by Nancy Revell
‘Good. Good.’ Mr Havelock stared at Bob and waited. ‘Well, come on, then. Spit it out.’
‘Sorry. Yes. Of course.’ Bob fidgeted about in his jacket pocket and pulled out his notepad. He flipped it open.
‘First off, it would appear the Ashbrooke Gentlemen’s Club is owned by a Mr George Macalister. Former captain in the Ninth Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry. Awarded the Distinguished Service Order for “gallant and distinguished services”.’
Mr Havelock raised his eyebrows and took a sip of his whisky. He had presumed the club was owned by the Frenchwoman Eddy had spoken to on the phone; she’d certainly given that impression.
‘Any financial improprieties?’ His aim was to get the place shut down.
‘No, not that I could see. It all seems above board.’
‘Damn!’ Mr Havelock took a mouthful of whisky. He’d wanted – expected – to find some kind of dodgy dealings.
‘It would also seem that the club is very popular.’ Bob looked up at Mr Havelock. ‘Although whether it is so popular that it really is unable to take any more members, I think is doubtful.’
‘Facts. I just want facts!’ Mr Havelock snapped. His patience was wearing thin.
Bob cleared his throat. He was looking forward to having a nice frothy pint of bitter followed by a double whisky chaser when he was out of this mausoleum.
‘The place is legit. And is managed by a very attractive coloured woman, who goes by the name of …’ he turned over a page ‘… Maisie Smith. It is doubtful that this is her real name. She hails from London, but this is where it gets interesting.’ He looked up at Mr Havelock. ‘Maisie Smith came up north to find her real mother, who gave her up at birth. Left her down south in the big smoke at some unmarried women’s home which had the baby adopted out.’
Mr Havelock shifted forward in his chair. Now it was starting to get interesting.
‘Maisie succeeded in tracking down her birth mother here in the east end.’ Again, a flip of the notebook. ‘A Miss Pearl Hardwick.’
Bob looked up to see if the name meant anything to Mr Havelock, but his face appeared impassive, so he continued.
‘At the same time as being reunited with her mother, Maisie also discovered she had a half-sister.’ Another pause while Bob consulted his notes.
‘Mrs Isabelle Elliot.’
Bob looked up and saw a flicker of recognition on the old man’s face.
He waited. Thought the old man might volunteer some information.
He was wrong.
‘Anything else?’ Mr Havelock barked.
‘No, not really,’ Bob said.
‘Well, is there or isn’t there?’ His appetite had been whetted; he wanted to know more.
Bob shook his head. ‘No, sir.’
Mr Havelock pulled out the top drawer and took out a little tin box. He put it on the desk and opened it. He took out a number of banknotes, licked his finger and thumb and counted them out. He slapped them on the table.
‘As agreed.’
Bob stood up, realising their meeting was over. Thank God. Time for that drink.
Mr Havelock placed a bony hand on top of the money just as Bob was about to pick it up. He stared up at the ex-policeman.
‘I want you to find out everything you can on the three women you’ve just named. Everything. No stone left unturned. You hear me?’
Bob nodded.
‘If you do,’ Mr Havelock removed his hand, ‘there’s plenty more where that came from. A lot more.’
Bob’s heart leapt for joy for the first time since he’d stepped into this godforsaken place. Mr Havelock might be a cantankerous old man, but he was a rich cantankerous old man and he had money to spare. Quite a rarity these days. This could be a good little earner for him.
Mr Havelock turned and pulled a bell to summon Eddy.
The meeting might well be over, he thought, but the investigation was only just beginning.
His instincts told him there was something else going on here – and his instincts were rarely wrong.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Saturday 4 December
‘What’s Charlie up to today?’ Gloria asked. They were all sitting around their usual table in the canteen. ‘She’s not in the office, so I’m guessing she’s either working at the café or with Georgina – or Lily?’
Rosie laughed. ‘That just about sums up Charlie’s where-abouts during a weekend.’
‘So, which one is it?’ Angie asked.
