A Letter from Pearl Harbor

by Anna Stuart

Genres: Historical Fiction; Women's Fiction; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

Ninety-eight-year-old Ginny McAllister’s last wish is for her granddaughter to complete a treasure hunt containing clues to her past. Clues that reveal her life as one of the first female pilots at Pearl Harbor, and a devastating World War Two secret.

1941, Pearl Harbor: On the morning of December 7th, Ginny is flying her little yellow plane above the sparkling seas when she spots an unknown aircraft closing in on her. She recognises the red symbol of the Japanese fighter planes almost too late. Somehow, she manages to land unscathed but the choices she is forced to make in the terrible hours that follow have tragic consequences…

2019, Pearl Harbor: Heartbroken RobynHarris is reeling from the death of the strong, determined grandmother who raised her. Her only comfort is a letter written in Ginny’s distinctive hand which details a treasure hunt, just like the ones she used to set for her as a little girl. Except this time, the clues are scattered across the beautiful island of Hawaii. Despite her grief, Robyn finds herself intrigued as she follows the trail of letters, revealing the truth about Ginny’s service during the Second World War.

But Robyn’s whole world is turned upside down when she’s faced with a shocking secret which has the power to change the course of her own life…

Inspired by true events, this is a heartbreaking and unforgettable WW2 novel about love, loss and bravery. Perfect for fans of The Alice Network,The Nightingale and Kathryn Hughes.

Readers love Anna Stuart:

‘I absolutely LOVE this book… it had my heart breaking and tears constantly streaming down my face!… I can’t give this enough praise, I genuinely loved it so much… A beautiful love story… an emotional rollercoaster… such a tearjerker… you NEED to read this!’ Curled Up With a Good Book, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Oh my heart… I love this book… a real tearjerker… so heart-warming. If you need a little warm hug of a read then this is just perfect.’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Oh wow… I absolutely loved it… once I started it I didn’t want to put it down. I have recommended it to all my friends.’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘It broke my heart and put it back together several times… loved the book from the first page to the last.’ Portobello Book Blog,⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘I fell hook, line and sinker for this story… Heart-warming… not just a book you read, it’s a book you feel every moment of and is a true treasure…

Release date: November 5, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Ginny laughed out loud as a smiling sailor spun her across the crowded dance floor, sending her silky red skirts swirling around her legs. With four of the biggest destroyers back in Pearl Harbor this afternoon, Honolulu was packed with men in crisp white uniforms, eager to dance, and Ginny hadn’t sat down all night. Her feet were aching but she didn’t care. It was the first Saturday in December, the Christmas decorations were up in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and, despite the many soldiers and sailors all around, it was almost impossible to believe there was a war going on somewhere over the balmy Hawaiian horizon.

The song ended and Ginny thanked her dancing partner, relieved when her friend Lilinoe grabbed her hand and pulled her off the floor.

‘I have to get a drink, Ginny,’ the petite Hawaiian girl gasped. ‘I’m parched.’

‘Me too,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s find Jack.’

Her older brother was sitting with their friends at a table out on the Ocean Lawn, and as the girls headed gladly into the relative cool of the night, Ginny paused to take in the golden sands of Waikiki and the great stretch of the Pacific beyond, sparkling in the moonlight. Even in December the Hawaiian air was soft and warm. As the palm trees waved gently over the myriad fairy lights illuminating the terrace, she put a hand to her heart, unable to quite believe she was truly here.

‘You all right, sis?’

Ginny turned her attention back into the buzzing bar and her brother. He was sitting with his girl, Penny, pulled tight up against him, tenderly stroking her blonde hair. That boy was so in love! Ginny wasn’t convinced about the whole happy-ever-after thing herself, but it certainly seemed to be working for Jack.

‘I’m very well, thank you. Just drinking in the beauty of the island.’

Jack smiled and stood up to join her at the edge of the lawn, pulling her in for a quick hug. Ginny was tall but Jack even more so and she fitted easily under his arm, their hair a matching shade of chestnut as he dipped his head to touch hers.

‘I’m so glad we came out here, Gin.’

She threw her arms round him, hugging him tight.

‘Me too, Jack, me too. It’s so pretty, so peaceful.’ At that moment, a roar of raucous laughter rang out from the group at the next table and Ginny lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘OK, not that peaceful!’

