The walls of the city were like arms enclosing everyone inside and Greta loved going through the ancient city gates, shuddering at the thought of heads stuck on spikes for all to see in the olden days. There was the famous castle up a steep mound and parks to play in, but it was the rows of higgledy-piggledy shops under the watchful eye of the Minster towers she was making for now; those shiny shops full of beautiful hats, pictures, pretty pieces of furniture and, best of all, the sparkling windows full of jewels, ticking clocks, rings and necklaces.

  Greta knew every one of those windows and how their displays changed from season to season. It was hard not to stare at the elegant ladies and gentlemen who came in their carriages to glide through the hallowed doorways, waited on by men in dark coats and white collars. She was invisible to them in her short grey cloak and patched skirt stained from a day’s market work. She melted into the stone walls letting them pass as she lingered, eyeing what she would have if she could have it, while knowing it was all wishful thinking.

  Dreaming cost nothing but sometimes she stared in a window for so long that a young assistant would tell her to move on. ‘You’re blocking the view, girl.’ There was one jewellery shop in Stonegate she never lingered over since the time the owner threatened to call the police, suspecting she was casing the shop to rob.

  If only I could be a part of this world, she sighed. There must be magic behind those doors, handling such beautiful things: a world far from the squalor of Walmgate’s back to back houses and noisy neighbours. Greta stared at her callused hands. Who would want hands like these? What had Widow Walsh seen that she refused to tell? Was there a future waiting for her if only she could find it? A future where one day she would walk through those fine shop doors in furs and finery? The very thought of this made her ache with longing for a life better than mending combinations, drawers and scrubbing work clothes.

  She wanted a house with a proper fireplace and coal scuttle, net curtains and somewhere to sit of an evening. It was this longing that was like a grit inside her. ‘All that glitters isn’t gold,’ went the proverb she’d embroidered for the nuns. All that mattered was that Mother and the others were fed and the younger ones strong enough to find work when the time came for them to leave school. She’d been taught at school that hard work and duty was its own reward, but there had to be more to life than that, some sparkle to lift her spirits out of those horse-dung streets. Colour and starlight, beautiful objects dazzling the eyes; they would brighten anyone’s life. How was she ever going to find those things while living off Navigation Road?

  It shouldn’t matter, but in her heart, she knew it did. The Costellos, through no fault of their own, were poor, back-street-poor. Mother deserved more than what she’d suffered and it was up to Greta to make something happen. Staring into shop windows wouldn’t alter anything. Perhaps, she thought, her future was in these hands of hers. Perhaps if she tried to better herself, these hands would open a path to a better life for all of them – if only she just knew how.

  3

  Perthshire, July, 1879

  Ebenezer Slinger was having a bad day. Since the pearl fever of the 1860s, many of the Scottish rivers were being fished out. He saw banks of broken shells piled up on the shingle that told their own tale of reckless fishermen gouging out the estuary beds in a search for a quick sale.

  The season was short in the summer and other pearl dealers were tramping round the traveller camps for a quick exchange. Farm boys and town lads with tents were lining the inland rivers hoping to make a fortune on their weekend jaunts.

  Eben was not downhearted. He was one of the best in the business. There was not a pearl of note that passed him by. He had a nose for a paragon gem and his nose was twitching. Those unios were still sitting proud, those margaritaferas, mussels making beauteous Scottish fresh water pearls were famous since Roman times.

  He had learned his calling the hard way in a London apprenticeship: examining, selecting, grading pearls to be drilled through and strung into the finest of necklaces. It was years of hard slog spent at the beck and call of a tyrant jeweller, but now he was ready to strike out on his own. Now he needed stock – quality stock – but even more than that, he needed a clutch of priceless pearl eggs to warm his heart and set him up in business.

  His earliest memory was clutching at his mother’s string of pearls and the scent of her porcelain skin. He had fallen in love with the pearls’ lustre and subtle hues. They reminded him of her before she died, leaving him to the mercy of those two cold aunts. No mention was ever made of his father who abandoned them before Eben was born, leaving him only a second name, Alfred.

