA Cup would resume in the coming season. Andrew dropped a plate while they were doing the washing up, but he did manage to slow its fall with his knee so it only chipped a bit. Still, he wished Dad would scold him for carelessness rather than saying, too quietly, "that's all right."

They played chess afterwards, though, and Dad didn't pull any punches there. "You've learned some new tricks," Andrew said, as he set up the pieces after the first brief game.

"Met a very good player. Last year. Took me on as a… sort of student."

"Maybe he'd teach me." Andrew meant it as a mere pleasantry, but Dad's face went still in a way that made it clear he'd said something wrong. "Probably I'm not up to his standard."

"Not that. He's unavailable." Dad turned towards the windows, half rising from his chair, then sat down. "Keep thinking we're going to be nicked for breaking the blackout." He leaned forward over the board and motioned for Andrew to make the first move.

"Is this what you'll do when you've left the police?" Andrew asked, as they played.

"Hope I'll attend fewer committee meetings."

"Right. But… fish, play chess…?" Read by the fire, go to bed, do it all again? Suddenly restless, Andrew got up and went to the sideboard. "D'you want any?" he asked, pouring himself a small measure of bourbon.

"No, thank you." Dad shrugged. "Finish my book, do something with the garden. Like to travel a bit, when that's possible again."

He bent over to make a move, then leaned against the mantle. "Won't you need to keep Sam around, to help with the book?"

"Nnnot necessarily, if I'm already housing and feeding someone with more than half of a university education."

"If I remember any of it." Andrew made a face and then took the tiniest sip of his drink.

"Think you'll go back?"

"To Oxford?" He'd assumed he would, when he left for the RAF, but the longer he flew ops the less he'd thought of the future at all. When he'd started again it had been in tentative, specific ways - after the war I'd like another bike or I'll take Sam out for all the ice cream she can eat. "Perhaps. Suppose I ought to finish. There's a letter somewhere saying I can have another year on my scholarship."

"Check."

"What? Damn." Andrew moved a knight to block Dad's bishop. "Not giving you much of a game, sorry."

Dad shook his head, studying the board.

Andrew took another sip.

"Does it," Dad said, and stopped.

"What?"

"Does it. Um. Help if someone wakes you. When you dream."

Andrew looked at the wall. "I'm all right, Dad, don't worry about it."

"Not exactly what I asked."

"Don't know," he admitted, after considering and discarding a few more evasive answers. It was just business as usual, in officers' quarters, for there to be a bit of noise. Back at the beginning, he'd gone into Douglas' room to wake him, once. It must have been in that narrow stretch between Rex going down and Douglas dying himself, because Andrew had been sitting up smoking when he'd heard the restless muttering next door.

"All right if I try?" Dad was still looking at the board.

All at once Andrew remembered being six or so and waking in the midst of a tremendous storm with thunder like avalanches of breaking glass. He'd been frozen to his bed, too frightened even to cry out, but Dad came to check the window, and then wordlessly lay down beside him. Usually when Andrew needed anything in the night it was Mum that came; sometimes Dad wasn't even home. After all, policemen were needed at all hours. But that night it had been Dad, warm and solid, a bulwark against the noise and the light. "Yeah, all right," he answered.

Dad nodded, and moved his queen. "Check," he said.

After all that, Andrew slept too fitfully to dream at all. About one o'clock he gave up entirely, put on his light, and curled against the headboard reading Sherlock Holmes. At four he finally felt drowsy enough to try again. He dozed steadily, if not deeply, until the sun began to creep across his wall and he heard Dad, first splashing at the sink in the bathroom, then moving down the stairs. Andrew turned over and made a half-hearted attempt to get back to sleep, but soon abandoned it and went to take his own turn in the bathroom. He shaved carefully, then dressed in his less-worn uniform trousers and last clean shirt and brushed his tunic before laying it out ready on the bed. His ribbons looked tawdry in the sunlight. Andrew adjusted his braces and decided the jacket could wait.

