You couldn’t get anyone to do a good day’s work these days, Ted told himself. He had had the devil of a job to find a stonemason to make the memorial stone he wanted. True, he had asked for a carved cherub on each side and twining ivy, as well as the words, but that shouldn’t have been beyond the capabilities of a good sculptor. ‘There’s a war on,’ he had been told, which was everybody’s excuse for not doing what they did not want to do. ‘It’ll take too long and we haven’t got the staff now.’ Money had talked in the end and the monument had been erected to his satisfaction. It looked a bit too large and a bit too white compared to the weather-beaten, lichen-covered stones surrounding it, but it was done now. He stood admiring it for several minutes, then turned to leave. He would go and see Josie and tell her to come and see it. He’d better take a few presents for the kids too; they seemed to expect it whenever he visited, which wasn’t very often. He had no time for kids.
He stopped suddenly and skipped behind a gravestone. That Paterson woman was standing by the Walker grave and she was not alone. Standing beside her with head bowed was a living breathing Julie Monday. He had been right all along; it was not Julie in that grave but Rosie Summers. Where the devil had Julie been all these years? She was in a WAAF uniform. A sergeant too. What a turn up for the books! There was hay to be made from this, he felt sure, though it would need some thought.
‘I remember that gnome,’ Julie said. ‘Harry bought it in Southend when we were on our honeymoon. It made me laugh. I said it was Happy, one of Snow White’s dwarves, so he bought it and carried it home on the train and put it in the garden. He said it would be a reminder of how happy we were.’
She and Grace had talked and talked over supper the previous evening, during which Julie remembered more and more detail of what she had forgotten and Grace reminded her that Harry was her husband and as far as she knew was still alive and still in the air force. It had been Grace’s idea to visit the grave. ‘It might remind you of just how much you loved him and how much you owed to him,’ she had said at breakfast that morning. Julie hadn’t slept well; there was too much swimming round in her head and questions she couldn’t answer.
‘Harry stood it outside our Anderson shelter. Why did he bring it here, do you think?’
‘He said it was to keep you smiling in heaven.’
‘Oh.’ She felt the tears well in her eyes and slowly run down her cheeks. She had loved Harry beyond everything, and he her, right from that first meeting on the beach when he had befriended a skinny little orphan from a charitable home. It was why he had chosen that same seaside resort for their honeymoon. Believing her dead, he had put the gnome on the grave and said his goodbyes. That must, in his eyes, have seemed final. He would have gone on with his life without her, might even have found someone else. Had she any right to upset him by suddenly reappearing? Should Julie Walker stay dead? Her head told her one thing, her heart another.
‘Let’s go,’ she said suddenly, and turned away. ‘I’ve got a lot of thinking to do and I must go back to Manston before I’m posted absent without leave.’
They returned to the flat in Shoreditch where Julie picked up her rucksack.
‘You will do what is right, won’t you, Julie?’ Grace queried as she said goodbye. ‘And let me know what happens. And if you ever need help, you know where to come.’
‘Yes.’ Julie smiled as she hefted the rucksack onto her back. ‘I’ve always known that.’ She kissed the old lady on the cheek. ‘Look after yourself.’
‘And you.’
‘Do what is right’ echoed in her mind as she walked down the street towards the Underground station. But what was right? Go back to being Julie Walker and cause mayhem to those whose lives had moved on, or stay Eve Seaton? But even if she did that, she couldn’t marry Alec. Should he be told the whole truth or should she simply say she had changed her mind about marrying him? She could not do either until he came home on leave; it was not something you could put in a letter to a man risking his life on the battle front. And she wanted to see Harry again.
She was so immersed in her thoughts that it was some time before she realised she was being followed. She quickened her pace, but so did her follower and he was gaining on her. She stopped and twisted round to find herself face to face with Ted Austen. He was grinning, his thin lips stretched over tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘If it isn’t my old friend Julie Monday. Or should I say Julie Walker? What do you call yourself nowadays?’
‘What do you want?’ He was the last person, the very last person, she wanted to see. He had always spelt trouble and his sudden appearance had her quaking.