  As a boy he read the legend of how the pearl oyster rose to the surface of the sea once a year to catch a drop of moon dew. His head told him this was scientific nonsense but in his heart he wished it could be true. Out of such an ugly casing came the gift of a teardrop from the gods. To his eyes, the pearl was the queen of gems and from those earliest years his desire to know more had grown.

  Eben could repair a timepiece, solder gold links. He could assess a fine Ceylon sapphire or Burmese ruby, a well-cut African diamond, but there was only one gem that lifted his spirits. Now he was back in his old hunting ground ready for the chase.

  He smiled, feeling into the deep recesses of his old coat for a nest of pearls in a chamois leather pouch that no pick-pocket would ever reach without having his throat cut.

  It never paid to look prosperous. He was young enough to look like any other town boy off to chance his luck in the fast-flowing Tay river outside Perth. He’d come up on the train from Edinburgh and he was intending to take lodgings in the town and wander around the farmsteads in the winter months when trade would be easier to come by. Housewives needed shoes and tweeds, coats for their offspring, he reckoned. Selling a few good pearls was an easy way to augment the family coffers.

  He consoled his conscience with the thought that he was only doing what others in the trade were doing. He was what they called round here, ‘canny’. He struck a hard bargain but his prices were fair enough – though woe betide any fool who tried to foist fakes on him: alabaster beads covered in salmon-skin paste. He knew a dull ‘sleepy’ pearl, fit only for background decoration or ground up for medicines in the Orient to treat yellow eye and snake bites. It wasn’t his fault if the seller had no idea of the value of what he held in his hand or if the pearls had been mishandled. Ignorance was no excuse in his trade. Ignorance was stupidity. If someone spent all day fishing these river mussels and gave them no respect, then he didn’t enlighten them.

  How could anyone treat a precious pearl with careless abandon, scratching the surface, squashing them together? He had heard one of the greatest pearls ever to see daylight was ruined because it was baked for a meal, and only found when eaten. How Eben yearned to find a rarity so fine that all the world would come to his door; kings, maharajahs, empresses, coming to be in its presence and buy from his emporium.

  He learned early that no jewel could bring warmth to a cold heart and an unloving embrace, that no pearl could have ever cured his mother’s madness or stopped his father from deserting them. Yet in the calm beauty of a fine pearl there was cheer and the inspiration to collect others, to become rich and respected in the trade. Now the search for such treasures was taking over his life.

  In his mind his pearls were symbols of love and perfection, purity and wisdom. Even the Bible said the same thing – and he’d read that they were luckiest in life who were born in the pearl month of June, which he was.

  On that bright autumn morning of 1879, Eben was a young man on a mission to make his fortune in discovering the finest of Scottish pearls. ‘Search and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened up to you,’ was his mantra. There was a spring in his step as he got off the train north, for he sensed in his very bones they were here for his taking.

  As the summer faded into golden leafed autumn, Sam Baillie’s cough grew worse and no amount of Jeannie’s hedge doctoring could shift the phlegm or the shivers. Jem feared for his father. They had told no one of their rich find and Sam, like a man possessed, returned again to the same spot just in case, but his hoard yielded just a few more button-sized pearls – nothing to compare with the dream pearl. The winds blew over the river making it brown and swirling with mud. Sam took to his bed and Jem was afraid it was for the last time.

  The Laird’s guns were out in the bracken and Jem skipped school to help out, much to the schoolmaster’s dismay. He knocked on the door demanding an explanation. ‘James should be at his desk, not tramping the forest. I had him for college in Dundee or Edinburgh school. He would then see you in comfort, Jean Guthrie.’

  No one in the village understood why a respectable widow should take to her bed a man such as Sam Baillie. Though sure enough, the boy had his father’s fine looks, with a head of wild jet curls and dark winsome eyes. He was not afraid of hard graft but he was half tinker. Everyone knew that there was no holding them when the spirit put the wanderlust in their feet.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised, knowing full well that Sam would not last the winter and there’d be precious little to be spending on books and education. ‘Send for the doctor,’ Jem ordered.

