“It’s my father’s dream. I’ve got no idea what I want to do yet. I’ll do something else. Something outside. I’ll mow lawns.”
“The Misses Edwards aren’t going to be able to pay you enough to support a wife and baby.”
“Then I’ll run the shop with my mum. We can do this,” he said again. “My parents did it.” And the next time they saw one another, he gave her the necklace, as if encompassed within the fine gold chain and the little garnet stone was all the potential and promise and sheer good luck they would need.
But Matilda didn’t want to do it. He had told her about his parents, married due to a pregnancy (that didn’t even eventuate) and as happy as could be, but Matilda didn’t want to be a mother. She didn’t want to be married. Not now. Perhaps not ever. She had big dreams for the future. She planned to travel, to live in New York City, to play jazz in nightclubs with their names spelled out in neon lights.
And so she’d come up with a new idea. The only catch had been the need to enlist her younger sister. Matilda, being a responsible person by nature, had debated the pros and cons of involving Evie, who was, after all, only ten years old. Eventually, she’d reasoned that it was acceptable on two conditions, written like the solution to a logic problem at the bottom of the diary entry on December 3.
She mustn’t be told the reason, that way she’ll bear no moral burden.
She must be paid with something she values to a similar degree.
When the soft knock came at last on the door, Matilda opened it within a matter of seconds. Her face was flushed. “Did you get it?”
Her sister gave a short nod.
“Show me.”
Evie reached into her satchel.
“Not out here!” With a quick glance over her younger sister’s shoulder, Matilda grabbed Evie by the wrist and pulled her into the room, where the microscope she’d managed to purloin from the school science room as payment was waiting.
Silence fell once more on the landing, as the sun, which had continued its slow arc across the sky, arrived high enough at last for rays of light to begin pouring through the glass dome in the ceiling, illuminating lazy motes of dust, suspended and unsuspecting of all that the day had yet in store.
John, meanwhile, had just discovered a problem. Securing the loan of the camera had not been an entirely straightforward matter. Never one to miss an opportunity, Matthew had recognized his new friend’s eagerness and been quick to capitalize. He agreed to lend the Brownie on one condition. A week or two earlier, when the two boys were executing a raid on John’s mother’s pantry in search of Mrs. Pike’s fresh batch ofLebkuchenChristmas biscuits, Matthew had caught sight of a stash of brown glass bottles hidden at the back of the bottom shelf. He knew immediately what they were, and his first thought was of the fun he could have baiting the wild dogs that had been howling in the valleys of an evening.
John, who for all his high spirits was an honest and dutiful boy, had agreed to the deal reluctantly, settling on two bottles (rather than the four requested) in exchange for a one-week loan of the camera. But by the time he managed to sneak into the pantry, only a single bottle remained on the shelf, with half of its contents gone. He had cursed himself for not having ventured sooner to secure the ill-gotten gains, but decided it would have to do, squirrelling the bottle away, ready to make the swap at the specified place and time.
So it was that, as Matilda inspected the jar Evie had brought her from Mr. Stamp’s shed, and Evie examined her new microscope, and Mrs. Pike sorted through the pieces of broken cup in the kitchen,and Becky Baker slipped her hand into the pocket of her pinafore to stroke the smooth back of the ivory rabbit that had until recently occupied pride of place in Mrs. Turner’s cabinet, John handed over the half bottle of Thall-Rat to Matthew McKenzie.
“What’s this?” said the boy. “I was promised two!”
“It’s all that was left.”
“But there were so many.”
“My mum hates rats,” said John with an unhappy shrug. “She and Mrs. Pike both. One of them must have used the rest already.”
Matthew considered the bottle, and then, with a grunt of deep dissatisfaction, took it from John and tucked it in his pocket. “I’ll still lend you my camera, but you can forget about the week,” he said, handing over the Brownie. “I want it back on Boxing Day.”
John received the item as if it were worth its weight in gold. Two days didn’t give him long, but if he started that very afternoon, he had a good shot at getting the footage he needed.
“Should mention,” said Matthew, almost an afterthought, as he turned back toward his grandparents’ house, “the film door jammed last time I used it. You’ll have to fix it first.”
“I’ll take it to Mr. Drumming,” John called after him. “He can fix anything.”
Matthew McKenzie continued toward home, a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips, and, with the clock ticking on his loan, John turned and ran like a hare back up the hill, disappearing over the crest in the direction of his family’s shed.
***
9
Unfortunately for John, although it was true that Henrik Drumming possessed an unrivaled ability to fix almost any broken objectput before him, Mr. Drumming was not at the Turner house that day. He had asked for, and been granted, a rare morning off.
Later, during his interview with police, Mr. Drumming would hesitate when asked how he’d spent December 24. “I was down at Parkside,” he said at last, when it became clear he was going to have to answer.
None of the officers needed to ask what Parkside was. They looked from one to the other, avoiding Henrik’s eyes, until finally Sergeant Duke, being the highest-ranking officer and the only non-local, was the one to ask, “And what were you doing there, Mr. Drumming?”
