Slowly and cautiously—barely moving—he sneaked towards the shelter. The conversations solidified. Agnes, Kath and two other women and an unsettled baby were inside. He was almost positive that Elsie was not among their number.
The shelter was within touching distance. He crouched to the ground, his breathing short and shallow and craned his neck to the house. As he had hoped, the kitchen door had been left wide open. But the only way to reach it was to cross in front of the opening to the Anderson shelter. He needed to know if, as was their usual habit, the women had hung the heavy army blanket down over the entrance, but the shelter had gone quiet and he daren’t move.
Minutes passed. Cramps began to bite into his calf muscles, as the siren continued to wail nearby.
‘Did you hear that?’ Agnes mumbled.
‘What is it?’ one of the women asked.
‘Listen,’ Agnes retorted sharply.
Daniel stiffened, wondering if he had been detected. Then, on the dying ebb of the undulating siren, he heard what Agnes had heard: the droning of approaching aircraft over the channel.
‘Oh gosh,’ one of the women whispered. ‘Not again.’
‘It sounds like there’s a lot of them.’
As the humming of the imminent aircraft increased, Daniel shifted his weight, allowing the blood to return to his feet. He flinched at the burning in his toes, as life returned to the cells.
Finally, he stood up. The conversation inside the shelter had become more heightened, disturbed, yet was lost to his ears. He was silhouetted against the night sky, watching as the first in a shockingly large formation of black planes whirred overhead. Heinkel bombers, he thought they were. Hundreds of them—no more than three hundred feet above him. The sight might have been impressive in peacetime, but right now, it terrified him.
His stomach tightened and his heart began to pound when he noticed that several of the aircraft were breaking away and not continuing along the bomb corridor to London; they were going to target Kent.
Using the hideous cacophony of aircraft and siren as cover, Daniel edged his way to the front of the Anderson shelter. Holding his breath, he slowly peered around to the front. The blanket was down. Wasting no time, he stole across the lawn to the house and dived inside the kitchen, grateful for the respite from the dreadful noise outside. He paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust. The house was entirely dark and only a thin pool of moonlight fell on the floor beside the open door.
He crossed the kitchen into the sitting room, then emerged in the near pitch-black hallway. He guessed that if Elsie weren’t in the shelter, then she would likely be in her own bed. ‘Elsie!’ he called in an urgent whisper. He was being too quiet. ‘Elsie!’ he called, more loudly this time. ‘Elsie!’
Nothing. He felt around with his foot, searching for the bottom step. He found it and slowly began to climb. ‘Elsie!’ he repeated.
Still nothing.
He made it to the top of the stairs, having no idea which room was hers. He called again. No sound.
He was going to have to try every door and find her. At the very end of the corridor was the study. It was in that very room that Daniel had overheard Agnes talking to the social worker when he had visited in June 1940. He remembered creeping along the corridor and catching their conversation. ‘Things are different now, Agnes,’ he recalled the social worker saying. ‘It’s not been the same since 1927; there are stricter rules governing adoption now.’
‘But The Spyglass File is brimming with prospectives,’ Agnes had answered.
Daniel had stood, rooted to the spot, made uncomfortable by what he was hearing being discussed. He had retreated and waited downstairs until Agnes had appeared, surprised to have seen him. Later that day, he had entered the study in search of The Spyglass File. He had found it with ease. It was a simple folder containing a bundle of paperwork. Adoption paperwork. He had flicked through the pages quickly but then something had caught his eye and he had turned back. It had been his own name, complete with a fake signature. He had flipped to the pages that came before it and everything suddenly made sense. He had been named as the father of Kath’s unborn child on a raft of adoption papers. There was absolutely no way that he could have been the baby’s father, since they had not slept together.
Suddenly from very close by, there came a deafening whoosh, as a bomb ripped through a neighbouring property, sending a juddering shock-wave through the house. A brief flash of light that accompanied the explosion illuminated a figure in the hallway behind him. He spun around as the single, powerful beam of light shone onto his face. Daniel lifted his arm to shield his eyes.
‘You just couldn’t keep away, could you?’ It was Agnes, her voice laced with a whispering venom.
‘Where is she?’ Daniel asked.
‘As good as a million miles away,’ Agnes hissed. ‘When I heard you outside I moved her away.’
‘You’re lying,’ Daniel countered. ‘Elsie!’ he shouted.
Agnes laughed. The beam of light jiggled in the air, as she moved across the hallway. There was the sound of a door opening, then the light fell on a bed with dishevelled blankets. Empty. Daniel’s determination failed as he realised that Elsie was not in her room.
‘Elsie!’ he shouted, barging past Agnes. ‘I’m going to tell her everything, then I’m going to the police.’
Another explosion nearby forced Daniel to reach out and steady himself on the wall.
He reached the top of the stairs. The beam of light danced at his ankles as Agnes moved behind
