CHAPTER ELEVEN
BIRMINGHAM AND LONDON, SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 3 1944
The hotel is plain-looking from the street. Just two Regency buildings, once architecturally impressive, reduced to two houses in one. To make a 12-room hotel. White boarding at the front on either side of the front entrance. Upstairs, Elsie finishes brushing her hair in the bathroom and walks along the corridor to her bedroom. She notices that Brian is still asleep, no sign of movement. She shakes him and tells him to shift his idle bones and, eventually, he wakes up. She tells him he will miss breakfast if he doesn’t get a shift on. He suggests that she come back to bed. He would like to do it again.
“You did it enough last night,” she responds. “Cheeky bugger.”
He stumbles out of bed wearily. Elsie suggests he make a dash