‘Me? Well that depends. There’s a café just round the corner. Come and join me for a cup of tea. I might even stretch to a bun if you’re good.’
‘Why should I want to spend any time at all with you, Ted Austen, never mind join you for tea?’
‘Because I could do a deal with you to our mutual advantage. And I’m curious about you. Did you deliberately walk out on your husband? What a clever ruse it was pretending to be dead.’
‘I didn’t pretend to be dead.’
‘No? Harry thought you were. So did his family. They had a funeral for you and the nipper.’ He took her rucksack from her. ‘Come with me and I’ll tell you all about it.’
She seemed to have lost her will to resist and allowed him to guide her into the café where he pushed her into a chair and called to the waitress to bring a pot of strong tea. It was not the sort of place to use cups and saucers, nor even tablecloths. The teapot was placed on the greasy oilcloth that covered the table. Two chipped enamel mugs were put beside it, together with a jug of milk, a bowl of sugar and a plate containing two plain buns. She ignored them.
‘Now,’ he said, pouring the tea, because she made no move to do so. ‘Let’s have a little chat.’
‘There’s nothing to chat about.’
‘Oh, but there is. You disappeared for goodness knows how long and let your husband and all your friends think you were dead. You even had Rosie’s grieving parents scouring London looking for her. That’s not the action of a rational person.’
Rosie’s parents scouring London? Grace had already told her that, but she had no idea Rosie had known Ted and it gave her a nasty jolt. She must be careful not to let him see that; he’d make sure to add to her discomfort if he did. ‘It’s none of your business.’
He ignored that. ‘Am I to take it you now propose to reappear and shock everyone out of their wits? What can be the reason for that, I wonder?’
‘It’s still none of your business.’ Her tone was flat. Her mind was struggling to come to terms with the dilemma that faced her. And this horrible man wasn’t helping.
‘I can make it my business. Now let me guess what happened. You left your baby with Rosie Summers so that you could go to your lover. And when she conveniently died in your place – owing me money incidentally – you decided to take advantage of that and disappear. Now your lover has ditched you and you are looking for a new protector. Who better than your husband—?’
‘That’s absolute nonsense.’
‘Nonsense you had a lover or nonsense that you intend to go back to your husband?’
She stood up, unwilling to answer that and angry with herself for listening to him. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I’m off.’
He grabbed her arm and pulled her down again. ‘I could help you, you know. If you wanted to stay dead, that is. It might be the best all round, don’t you think? People have moved on; they don’t want to be confronted with a ghost. A little contribution and my lips are sealed. Besides, I never did get the money Rosie owed me.’
‘Blackmail.’ Her voice was as scornful as she could make it, given that she was nervous of what he could do. ‘I might have known. If you think I’m going to give you money, then you can think again, Ted Austen. I’ve nothing to hide.’ She picked up her rucksack from the floor where he had dropped it and made for the door.
‘You might be sorry for that decision, Mrs Walker,’ he called after her.
Anger kept her going as she hurried down the street to the Underground station and took the tube back to Waterloo, anger overcame her nervousness of the Underground. It was there, while waiting for the train to Manston, that she sat on a bench and let it go. It left her limp. Ted Austen was a nasty piece of work and there was no telling what he would do. Did he know where Harry was? She really should have turned the tables and taken the initiative to find out exactly what he did know and what use he intended to make of it. It was too late now.
‘Eve Seaton, where the hell have you been?’ Florrie flopped down on the bench beside her. ‘I’ve been looking high and low for you.’
Julie turned to look at her friend and the enormity of what had happened struck her again. She couldn’t find the words to explain. ‘Wandering about,’ she said.
‘But you’re going back to Manston now?’
‘Yes. I don’t want to be posted AWOL, do I?’
‘What for?’
‘That you remember me and where you’ve come from and that you know you have to go back.’
‘Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I?’
‘You were on that train that got hit by a buzz bomb and disappeared afterwards.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Section Officer Murray rang me at home. She thought you might have come to me. Why didn’t you?’
‘I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘You bet you weren’t. She said you had sustained a brain injury and needed to go to hospital.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my brain. I wasn’t hurt at all except for a few cuts and bruises. I just needed to think.’
