‘You’re looking very nice today, Molly,’ Mr Bridgenorth said on Saturday morning. ‘I take it your young man is coming to take you out?’

Molly had been leaving the staff room after eating breakfast when she ran into him in the corridor.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said with a broad smile. She’d washed her hair the night before and slept with it plaited, so it was wavy, and she was wearing a new turquoise-and-white dress with a full skirt and three-quarter-length sleeves.

‘Yes, Charley is coming to take me out,’ Molly said. ‘We’re going for a picnic. It’s such a lovely day we might even paddle in the sea. But can I do anything for you? Were you looking for something, or someone?’

‘Yes, you, Molly. I wanted to tell you that, because Ernest thought your friend looked familiar, I looked through our records to see if a Cassandra March ever worked here. She didn’t, I’m afraid. Well, not if that was her real name.

‘But while she was on my mind I suddenly recalled hearing some gossip in the bar about a young unmarried woman out on the marsh having a mixed race baby. I think this was back in 1948, though I can’t be certain. All I really remember is that it was something of a mystery because no one had seen the child except the housekeeper.’

‘They must have had money, then, if there was a housekeeper!’ Molly said.

‘Some, I suppose,’ Mr Bridgenorth replied. ‘Probably a family with a sizable house and live-in help. The housekeeper might even have been a relative. As I recall, it was said there were mental problems in the family.’

‘Cassie didn’t have any mental problems,’ Molly said with a touch of indignation. ‘She was about the brightest person I ever met.’

‘People tend to say that about almost anyone who lives out on the marshes. They say it’s down to the wind.’

‘How did anyone know the baby was black, or even if there really was a baby if they hadn’t seen it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Mr Bridgenorth shrugged. ‘But my experience of gossip is that there’s always some truth in it. Maybe the housekeeper talked. In any case, whether or not it’s true, that girl’s name definitely wasn’t Cassandra, it was something ordinary – Carol, Susan, something like that – and the family name is Coleman.’

‘Well, that’s a good start,’ Molly said, suddenly feeling hopeful now she had a name to go on.

‘I’m not sure it is, Molly,’ he said doubtfully. ‘You see, I’ve talked this over with Ernest and, after some discussion with his wife, who, as you know, is a teacher, he came up with more detail about the family. The grandfather was a doctor, and his daughter married a man called Reginald Coleman. Rumour had it that the parents disapproved of him. Anyway, he enlisted in the war and never came back. Ernest says he was reported missing, presumed dead, but there were whispers that he had deserted because he had a woman in France.’

‘Goodness me!’ Molly gasped. ‘So where is this house?’

‘A couple of miles from Brookland, very isolated, not another house near it.’

‘So why did no one around here respond when there were pictures of Petal and Cassie in the newspapers and they were asking for information?’ Molly asked. ‘Surely if Ernest thought she looked familiar, other people would recognize her, too?’

‘Don’t you think it’s all to do with place?’ he asked. ‘If a body had turned up down the road here, everyone would be talking about who had gone missing, who it looked like. But a girl found dead some hundred and fifty miles away doesn’t have the same impact. The newspaper gets wrapped round fish and chips and it’s forgotten.’

‘I suppose that’s it.’ Molly sighed. ‘But thank you for all that information. I’ll mull it over and decide what to do.’

Mr Bridgenorth smiled. ‘Forget it for now and have a lovely time with your young man. I must get off and do some work now.’

An hour or so later, as Molly was packing a bag with the picnic she’d made, Trudy, one of the cleaners, called out to Molly, ‘Your bloke’s in reception. Lovely smile he’s got!’

Molly’s heart flipped with excitement and she hurried from the kitchen to meet him.

Trudy was right, Charley did have a lovely smile, and it seemed even wider and warmer than she remembered. ‘You look gorgeous,’ he said, and swept her into his arms.

‘Not here,’ she whispered, blushing furiously, as she knew Trudy and Anne, the receptionist, were peeping round the door to watch. ‘I’ve made us a picnic!’ She picked up the straw basket she’d dropped on the floor just before he hugged her.

‘You look good enough to eat yourself,’ he said and, taking the basket in one hand, and hers in the other, he led her outside.

‘Sorry it’s only a van.’ He waved towards a small blue van with ‘JACK SPOT GARAGE’ stencilled on the side. ‘I wanted to come in a Rolls Royce but, strangely enough, none of my pals have got one.’

Molly laughed. She wouldn’t have minded if he’d turned up in a horse and cart.

She directed him away from the hotel, down the hill to the main road, and from there to Rye Harbour, on the way telling him the rumours Mr Bridgenorth had heard about a girl with a black baby.

Charley looked a bit apprehensive. ‘I can’t help thinking it would be better to leave well alone,’ he said. ‘The chances are it’s not your friend’s family and, if it was and Cassie left after some serious falling out, then you’ll only be stirring up muddy water.’

‘If it is her family, I just want to tell them about Petal and hope they’ll push the police to do more.’

‘Well, just be careful how you approach them, that’s all I’m saying. If they didn’t want to know the baby when she was born, they aren’t likely to care that much about what happened to her. And some families don’t like outsiders poking their nose in,’ he said.

Molly was a bit hurt and surprised by his attitude. She’d expected him to be behind her one hundred per cent.

‘We have to leave the van here and walk the rest of the way,’ she said a little sharply as they drove into Rye Harbour. Charley glanced sideways at her, then pulled over on to a scrap of waste ground.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,’ he said. ‘I suppose I’m afraid you’ll get yourself into hot water. Just let me kiss you and make it up to you.’

Molly wasn’t able to stay cross with him and allowed herself to be drawn into his arms.

The kiss was so sweet, and his tongue flickered into her mouth, making her heart beat faster and the outside world disappear.

‘I won’t be held responsible for what happens if we stay in this van,’ he murmured some twenty minutes later as he rained kisses on her neck, ‘so we’d better get out.’

It was just the best of days, warm and sunny with only the lightest breeze, and the way Charley was with her – the ready smile, the gentle caresses and his interest in her day-to-day working life – made her feel so very special. They ate their picnic on a grassy bank inside Camber Castle, laughing about everything and anything.

The kissing and cuddling was wonderful, too. Their bodies felt so close it was as if they were one person. ‘I hate not seeing you every day,’ Charley whispered. ‘I’ve thought of nothing else this week but seeing you today.’

‘I’ve been the same,’ she told him. ‘And now you’re here I don’t want to let you go.’

‘It won’t be for ever,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I can swing getting work in Ashford once I’ve passed my exam. I’ve been putting the word around that I want to move this way.’

‘I still wouldn’t be able to see you that much,’ she reminded him. ‘I have to work quite a lot of evenings and weekends.’

‘Then we’d better get married,’ he said.

Molly didn’t know whether he was joking or serious, as he didn’t laugh, and he didn’t enlarge on it further. She didn’t feel able to ask, though, in case he thought she’d taken him too seriously, so she changed the subject.

They walked on later to Winchelsea Beach and then on to Winchelsea, an ancient and pretty little town perched on a hill, as Rye was. They wandered around chatting and admiring all the old houses, then had tea and cake in a tea shop.