Her mother hovered in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry about your face,’ she muttered.
It wasn’t much. But it was something.
*
The night was black as peat by the time Jessie turned into her road. The London street lamps threw out nets of amber but it was the blackness that won. The blackness always won. Even up here on Putney Hill, far away from the belching factories of Bermondsey and Bethnal Green, the fog had slunk up from the river and merged with the industrial filth suspended in the air.
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
Jessie had read those words by Carl Jung and they had lodged in a coil of her brain. On the drive home along the streets, busy even at this late hour, she examined the dark corners within herself before allowing herself to think about the accusation her father had made. That she was the one who had said something to Tim that – wittingly or unwittingly – had driven him away from his family, a family that was held together by threads more fragile than her mother’s ball of baby-wool. One flick of the fingers and they snapped.
I swear it’s not true. Her words to her father.
But no one disappears without a reason. All the way home she replayed in her head the conversations she’d had with her brother during the last weeks, tearing them apart, seeking out a word or phrase that might have—
A car blasted its horn behind her, making her jump. It flashed its lights at her and she realised she had stupidly slowed to a hedgehog’s pace. As if she could decelerate the world, dislodge time, turn the clock back and start the last fortnight all over again. She parked outside her house, climbed out of the Swallow and automatically checked the street in both directions, but nothing moved in the shadows cast by the street lamps. She opened the gate and hurried down the tiny front path, her key ready in her hand. The figure that emerged from the darkest patch right next to her front door made her heart leap to her throat. Her hand shot out to ward him off as she thrust the key into the door-lock and she opened her mouth to scream like a skinned cat to scare him away.
‘Miss Kenton.’ Fingers closed around her wrist and lowered it from in front of his face. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you.’
‘Monty! Didn’t your mother teach you not to lurk in dark corners? You could get your head knocked off.’
His fingers were still attached to her wrist and he laughed softly, making her aware of how small her bones were next to his.
‘How’s your head feeling?’ he asked.
‘Much better.’ Jessie reclaimed her wrist. ‘What about you?’
He flexed his shoulders and winced with an exaggerated groan. ‘Like my father’s chauffeur used to say, I feel as old as two old horses.’
She laughed, the easy sound of it astonishing her. ‘Come on in and I’ll make you a cup of coffee to warm you up, but then I warn you I’m chucking you out.’ She opened the door and turned on the hallway light, and its beam bounced off his pale face. She noticed he was looking at her slightly oddly. She must look as rough as she felt. ‘I’ve had enough of today,’ she said.
She just wanted to close her eyes and vacate her life for a few hours before launching herself on the next step, the thought of which excited and terrified her in equal measure. But right now, she needed sleep.
*
It was hard, up in her flat, to stop herself standing in front of her guest, hands on hips, and asking him straight out why he had come, what did he want? But she didn’t. To do so might drive him away, and she realised with surprise that she wasn’t ready to do that yet, despite her tiredness and the drumbeat in her head. This man had chosen to help her – whatever his reasons for doing so – and she found herself swinging erratically between gratitude and suspicion. Tonight, gratitude won.
She fussed about in the kitchen, making two cups of cocoa rather than coffee and added two shots of whisky to the tray. Medicinal purposes, of course. When she carried it into the living room she felt a flutter of irritation to see that he had abandoned his place on the settee where she had sat him down. He was on his feet, inspecting her bookcase and a copy of The Good Earth by Pearl Buck lay in his hand. He replaced it quickly, as if aware that he had overstepped the mark. A person’s books are private, not to be poked around by others at will. They say so much. What conclusions was he drawing about her?
He nodded approval when he noticed the whisky. ‘Good thinking,’ he said and returned to the settee.
She noted that despite the obvious soreness of his shoulders, he moved with the easy confidence of his class, with a conviction that he was welcome in whatever situation he found himself in. His bones settled against her cushions as if they belonged there, and his brown eyes observed her over the rim of his cocoa in a way that made her feel like the visitor rather than the host. She slumped down in an armchair and knocked back her whisky. Better. Definitely better.
For a full minute they sat quietly, sipping their hot drinks, and through the steam Jessie examined his face. It had an austerity to it that was belied by the upward curve of his mouth and the readiness of his brown eyes to smile. But he was a good actor, that much she had already registered. So how much of this was a mask? How many masks did he possess? Yet she liked the stillness of him and the fact that he didn’t always feel the need for talk. The silence in the room was companionable, the hiss of the gas fire relaxing.
‘So.’ Jessie put down her cup and saucer. ‘I went to see Archie in hospital today. He’s very annoyed at being out of action. Missing everything. He told me that you had been in to visit. That was kind of you.’
He frowned and shrugged dismissively. A man who did not appreciate thanks.
‘The National Unemployed Workers’ Movement is making the most of their moment of glory,’ he commented. ‘Still locked in running battles with the police all over London and splashed over every front page of the newspapers.’
‘My father believes that Sir Oswald Mosley is the man to take control now, a strong leader in time of crisis.’
‘Mosley is the one who said, “The art of life is to be in the rhythm of your age.” He’s good at sensing the mood of the people in this horrific Depression and knowing what they want.’
