They bombed the target from sixteen thousand feet. The weather had started to close in on the approach. The Alps were no longer beautiful – no longer visible, in fact – and as they turned for home they found themselves confronted by a huge dark tower of cumulus, looming high above them. Inside this monster were the flashes and sparks as if small explosions were going off and at first they thought it must be something to do with the bombing – or even some kind of new weapon that was tried out on them – and it took a few moments before they understood that they were flying into an enormous, sinister thunderhead.

Touched everywhere by fire, bright blue and unearthly – an eerie luminescence that flared along the edges of wings and even whirled round with the propellers, spinning off them and making strange feathery trails in the darkness.

The strange phenomenon made Teddy think of Giselle. He had seen the performance of the ballet when he was at school, a trip to the Royal Opera House organized by the music master. The dancers had been lit by the same rather sinister and otherworldly blue light that was now attracted to the plane he was flying. Looking back, it had been an odd choice for a class of boisterous thirteen-year-old public-school boys. His father, when told, had raised an eyebrow and asked the master’s name and even his mother, with her love of Art, had questioned them being exposed to this rather ‘FEY’ choice, as she put it, when usually the only time they left the school grounds was to go to an away rugby match. Afterwards Teddy had nightmares, dreaming that the spectral women had their hands on him and were trying to drag him down into some dark, unknown place.