by Rhys Bowen
And now she was free to resume her former life. Free. Not quite free, she knew that. But she would tackle the next hurdle when she came to it. For now, she was going to try to enjoy the Kentish countryside and her family. They drove through Sevenoaks, then their surroundings became familiar. She had ridden over these fields with the hunt when she was a girl. It’s strange, she thought, but I feel like an old woman, as if my life has already happened. And she wondered if she would ever feel normal again. And then, of course, the worries crept back into her head. Would she dare to go through with it? And could she be brave enough to make Gaston proud of her?
Then they were driving through Elmsleigh. There was the village green with the cricket scoreboard still showing the numbers of the last game. The church beyond. Miss Hamilton walking her dogs. Nothing had changed at all. Only me, Margot thought.
Phoebe was in the schoolroom, reciting the order of English kings and queens to her governess. She had got as far as Richard III and was stuck. She paced around the room. “Richard III,” she said again, and then . . .
“Battle of Bosworth,” Miss Gumble reminded her. “What happened after that?”
“And then . . .” Phoebe looked out the window and gave a shriek of delight. “It’s Margot!” she shouted. “Margot’s home.”
She rushed down the hall, down the two flights of stairs, shouting the good news.
Lord Westerham was in the morning room, reading the newspaper. He put it down and glared at his daughter. “What have I told you about that screaming and shouting? Doesn’t your governess tell you that a lady never raises her voice?”
“But Pah,” Phoebe said, her face still alight with joy, “it’s Margot. She’s home.”
Around midday on Friday, Ben was getting ready to go to Victoria when Guy tapped on his door. “Listen, old chap. I have it on good authority that Margot Sutton is being driven home to Kent. I wondered if you could find a good excuse to be down there.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m heading there right now,” Ben said. “Pamela Sutton asked me to help with a garden party her mother is giving tomorrow.”
A smile crossed Guy’s face. “A garden party? Are there still such things? Remarkable. I might hop on a train and join you. Strawberries and cream on the lawn? So definitely prewar. What’s it in aid of? Fund-raising for our troops?”
Ben shrugged. “I’ve no idea. All I know is that Lady Westerham was in a panic about holding a garden party when she didn’t have the staff or the supplies, and Pamela agreed to go and help.”
“So you’ll put on tails and pretend to be the butler, will you?” Guy chuckled.
“Actually, they still have their butler. He’s too old to be called up. But no footmen and only a couple of maids.”
“How the upper classes are made to suffer,” Guy said with heavy sarcasm. “Mummy wrote that she had to clean her own lavatory the other day. Imagine.”
Ben smiled. He realised what a shock wartime living must be for so many of Guy’s class.
He was about to leave when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs and was startled to see a dispatch rider heading toward him. The man stopped and saluted. “Mr. Cresswell? I was told to deliver this to you immediately. It comes from Medmenham.”
“Thank you,” Ben stammered. The man saluted and stomped back down the stairs. Ben went into his room, closed the door, and opened the envelope. “I think I’ve located the place on your photograph,” Mavis had written. “It’s marked on the ordnance survey map. Actually in Somerset, not Devon or Cornwall as you had thought.”
Ben’s heart was thumping. He had to tell someone before he met Pamela at the station. He grabbed his overnight bag, then took the Underground and walked as fast as he could to Dolphin Square. He rang the doorbell down below, but there was no answer. He rode up in the elevator and tapped on the door. Again no answer. An elderly man was coming down the hall toward him. “No use knocking,” he said. “They went away. I saw them with suitcases earlier this morning.”
“Damn,” Ben muttered to himself. He took the lift back down and stood in bright sunshine, trying to think what to do next. There was nobody he could tell about the photograph. Guy had gone out, and Ben had no idea when he’d return. Besides, he had an uneasy feeling about Guy. He’d have to go to Somerset himself. But Pamela was waiting for him at the station.
He sighed and headed to Victoria.
Pamela and Trixie were waiting under the destination board. Pamela waved when she spotted him. “You made it. How lovely.”
“Hello, Ben,” Trixie said. “I’m so pleased to see you’re coming, too. I’m all set to be a maid. I wanted to rent one of those frilly French maid’s outfits in a costume shop, but Pamma wouldn’t let me.”
“As if my family ever had a frilly French maid,” Pamma said, giving Ben an exasperated look. “Even Mah’s never had a French lady’s maid. Hers is middle-aged and stodgy and called Philpott.”
“Then your family needs livening up,” Trixie said. “Mummy always had French maids, and Daddy always chased them. It kept their marriage happy.”
Pamela pretended to be studying the departure board. “So there is a train in half an hour on platform eleven. That’s good. Plenty of time to buy our tickets and get over there.”
“Look, Pamma.” Ben cleared his throat. “I’m not sure what to do. I have to go down to Somerset right away. Something I absolutely have to check on. So I should really head to Paddington and take the first train down there. But I did promise I’d come with you to help your mah. So I hope you understand if I back out on you.”
“Of course,” Pamma said. “It doesn’t matter, I’m sure. You have to do your job.”
