Chapter Sixteen

Detective Sergeant Banks knocked on the open door of his new boss’s office and marched up to his desk. He laid a report in front of Lawrence and then took a seat. “Report on my interrogation of that bugger we picked up at Hamble, boss.”

Before speaking, Lawrence got to his feet and went to the hotplate he kept by the window. Holding up a rather battered kettle, he asked, “Care to join me, Banks?”

It had taken the rather mild-mannered sergeant only a short while to become very fond of this habit of his new boss. Virtually every time he delivered a report, or made any other visit to see him, he was offered a cup of tea. With his previous superior, he had seemed to be on endless trips down to the canteen, something he liked to blame for the lack of meat on his bones. His biggest problem now seemed to be worrying about making sloshing noises as he walked, but at least his boss made an excellent cuppa.

Banks crossed one leg over the other. “Don’t mind if I do. Many thanks, boss.”

Whilst they waited for the kettle to boil, Lawrence picked up the report and scanned through it, his eyebrows gradually rising until, just before he put it back down, his eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. His neck had also taken on a bright red sheen of anger which Banks could quite understand. He was a policeman, after all, and he had witnessed the close relationship his boss obviously had with one of the ladies—Mary, he thought her name was. To give his boss some time to think, he got up and went to make the tea. By the time he’d finished, Lawrence was back behind his desk.

“Thanks very much.” Lawrence acknowledged the mug placed before him and prodded the report. “This is right? That piece of…scum actually admitted this?”

Banks cradled his own mug in his hands. The weather was too cold for Banks, and he’d found since turning the wrong side of forty that he felt it worse in his fingers, so the warmth was welcome. “He didn’t want to,” he informed Lawrence, “though why he waited a full day, I don’t know.”

“Me neither,” Lawrence put in and then added, probably forgetting he wasn’t alone, “but at least I can tell Betty something now, and perhaps Mary will stop annoying me for news.” As soon as he’d finished speaking, he seemed to remember where he was, but when he looked up, Banks was looking innocently out the window. Lawrence cleared his throat. “This is good work, Banks, very good.”

“Sorry it took so long,” Banks told him, then took a long draft from his mug. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

Lawrence swallowed before settling back in his seat and nodding. “Feel free.”

“How well do you know this Betty Palmer?”

Lawrence smiled and took up his cup to warm his own hands before replying. “Quite well, I like to think,” he began, before elaborating. “She’s a very good friend of my Aunt Ruth, who runs the local newspaper, the Hamble Gazette, so I’ve known her for quite a few years.”

“Sorry to say, boss, but my senses spiked when I was around her.”

When he didn’t add anything, Lawrence filled in the blanks, though being careful not to reveal too much of what he knew about Betty’s past. “I’ll only say this—don’t ignore your senses. However, know this. So far as Betty is concerned, that’s all in the past and I trust her completely. Is that good enough for you?” Lawrence asked, fixing his sergeant with a firm stare.

When he didn’t answer straight away, Lawrence knew he’d made a good choice for his number two. Anyone who’d answered immediately wouldn’t have really thought things through, merely telling the person who’d asked what they believed they wanted to hear. Indeed, when Banks did eventually answer, what he said truly satisfied Lawrence.

“I’ll reserve judgment, but if you say you trust her, I’ll trust you.”

Lawrence got up from his desk and held out his hand. “Good enough for me.”

Without hesitation, Banks got to his feet and shook his boss’s hand, sealing a new level of trust between the pair.

****

Somewhat to her surprise, Penny was still flying. Admittedly, she hadn’t spoken to Jane. Indeed, only Ruth knew of her condition, as she hadn’t even confided in her best friends, something which didn’t sit well with her. Not even as a child had she had such friends to tell everything to, but she’d lost count of the number of times she’d come close to telling them her secret, either on the walks to and from base or in the evenings.