‘And I can guess why.’ She stood up suddenly as a train steamed into the station. ‘Here’s our train. You can tell me all about it while we go along.’
Julie followed her friend onto the crowded train. They couldn’t find a seat and had to stand in the corridor. It was not conducive to conversation, particularly the sort of conversation that Florrie expected. ‘Just where have you been?’ she demanded as soon as the train jerked into motion.
‘To Southwark and Bermondsey, Shoreditch and Highgate Cemetery.’
‘Looking for your past?’
‘You could say that.’
‘And did you find it?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What kind of an answer is that? Am I to assume from that your memory has come back?’
‘Florrie, don’t quiz me, please. I’ve got to sort this out on my own.’
‘Then I was right, you have remembered and by the looks of you it isn’t something to celebrate.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘OK, so it’s complicated. But I hope you’ll think about Alec while you decide what to do. He’s out there fighting for us and his future with you. He loves you and deserves the whole truth.’
‘I know that. You don’t have to rub it in.’
‘Sorry. I’m concerned, that’s all. We’ve been friends for ages, you’re like a sister to me. I was expecting you to become one officially when Alec came home. You do still love him, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘There’s no one else?’
People were passing up and down the corridor, pushing past them and their rucksacks, and their conversation was punctuated with ‘Excuse me’ and ‘Thank you’. After it happened the fourth time, Julie, glad of the excuse, said, ‘We can’t talk now. I’ll tell you everything later.’
Florrie had to be content with that and they lapsed into silence which lasted for the remainder of the journey; neither could think of anything to say that did not hinge on Julie’s dilemma. When they arrived back at camp, she was told to report to Section Officer Murray immediately and it was late that evening before she and Florrie were able to talk properly, which they chose to do by going for a walk. On a busy station it was the only way they could be sure of not being overheard.
‘What did Murray say? Did you get a wigging?’
‘No, why should I? I didn’t overstay my leave.’
‘No, but you did disappear when you should have gone to hospital.’
‘So she said and I’ve got to report to St Hugh’s in Oxford. Apparently they have a unit there specialising in brain injuries and psychological trauma. It’s a complete waste of time – I know exactly what happened and how it happened.’
‘Then I wish you’d tell me.’
‘I will if you give me half a chance.’ With double summer time it stayed light until nearly ten o’clock, but now daylight was just beginning to fade and the air was cooling. Julie stopped to gather her thoughts. ‘I’d better begin at the beginning, when I was a little girl and went to the seaside for the day.’
‘I don’t need your life history.’
‘It’s relevant and please don’t interrupt.’
‘Very well. I won’t say another word until you give me leave.’
They started walking again, turning to walk round Pegwell Bay between the golf course and the beach, while Julie talked. Once she had started the words tumbled out and Florrie listened in astonishment, but true to her word she did not interrupt until Julie finished. ‘There you have it. I always suffered from claustrophobia. I had to summon all my courage to use the Underground. That, together with a bump on the head and being trapped in that air-raid shelter, took my memory. It came back when I was stuck in the wreckage of that train and I thought it was the same day.’
‘Did you forget what had happened in between? About me and Alec and the air force?’
‘For a little while, yes. I was terribly confused and began to doubt my sanity. I denied being Eve Seaton; the only thought in my head as I walked away from that carnage – it was awful, Florrie, truly awful – was finding my baby. I only really accepted what had happened when I got to Bermondsey and saw the house had gone and was told George had died …’
‘My God, what a tale! What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I can’t imagine what this will do to Alec. You’ll have to find your husband and divorce him.’
‘On what grounds? He didn’t desert me – I left him, not voluntarily, but I did. I’m the guilty party and perhaps he won’t want to divorce me. People look down their noses at anyone who’s divorced, and I don’t know what his parents will say.’
‘You won’t find out unless you ask him.’
‘I’m not sure I can.’
‘Eve!’
‘I loved Harry, Florrie. He was everything to me, my childhood sweetheart, the father of my baby. I can’t just pretend that never happened. When I see him again, who knows how I’ll feel? Or how he’ll feel?’
