I steeled myself with a quick brandy, then I went around to Harry’s house just after eight o’clock. They were all listening to a variety programme on the Home Service, and someone was torturing ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’. As usual, Tommy was wearing his army uniform, even though he was on extended leave. He still looked ill, pale and thin. His mother, Polly, a stout, silent woman I had known ever since she was a little girl, offered to make tea and disappeared into the kitchen.

‘What brings you out at this time of night, then?’ Harry asked. ‘Want some company down at the Prince Albert?’

I shook my head. ‘Actually, it’s your Tommy I came to see.’

A shadow of fear crossed Harry’s face. ‘Tommy? Well, you’d better ask him yourself, then. Best of luck.’

Tommy hadn’t moved yet, but when I addressed him, he slowly turned to face me. There was a look of great disappointment in his eyes, as if he knew he had had something valuable in his grasp only to have it taken from him at the last minute. Harry turned off the radio.

‘Tommy,’ I said, speaking as gently as I could, ‘did you go to visit Mad Maggie last Wednesday night, the night of the air raid?’

Harry was staring at me, disbelief written all over his face. ‘For God’s sake, Frank!’ he began, but I waved him down.

‘Did you, Tommy? Did you visit Mad Maggie?’

Slowly, Tommy nodded.

‘You don’t have to say any more,’ Harry said, getting to his feet. He turned to me as if I were his betrayer. ‘I’ve considered you a good friend for many years, Frank, but you’re pushing me too far.’

Polly came back with the teapot and took in the scene at a glance. ‘What’s up? What’s going on?’

‘Sit down, Polly,’ I said. ‘I’m asking your Tommy a few questions, that’s all.’

Polly sat. Harry remained standing, fists clenched at his sides, then Tommy’s voice broke the deadlock. ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ he said to Polly. ‘I want to tell him. I want to get it off my chest.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, son,’ she said.

Tommy pointed at Harry. ‘He does. He’s not as daft as he looks.’

I looked at Harry, who sat down again and shook his head.

Tommy turned back to me. ‘Did I go visit Mad Maggie? Yes I did. Did I kill her? Yes, I d id. I got in through the back window. It wasn’t locked. I picked up the posser and went through into the living room. She was sitting in the dark. Didn’t even have a wireless. She must have heard me, but she didn’t move. She looked at me just once before I hit her, and I could swear she knew why I was doing it. She understood and she knew it was right. It was just.’

As Tommy spoke, he became more animated and his eyes started to glow with life again, as if his prize were once more within his grasp.

‘Why did you do it, Tommy?’ I asked. ‘What did she ever do to harm you?’

He looked at Harry. ‘She killed my dad.’

‘She what?’

‘I told you. She killed my dad. My real dad.’

Polly flopped back in her armchair, tea forgotten, and put her hand to her heart. ‘Tommy, what are you saying?’

‘He knew,’ he said, looking at Harry again. ‘Or at least he suspected. I told him about the field, about the villagers, the madwoman.’

Harry shook his head. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘You never told me it was her. All I knew was that you were upset, you were saying crazy things and acting strange. Especially when you came in from the raid that night. I was worried, that’s all. If I ever suspected you, that’s the only reason, son, I swear it. When I found her body, I thought if there was the remotest possibility… That’s why I went for Frank. I told him to lay off it, to let the gyppos take the blame. But he wouldn’t.’ Harry pointed his finger at me, red in the face. ‘If you want to blame anyone, blame him.’

‘Calm down, Harry,’ I told him. ‘You’ll give yourself a heart attack.’

‘It’s not a matter of blame,’ Tommy said. ‘It’s about justice. And justice has been served.’

‘Better tell me about it, Tommy,’ I said. The air-raid siren went off, wailing up and down the scale. We all ignored it.

Tommy paused and ran his hand through his closely cropped hair. He looked at me. ‘You should understand, Mr Bascombe. You were there. He was your best friend.’

I frowned. ‘Tell me, Tommy.’

‘Before Dunkirk, a group of us got cut off and we were in this village near Ypres for a few days, before the Germans got too close. We almost didn’t make it to the coast in time for the evacuation. The people were frightened about what the Germans might do if they found out we were there, but they were kind to us. I became quite friendly with one old fellow who spoke very good English, and I told him my father had been killed somewhere near here in the first war. Passchendaele. I said I’d never seen his grave. One day, the old man took me out in his horse and cart and showed me some fields. It was late May, and the early poppies were just coming out among the rows of crosses. It looked beautiful. I knew my father was there somewhere.’ Tommy choked for a moment, looked away and wiped his eyes.

‘Then the old man told me a story,’ he went on. ‘He said there was a woman living in the village who used to you… you know… with the British soldiers. But she was in love with a German officer, and she passed on any information she could pick up from the British directly to him. One soldier let something slip about some new trench positions they were preparing for a surprise attack, and before anyone knew what had hit them, the trenches were shelled and the Germans swarmed into them. They killed every British soldier in their path. It came to hand to hand combat in the end. Bayonets. And the woman’s German lover was one of the last to die.’

Tommy paused, glanced at his mother and went on, ‘He told me she never recovered. She went mad, and for a while after the armies had moved on she could be heard wailing for her dead German lover in the poppy fields at night. Then nothing more was heard of her. The rumour was that she had gone to England, where they had plenty of other madwomen to keep her company. I thought of Mad Maggie right from the start, of course, and I remembered the way she used to burst into French every now and then. I asked him if he had a photograph, and he said he thought he had an old one. We went back to his house, and he rummaged through his attic and came down with an old album. There she was. The same sort of clothes. That same look about her. Much younger and very beautiful, but it was her. It was Mad Maggie. And she had killed my father. He was in one of those trenches.’

‘What happened next, Tommy?’

‘I don’t remember much of the next couple of months. The Germans got too close and we had to make a hasty departure. That’s when I was wounded. I was lucky to make it to Dunkirk. If it hadn’t been for my mates… They carried me most of the way. Anyway, for a while I didn’t know where I was. In and out of consciousness. To be honest, half the time I preferred to be out of it. I had dreams, nightmares, visions, and I saw myself coming back and avenging my father’s death.’

His eyes shone with pride and righteousness as he spoke. Outside, the bombs were starting to sound alarmingly close. ‘Let’s get down to the shelter,’ Harry suggested.

‘No,’ said Tommy, holding up his hand. ‘Hear me out now. Wait till I’m done.’ He turned to me. ‘You should understand, Mr Bascombe. She killed my dad. He was your best friend. You should understand. I only did what was right.’

I shook my head. ‘There’s no avenging deaths during wartime, Tommy. It’s every man for himself. Some German bullet or bayonet had Larry’s name on it, and that was that. Wrong place, wrong time. It could just as easily have been me.’

Tommy stared at me in disbelief.

‘Besides,’ I went on, getting a little concerned at the explosions outside, ‘are you sure it was her, Tommy? It seems an awful coincidence that she should end up living on our street, don’t you think?’