Betty’s problems, which only seemed to be multiplying, had taken front stage and allowed Penny to put her own issue on the back burner. The main problem was Tom. Her husband, still grounded because of the after-effects of the wounds he’d suffered earlier in the year, had taken to phoning her each night once he was sure she’d be home. She was regretting, a little, telling him her suspicions before she was certain. This was one of the problems with wartime marriages, she was finding out—you spent so little time with your partner, some subjects you would have talked about before even contemplating marriage went by the wayside. Penny hadn’t given second thoughts to children. Obviously, Tom had, as he’d been delighted when she’d told him she suspected she was pregnant.

The biggest immediate problem was that he expected her to give up flying. Somehow, she wasn’t shocked to discover, she found the very thought terrified her. Flying had been her life before the war came along, and now—now she truly believed she was performing a vital service to her country and felt sick at the thought of leaving it.

Undoing her harness, Penny wished she hadn’t thought about being sick, as her stomach made a loud grumbling noise and started to churn. Hurriedly, she heaved herself out of the Anson’s pilot seat and stumbled toward the exit, making it to the open door just in time.

“I didn’t think the snacks were so bad anymore,” a voice declared.

Wiping her mouth on the back of her glove, Penny raised her head, and as her vision refocused, she found she’d nearly been sick all over her boss’s shoes. “Sorry about that, Jane,” she told her and then gripped the door frame as another wave of nausea hit her, making her head swim.

Fortunately for her, Jane was watching closely and darted forward to steady her friend, making certain she didn’t fall out of the plane. The ground wasn’t as soft as in summer, and an early evening frost was beginning to settle in. “Steady, there,” she told her. “I’ve got you.” Waiting a few seconds for Penny to pull herself together, Jane kept hold of Penny’s elbow as she made her way onto terra firma.

Close up, Jane could see the young woman was decidedly gray in pallor, and a frown creased her forehead. Looking her up and down, she then glanced around to check no one could overhear. They were quite alone, as Penny’s passengers had already hurried into the flight line hut. She hooked Penny’s hand through her arm and led her off in the direction of the ops hut instead.

Once they were safely ensconced in her office, Jane gently pushed a slightly protesting Penny into a chair, poured her a glass of water, and waited until her friend had drunk it down. “Better?”

Penny placed the glass on Jane’s desk and gave her a weak smile. “A bit,” she admitted.

Jane sat down behind her desk and allowed her face to slip into boss mode. “Is there something I should know?”

Penny couldn’t keep the guilty expression off her face. She didn’t help herself by automatically placing her hands over her stomach, at which Jane’s other eyebrow went up.

“How long?”

Penny shrugged and finally placed her flight bag on the floor before replying, “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Probably a couple of months.”

“Does Tom know?”

The memory of his last letter, which she still hadn’t replied to, or telephoned him about, caused the corner of her mouth to turn up. “I’ve told him my suspicions.”

Jane jerked back into her seat. “Suspicions? You mean you haven’t seen a doctor yet?”

The buzz of a Tiger Moth’s engine as it flew low past the hut caused Penny’s eyes to flick to the window.

“Ah!” Jane said, steepling her hands together and allowing herself a wry smile. “I see.”

“Hmm? Sorry,” Penny said, refocusing on Jane.

“I think I see the problem,” Jane told her. “You don’t want to give up flying.”

At hearing the words, Penny let her head droop before looking up and asking, “Do I have to?”

Jane came and perched on the edge of her desk, as close to her friend as she could. Taking one of Penny’s hands in hers, she looked her in the eye, her heart heavy, as she didn’t want to be the one to break her friend’s heart. Nevertheless, she knew regulations better than anyone else. “Let’s get you seen by a doctor first and take things from there. At least you’ll know for certain then.”

****

“So how was your first day back on the job?” Thelma asked.

The question was quite unnecessary. As she well knew, her friend was literally bouncing up and down in post-flight excitement, but she wanted to hear what her friend had to say.

