Synopsis

Hampstead Heath, Spring 1935.

Two girls meet by chance on Hampstead Heath. To an outsider, they could not appear more different. Verity is well-mannered and smartly dressed, living with her parents in a beautiful house close to the heath. Ruby is dishevelled and grubby, used to a life of squalor where she is forced to steal to survive. Yet there’s an instant affinity between them, and when their fortunes are shockingly reversed, it is the strength of their friendship that keeps them resilient to the challenges and hardships they face.

As Britain prepares for war, Ruby finds herself in Devon with the world at her feet and enjoying her first taste of romance. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Verity is forced to leave behind everything she has ever known and a shadow from the past threatens her chances of a new beginning. But through it all, the girls are always there for each other.

Until the day Verity does the one thing that will break Ruby’s heart. In a country torn apart by fighting, will Verity and Ruby survive long enough to find a way back to each other? Or do some betrayals go with you to the grave?

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Excerpt

1935

‘Will you look at that!’ Ruby exclaimed, directing her remark to the girl standing near her. She too was staring, mouth agape at the sight of a man being dragged from the Hampstead swimming pond.

‘Is he dead?’ the second girl asked with a tremor in her voice.

‘I reckon so. They ain’t even tryin’ to bring him round.’

It was early April, just after Easter, and although a sunny day, it was cold. Apart from the two girls there were only a few other people watching – in the main, adult dog walkers.

The girls watched in silence as the two burly policemen continued to haul the sodden body up on to the path beside the pond, and then on to a stretcher manned by two ambulance men.

There were three swimming ponds on the heath: one mixed bathing, and the other two for single sex only. All three were surrounded by thick bushes and trees, and fenced in. The ladies’ pond was almost impossible to see into as the foliage was so dense. But the drowned man had chosen the mixed pond, and as a section of hedging had been cut back to enable a fence repair, the girls could see very clearly.

Ruby felt an odd little stab of emotion as she saw the ambulance man cover the drowned man’s face. It was the first dead person she’d ever seen, and although she was some thirty yards away and had not known the man, it still felt like a loss.

‘I wonder who he is?’ the second girl asked. ‘And if he’s got a wife and children? S’pose we’ll have to wait till it’s in the newspapers to find out,’ she added sadly.

Ruby sensed that this girl felt as she did, and so she turned to look at her properly. She guessed she was a bit younger than her, perhaps twelve or thirteen, her long blonde hair held back off her face by a blue velvet band. She had a posh voice and her clothes were expensive; Ruby was usually invisible to such girls.

‘They’ll only write about ’im if ’e was rich or important, no one cares why poor people die,’ she said with authority. ‘D’you live round ’ere? I ain’t seen you afore.’

‘I live the other side of Hampstead Village, down near Swiss Cottage,’ the blonde said. ‘I don’t normally come up on the heath on my own; Mother thinks murderers prowl up here.’

Ruby liked the way she said that, like she was scoffing at her mother’s opinion. ‘Do murderers prowl looking for people to kill?’ she asked, grinning because she liked the image. ‘Don’t they usually kill someone they know? Anyway, what’s yer name and ’ow old are you?’ she asked.

‘Verity Wood, and I’m thirteen. How about you?’

‘Ruby Taylor, and I’m fourteen. I live in Kentish Town and it ain’t nice like round here, ’spect your ma would ’ave a fit if she knew you was talking to the likes of me!’

‘I don’t much care what she thinks.’ Verity tossed her head and her shiny hair flicked back over the shoulder of her coat. ‘Where do you think they’ll take that man’s body? Will the police find out where he comes from?’

Ruby liked that this posh girl didn’t seem to feel it was beneath her to speak to what most people would call a ‘ragamuffin’. She was also thrilled that her opinion was being asked.

‘They’ll take ’im down the morgue, that’s the place they cut up dead people to see why they died. If ’e’s got stuff in ’is pockets that says who ’e is and where ’e lives, the police go round there to tell ’is family, and make one of ’em go and identify ’im.’

‘Fancy you knowing such things,’ Verity exclaimed.

Ruby shrugged. ‘Mrs. Briggs what lives downstairs to me and my ma, she had the police call to say ’er old man was found dead in Camden Town with his ’ead smashed in. My ma went with ’er to identify him. They was both sick cos ’e looked so bad. But when the doctor cut ’im open they found ’e never died from the wound on his ’ead, he’d had a bleedin’ ’eart attack and fallen over and smashed his bonce on the kerb.’

‘Gosh,’ Verity said reverently, looking admiringly at Ruby. ‘What a lot you know!’

They fell silent as the ambulance drove away with the drowned man, and watched as four policemen spread out to examine the ground around the pond.

‘They’ll be looking for sommat to tell ’em whether the man fell or waded in all alone. But if they find other footprints or sommat, they may think someone pushed him in, or even killed ’im first and dumped his body in the water,’ Ruby said knowledgeably. ‘I reckon ’e was killed and they dumped ’im in there last night, after the pond closed.’

About the Author

Born in Rochester, Kent, Lesley Pearse has lived a life as varied as the adventures in her novels. After working in various offices as a lowly clerk, a children’s nanny, then moving into the more glamorous work of Promotion and a spell as a Playboy Bunny, Pearse eventually turned her hand to writing and published her debut novel, Georgia, in 1993. Now living in a cliff-top house in Devon, alone with her King Charles Cavalier, Stan, Pearse has published over 25 titles and sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

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