Little Redhead

Chapter One: Faces From the Past

A letter. That was the thing that kept circling Wilfred Turner's head. His sister had been missing for little over ten months and all she had done was sent them one measly letter from Cheltenham. If she was ever there he'd found no trace of her; by the time he'd arrived she was gone. No one had even seen her, as far as he could tell. But still he'd searched, still he'd offered out the pictures that his parents had made of her. He'd gone despite his parents' protests, despite how they'd told him that they couldn't lose him too, that they'd find someone else to distribute the images. Even when he'd expanded the search to the surrounding area, hoping for whispers of his sister, he had to admit that she was long since gone.

You lost both your kids ages ago, he'd thought bitterly at the time, because he knew he wasn't the same; knew he wasn't the person they all wanted him to be. That boy was dead. The man who had returned from the War a mere ghost. The thought haunted him even now, but he did his best to quell it.

Still, he could at least bring back Cinder. He could give them one child not utterly broken; could still protect her like a good big brother even if he could do little else for her.

Six months. It had been six months since Cheltenham, and only now was he back in London, soaking in the ever familiar fumes, the idle chatter that filled the streets. To look at these people it was impossible to know that the War had touched this corner of the world. That the Germans had done their very best to break the British spirit. The buildings were the only indication of the horrors they had seen, even at home. People were too busy hiding wounds with lavish parties and shows of their aliveness to dwell on it all for more than a few fleeting seconds.

For some reason, it made Wilf sick. His stomach twisted. He could never be like them. He could never so easily brush aside what he had seen, what had happened to him. He could still feel the press of his own captivity; the work he was forced to do when they realised he didn't have any information. When they thought he was better a captive than a corpse.

Wilf felt as though his teeth might shatter with the force of his clenched jaw, but he kept walking. This was his last resort. A deal with the devil if it meant perhaps saving Luce. It was a risk he was willing to take.

Darby Sabini's place was as lavish as they came. The man rarely ever actually went to his own clubs, but these were dark times. The Jews had taken most of Camden, and the resulting war was easily ignored by people who were used to such violence. Ignored, but never truly forgotten. People still hurried home as soon as the sky showed even the barest hints of darkness, unwilling to be drawn into the horrors that the gangs were willing to bring upon each other. But Sabini's place showed no sign of it. It stood pride of place in the middle of the street; customers flitting in and out, music floating from the never closed door, mingled with laughter and chatter.

Wilf paused at the corner of the street. Some part of him that hadn't been twisted by his experiences knew that this was a terrible idea. If Luce had gone willingly, as her letter suggested, if she was happy, then he had no right to drag her back to the city that she'd feld.

That she'd abandoned.

But it wasn't as simple as that. She'd been selfish to leave their parents, to leave him, to cope with everything alone. She'd run away because she couldn't cope, he understood that better than she probably assumed, and part of him hated her for having found that strange kind of courage.

So he gritted his teeth, clenched his hands, and marched up to the doorman. Old allegiances were easily exploited. That much he'd learnt on the front lines.

'I'm here to see Mr. Sabini,' he said, conjuring as much confidence as he could muster, willing them not to see the way his hands were shaking; the pallor of his skin in the dim nightlight. Part of him was sick with what he was about to do, another part growled almost ferociously at the fact that he was finally able to do something useful. God knew he hadn't felt useful since he returned.