Chapter Thirty-Four

“You’re sure you should be out?” Doris asked as she pulled the Jeep up outside the Old Lockkeepers Cottage and hopped out.

Penny waited for her friends to come and help her out of the passenger’s seat. Not because she couldn’t walk but more because she was wrapped up as if she were going on an expedition to the Arctic.

When she’d phoned Hamble late in the afternoon to let Jane know she was being released from hospital, her boss had been all for jumping in her Jeep and going to pick her up there and then, but common sense had prevailed, and she’d called Lawrence to see if he could go and get her, only to be told he was in the middle of an interview and couldn’t be interrupted. Reluctantly, she’d had to tell Penny she’d have to wait until they finished deliveries for the day. There had then followed an almighty argument during which Penny tried to persuade her friend she’d be fine taking the bus back home. Eventually, Jane had spoken to a doctor, who’d promised to keep Penny there until she could be picked up later that evening.

Because no one trusted Jane to drive, she’d been in the rear with her arms wrapped around Penny for the whole journey. “A little help here too, please!”

Before extricating Penny, Doris helped Jane unlock her arms and rubbed her friend’s arms to get some warmth and life back into them. It took five minutes for Jane to feel able to clamber out and help unwrap Penny. Three wooly hats, four blankets, and two pairs of mittens later, Penny was able to move again.

“To answer your question,” she said as Doris, who’d been most insistent, helped her to walk down the path toward the cottage, “yes. I’ve been lying there for the best part of two days now. My arm’s healing, or at least not hurting so much, and, let’s be honest as we’re all girls here, my body will heal just as well tucked up here as it will anywhere else.”

“What about your mind?” Celia asked, popping up from nowhere and wrapping her arms around her sister like she’d never let her go. “You’ve lost your baby.”

Penny hugged Celia back, resting her head upon the top of her sister’s head. “I know,” she answered softly.

Thirty minutes later, after a quick bath, Penny lay on the sofa, thick socks upon her feet, warm nightdress and dressing gown on, and wrapped in a blanket taken from her bed, since she pointblank refused to be put to bed. “I’ve spent the last couple of days in bed, and though I know I’m still lying down, this is better than actually being in bed. Besides”—she lifted her feet so Celia could slide underneath—“I’m not going to deprive my sister here of her bed.”

“It is yours, sis,” Celia stated.

“I know,” Penny replied.

Soon everyone had crowded into Betty’s lounge, and once Penny had fielded everyone’s questions and assured them she’d heal quicker at home than she would taking up a hospital bed, Penny asked the question she’d been waiting to get a chance to ask.

“Has anyone heard from Tom?”

Her anxious look around the room was finally answered by Ruth, whose face betrayed it wasn’t good news she had to impart. “I’m sorry. I’d do anything to put a smile on your face.”

The only outward sign of Penny’s anxiety was the small whimper of pain which escaped Celia’s lips as her big sister squeezed the hand she was still holding. “Go on,” Penny urged, not noticing what she’d done.

Ruth took a deep breath. “I’ve spent a lot of the past couple of days, when I’ve not been helping Walter put together our special edition on the Navy’s sinking of the Scharnhorst, ringing up RAF Marham, trying to get hold of him. Whenever I did get through to his squadron, I was simply told either that he wouldn’t come to the phone or that he was busy. Even when I told them I was calling on your behalf,” she added, as Penny had opened her mouth, undoubtedly to ask.

Penny couldn’t reply. She’d slumped back, tears pouring down her cheeks, with Celia draped across her, holding her as tightly as she could.

“Come on,” Betty said gently. “Let’s go out to the kitchen and let them have some privacy.” Celia managed to catch her eye and give a quick nod of thanks. Jane alone appeared reluctant to join the exodus and needed a quick prod from Ruth before she joined everyone else in the kitchen.

“Shut the door, would you?” Betty asked Jane, who turned and did so before joining everyone else at the table.

No one seemed to know quite what to say. Betty, Mary, and Doris had all been very busy delivering urgently needed aircraft all over the country since Jane and Penny’s escapade and so hadn’t been able to do anything about the Tom situation during the day.

“We had the same experience last night,” Betty announced, filling in the others.

“Do you think it’d help if we simply, well, dropped in? So to speak,” Doris suggested. “They can’t very well refuse to let us see him if we’re actually there, could they?”