‘Yet he’s a baronet, isn’t he? Related to the royal family. Do you know him?’
The frown deepened and he drank his whisky. ‘We’ve met.’ He put down his glass and abruptly leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Miss Kenton …’
‘Call me Jessie.’
One corner of his mouth tipped upwards. ‘A charming name.’
‘I can do without the gallantry, thank you.’
He chuckled and seemed to unwind another notch. ‘Now tell me, Jessie, what do you believe has happened to your brother?’
The change of subject and the directness of the question threw her. How much was she prepared to tell him?
‘I don’t know, but it seems to me that there are two obvious possibilities.’ She spoke carefully, giving herself time. ‘Either he has left the country to avoid some unpleasantness that he has become involved in here …’ She paused, her heart pumping harder.
‘Or?’
‘Or he has left England specifically to take part in some activity in Egypt – hence the NILE code. The fact that it all seems to be secret doesn’t look good, and could involve Egypt’s antiquities.’
She didn’t mention the passport.
‘No innocent reason? Like a few weeks away with his girlfriend?’
‘What do you know about his girlfriend?’ It came out sharp. A quick bite at him.
He held up his hands, palms towards her. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘Nothing at all. I was just pointing out the obvious, that’s all, and wondering why you are choosing to ignore it.’
She didn’t need the obvious pointed out to her. Too many had done so already. Even Archie. ‘I asked around Tim’s other friends,’ he’d told her, his head heavily bandaged on his hospital pillow, his eye swollen and his cheek like a split plum. ‘No one has heard from him.’
Archie’s attempt at a smile drew blood from his bruised lips. ‘You know Tim, he’ll be wining and dining a girl somewhere, the old scallywag.’
That was the point. Jessie did know Tim. This wasn’t about a girl, not even the lovely Anippe. This ran deeper.
‘Do you have a sister, Monty? Or a brother?’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe you don’t understand. That the obvious is not always the path to choose when it comes to brothers and sisters.’
No words. No smiles. No kink of an expressive eyebrow. Not this time. He stared at her, a direct gaze that didn’t waver as he murmured, ‘So much conviction and such blind loyalty.’ The words were separated, giving each one room to breathe, as if it were a foreign language to him.
Jabez stopped washing his ears in front of the fire and stalked across the patch of rug that divided them, his tail upright like a lightning rod. As if he felt a shift in the air, the threat of a storm looming.
‘I intend to set off immediately for Egypt,’ she announced. ‘The journey is a combination of aeroplane and train, apparently. So first thing tomorrow morning I will buy tickets for …’
He stood up and offered her a cigarette from his silver cigarette case. She shook her head, annoyed by the deliberate interruption.
‘A good smoke clears the thought processes,’ he urged.
After a moment’s hesitation she accepted one and he lit the cigarette for her before returning to his seat. It was only then that his eyes grew bright with suppressed energy, and Jessie was in no doubt that whatever he was about to say was the real reason he had come here tonight. She drew on her cigarette and waited.
‘I have a chum,’ he said, ‘who has a girlfriend in Paris, a dainty French dancer, Giselle, all feathers and garters. Anyway, Jack is so besotted by this exotic filly that he flies over in his small plane to see her every weekend, just as soon as he sheds the daily shackles of his father’s bank. He flits across the Channel to Le Bourget airport on a Saturday and quaffs grand quantities of absinthe and French oohla-la!’ He gave a boisterous laugh, but the sound of it did not quite match the expression in his brown eyes. ‘He’d be more than happy to help out. A quick hop to Paris. Then it’s the train to Brindisi and a flying boat across the Med.’
Jessie released the smoke and studied her companion through its flimsy curtain. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because I asked him.’
So he was already certain she would go.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But no, thank you.’
He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it off his face, and she could sense his frustration. ‘Why not, Jessie? It would make a quicker start for us.’
‘Us?’
‘Yes, you and me.’
Jessie stood up, looking down on his upturned face. ‘There is no us. I shall be travelling alone.’
She walked out of the room into the kitchen, returned with the whisky bottle and poured them both another drink.
‘I’ll see you when I get back and tell you all about it,’ she smiled. He stretched his legs in a good imitation of relaxing, and shrugged with studied nonchalance.
‘Don’t be foolish, Jessie. It’s over two thousand miles. You can’t travel all that way alone. And anyway, I have your brother’s disappearance on my conscience – I’m not having yours on it too.’
‘Your conscience is your own business, not mine. I am quite capable of making the journey to Egypt on my own.’
‘Of course you are, I don’t doubt that for a moment. But that’s not the point. It’s too dangerous for a woman alone in that part of the world.’
‘Have you been there?’
‘Once, when I was eighteen. I idled a summer away before I went up to Cambridge, sailing around the Mediterranean. Morocco was where I spent most of my time.’ His eyes changed, the lines of his face softened, and Jessie could not help wondering what memory he had tapped into. He roused himself with a vague wave of his hand around the dimly lit room as if it were a wide open blue sky. ‘But I did mooch around Alexandria for a while, up on Egypt’s north coast. It’s a beautiful city, very British and astonishingly elegant. You’ll love it. Unfortunately I didn’t get down as far as Cairo, nor all the way south to Luxor, though I’d like to have seen some of the pharaohs’ tombs and the great Karnak temple there.’