  ‘He’ll not come out this far to see him. We’ll take him into town.’ But both of them knew Sam was too ill to travel.

  When his mother left the room, Jem sat by the box bed and whispered. ‘It’s time to sell yon pearl. We have to buy you medicines. Then next summer you’ll back by the river and I’ll do the fishing for you.’

  ‘I’ve done my last fishing, son. It’s enough to have found the queen of the river. All yer life you can tramp and never have a moment like ours.’ Sam smiled up at his son’s worried face, his eyes glassy with fever.

  ‘I’m for the next journey to Tir Nan Og, the land far away. You must take care of Queenie, she’ll be yours when I’m a goner.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ Jem protested.

  ‘Look after yer mother and see her right. Then go and see the world for yourself, go travel and find Queenie some mates. You’re a lucky one, Jem. This is yours by right, you found her and she will bring good fortune.’

  ‘Och away with you! What good is it sitting in the pouch when she can buy medicines and cures.’

  ‘Too late for all that as you know. But I want you to have an eddicashun so no one will cheat you. There’s a few more good pearls in ma box; get yerself some learning, you never know when it will serve you well.’

  ‘What’s he blethering about now, Jemmy?’ His mother was now hovering in earshot.

  ‘He’s away with the faeries. His fever’s up and I’m afeard for him.’

  That night, Jem and his mother took turns to sit with Sam, covering him with everything to sweat out the fever, giving him sips of feverfew tea which he spat out for its bitterness. Jem sat into the wee small hours, his eyes heavy, until he woke in the dawn and his father’s hand was cold. His mother was weeping.

  ‘It’s just the two of us now,’ she cried. ‘How will we get by?’

  Jem sat holding his mother’s hand, knowing he must take care of her now. ‘There’s some pearls in the chest. We’ll get by. I can work on the estate, lopping branches, barking logs and building up the banks for the log rolling. We won’t starve.’

  ‘But what about schooling?’

  ‘That’s over and done with,’ he sighed, sensing a relief that he could take over his father’s work. But there was a sadness too; his chance to travel and see far off places was gone now. He would have to wait and see his mother safe and warm. When she was gone, he searched in the wooden press for the little tin of pearls but it wasn’t there. His father must have put them in his old wooden travelling box with the lock. All he found in his Pa’s jacket were a few coins and a clay pipe. He touched the pipe and wept for the loss of such a good man, knowing it would never glow by the camp firelight again. The heaviness of grief covered him like a blanket and Jem sobbed, knowing that at sixteen he was now man of the house.

  Read on for an extract from Leah Fleming’s

  The Postcard

  Remember before God

  those men and women of

  The European Resistance Movement

  who were secretly trained in Beaulieu to fight

  their lonely battle against Hitler’s Germany

  and who before entering Nazi occupied territory,

  here found some measure of the peace

  for which they fought.

  From the plaque in the Cloisters of Beaulieu Abbey,

  unveiled 27 April 1969.

  Prologue

  Adelaide, Australia, 2002

  The summons from the hospital came in the middle of the night. Although it was expected, it was still a shock.

  ‘Your father’s asking for you, Melissa. I think he wants to make his peace,’ said the concerned-sounding nurse.

  Why should I go? Mel’s head was spinning. Why should I bother? He’s never been the greatest dad in the world. Where was he when I needed him after Mum died? When did he ever give me anything but cheques and empty promises?

  Yet something stronger than her anger made her shoot out of bed, ring for a taxi, then throw on her jeans and T-shirt before dunking her face in cold water.

  Lew Boyd was all the flesh and blood she had left in the world. Years of heavy drinking had taken its toll on his liver, and all his success in the world couldn’t spare him now. Besides, Mel owed it to her mother to hear him out one last time.

