The Keeper of Lost Things
Page 24
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree . . .
It always put Eunice in mind of Coleridge’s opium-inspired verse. They went inside first. It was to be Bomber’s last tour and Douglas and Baby Jane’s first. Eunice carefully bypassed the kitchen where the dog-powered spit roast was exhibited. In the gift shop she bought a snow dome containing a model of the Pavilion for Bomber’s souvenir. Just as she was about to pay, something else caught her eye.
“I’ll take a tin of those biscuits too, please,” she told the woman behind the counter.
“Feeling peckish already?” asked Gavin as he offered to carry them for her.
Eunice smiled.
“I owe a lady called Pauline a tin of biscuits.”
Outside in the grounds, by the pond, they found a bench and sat. The Pavilion hung upside down in the water’s reflection like a collection of Christmas-tree baubles. Eunice took a pair of scissors from her pocket and cut a hole in one of the bottom corners of the striped bag. She had thought long and hard about how she could carry out Bomber’s final wishes. Once she had decided on the “where,” she had to work out the “how.” She didn’t even know if it was allowed, but she hadn’t asked, in case the answer was no, so stealth was essential. Eventually, inspiration came, as ever, from one of their favorite films: The Great Escape. If a dozen or so men could scatter the dirt excavated from three tunnels via their trouser legs in full view of armed guards, then surely Eunice would be able to scatter the ashes of three dear friends through the hole in the bottom of a shopping bag without drawing unwelcome attention. She was about to find out.
“Would you like me to come with you and keep a lookout? I could whistle the theme music if that would help.”
Eunice smiled. This part she really was going to do alone. Gavin watched as the small figure walked determinedly across the grass, back straight and head held high. At first, he took her path to be random, but it soon became apparent that it was anything but. When she rejoined him at the bench, the striped bag was empty.
“Bomber was right about this place,” he said, staring at the reflection in the pond. “It is utterly fabulous. By the way,” he added, “what did you write?”
“Chocks away!” she replied.
CHAPTER 51
The cursor on the screen in front of her winked encouragingly. The star-sapphire ring on the third finger of Laura’s left hand was still an unfamiliar weight as she lifted her hands to begin typing. Freddy, her fiancé of just three days, was in the kitchen making the lovely cup of tea with Sunshine, and Carrot lay sleeping at her feet. Laura was finally ready to chase her dream. She had found the perfect story and no one could describe it as being too “quiet.” It was a sweeping story of love and loss, life and death, and, above all, redemption. It was the story of a grand passion that had endured for more than forty years and finally found its happy ending. Smiling, she began to type. She had her perfect opening line . . .
THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS
Chapter 1
Charles Bramwell Brockley was traveling alone and without a ticket on the 14:42 from London Bridge to Brighton . . .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The fact that I am writing this means that my dream has finally come true and I am now a proper author. It has been a long journey and there have been some strange diversions, frustrating traffic jams, and so many bumps in the road. But here I am. There are so many people who have helped me to get here and if I were to mention all of you it would be a novel in itself, but you know who you are and I thank you all.
My parents are, of course, to blame. They taught me to read before I started school, enrolled me at the children’s library and filled my childhood with books, for which I am eternally grateful.
Thank you to Laura Macdougall, my incredible agent at Tibor Jones, for believing in me and Keeper from the beginning. We first met under the John Betjeman statue at St. Pancras (it was definitely a sign) and within minutes I knew that I wanted to work with you. I thank you for your unstinting support and enthusiasm, your unfailing professionalism and determination, your expert guidance in my initial forays with Twitter and Instagram and your lemon curd.
Thank you Charlotte Maddox at Tibor Jones for all your work with my foreign rights deals and for being such an enthusiastic cheerleader for Keeper, and to the whole team at Tibor Jones—undoubtedly the coolest agency on the planet—for making me feel so much at home with you guys. You rock!
Thank you to Fede Adornino, my editor at Two Roads and founder of Team Sunshine, for taking a risk on Keeper. Your humor, patience, and boundless enthusiasm have made working with you an absolute joy. Yay! Thanks also to the whole team at Two roads, Especially Lisa Highton, Rosie Gailer, and Ross Fraser for welcoming me so warmly and for all your hard work in turning Keeper into a real book. Thank you also to Amber Burlinson for her brilliant copyediting skills and Mimeh Lopategui for her careful proofread.
Thank you to Rachel Kahan at William Morrow, another member of Team Sunshine, for your invaluable editorial input and for the humor with which it was imparted. Thanks to all my foreign publishers for taking Keeper all over the world!
Huge thanks to Ajda Vucicevic. You were there at the start and your faith in me has never faltered.
Peter Budek at the Eagle Bookshop in Bedford has been my friend, mentor, and shoulder to cry on through good times and bad. He has also provided me with endless cups of tea, invaluable advice, and heaps of wonderful research material. Pete, you are a legend! Now finish writing at least one of your books!
Tracey, my mad friend, you died while I was writing Keeper, and I am so sad that you are not here to share this with me, but you inspired me to keep trying when I was sorely tempted to give up.
Thank you to the staff at Bedford and Addenbrookes Hospitals for all your care and kindness, and for making sure that I was still around to finish this book. Special thanks go to the staff at The Primrose Unit for your continued support and interest in my writing.
I should like to thank Paul for putting up with me. Whilst writing Keeper I have filled the house with all the lost things I have found, left bits of paper covered in notes all over the place, and generally allowed my “stuff” to creep into every room. I have locked myself away for hours on end and then emerged grumpy and demanding dinner. And yet, you’re still here!
Finally, I should like to thank my wonderful dogs. They have had to put up with “We’ll go for walk as soon as I’ve vanished this chapter” far too many times. Billy and Tilly both died while I was working on Keeper and I miss them every day, but Timothy Bear and Duke are asleep on the sofa as I write this. Snoring.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RUTH HOGAN describes herself as a “rapacious reader, writer, and incorrigible magpie” whose own love of small treasures and curiosities and the people around her inspired her first novel. She lives north of London.
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CREDITS
Cover artwork © Diana Beltran Herrera
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS. Copyright © 2017 by Ruth Hogan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Illustrations by mashakotcur/Shutterstock, Inc.
&n
bsp; EPub Edition February 2017 ISBN 9780062473578
ISBN 9780062473530
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