They stood in silence inside the porch of the large red-brick Council building. Leaden clouds pressed down, forcing light from the day, and the slanting rain bounced on the concrete path. Mary heard the wet swish of the passing traffic on the other side of the wall surrounding the grounds. The soil on the flowerbeds was trammelled with running water. Raindrops dripped steadily from the leaves of the laurel bushes spread out on either side of the doorway.
‘I’ve got to get away from here.’ Ellen knotted her headscarf under her chin.
Mary caught hold of her arm. ‘Wait until it bates.’
‘No, I can’t.’ Ellen pulled up the collar of her coat. ‘I’ll see you back at the house.’ She hurried away.
Mary stared after her.
‘Your sister is upset.’
‘And I’m not?’ Mary turned to Peter. The inquest had passed in a confusion of words she hadn’t been able to follow. ‘If she’s that upset why hasn’t she asked Ted to be with her, whatever she thinks he’s done? That shouldn’t matter. Or at least it shouldn’t for now. He’s a good husband. And, before the war, he was Tom’s best friend.’ She fumbled with her raincoat.
‘Perhaps you should have spoken to him?’ Peter moved to help her.
‘She wouldn’t let me. Told me to keep my nose out.’ She shrugged away from him. ‘I’m okay.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Sorry.’ She let him ease her arms into the sleeves. ‘I’ll be glad when Jean gets here. Perhaps she knows what’s been going on.’
‘Patrick?’
‘No.’ There’d been no mention of Patrick. Did she want him to come with Jean, being honest with herself? No. He’d done too much to hurt Tom when he was alive. And there was no chance he’d be civil to Peter.
She looked back into the porch at the door. ‘What was said in there … the verdict, that phrase “unlawful killing by person or persons unknown” was the same as at Frank’s inquest.’ Her voice rose. ‘That was what that other Coroner said then.’ She was distraught, angry that in death there was an unbreakable connection between her brother and the man who had almost destroyed her life, even if it was only the cold and bureaucratic words.
‘But nothing else is the same, Mary. Tom, he was a kind, decent man. Shuttleworth was ein Sadist.’ Peter gathered her in his arms. ‘He and his cronies at the camp enjoyed the power he had over us. The war did that to many men.’
She buried her face against him. ‘It’s just not fair.’
‘Things are not fair, Liebling, but, perhaps, as the Coroner said, we must wait—’
‘For what?’ she interrupted, lifting her head, her face flushed with pent up anger. ‘For the police to find out who did it? For someone to own up? We both know that won’t happen.’ She waited. He didn’t say anything. ‘In there it just brought everything back again. All those months when he followed me around, the things he did to frighten me into going back to him.’ She lowered her voice. ‘The way he got away with shooting you, trying to kill you.’
Peter put his finger under her chin. ‘Look at me Liebling. We cannot let that man ruin our lives. Er ist weg … he’s gone, he’s dead.’
His voice was firm, dismissive, but there was something about his expression. She searched his face. His gaze shifted away from hers but not before she saw the evasion in them.
She frowned, confused, letting him gently fasten the buttons on her raincoat, the silence stretching between them. Since his return she’d believed that one day they would reminisce about the Granville because, as well as the fear of being caught, there were special memories there that bonded them forever. But it hadn’t happened. This was the first time Frank’s name had been raised and she’d been the one to start talking about him. Peter spoke only of the man’s cruelty in the camp. Not that Frank had raped her.
An icy cold ran through her. Could he only deal with what Frank did to her by pretending it hadn’t happened?
Don’t be stupid, she told herself. Peter had come looking for her. He loved her. If the thought of Frank raping her disgusted him so much he wouldn’t be here now. Surely?
‘Peter?’ She stopped. This wasn’t the place. She’d pick her time, just as she would to tell him what she’d discovered about Tom. ‘Let’s get home,’ she said instead.
‘Ja.’ He looked towards the gate. Water pockmarked the puddles on the path. ‘We must run, I think.’
At the kerb they jumped back as a bus passed throwing up a wave of oil-skimmed water and then, heads bowed, they ran without looking until they were under the awning of the newsagents on the other side of the road.
‘Sorry.’ Mary collided with a young woman sheltering there.
‘S’all right,’ the woman laughed, ‘you wouldn’t think it was July, would you? S’pose we should just be glad it’s not freezing cold.’ Her voice changed to one of recognition. ‘Matron?’
Mary peered from under her headscarf.
‘Nurse Allott … Vivienne, I didn’t know you lived around here?’
‘I don’t.’ The young woman shuffled back to let them take cover. ‘I came with some friends who live up the coast – Cardigan way. They’re in the shop.’ She made a vague gesture whilst looking with curiosity at Peter. ‘Hi,’ she said.
He dipped his head. ‘Hello.’ His accent sounded thicker than usual.
With a sudden stab of anger, Mary saw the sideways shift of the young woman’s eyes and the hardening of her features. ‘This is Nurse Allott, Peter, she works on one of my wards at the hospital,’ she said, adding deliberately, ‘my…’ Boyfriend sounded ridiculous. She was twenty-eight. ‘My fiancé, Peter.’ She linked arms with him. ‘He was a doctor in the hospital at the camp where I worked before.’
By the time she was next in work it would be all over the small hospital. She didn’t care except that sooner or later it would get back to the Board of Governors. She wasn’t sure how they’d take it. She laughed, a bright artificial sound. ‘I do have a life beyond the hospital. As do you, I see.’ She could hear the stilted tone in her voice but couldn’t help it.
For a moment all was still.
‘Oh. Yes, I see.’ Vivienne Allott turned and flicked a hand towards the shop as the bell above the door jingled and a couple jostled their way out. ‘Actually, we’re here to see if we can register the death of my friend’s husband. He’s been posted “missing” since ’41.’
The silence stretched between them.
‘Anyway, must go.’ The young woman shifted from foot to foot. She lifted an impatient hand at her friends as they nudged her. ‘Er – I read about your brother in the paper, Matron. It must have been awful. Did they…?’ She stopped. ‘Have they arrested anybody yet?’
‘No.’ Mary’s lips felt stiff forming the word.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.’ Vivienne Allott moved away. She didn’t acknowledge Peter.
‘That’s all right.’ But it wasn’t. Mary fumed. Talking about Tom to someone like this, someone who purposely snubbed Peter.
They watched her move away through the crowds, her head close to one of the women. Mary saw them look back at her and Peter. She gave them a false smile, furious that she was the subject of their gossip.
Peter had a strange expression on his face. A nerve pulsed at the corner of his eye that Mary hadn’t seen before.
‘I’m sorry about that stupid girl,’ she said.
‘I think we are both sorry we met her,’ he said, tracing her face with his fingers. ‘Now…’ Ruefully he looked up towards the edge of the awning where a line of water ran along the pole and streamed in shining elongated drips onto the passers-by. ‘I am afraid we will have to get wet. We must leave here and go home.’
Home without Tom. It was something she had to get used to. ‘Yes,’ she said, turning, avoiding a newsstand by the shop window. ‘Oh Peter.’ She read the headline with dismay.
‘North Korean Troops Storm across
the 38th Parallel into South Korea.’
This conflict was one she’d tried not to think about. It was a reminder of a fear that caused her sleepless nights. What happens to us, Peter, if another war brings out all the old resentments? What if I have to lose you as well as Tom? ‘It’s impossible to believe that another war has started so soon,’ she said softly.
Peter pressed her hand to his side with his arm. ‘It is not the war of the British. Truman has sent in troops. It is America’s war.’
‘Until they involve us,’ Mary said. ‘What happens then?’
Peter lifted one shoulder. ‘We can only wait to see.’