When he came downstairs he found a rack of toast and a pot of tea already out on the dining table, and Dad in shirtsleeves at the cooker making porridge. Andrew took the teapot back into the kitchen. "'Morning," he said, opening the cabinet for a mug.

"There are teacups, Andrew," Dad said, putting the lid on the pot.

He set the teapot down, but got out two cups and saucers. "Can't we eat in here?" And try to be ordinary?

"If you like. Sleep all right?"

"Slept too long in the afternoon, I think. But not bad." He went back for the toast. In the kitchen they moved easily around each other, setting out the plates and the milk and the jam, even though Andrew felt as if he were watching himself from a long way off. "Heard from Uncle Charles lately?" he asked as he sat down.

"Mm, been a few weeks. Admiralty has him managing ship movements for the Far East so all… this," Dad waved towards the street, "isn't going to smooth things much for him. Hope he and Nora might come down for a day or two, though. They'll want to see you."

"Mm." Oh God, he hadn't even thought about Aunt Nora. "I should write them."

"That would be kind Though Charles always says he's not much of a hand at writing to you." Dad poured the tea.

"No. That was always a sort of a relief, really. " Andrew picked up his cup, and matched the wry smile his father gave him.

And then the phone rang, and everything went to hell.

Andrew sat rigid, breathing carefully. It's just a phone. It doesn't mean anything. It won't be anything you have to do; it wouldn't be anything you COULD do, even if it were a scramble. You don't have to fly, you idiot. You can't fly. You can't bloody see to fly.

Dad got up with a little wordless grumble and took another swallow of tea before moving - slowly, slowly - towards the sitting room. Andrew set his tea down as if it were high explosive. He eyed the back door, but both the deadbolts were shot. It would take much too long to get it open. But he wouldn't need to get it open, or get upstairs. He was fine.

Another ring, shrill as a siren. Sweat leapt out across Andrew's back and an ominous tingling started in his cheeks. Dad paused by the cooker to wipe his hands on the dishtowel, then peek at the porridge. Andrew swallowed, and instantly regretted it. Damn. Damn. Damndamndamn…

It was four steps to the sink. He just made it.

"Andrew!"

"...Sorry…" He hung on to the taps as he heaved. The telephone screamed. "Get the…"

"They'll ring back. Shh." Dad put one hand on his back, then the other on his forehead. "Shh." His palm was rough and cool, exactly as it always had been.

A new sound forced its way out between the bursts of retching. Andrew couldn't tell himself whether it was a cough or a sob.

"Shh, all right... " Dad turned on the cold tap, shook his fingers under the stream, then smoothed Andrew's hair back again. "Shhhhh."

Andrew braced his elbows on the cold enamel, panting against the slowly-receding waves of nausea. After a few long moments, he cupped a hand under the tap, but his whole arm shook so badly that the water scattered before he could take a drink. "No…" he protested, when Dad put out his own hand.

"Rinse your mouth," he said firmly, holding his hand to Andrew's lips. "Spit. Again. Good. Sit down?"

Andrew shook his head. "Think I'm all right but… a minute?"

Dad nodded. He rinsed away the mess, switched off the tap, then dried his hands and tossed the towel in the small hamper beside the sink. "Don't think you have a temperature… did the sinusitis…?"

"No."

"Does your head ache? Your mother used to sometimes have…"

"It's… it's the phone." Andrew looked at the floor. His throat burned. "It's the damned bloody telephone, Dad. It's not even that it sounds to me like a siren, or a plane coming down. I know it's a phone." He took a shaky breath. "Ringing. Like in the dispersal hut."

For a moment it was quiet. "Ah," said Dad, very softly.

