Page 109 of Save Us
He opens the wallet and pulls something out. It’s a small key. He holds it out to me, and I turn it this way and that. It doesn’t look particularly special—just a perfectly ordinary little key.
“What’s this?” I ask slowly.
“Mum gave this key to Percy to look after, years ago,” James says rapidly, his words practically tumbling out of him. He pushes himself away from the door, loosening the knot of his tie and looking at me again. “And he also told me that, just after she died, he had to drive Dad to see his lawyer. He said it was urgent but not to mention it to anyone.”
Without realizing it, I’m holding my breath. “What does that mean?”
James drops the tie onto the sofa. Then he unbuttons his cuffs and rolls his sleeves up to the elbows. “It means we need to find out what Mum was hiding from Dad. This key might have something to do with Dad’s secret. Maybe…” His words fade away, and he presses his lips together in a thin line.
I straighten my shoulders and walk over to James. I put my hands on his flushed cheeks and stand on tiptoe to give him a quick kiss. Then I move away and look seriously at him. “We’ll find out what the key is for.”
James gulps hard, then nods. He takes the key back and slips it in his trouser pocket. “Dad’s spending the night in London. This is the perfect time to look through Mum’s stuff.”
James takes my jacket from me, and then we leave his room again. We walk back past the stairs, into the part of the house I’ve never been in before. The landing is at least as long as the one James’s and Lydia’s rooms are on, but there’s only one door here. We stop outside it, and James takes a deep breath. Then he turns the handle and opens the heavy wooden door into the room.
It feels kind of wrong coming in here, and my heart sounds way too loud. Breathlessly, I look around as James shuts the door behind us again, then locks it. We’re in a narrow passage, with some kind of fancy hallstand that has a light-up mirror. To the left is a door that must lead to the en suite bathroom. James walks past it into the bedroom, and I follow him.
“I can’t remember the last time I was in here,” he admits. He’s whispering, as if he’s just as scared of getting caught as I am. He walks across the room to a desk by the window.
“Mum always liked to be able to look outside while she was working. Anytime she came into my room, she wrinkled her nose at my desk being by the wall.” He eyes the papers on the desktop and fans them out. He skims them. “But these days, I like to look out too. Once I’ve got a place of my own, I’ll be just the same as her.”
I walk over and gently stroke his back. “Shall we get started?” I ask.
James pauses a moment, his hand on the papers, then eventually takes a deep breath and nods. “Yes. Let’s get started.”
“Seeing that we’re here…” I say, bending down to the desk drawers. I look at James for permission.
“Go for it.”
I pluck up all my courage and open the top drawer. It’s full of Beaufort’s-branded notebooks and matching pencils. I take them all out, put them on the desk, and feel the bottom of the drawer. I knock, but it sounds perfectly ordinary, not hollow.
“You look like you’ve done this hundreds of times before. Is there anything that I should know about?” James asks from the other side of the desk, where he’s in the middle of clearing out the little cabinet.
“I’ve seen enough films,” I reply, shaking the drawer. Nothing happens, so I put the stuff back, making sure everything is back in the right place, and shut it again. Now for drawer number two.
“I don’t know whether to consider that scary or sexy.”
I grin and pull out the folder in the next drawer. I flick through it but don’t find anything suspicious looking, let alone anything the key would fit.
We work through the whole desk, one section at a time. After that, we even pull it out a little in case there’s anything hidden behind it, but no such luck. Then we go to the bedside tables. By this point, if not before, we’ve lost the urge to crack jokes to lighten the mood. I feel kind of dirty, looking through Mrs. Beaufort’s hand creams, bits of jewelry, and classic novels. There’s an old magazine too, with a photo of Cordelia on the cover. For a moment, I wonder why she kept it in her bedside table, but I would probably have done the same thing. I might even have had a cover like that framed to hang over my desk.
“There’s nothing here. And nothing under the bed either,” says James, his voice muffled. When he stands up again, his shirt is all crumpled.
“Same here. Shall we look in the wardrobe?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
When he opens the door to his parents’ walk-in wardrobe, it takes my breath away. It’smassive. A whole room.
There are rails on either side, hanging with neatly ironed his-and-hers suits, along with shirts and blouses, and shelves filled with countless pairs of shoes. It seems like the left side was hers, and I really start to sweat looking at her things. Meanwhile, it occurs to me in a flash that my sister would give her right hand to be in my place right now. She adores a walk-in wardrobe, andI know that this would be a dream to her. Then I’m ashamed of the thought and put it out of my mind to concentrate on the task at hand.
James takes a few steps into the room and gently strokes one of his mum’s suits.
“It even smells of her,” he murmurs hoarsely.
I come up behind him and gently pat his shoulder. “If you want us to stop, you just have to say.”
He shakes his head at once. “No.”
