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used to waiting, I thought. ‘Good heavens, isn’t there enough to worry about without going on about an unpleasant little girl!’
    ‘Here! Here!’ the Jewish woman put in her twopenn’orth.
    ‘But—’
    ‘Unpleasant or not, if a kid’s missing, we should pull together to find her,’ a woman I hadn’t seen before said. ‘Mr Churchill says we have to pull together to defeat Adolph.’
    I looked at her and smiled. It didn’t mean anything apart from the fact that I was pleased that someone was agreeing with me. But she avoided my eyes by looking down at the floor. I reckoned she was about thirty – it’s not always easy to tell by lamplight – a little, mousy woman wearing a large and very misshapen hat. Poor and honest, as my Hannah would say.
    Mr Smith looked at me, shook his head, and then sighed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘we can’t have people running around the cathedral in a raid in the dark. Even you, Mr Hancock, have to agree that that’s just silly.’
    Of course it was and I said as much. But I also reminded him that someone needed to speak to Mr Phillips. It was then that the bloke in charge of the Occurrence Book looked up and said, ‘Mr Harold Phillips? From Phillips, Steadman and Rolls?’
    ‘Yes,’ Mr Smith said. ‘There’s only one Phillips on the Watch as far as I’m aware, Mr Ronson.’
    Mr Ronson, ‘on the Book’, said, ‘Well, I haven’t seen him tonight, have you?’
    ‘He came in with this little girl we’ve been talking about,’ Mr Smith said. ‘You were here when she came in, Mr Ronson. I remember you being here distinctly.’
    Even through the floor of the cathedral we could hear the thick drone of yet another wave of German bombers. This lot it would seem were dropping bombs as opposed to incendiaries. The bombs were just making the fires get even bigger which was of course, all part of Herr Hitler’s plan. We all looked up, just for a second, all at the same time.
    ‘I’m not doubting your word, Mr Smith. I must’ve missed Mr Phillips,’ Mr Ronson said as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I remember the little girl. Blonde and noisy.’
    ‘Mr Phillips went straight up to the Whispering Gallery,’ Mr Smith explained. ‘Then, a little later, the girl went missing. You were busy, Mr Ronson. I know you didn’t speak to Mr Phillips.’
    Underneath his tin hat, Mr Ronson’s dirt-smutted face frowned. ‘I know Harold Phillips quite well,’ he said. ‘As you know, Mr Smith, I worked for him before I started my own firm. I think I would’ve noticed if he was in or not, even if I didn’t speak to him.’
    ‘He didn’t say much himself and, as I said before, Mr Ronson, you were busy,’ Mr Smith replied.
    ‘Mmm.’ It was said doubtfully, I felt.
    Mr Andrews hadn’t been able to find Mr Phillips in the Whispering Gallery. I told this to Mr Smith and Mr Ronson. If anything it made Mr Ronson doubt whether Mr Phillips was in the building even more. Everyone else, the other shelterers as well as the cathedral first-aid ladies had gone off about their own affairs just after our conversation started. No one, it seemed, except me actually wanted to find this kid. Even the poor but honest woman had buried her head in a magazine of some sort by this time, although what she could see in the dim light from the lamps was hard to imagine. In truth they were all only doing in their way what I was trying to do in mine – take their minds off the bombing. I said something about wanting to go and look for the girl again then.
    ‘You mustn’t go outside the cathedral,’ Mr Ronson said. ‘Everything’s on fire out there. Guy’s Hospital is burning to the ground, Lombard Street has taken a massive hit.’ He shook his head in what was not defeat, but was a measure of his own tiredness, I felt. ‘We’re in contact with centres all over the city. This place is a target for the Luftwaffe , we all know that, but we’re still here. It’s safer in here than it is