Chapter 6

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

Feeling a good deal better, Mirabelle caught the Tube back across town. Perhaps things weren’t hopeless after all. Bradley’s request was odd but there was nothing threatening about it. If he hadn’t mentioned Jack, she wouldn’t have become so exercised. Really, it was time she moved on.

A little boy wearing shorts positioned himself on the seat opposite and perched on his heels, smudging the glass with his hot little hand until his mother became agitated and pulled him down into a sitting position. Mirabelle noticed the boy was strapped into a leather harness. Well, really, she thought. Even Panther can heel.

‘Don’t be a nuisance, Frankie.’ The woman smiled apologetically and looked away.

Five minutes later Mirabelle disembarked at Embankment. Rain was dripping from the trees as she cut past Somerset House onto the Strand; the snow had all but disappeared. A thin fog wound across the pavement. Canopies weighed down by pools of rainwater sagged ominously over the shop doorways. A man in a shabby demob suit was smoking on the corner, in conversation with a woman whose winter coat was heavily patched. Mirabelle avoided their eyes. Outside a tobacconist’s shop a life-size model of a Red Indian was chained to the railings.

Aware that her footsteps were echoing in her ears, Mirabelle turned along Kingsway and made for the Air Ministry. Matron Gard had been willing to help, but the sheer volume of paper in the British Red Cross archive meant that tracking Philip Caine that way would take both luck and time, if he appeared in the records at all. This should be a more direct route: the RAF certainly ought to know what happened to one of their captured pilots.

The building loomed towards her, and through the fog she could just make out a jagged straggle of icicles that had frozen where the gutter overflowed. Periodically a thick drip of water plummeted four storeys to land on the pavement with a dull splash. Mirabelle pushed the brass handle of the glazed inner door. At the reception desk an attractive secretary with glossy dark hair held sway – another girl too young to have taken part in the war. Mirabelle wondered momentarily what had happened to the army of secretaries and Morse Code operators that peopled London’s offices until 1945. Surely all of them couldn’t have married and become housewives? Was she the only woman over thirty who was still single and in gainful employment? She and Matron Gard. Behind the desk, the girl’s long legs crossed one way and then another as she studied an appointment diary. Mirabelle coughed.

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for an RAF officer who went missing in France in 1942. Flight Lieutenant Philip Caine. He was an escapee.’

‘Escapee?’ The girl sounded perturbed, or perhaps confused.

‘Yes. From a German prisoner of war camp.’

‘Oh, I see.’ The girl nodded primly, her eyes drawn back to the diary. ‘We don’t really deal with that kind of thing. I’ve never had an enquiry like that before.’

‘I wondered if someone might remember him. Or if you might hold any records?’ Mirabelle persevered. ‘Would it be possible to find out who his commanding officer was?’

The girl’s lips pursed. Her leg shifted as if she was terribly uncomfortable and this wasn’t her concern. ‘I don’t know. Lots of men never came home. It’s an awfully long time ago, madam.’

Mirabelle felt a sting of anger. People wanted to forget the war; that was only natural. But there was a difference between putting the unpleasantness to the back of your mind and abandoning all duty to the memory of those who fought.

‘Is there someone else who might be able to help?’ she said crisply. ‘The war has been over for some years, granted, but there must still be serving officers who knew the man I’m looking for. He was a pilot.’

The girl glanced over her shoulder. Mirabelle could hear typewriters in full flow and the low hum of conversation. The girl’s lips parted. She knew she had to offer some kind of help but it was plain that she wasn’t going to do so willingly.

‘I think you might do best to contact the chap’s regiment directly. Which squadron was your fellow in? I can put you in contact with them, wherever they’re stationed. Though it has to be said, several wartime squadrons have disbanded now. They’re not needed any more, you see.’

Mirabelle ignored the implication. ‘Caine was a flier. A bomber. If you could help me find out his squadron, that would be marvellous. He was shot down over France in 1942.’

The girl’s eyes warmed as she took this in. ‘Hang on,’ she said, figuring it out. ‘You’re searching for this fellow and you don’t even know his unit? Aren’t you a relation?’ She sat back in her chair, flicking her pencil between long pale fingers. ‘If you aren’t related to him I can’t give you any information. That’s absolutely not on.’ A cold flash of cruelty pulsed across her gaze. She looked as if she was enjoying this. ‘You could be anyone. You could be a journalist.’ The girl raised her voice as she made the assertion. ‘You can’t just walk in here and demand an officer’s personal details.’

‘But …’

Mirabelle wasn’t sure what she ought to point out first. What if Flight Lieutenant Caine had no family living? And didn’t his escape partner count for anything? She was here, after all, at the request of a bona fide British hero. Suddenly, with a pang, she remembered what it had felt like when Jack had died. The loss turned in her stomach and she felt deflated. She had no real right there, either. If she tried to find out personal details about Jack at the Special Operations Executive, they’d kick her out. Of course they would. SOE made no allowances for women like her. Lovers. Mistresses. Friends. It was only blood that counted, and legal ties. A bit of paper was more important than love.

‘You’ll have to leave, madam,’ the girl said firmly. She licked a finger and turned over a page, directing her attention back to the appointment diary, though a flicker of her long lashes betrayed the fact that she was watching to see if Mirabelle complied.

Mirabelle reeled. Her cheeks were burning and the sense of outrage was building like steam in a kettle. ‘Well, really,’ she spluttered. If someone had walked into her office during the war and enquired about a member of staff, yes, she’d have given them short shrift, but there was no reason to be rude.

The girl looked up slowly. ‘I can’t help you,’ she said flatly, staring towards the door.

Humiliated, Mirabelle turned on her heel and marched into the freezing street with the words still stinging.

Outside, the cold air slapped her in the face. Jack’s face appeared in her mind’s eye. Her love for Jack was a shameful thing in the eyes of the world yet they had had eight wonderful years together. It was all so desperately unfair.

Grateful for the drizzle that hid her tears, she turned off Kingsway and passed a beggar sitting in a doorway. He had only one leg.

‘Miss.’ The man put out his hand.

Mirabelle felt suddenly indescribably angry. Why was there nowhere for these men to go? Why wasn’t the damage caused by the Blitz repaired by now? No wonder she felt haunted by the war – it wouldn’t be over until things had been put to rights. She flung a coin at the man and in a flash realised that her fury was directed at Jack’s wife – a woman who had been allowed her grief. ‘He was mine,’ she whispered. The loss curled inwards and it felt raw. What on earth was she doing here digging up this old story? Humiliating herself. She didn’t owe Bulldog Bradley anything.

Without thinking she turned into the doorway of a pub. Inside, the regular afternoon drinkers shifted in the gloom as if they sensed new blood. She took a deep breath and realised she was the only woman in the place. The urge to scream or cry disappeared, and dismissing any reservations she stalked to the bar and ordered a whisky. When the single shot appeared the smoky taste revived her. She took out a handkerchief and dried her face.

‘It’s bitter outside,’ the barman said.

Mirabelle was in no mood for small talk. She downed the rest of the malt in one.

‘Thank you,’ she managed as she pushed the glass back over the bar.

Suddenly she wanted to be back in Brighton – not here in the tatty, uncaring city. She wanted to run a long hot bath and stare at the crackle-glazed tiles on her bathroom wall and sit in the window afterwards and watch the world go by. She wanted to sleep in her own bed and forget that Bulldog Bradley had left her this troublesome bequest and that she’d written a thoughtless letter to his widow. She wanted to forget all of it.