‘Bet you she’s shopping with Lily,’ Dorothy said.
‘She is indeed,’ Rosie said. ‘Charlie had some kind of hockey tournament called a round robin. She was going to go home, get herself cleaned up and then the pair of them were heading into town.’
‘Does Lily walk into town?’ Martha asked. The idea of Lily shuffling her way into town in one of her tight dresses, high heels and tall hairdos seemed improbable.
‘Goodness, no,’ Rosie said. ‘Lily? Walk anywhere? Not in a million years.’
‘George?’ asked Hannah, taking a bite of her sandwich.
‘Correct. Any excuse to get his MG out for a spin,’ Rosie said, reaching over and topping up her tea. She glanced out of the window and saw a rag swirl past. The wind was getting up, but at least it would stave off the rain.
‘So, Lily’s definitely not going to get married on New Year’s Eve?’ Dorothy asked. She and Angie had been massively disappointed when Rosie had told them the news.
‘Definitely,’ Rosie said. ‘She says there’s been too much happening for her to spend the time on organising the wedding of the decade.’
Hannah chuckled. ‘Too much time spent with Charlie more likely.’
‘Too many early mornings,’ Bel chipped in. ‘Maisie says it gets to nine o’clock on an evening and then all Lily does is yawn until they shoo her off to bed.’
‘George doesn’t mind the wedding being cancelled?’ Martha asked.
‘The word they’re using,’ Rosie said, deadpan, ‘is post-poned. But no, you know George – he’s so laid-back.’ Rosie had often wondered if George’s need to put a legal stamp on his union with Lily was to safeguard her. Not that he’d ever admit that to Lily, who would be outraged at the mere suggestion that she needed safeguarding. But, if that was the case, Rosie understood. If anything happened to George, Lily would inherit whatever he had, which was quite substantial.
As the women started chatting about what they had planned for their Saturday night, Rosie found her mind drifting off. Any talk of weddings always made her think of her own nuptials. Peter had proposed to her just before he’d gone off to be a hero behind enemy lines. A hero in all senses, in that the odds on him returning were not favourable. Like George, Peter knew that if he married Rosie and anything happened to him, everything he owned, including the house, would be hers.
Thinking of her brave husband made her stomach lurch, and it had been doing so more and more of late. The summer before last, she had received an envelope full of petals – pansies, the same as her wedding bouquet. Not long after that, Peter had surprised her, turning up out of the blue for an overnight stay. Every minute of their time together was still imprinted on her mind. Then, last Christmas Eve, Toby had brought her a letter – but since then, nothing. Not a whisper.
Rosie looked at Hannah, who was listening avidly to Dorothy as she held court, describing what she and Angie were going to wear for the Ritz that evening. If Hannah could be strong in the face of what she knew was happening in the concentration camp where her mother and father were being held, then so could she.
The women all started laughing at something outrageous Dorothy had said about Toby before she told them, holding her hands together in prayer, that there was a chance he might be able to make it back for Christmas Day.
Rosie felt an immediate swell of nerves.
With Toby there was always the possibility of news about Peter. Dorothy, thank goodness, understood and would always put Rosie out of her misery when she saw her after Toby’s
visit. Each time, Dorothy shook her head as soon as she saw Rosie in the yard, and each time Rosie never knew whether to laugh or cry. Laugh with relief or cry because it meant she had to continue living in limbo, not knowing whether Peter was alive. Or not. She would never say the ‘d’ word – not even in her head.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Monday 6 December
‘Ah, Georgina,’ Helen said, switching on her electric fire. ‘Come in, come in.’ She shrugged off her coat. ‘Doxford’s have just launched Empire Earl. I feel frozen to the bone.’ She rubbed her arms, looked through the glass, caught Marie-Anne’s attention and mimed drinking a cup of tea.
Georgina sat down, clasping her hands and resting them on her lap.
‘You do know I’m not doing any more –’ she dropped her voice ‘– private-investigation work?’
