The boat train pulled slowly into its designated platform by the side of the ocean dock, and Josephine breathed a sigh of relief, taking more pleasure than she would ever have believed possible from the prospect of leaving the country. The sense of anticipation amongst the passengers had built steadily during the short journey from Waterloo to Southampton, and now that they were within walking distance of the ship that would take them across the Atlantic, some could barely contain their excitement. She wished her own emotions were that simple, but this impatience to get underway had very little to do with the romance of travel or the thrill of America. Whichever way she looked at it, the ticket that she clutched in her hand smacked of running away, but she didn’t care. For the moment, all she longed for was to see Marta again, and to put as much distance as she could between herself and the memories of the last few days.

Her conversations with Archie were sporadic and subdued on the way down, neither of them wanting or needing to make small talk. A sombre mood had fallen across the whole country as months of fear and speculation suddenly became a reality, but not even the outbreak of a new war could eclipse a more personal horror. Her friendship with a police detective meant that she was never far away from the sadness of his job: even when Archie couldn’t talk about a case explicitly, the tragedy of one murder enquiry or another invariably governed his moods and shaped his outlook on the world; this time, for Josephine, the anguish had been closer to home – the abduction of a child in a place she had come to love. Perhaps not surprisingly, she was struggling to come to terms with a gnawing sense of loss and betrayal. ‘I’m glad you came to see me off,’ she said, as Archie lifted her bag down from the luggage rack.

‘So am I.’

They had a shorthand, she and Archie, and she didn’t need to explain that it helped to be with someone who had lived through those events, even if they didn’t discuss them, who understood how tainted and responsible she felt, no matter how irrational that might be. He smiled at her, but whatever he was about to add was lost in a flurry of activity on the train. People began to push towards the doors, eager to get a first glimpse of the ship that had rarely been out of the news since she was launched into the Clyde, five years ago almost to the day, and Josephine and Archie joined them. By now, the Queen Mary’s statistics were legendary – taller than the Eiffel Tower, faster than any ship in her class, bigger than the Titanic – and they allowed themselves to be swept along with the other passengers, caught up in the swell of chatter and expectation. There was a dramatic hush when the liner suddenly came into view, towering above the transit sheds and dwarfing dockside cranes until they looked like something from Gulliver’s Travels. The huge, black bulk of the hull, stretching off into the distance, seemed menacing rather than romantic, and Josephine found it hard to believe that something so colossal could float at all. Once the initial impact had passed, though, she saw beyond the boat’s sheer size to the beauty of her lines and the majesty of her presence, and understood exactly why the nation took such pride in her. Although she was built for an English company, it was Scotland who had given her life, but not without a struggle. Josephine remembered seeing the photographs of the half-built shell in the newspapers, slowly rusting to death in its shipyard, such a striking symbol of the hardship and poverty of those Depression-ridden years. Many feared that she would never be completed, but they had been proved wrong, and – when the prosperity of the country improved and work on the ship began again – she became just as potent an emblem of hope and a better future. It seemed to Josephine that the Queen Mary had been asked to stand for a lot in her short life, designed in peacetime to link the old world with the new; she might epitomise the style and elegance of the decade that was drawing to a close, but now it was her strength and unconquerable spirit that wartime Britain needed.

‘Extraordinary, isn’t she?’ Archie said admiringly. ‘Perhaps there’s hope after all if we’re capable of something like this. Let’s get you on board.’

That was obviously going to be more easily said than done. In spite of the size of the boat and the length of the quay, the crowds seemed too big for both and it was difficult to do anything more than inch slowly forward. ‘There won’t be many more crossings now,’ Archie said, shielding Josephine from the worst of the crush. ‘People are obviously getting out while they can.’

He was right, and Josephine felt naïve for failing to notice a change of mood between the train and the pier. She looked more carefully at the other passengers, listening to the voices around her, and saw instantly that a good proportion of the tickets were likely to be one way – Jewish families fleeing the Nazis or Americans returning home while there was still a commercial ship that would take them. The outward appearance of luxury and pleasure was as robust as ever – smiling stewards in pristine uniforms, trolleys of expensive-looking luggage – but there were pockets in the crowd where a sense of urgency had replaced the carefree. For a moment, it felt unreal to her, and the idea of sailing into the unknown took on a completely different connotation, something rather less like a blessing. ‘Are you all right?’ Archie asked, touching her arm.

She nodded, and they pressed on towards a series of covered gangways that sloped gently up from the quayside, the words ‘RMS Queen Mary’ emblazoned proudly on the canvas. A purser stood in the gangway, checking tickets, and he welcomed Josephine aboard as if she were the most important person ever to travel with Cunard, then directed her to the lifts that would take her to the state rooms. Her cabin was on B Deck, which – apart from a variety of hairdressing and beauty salons – seemed to be made up entirely of passenger accommodation. As she walked along brightly lit corridors, looking for the number that matched her ticket, she glanced through the open doors of cabins that had yet to be occupied, noticing that – although united by a feeling of luxury and sophistication – each one was designed differently and had its own distinct character.

‘Do you think anyone would notice if I came with you?’ Archie asked, as they passed a particularly enticing suite with gleaming chrome surfaces and art deco sculpture.

‘Virginia might have something to say about it. Marta, too, if I’m honest.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite so opulent. I hope you don’t get used to it, or I won’t be able to take you anywhere once you’re back.’

Josephine laughed. ‘There’s no need to worry about that. I’ve blown far too many of my savings on this ticket. It was a bit reckless, I suppose, with everything so uncertain, but a once in a lifetime trip suddenly felt like now or never.’

Her own cabin, when they eventually found it, was lavish in a more traditional way, with rich, warm woods and gentle lamplight. A marquetry panel above the bed pictured ducks flying over a lake, and a flower-patterned rug competed for attention with three vases of the real thing, fresh chrysanthemums in autumnal shades that complemented the colours of the room. Every convenience had been thought of – plenty of storage space and a thermos jug and telephone recessed into their own alcoves – but there was also a light system above the outer door if she needed to summon a steward. She put her bag down on one of the four polka dot chairs that had been arranged around the room, and gestured to Archie to sit down. ‘I don’t know how many people they think I’m going to be entertaining, but you might as well make yourself at home when they’ve gone to all this trouble.’ The room was more spacious than she had feared, and a large mirror opposite the bed made it feel bigger still; even so, she felt a little claustrophobic, and walked over to the outer wall to lift the blinds that covered the portholes.

‘I had no idea they had their own newspaper,’ Archie said, picking up The Ocean Times from the coffee table. The paper carried the day’s date and a front-page story about the ship being ‘home to the world’, and he flicked through it. ‘This is a refreshing change. What I wouldn’t give to pick up one of our papers and read only good news. Nothing about murder, not even much about the war.’

There was an edge to his voice that Josephine understood only too well: the headlines that most people mulled over in horror at their breakfast tables were something that Archie lived through personally – finding a child’s body, breaking the news to grief-stricken parents, coming face to face with the killer and knowing that justice would never really be enough. He had been through all that and more in the last few days, and – not for the first time – she wondered how he did it. ‘You’ll talk to Virginia when you need to, won’t you?’ she said. ‘I know what you’re like, Archie. You shut people out...