Finding Secrets

by Westwood, Lauren

  I clenched my fists – I wanted to hurt him – stop his philosophising. Every night I’m out there risking myself to save others – and not just people’s bodies either – but their whole way of life. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be fighting for?

  I didn’t realise I’d spoken aloud until he laughed in my face. I launched out of my chair – to take him by the collar and give him a good shaking. But just then someone else stumbled into the room. It was Spider. And he was crying.

  - Chapter 29 -

  When the tour is finished, I go outside in search of Mrs Fairchild. In the time since we last spoke, everything has changed. There’s been good news: discovering that the jewelled bird might possibly be a rare object of royal provenance; and bad news: pretty much everything else. There are more questions, and few answers. And now, there’s a new threat.

  How much, if anything, does my grandmother know about the looting allegations? How much of the diary has Mrs Edwards sent her? I replay Tim’s call in my head, and the thinly veiled threat – that we wouldn’t be able to ‘put it all behind us’ so easily. It’s imperative that she lets me see all of the ‘evidence’ that she’s been presented with so far. I also want to ask her about the photograph that’s gone missing. One thing’s for sure – we need to work together to prepare for whatever may be coming.

  I catch a glimpse of her wide-brimmed hat just outside the walled garden, at the edge of the lawn that stretches down to the lake. She’s sitting on a bench watching a pair of swans glide along in the shimmering water.

  And she’s not alone.

  The man next to her – maybe five years or so older than she – with white hair and an athletic build – stands up. She stands up too and they smile at each other. He gives her an old-fashioned kiss on the hand. She says something and he laughs, and a moment later, they’re embracing. I should go away – I’ve no right to invade her privacy. She’ll introduce me to her ‘boyfriend’ when she’s ready. But instead of turning away, I remain where I am, just out of sight. I feel a powerful urge to protect her. She’s suffered enough loss in her life, and I don’t want her retirement to be marred by any more heartbreak.

  Not that it will be. I watch as the embrace ends, and they laugh together over something he’s said. They’re clearly gaga for each other. And why not? My grandmother is an energetic, attractive older woman – the personification of ‘sixties is the new fifties’. Not to mention… wealthy. That last point, however, gives me pause.

  I slip under the yew arbour and watch as the man turns and, with a little wave, goes off down the path by the river that leads to the village. He throws a bread crust to the pair of swans and hops over the stile at the edge of the woods, disappearing from sight. My grandmother gathers up the remaining food and rubbish from their picnic and stuffs it into a wicker basket. I give it another minute, and decide that it’s safe to approach.

  ‘Oh, there you are.’ I pretend I’ve only just spotted her.

  ‘Hi Alex, dear,’ she says. ‘Lovely weather, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ She looks happier and lighter than she has in days. I make a point of not looking up at the gathering rain clouds. ‘Did you enjoy the flower show yesterday.’

  ‘I did.’ Her smile is warm. ‘I’ve filled the potting shed with new plants. They had some spectacular new “old roses”. I was just about to go off and start planting them.’

  ‘Great,’ I say. ‘I wanted to let you know that Chloe is making pasties.’ My grandmother loves fresh beef and onion pasties, and Chloe, originally from Cornwall, makes them just the way she likes them. ‘But I see you’ve already had lunch.’

  ‘Yes,’ Her face glows. ‘I was meeting a friend.’

  ‘A friend?’ So that’s how she’s going to play it. ‘That’s nice. Lovely day for it, as you say. Did she have far to come?’

  I’m not sure if I’m glad or not that she takes the bait. ‘Actually, it was a he.’ Her schoolgirl grin says it all.

  ‘Was it the policeman by any chance?’

  ‘It was. He’s called David – I think I told you? You just missed him, in fact. I’ve told him about you, of course. If you’d come a little sooner, I would have introduced you.’

  ‘So it’s serious then?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she gives a girlish laugh. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’ She closes the picnic basket.

  ‘And what about the…’ I lower my voice, ‘other matter that he was looking into for you? Did he get to the bottom of who’s sending the diary entries.’