‘Did you tell Murray all this?’
‘Yes. In any case, she knew Eve Seaton was a made-up name, it’s on my medical records.’
‘So? Are you Julie Walker or Eve Seaton?’
‘I’m Eve Seaton. It’s the name I’m registered with and it’s on all my documentation. Unless I do something official, like changing it back by deed poll, that’s the way it stays.’
‘There you are, then. Stay Eve Seaton.’
‘That doesn’t change the fact that I have a husband. The section officer is going to ask the station commander if he can find out where he is.’
‘And then what?’
‘I don’t know. Murray insists on me going to Oxford, whether I like it or not, so whatever I do will have to wait until they let me go. I don’t know what they can tell me I don’t already know, so I don’t suppose I’ll be there long.’
‘What a mess!’
‘I know. Please don’t say anything to Alec yet.’
‘I’m not likely to do that while he’s in the thick of the fighting, it could make him careless and cost him his life. But the minute he gets leave he’ll be home, and you had better have it sorted out by then.’ It sounded like a threat.
The artillery bombardment of Caen had been going on for days and the noise was deafening as shell after shell exploded on the city, which was being defended by Rommel’s panzers and, according to rumour, they had been ordered to defend it to the last man. Alec began to wonder if anything would be left standing at the end of it. The city, one of the largest in Normandy, was of strategic importance to both sides, being a centre of communications, and until it was captured the Allied armies could not move forward. It was supposed to have been taken on D-Day itself, so they heard, but here they were in July and the Germans were still holding out. No one among the planners and strategists had realised it would take so long. According to the vociferous Trooper Langford, they should have been halfway to Paris by now.
Alec and his men had arrived back at their unit ten days after being parachuted in. Coming as they had from German-occupied country, they had been subjected to fierce rifle fire from their compatriots and had been obliged to dive for cover. After all they had been through, it seemed like the last straw.
‘Hey, give over, you lot,’ Langford had yelled at them. ‘We’re not bloody Jerries.’
‘How do we know that?’ a voice answered. ‘Identify yourselves.’
‘We will if you hold your fire,’ Alec had shouted. ‘We’re coming out now.’
They got up gingerly and walked, with hands raised, down the road towards a group of British soldiers manning a roadblock, who pointed their rifles at them, looking as if they would not need much temptation to fire. Alec had convinced them who they were, aided by a string of expletives from Langford who took their cool reception as a personal slight.
‘Where can I find Colonel Luard?’ Alec had asked the corporal in charge when the rifles had been lowered and they had all shaken hands.
‘As far as I know he’s at the brickworks.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘At Le Mesnil. It’s on the outskirts of Caen.’
‘Is that in our hands?’
‘No, but not for want of trying. We’ve had three goes at taking it and each time had to withdraw.’ He had pointed up the road and given him directions, ending, ‘Be careful, there’s still snipers about. They creep through the lines at night and shoot anything that moves in daylight.’
Le Mesnil was a small hamlet which housed kilns making roofing tiles, but it was known among the troops as ‘the brickworks’. Here they found the survivors of their battalion ensconced. The colonel’s greeting on seeing the exhausted band of paratroopers had been, ‘Where the hell have you been, Sergeant?’
Alec had grinned and given an account of what had happened to them, and been questioned about enemy troops – where they were, and in what numbers – which he had answered as well as he could. It was from the colonel he learnt that General Montgomery had decided trying to take Caen was costing too many lives and it would be better to outflank it and occupy Villers-Bocage, a few miles to the south-west and in the line of the American advance from the Cherbourg Peninsula. They had been driven back by SS tanks. ‘I’ve no doubt Caen will be on the cards again before long,’ he was told. ‘Get your heads down for an hour or two, then report for duty. You are going to be needed.’
