There was no judgement in Hilary’s words; still, Josephine couldn’t help but feel that her personal war effort hadn’t got off to the most laudable of starts. ‘So what can we do for you?’ she asked.

‘Well, I want us to put on a really good show when they first get here. They’ll have been travelling since the crack of dawn, so I’m having a ring-round to get a few friendly faces to make them welcome while we fix them up with their people. Just a bit of tea and sympathy, really, and only for a couple of hours or so. I’ll completely understand if you haven’t got time, and I’m already taking up your Saturday afternoon with the fete, but I thought I’d ask on the off chance that you and Marta were at a loose end.’

It wasn’t exactly how Josephine would have described the precious few days that they had arranged to spend together before another separation, but she couldn’t think of a way of explaining that without sounding selfish, and the silence on the line was becoming awkward. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said eventually, shrugging defensively as Marta glanced up from her book. ‘We’d be happy to help. What time do you need us to be there?’

Also by Nicola Upson

Dear Little Corpses

A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month

No one is above suspicion when evacuation proves more deadly than war.

1 September, 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside. But when three little girls step off the train to the ‘safety’ of an idyllic Suffolk village only to disappear, their escape seems to be more dangerous than the city homes they have left behind.

The chaos of war is beginning to sweep across the country, but this particular hamlet is home to Golden Age crime author Josephine Tey, who is herself struggling with the prospect of change. So when a cloud of suspicion falls across the community she has come to love, the conflict becomes personal, and Josephine is determined to discover what precisely has become of these lost children and who is truly responsible for their vanishing …

‘[A] splendid series.’ The Times

‘Nicola Upson’s Josephine Tey mysteries are a class above the usual crime fiction. They shimmer with a love for their prewar setting and the artistic circles Tey, a real-life detective novelist, frequented.’ Independent

COPYRIGHT

First published in 2020
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House,
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA

This ebook edition first published in 2020

All rights reserved
© Nicola Upson, 2020

The right of Nicola Upson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Cover design by Nathan Burton

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental