大象传媒

Harriet Walter reads a dark and mysterious thriller by Sian Busby.
It's a summer's day in 1946 in North London. Lillian is facing the prospect of a two hour queue at Nag's Head for a small, stale loaf. Bread is about to go on the ration. Still, she applies her make up and makes sure her seams are straight; you'd never believe she was 43! She leaves her husband, Walter, lightly snoring in bed. It's not that she wanted him to have been killed when he was away during the war; it's more that she just hadn't wanted him to come back to her. Instead of looking forward, Lillian can't help but hanker for those war days when she 'did her bit' in a more unconventional way than was perhaps expected.

Divisional Detective inspector Cooper is enjoying his first break in weeks when he's called to a bomb site. A woman's body, probably that of a prostitute, has been found. That's all he needs; sex crimes are always difficult to solve. London is in the grip of a crime wave. The number of crimes committed on VE Day was more than double that on the same day in 1939, and the Met is short of thousands of men. Coupons and ration books and queuing for everything had made criminals of everyone. The war may be over but things are struggling to get better. Can things return to how they used to be, before the bombs and the filth?

The abridger is Lauris Morgan Griffiths.
Produced by Sarah Langan.