Betty let her flying suit drop to the floor of the flight line hut and hurriedly hung it up before sliding her pullover off. In a thrice, she’d donned her uniform trousers and jacket. The hut had no heating, and it wasn’t a pleasant place to be in few clothes on a cold December evening. Sitting down, Betty bent over to tie up her shoes. Once done, she leant back against her locker and allowed a grin to fix itself upon her slightly oil-smudged face.

“I’d forgotten how much fun this is! The sense of freedom it gives you,” she gushed before closing her eyes. “Plus, I flew my first Spitfire today.” She opened her eyes and made certain to catch the eye of each of her friends. “I can now see what you mean. You don’t fly them, do you? You strap them on and become a part of them!”

Thelma clapped her hands together in delight. “Girls, we have another convert.”

The door opened and wafted in a cold evening breeze.

“Shut that door,” yelled Thelma and Doris as one.

“Sorry,” muttered Penny as she slumped down on the wooden bench between Mary and Thelma.

“What was that all about, with Jane?” Mary asked her friend as Penny slowly began to undo her flying suit.

When she didn’t answer straight away, Mary playfully prodded her friend in the ribs with her elbow. “Cat got your tongue?”

Penny looked up, and for an instant, the normal twinkle in her eye was there, but if you blinked, you’d have missed it. “Perhaps it’d be more appropriate to say, ‘Frog got your tongue.’ ”

Thelma and Mary looked at Penny as if she’d lost her marbles, but Doris and Betty both gave audible gasps, as if they were twins, and flew to her side, bumping both Mary and Thelma aside in their haste.

“Hey!” Mary yelled. Her friends ignored her.

“How long?” Betty asked the usual question.

Meanwhile, Doris enquired, “You’re sure, honey?”

Mary and Thelma put two and two together at the same time.

Penny did her best to climb into her closed locker, her eyes wide in moderate alarm.

Betty was the first to notice and swatted all three girls’ hands away from where they were simultaneously reaching for Penny’s. “Girls! Give her some room!” She matched actions to words and shuffled a good six inches to one side. After a moment, Doris did the same, and the others stopped in their tracks. Once she was satisfied Penny wasn’t about to climb the hut’s walls, Betty, putting every ounce of authority she possessed into her voice, instructed, “Penny, you finish getting changed, and the rest of us will be waiting outside for you. We can talk when we’re back home.”

Giving none of the others a chance to argue, she picked up and put on her uniform jacket and hat, took up her flight bag, and with a very pointed stare at her friends, strode to the door and held it open. Doris, Mary, and Thelma all looked at each other and, wisely, didn’t utter another word but merely did the same. Betty closed the door behind her.

Left alone with her thoughts, Penny mechanically went through the motions of getting changed. It took her two goes before she realized she’d been trying to get her legs into her jacket. Eventually dressed, she rested her hand on the doorknob, took a couple of deep, calming breaths, attempted and failed to put a welcoming smile upon her face, and opened the door. Her friends were waiting outside. Not a word was spoken the whole time it took to walk back to the Old Lockkeepers Cottage, and for this small mercy, Penny was grateful, as it gave her some time to get her thoughts into some kind of order for the questions about to come her way.

Sitting on her bed, Penny took up Tom’s picture from her bedside table. Taken at the hangar dance at RAF Polebrook not long back, it had been the same day she’d discovered her husband was a Wing Commander. She’d been delighted, if not a little annoyed he hadn’t told her before about the promotion. In it, she was beaming from ear to ear, and she’d had a wonderful time. Her husband didn’t exactly look like he was chewing a bee, but it wasn’t far from it. He was miffed about being grounded because of the headaches. Despite this, she still loved the picture for the memories it brought back to her every time she set eyes on it. Rubbing her sleeve on the glass to buff it up a little, Penny gathered her thoughts and muttered aloud, “Don’t force me to make a choice, Tom.”