Biggin Hill museum was the sweetest, smallest museum I’d ever visited. Finn had picked me up from Tall Trees after my morning shift in his car – an old Mini that was so perfect for him I was positively gleeful when I got in – and driven us up to the old airfield, explaining that it was the perfect place to try to track down Elsie’s mystery man. The former RAF base where Fighter Command had flown from during the war was now a swanky airport for private jets. I always wondered which celebrities were landing and taking off whenever I went past.
The museum itself was a small new building at the side of the RAF chapel. When Finn and I went in, he was greeted like an old friend by the chap who was on the desk.
‘Good to see you,’ he said, shaking Finn’s hand vigorously.
Finn grinned at him. ‘Likewise. This is my erm, my ah, my Stevie.’
I smiled to myself. He obviously didn’t want to call me his girlfriend – we weren’t there yet – but didn’t want to “friend-zone” me either. I liked it.
‘Stevie’s an artist,’ he added. He sounded quite proud, I thought.
‘Finn and I are working on projects that have overlapped,’ I explained.
‘I hear you have a mystery to solve,’ the man said. He looked at Finn. ‘I’ve got all the casualty lists out for you. They’re in the reading room.’
‘Cheers,’ said Finn, slapping him on the back in a manly fashion. ‘Shall we have a look round first?’
We wandered around the little museum, reading the displays about the men and women who had worked there during the war. It made fascinating reading, especially when I found the displays about the bomb that had fallen.
Then we went into the reading room and discovered Finn’s friend had put out all the records we needed.
‘Ah-ha,’ said Finn looking blissfully happy at the idea of wading his way through old documents. ‘Here we go.’
His idea – and I had to admit it was a good one – was to simply read the names and information about the men who’d been injured in the bomb and try to whittle it down.
‘There were twelve men injured in the bomb who went to South London District Hospital,’ he said. ‘Some will be too old to be Elsie’s chap – we know roughly how old he is by some of the things he’s said in his notes to her.’
I nodded, taking the book out of the tote bag I’d brought it in and putting it on the table. ‘We can always check again if we have to, but I know he mentioned in one of his notes that he doesn’t remember the last war.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘So let’s have a look. I think he’d have to be early to mid-twenties in 1940. If he was any older, I reckon he’d have some memories of the war. The end of it at least.’
We trawled through the list of casualties, discarding the men that were too old. That got rid of half of them, another was Polish – apparently there had been a lot of Polish pilots at Biggin Hill – so we got rid of him too because we knew our man came from Lancashire.
With five left, Finn logged on to his laptop and called up the RAF records that he had a subscription for.
‘Now we have names,’ he said. ‘We can find their address when they enlisted and hopefully the address they returned to at the end of the war, too.’
‘We know Elsie’s fella was from Lytham St Anne’s because of the seagull story.’
‘Exactly.’
He checked the first couple of names and I watched him, hunched over his laptop typing away.
‘He’s not Eric …’ he said. ‘Nor George.’
I opened Elsie’s book, planning to flip to the page where she’d shared her notes to her mystery man. But I had it upside down so instead of opening the front cover, I opened it right at the back. I swivelled it round and started leafing through from the back instead, and stopped as I found a page that had been scribbled over. Urgh, had someone at Tall Trees done that?
The messages, pictures and poems in Elsie’s book were higgledy-piggledy over the pages. Some pages had just one letter on them. Others had a few squished in together. But they weren’t untidy – just making the best use of space, like when people signed a birthday card at work. This page, though, was more like the doodles I always did when I was on the phone, writing down random words from my conversation that made sense at the time but none at all when I looked at it five minutes later.
I tutted, gazing at the messy page. There was the alphabet written out from A to Z. And then around the letters were words scattered here and there in scribbled handwriting. That seemed, I thought to myself looking closer, not unlike Elsie’s writing.
‘What is this?’ I muttered. I read the scribbled words. “Friend,” one said. Another said: “Dying,” and another “it hurts.” I shivered, even though it was warm in the room where Finn and I were. This was so odd.
‘Look at this, Finn,’ I said. ‘Weird messages in what I think is Elsie’s handwriting.’
I showed the book to him and he pushed his glasses up on to his forehead so he could see better close up. ‘What is this?’ he said. ‘Are you sure Elsie wrote these?’
