At the corner of the half-landing Star appeared, wearing a green dress with thin straps and a floppy sun hat, the handles of a straw bag slung over one shoulder. She stood there watching me, and I knew she understood.
‘Of course. Now listen, I’ve been thinking. How about I come to your place tomorrow afternoon? And you can make me a cup of tea, and we’ll just have a nice chat. What do you think?’
I nodded, although she couldn’t see me, and thought of Dockie, and the photograph, and his talk of a girl named Sally. ‘I’ve loads of news. Good news, I think.’
Mum sighed through the wires. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you too.’
After I’d hung up I leaned against the G. P. O. list of exchange numbers framed beside the telephone and waited for Star to reach my side.
‘You okay?’ She touched my bare arm.
I smiled at her. ‘Yes, I am.’
Together, we walked down the hill in the sunshine. I peered at a bright orange scarf wrapped around something sticking out of the top of her straw bag.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Oh, it’s to protect the envelope.’ She waggled her eyebrows at me. ‘Granny let me have it.’
‘What? Not … the package from Robert?’
She nodded. ‘She wants me to read it first, so I can tell her if there’s anything upsetting in it.’
‘Wow.’ I looked down at the beach, the families setting up camp beneath the unexpected sun, the donkey-ride woman further along in her deckchair, the metal edging of the pier winking in the light. ‘She really trusts you.’
‘She does.’ She nudged me. ‘Of course, I’ll let you read it too. She’ll never know.’
‘Oh, Star.’ I was pleased all the same, and put my arm inside hers. ‘And you mustn’t forget our date tonight. The One-Two, remember?’
She looked down and blushed. ‘I wouldn’t,’ she murmured, and I felt again the glimmer of power just within my grasp.
I put my shoulders back straighter, and as we crossed the road to the promenade I said, ‘Oh, look, there’s Johnny.’
We walked down the steps, plunging across the filmy sand. ‘This is okay, isn’t it?’ murmured Star, in a sort of wonder, a giggle just under her breath.
I was bright with a new sort of confidence. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is.’
We nudged each other, sand sinking between our toes as we walked to where Johnny was lying on a towel in shorts and a vest, wearing sunglasses.
‘You two made it up?’ he said, as we unrolled towels and kicked off our shoes. ‘I’ve got the hangover from hell, so don’t disturb, all right?’
Star wriggled out of her dress and stood before me in her black-and-white swimsuit. ‘You coming, Rosie?’
‘Um …’ I looked down at the bag Star had dumped on to the towel. ‘All right. Just give me a second.’
‘I’ll see you in there, okay?’ She turned and ran off towards where children were squealing in the waves.
I bent down to the bag, sand spattering the outsides of it, and pulled apart the fringes of the orange scarf. Inside was the envelope; it had already been unpeeled and I inched out the first few pages. The topmost one appeared to be a letter; I saw Dear Clara in an elegant copperplate hand. The second one began:
Both trains were packed: all the way from Birmingham New Street to London, and again on the connecting service to the south.
‘Go on, bugger off,’ murmured Johnny from behind his sunglasses. ‘I’ll make sure it don’t go nowhere, okay?’
‘You’d better.’ I gently pushed the pages back and returned the envelope to the bag. I stood up and squinted out towards the shoreline, making out Star’s head bobbing in the waves.
I stepped out of my dress and kicked it on to the towel. I walked towards the glinting blue line of the sea, dodging past the families reading newspapers and the kids building sandcastles. As I stepped into the sea I gasped as the cold water hit my shins.
‘You’ve got to run!’ Star shouted from a short distance away, her lips wide, her eyelashes wet. I took a breath, waded in up to my thighs and then, with a wild scream of abandon, launched myself into the sea and began swimming, the sunshine hot on my head and the gulls wheeling and calling somewhere far overhead.
Acknowledgements
Thank you Judith Murray, and all at Greene & Heaton.
Thank you, everyone at Michael Joseph and Penguin.
Thank you, Stella Kane and Laura Longrigg.
Thank you, Grit Lit and Rattle Tales in Brighton.
Thank you Sam, my first editor.
And most of all, thank you for reading this book. I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published 2014
Copyright © Stephanie Lam, 2014
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The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover © Richard Jenkins
Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes
ISBN: 978-1-405-91701-8
The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House Page 43