She stepped back to the table to pick up her Mai Tai and took a deep drink. It was zingy with the pineapples that grew on the slopes just above Honolulu and was the freshest thing she’d ever tasted. You didn’t get this back in Tennessee, and Ginny intended to make the very most of all that Oahu had to offer this festive season. She looked to the model Santa on the beach, driving his wooden sleigh up into the stars above the Pacific, and, hooking her arm through her brother’s, raised her glass to her friends.

‘Happy Christmas!’

‘Happy Christmas,’ they chorused, but then, somewhere inside the hotel, midnight chimed out. Lilinoe groaned.

‘It’s late, Ginny. We should really head home. We’re flying tomorrow, remember?’

Ginny did remember. She’d been teaching flying lessons at the John Rodgers airfield for five happy months, and bookings had never been so tight as more and more people scrambled to learn to fly. She was taking her friend Will up at dawn for his last lesson before his pilot’s test – but dawn was still ages away.

‘Just a couple more dances, doll,’ she pleaded. ‘The weather’s set fair and they’ll be easy flights.’

Lilinoe smiled. ‘Just a couple more dances then.’

Ginny beamed, grabbed her friend’s hand, and made a dive for the ballroom where the great and the good of the Pearl Harbor command were happily dancing the night away. She did not look back to the ocean. She did not see the moonlight shining a silver path across the water, or the waves plashing on the soft shore. And she most certainly did not see six Japanese aircraft carriers sliding into position behind a set of rocky islands four hundred miles away and readying their planes for first light on 7 December 1941.

Sunday 17 February 2019

Robyn Harris stared up at the big old house, tears tangling in her throat in much the same way that the ivy tangled in the brickwork before her. Ridiculous, she told herself crossly. She was twenty-four years old, this was her happy childhood home, and inside was her beloved Granny Ginny, so there was nothing to fear. But she still found herself lingering at the bottom of the drive, shivering as the February chill crept into her bones. She’d forgotten how bleak it could be in England. Two years of Hawaiian sun had spoiled her and she tugged her woefully inadequate denim jacket tighter across her chest. Get a move on, she urged herself, but the thought of her poor grandmother lying in bed, pale and helpless, was too much to bear.

Suddenly the front door flew open, scraping across the tiled porch and making her feel instantly like a teenager again. With Granny Ginny’s razor-sharp hearing, the noise of that door had been a nightmare if you’d wanted to sneak in late.

‘Are you going to stand there like an idiot all day, or what?’

Her older sister, Ashleigh, swung out into the porch in her wheelchair and glared at her. Robyn sighed.

‘Nice to see you too, sis,’ she said, uprooting her feet and moving towards the door.

Ashleigh tossed her chestnut hair.

‘Well, it’s not exactly “nice”, is it? None of this is nice, as you’d know if you’d got here sooner. Poor Granny has been lying in her bed waiting for you.’

Robyn gulped. She’d forgotten how direct her big sister could be. ‘I’m sorry, Ash. It wasn’t easy getting flights.’

‘Or tearing yourself away from all those beaches and cocktail bars?’

‘Hardly! I’ve been in Honolulu for two years. I can’t even remember the last time I actually went onto the sand at Waikiki.’

‘Boo hoo for you.’

Robyn bit her lip and prayed for patience. She’d missed her sister but looking down at her, bristling with bitterness, she had to admit that she mainly missed the Ashleigh she’d grown up with rather than the spiky woman she’d become. Not that she blamed her. The horrible accident that had landed her in the hated wheelchair would have been enough to make anyone spiky, and especially her hot-headed big sister.

‘Please, Ash. I’m here now, aren’t I?’

She leaned down, reaching out her arms for a hug. Ashleigh moved stiffly forward in her wheelchair, but then her arms closed around Robyn’s back with surprising fierceness.

‘At least you beat Mum and Dad back,’ she mumbled into her shoulder. ‘No surprise there.’

Robyn squeezed harder. Their parents were wonderful people, but devoted to their work as humanitarian engineers and forever off on projects to improve the lot of the poor around the world. Robyn and Ashleigh were very proud of them but throughout their lives they’d been little more than a fleeting presence, home for a month and then gone again. It had been Granny Ginny who had given them stability, a home – a childhood. And now she was dying. Robyn pulled back and sat on the bench to one side of the porch to avoid standing over Ashleigh.

‘How is she?’ Tears pooled in her sister’s hazel eyes and Robyn’s heart sank. Even in the terrible weeks after her accident, Robyn had rarely seen Ashleigh cry. Shout, yes; rage, even scream; but not cry. ‘That bad?’