His words were forming a barrier. A wall across the room.
‘No,’ she said firmly. But it bounced back at her. ‘No,’ she repeated and this time he listened. ‘Thank you for the offer, but I intend to travel alone.’
He gave her a long look, then pressed the heels of his hands into his eye-sockets. Whatever he was thinking was masked from view.
‘Tired?’ she asked.
He removed his hands. His gaze was no longer that of someone offering assistance to a damsel in distress. He was looking at her with desolate need. She felt her heart lurch. She wished suddenly that he wasn’t there. That he hadn’t come. He was muddying the decision inside her that had been clear and straightforward just moments ago.
‘Jessie, listen to me,’ he said gently. ‘It is a man’s world in Egypt, a country where women are relegated to the kitchen and the bedroom. You will be far more successful in your enquiries for your brother if you have a man at your side.’
‘But …’
‘Yes, I know it goes against the grain,’ he gave her a rueful smile, ‘for a modern young woman like yourself to accept it in 1932, but it’s true.’ He sighed softly. ‘I promise you it’s true. So let me come with you. I meant what I said about my conscience. I feel responsible because the séance that seemed to trigger Tim’s dis appearance was held at my house. I’m sorry. Truly sorry. I don’t want to see you injured too.’
‘Injured? What do you mean? What makes you think Tim is injured?’
‘It’s only that surely he would have contacted you if he were well?’
She shuddered. What if he was right? There were too many what ifs. What if she needed this man as much as he needed her?
She knocked back her whisky and welcomed its heat inside her.
‘Very well, Monty, we shall make up a travelling party of two.’
He smiled at her. It was settled.
‘Where do we start looking?’ he asked.
‘Cairo.’
He raised his glass. ‘To Cairo,’ he said. ‘And to Tim.’
Tim. Her brother’s name reverberated in her head. Was she already too late?
21
Georgie
England 1929
It is snowing. I like the snow. I open the window and thrust a bare arm out through the metal bars to feel the icy flakes settling on my skin. I know how snow is made – I have read how water vapour in the atmosphere condenses into ice crystals, and ice crystals aggregate into snowflakes that fall to the ground.
But my mind frightens me because I start to wonder if they are miniature space ships from Mars, engineered to vanish into a droplet of liquid at the touch of a human. It is possible. Everything is possible. But I think about the needles that Dr Churchward sticks in my arm and I know I have lost count this week. I hate to lose count. Hate, hate, hate it.
I feel my mind escaping from me, slimy and treacherous, and out of my mouth spill the words, ‘Tell me what Jessie is doing, tell me what she looks like now.’
You blink, like the blue-eyed cat that I watch stalking the birds in the garden. ‘She looks like you,’ you say.
That’s when you take the photograph of my sister from the breast pocket of your jacket and show it to me.
I start to cry and I don’t stop.
I have a secret.
I have to train myself not to tell it to you, just like I train my muscles with the Indian clubs every Saturday. I am not allowed to keep the wooden clubs because they say I would be dangerous with them, but you smuggle them in each week. Like you smuggle in newspapers. I have to wear gloves to read them because I cannot stand the black ink blurring onto my skin and you only let me read certain
pages because you say they will shock me. Even so, I am shocked. At the violence. At the murders. But I like to read about them because they make me realise I am not alone.
I would murder Dr Churchward if I could.
My arms and my chest are a man’s, you tell me, not a girl’s any more. They were never a girl’s, they were mine, but I don’t point that out. I am learning.
I have a secret. It concerns the roof of this residence. Sometimes it takes all my strength not to share it with you. But it is too dangerous.
22
Croydon Airport had style. The terminal was an art deco building constructed only four years earlier in 1928. It oozed confidence and calmed nerves with its distinctive aroma of cedarwood polish. Monty stood under the central glass dome in its vast booking hall and looked up at the blue sky above. A good day for flying.
He watched Jessie walk towards him across the acres of parquet, weaving her way smoothly through the crowds and past the towering square pillars where motes of dust in a beam of sunlight flickered around her head like fireflies. He felt the familiar clench in his chest at the sight of her, the not altogether unpleasant sensation of a stranger’s hand pushing between his ribs and ripping his lungs out. An unwieldy mixture of pain and pleasure. Right now he concentrated on the pleasure. He smiled and waved his panama hat at her and headed towards her to relieve her of the small leather suitcase. He liked that. The way she travelled light.
She was wearing a jaunty cloche hat and a fitted navy jacket that came down low over a cream skirt of a soft floaty material. It swayed from her hips as she strode up to him in her practical flat shoes. He greeted her with a kiss on each cheek.
‘The French way,’ he laughed, ‘as we’re heading for Paris.’
She nodded, looking around, her interest caught by the wooden column on which clocks were displayed showing the time at all the major airports in the world. ‘I like this place.’
‘It’s the pride and joy of Purley Way. People flock here just to watch the planes. Come on, let’s book you in at the Imperial Airways desk, then let me show you the observation deck upstairs.’
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