‘Here will do, driver,’ Ena said, when the cab turned into Dean’s Crescent. She jumped out and paid the fare. She didn’t want to risk anyone from number 7 looking out of the window and seeing her and walked briskly across the road to the public park.
Ena’s stomach was an amalgamation of fluttering butterflies and dive-bombing tree swallows. The tarmac path ran parallel with the road. A short distance from the entrance to the park was a bench. It was dedicated to someone Ena had never heard of. She sat down. Hidden from inquisitive eyes by a cluster of rhododendron bushes she placed her arm casually along the back of the bench. No one took much notice of her. A man walking a dog pulled on its lead when it cocked its leg near the bench. A young couple with their arms entwined were looking into each other’s eyes and didn’t see her, and a middle-aged workman doffed his cap as he ambled past.
Leaning sideways, Ena looked over her shoulder. While pretending to admire the rich green leaves on the rhododendron bushes behind her, Ena gave her attention to the house she could see when she looked between them. On the other side of the railings was Dean’s Crescent - and the other side of the crescent was number 7 a large Victorian townhouse where Selfridges had earlier delivered purchases to Madame Romanovski, aka Frieda Voight.
The three storey residence had wide steps leading to the front door, a bay window on either side, and three large windows above - two over the ground floor bays and one above the door. Below street level narrow steps led from the main gate. They arced round to the garage on one side of the house and to the basement, or servants’ quarters, on the other. The lower ground floor windows had iron bars in them. Ena chuckled. Were the bars to keep the security services out, or the servants in?
As the afternoon nudged into early evening the temperature began to fall. Ena pulled her collar up and held her coat tightly around her. Storm clouds swept across the sky as the sun went down behind the park’s enormous oak trees - and the lights in the basement of number 7 came on. Soon afterwards there were lights on the first floor. Ena left the bench and followed the path until she came to a narrow wrought iron pedestrian gate. Observing the house from behind hawthorn and maple hedges, she strained to see the face of a man who appeared briefly at the first floor window. He looked across the road and into the park. If she hadn’t known better Ena would have sworn he was looking at her. He pulled the curtains, became a shadow and was gone. It wasn’t the man she had seen with Frieda in Oxford Street. He was taller and slimmer than the man at the window.
Ena stamped her feet and walked up and down on the spot. She was cold. As there had been no sign of Madame Romanovski she left the park by the narrow gate.
‘Damn!’ she said. Henry had promised to be home early and she had promised to cook dinner. She sprinted to Holland Park Underground, took the Central Line to Tottenham Court Road, changed to the Northern Line and alighted at Stockwell. As luck would have it, the 196 was pulling away from the stop as Ena left the station. She ran across the road, boarded the moving bus and got off two stops later at Stockwell Gardens. A hundred yards along the road she arrived at St. Michael’s Square and home.
Out of breath, Ena pushed open the door. The flat was in darkness; Henry wasn’t back from work. She exhaled with relief, shrugged off her jacket and hung it up in the hall. Dropping her handbag onto the seat of the armchair behind the door in the sitting room, she ran into the kitchen and started to prepare dinner.
‘Nothing!’ Ena pushed the last of half a dozen files she’d been allowed to read across the table, stretched out her arms and flopped forward, her head resting on a pile of papers. It was hot in the archive offices in Argyle Street. She flung herself back in the swivel chair and swung round to face Henry.
‘Nothing here either,’ he said, and closed the last file he’d been looking through. ‘Not surprising really, King not being their real name.’
‘But when Freda worked with me at Silcott Engineering her work papers were in the name of King. She had a National Insurance Number so there must be a certificate. She had a medical card, food tokens, a ration book - and she could drive. Her driving license would have been in the name of Freda King. If it had been in any other name it would have looked suspicious.’ Ena picked up the files and slammed them down on the table. ‘There has to be something with her name on it.’
Henry shook his head. ‘There isn’t.’
‘But there must be, somewhere. You can’t live, drive, work, without there being records. What about Walter?’
‘Nothing.’
A thought struck Ena. ‘They had an uncle. Look up, H. Villiers. He rented the house they lived in, in Northampton.’
‘Intelligence went through the house in forty-four. They didn’t find any evidence of an uncle, or anyone else other than Frieda and Walter living there.’
‘But someone must have rented the house.’
‘But not anyone by the name of Villiers. He was as fictitious as Freda and Walter King’s papers.’
‘If Freda’s papers were forged they were damn good.’
‘As were Walter’s at university.’
‘Let’s get the German Nationals Department to give us what they have on Frieda Voight and Walter Voight.’
Henry raised his eyebrows at Jim Matthews, the officer in charge of MI5’s archives department. ‘Would you ring through for us, Jim? Ask if we can have a look at anyone between nineteen forty-two and forty-five with the surname Voight?’
