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doesn’t it? It wasn’t by chance I asked if I could cross the road with you. It was part of my plan – I only hatched it when I noticed you passing my office to leave.’
    ‘I’m married.’ He felt he ought to be honest about his position right from the start, in case her plan included having him as a boyfriend – though he couldn’t imagine why any young woman would want to.
    ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Your wife and child are in Liverpool. All the girls know that, but it still doesn’t stop us from trying to capture the most handsome man in the office while he’s living in London.’ She licked her lips and looked at him slyly. ‘And not only is he handsome, but a hero to boot.’
    She was flirting with him! Nick couldn’t remember the last time he’d flirted with a woman. His relationship with Eileen had been deadly serious right from the start. She’d been married to a man who was a beast, and her little boy, Tony, whom Nick had grown to love as a son, had died in an air raid along with his father. It had all been so tragic – and it was still tragic now. When had they last laughed? Would they ever laugh together again?
    He signalled Albert and asked for a whisky and soda. He had a strong and pleasurable feeling about what the evening had in store for him, and he knew he’d need quite a few drinks in order to play his part.

    He felt guilty next morning when he woke to find Doria Mallory stark naked in his bed. It had come as a shock as well as a relief to discover that she wasn’t a virgin; that at the age of eighteen she had done this before – how many times? he wondered, and was glad he hadn’t been the first.
    His guilt, though, wasn’t great enough to cancel out the pleasure he had experienced, which had made him feel like a man again.

    On 4 March, the submarine Thunderbolt was sunk off the coast of Sicily with the loss of all hands. It wasn’t the first time this ship and its crew had been destined for an early death, for the sub’s original name was the Thetis , and it had sunk in Liverpool Bay on its first trial voyage three and a half years before. Ninety-nine people had died, that day most of them from Liverpool. The vessel had been raised, refurbished, and christened Thunderbolt , but it must have been cursed and it sank a second time. It was another terrible tragedy for the people of the city.

Chapter 3

    On the first Sunday in March, Sheila Reilly went to see her sister Eileen in Melling, taking baby Mollie for her first big outing. Her other six children went with her, along with Brenda and her two girls, and Lena Newton, who had been looking forward to the visit for weeks. Lena really enjoyed making herself useful by carrying Oona and helping Mary and Ryan, still only toddlers, on and off the buses and trams.
    ‘I’m afraid Nick isn’t home,’ Eileen said when the guests, all twelve of them, arrived at her pretty cottage.
    It was still quite early, and little wisps of mist hung over the garden, where the trees were sporting a faint coating of green, heralding the fact that spring was on its way. Lena could see a man hard at work, digging like fury and throwing the soil to one side. He was well into his fifties but ruggedly handsome. This, she discovered later when they were introduced, was Jack Doyle, Sheila and Eileen’s father. They were a handsome lot, the Doyles – there was a son, too, Sean, who she had yet to meet. Lena felt over-conscious of her plainness and her ugly round glasses, though it didn’t usually bother her.
    Eileen, who she was meeting for the first time, had a smooth, quiet beauty, though her blue eyes were incredibly sad. Nick, her husband, worked in an office in London. There’d been a bit of a crisis, she explained, and he’d had to stay for the weekend.
    ‘Didn’t the same thing happen the week before last, sis?’ Sheila remarked.
    Eileen’s head drooped like a flower. ‘Yes, apparently it’s the same crisis come back to haunt them, Nick