‘She’s just so weak, Rob, and so grey. Fighting this is taking all her strength and I don’t think she can do it for much longer.’

Tears tangled in Robyn’s throat again. Their grandmother was only two years off her hundredth birthday so it was little wonder that she’d fallen ill, but she’d been such a robust character all her life that it was still a shock. She glanced through the front door to the wide staircase beyond.

‘I’d better go up and see her.’

‘You’d better. She’s been waiting for you – holding on, you know.’

Robyn’s stomach churned; this all felt horribly real now.

‘I really did come as soon as I could, Ash. Work’s been so busy and finding flights wasn’t easy.’

‘Robyn, you work at an airport.’

‘I know that, but it doesn’t mean I can just rejig the schedule. I design planes, Ash, not fly them.’

‘Even so, you—’ The tinkle of a bell from inside the house cut her off. ‘That’s Granny. She’s heard you, you’d better get up there.’

Robyn nodded and looked again to the stairs. She told her feet to move but they were pathetically reluctant. Granny Ginny had been such a force of nature all her life – a vibrant, go-getting American dame who never took no for an answer and loved an adventure. Robyn didn’t want to see her lying ill on her deathbed.

‘Chicken,’ Ashleigh teased.

Robyn looked at her, grateful that her sister was trying to lighten the mood.

‘Chicken,’ she admitted.

Ashleigh reached out and, to her surprise, squeezed her knee.

‘I don’t blame you, sis. It’s horrid. But there’s no point in flying halfway around the world to sit in this frigging porch with grumpy old me, so get your arse up there.’

Robyn had to laugh at the sheer Britishness of the instruction. She’d missed that living in the States and so, giving her sister a weak smile, she stood up and made her way inside, dropping her bag by the door as she’d done every day as a kid. She headed up the stairs, taking the right side, away from the stairlift, and heard the mechanism whir into life as her sister prepared to follow her. Now that she was actually on the move, her feet picked up speed of their own volition, and she scrambled upwards and flung herself into her grandmother’s beautiful, big bedroom.

‘Granny!’

‘Robyn, doll – you made it.’

Granny Ginny was, as Ashleigh had said, grey. Minus the full make-up she’d worn every day of her life and the bright, elegant wardrobe she’d always insisted on, she looked drained of colour. Her voice quavered too but the emotion was strong within it and her eyes, as they fixed on Robyn, burned with all her familiar fervour. Robyn ran to her, clasping her outstretched hand and bending to kiss her.

‘Are you OK? Oh God, stupid thing to say. Obviously you’re not OK, but…’

‘But I’m all the better for seeing you. Sit down, let me look at you properly.’ Robyn perched on the chair at the bedside, leaning in to her grandmother who smiled at her. ‘You’re glowing, doll. Hawaii suits you. But then, why wouldn’t it? Gorgeous place. I loved it there. Well, I did until…’

‘The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?’

Ginny frowned.

‘That wasn’t the only reason.’

‘Granny?’ Robyn looked at her grandmother in alarm. ‘What do you mean? Did something else happen?’

In reply, Ginny simply said, ‘I kept meaning to come and visit you out there, Rob, but it’s so far away, you know.’

‘I know,’ Robyn agreed, staring at her grandmother, sure there was more to it.

‘There are things I should have told you about my time in Hawaii,’ Ginny said. ‘Things I should have… confessed.’

‘Confessed?’ Robyn looked over to Ashleigh as her sister wheeled herself into the room. ‘Do you know about this?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Ginny said. ‘I haven’t told Ash either. Always so damned competitive, you pair.’

Her voice was as sharp as it had ever been, though again Robyn caught a tremor in it which turned her heart upside down.

‘Sorry. Oh, Granny, I’m so sorry. I came here to see you, not to argue with Ashleigh.’

Ginny rolled her eyes.

‘You’ve always been the same, you two – at each other hammer and tongs one minute, then curled up like kittens the next.’

Robyn glanced at her sister, thinking about this. It was true that, back in the day, she and Ashleigh had spent many happy hours sprawled in each other’s bedrooms, looking at magazines, watching telly, gossiping. There hadn’t been so much of that after Ashleigh’s accident, though, and then, of course, Robyn had gone to university in America and secured a job as an aeronautical engineer in Hawaii. These days, she FaceTimed Ashleigh whenever she could, but it was easier to bicker than to gossip via a screen and Ashleigh seemed to prefer bickering anyway. Not that that mattered right now. Robyn turned her eyes firmly back to her grandmother.

