ELEVEN

Tom waited in the café for almost an hour. As soon as Alfred came by to top up his glass of wine, Tom said, “I’m getting a little worried, Alfred. She told me seven and it’s almost eight o’clock. Is there a phone I can use?”

“Yes, Guv, in the manager’s office, right over there on your left. It’s not locked.”

“I won’t be long, but if my lady friend should walk in, please don’t let her leave. Just bring her to me.”

“You bet, Guv.”

When Tom got inside the office he took out the piece of brown paper in his wallet that had Mrs. Bertie Cresswell’s telephone number and address on it. He dialed.

“Hello, Mrs. Cresswell, this is Lieutenant Tom Cole. I’m calling because I was supposed to meet Anna here tonight, at the café we’ve been going to, and I’ve been waiting here for almost an hour, and … Anna! Anna Rosenkilde!… What do you mean you never heard of her? You must have heard of her, she lives in your house … Hello … Hello, Mrs. Cresswell, can you hear me?”

*   *   *

TOM TOOK a cab to Mandy Adams’s house. Just as he arrived, the air raid siren sounded. Mandy pulled him into the living room and pulled down the rest of the curtains over the windows. “Now then, Romeo, how romantic to be wooing and cooing a young woman just before the bombs arrive? Where is your lovely? At home, I hope.”

“You’re just like your cousin, did you know that, Mandy?”

“I’ve heard it before. Are you complaining?”

“Not at all,” Tom said. “But my ‘lovely,’ as you call her, never showed up at the café. And the lady where she works said she never heard of her. When I called the house where Anna lives, the sweet lady who owns the house said she also never heard of her.”