Fletcher said Jouveau had questioned prominent peopleabout personal business. Jouveau stated his lead developed on the day they’d visited the Strand Palace Hotel, a day they’d discussed his feuds with Fletcher and Ridley. It all revolved around Uncle Elliott.
Hugh rolled his pen over the pages. “How, Lennox? What did Jouveau uncover? And where on earth is his notebook?” He’d emptied every drawer in his desk, sifted through every pile of papers.
He itched to go to the Hart and Swan and discuss the case. The company of others stimulated his thoughts, especially the company of his reporter friends.
His chest ached. How could he return to the Hart and Swan? What if Aleida was there? He couldn’t face her. And if she’d stopped visiting the pub, he’d face questions and accusations.
Lou, for one, would want him drawn and quartered, his head on a pike.
He scratched behind Lennox’s ears. “At least you’re happy to see me.”
Lennox leaned into the scratch, and his green eyes drooped from the pleasure of it. A rumble emanated from his throat.
Hugh’s chest turned soft and warm. How had this bit of gray-and-white fur clawed his way into his heart?
Outside, the air raid siren keened.
Twenty tiny knives pierced Hugh’s thigh, and a gray-and-white streak flashed across the room and out the door.
Hugh groaned and pressed his hand to the wounds. Lennox would take his customary station under Hugh’s bed.
Perhaps Hugh should go out in search of a story. London hadn’t been bombed in an entire month. But he wasn’t on duty in town until Monday.
He gathered important notebooks and a book to read, put on his overcoat, and checked that his identity card was in his pocket. In the garden he descended a few steps to the corrugatedtin arch of the Anderson shelter, buried beneath a “Dig for Victory” garden of peas and cabbage.
Simmons joined him. While the butler lay down to sleep, Hugh read by the single dangling light bulb.
Tin and earth did little to blunt the sound of bombers and antiaircraft guns. It sounded like a big raid. Perhaps Hugh should seek a story after all. But he wouldn’t have the recording unit. Next week, he could use one whenever he wanted.
For the first time, the joy of it welled inside, the satisfaction of redemption, and he breathed out a prayer of gratitude.
The ground shook, harder and harder.
Simmons sat up, his eyes wide, and Hugh lowered his book. A stick of bombs, falling closer and closer.
Noise rent the air, shoved Hugh back against the tin wall, drove the air from his lungs. The light bulb went out.
“That—that was close,” Simmons said.
Hugh pressed his hand to his chest, coughed to start breathing again. That strong of a blast meant a close call indeed.
The house?
He scrambled to his feet.
“Mr. Collingwood, sir!” Simmons cried. “It isn’t safe.”
Hugh paused with his hand flat on the door. His ears rang, and he strained to listen over the ringing. The thud of explosions had ceased, the stick of bombs spent.
He opened the door.
In the pale silver moonlight, in the orange glow of fires in the distance, the silhouette of his house rose dark.
And jagged.
“Oh no.” His house was hit.
A smoking crater defaced the garden near the back corner of the house—which was sheared off. Directly through Hugh’s study on the ground floor and his bedroom above it on the first floor.
