What Child Is This (Kindle Single) by Rhys Bowen

Author:Rhys Bowen [Bowen, Rhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2018-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

The first streaks of a red dawn were showing in the eastern sky when Maggie felt herself shaken awake. She sat up, heart pounding, with no idea where she was.

“What? What is it?” She looked around the unfamiliar room and then focused on the small figure standing in front of her. He was still wearing the striped pyjamas but now with a dressing gown over them.

“He came, Maggie.” The child’s face was alight with excitement. “Father Christmas. He did know I’d moved back here, and he came. Look. Presents. He brought me presents.” He held out a clockwork bus in one hand and a box of toy soldiers in the other. “New soldiers for my fort. Isn’t he clever? He knew I’d lost most of the old ones at Mrs Bradshaw’s.”

Jack was now sitting up on the sofa. “Good for you, boy,” he said.

“I expect there will be more presents when Mummy comes back, don’t you?” Peter asked. “She likes buying me things.”

Jack got to his feet, stretching. “I’ll get the fire going again and find a kettle to make us a cup of tea. I reckon it will be more of those mince pies for breakfast. And some of that smoked salmon. Not a bad start to Christmas Day.”

Maggie went across and pulled back the curtains and then the blackout blinds. The morning was bright and crisp, with a layer of frost over the world outside. “Lucky we didn’t try to spend the night in that park,” she called after him. “We’d have been stiff as boards by now.”

She stood staring at the empty street, listening. No bells. On Christmas Day there would always be bells ringing from all the churches—a great cacophony of sound to herald the day. And now silence. Bells were only to be rung to warn of an invasion. She had just let the net curtain fall and turned to Peter, who was winding up his clockwork bus, when Jack came back into the room.

“Couldn’t you find the kettle?” she asked. Then she looked at his ashen face. “What’s wrong?”

“Come and see,” he said.

Maggie followed him along the hall and down the stairs to the kitchen. He had removed the blackout blinds, and daylight streamed in. “Look. That’s why this street was cordoned off,” he said.

An unexploded bomb stuck out from the small square of lawn outside the back window, its fins glinting in the first rays of the sun.

“Bloody hell,” Maggie said, not even noticing that she was swearing. “We need to get out of here right now, Jack.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a huge rush,” Jack said, without too much conviction. “We could probably have that cup of tea first.”

“Cup of tea? Are you out of your mind? It could go off any minute, Jack.”

“It hasn’t so far. Sometimes they’re duds.”

“And sometimes the least little noise can set them off. Come on. Let’s get Peter and go.” She took his arm and began to drag him out of the kitchen. “Now we’ve got no choice, Jack.

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