“Who found you?”

  “I don’t know. A patrol. They thought I was dead as well, until I managed to croak something. My mouth was bone dry. They dug me out, tried to get me to swallow water, but I couldn’t. I don’t know how they got me back to our lines. I was in and out of consciousness, in pain. And then there was a doctor asking if I could see him, and I realized he must have washed my face. He said something about our being in a tight spot, and he’d send me back as soon as he could. Then I was alone, and I could hear the fighting. It was fierce, and finally the doctor came back to say they were about to be overwhelmed, and he’d have to leave me. Shortly after that, I saw the Angel. Above us in the night sky, and there was a brightness that hurt my eyes. I shut them, but not before I knew, looking up, that the Angel had his back to me. I couldn’t see his face. And I felt a wave of grief sweep over me, and a bitter sense of failure. When I looked again, the doctor was there. “My God,” he was saying, “we’re going to make it. Can you stand?” But he had to shout for another soldier to come up, and between them they got me back. I was put on a stretcher and taken to hospital, or so I was told later. When I woke up again, I didn’t know what had happened to me or what my name was. It was several days before I remembered anything.”

  “You didn’t remember the family dead in the house?”

  “No. I dreamed about them. I thought it was only a dream. That it hadn’t really happened. The Sisters told me not to worry, that nightmares were common with severe head injuries. By then I knew who I was.”

  “Did you recall seeing the Angel?”

  “No. Only a very bright light, blinding me.”

  “Why can you remember these events now?”

  “Because of what happened in Paris.”

  “While you were recovering?”

  “No. Later. Much later. A few weeks past.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “No, don’t ask me.”

  “It’s important to me to know, so that I can help you. Nothing will happen to you. You are safe now. Do you believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a longer silence that followed.

  “Where are you now?”

  “Walking back to my flat. Approaching the bridge.”

  “Which bridge? What time of day is it?”

  “The bridge near Marina’s school. It’s late, I’m going back to the Periard house. Not a soul in sight. I can hear my own footsteps. No—wait—there’s a girl standing in the middle of the bridge. She’s speaking to me, asking me to help her. She thinks she knows me, but I don’t recognize her. It’s more likely she’s a prostitute, they’re quite clever sometimes. They’re starving—they need money to pay for a doctor for their mother or sister—whatever story works.”

  A pause. “She’s asking if I remember her. If I was there when her mother and the other children were killed. Asking why I didn’t stop it. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Now she’s telling me what happened to her. Reminding me that she was only ten. It’s a worse story than usual. She’s telling me that the Germans kept her for a week, until they were tired of her. God, she’s showing me a scar on her shoulder. It’s where she was shot. I’m not sure what to do. If she’s mad, or something.”

  Another pause. “I’ve told her I don’t remember her or her family, that she’s got the wrong man. But she’s telling me over and over again that I am responsible for those deaths. I tried to give her a few sous, then walk away, leaving her standing there. She couldn’t be more than eighteen, I feel sorry for her. I’m almost off the bridge now. Oh God, she’s screaming at me! I’m turning around—there’s a man dragging her away. He’s moving fast, they’re already on the Left Bank, and he’s pulling at her, and she’s screaming. I’m starting after them, racing back over the bridge, not knowing what’s wrong, but the screams aren’t false, they’re real. They’re on the quay now, and she’s calling my name. It’s odd—he’s stopped, they are just standing there, but she’s still struggling, begging me to help, begging me not to let her die the way her mother and brother and sister died. I’m yelling for the police. I don’t understand any of this, but she’s in some sort of trouble, and there’s no one else. I’m running full out, and they’re only thirty feet from me—twenty—they aren’t moving.”

  He cried out, “He’s got the girl by the shoulders—he’s moving away from me now—he’s closer to the water—he’s just shoved her into the river!”

  His voice was breaking. “He catches me before I can get to the river, reach out for her. We are struggling, he’s hitting me, but I’m stronger, and I finally knock him down. I’m at the river’s edge, leaning out—all I can see is the cloak she was wearing. I’m reaching out as far as I can—I can’t swim! Oh, lord, I’ve got the edge of her cloak—but she’s slipping out it, it’s in the way now, and I’m shoving it aside, nearly falling in, just as she comes up a few feet away, just beyond my fingertips. She’s staring at me, but the current is pulling at her clothes. She isn’t coming up again.”

  Dr. Moreau spoke then, his own voice more than a little ragged. “It’s all right, Lawrence, it’s only a memory. It has no power over you in the present.”

  But I could see the tears streaming down his cheeks as he tries to get to the drowning girl.

  “I’m floundering after her. Dear God, there’s her hand. I think I can reach it. I’ve got her fingers, they’re cold—I’ve almost got her hand, I’m going to be able to pull her in.”

  He cried out in pain just then, and my first thought was, he’s lost her hand. But he was mumbling something. I realized it was No, no, no!

  This time, the silence lasted so long I thought the shock had brought him out of the trance.