He couldn't stop talking. "That… first summer. Some of the chaps would have to go out and be sick, when the phone rang. Charlie did, sometimes. Tried to be casual about it. Laugh at himself when it turned out to be nothing more than 'tea's on the way' or 'stand down to fifteen-minute readiness.' Rex and I tried to be sympathetic. But we… no, I… I was so smug I didn't feel it like that. Even when I lost my nerve completely I didn't… well." He turned away and rubbed the back of one hand over his clammy forehead. "God, I'm such a bloody fool."

"Not how I see it."

Pain flared around his eye. "Don't be kind to me."

"Wasn't trying to be." Dad moved past him to the larder and came back with a canister of Borwick's. Unhurriedly, he mixed a spoonful into a glass of water and held it out to Andrew. "Gargle, if you don't think you can swallow it. Throat must feel like hell."

Andrew had to take the glass in both hands, but he took it, and cautiously wet his lips again. When that didn't stir up a fresh revolt, he took a small mouthful, tipped his head back, gargled, and spat. It did help. "Sorry," he repeated.

"You shouldn't have to apologize."

Something in Dad's voice made Andrew look at him. He was looking out the window over the sink with a gaze that went further than next-door's garden, one corner of his mouth pulled in so tightly that his lips were white.

"Dad?"

He came to life again. "The time you were sick all over the shopping, including the new Japanese paper I'd got for your mum's birthday, that you can apologize for."

Andrew's eyes stung - that had been a family joke for years afterwards, particularly as he, at four, had been so pleased with himself for being sick in the bag rather than on the carpet. Then the phone rang again, and Dad made a sharp movement towards him. "No," he said, through cold lips, "It's not every time, but…?"

Dad nodded, touched his arm, and vanished into the dining room. He must have sprinted, because the phone didn't ring again. Andrew sat down at the table and took tiny sips of the bicarb and water. In a minute Dad was back, his face tight.

"They want me at work," he said.

"I'm all right." Then, as his mind slowly re-engaged, Andrew added, "It's Sunday!"

"Not how I'd choose to spend it, but there's been a murder - potential, anyway. I may be able to leave it to Milner…"

"His wife's expecting, didn't you say?"

Dad nodded, slowly. "Any day now."

Andrew shook his head. "I'm all right," he repeated. "Really. It just… happens, and then it's done. I'll be ready for porridge in half an hour." He dropped his gaze away from the look on Dad's face.

"I'm sorry," Dad said.

"I'm sorry. Whole country's preparing for a giant knees-up and you're stuck with the body in the library."

From his expression, Dad seemed torn between pleasure that Andrew'd made a joke and irritation that he was making light of murder. "It's the museum," he said, taking a slice of toast. "Don't let the porridge burn."

"I won't." Andrew didn't quite like to ask, but he needed to know. "Sam going to pick you up?"

"Brooke rang but she was out already. Constable's coming." A pause. "Could be either church or SSAFA," he added.

Andrew nodded.

"Will you ring me at the station? If…"

His eye throbbed, maybe in belated reaction to the effort of being sick or maybe just in impotent response to the pointless, inadmissible anger that rushed over him. "Yeah," he said roughly. "Go dress."

Dad frowned, but he went.

There was still a tin of scouring powder on the bottom shelf in the larder, and a well-worn sponge. Andrew scrubbed out the sink, giving special attention to the seam around the drain, then washed his hands and checked the porridge. It was thick and a little scorched, but not burned. He shut off the flame and put a few spoonfuls in a bowl. After he waved farewell to Dad he even managed to eat them, and drink another cup of tea, before putting away what was left and washing up the dishes. Then, carefully not giving himself time to dither, he put on his tie and jacket, and got his key. When he put on his cap, the figure in the mirror looked as if it belonged in a museum case, next to a typed card reading FIGHTER PILOT, 1940-45.

He was tempted to rip off his jacket, run back upstairs, pull the curtains, and fall on his bed, either to sleep or to bury himself in the pages of a book. But if he once started that, he might never stop.

Better out than in, he thought, and squared his shoulders.