His stick had rejoined the rest of the company, who were tired, disgruntled and frustrated at their lack of progress. The Germans were only on the other side of a field and everyone had to be vigilant, and every night the two sides sent mortar bombs into each other’s positions, which kept everyone’s heads down. One night was particularly severe. They were subjected to a devastating barrage of shells and mortars which began at eleven in the evening and went on for several hours. The casualties were horrendous and the stretcher parties braved the hail to bring them in and, after preliminary treatment at the Regimental Aid Post, they were sent by road to Ranville. It was the first time Alec had seen any real action, and watching friends and comrades being maimed or killed and knowing he could be next was a terrifying experience, shared by everyone, which they all felt deeply but kept hidden with silly jokes and grim determination. Next day they had been sent back behind the lines. Their relief in the shape of the 51st Highlanders had arrived and many thought they would be going home to England. After all, they were specialist troops and were not expected to stay with the invasion force.
In that they were disappointed. They hadn’t gone home, simply to the banks of the Orne, but it gave them a little respite; they were able to sleep undisturbed at night, take a shower and go to the little cinema in Luc-sur-Mer, which had been taken over by ENSA and was where Charlie Chester entertained them with the Stars in Battledress. But best of all, Alec was able to write to Eve. He said nothing of the terrible scenes he had witnessed but tried to be optimistic about their future together. It was thinking of her, so sweet and clean, that kept him from dwelling on the horrors.
Their rest ended all too soon and they returned to Le Mesnil to more of the same.
Now the Allies were going to try once again to take Caen. The RAF had been bombing the town all night and the battleship Rodney, out in the Channel, had bombarded it with hundreds of sixteen-inch shells. The men knew that when the bombardment stopped they would have to move out of the shelter of their foxholes and bunkers and advance. The Germans knew it too and would be ready for them.
The guns suddenly stopped and there was an eerie silence, followed by a whistle and shouted commands. In a second Alec was up and running, dodging this way and that, his heart pumping as the heavy guns were replaced by small-arms fire. He was leading his men into the city itself. It had been devastated by Allied bombing and was in ruins. Rifles at the ready, they ran down what had once been a quiet residential street, dodging into doorways, taking shelter behind broken walls to return the fire of the defenders, before running on again. They had almost reached the River Orne, which dissected the town, and Alec was charging through someone’s garden when he felt something hit his shoulder hard enough to knock him backwards. The attack continued over his inert body.
* * *
‘You remember that oily little man we met in London when we were looking for Rosie?’ Stuart Summers said to his wife. Her dark hair was streaked with grey and she was too thin, but she was looking a little more like her old self since they had stopped their fruitless search and agreed that Rosie must have died. The service in the kirk had helped her to come to terms with that. Now this. He wondered whether to keep it from her but decided she had to be told.
She dropped the newspaper she had been reading, pulled her glasses down to the end of her nose and looked at him over the top of them. ‘What about him?’
‘He’s written to say he knows what happened to her.’
‘Oh, what does he say? Let me see.’ She held out her hand for the missive.
It was frustratingly short. ‘You will be pleased to hear that I have continued my enquiries on your behalf and have discovered why your daughter disappeared. I remember you offered a reward for information, and as the search has been prolonged and cost me dear in time and money, I would appreciate recompense. A postal order for fifty pounds sent to the address at the top of this letter will find me more than willing to tell you all I know.’
‘He’s having us on,’ he said when she returned it to him. ‘He’ll cash the postal order and disappear.’
‘We don’t know that,’ she said. ‘It might be genuine.’
‘Only one way to find out and that’s to go and see him and get the information out of him before we part with a penny. We’ll go down this weekend.’
If Ted expected to have a postal order drop through his letter box by return of post, he was disappointed. After seeing Julie, it had taken him ten days of feverish searching to find the calling card Stuart Summers had given him. He had turned the house upside down, gone through all the drawers and cupboards, even those he had not touched since moving in, but the card could not be found. Of all the possible plans of action, he had decided to try the Summers first as being the most likely to cough up. He didn’t know where Harry Walker was and it might be difficult to find him without going through official channels, and what reason could he give for wanting to know? He could ask the man’s parents, old man Walker could be contacted at the Chalfont factory in Letchworth, but they would also want to know why he wanted to know. He could tell them, but he didn’t want to lose the comfort of the Walkers’ Islington house, which he had come to look on as home. He got on well with the neighbours, who had been led to believe he was a hard-working businessman who was reluctantly not fit for active service. Contacting the Walkers might put that at risk.
