“Great-Aunt Who?”

Violet pulls a face. “Great-Aunt Winniegar. She’s my guardian. But she would never bother with lost suitcases. Not unless she thought there might be cash and jewels in them.”

“How do you know there wasn’t?”

“Because my dad’s a writer,” says Violet. “Great-Aunt Winniegar said he wasted his life chasing stories instead of money.”

“Not bothered about sentimental value then, your great-aunt?”

The face again, only worse.

“How about your mum?” I say. “Didn’t she have any family?”

There’s a pause.

“Violet?”

But now I cannot see Violet’s face at all – it has vanished behind her mass of hair.

“I have no idea who my mum is,” she says eventually. So I go quiet.

Then I see the date.

“Hey, wait! It says here that your parents’ cases were collected two years ago. But I was here then! I don’t remember that. It’s not even my handwriting!”

“Then they must have been stolen,” says Violet. “One day when you were out, someone came here and TOOK my parents’ things!”

Stolen?

From my Lost-and-Foundery?!

But it’s possible. And if they were stolen, then someone who knows how the Lost-and-Foundery works must have done it.

I go to the shelf where the PARMA suitcases should have been, and sure enough, there’s a gap. I shove my hand deep into the dark space between the other lost bags. My fingers find something at the back, so I pull it out.

It’s two pairs of shoes, all tied together by the laces. Attached to them is a neat label marked: PARMA – loose footwear. I bring them over and hand them to Violet.

“These belong to you, now,” I say. “It’s all that’s left. I-I’m sorry, Violet.”

Violet stares at the shoes in her arms, amazed. One pair is a man’s brogues, well worn and scuffed. The other is a pair of ladies’ boots – stout, ankle-length and polished smart beneath the dust.

It’s the shoes the police found on the harbour wall after Violet’s parents went missing.

As I watch, Violet unties the laces with trembling fingers. Then she kicks off the flimsy canvas shoes she arrived in, and slips the ankle boots onto her feet.

“Aren’t they a bit big?” I ask.

Violet shakes her head. “My mum must have been quite small.”

For a moment I think she’s going to hide in her hair again, but she wipes her eyes furiously.

“Is quite small, I mean.”

Then Violet snatches up the big leather register and taps the page. “Room 407. It says here my parents stayed in Room 407.”

“Well, yes…”

“I want to go there,” says Violet, shutting the book with a thud. “I want to go there now.”