I would have known what to do with pity.

What was on that man’s face was the expression of somebody carrying a piece of information that he had already decided, in a corridor, that he was going to have to be the one to hand over.

I asked him carefully, because I was still, even then, trying not to make a scene.

“I’m sorry to ask.

Do you happen to know where my husband’s got to?

Has he been in to see them yet?”