The Rose Arbor

Set in 1968 London and the English countryside, the novel interweaves the search for a kidnapped child, the fates of three girls who vanished during World War II, and a journalist's discovery that her own origins are bound up with a ruined village and a buried body.

A 1943 prologue establishes the backdrop. The residents of Tydeham, a small coastal village in Dorset, are told the British military is requisitioning their homes for D-Day invasion drills. They have two weeks to leave. Mr Bennington, who owns the manor house, Tydeham Grange, and the surrounding land, confirms there is nothing to be done. His wife, Amelia, already fragile after their older son's death as a Royal Air Force pilot, is devastated. Their six-year-old son, James, promises to look after her. The army conceals that live ammunition will destroy the village.

Twenty-five years later, Liz Houghton is a 27-year-old reporter at the Daily Express, stuck writing obituaries after a political scandal she uncovered was suppressed. She shares a Fulham flat with her best friend, Marisa Young, a detective constable with the Metropolitan Police. Marisa and DI Jones, a gruff older detective, are following a tip about Little Lucy Fareham, a girl who vanished from a private London garden. Jones carries his own burden: During the war, he investigated three girls who disappeared during evacuation from London. One, Valerie Hammond, was found murdered. A man with an intellectual disability was arrested but released when two more girls, Rosie Binks and Gloria Kane, vanished in subsequent years. Neither case was solved.

Liz secretly follows Marisa to Dorset, hoping for a scoop. A vehicle linked to Lucy's case is spotted heading toward a restricted, deserted village, and the group travels to Tydeham. Inside the ruins, Liz is seized by recognition. She identifies the pub as "the Big Boat," and they discover the faded sign of the Golden Hinde depicting a ship in full sail, exactly what a toddler who could not read would call it. Her father, Brigadier Houghton, denies on the phone that the family ever visited Tydeham.

After Marisa and Jones return to London, Liz stays on. At the ruined Grange, she encounters James Bennington, Mr Bennington's son, now a London architect salvaging items for his father. Walking the grounds, Liz is gripped by dread at the rose garden and tells James someone is buried behind the arbor. The local police agree to dig, and they uncover a skeleton: an adult woman's, with traces of long blonde hair.

Back in London, Liz pursues multiple threads. Her birth certificate reveals she was born not in Shropshire, as she always believed, but in Somerset, much closer to Tydeham. She tracks down Rosie Binks's mother, Mrs Ada Binks, a grieving woman who treasures her daughter's memory, including Rosie's habit of mishearing a Vera Lynn lyric as "bluebird sofa." Liz visits Gloria Kane's mother, who shows no emotion and lives in a house with a concreted-over backyard. Liz suspects Gloria was killed by her mother's boyfriend and never put on the evacuation train.

Liz also investigates Lucy's background. She learns that Lucy is not her father Anthony Fareham's biological child; Susan Fareham was supposedly a young widow when she married him. Liz discovers that Susan lived in a hippie squat in Notting Hill under the name "Sky," close to a woman called "Lark." Her parents sent Susan's old school friend Molly Jacobs to retrieve her, but Susan refused to leave. Lucy's au pair reveals the child had an imaginary "fairy" friend in the garden, and police learn a pram was stolen nearby before the kidnapping.

Over several weekends, Liz and James grow closer. They drive the wartime train route, and at Ashdown Halt, a local woman says Rosie's stuffed dog was found near the station, but no body was ever discovered. The local volunteer who organized evacuee placements moved to Devon around that time and never returned. Liz also visits the Somerset house where she was born and recognizes its staircase, confirming this house, not the Grange, is the source of her childhood memory. Hippies who knew Susan remember that one of the women in the group was pregnant. Liz theorizes that Susan took Lark's baby and passed the child off as her own.

In Devon, Liz finds Rosie Binks alive, now living as Jenny Worth, a textile designer. At a craft fair, Liz says "bluebird sofa" to a vendor, and the woman's shocked reaction confirms her identity. Jenny explains that at Ashdown Halt, she ran into a field, was chased by a bull, and when she returned, everyone had gone. A woman picked her up, told her that her parents had died in the Blitz, and raised her as her own child. Liz tells Jenny her parents are still alive.

Under questioning, Susan Fareham confirms she took Lark's baby because Lark had a drug addiction and could not care for the child. She provides a photograph of Lark, a woman with dark curls. Liz suspects Lark survived and was Lucy's "fairy" friend, grooming the child before abducting her. Liz and Marisa trace the hiding place to an abandoned factory near Susan's old squat. They hear a child singing from an upper floor, and Marisa calls the police. On the roof, Lark tries to convince Lucy they will fly to a magic castle. Lucy resists, and an officer pulls her to safety. Lark leaps to her death. Lucy is reunited with her mother.

Liz then unravels the mystery of her own past. In her father's ancestral village in Kent, she learns the family took a young maid named Alice Thatcher with them when they moved. Liz's mother, in her dementia, keeps calling Liz "Alice." Liz discovers that Alice was the orphaned niece of Bert Thatcher, a former Tydeham villager, a pretty blonde girl who vanished after the war.

Liz phones her father and asks whether she is Alice's daughter. He denies it. The next morning, he calls to say her mother has died from an overdose of sleeping pills. The brigadier admits he gave his wife the fatal dose because she was determined to confess to the police. He then reveals the full story: Alice became pregnant by a young man sent overseas, and the childless Houghtons registered the baby as their own, keeping Alice on as nursemaid. As Liz grew, she preferred Alice, and one night told her adoptive mother to go away. Jealous and hurt, her mother fired Alice. Alice took Liz and fled to Tydeham, hoping to find her uncle, but the village was empty. Liz's mother followed and confronted Alice in the rose garden. During the struggle, she shoved Alice, who struck her head on the marble bench and died. The Houghtons buried the body and moved to Shropshire. Liz's mother spent the rest of her life consumed by guilt.

Among her mother's belongings, Liz discovers hidden letters from Edmond Harrington, a former love who had written repeatedly from Australia; her mother intercepted every one. In the aftermath, Liz is reinstated in the newsroom for her role in finding Lucy. Jenny Worth travels to London and is reunited with her parents. James submits a request to reclaim the Grange and begins plans to rebuild. In a final scene, Liz stands in the winter-bare rose garden, now stripped of its dread. She sees the marble bench whose sharp corner killed Alice. James finds her, puts his arm around her, and they walk back toward the house together.