‘Or King,’ Ena said. ‘It’s a long shot, but it can’t do any harm to check whether the Kings are listed in the GN files.’
‘They may not be together, of course.’
‘But they were.’ Ena looked at Henry. ‘They were brother and sister.’
‘We know that, but they could be Mr and Mrs in the GN files.’
Jim left the room. He was gone for only a few minutes. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Green, the officer in charge of the German Nationals archive said the files on Walter and Frieda Voight are code red.’
‘I have clearance for code red.’
‘Sorry, sir, the files are locked. Access to them is only through the Director of Operations.’
‘This is an important case, Jim,’ Ena said, standing as tall as she was able.
‘They all are, Mrs Green.’
‘Thanks, Jim. We’ll make an appointment with Director Robinson.’
‘He’s on sick leave,’ the security man said.
‘We’ll put a request in for when he’s back. Thanks, again.’ Henry took a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. ‘I’m going out for a smoke. Coming, Ena?’ Without waiting for Ena’s reply Henry took hold of her arm and steered her out of the room.
Once she was sure Jim Matthews wouldn’t be able to hear, Ena pulled free of Henry’s grip. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Leaving. Frieda’s and Walter’s files are locked, there’s nothing more we can do until we get permission to see them from Mac Robinson.’
‘Oh yes there is,’ Ena said, batting her eyelashes.
‘Okay. See what you can do. I’ll be outside.’ Henry mounted the stairs, turned to Ena and winked. Ena nodded and went back to the security officer. She gave him her sweetest smile. ‘Do you know when Director Robinson will be back, Jim?’
‘No, but…’
‘What is it?’
‘His personal assistant will. Her telephone number is in the staff directory. I’m not really supposed to let anyone other than a member of staff see it without a request in writing, but as you’re with Mr Green and he has clearance, I’ll get it for you.’ Jim rummaged around in the drawer of the cabinet behind his desk. ‘I know it’s here somewhere. I showed it to a woman this morning.’
‘A woman?’
‘One of the secretaries. She said your husband…’ Jim cleared his throat, ‘I mean, Mr Green, wanted the private telephone number of the director’s PA, Miss Crowther.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t ask?’
> ‘Not my place to, Mrs Green. If the paperwork is in order…’
‘What did this woman look like?’
‘Very attractive she was.’ Ena gave the man a weary look. ‘She was, err, tall and slim. Oh, and she had fair hair, blonde you might say, curled like Marilyn Munroe.’
‘How old was she?’
‘You’ve got me there. I’m not very good on lady’s ages.’ Jim leaned back and squinted at Ena. ‘She was older than you.’
‘Ah, yes, that would have been Freda,’ Ena said, casually, her heart pounding in the hopes that she may at last have proof, however flimsy, that Frieda Voight was alive.
‘She didn’t tell me her name.’
‘What? She didn’t show you her ID?’
‘No, she showed me Mr Green’s ID.’
Ena gasped, quickly checked herself and said, ‘No matter, there are so many women in his department - young, old, dark-haired, blonde.’ Ena was seething but forced a half-hearted smile. She knew exactly who had been looking at the personnel files. How the hell had Frieda Voight got into MI5’s archive? More importantly, how had she got hold of Henry’s ID?
‘I remember now. I didn’t have time to take it back so I put it in this drawer.’ The security man opened the top drawer of his desk. It wasn’t there. He looked in the second drawer. ‘Here it is. Phew! I thought it had gone missing.’ He pulled a comical face. ‘I knew it couldn’t have, I remember the lady giving it back to me.’ He handed the directory to Ena.
Under Jim’s watchful eye, Ena opened the black leather-bound book and ran her finger down the stepped-alphabet at the side until she came to the letter C. Crowther, Helen.
At that moment, the telephone rang. While Jim answered it, Ena ran her finger on, stopping at the letter R. Robinson, McKenzie, George. It was a Brighton telephone number. She consigned it to memory. When the security officer put down the telephone, Ena gave him the directory, thanked him and left.
CHAPTER FIVE
That evening, Henry arrived home with a folder stamped Top Secret. Ena viewed its contents with suspicion. The paper the report was written on looked new. It was too clean, there wasn’t a mark or crease on it anywhere. She suspected it had been put together by some minion at MI5 for her benefit, using information that was common knowledge to anyone in the security services. She speed-read the pages. There was no mention of an uncle, or anyone else with the name Villiers.