‘We’ll grow out of it, Granny,’ she said.

‘I doubt it, doll, but it would be good if the pair of you could at least learn to manage it. You’ll need each other, you know, when…’ Words failed her and she just gestured at the oxygen tank and drip set up either side of her oak bed. Both girls leaned in contritely as she composed herself, but then Ginny suddenly said, ‘Remember the treasure hunts?’

Robyn glanced to Ashleigh, then back to their grandmother.

‘Of course – you did the best treasure hunts in the world.’

Ginny smiled.

‘They’d take me ages to set up but they kept you pair busy for hours so it was well worth it.’

Robyn looked out of the bay window to the sprawling garden beyond. A big, classically English lawn was flanked by tangles of rhododendrons and led down to an apple orchard, complete with potting shed, treehouse and tyre swing. It had been paradise for kids and they’d spent long summers happily playing in it. If they’d ever got bored, Ginny had set out a treasure hunt – a proper one, with silly riddles taking them from secret box to secret box until they’d finally track down the last one and unlock the coveted chocolate coins.

As they’d got into their teens, the hunts had widened out across the neighbourhood, taking them all day to reach the treasure which had also been upgraded to lipsticks, mascaras and cinema vouchers. One Comic Relief, Ginny had set up a hunt for the whole town, making it so hard that it had taken a week for someone to crack it. It had made the local news and Ginny had been dubbed Queen of the Hunt for ages afterwards. She’d loved it.

‘Remember the hunt where the last box was in the river,’ Ashleigh said now.

Robyn laughed.

‘God, yes, in a special watertight box tied to the underside of one of the fishermen’s platforms. I had to dig out a snorkel to dive down and release it.’

Granny Ginny smiled.

‘I was very proud of that one.’

‘Until I got an ear infection.’

She shrugged.

‘What are antibiotics for, doll?’

Robyn laughed again and Ashleigh nudged her.

‘What about the one with the box at the top of that oak tree on the green.’

‘Cost me a bit to pay that Tommy Mills to climb up and put it there, as I recall,’ Ginny chuckled.

‘And me a broken arm to retrieve it,’ Ashleigh said drily. ‘I couldn’t cycle for weeks. And I missed the under-fifteen champs.’

Her grandmother grimaced.

‘You weren’t very happy about that. Taught you to hold on tight, though.’

‘True, and it’s not like it mattered in the long run anyway, is it?’

Ashleigh hit at the wheels of her chair and silence fell. Robyn looked up at the support equipment standing sentinel either side of the bed and bit back tears.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,’ she said.

Ginny reached out for her hand, clasping it with surprising strength.

‘I’m sorry I won’t be able to hang on longer, Robyn, but I’ve had a full life, you know.’

‘A good life, Granny.’

‘Mainly. Not always.’

‘A few reckless treasure hunts are hardly going to keep you out of heaven!’

But at that the old lady shook her head, her expression serious. ‘It’s more than that. When I was younger I was an arrogant, foolish idiot. In the war…’

‘Granny, the war’s a long time ago. You—’

‘Please, Rob, let me finish. You know that I flew?’

‘Of course.’

It was a point of pride for both girls that their beloved grandmother had been one of America’s first female pilots, helping ferry planes around the country in the Second World War to release their male counterparts for combat. She’d even come to Britain for a while to fly Spitfires with the ATA, leading to her eventually moving across the Atlantic for good.

‘You were a brilliant pilot,’ Robyn said to her now.

‘I was. Too brilliant sometimes – or, at least, too dazzled by my own brilliance.’

‘What do you mean?’

Robyn’s stomach turned again. It was hard enough seeing her ever-active grandmother stuck in bed, but hearing her talk of herself like this was worse. She’d always had an all-American belief in her own abilities and had brought both girls up the same way. It was in part down to her fiery competitiveness and optimism that Ashleigh had gained her cycling scholarship to Indiana and Robyn a hurdling one to the University of Michigan. She’d taught her granddaughters to dream big, reach for the stars, want the world – all the clichés!

And OK, it hadn’t exactly worked out for either of them as they’d imagined, but it had still driven them on. Even when Ashleigh had been lying in hospital after her accident, Ginny had refused to let her give up. ‘You’re good with wheels,’ she’d said to her, over and over. Others had thought it harsh, cruel even, but her granddaughters had understood – Harris girls didn’t give up. So what was Granny Ginny saying now?

