When Roz returned to Crooked Lane later that evening, she wasn’t surprised to find that Suzie was in a foul mood, far worse than normal, but refusing to tell her grandmother why. Roz was pretty sure she knew the answer was the missing necklace, but of course she couldn’t say so. Instead she watched Suzie with mild amusement as the other girl pouted, huffed and sulked the evening away. As they got into bed that night, Roz watched Suzie carefully, to see if she checked her pillowcase, and when she didn’t Roz smiled. She was right in her assumption that Suzie had already checked and found the jewellery missing. Well, it served her right. Suzie had taken what wasn’t hers in the first place, and now she was having to suffer in silence. Now she knows what it’s like to live with people you can’t trust, Roz thought with smug satisfaction.

Suzie was feeling far from smug. Her grandmother had been in a vile mood ever since being called out to the non-existent accident, and Suzie now thought it might be all down to her own actions. She would love to spill the beans on Roz, but she couldn’t without admitting she had kept an item of value from her grandmother and father, who would believe Suzie worse than Roz for holding out on them. She longed to tell them that Roz was not all that she appeared, and that she believed Roz had asked her friends to help retrieve the necklace, but again, she was unable to do so. She had briefly wondered whether her father or grandmother had found the necklace, but knew that if this was the case, they would have given her a clip round the ear for not handing it over, believing she had either found or stolen it. As they had been getting ready for bed, Suzie was certain that Roz was trying to swallow a smile. I’ll get my own back, Suzie thought bitterly, and then she’ll be sorry she ever messed with the Haggartys!

September 1939

Roz sat on the steps outside Mabel’s family home hugging her legs close to her chest, staring at the entrance to the court. Mabel and her family were attending church like they did every Sunday, but this Sunday they were staying on to hear the announcement by Neville Chamberlain.

Six months had passed since the incident with Roz’s necklace and little had changed at the Haggartys’, save that Suzie had doubled her efforts to get rid of Roz, her latest being that Roz was German and that they were living with the enemy. Callum had taken no notice of his daughter until she said that the people in the market might feel differently if war was declared.