Handwritten in the margin were the words, Onion Fair. Birmingham 1929. The girls had been eight then, though the writing in blue biro looked recent.

Anna picked up the shortest of the letters. It was on a good quality sheet of blue paper. Beneath the Birmingham address appeared a mere lineful of words written with beautiful evenness: ‘I’m here to stay now. Please. Olivia.’

Anna’s heart started to beat faster. So often at story-time in her childhood: ‘Mummy, tell me a story about you and Olivia when you were little girls.’ And Kate had seemed to relish this talk while Anna sank into sleep. Idyllic summers spent in the languid gardens of Moseley, their endless talk, piano playing, their laughter and games. Talented, lovely Olivia, who was killed in the war in 1944.

Anna looked up slowly, frowning. The date at the top of Olivia’s letter was December 1980.

She reached for the pink file.

Contents

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part Two

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Part Three

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Part Four

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Part One

Chapter 1

KATE

Birmingham, 1929

‘Kate Munro!’

Miss Pardoe’s voice rang down the school corridor. I jumped guiltily, wondering what I’d done wrong. When Mummy spoke to me in that tone it meant Trouble. I had forgotten for a second that that was the way Miss Pardoe always talked.

‘Come here,’ she commanded. I walked up to her, trying to interpret the expression on her handsome face. At least she didn’t look cross. ‘It’s all right. You’re not going to be punished. I’ve a little job for you. Olivia Kemp has been taken ill, and I’d like you to go and sit with her until she goes home. You’ll find her in the lost property room.’

I scowled at Miss Pardoe’s back as she strode off towards the staff room. Just my luck.

The lost property room was a narrow hole next to the changing rooms with a cold stone floor and a stained enamel sink on one wall. There were a couple of hard, ink-stained chairs inside and a small cabinet screwed to the wall, always locked and containing a rudimentary first aid kit. Apart from that there were two disintegrating baskets into which were thrown any items of lost clothing or kit found round the school. The room stank of sweaty Aertex and rubber pumps, and there was only one high little window, so it was gloomy as well as smelly.

And on top of that it had to be snotty, top-of-the-class Olivia Kemp. Although we were in the same class, I’d mostly kept out of her way until now. For one thing Olivia was glorious to look at, skinny, with those huge brown eyes like a puppy’s and thick, curling brown hair. I was plump with hair that was neither blond nor mousy but somewhere in between, and I had to wear specs that crouched across my nose like black crows. Olivia sat in the corner desk at the front of the class, head bent, working and working, or listening with wide eyes and what seemed exaggerated intentness to whatever the teacher was saying. She got marvellous marks and we all thought her frightfully stuck up. And she was Councillor Kemp’s daughter. Everyone in Birmingham had heard of Alec Kemp. He was the youngest yet one of the most prominent councillors in the city, and a very handsome one at that. You could see where she got her looks from.