The old lady had closed her eyes and for a dreadful moment, looking at her gaunt face on the pillow, Robyn thought she’d gone, but then they flew open again and she fixed them both with a familiar determined stare.

‘I’ve done you a treasure hunt.’

‘What?!’

It was the last thing Robyn expected her to say. She glanced to the window, confused, and Ginny chuckled.

‘Oh, not here, doll. You know every nook and cranny here.’

Robyn looked to Ashleigh, who wheeled herself as close to the bed as she could get.

‘Then where?’

Ginny smiled.

‘Hawaii.’

‘What?!’ they chorused.

‘How?’ Robyn added.

Ginny gave her a slow wink.

‘I have my ways and means. And if I can lay out the hunt from this pathetic old sickbed, then you two can definitely complete it.’

‘Us two?’ Ashleigh asked. ‘You want me to go to Hawaii?’

‘I do.’

‘In this?!’ She rapped her hands on the arms of her chair.

‘Yes, Ash, in that, unless you’ve grown wings?’

‘Granny!’

‘Well, really. People do it, Ash. People fly without legs.’

Ashleigh winced and Robyn felt her pain. Her sister had stubbornly resisted all attempts to offer her the sort of amazing aids that could help her get back to something approaching normal life, but this was brutal, even for their frank grandmother. She felt a rush of guilt and a familiar urge to do more for her sister, but surely taking her to Hawaii was a huge leap? She pictured her flat in downtown Honolulu – it was barely big enough to fit basic furniture with room to squeeze between on foot, let alone manoeuvre a wheelchair. And it was five floors up in a block with a lift that could best be described as dodgy. She took her grandmother’s hand again.

‘How about you just talk to us now, Granny? Whatever it is, it can’t have been that bad and we’d far rather hear it from you, wouldn’t we, Ash?’

Ashleigh nodded eagerly; clearly she was no keener on coming to stay with Robyn than Robyn was on having her. Ginny, however, shook her head.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘You wouldn’t understand, not unless you see it all for yourselves.’ Her eyes misted and she smiled softly. ‘It’s been fun, these last weeks, working out how to set it all up. It’s taken me back down memory lane and, let me tell you, it’s been a helluva ride. The things we got up to back then, when Pearl Harbor was at the centre of the Pacific world and we were at the centre of Pearl Harbor.’

‘We…?’ Robyn asked.

‘Me, my brother Jack, Penny, Eddie, Dagne, Joe, Lilinoe…’ The names reeled off her tongue, faster and faster, and then died in a sudden fit of coughing that almost jack-knifed her wasted body. Robyn leaped back in alarm but Ashleigh was there straight away, grabbing the oxygen mask and placing it firmly over Ginny’s mouth. The machine gave a little pop and hissed out air, soothing the rattle in her lungs, and slowly her coughing subsided.

Ginny lay back on the pillows, greyer than ever, and Robyn fumbled for Ashleigh’s hand, finding it as shaky as her own. The tears that had been stuck in her throat from the moment she’d stepped onto the drive of her childhood home fell from her eyes.

‘This is it, isn’t it?’ she whispered to her sister.

Ashleigh’s fingers stroked her own.

‘Not yet,’ she whispered back. ‘Not today. But yes, soon.’

‘Very soon,’ Ginny’s voice rasped through the mask, making them both jump as it had always done when she’d somehow overheard them as kids. Her eyes opened, though the effort was clear. ‘I don’t want you to remember me like this, girls. I want you to remember me as the Queen of the Hunt. And I want you to know me as I was at your age – young and free and desperate to live life to the full, as you should be. Just don’t make the mistakes I made.’

‘Granny…’ Robyn could feel her heart physically cracking apart. ‘Granny, we love you, nothing will change that.’

Ginny gave a small nod of her head.

‘Thank you. But if you love me, do this for me. Please. Go to Hawaii together. Drink Mai Tais in my memory. And do my last, foolish treasure hunt. Will you, girls? Will you do that for me?’

There was only one thing they could say. This glorious, buoyant livewire of a woman had been their rock and inspiration all their lives. She’d given so much to them and asked so little.

‘We’ll drink Mai Tais to you,’ Ashleigh said.

‘And we’ll do the hunt,’ Robyn added.

‘All the way to the end?’ Ginny pushed, her voice fading as she slipped into sleep. Robyn watched her, tears flowing.