“It wouldn’t work,” Jane declared. “Penny told me the next time we tried that trick, the Station Commander would throw whoever did it into the cells for the night. He wasn’t very pleased with either Penny or Tom the last time she did it.”

“Well,” Mary asked, “what are we going to do about things?”

The silence which followed was all pervading, as no one had any experience as to how they should proceed to resolve the problems between Penny and her husband. No one had any doubt Penny wanted him back, but if he wouldn’t even talk to her, how were they supposed to progress? Nobody voiced it, but everyone was thinking the same thing—one of the problems of whirlwind wartime marriages was the small matter of just how much you really knew about the other person.

A loud knock at the front door made nearly everyone jump. “I’ll get it,” Mary told the room, jumping to her feet.

A minute later, they heard the front door close, a rapid patter of feet, and Mary burst back into the kitchen, her face looking like she’d seen a ghost.

“My, what’s wrong?” Ruth asked, beginning to get to her feet.

“Betty,” Mary began to say and then shook her head. “No, that’s not the right way.”

“What’s not the right way?” Betty asked.

“Sorry,” Mary said, coming to stand next to Betty. “I didn’t mean that. What I meant to say is…”

A tremendous banging on the door interrupted her.

Betty got to her feet, declaring, “You’ve left whoever it is on the doorstep?” and before anyone could stop her, swept past Mary and into the hall, where she opened the front door.

Standing there were two of the strangest people she’d ever seen, and once she realized who they were, she fervently regretted opening the door.

The small dumpling on the right, wearing a black pinstriped suit, also wore the typical insincere smile Betty always associated with politicians, whilst the woman next to him, a nightmare in matching tweed, bore a smile of pure greed.

“Hello,” said the dumpling, raising a bowler hat. “We didn’t get a chance to speak last time.”

Betty stepped outside and shut the door behind her. Not, as it turned out, the smartest thing she’d ever done.

****

“Anyone in?” Lawrence shouted. Having looked into Ruth’s place and finding no one there, he’d decided to try Betty’s, and when nobody answered, he’d tried the door and was surprised to find it open. Going into policeman mode, he dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a torch, absently wishing he’d signed out a pistol. Some part of his brain was nagging him, prodding him into thinking it would have been a good idea.

Popping his head around the open lounge door, he was presented with a strange sight. Celia appeared to be asleep on top of Penny, her head on her sister’s shoulder, her mouth open. Penny herself was awake and stroking her sister’s hair as she slept, though her gaze didn’t appear to be looking at anything in particular. Not until he waved did she notice his presence, and even then she merely waved back before resting her head back and closing her eyes. Pushing aside his need to find out how she was, he backed up and, as quietly as he could, pulled the door shut.

Moving toward the kitchen, he thought he could hear voices, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Cursing the old thick door, he carefully took the handle and, gripping his torch a little tighter, yanked the door open in one quick movement, bursting into the kitchen. He immediately felt more than a little silly and said a silent prayer for deciding not to let out a war cry of sorts.

Out of the corner of his right eye, he was immediately aware of something wide and heavy coming down toward his head. Raising his right arm, something heavy did indeed collide painfully with his forearm. Dropping the torch he’d been holding, he yelped in pain and cradled his arm to his chest.

“Lawrence!” Doris cried from his right-hand side, dropping a large frying pan onto the floor.

“Doris! What the hell?” he exclaimed, teeth gritted in pain.

“Why didn’t you say it was you?” she asked, reaching out to touch his arm.

He nudged the pan out of her reach with his foot, holding his hurt arm away from her, and sat down next to Walter. Still glaring at Doris and shaking his arm, he leant down and with his left hand picked up the now slightly dented frying pan and placed it on the table. “I did knock and also announced myself,” he said through gritted teeth, gratefully accepting the glass of water Thelma placed in front of him. After draining it, he looked around the room, noticing for the first time that everyone seemed to be very ill at ease, which would certainly explain the frying pan, to a certain extent.

Ignoring the pain in his forearm, he scratched his head and asked, “What’s going on?” He looked around the gathering again, checking before he asked, “Where’s Betty?”

“Exactly what we’ve been asking ourselves,” Jane answered.

****

“I wouldn’t bother trying to ask the driver for help,” George Palmer told Betty.

