The Father's House by Larche Davies

spoke to her briefly. The big man disappeared into the lobby with his burden, and the father and Aunt Sarah followed. A minute later a light shone out from a small side window up in the second-floor flat.
    What Dorothy had said about her mother flashed cross Lucy’s mind, and a shiver ran down her spine as she thought she might be witnessing an abduction. She pushed the idea aside. Aunt Sarah was there, and she would never be involved in something like that. It must have been a new tenant arriving. Perhaps she’d been taken ill. Even so, the possibility of Dorothy’s disposal and her own suddenly seemed more real.
    The driver of the car was leaning against the bonnet and rolling a cigarette. He wore a chauffeur’s livery with a peaked cap which hid his face as he bent forward to light the straggling bits of tobacco. The way he used his hands reminded her of Thomas, and she smiled as she tried to imagine him in a chauffeur’s outfit. He’d be chuffed to have the chance to drive a car like that. Shaking out the match the man looked at his watch, and Lucy suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be in the cellar. She had to make a quick decision – whether to go back, or run away.
    Her head buzzed rapidly with pros and cons and she realised that a hasty escape without preparation could be disastrous. She needed to find her birth record first. Also, Thomas had once told her that the police were infiltrated with the Magnifico’s agents. If they picked her up they would bring her straight back, and her punishment would be far worse than three nights in the cellar, especially if what Dorothy had said about disposals was true.
    Once in her own bed she’d have time to think about what she had just seen. There may have been some reasonable explanation. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions. At least she would have a roof over her head while she made her plans. Now that she knew how to get through the coal hole she would always have an escape route via the cellar if she needed it.
    Running low along the pavement past the privet hedge that hid the front garden, she reached the path and slipped down into the coal hole. The cover was heavy but not too difficult to pull over, and it settled into place as though it had never been lifted. Back in the pitch darkness she slid down the underlay on the concrete slope, groped to her left for the candle and matches and, in the flickering light, made her way back to the wooden stairs. She snuffed the candle and put it and the matches back in the plastic bag, and hid them under the bottom step. If she ever needed them again the plastic bag would keep them from getting damp.
    She was only just in time. Footsteps approached and the key turned. Lucy stood up blinking and stepped out into the hall. As she emerged Aunt Sarah was on her way to the bathroom with the towels. She looked at Lucy’s inscrutable face, and was proud of the child’s dignity. When she took the dirty clothes away and shook them out, she wondered why there was grass on the back of the jumper.
    Lucy was on tenterhooks and burning with curiosity. She wondered if Aunt Sarah would say anything about the new arrival. When she was clean and sitting in the kitchen in her pyjamas, Aunt Sarah handed her a mug of hot chocolate.
    â€œTomorrow, make sure you and Paul play quietly if you go in the garden after school,” she said. “We’ve got a new tenant on the top floor, and she’s not at all well.”
    Later, as she lay in bed, Lucy heard the opening creak of the big double gates on the further side of the house. The car crunched down the gravel drive and out into the road, and the gates slowly shut. Who was the woman with the lovely auburn hair? Lucy wondered. More importantly however, she started making, discarding, and remaking plans, for getting hold of those records.

Father Copse checked the girl on the bed in the second-floor flat. Her breathing was even and her