  “I don’t know how long I was unconscious,” he said, his voice dead, almost too low to be heard. “I’m awake now, it’s cold, my arms are wet. I’m holding on to something, and I try to lift my head, to see if she’s all right. But it’s only her cloak I’m clutching. And—and there she is, lying on the other side of me. She’s cold too—dead. I can’t rouse her. And that’s when I remember the cellar. The—the Angel. He seems to be there again, his back to me. But it’s only the man who had been with her. He’s on the bridge, looking down, and the bridge lamps are hurting my eyes. And he’s saying something. I think it’s Now she’s dead too. Or ought to be. They’re all gone. When I could focus again, he’s gone, the Angel is gone. But the girl is still dead.”

  “Are you quite sure it’s the same girl?”

  His voice became a wail of anguish. “How could it not be? Who else knew about her, about that family?”

  “And who was the man with her?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Why would he drown her?”

  “How do I know?” He was sobbing now, reliving that night over and over again, even as Dr. Moreau tried desperately to calm him.

  And I sat there like a stone in the chair by the hearth, remembering the staircase in St. Ives, and Lawrence Minton struggling with the Turkey carpet from the hall.

  He wasn’t trying to drown someone, even though the heavy rug in his grip had made it appear that way. He was fighting her heavy cloak and trying to save that poor girl.

  Dr. Moreau finally managed to break the trance, and Lawrence fell back against his pillows. He was crying and saying over and over again, “Why can’t I use my arm? I need my arm, if I’m going to save her. Let me go, I tell you, I have to reach her before it’s too late.”

  “I’m afraid to give him anything,” Dr. Moreau whispered to me. “It might not be safe.”

  And so we stayed there with him until he was quiet again, his breathing regular, and this time, not a ruse to make us think he was asleep.

  When we were back again in the passage, Dr. Moreau said, “You were wrong. We didn’t need to know any of that. We’ve put him through torment for no reason.”

  But there was a reason. I’d found out the truth. And I was so grateful I had waited until I knew the entire truth before I’d called in the police. Grateful that I hadn’t jumped to the wrong conclusions. Heaven knows I’d come close enough.

  Dr. Moreau opened the door of my room for me. “Good night, Bess. We’ll talk in the morning. I had no idea—”

  “Could he have failed to remember anything about the Mons road, after he’d been so severely concussed? And then remembered it again, so much later?”

  “Yes, it’s possible. With the right stimulus. I think it’s entirely possible.” He shook his head, still affected by what we’d heard. “I wish I’d known. I might have helped.” He nodded, and walked on, his shoulders slumped in shock.

  But he couldn’t have helped.

  Shutting my door, I leaned against it. Spent, but my mind reeling.

  Who was that dead girl? And who had tried to make Lawrence Minton believe she was the one from the Mons road? Because the girl the police had found was eighteen. And from what I’d heard while he was hypnotized, Lawrence had said the girl in that house was only ten, and small for her age. That would make her barely fifteen now . . .

  The only two people who knew that story about the dead family were the Lieutenant and the ten-year-old daughter. They were the only two survivors. If Lawrence hadn’t told anyone, then the girl must have done.

  How could she have lived through that nightmare? And who would she have confided in?

  I remembered what the police report said. She was lying there beside the quay, but no mention of a cloak. And she’d been dead some time.

  Lawrence, dazed, must have wandered off.

  I took that question to bed with me, and worried it like a dog with a large bone for the next two hours until I finally drifted into sleep from sheer exhaustion.

  Sometimes sleep heals, and sometimes it’s stolen away by fear or worry or unhappiness.

  Last night. The shocking story of the family, of the girl who’d drowned. It came back to me in a rush, before I was fully awake. If it affected me so strongly, how must it have affected a mind already concussed and unable to think clearly. Lawrence’s guilt over what had happened to that family, his inability to save them or find the older daughter, had haunted him even when he couldn’t remember any of it. How he’d seen the Angel reinforced his failure. When he asked about his dreams, the only way he could recall what had happened, everyone, including his doctors, had told him that strange, unsettling dreams were natural in a concussion. And eventually he must have believed them.

  But now—now that we knew the truth, we could help him. That was to say, his mother could. She was an experienced nurse. She would take him back to England as soon as possible, and use her leave to help him mend.

  That brought up another matter.

  Would Matron recommend me for more clinic duty, now that my mission for her was complete? It was selfish of me even to wonder. But once she arrived, I would be expected to return to England—there was nothing to keep me here. Lawrence was improving and no longer needed special nursing. Was I to report to headquarters in London, or was she bringing my assignment to me?

  As I began my morning tasks, I took particular care as I dressed, pinning up my hair twice until I was satisfied with it, standing before the mirror as I set my cap in place, making certain that my cuffs and apron were spotless.

  It mattered so much, working with the wounded. Marina loved teaching, I had seen it in her eyes and in her voice as she talked about her school. And I’d slowly become aware that I didn’t have the same passion for it.

  The war was over. If Matron asked for my resignation, I would have no choice but to give it. And then what?

  I knew what my parents would say: Come home. Marry, have children, be happy.

  But I didn’t think I was ready for that either.

