“Actually, there’s not. There’s a shortage of workers, in case you hadn’t noticed, and our freelancer had to leave us because war work takes precedence over books.” Ursula rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Alice hasn’t had as much training as the rest of us, she just seems to know what readers want. She has this special sense for understanding people, an intuition for what they want to read.”

“Go on.”

“It’s because she’s one of them, a real reader. Not like you lot in your waistcoats and Savile Row suits—she lives where ordinary people live, talks to the people who actually buy and read the books.”

“And what about you, are you ordinary?”

Ursula smiled coyly. “No, I’m not very ordinary either.”

“What would you say about Emily and Tommy?” He fixed her with a stare. “Does she know better than them?”

“No, of course not.” Ursula pushed her hands deep inside her coat pockets. “Alice just has an instinct for it, I suppose.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes, the authors like her.”

“Well, that’s certainly something.”

Her lips curved into another smile, and this time he smiled back.

It was obvious that Ursula and the others were suspicious of him, unhappy about his involvement with their work. If he could help bring Alice back to the fold, that might be a way of showing them he was on their side.

Ten

Brighton, March 19, 1943

Alice winced with each movement as she crept down the stairs, eyes darting back and forth along the empty landings as she feared running into Hope, who was certain to try to stop her for the sake of her health. Breakfast wasn’t served until seven, another hour yet, so she had little chance of meeting any guests, who must have grown suspicious of the woman in the attic after her shrieking and her visitors’ comings and goings.

She carried on, lightly down the last flight, through the hallway and out the front door, closing it softly behind her.

It was still dark, and a thick fog was coming off the channel, threading spectral tentacles along the promenade and through the deserted streets. Alice shivered and clasped her coat tighter as she set off in the opposite direction, away from the seafront. She held one of the guest maps from her room that showed points of interest in the town: the Duke of York’s Cinema, the piers and arcades, the dance hall and restaurants—and the hospital and police station.

Alice had barely slept at all. Hope had carried on calling Dulwich the whole of the previous day with no answer. Where had Ruth gone, and what exactly was she planning? Alice hadn’t believed her mother capable of harm before, but now she wondered what else Ruth might do.