Molly made the tea and, on Constance’s instructions, got a fruit cake out of a tin and the best china from the sideboard.

She clearly lived very frugally, too. The one room was simply furnished: a bed covered in a dark-blue blanket, two easy chairs by the fireplace, a sideboard, a table and two chairs. There were lots of books on shelves and a couple of lovely watercolours of a picturesque village. There were also various religious pictures, but these weren’t framed, just tacked to the wall. The room was clean and neat, although there were damp stains on the walls and a faint musty smell. Constance said she was fortunate enough to have two kind friends who came in and helped her wash and dress and kept the place clean. To Molly, it seemed a very sad and lonely life being in a wheelchair, and alone for much of the day. But Constance seemed happy with it.

‘Do you get out?’ Molly asked her as they waited for the kettle to boil. ‘I mean, is there anyone who can take you out in your wheelchair?’

‘Oh yes! Don’t you get the idea I’m some sort of hermit. Most days someone will pop round and take me for a spin. Reverend Adams – he’s the vicar at St Swithin’s, takes me to church every Sunday, and I go home with him for lunch, too. People are very kind. That fruit cake, for instance, was a gift from a parishioner. I get people dropping in, too. It’s a rare day when I don’t see anyone.’

Constance kept asking Molly about her life and family, and it was all Molly could do to keep dragging the conversation back to Cassie. She found out that her friend had lived here for three years and only left then because she wanted Petal to go to a good school.

‘The schools around here are overcrowded, and they don’t attract good teachers,’ Constance admitted. ‘The government seems to have forgotten that we took the brunt of the Blitz here, and they are being very slow to clear the bomb sites and build new homes. Some families share one room with another family. There are children who don’t even have a bed to sleep in, or share it with all their siblings. Most people don’t have a bathroom in their home, babies get bitten by rats very often, and I’d say at least a quarter of the children are suffering from malnutrition. We keep hearing that England is almost bankrupt from the expense of the war, yet they found the money for a lavish Coronation. Don’t get me wrong, I love and admire the royal family, but if I was in charge I’d put ordinary families first.’

‘Well, we do have the National Health Service now,’ Molly ventured, rather surprised that someone like Constance would criticize the Coronation.

‘Yes, and it’s a wonderful thing to have free medical care,’ Constance said with a smile. ‘But people’s health would improve vastly with decent housing; too many small children are still dying of preventable diseases.’

This struck a chord with Molly. Cassie had often said similar things and, somehow, that confirmed how well she’d known Constance.

‘When did you last hear from Cassie?’ Molly asked.

Constance frowned, as if trying to picture it. ‘I think it was late 1950. I’ve probably got her last letter here somewhere. She told me she didn’t like living in Bristol, but she thought the countryside around it was lovely and she was going to look for somewhere to live there. I was a little hurt that she didn’t write again. She had told me she wasn’t good at keeping in touch, but I suppose I thought I was a special case.’

‘From what you’ve told me, I think you were, and maybe the reason she didn’t write to you was because she was afraid whoever she was running from might come to you. That would be a very good reason not to tell you where she was.’

Constance half smiled. ‘You make it sound very cloak and dagger, Molly, but you might be right, because there was a man making enquiries about her around that time. He didn’t come to me, but he questioned a few people in the road. They said they thought he was a private detective.’

‘Really?’ Molly exclaimed. ‘What did people tell him?’

‘They couldn’t tell him anything, because they didn’t know. I was the only person who knew she’d moved to Bristol, and I hadn’t said a word to anyone. But people round here don’t tell tales anyway, not if they like the person, and people did like Cassie. She slotted in here, Molly. Women liked her because she was straight-talking; she’d write letters for them if they couldn’t do it. She helped children with their reading; she talked to them, too. She could make a fancy-dress outfit out of nothing and often helped people decorate their homes. A great many people missed her when she moved away, and those who I have told about her death are very sad.’

‘It sounds as if people here are a lot broader minded than back home.’ Molly sighed. ‘She had few friends in our village. It’s one of the reasons I want to move to London.’

‘You may find the girls in Bourne & Hollingsworth are even smaller minded than your neighbours back home,’ Constance said, arching one eyebrow. ‘I’ve known a few girls who have worked in the big London stores and, for most, it’s not as they imagined. But I’m sure you’ll rise above it.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Molly said in alarm. ‘I thought it was going to be fun!’

‘It might very well be,’ Constance said soothingly. ‘I’ve lived in the East End so long I can’t imagine a life now where you can’t speak your mind or be a bit different. All I can say is that if you don’t like it, Molly, you come right back here. I’ll help you find a job and somewhere to live.’

Molly didn’t think it would come to that. But before she could make any comment a woman came in, greeting Constance as ‘Sister’. Her name was Sheila. Molly thought she was in her late thirties, and she wore a flowery print pinafore and a headscarf over metal curlers.

‘This is Molly, the friend of Cassie’s I told you about,’ Constance said. ‘She wants to play detective and find Petal.’

Sheila looked hard at Molly. ‘Terrible business,’ she said. ‘We was fond of Cassie and her little girl round ’ere. It were a nasty shock to ’ear she were dead. I reckon it all had to do with an inheritance. She were ’iding up when she were ’ere, but maybe she were too close to ’er ’ome and got spotted.’

‘Where do you think she came from, then?’ Cassie asked.

‘I’d say down Sussex way. She mentioned riding her ’orse on the downs. And she talked about the sea. Didn’t she mention Hastings and the marshes in that notebook she left ’ere, Sister?’

Molly sat up straight. ‘Notebook?’

‘Well, a journal I think you’d call it. Just scribblings of poetry, really, Molly,’ Constance said. ‘You can find it in the sideboard. I have no idea why she left it with me.’

‘When you say she left it with you, would that be like leaving it here by accident, or wanting you to keep it safe?’

Constance frowned. ‘I don’t really know. She left it here one evening and when, a couple of days later, I mentioned I still had it, she just said, “Oh, you hang on to it for me.” I gathered by that it wasn’t important.’

‘May I take it away with me to read?’

‘Please do. Maybe as you are closer in age to her than me, you’ll find something meaningful in it. I can’t be doing with poetry that doesn’t rhyme.’

Constance pointed to the sideboard and said Molly would find it at the back, under a biscuit tin.

The notebook had a brown leather cover and an elastic strap that held it closed. Molly opened it at the first page and read aloud:

‘“Fletcher’s box, where he keeps his socks, and the schemes and dreams that don’t fit in his head.

‘“His clothes, his tools and his mother’s old jewels, he keeps in a suitcase under his bed.”’

Sheila snorted with laughter. ‘That’s a bit peculiar. But it kind of rhymes.’

Molly laughed too. ‘It is peculiar, but I like it just the same. It’s very Cassie! But that’s all there is to it, unfortunately.’