‘Yes, yes, I know. I just need you to do some research for me. Nothing underhand. It’s all perfectly legit. To be honest, it’s something I could probably do myself, but I simply don’t have the time.’
Georgina relaxed. She wondered if Helen knew that her grandfather had contacted her father a while ago and asked him to do a job. Something told her that it might be beneficial for Helen to know this, but she couldn’t disclose that information. It would be unethical, even if Pickering & Sons was no longer officially a Private Investigations firm.
Helen waved Marie-Anne in with the tea tray. ‘Can you shut the door on your way out?’ She got up and poured two cups.
‘So, tell me, Georgina, how’s your new job going? I keep seeing photographs with your name in the Echo.’
‘It’s going well,’ Georgina said, taking her tea and smiling her thanks. ‘Or I should say, as well as I could hope. They’re using my photos – and giving me a picture credit.’ She wanted to add that unfortunately the pay was poor, very poor, but didn’t. It was why she was sitting there now.
‘I know it’s hard getting a lot of images past the censors these days,’ Helen said. ‘Can’t let Jerry know too much.’
‘Or get in the way of government propaganda,’ Georgina added, raising a cynical eyebrow.
Helen laughed. Georgina might look the epitome of conservatism with her old-fashioned dress sense, but she was a radical at heart and unafraid to show it. She took a sip of her tea and grabbled in her bag for her cigarettes. The mention of censorship made her wonder again about what it was that Georgina had held back about Rosie when she had done her mother’s dirty work for her. One day she’d find out.
‘I’m surprised you’re not writing articles as well as taking photos,’ she said.
‘Funny you should mention that, but I have started to. Some of my stories have been published, but they’ve not put my name on them.’
‘Really?’ Helen showed her surprise. ‘What kind of stories?’
‘Mainly court reports, inquests, council meetings – that sort of thing. And sometimes people tell me things and I follow up on them and see if what they’ve told me will make a story.’
‘It all sounds very interesting,’ Helen said. ‘Very interesting.’ And also, perhaps, very useful. It could never hurt, having an ally on the local paper.
‘Unfortunately,’ Helen said, ‘the research I need doing is going to be quite boring in comparison to all your journalistic work – and will probably entail you having to pore over a load of dusty old law books.’
Georgina bent over and pulled out her notebook. She didn’t care, as long as it paid well.
When she had written down exactly what Helen wanted to know, Georgina got up to leave.
‘I’m sorry to have to ask you this,’ Georgina said, feeling embarrassed, ‘but I’d just like to reiterate that the work I did for you previously – and even more so, the work I did for your mother – remains between the two of us?’
‘Of course, that goes without saying,’ Helen reassured her, instinctively glancing down at the locked drawer where she kept the report Georgina had compiled for her; a report she had been wondering for a while now if she should give to Bel.
Helen watched Georgina leave the office, stopping to have a word with Bel and Marie-Anne.
It looked as though they all had their secrets, even the likes of Georgina.
Gloria had told her that Georgina had started to go out occasionally with the women from work and that they all thought the world of her. The last thing Georgina would want was for them to know that she had been the one to unearth all their secrets – and that she’d given those secrets over to Helen’s mother, whose motivations, it must have been obvious to Georgina, were not for the greater good.
She wondered how Rosie and her squad – and Bel – would react if they knew.
Or perhaps it was more a case of when they knew, for they’d surely find out one day. Secrets could be buried, but it was inevitable that they would be dug up. It was always just a matter of time. And when they were, she wondered how forgiving the women would be.
Since the women welders had found out that she had been the one to tell her mother about her father’s affair with Gloria, there had been a change in the air. Nothing obvious, just a cooling towards her. She knew Gloria would have tried to convince them that it was a long time ago, and that she would not do the same now – but she knew that the day she’d spilled the beans to her mother, she had triggered a domino effect.
She was now having to suffer the consequences of her actions – no matter how long ago they might have happened.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Grand, Bridge Street, Sunderland
Friday 10 December
‘So, it looks like we’re not going to have you home for Christmas – again.’ Mrs Parker punctuated her reprimand by stabbing a piece of meat with her fork and popping it into her mouth.
