If she left the office at five, she was usually safely on the bus at five past for the sleepy stop-start journey from Trafalgar Square to Camden High Street. It was partly the anticipation of seeing her baby that made her happy, but sitting on the bus was also one of her few opportunities to be quiet and think. In the mornings she struggled with the guilt and misery of leaving him, never mind the anxiety that she’d be late for work. Something always held her up now she had a young child to get ready, too. At least it was still light now when she reached Camden. It was only a short walk from the High Street to the side road of Victorian workers’ cottages where Mrs Popham lived, but she didn’t like it much in the blackout. When she’d first moved back to London, in February, it compounded her misery that they always left home and returned there in darkness. Mrs Popham’s was a convenient ten-minute walk from Dinah’s flat in Primrose Hill. Mrs Popham, though gentle with young children, was otherwise a prickly sort.
