She couldn’t remember falling asleep, but suddenly she sat bolt upright. The room was in total darkness. The key! She could remember seeing a key and now she knew where: in her mother’s sewing machine. In the small box which held bobbins and machine attachments, there had been a tiny key. She remembered seeing it when she had made her blouse and skirt. It was exactly the sort of place her mother would have kept the key to her precious box; close beside her every day as she worked.

Ella slipped out of bed and padded across the floor to the door. Holding her breath she opened it, wincing at every little squeak. She crept down the stairs, pausing to listen every time a stair creaked.

In the living room, she drew aside the heavy blue velvet curtain so that moonlight beamed in. Quietly, she lifted the lid from the machine and took the smaller lid from the box at the side. She scrabbled amongst the clutter there until her fingers closed on the key. Replacing the lid and leaving the machine as she had found it, she sneaked back upstairs. Once in the safety of her bedroom, she breathed easily again and with the door firmly shut she lit her candle, wishing, not for the first time, that her grandmother would agree to have electric light, and went again to the blanket box.

Taking the smaller box back to her bed, she wriggled her cold feet under the covers and, sitting up, rested the box on her knees. Mentally crossing her fingers, she inserted the key into the lock. It fitted, but was stiff to turn through lack of use. Ella found her heart was thumping with excitement as she opened the lid. The box was a vanity case with glass bottles each in their own place. In a small central compartment with a padded lid there was an envelope with the words ‘Danielle Hilton, aged three’ written on the front. Inside was a photograph of Ella and a curl of strawberry blonde hair wrapped in tissue paper. Ella smiled and laid the envelope to one side on the bed. Next she found her mother’s WAAF badges and a photograph of Kate with Mavis and Isobel, all in uniform. In the background, Ella could see the huge shape of an aircraft. There was an old, rather faded, photograph taken in the front garden of the farmhouse of her grandmother and Jonathan standing beside an old man leaning heavily on a stick. That must be Esther’s father, Will Benson, Ella thought, the man whose grave she’d seen the previous day.

There was nothing else in the small compartment and Ella felt a stab of disappointment. Surely there must be something else . . . letters, photographs – there must be more.