Page 41 of Strangers in Time

T OO L ATE

M OLLY INSISTED THAT THEY take a taxi to 13 Dapleton Terrace. When they arrived, Charlie ran up the steps, tugged open the front door, and they clattered up the stairs to Charlie’s floor.

They hadn’t yet reached the door to his flat when Charlie cried out, “I closed the door when I left. I swear I did. And now it’s open.”

“Well, maybe someone came in after just to check on things.”

“Maybe,” said a wary Charlie.

Once inside Charlie immediately ran to his cupboard and Molly hurried after him.

“You… you slept in here?” she asked, looking down at the bedding in the box. She could have reached out and touched both sides of the space at the same time.

He didn’t answer. Instead he searched through his bedding and cried out, “It’s gone. It was right here.” He kicked the box. “Bloody hell!”

“Charlie! Language!” she admonished.

Charlie heard a noise and poked his head out of his room. He saw the open window in the kitchen, the one he always used when going and coming late at night. He ran to the window, looked out, and saw him.

It was Lonzo leaping off the ladder and onto the overturned dustbin. He hit the ground, running fast. And he clearly had something under his arm.

Charlie leaned out the window and shouted, “Oi, Lonzo, you come back with that. It’s mine . You hear me?”

Lonzo simply ran faster, until he reached a corner and was gone from sight.

“Who was that?”

Charlie turned to see Molly peering out the window beside him. “Lonzo.”

“So he has your book?”

“Yes,” replied Charlie bitterly.

“We’ll have to report this to the police.”

“The police?!” exclaimed a shocked Charlie.

“He stole from you, Charlie. That’s a crime.”

Charlie mumbled. “We… we don’t need no police. I’ll set things right.”

“How do you know this Lonzo?”

“He’s just a boy what lives round here.”

“So we can speak to his parents, then?”

Charlie rubbed his nose. “He ain’t got no parents.”

“ Doesn’t have any parents,” corrected Molly. “Grandparents, perhaps?”

“No, he ain’—he doesn’t have none of them, neither.”

“Who, then?”

“Well, nobody. He only had a mate—” Charlie shut his mouth.

“Why would Lonzo have taken the book?” asked Molly.

“’Cause I told him I could get quid for it, that’s why. And now Lonzo’ll be the one gettin’ the money. And I won’t be able to bury Gran proper,” he added miserably.

“Well, we must go to his house and demand the return of your book.”

“Lonzo don’t live in no house! And he’s goin’ to sell that book.” Charlie shook his head in despair. “Damn!”

Molly didn’t have the heart to scold him this time over his coarse language. As they walked outside, she said, “So, your parents? You said your father died at Dunkirk?”

“Yeah.”

“And your mum?”

“A bomb.”

“I’m so very sorry.”

Charlie looked at a blown-apart building down the street, where children played games amid the rubble.

He let out a sigh. “Seems like everybody’s sort of dead, Miss. Only some just don’t know it yet.”