‘Not sure but I think it’s her writing.’ I squinted at the letters again. ‘Hmm, it’s hard to tell though. Everyone wrote so beautifully back then.’
I leafed through the pages until I found Elsie’s notes to her bloke, and flipped back and forth studying the writing carefully. ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Look at how she loops the ends of her Ss? It’s the same in both.’
‘I agree.’ Finn nodded. ‘But what does it mean?’
‘Oh God, look. She’s written “kill me”.’
We both looked at each other in surprise.
‘We don’t have a death certificate for Elsie, and Petra saw her in the Sixties, so we know that no matter what she says on these pages, she wasn’t dying.’ I frowned. ‘But maybe she thought she was?’
‘Could this be a game of some sort?’ Finn suggested. ‘Like a weird version of hangman?’
‘A very weird version of hangman.’
I flipped back and forth again, and Finn said: ‘Hang on.’
He put his finger into the page to stop me moving them. ‘Look, there’s another message on the other side.’
Sure enough on the other side of the page where the alphabet was scrawled, was another – neater – message in Elsie’s writing.
‘Mammy, I am sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye,’ I read aloud. ‘I love you all very much.’
‘What is this?’ I said. ‘Is she writing on behalf of someone else? Someone whose injuries were too bad for them to write themselves?’
‘Maybe so,’ Finn said. He sat up a bit straighter. ‘Perhaps the person who was dying?’ He flipped the page back to the letters and tapped the page with his finger. ‘And perhaps this person couldn’t speak so they were spelling the messages out letter by letter.’
I stared at him. ‘Bit far-fetched isn’t it?’
He shrugged. ‘I saw a documentary about assisted dying where the chap involved was paralysed and he spelled words out on this computer thing by blinking.’
‘Say that again.’
‘He was paralysed and he—’
‘No, the first bit. Assisted dying did you say? What if this patient was asking Elsie to help them die?’
‘Now who’s being far-fetched?’ Finn raised an eyebrow.
‘It literally says “kill me”,’ I pointed out.
‘So you think Elsie was running round the hospital seeing off patients? Like some angel of death?’
‘No I do not,’ I said frostily. I felt very protective of Elsie. ‘I think this person might have been special to her.’ I gasped. ‘What if it was our mystery airman? What if he was badly injured, couldn’t speak and he asked Elsie to put him out of his misery?’
Finn shook his head. ‘The same airman who wouldn’t kill a seagull? Plus he was fit enough to meet Elsie in secret and be sent back to his base. He wasn’t dying.’
‘No he wasn’t,’ I said delighted about that. ‘Maybe a friend then? It says “friend” there on the page. Or a family member, even?’
‘Maybe,’ Finn said doubtfully.
We both stared at the book for a second, at a loss as to what to do next, and then he spoke.
‘Perhaps if we find her fella that will help us? It’s the only lead we’ve got at the moment anyway.’
‘Perhaps. Who’s next on your list?’
‘Harry Yates,’ he said, typing the name. There was only one result. Finn clicked on it and let out a little shout of triumph that made me jump.
‘Harry Yates, born 1919, address 14 Stewart Crescent, Lytham St Anne’s.’
‘That’s him. That’s Elsie’s bloke.’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘What else does it say?’ I leaned over and he put his arm around me and pulled me close. It felt totally natural to rest my head on his shoulder as I gazed at the screen. ‘Does it tell you where he went after the war?’
‘Let’s have a look,’ said Finn. He clicked again. ‘Yes, his address is Dublin, in Ireland.’
‘Dublin?’ I sat up. ‘Ireland?’
‘Maybe he had family there.’
‘Or maybe Elsie went there,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s why we couldn’t find her death certificate – because she died in Ireland.’
‘Why would she go to Ireland?’
‘To be with Harry?’
‘We’re going round in circles,’ Finn said. ‘I’m not registered on any Irish genealogy sites, but I’ll get myself an account and then we can search for Elsie and Harry on there.’
‘Perhaps they got married in Ireland and lived happily ever after.’
‘I hope so.’ Finn still had his arm around me and now he pulled me closer again and we kissed. ‘I’d like them to have a happy ending.’
I felt so completely happy that I almost expected little birds and butterflies to appear around us like in a Disney fairy tale. I grinned at Finn. ‘Me too.’
