by Anne Bennett
‘I know,’ Meg said dolefully.
The platform at New Street Station was teeming with people. The majority were in uniform of one kind or another, and there was the trudge of many feet as the surge of people moved forward to the exit. Their voices rose and fell in a tumultuous roar as they laughed and cried and chatted and shouted. Weaving between this mass of people were porters with loaded trolleys calling on people to, ‘Mind your backs, please.’ In one corner the newspaper vendor was plying his trade in a nasal whine that penetrated the clamour. There was suddenly a clattering rumble as a train pulled into another platform, stopping with a squeal of brakes and a hiss of steam. Then there was the shriek from the funnel of another.
‘Let’s get out of here before we are deafened,’ Nicholas said.
And in the street Meg stood and stared for a minute or two. As Birmingham girls she and Joy were used to traffic, but neither had ever seen so many horse-drawn vehicles before, though there were also a great many petrol-driven cars, lorries and trucks, all jostling for space along the road and avoiding the tram tracks.
‘Isn’t that rather dangerous for the horses?’ Meg asked.
‘I suppose,’ Nicholas said. ‘Probably borne of necessity, though.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, petrol is hard to get. They’re rationing it now.’
‘Rationing petrol already?’
‘Yeah,’ Nicholas said. ‘And there’s talk of rationing a few other things too. Remember,’ he said, ‘until Will came for me, I had nothing to do with myself but read the papers and listen to programmes on my aunt’s wireless, so I’m pretty clued up about the war.’
‘Good,’ Meg said. ‘Glad one of us is.’
Joy left them there to get her tram, and Meg and Nicholas began to walk, passing the line of taxis without a glance – taxis were not for the likes of them. They went along Station Street and then Bristol Street. Meg was too tense to talk much as she neared her home, and Nicholas didn’t speak either because he could sense the tension running through her. When they reached Bell Barn Road he wanted her to come with him to Rosie’s, but she was anxious to see Doris, to see if she had news of the children. He hesitated for a minute, wondering if he should partly prepare her; tell her some of the concerns his aunt had told his mother about.
‘What?’ Meg said.
No, thought Nicholas, maybe it would be better to say nothing and let her see things as they are, so he said, ‘Nothing, what d’you mean?’
‘You looked as if you were going to say something.’
‘No … Aunt Rosie said to come up. She said she’d like to see you.’
‘All right,’ Meg said.
She gave a wave and walked on. Because their house was on the street, it had another door to it in the entry, and this was the one she opened now as she stepped inside. The first thing she was aware of was the stench, thick and rancid, the sour smell of squalor that hung over everything. She swallowed the nausea and went on, unease growing with every step. She noted a pile of dishes in the sink that looked as if they had been there days; there was thick dust everywhere, a filthy grate with ashes, days old, spilling from it; lino that stuck to her feet and cobwebs festooning the ceiling.
And in the middle of this filth, Doris lounged on the settee.
‘I’ve come to find out about the kids,’ Meg said.
‘What kids?’ Doris snapped. ‘They was evacuated.’
‘Yes, but they’re not there. They weren’t on the list. No one knows where they’ve disappeared to.’
‘Ain’t nowt to do with me,’ Doris said. ‘I sent them off to the school like they said and it was their concern then.’
‘Aren’t you the slightest bit bothered that three young children are missing?’ Meg asked angrily.
‘Not really. Like I said, I know nowt, so you go and shout at someone else.’
‘They took stamped postcards with them,’ Meg persisted. ‘Did you get a postcard?’
‘No I d’ain’t get a bleeding postcard,’ Doris yelled. ‘So you bugger off and leave me alone because I don’t want you here.’
With a sigh, knowing there was no point staying, Meg turned to go and had reached the entry door before Doris shrieked, ‘And don’t you go writing to your dad about this. He has enough to think about without worrying about bloody kids.’
That’s one thing Meg had no intention of doing. Fighting men didn’t need other things to worry about, especially when they couldn’t do anything about them anyway.
