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shooting. The government are funding this production most handsomely.’
    â€˜We’ll need to go back to our rooms in London to pack. We only brought clothes for an overnight stay.’
    â€˜Beth. This is war. Be it military or civilian work, when we are deployed we must obey instantly.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜I want you to leave for Whitby this very minute.’ He handed her slips of paper from the file. ‘Here are your rail warrants. They’ll get you to Whitby by midnight.’
    â€˜Our clothes are—’
    â€˜I have every confidence you’ll use your considerable initiative to find more clothes when you’re there. As well as wonderful, atmospheric locations for our film.’
    â€˜I’ll find them,’ she told him firmly. ‘But if you ever intimidate your actors and actresses, in the misguided belief it gets the best out of them, I’ll launch my own personal war on you. Understood?’
    â€˜Understood.’
    He held out his hand, which she shook.
    â€˜See you in Whitby, Beth.’ He smiled, and just for a moment she wondered if his confession about the near-death experience in the café had been intended to disarm her.
    â€˜I’ m sure interesting times lie ahead for both of us,’ she told him. ‘Ciao.’
    When she’d gone, he picked up his coffee cup and took a hearty swig. ‘Beth Layne sees a phantom Whitby in the studio. I see it in my nightmares.’ He toasted the picture of Whitby on the wall. ‘You’re getting into our blood, aren’t you old girl?’

Four
    Flying Officer Benjamin Green knew he’d been born a fortunate man. As a child, he’d beaten death when he’d escaped a burning schoolroom that had claimed the lives of everyone else in there. His terrific parents had encouraged his ambitions to become a musician. When war came they hadn’t discouraged him from joining the air force. They were so proud of their son. His death-defying abilities allowed him to escape two bad crashes during training flights. That trick of spitting in the Reaper’s eye had happened all over again an hour ago when anti-aircraft shells had struck his aircraft. True, his co-pilot and navigator lay dead in their seats. And one engine burnt so brightly that his aircraft must have resembled a fiery shooting star, streaking through the night sky.
    But his charmed life still held true. The engine on the other wing ran well, if not that smoothly. The blood that soaked his flying suit, goggles, oxygen mask and leather helmet wasn’t his. The Essex kid, who’d joined him as co-pilot yesterday, had taken a shell fragment the size of a tennis ball in the centre of his face.
    Half of the kid’s head had landed in Benjamin’s lap. Gently, he’d placed it on the slumped body in the seat beside him.
    â€˜I’ve beaten death,’ Benjamin murmured. ‘I’m going home.’
    He nursed his reconnaissance aircraft westward. Germany receded behind him. England lay beyond the nose of the plane. He’d cheat that harvester of souls again; the Grim Reaper wouldn’t claim Benjamin Green. Not this time. There’d still be enough fuel to get him back to the airfield. Wiping his comrade’s blood from the goggle lenses, he peered out through the side window. A mile below, the ocean resembled beaten silver in the moonlight. Those seemingly tiny dimples in the surface were, however, substantial waves. If he had to ditch the plane in that, it would test his knack of giving Mr Death the slip.
    He checked the blaze on the port wing. So far, so good. The flames were confined to the engine itself, so sparing damage to the structure of the wing.
    â€˜A wing falling off wouldn’t bode well,’ he murmured dryly. He checked the radio. That had died, too.
    Taking a deep breath, he concentrated on holding the machine steady. The stars above shone with their customary eternal