The Pearl Locket by Kathleen McGurl Read Free Book Online Page A

walked home with a young man. Mother would only suspect the worst. With a shudder Joan realised that Mother would suspect Jack of being like Freddie, trying to take advantage of innocent young girls.
    ‘Are you all right? You look frozen half to death. I don’t know, wandering along the prom on your own at this time of night. Anything could have happened to you! There are bad people out there, Joan, bad men who will hurt girls like you.’
    ‘I’m all right, Mother. I’ll go to bed now, I think.’ Joan left the kitchen and ran up the stairs, before she found herself blurting out that she knew all about the bad men Mother was talking about. With Jack she had felt safe and secure, but back home the horrors of the earlier part of the evening were catching up with her, and she felt like sobbing. She took a deep breath before entering her bedroom. She didn’t want to explain any of it to Mags, either. It was strange. Until this evening she’d always told Mags everything of importance that happened to her, and a lot of things that weren’t important as well. But the events with Freddie and then Jack had changed her. She felt as though she’d crossed some kind of line between girlhood and womanhood. Or at least taken the first steps towards crossing it. And it felt like a journey she would need to make on her own, without her sister.

Chapter Five
    September 2014
    ‘Ali, give us a hand with this,’ called Pete from the hallway. Ali put down her magazine—it had been too much to hope that she might get a few minutes’ quiet reading time with a cup of tea—and went to see what he was up to. He was half inside the under-stairs cupboard, in which a downstairs loo had been installed at some point in the house’s history. They had agreed to rip out this cloakroom and replace it with one in a planned, back extension, beside a new utility room, which would replace the old coal shed.
    ‘What do you need doing?’ she asked. He’d made good progress since she last checked, and the old toilet was now in the driveway awaiting a trip to the tip.
    ‘I’m trying to pull off this old wooden cladding,’ he said. ‘It’s just so tight working in this confined space. If you can stand there and pull at the boards as I wrench them off, then stack them out in the hallway—that’ll halve the time it takes.’
    ‘Sure. Will do.’ Ali positioned herself, and they began work. He was right. It was a quick job with the two of them working, now that Pete didn’t have to keep squeezing in and out of the tiny space.
    Soon they had all the cladding off and neatly stacked in the hallway. More for the tip, thought Ali, although maybe it could be used as firewood in the winter, after they’d had the chimneys swept.
    ‘Interesting,’ said Pete, who was examining the newly uncovered wall.
    ‘What is?’ Ali poked her head inside the cupboard.
    ‘That cladding covered up a door.’ Pete picked up his crowbar and began forcing it into a crack.
    ‘A door? Leading where?’
    ‘Let’s find out. I’d imagine it leads to an under-floor space.’
    ‘A cellar?’ Wow. So perhaps this already enormous house had a cellar as well? Ali felt a little rush of excitement. More to explore!
    There was a huge crack as the door splintered open. Pete put down the crowbar, kicked his toolbox aside and took hold of the door with both hands to pull it open further. Ali looked inside. Beyond the door were steep steps leading downwards—it was a cellar!
    ‘Bloody hell! As if we needed any more space!’ exclaimed Pete. ‘Fetch the inspection torch, will you? It’s hanging up in the garage.’
    Ali ran to get the torch, and plugged it in a nearby socket in the hallway. Carefully, Pete made his way down the crumbling concrete steps. Ali followed, her hand on his shoulder to steady herself.
    The inspection torch was bright, and lit the space well. ‘Mind your head,’ said Pete, bending double to dodge the joists from the floor above. ‘It’s not full