“What’s so important in Somerset?” Trixie asked. “Nothing ever happens there except for making cider and cheese.” She laughed, but then she studied Ben’s face. “You really are involved in secrets and intrigue, aren’t you? I thought you had to be when I saw you at Bletchley. I know, let me come down to Somerset with you. I’m a Bletchley girl. I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act. I won’t say a word, and I’m dying for excitement.”
“It’s not going to be exciting,” Ben said. “I just have to check on a map reference.”
“And you are certainly not going with Ben,” Pamela said, giving Trixie a cold look. “If anyone goes with him, it will be me.”
“You both have to help Lady Westerham,” Ben said.
“But how are you going to get around when you’re there?” Pamela asked.
“Train. Bus. My feet.”
“They have buses once a week in places like Somerset.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I have a good idea,” Pamela said. “Come down to Kent with us, and we’ll ask to borrow Pah’s Rolls. I’ll drive you.”
“But what about your mother?”
“If we went straight away this afternoon, we could be back in good time before the party. Do you think it will take long, what you have to do there?”
“I’ve no idea,” Ben said. “Frankly I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”
“That sounds like a lark,” Trixie said. “I still think that Pamma should stay with her mama and you should take me with you, Ben.”
“I don’t think I should take anybody with me,” Ben said uneasily.
“Yes, you will,” Pamela said. “You’ll need someone to map-read while you drive. Or better still, I’ll drive and you read the map. That will make it go so much faster.”
“I suppose so,” he agreed.
“So you want me to stay and slave away in your place,” Trixie said with a mock pout.
Pamela gave Trixie a grateful glance. “Would you really?”
“I suppose so, if I have to. Slaving at garden parties for Britain. I may get a medal.”
Pamela laughed. “You are a brick.”
“That’s me. Trixie the brick,” she said. “Come on, we have to buy those tickets and there is a long line.”
Ben pulled Pamela aside. “Do you think your
father would let us have the Rolls?” Ben asked, still torn between catching the next train from Paddington and having Pamela beside him in a motorcar.
“If not, we’ll ask the Prescotts. They have extra motorcars,” Pamela said breezily. “And plenty of petrol, by the look of it.”
“Do you think they’d really lend me a car?” Ben asked.
“They’d lend me one,” Pamela said calmly. “They still think—”
“So it really is over between you and Jeremy?”
“How could it possibly not be?” she said. “But never mind that now. We have a job to do.”
“It’s really good of you, Pamela,” he said.
“Not at all. It will be an adventure, and I need something to cheer me up.”
When they arrived home, they were greeted by an ecstatic Phoebe, announcing once again that Margot had returned. This necessitated hugs and tears and ended up in having tea with the family.
“Just like old times,” as Lady Westerham put it. “My greatest prayer has been answered, and my girls are all with us again.”
Margot looked drawn and pale and gave a sad sort of smile. Ben debated whether he should stay, now that Margot was here, or go chasing the photograph. The latter won. Margot announced that she was really tired and would they excuse her if she went up to her room.
As Ben had feared, Lord Westerham did object to their taking the Rolls.
“I’m not allowing you two off on some joyride, using up the last of my petrol ration,” he bellowed.
“But Pah, it’s important,” Pamela said. “Something that Ben has to do for his job, and I said I’d go along to help him.”
“If it’s important for his job, then the government can supply him with a vehicle. They get petrol. I don’t,” he snapped.
“I’m awfully sorry,” Pamela whispered. “I didn’t think he’d be such an old meanie. It’s too bad that we can’t tell him why we need the car. He doesn’t realise it’s a matter of national security. But he’s right. Couldn’t your boss requisition a vehicle for you?”
“It seems he’s away for the weekend,” Ben said. “And I just don’t feel that this can wait.”
“What is this all about?” Pamela asked in a low voice.
Ben thought there was no point in keeping quiet, now that she knew he was MI5. “That parachutist who fell into your field,” he said, drawing her aside where they couldn’t be overheard. “He had nothing on him at all. No identification. Only a photograph with numbers on it. And someone has finally found the location where it was taken. So I have to go there right away.”
“We can’t tell the Prescotts that,” Pamela said. She looked out the window. “I say, there are loads of army vehicles sitting idle outside our house. Do you think we dare borrow one?”
“And be shot as we leave with it?” Ben had to laugh. Then he thought and said, “But I could ask Colonel Pritchard. He seemed like a decent sort of chap. He knows all about the parachutist. And I could tell him who I’m working for.”
“Then do it,” Pamela said. “I’ll go and change into something more suitable for driving, and I’ll pack my toothbrush, just in case we’re stuck for the night.” She grinned at him. “I never thought I’d smile again, but this is going to be fun.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
To Somerset
Colonel Pritchard listened with interest but was hesitant. “I can’t give you my staff car. Apart from that I’ve only lorries, tanks, and armoured cars here. You’d certainly be conspicuous driving around in one of those, and I doubt you even have the correct licence.” He paused, then said, “I tell you what—have you ridden a motorbike?”
“A couple of times, when I was up at Oxford,” Ben said.
“Then you can take my dispatcher’s motorbike and sidecar. It doesn’t use much petrol, either.”