  Her sunny face clouds over. ‘No. Not yet. He’s very concerned, of course. But as there haven’t been any threats he says to just wait and see what happens. No new envelopes have come, have they?’

  ‘No. But I would like to see the diary entries as soon as possible. I need to know exactly what we’ve got to contend with.’

  ‘But I don’t have them.’ She looks suddenly confused. ‘I gave them to David. I forgot to ask for them back.’

  ‘Oh.’ A quiet anger seeps through me. Policeman or no, she’s trusted this ‘friend’ – whom she’s known for five minutes – rather than me, her only granddaughter. I decide that it’s time to cut to the chase. ‘Do you know a Sally Edwards, by any chance?’

  ‘Edwards? Well, I don’t know…’

  ‘Her maiden name was Dawkins. Sally Dawkins.’

  Her face betrays the answer. She sighs like she knows it. ‘I do – did. We weren’t friends. Not then, not now, and in truth, I hadn’t thought of her for years.’ She purses her lips like a piece of a puzzle has clicked in place. ‘Until recently, that is.’

  ‘So you know it’s her? Sending the diary entries?’ I feel affronted by the wild goose chase my grandmother has led me on.

  ‘No…’ she hesitates. ‘I mean, I suspected it might be her.’ Her lip curls in distaste. ‘Remember, Alex, I have very little memory of that time. Thinking about it – and what must have happened – has been hard. Most of the entries were about the rubble, and then my time at the house with the brown kitchen. There’s also some business of photographers and looters – but of course I have no memory of anything like that.’ She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know why she’d send them but I have a feeling that she’s holding something back. That I’ve been told the joke but haven’t heard the punchline.’ She inhales sharply. ‘That damned woman!’

  I’ve never heard my grandmother curse before, and now I see how much Sally Edwards’s mean-spirited actions have been affecting her. I’d been prepared to tell her everything I’d discovered so far. But now, I reconsider. My grandmother obviously doesn’t know about the possible link between Frank Bolton and the looting. If I can prove Frank Bolton had nothing to do with it before Sally Edwards does her worst, then I will have stripped her of the hold she seems to have over us.

  My grandmother takes her gloves from her pocket. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry about the diary entries – I should have made copies. I just wanted them out of the house – away from us here.’

  ‘I understand.’ Sort of.

  ‘Now, I must plant my new acquisitions before it starts raining.’ She takes a few steps in the direction of the potting shed. ‘I’ll be in later.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, taking a breath. ‘But there is one more thing. I’m afraid it can’t wait. When I was tidying up in the green salon yesterday, I found a photo – of Frank and two other men. This morning, it was gone. Have you seen it?’

  I watch as her face turns from ‘love’s first blush’ to ‘ghost white’, ending up in a shade of ‘gardening glove green’.

  ‘That photo’s missing?’

  ‘You didn’t put it somewhere?’

  ‘No.’ She twists the gloves in her hand.

  ‘No worries,’ I say with a reassurance I don’t feel. ‘Someone probably tidied it up.’

  ‘Okay.’ The lines in her face deepen with worry. ‘Let me know when you find it. I don’t like the idea of photos getting lost.’

  ‘Sure. Can you tell me about the photo?’


  She starts walking again, slowly this time. I trail after her, carrying the picnic basket.

  ‘It was one of a series taken by Robert Copthorne,’ she says. ‘They called him Robbo. He’s mentioned in the diary. He took newsreels mostly – of ordinary people during the war doing their bit – land girls, the home guard, the WI, evacuated children. And, of course, the devastation from the bombings. He was a master at capturing the horror of those times on film. They showed his newsreels in the cinema before each show. I think there were some old film reels of his up in the attic once.’

  ‘Really? I’ll have to check him out.’

  ‘You should do – his work was important in documenting the war. Sadly, he died only a few years after it ended. In Cambodia or Vietnam – someplace like that. A fever, I think. It was in the news at the time.’

  ‘That’s awful.’ I shake my head, wondering how many secrets a man like that took to his grave.

  We reach the potting shed and she unlocks the door. I know I should let her get on with her planting, but as she herself is fond of saying, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’.

  ‘There was something written on the back,’ I say. ‘“Flea”, “Badger”, and “Spider”. Were they nicknames of the men in the photo?’

