Nocturne with Bonus Material by Deborah Crombie Page A

falling.”
    Kit grinned. “A sleepover.”
    â€œExactly. And then during the day we went about our business as if we were only casual acquaintances, which could be a little awkward if you knew that Mrs. Simmons snored, or Mr. Evans never washed his socks.”
    â€œUgh.”
    â€œWell, in his defense, washing powder was hard to come by.”
    â€œThe piano,” Kit prompted, tapping the piano leg gently with his toe. Unlike Gemma’s baby grand, with its mirror-polished finish that was black as the void, Erika’s piano was a warm mahogany color.
    â€œAh, yes. The piano.” Erika’s gaze grew distant. “It was in 1944, in August. The twenty-first, in fact, in the middle of the afternoon. I wasn’t on air raid duty that day. I’d walked up to the shops in Holland Park Road to try to find something for tea when we heard it coming. They made the most distinctive sound, you know, the Doodlebugs. A sort of thrum-thrum. But there was never enough warning. This one sounded as if it would go right over, but then suddenly it was on top of us. Everyone dived for cover. I ended up under the counter at the greengrocer’s.”
    â€œDid it hit you?” Kit straightened up in the chair. The story had become uncomfortably real.
    â€œNear enough to blow out all the glass in the shop windows along Holland Park Road. But it was a house on Aubrey Road that took the direct hit.”
    Frowning, Kit drew the map in his mind. He knew Aubrey Road, a steep, leafy street that climbed Camden Hill on the south side of Holland Park Road. It was only a few minutes’ walk from his house. “Just up from Holland Park Tube?” he asked.
    Erika nodded. “We all ran and began digging through the rubble, although we hadn’t much hope that anyone in the house would have survived. The place had collapsed in on itself as if it were made of cards.”
    â€œBut you didn’t find anyone?”
    â€œNo. Nor did the ambulance men or the fire brigade when they arrived.”
    â€œExcept you found the piano?” said Kit, anticipating this part.
    â€œAh, yes. The piano. It had apparently been blown right into the front garden. And it was undamaged, except for one leg. None of the neighbors knew who lived in the house or where the owners might be, and no one wanted to take responsibility for the piano.”
    â€œSo you took it home.”
    â€œI had no business taking it.” Erika shook her head, as if still surprised at her behavior. “But it was coming on to rain, and I couldn’t let it be ruined. The greengrocer and some of the other men put it in the greengrocer’s van and drove it down the hill. They had the devil of a time getting it through the front door.” She smiled at the memory. “I left my name and address with the neighbors and with all the shopkeepers along the road, and for months I waited, expecting the owner to ring the bell and claim it. After a while, I dared to hope that no one would.”
    â€œLike finding a lost dog and hoping the owner won’t collect it,” said Kit, thinking of his little terrier, Tess, found behind the supermarket near his grandparents’ house in Reading.
    â€œExactly. At first, I wouldn’t even allow myself to touch it. Then, as the weeks went by and no one came, I cleaned and polished it. I stabilized the broken leg with a stack of books. And then...” Erika closed her eyes and said softly, “I began to play. It was...magical.” When she looked at Kit again her dark eyes were bright with tears. “My mother played. I lost her when I was quite young, well before the war. It brought everything back. The pieces she’d taught me, the smell of her perfume when she sat beside me on the bench. I began to think that perhaps I would survive the war and that it was still possible to find joy in the world.”
    Kit was silent, thinking of his own mother, wondering what he would