'Neat, eh?' he said. 'I found it when I was ten. No gold sovereigns or anything. Just this.'

From the drawer he took a dog-eared sepia photograph of a soldier, seated rather stiffly with his body turned to display the single stripe on his sleeve. His face, looking directly into the camera, wore the solemn set expression demanded by old technique and convention, but there was the hint of a smile around the eyes as if he was feeling rather pleased with himself.

'Know who this is?'

'Well, he looks so like you when you're feeling cocky, it must be our great-grandfather.'

Pascoe couldn't see the resemblance but felt he'd probably earned the crack. He turned the picture over so she could see what was written on the back in black ink faded to grey.

First lance corporal from our draft! December 1914.

Then Pascoe tipped the photo so that it caught the light. There was more writing, this time in pencil long since been erased. But the writer had pressed so hard the indented words were still legible. Killed Wipers 1917.

'All those years and she couldn't bear to have it on display,' mused Pascoe.

'All those years and you never mentioned it,' accused Myra.

'I promised Gran,' he said. 'She caught me looking at it. She was furious at first, then she calmed down and made me promise not to say anything.'

'Another of your little secrets,' she said. 'The Pascoes must have more of them than MI5.'

'You're right,' he said, trying to keep things light. 'Anyway, that was when she told me her only recollection of her father was of him playing on their old piano. Her mother must've told her it was ragtime, I doubt if Ada could tell Scott Joplin from Janis Joplin. And that's what made me think of that tape.'

Myra took the photo from him and said, 'Poor sod. Can't have been more than twenty-two or -three. What was he in?'

'West York Fusiliers. That's how I found out about the Yorkshire connection.'