the store closed. That was what I was doing when I spotted you. She didn’t come out the staff entrance.”
“Then she must still be here. She must work in some other part of the store,” Polly said, even though Marjorie’d said she was certain about her working in Notions. On third. “Or she may have been sent to another floor to fill in.”
“Even if she was, she’d have left by now.” He looked up at the ceiling. “We’ve got to get out of here. Listen to those planes. They’ll be here any minute—”
“Not till we’ve searched the other floors.”
“We don’t have time—”
“We will if we split up. You go back down to first and work your way up, and I’ll—”
“Absolutely not. It took me almost a month to find you. We’re not getting separated again. Come on.” He grabbed her arm and hurried her across the floor. “We’ll take the elevator.”
“You mean the lift?” Polly said. “But—”
“Don’t worry, I know how to run it. That’s how I got up here.” He pushed her into the open lift.
“But they aren’t supposed to be used during raids.”
“The raid hasn’t started yet.” He pulled the metal grille across and reached for the lever. “Which floor?”
She looked up at the numbers above the door. “The top one. Seven. We’ll work our way down.”
“Along with the bombs,” he said, yanking the lever across. The car began to ascend. “Seven’s nothing but offices. We’ll start with six.”
She nodded, watching the arrow creep past four to five and then six. “Do you remember what was on six?”
“Sixth floor. China, kitchenwares, home furnishings,” he chanted in a lift boy’s singsong. “Here we are, madam.” The lift jolted to a stop. “Sorry.” He slid the gate back and reached to open the door.
“Careful,” Polly whispered. “If the guard’s out there—”
“He’s not. He’s down on the ground floor looking for me.” He opened the door onto a roar of planes. “Or if he has any survival instincts, he’s in a shelter. It doesn’t look like she’s—”
“You take that side and I’ll take the other,” Polly said and ran through the darkened departments, past the place settings and sofas, shouting Merope’s name over the rumble of the planes, but she wasn’t there.
Or on fifth. “She’s not here,” Mike said, hobbling over to her, “and we’ve got to go. The planes—”
“Fourth,” Polly said grimly.
They got back in the lift. “If there’s no one here either,” he said, opening the door, “we’re going to have to—”
“She’s here,” Polly said. “Look. The lights are still on.” But the light was coming from the searchlights and an orange glow from a fire somewhere. Between them, they lit the entire floor and it was obviously deserted.
“She’s not here either,” Michael said.
“We still must check,” she said stubbornly and started out of the lift.
He grabbed her arm. “There’s no time. You’ve got to face it, she’s not here. Even if she does work here, we must have missed her somehow. Maybe she took one of the other elevators down while we were coming up. There’s nobody here. The store’s completely empty.”
“No, it’s not. There were casualties. Three people were killed—”
“Yes, and two of them will be us if we don’t get out of here right now.”
He was right. The planes were nearly overhead. And Merope obviously wasn’t here. Marjorie must have got the name of the store muddled—
Marjorie, whom nobody had known was on Jermyn Street. What if Merope had stayed late to tidy her shelves? Or had come back for something she’d forgotten? There’d been three casualties—
Polly wrenched violently free of Michael and ran out across the floor. “Merope!” she shouted above the drone of the planes. There was a loud crump, and the tall windows lit up. She flinched. “Eileen!”
“Polly!” Mike shouted, hobbling after her. “Get away from the windows!”
She ignored him, running on toward what had to be the children’s wear department. There was a tiny mannequin in a frilly dress. “Eileen!” she called, running past it toward a row of infants’ cots.
“We’ve got to go!” Mike shouted. “She’s not here—” There was another explosion, closer, and Mike’s voice cut off.
Polly wheeled, but he wasn’t hurt: He was standing there, staring back toward Children’s Wear as if he’d heard something. “What is it?” Polly asked.
And Merope was running toward them from the door of a storeroom, her face radiant with smiles. She threw herself into Polly’s arms. “Polly, oh, my goodness, I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life!” She ran