If he told the Summers what had happened, they would undoubtedly chase Walker up themselves and that would put the cat among the pigeons. The trouble was he hadn’t been able to find that damned calling card. It had turned up in the end, just when he’d given up, caught in the lining of the jacket he’d been wearing at the time. He was much too fussy to wear clothes that had seen better days and it had hung in the wardrobe unworn. What made him feel in the pocket he didn’t know, but there it was, gone through into the lining. He had pulled it out with a yell of triumph and lost no time writing his letter. And still he was frustrated because they didn’t answer it.
The reason became obvious the following Saturday when they arrived on the doorstep. He was taken aback at first, but swiftly recovered himself and invited them in. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit untidy,’ he said, leading them into the sitting room. There were stacks of books, papers and boxes all over the floor, where he had been searching for the card and not bothered to put everything away again. He swept his jacket off the sofa and invited them to sit. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ he queried. ‘Or something stronger?’
‘Nothing, thank you,’ Angela said primly, though she did sit down. Her husband did not. He stood and faced Ted squarely.
‘I think you know why we are here.’
‘I assume it is in response to my letter. I thought you might be pleased to know the truth, even if it is not what you want to hear.’
‘Spit it out.’
‘You forget, sir, that I am a freelance and earn my money by helping people in any way I can. I am afraid I cannot work for nothing, not even in such a good cause. I was fond of Rosie too, you know.’
Stuart withdrew his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket, but he did not open it. ‘Information, Mr Austen, and then we will negotiate payment depending on what you tell us.’
‘I’ll do more than that, I’ll show you, if you care to take a walk.’
‘You mean she’s living close by?’ Angela said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.
‘Living close by? No, I can’t say that,’ he said, allowing himself a faint smile. ‘Come, I’ll show you.’
He took them to Highgate Cemetery and pointed to a grave. ‘The answer’s there.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Angela said, looking down at the grave. It was not a new one, but it was well tended and there was a vase of flowers and a damaged garden gnome on it. The name wasn’t Rosie’s, though. ‘What has Julie Walker to do with our daughter?’
‘Rosie’s in that grave,’ Ted said. ‘She and Julie were friends. Rosie was looking after Julie’s baby and was in the shelter with him when the house was bombed. They died together. Everyone thought she was Julie.’
‘How can such a thing have happened?’ Stuart asked, disinclined to believe the man. ‘Surely someone knew she wasn’t Julie?’
‘Undoubtedly they did, but it was convenient to keep mum about it.’
‘Why?’
‘Harry was away in Canada and while the cat’s away the mice will play. Julie found herself another love and jumped at the chance to disappear. And the Walkers never took to her, so they let it ride.’
‘That’s too fantastic to believe,’ Stuart said furiously. ‘If you think I’m going to pay you good money for that so-called information, then you’ll have to think again.’
Ted grinned. ‘No doubt you require proof. Would a living breathing Julie Walker convince you?’
‘You know where she is?’
‘Not precisely at this moment, but I’ve seen her recently and confronted her so I know what I’m saying is true. I’ll find her again and bring her to see you, shall I?’ He already knew what she was calling herself; the name had been stencilled in the flap of her rucksack and he had managed to open it enough to read it when he took the bag from her at the café. He had followed her from there, more cautiously this time, and seen her speaking to another WAAF at Waterloo Station. He’d hopped on the train behind them and kept an eye on them all the way to Ramsgate. He had yet to confirm that she was stationed at Manston but he’d take an even bet that she was. Whether he passed on the information depended on what he could milk out of the Summers and what other opportunities presented themselves. It really wasn’t the Summers he was after, but getting revenge for the humiliation he had endured at the hands of Harry Walker. He didn’t care how he did it.
‘You do that,’ Stuart said. ‘Not a penny will you get until you do.’
‘I have expenses, Mr Summers. People who furnish me with information require payment.’
Stuart gave him a grim smile. ‘As you do.’
‘As I do,’ Ted acknowledged. ‘Money talks.’