  ‘I think they must be.’ She sighs. ‘The names are used in the diary too. Hal Dawkins was killed in the war, I think. And the other man was Jeremy Stanley.’

  ‘Stanley? That name sounds familiar.’

  She gives me a sly little wink. ‘He was related by marriage to your bête noire.’

  ‘My who…?’

  ‘Your good friend Charles Heath-Churchley.’

  ‘The Heath-Churchleys!’ Mrs Edwards’s voice rings in my head: ‘He was posh. His family had friends in high places…’

  ‘Yes. I think Jeremy Stanley’s daughter was married to Charles – something like that, anyway. Jeremy and Frank grew up in the same neighbourhood in London. They were friends, though Jeremy’s family was well-off and Frank was a bluestocking. After the war, they went into business together briefly. But Jeremy was interested in other things. He let Frank buy out his interest in the factory.’

  Relief floods through me. ‘So that’s where the money came from,’ I reason. ‘The money to buy the factory. Frank Bolton had a rich friend who gave him the seed capital.’

  ‘Maybe…’ she muses. ‘Though Jeremy was more like what you call shabby gentile. The Stanley family’s house was bombed. They also made some bad investments during the war. By the end, I wouldn’t have thought Jeremy Stanley had two shillings to rub together. Still, somehow, the two of them managed it. I guess the war provided a certain amount of opportunity for ambitious young men.’

  Especially if one of them had an injection of looted cash, I don’t say. My relief gives way to a new sense of dread. What am I going to tell Chris? I’d been so looking forward to seeing him again. But now, our tentative plans to see each other will have to be put on hold – possibly permanently. If I continue to assume that Frank is innocent, then there’s the possibility, at least, that his friend, Jeremy Stanley, could be guilty. By clearing Frank Bolton’s name, I might be implicating a member of one of Britain’s ‘oldest and proudest families’. And this time, it could be a lot more serious than a busted-up wedding.

  *

  I save the ‘good news’ for last, taking shelter from the sudden downpour with her in the potting shed. ‘I’ve learned something else about the jewelled locket,’ I tell her.

  ‘Oh?’ she says, loosening a rose from its pot.

  ‘It might be a Fabergé – from Russia.’ I wait for a drumroll and gasp that don’t come.

  ‘Really, dear. That’s nice,’ is all she says.

  I try again. ‘It might even have belonged to a member of the Tsar’s family.’

  That is when she laughs in my face. ‘Oh, Alex, what I wild goose chase I’ve set you on. How could that possibly be the case?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, a little hurt. ‘But I’m going to keep digging until I find out.’

  Leaving my grandmother to her plantings, I return to the house and have another look in the green salon for the photograph, then question the staff and the cleaners as to whether they’ve seen it, or noticed anyone lurking around. No one has. Is this another incident to chalk up to the ‘uninvited guest’, or just an oversight on someone’s part? Regardless, without the diary entries or the photograph, how can I find out more?

  I go about the morning’s tasks, putting the finishing touches on the costume exhibition. As I work, there’s a tune going through my head. The melody from the locket. Photographs, intruders, and looters aside, the locket is the key to everything – I’m sure of it.

  My grandmother’s mother died in the bombings sixty years ago. While my grandmother has few memories of that time, Mrs Edwards – who was only a ‘bun in the oven’– seems so sure of her version of events. And although time is marching on, surely there are other people who lived through that time; people who might still remember.

  Like the man I ran into that night of the ‘bomber’s moon’. For him, the horror is almost more real than his life today. What was his name? Peppercorn? No – Pepperharrow. And his little dog – Winston. It’s a long shot, but who knows?

  It’s possible that the ghosts of Larkspur Gardens aren’t completely at rest.

  - Chapter 30 -

  As the bus slows down at the stop, I have the urge to stay put, to bury my nose in the greasy copy of the Metro that someone left on the seat next to me, and keep riding until the bus trundles back to civilization. The door wheezes open and immediately, my senses are assaulted: by the din of East London traffic; the smell of curry and car exhaust; the brown and grey of the buildings. A large, colourfully dressed African woman tries to manoeuvre a huge double pram through the door, without much success. I relinquish my seat and help her lift it into the bus. Just as the door is closing, I jump off. The bus pulls away, and raindrops begin to fall.