  I’d been on my own throughout the war, and much as I loved my parents, coming home again as their daughter would be difficult.

  I’d considered this before—and was no farther along in my thinking than I had been earlier. It was just that now a decision was looming nearer and nearer. And I found myself wishing I could talk to Simon. He’d faced just such a change when my father had retired from the Regiment, and Simon could have stayed, if he’d chosen to do so. Instead he’d resigned.

  What would he do with himself if he did? How would his life change? He too had been young enough to need to make choices. How had he found his way? Had he asked my father for advice? Or muddled through? Or been unexpectedly wise at the crucial moment?

  Had he been happy with his own decisions? Or had he come to regret living in the cottage through the wood just beyond our back garden?

  I suddenly realized that it hadn’t occurred to any of us—the Colonel Sahib, my mother, me—that Simon might wish to go his own way. Leave the family circle and make a new and different life for himself. Had it occurred to Simon?

  This was an unexpected, shocking thought, that once the war was over, he might finally choose another path. Was it Scotland? Was that the reason he’d gone there, without telling us why? He’d spent some time there during the war. He might have found it a place where he could put down roots of his own.

  I’d always seemed to know what I wanted from my life. And now, suddenly, I didn’t. It was such an uncomfortable, lonely feeling.

  Shoving such thoughts away, I glanced in my mirror, not completely satisfied with the stiffness of my collar. And for the first time, I noticed the dark circles under my eyes from sleepless nights. The face looking back at me as I pinned my cap in place seemed to be chiding me.

  I wished I knew what that face in the mirror knew that I didn’t . . .

  Breakfast was not the comfortable meal it usually was. The doctor excused himself early, to attend a patient who had worsened overnight.

  And Madame Moreau was absorbed in readying her house for Matron’s arrival, making notes on the sheet of paper beside her place as she ate.

  Glancing up as the door closed behind her husband, she tried to make conversation for my sake. “I look in on Lawrence as often as I can. It’s terribly painful to see him. I think of André, dying alone and without our comfort. Is that selfish of me?”

  “I think it’s natural for a mother,” I told her frankly. “Is there room enough for all of us, when Matron comes? She’ll want to be close to her son. I’ll be happy to move, or even go to an hotel. You’ve been so kind to have me here for this long.”

  But she wouldn’t hear of it. “Helena wants a cot put in her son’s room. We will soon be able to dispense with the nurses, and she can take over his care.”

  Still, I couldn’t help but feel I’d be in the way.

  That reminded me. “Have you had any word recently from Marina?”

  “Such a lovely girl,” she answered. “I’d have liked André to find someone like her. She did come to thank us for her care, and she brought a lovely gift—unnecessary, of course, but sweet of her. Her arm is healing well. My husband says she will very likely have a small scar. It could have been far worse without your quick thinking and care. I believe she’s busy at school, but I have asked her to come again to visit as soon as she can.”

  “I’m glad you like her. She needs someone in Paris to keep an eye on her. She isn’t able to visit her parents as often as she’d like. They too lost a son in the war.”

  “Yes, she told me how her mother faced the news. I felt for her, having been through the shock myself.” She looked away. “We gave so much to France.”

  The day was damp, with a wretched mist that felt as if the river was over its banks and drifting through the air. But I needed to walk, to get out of that house for a time, and think a little. I borrowed an umbrella from the stand by the door, and set out at a brisk pace that matched my mood.

  I’d been wrong about Lawrence. He had been as much a victim as that poor family. But he had made it difficult for me or anyone to understand him, wanting oblivion, so buried in his own troubles that he ignored everyone else’s needs. He had talked about his guilt, and what I’d seen on the staircase appeared to support his claims that he had nothing left to live for. His sleepwalking, his nightmares, were too vivid to be just imagination or bad dreams. His callous treatment of Marina and resentment of me had painted a portrait of a man who had changed for the worse.

  And yet, because I had wanted to know why that change had happened, we had finally got to the truth.

  Dr. Moreau had been certain that the hypnotism worked. I myself had become convinced of it too. I didn’t think Lawrence was well enough for him to invent such a tissue of lies.

  Therefore, if his story under hypnosis was true, then why would he have wished to kill me?

  That was before he’d been beaten so badly. And who had done that, pray?

  He claimed he didn’t know who had attacked him. Was he lying?

  I stopped short, nearly colliding with a woman pushing a pram. Apologizing, I stepped to a window display of baby clothing, and listened to what had occurred to me, out of the blue.

  His Sergeant had been killed in the village where he’d found the woman and her children. He’d even debated carrying the dead body back to his lines but had had to leave it there, just as he’d had to leave the family. At some point, another German party had come through the village, discovered them cowering in the dining room, and killed them.

  The ten-year-old daughter was missing. Lawrence had searched for her, but never found her. It was the reason he was so ready to believe she was the girl on the bridge.

  Someone had set that scene in motion.

  Certainly not Lawrence. And certainly not the German patrol.

  Who else had known about her?

  Had the woman’s husband come after them, finding them too late?

  But even if he had, he couldn’t have known about Lawrence, or that he’d tried to save the family.