‘All the way to the end,’ she promised.

Sunday 3 March

The first thing Robyn saw when she finally let herself back into her Honolulu flat two weeks later was the letter on the mat, addressed in her grandmother’s distinctive sloping hand. She’d meant it then; the treasure hunt was really happening. It was probably a good job after all the effort of getting Ashleigh to Hawaii, but even so her heart squeezed at the sight of the letter.

She already felt weakened from so many tears, so many memories shared, so much love poured out from family and friends as they’d said goodbye to their amazing grandmother. The funeral had only been two days ago, and she was raw with the sorrow of it and exhausted from the subsequent travel to a home that now felt so far away. A double-leg flight from London to LA and then on to Honolulu would have taken it out of anyone, but doing it with a wheelchair and an occupant who hated having any attention drawn to her had been testing to say the least.

A particular highlight had been Ashleigh telling the poor air hostess loudly that if the plane were to go down, she should leave her to go down with it.

‘At least that accident would finish me off,’ she’d said when a red-faced Robyn had shushed her. ‘And at least it wouldn’t be my fault.’

‘The other one wasn’t your fault either, Ash.’

Ashleigh had given a bitter laugh.

‘Of course it was. I cycled into the blasted car, didn’t I?’

‘In driving rain and hideous fog. Your coach should never have taken you out. If it was anyone’s fault, it was his.’

Ashleigh had shrugged.

‘It was the British trials the next day. We had to get the miles in.’

There had been little more to say, and the two girls had sat in near silence half the way across the Atlantic. The day of the accident, Ashleigh had been just three months off heading to Marian University in Indiana on a cycling scholarship, and almost certainly about to make selection for the British team. In foul conditions, she’d smashed into the back of a stationary car, injuring her legs so badly that they’d never work again. It had been a dark, dark time for everyone, and only Ginny’s indomitable cheer and determination had got them through. Now she was gone and Robyn wasn’t sure she had the strength to replace her, though at least she was finally home.

‘This it?’ Ashleigh bashed her way into the flat, wheels scraping against the narrow walls of the corridor. ‘It’s not exactly a penthouse!’

‘I never said it was.’

‘I thought aeronautical engineers were well paid?’

‘I’ve been saving for my own place – it seemed silly to throw money away on rent when I’m not even here much.’

‘Because of your rampant social life?’

‘Because I’m usually either at work or at training or, yes, out with friends.’

‘Training?’ Ashleigh’s eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you jacked in your hurdling scholarship.’

‘I did,’ Robyn said through gritted teeth, ‘but that doesn’t mean I don’t still like hurdling. I train two or three times a week with a great group.’

‘Do you compete?’

‘Yes.’

‘But not at the top level?’

‘No, Ash, because—’

‘Because you couldn’t hack it.’

Robyn dug her nails into her palms. Receiving the scholarship to the University of Michigan, also renowned for the aeronautical engineering that so fascinated her, had been one of the best moments of her life and she’d flown off across the Atlantic with high hopes. At first things had gone well, but over time it had become clear to Robyn that, although she was good, she wasn’t excellent, and as the stress had started impacting on her degree, she’d made the decision to prioritise her studies.

‘Because I wasn’t quite good enough to make either the US or British team, and I didn’t want to give all my time up to a lost cause when I had a degree to earn,’ she explained.

For her it had been simple pragmatism; for Ashleigh it had been cowardice, weakness, even cruelty to turn her back on her talent. No wonder they’d struggled to get on since. Now, Ashleigh snorted and turned her attention to shoving Robyn’s dining table aside to allow herself the space to get into the main room.

‘We can put that table away while you’re here,’ Robyn suggested with forced patience. ‘And, look, you can have my bedroom. It’s bigger. I’ll go in the spare.’

‘Spare’ was pushing it as a description. ‘Broom cupboard’ was closer, and Robyn wasn’t even sure she’d fit her long legs on the camp bed, but she’d figure it out somehow. It wouldn’t be for long. Ashleigh’s return flight was booked for two weeks’ time, so they just had to crack on with this crazy treasure hunt and it would all be fine. She held the letter up to show her sister but Ashleigh had made it over to the window and was staring out, rapt.

‘Nice view, hey?’ Robyn said proudly, going to stand next to her and look between the roofs of the city to the golden strip of Waikiki Beach in the distance and the glittering bay beyond.

‘Not bad, I guess. Do you know where Granny Ginny lived when she was h. . .