There were times when Jago wished he wasn’t a policeman. Right now he’d like to go out, cross the street and rip the thing off the wall. It had been stuck up there for so long, he reckoned most people probably ignored it, but it still made him feel angry. Everything about it was pompous and patronising, he thought, like the government that had put it there.

He tried not to think about it. That wasn’t why he’d come here. Apart from the view across West Ham Lane to that confounded poster, Rita’s cafe was an oasis, a sanctuary of friendly welcome and good home cooking. Today, like time without number in the past, he’d come here for respite from the job, from crime, from the world.

He saw Rita approaching, cloth in hand and pencil behind her ear as usual. She wore her years well, he thought. A woman of a certain age, as the French put it – in other words fortyish, like himself, but already widowed for twenty-two years and with a daughter of twenty-three. In her floral-patterned apron and with her headscarf tied in a turban, she treated her customers as though they’d just popped round to her house for a cup of tea in the kitchen.

‘Afternoon, Mr Jago,’ she said. ‘Enjoying the view?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Can’t you get the council to take that poster down? It annoys me.’

She peered out of the window. The brown paper tape that criss-crossed the glass had been up for a year now and was beginning to peel away at the corners. She rubbed off a small smear with her cloth.

‘I’m sorry about the state of these windows. I’ll have to put some new tape up, I think, although why we bother I don’t know. A year at war and we’ve never had a single bomb down this street. But what’s wrong with the poster, dear? You mean that red one on the wall over there? It’s in a bit of a state, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but unfortunately you can still just about make out what it says. Look.’

Rita read the words slowly.

‘“Your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory.” What’s wrong with that, then?’

‘Everything, I’d say. What idiot thinks you can win a war by being cheerful? They should try spending a few weeks in a trench up to their knees in mud, blood and rats like your Walter and I did. Then we’d see how cheerful they were. And look: every time it says “your” they’ve put a line under it. They might as well put one under “us”, too, and make it absolutely clear: we’re the rulers and you’re the ruled. It’s a wonder one of those communists from the docks hasn’t crept out in the night with a pot of paint and done it for them. What do these Whitehall pen-pushers use for brains?’

‘Not your favourite poster then, Mr Jago? Honestly, I’m surprised at you. Coming out with things like that, and you a servant of the Crown. If people hear you talking like that you’ll have to arrest yourself.’

‘Don’t worry, Rita: for your ears only. I don’t go round saying that sort of thing to everyone, but I know I can let off a bit of steam with you.’

‘I’ll go up the road to the town hall if you like and ask them to scrape it off the wall, tell them it’s annoying my customers and ruining my trade.’

‘To be honest, Rita, it wouldn’t surprise me if West Ham Borough Council had left it there on purpose. Think about it: you’ve got the world’s worst propaganda poster, dreamt up by Chamberlain and his Tory government, and a council controlled by Labour for twenty years. They probably left it there deliberately to make a political point.’

‘I think you’re reading too much into it. And in any case, the weather’s nearly done it for you – it’ll be falling off the wall soon.’

She wiped the top of his table, then stood back and took a notepad from her apron pocket and the pencil from behind her ear.

‘Now then, what can I get you? A spot of late lunch?’

‘Just a pot of tea for two, please, and a couple of your delightful rock cakes. I’m waiting for my colleague to join me – he’s just popped to the gents.’

‘I’ll bring the tea and cakes over when I see him come back. Is it the young man I saw you come in with? I don’t think I’ve seen him in here before.’

‘Yes, that’s my assistant, Detective Constable Cradock. I’m taking him to the football this afternoon. Familiarising him with the local culture, you might say.’

‘Well, you’ve got very good weather for it; I hope you win. This constable of yours, he looks a nice young man. Might suit my Emily. Is he spoken for?’

‘Sorry, Rita, I have no idea – and if I had I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘I expect you miss your Sergeant Clark, don’t you? He’s back in the army, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he was called up when war was declared, with all the other reserves. We’re so short of manpower these days I can’t get a detective sergeant to replace him, so I have to make do with a constable instead.’

‘Same for me, dear,’ said Rita. ‘The last girl I had working here packed it in. Said she could get better money doing munitions work. Now I’m stuck with that Phyllis over there. Too slow to catch cold, if you ask me. Young people today don’t know what hard work is, do they, Mr Jago?’

‘It’s not like it was when we were young, Rita, that’s for sure. I look at Cradock sometimes and think I don’t understand him. And it’s not just a generation thing. It’s the war: if you lived through it you see things differently, simple as that.’

‘Too true,’ said Rita with a sigh. ‘Twenty-two years now since my Walter was killed, and it’s with me every day. But to most people I’m just another war widow, and who wants to think about that? Present company excluded, of course: you’ve always been very understanding. Sometimes I think I should have gone away, lived somewhere else, started all over again, but somehow I never did. Don’t know why.’

‘Because people like you and me belong here, Rita, that’s why.’

‘I suppose so. No place like home, eh? Still, there’s no point getting miserable, is there? That doesn’t help anyone. Look, I’ve brought you the paper to look at while you’re waiting. Yesterday’s Express. I know you like to see it.’

She handed him that week’s Stratford Express with a smile, then pointed at the wall behind him.

‘Is that a new hat you’ve got there?’

‘That’s very observant of you, Rita. You should have been a detective.’

She laughed.

‘Not me, dear. I’m not clever enough. It’s just that you’re always so nicely turned out, not like most of the men round here, so I notice what you’re wearing.’

Jago took the hat down from the hook on the wall and smoothed it with his jacket sleeve.

‘You’re right. I got it last week. It’s the first I’ve bought for five years, and I plan to wear it for the next five at least.’

The hat was a charcoal grey fedora with the brim snapped down at the front. He didn’t like to think what the men at the station would say if they knew what he’d paid for it. Even a detective inspector’s salary didn’t give much room for self-indulgence. If he’d been a family man they might call it scandalous, but he had neither wife nor children, and his conscience was clear.

‘Very nice too,’ said Rita. ‘You always look a proper gentleman.’

She set off back to the kitchen, and Jago replaced his hat on the hook. He was peckish, and Cradock had not yet appeared. Get a move on, boy, he thought: I want my cup of tea.

Most of the Saturday lunchers had gone by now, but the cafe was still busy. Rita had the wireless on as usual, and beneath the customers’ chatter he could make out the mellow voice of Hutch, crooning that it would be a lovely day tomorrow. All part of the national drive for cheerfulness, no doubt, he thought. But on a day like this it was almost possible to believe it. A week into September already, and still unseasonably warm: real seaside weather. Not that anyone was allowed within miles of the coast any more.

Cradock came into view at last.

‘Come along, lad, I’m starving,’ said Jago. ‘What were you doing in there? I thought you’d set up camp for the duration.’

‘Sorry, guv’nor,’ said Cradock.

‘Well, sit down. Your tea’s on its way.’

Moments later Rita arrived with their order and carefully set out the cups and saucers, teapot,...