‘Any luck?’ Rosie asked as Meg came in the door.
Meg shook her head. ‘Claims she knows nothing.’
‘That’s what she told Robert when he went down to see her when we got Susan’s letter. As far as she was concerned, it was good riddance.’
‘And she’s not going to lift a hand to help find them. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’
‘Maybe we should go to the police.’
‘I know, and I shouldn’t hesitate,’ Meg said. ‘Except I worry how it will affect Dad. I don’t want him worrying about things here if I can help it.’
Nicholas came in the door then, and Meg asked him to go and tell Terry about the missing children. ‘He ought to know and there’s a chance he has heard from the kids because they’d hardly write to Doris.’
‘No problem,’ Nicholas said. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Something I don’t want to do and that is to go and see Richard Flatterly, if I can.’
‘That creep,’ Nicholas said. ‘Anyway, isn’t he living near Penkridge now?’
‘Only weekends, I think,’ Meg said. ‘I know he once used to have offices in Great Colmore Street, so I’ll try there first. It’s a long shot but he just might know which billeting officer was dealing with the children at Rugeley. Miss Carmichael didn’t, but Flatterly is on the council and there is just a chance the billeting officer might have been employed by the council as well. If I draw a blank on this, I really think we will have to go to the police.’
‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Nicholas said.
‘I should get going if you want to see Richard Flatterly,’ Rosie warned Meg. ‘Time’s getting on and some of those offices shut early.’
When Richard Flatterly saw Meg come in the door he said to the receptionist and his secretary, ‘You two do the blackout and then you can go.’
‘Yes, Mr Flatterly,’ the two girls said, glad to be allowed to leave early.
When they had left, Flatterly led the way to his office and told Meg to have a seat opposite him on the other side of the desk. Immediately she told him why she was there. He seemed to find it immensely amusing that Meg Hallett should seek his help to find her missing siblings.
‘But you were involved with the evacuation,’ Meg said, puzzled.
Richard looked at her scornfully. ‘The administration side of it, that was all. I didn’t get involved with the actual children,’ he said.
‘But you must have known the billeting officer?’
Richard shook his head. ‘I never had any need to know, and I never clapped eyes on her that day either. She had long gone, and the children chosen and off to their foster homes. Everything had seemed to run like clockwork.’
‘Except for three children gone missing,’ Meg said hotly.
‘Look, I knew nothing about that until Kate saw your cousin in Rugeley,’ Richard said. ‘She hadn’t told me there was any sort of problem because she didn’t think there was then. If she had told me that they weren’t in the billeting list earlier, I would have thought, as she did, that they had returned home because they couldn’t be housed together. They wouldn’t be the only ones. Many of the kids didn’t want to be evacuated anyway, and would seize on the first opportunity to go back home. How old were the children, anyway?’
‘My sisters are eleven and nine and my brother is six,’ Meg said.
‘So your eldest sister should have been well able to see to the others, and Kate would have thought she had insisted on th
em going back home.’
‘But nobody checked. That’s what I can’t get over.’
‘Kate wrote to your stepmother.’
‘And didn’t it bother her that she didn’t reply?’
‘Apparently you had told her some rather unflattering things about your stepmother, and if she thought of it at all, she probably thought it wasn’t in her nature to reply. But she probably didn’t have time to think about it anyway, because she was run off her feet trying to meet the needs of the children and the people who took them in, and attempting to educate them at the same time.’
‘I know all this,’ Meg said impatiently. ‘But however it was managed, three children have gone missing and no one seems to know a thing about it, or care either.’
‘Well, if you were nicer to me,’ Richard said insidiously, sidling round to where Meg was sitting, ‘I could maybe see if I can find the name of that billeting officer,’ and he slid his arms around her shoulders as he spoke.
‘Get off me, you creep!’ Meg cried, throwing his arms off as she leaped to her feet.
