Page 34 of All Our Missing Pieces

‘Right,’ she said, forcing cheerfulness into her voice. ‘You don’t want it, don’t eat it. Have a banana, then we’ll go and fetch your brother. And then we’re going on an adventure.’

Parker brightened, wolfed down the banana Beatrice peeled for her and happily put on her raincoat, which was clear plastic printed with yellow ducks. Pulling the zipper up under her chin, Beatrice felt her irritation subside: when Parker looked as adorable as she did now, it was hard to stay annoyed with her for long.

‘What venture?’ Parker asked as Beatrice helped her put on her yellow rubber boots.

‘We’re going to go to the library.’

Beatrice couldn’t think why it had taken her so long to hit on this idea. Every day for weeks, she’d walked past the drab red-brick building, seeing but not really noticing the sign outside it, blandly official and bearing the tree logo of the local authority.

But now it seemed like the best plan ever. Libraries were great for kids – there was no way Frances would object to such an educational, enriching outing. There’d be story time, or crafts or something of that nature – she’d even seen a flyer on the noticeboard by the door that morning advertising ‘Children’s Hour – weekday afternoons’. Beatrice felt a rush of elation at the prospect of palming the kids off on another responsible adult. And then she’d be free to carry out her own research in a place that was, after all, built for that exact purpose.

‘Come on,’ she urged Parker. ‘Let’s go get your brother.’

Half an hour later, Beatrice had got the children settled down on two small plastic chairs that made up part of a circle of identical chairs. A grinning young man in shorts and a T-shirt – not at all the motherly, bespectacled lady Beatrice had been expecting – was introducing them to ‘Rap and Rhyme Time’.

Could she leave them here and disappear for a few precious minutes on her own? She glanced around: the women who seemed to be in charge of the other children – mothers or nannies like herself – were dispersing, some heading for the café in chattering groups, others wandering off between the library shelves, doubtless craving peace and silence as Beatrice was herself.

‘You’re welcome to stay.’ The young man, who’d introduced himself to the children as Neil, caught Beatrice’s eye. ‘But they’ll be fine. I’m CRB checked, and the kids don’t generally play up with me.’

‘Sure?’ she asked.

He nodded, his relaxed grin providing the reassurance Beatrice needed.

She backed away, slowly at first, but Slate and Parker were transfixed by Neil, who had taken out a guitar. Exhaling with relief, she returned to the main reception desk, which was staffed by a middle-aged woman with cornrow hair and glasses.

‘May I help you?’ she asked.

‘I was hoping…’ Now that she was here, Beatrice realised she wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for. To have answers to her questions presented to her on a platter, possibly. ‘I wanted to do some research into local history.’

‘The history section’s up on the first floor,’ the woman said. ‘But to be honest, we don’t have as many books in it as we used to. They get damaged or borrowed and not returned, and we don’t replace them because everyone wants to use the internet now.’

‘Then how—’ Beatrice began. ‘What about old newspapers? From about the 1930s and 1940s?’

‘Those I can help you with.’ The woman smiled, stepping out from behind the desk. ‘Again, it’s all on computers now, but they’re actually simpler to use than the old microfiche system we had before. Let me show you.’

She led Beatrice up a flight of stairs and over to a bank of computers, eight of them arranged in two rows of four, wooden screens around them, padded metal-framed chairs standing in front of them. A welcome screen invited her to create a username and password.

Beatrice sat down, pulled the chair in towards the desk and typed in her email address, making up a random password she knew she’d forget straight away.

‘Now if you just click over there…’ The librarian’s blunt, unmanicured finger pointed at the screen. ‘And there, and again. That’s the archive. I’d recommend starting with the Evening News – it had the largest circulation of any London paper at the time.’

‘Okay,’ Beatrice said. ‘Thanks very much.’

Already, she felt daunted by the task ahead of her. The archive appeared on the screen as a list of years, bright blue Times Roman on a black screen. When she clicked on a year – might as well start with 1939 – a list of months dropped down, and those expanded into days. For each day, there was an early and a late edition of the paper, she discovered, clicking on a random date.

The front page of the newspaper appeared: a clear scan, which she realised she could zoom in and out of. The paper it had been printed on seemed to be an orangey-pink, the masthead an old-fashioned gothic typeface.

She scanned the headlines.

France Cancels All Army Leave

Mussolini Said to be Rushing Men to Spain

Gibraltar on Guard

And in the central column, which appeared to be devoted to lighter lifestyle stories, Enjoy the Sun While You May.

‘Jesus,’ she muttered. ‘Dark, or what?’