He crouched down and rubbed at the top of the wooden trunk that the violin had been resting on. “Look.”

Lia gently snapped the lid of the violin case closed. She set it aside and joined Gabriel, careful to keep a safe distance. He gestured to a yellowed label that had been glued to the top left corner of the trunk, its corners brittle and curling. RECORDS 1936–46 MILLBROOK was just legible in faded ink.

Gabriel was already working on the latches on either side. “What do you think?” he asked. “Something useful or a box full of receipts for coal and turnips?”

Lia bit her lip, welcoming the distraction. Her heart seemed to be slowing to a normal pace. “I’m having a faint sense of déjà vu,” she said.

“You and me both.” He shoved the lid up.

At first glance, the trunk looked as though a filing cabinet had been simply unloaded into its depths. Stacks of wide file folders were piled inside right up to the top, small scraps of paper peeking out from some like leaves lost in a windstorm. Bundles of letters and what looked like bound ledgers were visible beneath. Gabriel lifted out the first of the thick folders and passed it to Lia, selecting another for himself.

She opened hers to find a collection of newspaper clippings. The Times, The Daily Mirror, and The Sunday Express, all dated, as far as she could tell, from 1944 to 1945. Each covered some part of the Allied invasion of France, their subsequent invasion of Europe, and, at the bottom of the pile, news of victory.

“This must be what Abigail was speaking of?” Lia guessed. “Some of what her mum clipped and kept?”

“I think so,” Gabriel agreed, his head bent over the folder he held. “I have records here of children who were evacuated from London and who stayed at Millbrook. It looks like someone kept the tags that would have been pinned to their clothing, spent ration cards, and even a poster issued by the Ministry of Health urging parents to leave their children where they were safe.” He sorted through the contents and set the folder aside. “Fascinating, and I should probably go through them and have these boxed up to be submitted and archived properly in London. I know people have tried for years to trace family members that were scattered during the war.”

He reached back into the trunk and withdrew a stack of letters, bound by a single string. He thumbed carefully through the aged envelopes. “This is definitely Imogen’s stuff,” he said. “All these letters are addressed to her.”

“Any from your grandfather or Sophie?” Lia asked.

“No. It looks like they’re all from her own family.” He placed them on the floor next to the folder. “Let’s see what else she kept.”