Stuart extracted two five-pound notes from his wallet and handed them to Ted, who looked at the white sheets briefly as if to check they were what they purported to be, then crumpled them into his pocket. ‘I will be in touch again, Mr Summers, and if I were you, I should begin to think what you want done about the situation. You can’t leave your daughter in the wrong grave, can you?’ And with that he turned on his heel and left them standing.
They watched him go, then turned back to look at the grave with its simple inscription. ‘Do you think it’s true?’ she whispered. ‘Is Rosie really there?’
‘Who knows?’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I’m not waiting for that scallywag to find Julie Walker, if he ever intends to. If she and the baby were buried while Harry Walker was away, someone must have identified the bodies and arranged the funeral, and my guess is that it was his father. We’ll go and see him tomorrow, see what he has to say.’
* * *
Donald and Hilda were walking home from church where they had prayed for all those caught up in the war: for those in France battling it out for the liberation of Caen still holding out weeks after the invasion; for the troops in Italy, making their way northwards against stiff resistance, even though the Italians had changed sides; for those in the Far East fighting the Japanese; for those risking their lives on the high seas and in the air. They had prayed for civilians caught up in the latest attack on London by flying bombs. Here, in Letchworth, they felt comparatively safe, although one of the buzz bombs had reached Ashwell, the other side of Baldock, not many miles away. They were talking about it as they walked.
Approaching the garden gate of the semi-detached villa they were renting in Norton Road, they were surprised to see Mr and Mrs Summers standing on the step.
‘We’re sorry to intrude on your Sunday,’ Stuart said. ‘But we felt we had to see you.’
‘Not at all. Do come in.’ Donald unlocked the door and ushered them ahead of him. The smell of slow-roasting beef came to them from the kitchen. Hilda hurried off to check on it and put the kettle on to offer them a hot drink, while Donald took them into the sitting room and bade them be seated. ‘Sherry?’ he queried holding up a decanter. ‘I’ve nothing else to offer you, I’m afraid.’
‘A glass of sherry will be just fine,’ Stuart said. His wife sat on the end of the sofa, trying to smile, but Donald could tell she was wound up like a spring, twisting her gloved hands together, touching her hair, then opening and closing the clasp on her handbag.
‘Have you come all the way down from Scotland today?’ he asked.
‘No, we’ve been in London for a few days.’
‘No news of your daughter, then? I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.’
‘Oh, but you have,’ Stuart said. ‘You put us in touch with Mr Austen and he has been doing some probing on our behalf and what he has discovered is astonishing.’
‘Really?’ He heard his wife call him from the kitchen and excused himself to go to her. She was basting the tiny joint of brisket. ‘Ought we ask them to lunch?’ she whispered. ‘I was going to have this hot today and finish it up cold tomorrow, but I could stretch it to four. We’d have to have something else tomorrow.’
‘I’ll ask them. Put that back in the oven to finish off and come and join us for a sherry.’
She followed him back into the sitting room and took her place beside Angela. Donald poured and handed round the sherry. ‘Not the best, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘But it’s drinkable. Just about. You were saying …’ This prompt was addressed to Stuart.
‘Mr Austen showed us your daughter-in-law’s grave,’ Stuart said.
‘Only it isn’t your daughter-in-law,’ Angela cried out, twisting her handkerchief into a knot. ‘It’s our Rosie.’
Donald stared at her, then turned to Mr Summers who was the calmer of the two. ‘Ted Austen said that?’
‘Yes, he did. He said Julie had left her baby in the care of Rosie, and when the house got a direct hit, everyone thought Rosie was Julie.’
‘But that’s impossible!’ Hilda said. ‘Do you think we wouldn’t know our own daughter-in-law and grandson? Tell them, Don.’
Donald squirmed. ‘How sure is he of that?’
‘Very sure,’ Stuart said. ‘He told us he had seen Julie recently and she was alive and well.’
Hilda gave a gasp and spilt her sherry all down her blouse. ‘He’s lying,’ she said, ineffectually dabbing at it with a handkerchief. ‘Excuse me. I must go and change.’ She hurried from the room, leaving the others facing each other.
