Catching the Wind(25)

She searched Kent County’s database for a family named Terrell, but there was no listing for them. Even if she found the Terrells, Brigitte might have been sent north shortly after she arrived or shipped off to another country like many of the evacuated children during that era.

Quenby paced around the kitchen table, scrolling back through the notes she’d found in the archives as she walked. When she went to visit Mrs. McMann, she would ask about the Terrells.

Reaching for her mobile phone, she dialed Chandler’s number. Her boss answered after the third ring, her voice groggy. “This better be important.”

“I didn’t think you’d be sleeping.”

“It’s after midnight, Quenby. Most people are asleep by now.”

“I want to go down to Breydon Court, to speak with Mrs. McMann.”

“Lady Ricker’s daughter?” Chandler asked, sounding much more awake.

“Yes,” she said as she slid open the glass door that led out to the patio. “I can take a train down to Kent in the morning.”

“I told Evan you were working on a big story. He asked if you could have it done by Thursday.”

“I need to get my facts in place first.”

“He’s more concerned about breaking it before anyone else.”

“He should want the truth,” Quenby replied. It was a constant irritation, this implication that she should invent facts if she must to gain readership. She would have a story for Evan Graham—and it would be accurate.

“Sort it all out, but do it quickly.”

After saying good-bye, Quenby closed her iPad and stepped out onto the small patio. The woodlands around the heath blocked the lights of central London, and she could see the stars over the pond and trees.

The truth was out there, for both the Ricker family and Mr. Knight. She couldn’t step away from either story now.





But alway take heed that thou fight with this mind and hope . . .

that thine enemy once overcome to his shame, shall never afterward come upon thee again.



DESIDERIUS ERASMUS

The Manual of the Christian Knight (1501)





CHAPTER 14





_____

Silver ribbons of rain streamed across the tower window. Below him, wind churned the seawater into a mad froth. A wave crashed into the cliffs, the spray shooting like white flames up the rocks. It wasn’t long past the dinner hour, but the sky was more inky black than gray.

Daniel couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a thunderstorm in these islands. Two years ago. Three perhaps. The days and months and years all blended together into a soupy sort of mess in his brain. He could remember the details from seventy years past, but yesterday was often a blur.

A crack of thunder shook the tower floor. Like the powerful, invisible pull of a magnet, the thunder lurched him back to the years he’d spent on another island, far away from here. To the top bunk in his barracks on the Isle of Man.

The roof leaked whenever it rained, cold water dripping in a slow cadence onto his bedclothes. On the nights he couldn’t sleep, all he could think about was Brigitte. Sleeping beside her under the trees in Belgium, the leaves dripping on their heads as they dreamed about blankets and bratwurst. Warm fires and hot apple cider. Parents to care for them and their needs.

Coward.

The storm seemed to accuse him again for what he’d done as a boy. Choosing flight over fight. Twice.

George and Letha had told him repeatedly that he’d done the right thing, made a courageous choice all those years ago by escaping Germany and then hiding in the closet of that public hall so a family would take Brigitte home with them. But in his dreams, when he saw Brigitte’s tears, her face pressed against the car window, he didn’t feel courageous at all.

If only he could have predicted the future. The police who had relocated him to an internment camp. The war that lasted four more years.

He’d prayed for Brigitte, every day since Tonbridge. Prayed that she would be strong, healthy, and loved. That she would know in her heart he’d never meant to abandon her.

The room trembled again from the rage of thunder, and Daniel reached for the wood column in the center of the tower to balance himself.

He’d thought he built a castle big enough for space to breathe, but on days like this, when the memories returned, even the windowed walls up here, with their sweeping views of the sea, seemed to close in on him. On these days, it felt as if he were being attacked from the inside.

The tower of the castle—the keep—was the final refuge in an attack from the enemy, but no fortress of stone could protect from the enemy who crept up from memories, moving stealthily through the entire body, raiding the refuge of one’s mind.

He needed to clear the adversary from his head before it took hold.

Slowly he descended the spiral stone stairs, using the banister instead of his cane for balance until he reached the tiled entrance hall. The hall held two suits of armor that he’d purchased back in England, worn centuries ago by knights who were rumored to have fought alongside William Marshal in the twelfth century.

When he was a boy, he’d thought all knights were good, that they’d fought unselfishly to protect others. But he’d learned during his internment that not all of them had fought for what was good or right. Some only wanted to steal away what wasn’t theirs.