  I wander past betting shops, hair salons, discount fabric shops, falafel and curry houses – getting increasingly wet. I recheck my A to Z, just to make sure my destination really exists and wasn’t just a one-time gateway to the past.

  But eventually, I see the sign on the little road that seems almost like a different world from the main street. Here it’s quieter, and I can no longer smell the fried chips or rubbish.

  Larkspur Gardens.

  I walk more quickly now, desperate to avoid running into Mrs Edwards – or, worse still, Tim himself. It’s only then that I realise I don’t know the old man’s house number.

  But on this point, I get lucky. Halfway down the road, I spot a postman on a bicycle. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘I’m looking for a resident – a Mr Pepperharrow.’

  ‘Pepperharrow?’ he scratches his beard. ‘He’s the third house from the end – number 60, I think.’

  Keeping my head low, I continue walking. There’s an air of decay about the houses in the road– much more noticeable now that I’m here in daylight – cracked paint and plaster, dirty windows, tiny lawns gone to weed, overflowing bins.

  I stop in front of the third house on the right. The number 60 is half-hidden by a scraggly climbing rose. There are a few buds which seem to be deciding whether opening up is worth the bother. The recycling bin out the front is filled mostly with food tins. There’s a neat stack of Daily Telegraphs tied with twine next to the bin. The door is painted yellowish-beige. Steeling myself, I ring the bell.

  There’s no sound from within. I have a sinking feeling that no one’s home, and it’s a wasted trip. I wait for a full minute, then knock again and put my ear to the door. I can just make out a shuffling sound coming from inside. All of a sudden, a dog yaps.

  ‘Hold your horses,’ an old man’s voice rasps from within.

  My heart accelerates as a deadbolt thunks, the door rattles, and finally, it opens a crack and an eye peeks out below a brass chain.

  ‘No soliciting,’ he says,
his shaky hand making ready to pull the door shut in my face. Winston sticks his nose out the door, sniffing the air.

  ‘Mr Pepperharrow,’ I say quickly. ‘We ran into each other once before – during the bomber’s moon?’

  The eye narrows sceptically. ‘You should go to the shelter,’ he says. ‘Oh, I know there’s all them people and all that pushing and shoving. But the wine cellar won’t save you if the house comes down on top of you.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’m taken aback. ‘Of course – I will go to the shelter. But first I just want to talk to you for a minute. About – what happened here. Umm… in 1940.’

  ‘Are you a spy? For the young whippersnapper down the road? Never liked him, I’ll tell you that for free. Too slick for his own good, that’s for sure. And why didn’t he join up – that’s the question.’

  ‘Yes,’ I flub. ‘That’s the question. One of them. But actually, I’m here for a different reason.’ I throw all my eggs in one basket. ‘I want to talk about the Russian lady.’

  There’s a sharp intake of breath and then a silence. I brace myself for the force of the door slamming in my face.

  The chain jingles and a moment later, I’m inside.

  Miles Pepperharrow leads the way, step by cautious, deliberate step, into a sitting room. After giving my legs a cautious sniff, Winston stays close to his master’s side. The sitting room is small like Mrs Edwards’s, and similarly decorated in shades of brown. But instead of ashtrays and magazines, there are books everywhere. Piled on the floor, on coffee tables and sofas, on shelves from floor to ceiling on three of the four walls. Hardback books, paperback novels, coffee-table books, loose-leaf notebooks. All with a common theme: war. The Great War, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Cold War, the Wars of the Roses, the Spanish Civil War. On the shelves, the books are mostly about military history and strategy: The Birth of the Panzer; Warplanes in the 20th Century; To fly a Poussemoth. Interspersed on some of the shelves, serving as bookends, is a collection of model planes. Most are made from sturdy metal, lovingly painted. I pick up one of the models and run my finger delicately along one of the dagger-shaped wings. I immediately think of Chris – he would appreciate the craftsmanship that’s clearly gone into them.