‘The offer is there,’ Richard replied tersely. ‘I should think about it – if you care for those brats as much as you claim you do.’
He smiled mockingly, but she saw the tic beating in his temple and the flashing fire in his eyes and knew he was very angry. Her fury and frustration matched his, though, and she snapped out, ‘I came to appeal to your better nature, but I see I have wasted my time – you obviously haven’t got one. I think it’s time the police took a hand in this.’
Flatterly definitely didn’t want Meg to involve the police. Once they started sniffing around, no end of things could be uncovered and he wouldn’t want them to look at him too closely. Suddenly he grabbed Meg’s arm in a vice-like grip, so tightly that she yelped in pain as he said threateningly, ‘I hardly think we need that sort of unpleasantness.’
‘Let go of my arm,’ Meg said, struggling to free herself, but it only made Richard hold tighter. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she cried. ‘Let me go.’
‘Just so we understand each other,’ Richard said, releasing her so quickly she staggered.
‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on me again,’ she warned, as she stood rubbing the red weal he’d made on her arm.
‘Or you’ll do what exactly?’ Richard demanded with a sneer. He smirked at her lasciviously as she fell silent. ‘They could all be found safe and sound,’ he said, eyeing her carefully.
‘You don’t know where they are,’ Meg said. ‘You would have said before.’
‘And what if I do?’ Flatterly asked, a self-satisfied smile on his face. ‘What would you give to have them returned to you?’
Meg stared at him and felt revulsion flood through her body and she said, more bravely than she felt, ‘What if I was to tell Kate about this?’
‘Go ahead,’ Flatterly said. ‘She won’t believe you. I’ve already told her about the way you used to come on to me when I was collected the rent, flaunting yourself, offering yourself to get the rent reduced.’
‘But … but that isn’t true, none of it,’ Meg said hotly, getting to her feet. ‘Kate wouldn’t believe that. She knows me.’
‘Correction,’ Richard said, crossing the room to stand in front of her, ‘she knew you, and was very surprised you had turned into such a slut.’
Meg felt her heart plummet. She had thought Kate her ally and friend. She had noticed a coolness in her attitude, but put it down to her being busy and, as Joy had mentioned, it being a long time since she’d left school. That was true enough but she had thought there had been some rapport between them and felt saddened that it seemed to have been eroded away.
And now to find Flatterly had been blackening her name to Kate filled her with frustrated rage and while she was still collecting her thoughts he leaned forward so his face was inches away as he hissed threateningly, ‘You whisper one word of this to Kate and I will say you came after me, seeking me out when you knew I would be alone and offering your body in exchange for information about those brats you have such feeling for. I would tell her how I had to fight off your advances. Who do you think she will believe?’
Meg felt her heart sinking for she knew who Kate would believe Flatterly over her any time. ‘If you want to see those children again,’ he went on ‘I will do my best to help, but you know what you must do. In fact,’ he said, pulling her towards him, ‘we could start right now.’
Meg was transfixed with terror for a moment as she felt his whole body pressing into hers. She felt him harden, and when she felt his hand slide between them and start to undo his zip, she found the almost superhuman strength to throw him from her and escape to the other side of the desk. She leaned on it, gasping, eyes desperately searching for the exit.
Flatterly was also a bit breathless but he fastened up his trousers and said, ‘All right, I will not force you yet, though I could. But the time will come when you will be begging me to take what I want to save those kids. And by then,’ he warned her with a smirk, ‘the price might be higher. And don’t forget,’ he added, ‘no police. All sorts of nasty things happen to children if police are involved.’
Meg was so frightened for her young sisters and little brother that she was finding it hard to draw breath. Richard saw this and it amused him. ‘Think it over, my dear,’ he said gloatingly. ‘I’m sure you’ll come to your senses in the end.’