Sitting between her mother and father in the back of a taxi, Betty’s first thought was that she couldn’t have asked for help, as they’d stuffed a none-too-clean handkerchief into her mouth as soon as they’d grabbed her, though why they’d not bothered with a blindfold was both curious and worrying. Furious with herself for not having noticed the giant of a man who’d stepped out of the shadows to wrap a hand the size of a spade around her face, she decided to save her energy for when she might need it. Even if she could somehow have gotten out of the car, she wouldn’t have been able to get very far. As well as the gag, they’d also taken the precaution of binding her ankles and wrists. She was going nowhere but wherever they took her.

“Yes,” simpered her mother, “we have lots to talk about, lots of catching up to do.”

At hearing her parents’ voices, really hearing them for the first time, Betty mused that perhaps being put into the orphanage hadn’t been so bad after all, as it meant she hadn’t had to grow up listening to this pair. She wondered how Marcus had come out such a nice person. But then she wondered if he was in on this…kidnap. Was it a kidnap? Did such things happen to ordinary people like her? Or was this all the result of reading too much Agatha Christie? Well, whatever it was, she had no intention of cooperating in any way with them. She remembered her dear Elle and jutted out her chin. Yes, they could do their worst. She’d be strong for the both of them.

A little to her surprise, nobody said anything else to her until they turned down a road which she recognized. The lack of signposts didn’t bother her, as before her life had been turned upside down by the appearance of the Air Transport Mystery Club in her life, she’d spent many a happy day trekking and cycling around the New Forest. They drove into what she recognized as the village of Lyndhurst, and despite it now being pitch-black outside, she knew she was right. Betty wondered where they were taking her. Not very far, would be her bet. Taxis in the heart of the forest would stick out a mile. She got her answer as they turned into a shingle drive which led behind a low, whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof. A For Sale sign was posted at its front. Under most other circumstances, Betty would have tried to make out if it had a straw finial animal upon its roof.

The car door opened, and her father virtually rolled out and told the driver, “Bring her inside, John.”

If she could have talked, Betty would have told them to untie her feet, but before any other thoughts could invade her mind, the huge man merely reached inside the car, took her by the waist, straightened up, and hoisted her over his shoulders as if she were a sack of flour. The wind knocked out of her lungs, Betty endured an uncomfortable ride into a darkened cottage through the back door. Leading them, her mother carried a candle to light the way until they entered a back bedroom.

“On there will do,” she told her tame dog, and Betty found herself unceremoniously dropped onto the bed, fortunately not onto her face.

Whilst she was recovering her breath, she heard her father shut the back door and, a moment later, enter the room. Lighting his own candle, he bent down to her. “Now, if I take out this gag, you’re not to yell, or anything silly like that. If you do, I’m afraid I’ll have to allow Big John to remind you exactly who’s in charge. Nod if you understand.”

Wriggling her way into a semi-sitting position with her back against the wall, Betty noticed, and heard, this Big John man crack his knuckles—very loudly. She wasn’t stupid. She nodded.

“Good.” Reaching forward, her father took hold of the gag and none too gently pulled it out, stepping immediately back to stand beside his wife.

“What the hell’s going on?” Betty demanded. Just because she’d agreed not to be stupid enough to shout didn’t mean she’d be silent. If she could annoy them enough, but not enough to get herself hurt, she’d be quite happy to do so.

Her mother came forward and sat down on the bed next to her, though she appeared loath to actually touch her daughter. “We wanted to talk, and we didn’t think you were very keen on the idea.”

Betty snorted her disdain. “So you thought you’d resort to kidnap, did you?”

“Kidnap is such an ugly word,” George commented. “Don’t you agree, Darcie?”

“Well, if you haven’t even got the courage to call something by what it actually is, I don’t see what we’ve got to talk about,” Betty goaded and was inordinately pleased to see George raise an arm as if to slap her around the face. “Go ahead, Father!”

Perhaps the shock of being called “father” stayed his hand. For whatever reason, he lowered it. Even by the candlelight, Betty could see his shock. Maybe by addressing their relationship, no matter how distasteful she found it, she could gain some advantage.

“Yes,” George eventually replied, once he’d recovered his composure. “Aren’t family reunions lovely. Now, let’s discuss how much your beautiful little cottage is worth.”