Dr Parker looked at his mother. It was as though the less he saw of her, the stronger his loathing for her became when he did have to spend time in her company.
‘There is a war on, Mother,’ he said, his eyes flickering across to his father, who seemed to have become even more browbeaten since he’d last seen them.
‘I think what John means,’ Dr Eris said, moving her hand under the table and finding Dr Parker’s clenched fist and squeezing it, ‘is that he’s needed here. Your son is one of the best surgeons in the county, probably one of the best in the country, and—’
‘And so he should be,’ Mrs Parker interrupted. ‘He’s had the best education anyone could want.’
Dr Eris forced herself to take a deep breath. God, this woman was abominable.
‘I agree with Claire,’ Dr Parker senior finally spoke up. ‘John’s needed here. You know the state some of our lads are coming home in.’
‘Thank you, Edward,’ Mrs Parker again interrupted. ‘As we’re all eating, I don’t think we need reminding of the horrors of war.’
‘Everything to your satisfaction?’ The waiter had suddenly appeared.
Dr Parker senior threw his wife a warning look as she opened her mouth to speak.
‘Yes, yes, very satisfactory,’ he said, beating her to it. ‘More than satisfactory.’
The waiter left before Mrs Parker had time to speak.
The sommelier appeared immediately afterwards and topped up everyone’s wine glasses. Dr Parker would have preferred a pub meal at the Albion, but his mother had insisted on dining at the finest restaurant the town had to offer. It had been a toss-up between the Palatine and the Grand. Dr Parker had chosen the latter, but he wondered if that had been such a good idea as he kept thinking about the last time he’d been there – with Helen, at Polly and Tommy’s wedding. Was that really nearly a year ago?
‘So, there’s absolutely no way you both can’t come for Christmas?’ Mrs Parker asked. She wasn’t giving up. The thought of it just being her and Edward was depressing to say the least. ‘I’ll be doing a goose?’
‘A goose sounds wonderfully tempting,’ Dr Eris said, ‘but, like John says, he’s needed here. Or rather, at the Ryhope. The hospital’s unders
taffed as it is. And we’re starting to get quite a few repatriated prisoners of war.’
Dr Parker had to stop himself from reminding his mother that they wouldn’t even be having this conversation if he, like many of the country’s medics, had been working in makeshift tents just a few hundred yards from the front line.
‘I’m guessing that because the Ryhope is a military emergency hospital, you’ve taken in some of our poor prisoners of war repatriated since Italy capitulated?’ Dr Parker senior asked.
Dr Eris noticed the slight shake in the older man’s hand and didn’t need to ask why he didn’t practise any more.
‘We’ve taken in a few,’ Dr Parker said.
‘And do you also have to work, Claire?’ Mrs Parker asked. She was determined to get the conversation back to Christmas. If the girl wasn’t working, she might be able to persuade John that he couldn’t possibly leave his sweetheart on her own.
‘I do,’ Dr Eris said. On hearing that John was working over Christmas, she had orchestrated it with the head of department so that she would work too.
‘Even though you’re just a psychologist,’ Mrs Parker said. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean just. How awfully rude of me. What I meant was …’ Suddenly, she was at a loss for words.
‘Don’t worry.’ Dr Eris stepped in to stop any more awkwardness. ‘I know what you mean. My work is more gradual – long-term healing – whereas John is often needed right here, right now. If he’s not immediately available, it can be the difference between life and death.’
Mrs Parker forced a smile, nodded and sipped her wine. ‘Exactly, my dear.’
As the waiter came to clear their plates, Dr Parker caught sight of two women walking across the lounge to the bar. One of the women was blonde, slim and moneyed, the other dark, a little on the plump side, and also moneyed. Very much so. Both looked tipsy. They were greeted by two Admiralty. His heart did a slight turn. It was Miriam. And her friend Amelia. He hoped she didn’t see him. That was all he needed.