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It was a very overwhelming place in that uneasy peacetime when military and civil pilots took it in turns to use the runway, but Maddie was determined, and followed the signs to the flying club. She found the person she was looking for by accident – easily really, because Dympna Wythenshawe was the only idle aviator on the field, lounging by herself in a long row of faded deckchairs lined up in front of the pilots’ clubhouse. Maddie did not recognise the pilot. She looked nothing like either the glamorous mugshot from the papers or the unconscious, helmeted casualty she had been when Maddie left her that Sunday past. Dympna didn’t recognise Maddie either, but she called out jovially, ‘Are you hoping for a spin?’

She spoke in a cultured accent of money and privilege. Rather like mine, without the Scottish burr. Probably not as privileged as mine, but more moneyed. Anyway it made Maddie instantly feel like a serving girl.

‘I’m looking for Dympna Wythenshawe,’ said Maddie. ‘I just wanted to see how she’s getting on after – after last week.’

‘She’s fine.’ The elegant creature smiled pleasantly.

‘I found her,’ Maddie blurted.

‘She’s right as rain,’ Dympna said, offering a languid, lily-white hand that had certainly never changed an oil filter (my lily-white hands have, I would like you to know, but only under strict supervision). ‘She’s right as rain. She’s me.’

Maddie shook hands.

‘Take a pew,’ Dympna drawled (just imagine she’s me, raised in a castle and educated at a Swiss boarding school, only a lot taller and not snivelling all the time). She waved to the empty deckchairs. ‘There’s plenty of room.’

She was dressed as though she were going on safari, and contrived to be glamorous about it too. She gave private instruction as well as joyrides. She was the only woman pilot at the aerodrome, certainly the only woman instructor.

‘When my darling Puss Moth’s mended, I’ll give you a ride,’ she offered Maddie, and Maddie, who is nothing if not calculating, asked if she could see the plane.