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‘Gloves?’

‘Do no harm, that’s our motto here.’

‘I thought that was the Hippocratic oath.’

‘If you think medicine trumps history, then you have a lot to learn, Jodie. Now, let’s see what we’ve got.’

Conscious that she’d already been reproved for not giving a dusty old box its proper degree of reverence, Jodie plucked a set of gloves from the basket and hauled them on. Then she opened the caved-in lid and started lifting out the contents.

The artefacts you’d expect from a family donation to a historical society were first: a photo album; a square of cardboard to which war medals had been pinned; diaries; a dark, dented old tin with the wordWillowembossed on the lid, which rattled as though it had old buttons or coins inside; and a collection of papers gathered into a bundle with a strand of yellowed lace.

Carol picked each item up as Jodie set it down, muttering over each one, until Jodie passed her what looked to be a child’s scrapbook.

It wasn’t. It was a series of newspaper articles, letters and photos all pasted into the pages. The paste had failed in some places, allowing cuttings to float free within the old book, and in other cases the paste seemed to have been applied so lavishly, it had ruined the image or print of the artefact.

An article that was neither loose nor ruined was a stiff, stained cutting from some old-fashioned paper,The Clarence Daily. Carol grew still when she reached it and that pinched look on her face grew even more intense. She made a quiet little sound, like the breath she’d just taken didn’t know what to do with itself and was caught somewhere between heart and head.

‘What is it?’ Jodie said. ‘What have you found?’

‘Nothing. Pass me that tin.’

Carol had very definitely not found nothing.

Wordlessly, Jodie handed over the tin. ‘Let’s open it,’ she said.

Carol snapped the scrapbook closed. ‘We’re done here, pet, and I find I am in need of a rest.’ Her voice was cracked again, like it had been that morning just before she accused Joan Sloane of theft. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘Carol. Won’t you please show me what has made you so upset? Maybe I can help.’

Her great aunt’s answer—and the fact she bundled the tin and the scrapbook into a clean calico bag and tucked it under her arm like she was protecting it from Jodie, from questions, from everybody—told Jodie everything she needed to know about her great aunt and the relationship she’d foolishly thought they had, and just how much her great aunt valued her offer of help.

‘No.’

Chapter 8

Some well-meaning person had left a pile of steaming cow dung on the floor outside the doorway to the manager’s quarters above the bar.

Not actual cow dung. Metaphorical cow dung, otherwise known as the psychology journal he’d meant to toss in the skip with the carrot peelings and egg shells the other day, but must have instead left lying about for some nosy (or well-meaning … possibly both) employee to find. No doubt they thought they’d done him a favour. Ha!

Will looked at it for a long moment. He could pick it up. Maybe. Just bend down and grasp it and lift; no biggie. If his leg let him.

Or he could avert his eyes and walk over it, behave like it was his kryptonite and ask Fergus to bin it for him, but then the questions would follow.Why can’tyoubin it? Why do you have a psychology journal anyway? We’ve all been talking about it downstairs for days. Shouldn’t you be subscribing to The Country Publican’s Keg Spearing Gazette?He could hear the questions coming out one after the other in an Irish brogue:What’s the big feckin’ deal, boss? Do you have a secret past or something?

His contentment with his lot in life was hard won, but this journal felt like a backslide. It had to go.

He could call his sister Daisy. She’d be here in a flash and would happily hold a destruction ceremony for him, eviscerate the thing into paper scraps and then paste them onto an old brick with some flour and water from the pub kitchen and chuck the lot into the Clarence River, if he asked her. She knew a thing or two about trauma. And about creative recovery. And about secrets and papier-mâché, which, until this very minute, he’d never thought of as being at all useful. Daisy could be trusted not to push for an explanation.

Only one of his family knew why he’d chucked in his job at the Adolescent Mental Health Unit at Tweed Valley Hospital, and he was happy keeping it that way. The rest of the Miles family would be supportive. Problem was, they’d betoosupportive. They’d want to talk it out. Endlessly. And he’d had a gutful of the idea that talking out a problem could help. Sometimes, time was the only thing that helped. Time gave a person perspective and distance.

Talking sure as hell hadn’t helped his last patient … and the tragedy was that his last patient hadn’t waited to give time a chance.

Before he could make a decision about what to do with the paper ghost of his failed career, he heard a creak from the timbers of the 120-year-old staircase and a voice that said, ‘Hello.’

He looked up, surprised. ‘Jodie.’

‘The kid in the bar said you were up here.’

He’d be having a word with Fergus later. What part ofPrivate Manager’s Quartersdid he not understand?