  The hospital corridors were silent but for her scurrying footsteps, and Mel’s heart sank at the thought of what was waiting for her in the private ward. The one and only time she’d visited, she’d breezed in with a bunch of grapes and a smile to tell him she’d won the coveted Post-Grad Music Scholarship to the Royal Academy in London, but her excitement had been quickly doused by the sight of the once big man reduced to skin and bone. They’d made small talk, but she had been shocked at the change in him and glad to escape.

  This was different. This was the last goodbye. With a sinking heart she wondered what he wanted to say that couldn’t have been said before now.

  Lew sat propped up with an oxygen mask by his side. His tanned skin was now a papery yellow, his cheeks pinched, his hair in sparse tufts from the chemo. He looked a shadow of his former handsome self. At the sight of his daughter he held out a bony hand.

  ‘You came,’ he croaked. ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you if you hadn’t.’

  ‘They rang and said you wanted to see me.’ Mel’s voice trembled as a nurse retreated discreetly from the room. Mel sat down, staring at this frail figure struggling for breath, shocked at his deterioration. How could she have thought of not coming?

  He turned slowly, those blue eyes fixed on her. ‘Not been much of a dad, have I?’

  ‘You’re the only one I’ve got,’ she replied, trying to hide years of resentment. He’d been such a driven man, developing his building empire, making a fortune, and for what?

  ‘Time to come clean, Melissa. I’m sorry for letting you down so many times. I really loved you and yer mom, but when she was killed in the car I couldn’t handle it, lost the plot, as they say now. I’m sorry, kiddo. I’ve always been so proud of you and those lungs of yours.’ He paused as if saying each word was agony to him. ‘I’ve often wondered just who gave you that wonderful voice. Not me or your mom, for sure. She was tone deaf, bless her. Must have skipped a generation, I reckon.’

  ‘You didn’t bring me here to talk about my voice,’ she snapped. ‘Sorry, but I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. I don’t understand myself, but I need to tell you a story and I’m hoping you’ll be able to finish it.’ He took a gulp of oxygen.

  ‘Long ago I came on a ship from England with Ma, yer gran Boyd. It was after the war. I don’t remember why we came or where we went. The truth is I don’t know who I am, Mel. You’ll not find a birth certificate for me. Granny Boyd was not my mother. You need to know all this in case . . .’ Lew tailed off and Mel could see tears in his eyes. She reached out her hand to take his.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now, Dad. It’s all in the past.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I’ve lived with these blanks all my life. I once saw a shrink in rehab who wanted me to have some hypnotherapy but I wouldn’t go there. Now I wish I had. It might have made me face this head-on instead of just drowning my sorrows. I’ve been a closed book to you with my binges and my moods. I never deserved the love your mom gave me.’ Lew stared at his daughter as if seeing her for the first time. ‘I sense such a waste of potential in me, love. I worked so hard to blot out bits of my childhood. My folks were kindness itself but they never shared my past and I never asked until it was too late. When I asked your gran about things, she clammed up tight.’ He smiled, shaking his head. ‘Your mom opened my heart to such loving possibilities but I let you both down. I’m ashamed of how I neglected you. I’ve messed up on you and your mom big time. I thought if I was successful it would prove I was a proper provider, but it all went too far. I wanted you to be proud of me but no one is proud of a drunk.’

  ‘Stop this! It doesn’t matter now.’ Mel felt the tears rising.

  ‘If only I knew . . . There’s blanks in my memory but there’s one thing I do remember when I was a kid . . . One day you’ll have kids of your own and they ought to have a proper history to blame for all their failings. I’ve left some stuff for you with Harry Webster, my lawyer. Promise me you’ll go and see him when I’m gone?’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ Mel leaned forward, the better to catch his words.

  ‘When you go to England you might find the places, people who might recognize my stuff. I meant to do this for myself but I was always too busy and now I’ve run out of time. I just know Gran was not my real mom. There was a lady who once came from England when I was little . . .’ He paused, staring towards the wall. ‘Would you find out who she was and why she never came back? She may be still alive. Please, Mel, before it’s too late. Will you do it for me?’