If you are amenable, I would be pleased to arrange a meeting at your convenience.
Kind regards,
Marcus Summers
Jess read the letter again. Included among the list of tasks to complete in her grandmother’s diary had been the initialsM.S.A reminder to Nora to telephone Marcus Summers. The box beside the initials had not been ticked.
It was still only seven in the morning: too early to ring him herself. But Jess knew exactly what she could do to fill the time. She should have done it sooner. Nora had died because she went upstairs to the attic; Jess was more determined than ever to find out why.
The last time Jess had climbed these stairs had been the night before she’d left for London. Apprehension had kept her awake, herthoughts electric, her legs restless, until finally she’d had no choice but to get out of bed. Wandering the hallways of the dark house, willing the hours to pass, something had drawn her upstairs; when she reached the rickety flight leading to the attic, she’d understood why. Despite—or perhaps because of—Nora’s repeated admonitions that it wasn’t safe, that she should find elsewhere in the house to play, in the decade that Jess had lived at Darling House, the attic had been her favorite, special spot.
After Polly left her behind, she had craved a nest in which to lick her wounds, and where better than the quaint, peak-roofed room at the top of the house? The dormer window provided a vantage point from which she could survey the garden and, beyond it, the harbor; the walls were close, the space always warm. Even the smell of old dust had been a comfort. The attic had remained her first port of call when things went wrong at school, if she argued with a friend or missed out on a place in the debating team, if she just needed to be alone for a time.
That night, Jess had curled up on the small round carpet in the center of the raw pine floorboards and closed her eyes: a decade of her previous incarnations had gathered around, bringing with them a return to certainty. Apprehension had tilted toward excitement, and when Jess woke up to first light spilling through the window and across the ceiling, she had been ready.
Twenty years later, it wasn’t versions of her former self that climbed the stairs with her toward the attic, but echoes of Nora. Halfway up, Jess was hit with a fresh wave of grief, and needed to pause to absorb its force. When it had passed, she continued.
The door opened easily.
In Jess’s experience, very few things matched one’s memory of them, particularly meaningful places from childhood. They were invariably smaller, plainer, and shabbier than remembered. The attic of Darling House was a rare exception. As she was hit by the familiar scent of dust and time, Jess was reassured to see that everything wasexactly as she’d recollected. The rug was still on the floor, the antique glass of the dormer window was still mottled with age, the old ship’s clock was still stopped at twenty past two.
She surveyed the room, wondering where to start. The set of shelves on the eastern wall was loaded with once-treasured toys and books, the south wall was lined with plastic storage tubs of curtains and blankets and other remnants of material “too good to toss,” and a hinged full-length mirror stood in one corner. Beneath the dormer window was the old steamer trunk that had once belonged to Thomas Turner.
It was difficult to imagine that a toy or book might hold the clue. Far more likely, Jess decided, as much for its function as its provenance, was the steamer trunk. She opened the lid and blinked as mothball fumes made her eyes sting. The trunk, she saw, was still filled with piles of old dresses. She took them out, one by one, checking the pockets, the seams, the sleeves. Her progress was slowed somewhat by nostalgia as she held up first one and then another, recalling the times she’d clambered into them as a teenager.
But Jess had turned up nothing of note. She ran her fingers around the inside panels and joins of the trunk, searching for a trick base or a hidden release. Alas, there was none.
Sitting on her knees on the floor, Jess surveyed the rest of the room, this time with a more scrutinizing eye. The books caught her attention. Thinking of the photocopied addendum she’d found at the back of Polly’s edition ofAs If They Were Asleep, Jess took each one from the shelf, checking inside the covers, agitating them by the spine. Aside from a faded shopping list and a dry-cleaning receipt, there was nothing. The careful investigation of each toy also yielded naught. Jess even checked the battery compartment of the train engine and pressed the old teddy bear’s fur belly, neck, and ears in search of something tucked within the stitching.
She opened the storage tubs, studying every piece of fabric individually, shaking the blankets loose and then discarding them in a heap.She looked beneath the rug, she paced out the floor, she combed the wide pine boards in case she found one that lifted to reveal a secret hiding place. Finally, she performed a close inspection of the windowsill.
Nothing. An hour spent searching, destruction wrought, and she was no closer to knowing the truth.
Back downstairs, showered, and ready to face the day, Jess reasoned that a random search of the attic had always been a long shot. This was real life, not aFamous Fivestory. Of far more promise was the link to Marcus Summers in South Australia. Patrick had said how much the letter had upset Nora, and having read the contents, Jess was not surprised.
When it was at last office hours in Adelaide, Jess sat at Nora’s desk in the library and dialed the number for Marcus Summers’s firm. She waited impatiently for someone to pick up, and when the phone was eventually answered gave her name to the receptionist. At length, there came the clunking of a handheld receiver and a cordial voice at the other end of the line: “Hello?”
“Marcus Summers?”
“Speaking.”
“It’s Jess Turner-Bridges here, calling from Sydney. My grandmother was Nora Turner-Bridges.”
He didn’t reply at first, and, in the absence of a response, Jess heard the melancholy notes of a wind chime in the background. She was beginning to wonder if he’d forgotten writing the letter at all, when belatedly he said, “Good morning, Jess. Pardon me, did you say your grandmotherwasNora Turner-Bridges?”
“Yes, I should explain—Nora passed away last week.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
He really did sound disheartened by the news, and Jess wondered whether Marcus Summers, like Daniel Miller, had come to knowNora personally when she was living at Halcyon over the summer of 1959. She considered asking outright but decided to do so would reveal too much of her own interest too soon. “I’m my grandmother’s executor,” she said instead, “and I’ve been trying to get her affairs in order. You wrote a letter recently, in which you said you had a client wishing to speak with her about the death of her niece, Thea Turner.”
A pause, and then, “Yes.”
“I was wondering...” Whatwasshe wondering exactly? Whether the client would speak to her instead? If there was anything Marcus Summers could tell her that would shed light on her grandmother’s final weeks, why Nora had been freshly upset about a long-ago tragedy, whether her ex-husband had sought custody of their daughter... She wondered all of those things, but how was she to explain to Marcus Summers without sounding breathless?
While Jess was trying to find the words, Marcus took the lead. “I’m sorry—you said you’re Mrs. Turner-Bridges’s granddaughter?”
“Yes.”
