Within seconds of stepping inside the building, Mrs. Sugden wished she had worn her Sunday hat. The woman at the desk gave her a snooty look and said nothing.

Mrs. Sugden put on her best voice. “I’m Mrs. Sugden. I need to trace a child who was brought here.”

The woman sniffed. “We’ve no children here. When was this?”

“When the Bluebell Children’s Home closed, not so long ago.”

“I can’t divulge the whereabouts except to a close relative. Are you a close relative?”

Without knowing a child’s name, this was difficult. Play the woman at her own game. “I can’t divulge a name, particularly since this child may be due a legacy from a great aunt who died in Australia. I’m acting for the solicitor.”

Mrs. Sugden’s best voice did the trick.

A certain amount of snootiness evaporated.

“I would have to have the name, madam. You see, children are brought here. We have frequent arrivals of pauper children. They are sent out to different addresses across the city.”

“Then I’ll see that a letter comes to you. Have you a letter heading by you? I can give that to my employer and he will write.”

The letter heading was produced.

Mrs. Sugden studied it. Her hand trembled as the penny dropped. “You’re the workhouse.” It came out as an accusation.

The woman across the counter found a sudden itch by her ear, and scratched. She spoke sharply. “We don’t go by that name now, not for a long time. Everything is done good and proper. The children chosen for a new life in Canada are all properly certificated.”

Something funny happened to Mrs. Sugden’s breath. She couldn’t remember how a person breathed. Someone had taken kiddies from a home in the country near a bluebell wood and fetched them to a place with no heart, no soul, and passed them on, elsewhere in the city, or else across an ocean.

She hardly trusted herself to speak. The words came out in a gulp. “Where are the kiddies from the Bluebell, and who are you packing off to Canada?”

The woman gripped the counter. “You’re not acting for a solicitor are you?”

“Oh but I am. And if I wasn’t, I am now. And you’re acting for the devil.”

Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

On Tuesday morning, a bright clear day, Jim Sykes fitted in a call to a client whose security he dealt with. He then drove on to Rothwell.

The vicarage, that last night had looked forbiddingly Gothic in the moonlight, now took on the aspect of a bright villa. A gardener was tending the shrubbery. He looked up and exchanged a nod. As Sykes approached the front door, he took a sideways glance into a window. A man sat writing at a desk.