I turned the picture over and saw handwriting on the back.
“ ‘Ten June 1912,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘Mother and Father, on their wedding day.’ ” I examined the photo again. “ ‘Father’ must be Aubrey Pym, Senior—my friends’ banished brother. He left England around 1910, so the date works.”
“Looks like he married money,” Cameron said, eyeing the photograph shrewdly.
“He had a way with women,” I acknowledged. “It’s one of the reasons his father banished him.”
“I’d say he landed on his feet.” Cameron picked up a very old black-and-white photograph. In it, the mustachioed man stood in the arched entryway of a large church, holding a chubby-cheeked, lace-bedecked baby in his arms. Cameron flipped the picture over and read aloud, “ ‘Twenty-seven April 1913, Aubrey and A. J. at ChristChurch Cathedral, Christchurch. Baptism.’ ”
“Baptism?” I echoed puzzledly. “Where’s A. J.’s mother? No mother would miss her child’s baptism.”
Cameron pointed to a black armband on the sleeve of Aubrey, Sr.’s well-tailored overcoat. “Died in childbirth?”
I took the photograph from him and studied it closely. Aubrey, Sr.’s face was gaunter than it had been in the wedding portrait, and the laughter had left his eyes.
“I think you’re right,” I said slowly. “Poor A. J. I don’t know if Bill mentioned it to you, Cameron, but Aubrey, Senior, was killed in 1915, at Gallipoli. If his wife died in childbirth, it means that A. J. lost both of his parents before he was three years old.”
“Poor little guy,” Cameron murmured.
“I wonder what happened to him after his parents were gone?” I said. “How did he go from the doors of ChristChurch Cathedral to a rundown dump in Takapuna?”
“Will answering those questions help us to find Bree? ” Cameron asked.
“It might help us to understand her, once we find her,” I replied. “And I’d like to be able to tell Ruth and Louise something about their family, even if we don’t find Bree.”
We looked at the rest of the photographs. A black-and-white snapshot of a young man in a World War II uniform revealed that A. J., like his father, had served in the armed forces. Unlike his father, however, A. J. had been fortunate enough to return from the battlefield. A second wedding portrait told us that he’d married late in life, and that his wedding had been a much more humble affair than his father’s. The bride wore a plain white blazer and skirt, the groom, a dark suit, and they stood before the blank background of an inexpensive photography studio.
A. J.’s son, Edmund, showed up only once, in a family photo taken on the shores of a steaming lake. In it, Ed, his wife, and their little girl seemed to radiate happiness.
“ ‘Twenty-seven February 1985, Ed, Amanda, and Bree in Roto—,’ ” I stopped reading and looked to Cameron for help.
“Rotorua,” he said. “It’s a holiday spot south of here. Bubbling mud pools, geysers, hot springs. It’s a fascinating place if you don’t mind the smell of sulfur.”
I would have asked him how a place that reeked of sulfur had become a vacation destination if he hadn’t distracted me by pointing to the last photograph on the mantel shelf.
“Bree again,” he said softly.
The last photo—and the only one in color—showed a young teenager standing alone on a beach, with nothing but the sea and sky behind her. Although she was petite, she appeared to be sturdily built. Her heart-shaped face was framed by wind-whipped curtains of lustrous, dark brown hair, and she’d inherited her great-grandfather’s beautiful dark eyes. The pretty floral-print summer dress she wore seemed to be at odds with her expression, which was oppressively somber. I found it difficult to connect the grim girl on the beach with the sparkling toddler on the shores of the steaming lake.
“I wonder what happened? ” I said again. “Did Ed’s drinking drive his wife away? Or did their divorce drive him to drink? ”
“Either way, Bree paid the price,” said Cameron. “Look at the poor girl’s face.” He set the photograph down gently. “Let’s find her room.”
The Pyms’ apartment contained two small bedrooms and one large one. One of the small rooms, presumably A. J.’s, was suffused by the musty, medicinal stink of a badly run nursing home. The other, almost certainly Edmund’s, was strewn with stubbies and soiled clothes.
The large bedroom had been Bree’s.