The Last Night in London by Karen White (reading list .TXT) 📕

the hallway, unable to look at the body on the floor or the hysterical woman on the bed or the sleeping baby in the valise. The pulsating wails of the sirens rang in her ears. Her gaze returned to the baby. With the sick realization that she was his and Precious’s only hope for survival, she closed her eyes. There was time between the sirens and the planes. If she was fast, she could make it back in time. If she was fast. She looked at her friend on the bed, hesitated.

“Go,” Precious said. “Graham needs you.”

She looked at Precious, the bruise on her heart dulling, the pain replaced with pity. At least Eva knew what it was like to be loved by Graham. Eva pulled back, but Precious grabbed her hand. “Forgive me, Eva. Please.”

Eva thought of who she’d been, who she was now. The woman she wanted to be. She could have only one answer. “I will. In time.” She squeezed Precious’s hand and dropped it. Without knowing why, she kissed Precious on the forehead. A show of forgiveness or a good-bye—she wasn’t sure. She’d think about it later. “I’ll come back. I promise to come back.”

Precious reached up and grabbed Eva’s hand again and squeezed, then released it. “I know. Now go.”

With a reserve of energy she didn’t know she possessed, Eva ran out of the flat and into the night, praying that she wasn’t too late. Praying that the bombs would fall in another part of London tonight.

She’d made it only to the edge of the park when the first bomb dropped somewhere nearby, the percussion of the blast knocking her to her knees. The quick, bitter firing of guns and the grinding of the engines of the planes swarming above filled the night sky. Her whole body vibrated with the boom boom boom of more bombs tearing nearby structures apart. Fires lit the night, illuminating buildings, offering up targets like sacrifices. Eva could hear the yells of the firemen who were taming the flames just as another wave of planes flew over, the motors screeching in an unholy symphony.

She staggered, attempted to stand, looking back at the building she’d just left, where Precious and the baby were in the third-story bedroom. As she watched, an incendiary bomb dropped, landing with a terrific flash. Eva held her breath, trying to determine exactly where it had fallen, watching as the flash simmered to a pinpoint of dazzling white; it disappeared, only to be replaced by a yellow flame leaping up from the white center, consuming everything in its path.

She took two more steps toward the interior of the park, where Graham was looking for her, not knowing he was in danger. Thinking she was in trouble. Because he had promised to keep her safe. But the sounds of buildings burning and people screaming came from behind her, forcing her to stop. She looked at the flames leaping up from the row of terraces behind Harley House. Looked toward the sky above; looked beyond it where pinkish white smoke ballooned upward in a great cloud and the flashing lights of the bursting antiaircraft shells glittered like tiny suns. As she watched, a hole in the pink shroud formed, and through it twinkled a star, the real kind that Eva had wished upon as a child.

She looked again into the darkness of the park. You are much braver and stronger than you believe you are. It was almost as if Graham were standing beside her, whispering in her ear. Only Eva could save Precious. And Graham’s son, the child that should have been hers, whom she inexplicably loved already.

Her entire body shook with the aftershocks of the exploding bombs, her nose stinging with the acrid air. She wanted to run away. To hide. Fear filled her lungs like coal dust, choking her. Being brave isn’t the same as not being frightened. Being brave is feeling frightened and still doing what needs to be done.

Eva closed her eyes and whispered into the darkness, “Good-bye, my love.” With a sob in her throat, she turned and ran back toward the burning building, nearly blinded by smoke and ash, and by the tears she refused to shed.

CHAPTER 39

LONDON

MAY 2019

“Then who is it?” James asked, his head turned slightly away as if he didn’t want to confront the photographic proof in front of him.

Without hesitation I said, “That’s the real Precious Dubose.”

Colin shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d gone very still, like a person who’d just been given a terminal diagnosis. Or had just learned that he’d been lied to his entire life.

Penelope moved closer to James, who wore the same expression as his son, and touched his arm. To Hyacinth, she said, “This is all so much to take in. I’m almost afraid to ask you what it is you’ve discovered.”

Hyacinth pulled out a manila folder from her bag. “If you’d prefer to wait, I can leave this for you to look at later.” She held the folder against her chest, waiting for Penelope to speak. But it was James who spoke first.

“No. We’re all here now. And if there’s anything we need to tell Precious, I’m afraid we haven’t much time.”

Hyacinth waited for Colin and Penelope to nod before speaking. “Well, then, let me begin by saying that your Graham St. John was a hard man to find, but I was up to the task.”

“I never doubted it,” Penelope said as Hyacinth removed a piece of paper from the folder and gave it to James, who held it out so we could all see. It was a copy of an official letter with a circular blue seal in the top-left corner, the word confidential stamped in bold black ink along the top margin. The top-right corner, in blue ink, read home office, whitehall and beneath that 29 june 1941.

“The National Archives is releasing new information about the intelligence services during