And then, there it was. The little niggle in the back of my head that told me not to relax. That if I was feeling happy now, something bad was bound to happen. Remember when you were happy about your exhibition, it told me. Remember how you thought everything was working out and then Max turned up and you messed everything up? Remember, remember, remember …
I took a deep breath in and Finn looked at me, concerned. ‘Okay?’
‘Might just get some air,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait outside.’
I picked up the book and hurried out to the front of the museum where I sat on a bench and gazed up at the two Spitfires that were displayed next to the entrance. My breathing was recovering now and I was pleased that I hadn’t panicked. See, I told myself. It’s all going to be all right. Finn’s here. You’re here. It’s all fine.
While I waited for Finn to say goodbye and thank you to the staff at the museum, I looked at the odd notes I’d found. “Kill me” was such a blunt, awful thing to read. Such a blunt, awful request for someone to make.
Who was it? I wondered. Who had asked Elsie to do such a terrible thing? I turned the page over and looked at the message there.
‘Mammy, I am so sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye,’ I read under my breath. Mammy? What was that? Did Geordies say “Mammy”? Or was it Scousers? I was sure someone I’d spoken to recently had said it. I looked up into the sky, trying to think.
‘Ready to go?’ Finn appeared next to me. ‘Are you working later?’
‘I have the night off as it happens,’ I said. ‘I was planning a Netflix binge with some takeaway pizza.’
‘Want some company?’
I looked at him, this lovely clever man who seemed to want to spend time with me, no matter what we were doing, and I nodded. ‘Yes please.’
‘I can bring wine.’
‘Yes please,’ I said again, and he laughed.
I got up from my bench and followed him to his car and just as he unlocked the door I remembered where I’d heard “Mammy” recently.
‘Irish,’ I said, getting into the passenger seat. ‘Mammy is Irish.’
‘Your mammy?’
I chuckled. ‘No, the note in Elsie’s book that’s addressed to “Mammy”? On the other page to the alphabet?’
‘What about it?’
‘Mammy is what some Irish people call their mums. You know grumpy Helen at Tall Trees? I’m sure she mentioned her mammy the other day and she’s Irish.’
Finn started the engine and winked at me. ‘So Ireland could be a link between Elsie and Harry and the person who was dying,’ he said. ‘We just have to find out what it means.’
*
Finn stayed the night. We watched Casablanca and ate pizza and talked for hours about Harry and Elsie and whether they could have gone to Ireland together, and it was lovely. And then we went to bed and that was lovely, too. Really lovely. We slept with our legs tangled up together and again I thought that I was completely happy – and this time I didn’t have the fear that it was all about to go wrong.
I woke up early to find him getting dressed, tiptoeing around the room.
‘Are you going?’ I felt a lurch of fear. ‘Stay. I don’t have to be at Tall Trees until later.’
‘I’m going to go into work and use the uni logins for the Irish genealogy sites,’ he told me. ‘It’s best to get in early before the summer school students arrive at the library.’
‘Oh that’s exciting.’ I sat up in bed and he came and sat next to me, giving me a long kiss. ‘Although,’ he said. ‘There’s no rush.’
I was dozing when he eventually left again. He kissed me and said he’d ring me later. I half heard him leave, and then I nodded off again. I only woke up when my “just in case” alarm went off – a night of very little sleep had obviously caught up with me.
Contentedly, I stretched out, smelling Finn’s aftershave on my pillow and then went off for a shower. And when I came out, my doorbell was ringing. I paused, my head on one side listening. Was it my doorbell? No one ever visited me. In fact, I hadn’t even known the flat had a doorbell.
Rubbing my wet hair with the towel, I tied my dressing gown around me more securely and went to answer. And there, on the doorstep were two police officers – a man and a woman. They were talking but when I opened the door they both stopped.
‘We’re looking for someone called Stevie?’ one of them said.
I dropped the towel, and stared at them, feeling my legs beginning to shake. Suddenly I was back in the gallery where I’d been when the police had arrived to tell me the news about Max.
‘That’s me,’ I whispered. ‘I’m Stevie.’
‘Do you know Mr Finn Russell?’ the policeman said.
‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’
The police officers exchanged a glance. The female officer spoke in a kind tone. ‘I’m afraid he’s been involved in an accident,’ she said.