TWENTY-ONE
Meg went back to her aunt Rosie’s house for it had been decided that for her week’s stay Rosie’s son Dave could stay at Nicholas’s house so Meg could have the attic. There was only Dave at home now because his older brother, Stan, had been called up as soon as he turned eighteen and was in the Royal Warwickshire’s like her dad and Uncle Alec.
Robert had arrived from work. The meal was ready so Meg waited until they were seated round the table before she told them what had transpired in Flattery’s office. She had thought to tell them an edited version, but in the end she decided that she had protected Flatterly long enough and they all sat agog: Rosie, Robert, Nicholas, Dave and even Terry, who’d come in during the telling. Eventually, aghast at Meg’s words, Robert cried,
‘You mean this man tried to … That he nearly—’
‘If I hadn’t managed to push him off, he would have raped me,’ Meg stated simply. ‘I knew that I was taking a chance because he showed his true colours that time he was collecting the rents.’
‘What do you mean?’
Meg recounted the flirty and suggestive remarks that led to touching and then one day he had nearly got what he desired when he’d pushed his way into the house. ‘But,’ she said, ‘Ruth bit him on the bum and caught him off balance and then he cracked his head on the wall which meant I was able to shove him into the street and close the door.’
‘Well, well,’ Robert said. ‘Why didn’t we hear about it? I’m surprised your father—’
‘I never told Dad,’ Meg said.
‘Why not?’
‘Think about it, Aunt Rosie. What would Dad have done if I had told him? He’d have decided Richard Flatterly needed teaching a lesson. Then the family would have been thrown out. How could I have had that on my conscience?’
‘Dad could just as easily have done nothing at all about it,’ Terry put in.
‘Oh surely, Terry—’
‘I bet Doris wouldn’t have believed Meg’s account of things.’ Terry said ‘And she’s able to convince Dad that black’s white.’
‘I know that Doris influences him far too much,’ Robert conceded. ‘But surely not when it concerns a man’s daughter? He knows what kind of girl Meg is.’
‘I thought Kate Carmichael knew me,’ Meg said bitterly. ‘She taught me for years.’
Rosie well remembered the name Miss Carmichael that was seldom off Meg’s lips.
‘But now,’ Meg continued, ‘because she has a passion for Richard Flatterly, though she needs her head seeing to, she believes his version of events.’
‘Her opin
ion don’t matter,’ Terry said, who hadn’t a high regard for the teaching profession in general.
‘It might not matter to you, Terry Hallett,’ Meg said angrily. ‘But it matters to me.’
‘I can understand that,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s horrible to be thought of so badly when there is no reason and you are unable to correct it.’
‘And it reflects on the way I was brought up,’ Meg said. ‘I was so pleased when I went to Mass that Sunday and saw she was there too and living no distance away. It was like a link with home and I thought we might be able to meet up some time. But all she has eyes for now is Richard Flatterly, who drives up every weekend.’
‘Drives?’ Robert said. ‘He doesn’t use the train?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Just wondering where he gets his petrol from,’ Robert mused. ‘The ration is only three gallons a week, and even that can’t be got at times.’
‘Must have his own private tanker then,’ Meg said. ‘Because he has enough for the bus as well.’
‘Bus?’
‘Yeah, the Catholic kids are spread about, see, on isolated farms and places like that, so Flatterly and Kate collect them up for Mass on Sunday morning In this small bus she got hold of somewhere. Richard isn’t a Catholic so he waits for her outside church.’
‘Look,’ Rosie said impatiently, ‘it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find Flatterly was buying black-market petrol. All things being equal, I’m sure by rights he should be in the Forces now. Amazing what money and influence can do. But far more important is what he said to Meg about the missing children. Do you think he knows where they are, Meg?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Meg admitted. ‘At first it was like he really didn’t know anything, and then he changed tack and said I had to be “nice” to him before he would tell me more.’
‘The dirty swine …’
‘I agree, Uncle,’ Meg said. ‘I have no trust in Flatterly, and yet he could have some knowledge or ways of finding out where they are.’
‘We should go to the police.’