The Light Over London(3)

“Yes, of course.” She hurried out and picked up the call as soon as she was in the corridor. “What is it, Simon?”

His voice, as polished as it was judgmental, filled her ear. “Why are you whispering?”

She strode up a narrow flight of stairs that must’ve once been for the servants of the house. “Because I’m at work.”

“With the antique owner of the antique shop?” He snickered.

“Yes, and Jock needs me, so if you’d just tell me why you called . . .”

Glancing around for Mrs. Leithbridge, she slipped into the first room she came to, kicking up a cloud of dust that swirled in the light from a single window. When she shut the door, an old, battered armoire creaked open.

“Come now, it isn’t like you’re performing surgery,” he said.

God forbid he think her job was important.

“You should go back into events,” he continued, his tone overbearing and snobbish. “I’m sure your old boss could find a spot for you, or you could start your own consultancy. Then you could make real money.”

Of course Simon didn’t think working for Jock was good enough, and it grated on her that, even though they were divorced, he still felt his opinion should matter.

“Simon, I hated working events and I should’ve quit long before I did.”

“And I suppose that’s my fault,” he said, his voice sharpening.

“Part of it is, actually.”

All at once, Simon’s self-righteous bluster left him. “I’m sorry, Cara. I ruined everything. I’m going to get help, I just . . .”

She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the wave of guilt to come. Only now it had been long enough that it didn’t crash down on her but rather lapped at her feet. They’d been down this path before. He’d first promised her when she’d told him she wanted a divorce that he would seek help, but he’d never gone. It had taken her considerable time with her own therapist to understand that her shoulders weren’t broad enough to carry the full weight of her husband’s narcissism, insecurity, and addiction.

“Why did you call?” she asked.

He cleared his throat. “A bill was forwarded to me by mistake. It was for your parents’ storage unit.”

She slumped against the wall, the memory of the late-night phone call stealing her breath. It had been a police officer, telling her with clinical dryness that a drunk driver in a Range Rover had hit her parents on a one-track country lane. They were being medevaced to a hospital in Cumbria. She hadn’t arrived in time to say goodbye.

“Apparently the annual fee was paid out of our joint account. Since we closed it, it came back declined,” Simon continued, oblivious or uncaring as to how his words hit her.

“Please forward it to my new address. I’ll take care of it,” she said, her voice cracking a little.

“You should clear it out and sell the lot. They’ve been dead for almost two years, Cara. You need to stop wasting money on this.”

His callous disregard for the way she chose to mourn her parents’ deaths might’ve felt like a slap once. Now it just left her with a deep, soul-aching sadness. “Send me the bill. I’ll handle it.”

“I’m only trying to help,” he said.

“No, Simon, you’re not, and one day I hope you’ll see that.” She swiped to end the call. Her divorced friends had told her that there’d be times when she’d be so angry at her ex she’d want to rage, but all she felt was weary to the bone. She could hardly remember why she’d fallen in love with him all those years ago.

She tucked her phone away, determined to focus on whatever Jock threw at her, but before she could, a glint of gold from inside the partially open armoire caught her eye. She moved to shut the door that had fallen open, but hesitated. Great-Aunt Lenora had proven canny about hiding things away in nooks and crannies. Who knew what was squirreled away inside?

The old hinges creaked in protest as she opened the door wide. Compared to the clutter of the house, the shelves were disappointingly bare. The gold turned out to be a hand mirror with an elaborate fleur-de-lis back, and next to it lay an old Scrabble set that looked to be at least two dozen letters short.

Not feeling particularly hopeful, she turned her attention to the two drawers on the bottom. Nothing in the first but a couple of dead moths. But when she opened the second drawer, she saw a biscuit tin molded to look like a shelf of upright books. She’d seen tins like this full of buttons and other odds and ends in Gran’s house when she was a child. If she had to hazard a guess, against Jock’s wishes, she would’ve said it was from the 1940s, possibly the very early 1950s.

Kneeling on the floor, she slipped her short nails under the top to rock it back and forth. It was slow work but finally the thin metal gave way. Her heart kicked up a beat at what she saw. On top lay a small fat notebook bound in red-cloth-covered cardboard and held together by a band. When she tried to open it, the elastic disintegrated in her hands.

“Damn,” she cursed softly. She should probably set the book aside, but the damage was already done.

The notebook’s first page was blank, but the next was covered in looping script written in faded blue ink. The date at the top read “14 October 1940.”

The bombs fell again yesterday night. I’d just gone to sleep when the explosions started. They sounded so close I thought the ceiling might fall in. Dad says the Germans dropped six bombs on RAF St. Eval. We don’t know yet how much damage was done.