There was silence for a time, then Stuart said, ‘Do you think the man is lying, Mr Walker?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But unlike your wife you are prepared to concede the possibility of a mistake. Austen said you knew it was Rosie in the coffin but you chose not to say so.’
‘Rubbish. Why on earth would I do that?’
‘According to him, because you never felt the girl was good enough for your son and it was a way of freeing him from her.’
‘That’s ridiculous nonsense.’
‘But you did identify the body.’
‘I looked at a mangled corpse, whose features were unrecognisable. She was the same build and colouring as Julie and she was cradling George in her arms, protecting him. Perhaps I should have looked more closely at the body and questioned the circumstances, but it never occurred to me that the baby would be with anyone else.’
Angela gave a huge intake of breath, then burst into tears. ‘It is her,’ she sobbed. ‘It is our Rosie. The man wasn’t lying.’
Hilda came back into the room in a fresh blouse and looked round at the little tableau. Mrs Summers was weeping uncontrollably, Mr Summers was trying to comfort her and looking grim and her husband seemed bewildered and embarrassed.
‘It seems I might have made a mistake, Hilda,’ he told her. ‘I might have incorrectly identified Julie.’
‘How could you? You told me, told Harry too, that there wasn’t a mark on her and she looked peaceful.’
‘I lied to spare you both,’ he said quietly.
She collapsed into the nearest chair and stared up at him. ‘Then what happened to Julie?’
‘According to Austen, she’s alive,’ Stuart put in. ‘He said he’d seen her.’
‘Oh, my God, what’s Harry going to say about this?’ Hilda asked. ‘We can’t tell him, we simply can’t. There’s Pam—’ She stopped suddenly.
‘My son has married again,’ Donald told his visitors. ‘They have twins, a boy and a girl.’
‘Pam’s a lovely girl too,’ Hilda put in. ‘We are all very fond of her, and the babies are adorable. I wish you had never come here. You should have left well alone.’
‘And left our daughter in the wrong grave?’ Angela exclaimed. ‘No, I don’t think so, Mrs Walker.’
‘You’re not thinking of having her exhumed?’ Hilda was rapidly becoming as distraught as Angela. ‘Our grandson is in that grave too. We can’t allow it.’
‘We will have to see what your son says about it,’ Stuart put in. ‘It affects him more than anyone.’
‘I think we need to meet the person claiming to be Julie before we do anything,’ Donald said. ‘Certainly before we say anything to Harry. Does anyone know where she is?’
‘Ted Austen said he’d find her for us.’
‘And if she isn’t Julie?’
‘Then we will just have to accept that our daughter is still missing,’ Stuart said.
‘Oh my, the beef!’ Hilda dashed from the room in the direction of the kitchen, just in time to rescue the joint from becoming uneatable.
It seemed to be the signal for Mr and Mrs Summers to leave. They both stood up.
‘Will you stay and have a bite of lunch with us?’ Donald asked.
‘No, thank you.’ Stuart spoke for both of them. ‘We’ll go straight back to London to see Austen again. If we have anything to report, we’ll come back to you.’
‘Very well. You can contact me by telephone at the factory. We don’t have one here.’ He found a piece of paper and a pencil in the writing desk in the alcove of the fireplace and scribbled down the number. ‘We’ll say nothing to Harry in the meantime. No sense in upsetting him for nothing.’
He saw them to the door, then went to the kitchen where Hilda was putting some cabbage on to cook while she made the gravy. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘They didn’t want to stay for lunch.’
‘Good. I’m glad. Quite apart from the fact that the joint has shrunk to almost nothing and the potatoes are a bit too crisp to offer guests, I wouldn’t have known what to say to them. They’re obviously deranged, particularly Mrs Summers. I’m sorry for them but that doesn’t alter the fact that what they’ve been saying is too far-fetched to be true.’ She looked up at her husband who was looking doubtful. ‘It is, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. It could be. If I made a mistake …’
‘Don!’
‘Well, it’s possible.’
‘Don’t you dare say a word to Harry.’
‘Of course not. We’ll wait until we have proof.’