So half an hour later, they set off with Pamela in the sidecar and Ben sitting, rather uneasily, on the motorbike. Pamela had changed into slacks and an open-necked shirt. Her hair was tied back under a scarf. Ben had to concentrate fully on driving the unfamiliar machine and was hardly conscious that he had a passenger and the passenger was Pamma. It wasn’t a powerful machine, and Ben soon settled down. Driving would have been pleasant on roads that were almost deserted, thanks to petrol rationing, except that all signposts had been removed and they took a couple of wrong turns before they reached the main road to the southwest. Then they breezed along at a good rate, encountering only the occasional army lorry or delivery van.
It was close to nine in the evening by the time they had passed through Wiltshire and driven into Somerset. Darkness threatened to come upon them suddenly. The setting sun had been swallowed into an ominous bank of clouds. A chill wind had sprung up.
Ben turned to Pamela with a worried look on his face. “Golly, we didn’t think about rain, did we? I now see that a motorbike has distinct limitations.”
“Then let’s hurry up and get the job done,” Pamela said. “How close do you think we are?”
Ben studied the map. “Quite close. That last village must have been Hinton St George. That means the hill should be ahead on our left soon. We’ve seen plenty of hills, but this one has a distinctive shape.” He held up the copy of the photograph for her to study. “And see the church tower and those three big pines. They should be easy enough to identify.”
Pamela nodded. “Then lead on, Macduff.”
The lane took them through the Somerset Levels, where cows grazed in fields separated by water channels. It seemed to Ben that they had left the hilly part of the region behind, and he wondered if his map-reading skills had led him astray. Then they passed through a village of thatched cottages and Pamela pointed. “Look. That’s it!”
As they came closer, they could see the church, rising above those pine trees. They looked at each other and smiled. It took them a while to find a road that led them to the top of the hill, but in the dying light of day, they drove up to the church, and Ben stopped the bike. Rooks were cawing loudly from the trees in the churchyard where old gravestones lay at drunken angles. The wind from the west hit them in the face as they walked forward. The church was called All Saints. Ben looked around and saw a small house behind the churchyard. Apart from that, there were no dwellings in sight. The place had a gloomy and forsaken feel to it.
“Now what?” Pamela asked.
Now what, indeed? They had passed a couple of small cottages as the road wound up the hill, but there was no sign of a village or the substantial manor house Ben had hoped for.
“I suppose we should visit the vicarage before we go down,” Ben said.
“Are you expecting to find a hotbed of Nazi sympathisers there?” Pamela asked, half-joking. “Are you armed, just in case?” She saw the look on his face and burst out laughing. “I think we’ve been had,” she said. “I think there was a hidden message in the photograph, and the actual place was irrelevant.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree,” Ben said. But he found a mossy path through the churchyard and knocked on the vicarage door. It was opened by an elderly cleric with wispy white hair and an angelic face. Ben said that they were driving around the West Country and interested in old churches, particularly remote old churches. They were invited in and served elderberry wine, made by a parishioner, the vicar told them.
“But where is your parish?” Pamela asked. “We didn’t see any houses.”
“Ah, well,” the vicar said. “There is indeed a history to this church. It was once part of a monastery, taken over at the time of Henry VIII and handed to a local lord who turned the monastery into his manor. Then during the civil war, it was razed to the ground by Oliver Cromwell. But the church survived and has served the neighbouring farms and villages ever since.”
“So the manor house is no more?”
“Part of the ruined walls still stand, but that’s about it.”
“So does anyone else live around here these days?” Pamela asked.
“Nobody for a good half mile,
” the vicar said.
“It must be lonely for you.”
He nodded. “My wife died three years ago. A woman comes in to clean once a week. I do my rounds on my bicycle, but yes, it is pretty remote. Luckily, I have my books and the wireless.” He stood up. “It will be dark soon, but would you like to see the church?”
“Thank you.” Ben and Pamela rose to follow him. He took a torch from the hall table and shone their way between the gravestones. Inside the church, the last of the daylight came in through tall, perpendicular windows, giving an impression of a long nave with pillars on either side. The church smelled old and damp and was clearly in a state of disrepair.
The vicar walked them around, shining his torch on marble slabs marking tombs of dead knights. Then he said, “If you’d like to go up the tower, we’ve a wonderful view from the top. I won’t come with you. The old legs can’t take the stairs anymore, you understand. There is a light on the stair, but we shouldn’t use it because of the blackout. Here, take my torch.”
He showed them a door in the wall. Beyond it a stone spiral stair led up and up. The torch, covered in blackout fabric, picked out one step after another, but it was still eerie and horribly cold. At last they came to a little door, unlatched it, and stepped out onto the platform at the top of the tower. A ray of dying sun had pierced the clouds and painted the channels of water below pink. In the distance they could make out the open water of the Bristol Channel.
“This would be a good place to signal from,” Ben said.
Pamela nodded. “But who would be doing the signalling?” she replied.
The wind now carried the first hints of rain. “We should get going,” Ben said.
The vicar walked with them back to the motorbike and waved as they left. It was starting to rain hard now, a stinging wind-blown rain from the sea.
“So do you think we should come back again in daylight and find out who might be living nearby?” Pamela asked.