She looked at Henry, a cynical smile played on her lips. ‘This report only tells us what we already know about Frieda and Walter Voight. At the time of the original investigation in 1944, Military Intelligence searched the house and found no evidence that a third person lived there. It is our opinion that H Villiers was invented to give respectability to a man and woman living together. Freda’s and Walter’s papers said they were brother and sister. Why they felt the need to invent an uncle was a mystery to Ena. But then McKenzie Robinson had told her after Frieda’s arrest in 1944 that Frieda and Walter had been lovers. Brother, sister, lover? Ena suspected the real reason that they didn’t want people snooping about was in case their covers were blown.
After reading to the end of the report Ena returned it to the folder. ‘What about Oxford? Walter was at university with you. There’ll be records.’
‘As there will be at Silcott Engineering from when Freda worked with you in the war. Herbert Silcott’s bound to have kept records. He probably still has them.’
‘Of course,’ Ena said, throwing her arms around her husband and kissing him. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Mrs Silcott was the company’s bookkeeper. She did the timesheets, put the wages in envelopes and sent off our National Insurance contributions.’ Ena kissed Henry again. ‘How about a couple of days in the country?’
‘Okay. As soon as I can get some time off, I’ll go up to Oxford, to Balliol, and you go to Lowarth, to the factory.’
To beat the traffic going into London, Henry and Ena left home at six o’clock in the morning. Turning right onto Stockwell Road, again onto Clapham road, and left to South Lambeth took no time at all. Soon they were driving through Wandsworth to Vauxhall. They made good time and were over Vauxhall Bridge without any delays. With Victoria behind them, they drove round Hyde Park Corner and up Park Lane to Marble Arch. Once across Oxford Street to Edgware Road, it was more or less plain sailing along the A5 - give or take dozens of towns - all the way to Rugby.
When they arrived at Rugby station, Henry caught a train to Coventry, where he changed to a cross country train to Oxford. Ena, after waving him off, bought a bunch of flowers for her mother from a stall on the platform and left the station.
At the car she laid the flowers in the boot and slipped in behind the steering wheel. She loved driving. And she loved the new Sunbeam Rapier that she had persuaded Henry they should buy. They shared the car, and because Henry did most of the long distance driving he wanted a Hillman Minx, but Ena had her heart set on the sporty blue Sunbeam with its white roof. And, as she so often did, she got her way. She gunned the Sunbeam’s engine and set off for Foxden.
Outside her mother’s cottage, Ena took her shoulder bag from the passenger seat, opened the driver’s door and swung her legs out. The early autumn air was damp. She would take a stroll to the village of Woodcote later if there was time - and if the weather held. Leaving the car, she hitched the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and took the flowers from the boot.
She squelched through a drift of fallen leaves sodden by the recent rain and pushed on the gate. A mound of browning mulch, decaying leaves blown from the trees on either side of the lane, resisted the bottom rung of the gate. Ena put her weight behind it and levelled the soggy mass.
She knocked the front door and while she waited for her mother to answer, looked back. The afternoon sun glistened through the branches of the trees, highlighting the yellows and golds, reds and greens of the remaining leaves.
‘Hello love.’ Ena’s mother greeted her with a kiss. ‘Are they for me?’ she said when Ena gave her the flowers. ‘They’re lovely, our Ena, but you shouldn’t go spending your money on me.’ Ena smiled. Her mother’s answer to any gift was always the same.
‘Come in, love. You must be perished. I’ll put the kettle on.’ Ena followed her mother into the cottage. After taking off her coat and hanging it up, she went through to the kitchen. ‘I’d just put a log on the fire when I heard your car. Sit down and warm yourself.’
Ena stretched out her hands towards the smoky flames from the damp wood. While the kettle boiled, Lily Dudley put the flowers in a vase of water, admired her handiwork, and then placed the arrangement on the draining board. ‘I’ll take them into the sitting room in a bit. It’s not so warm in there, they’ll last longer.’
When the kettle boiled Ena made the tea. Her mother took cups and saucers from the kitchen cabinet and while Ena poured, fetched the milk and a sponge cake from the larder.
‘That looks good, Mam.’
‘It’s your favourite,’ her mother said, cutting a slice twice as thick as she’d have given anyone else. ‘You look half starved, girl.’ She stood back and scrutinised her daughter. ‘You’ve lost weight since you were last here. How long are you staying?’
‘What?’ Ena mumbled, her mouth full of cake.
‘Are you staying long enough for me to feed you up?’
Ena almost choked. She took a drink of tea to help the cake go down and laughed. Her mother’s conversation really didn’t change. ‘You always say that.’
‘I suppose it’s living in that big city,’ Lily Dudley said, resignedly.
‘What is?’
‘You, being so thin. No good fresh food in those places. I don’t suppose you feed Henry properly either. What time will he be here?’
‘He’s staying with his old professor from Balliol College tonight. If the trains are on time, he’ll be back around twelve tomorrow.’
‘We’ll have an early lunch, then.’ Lily Dudley got up and topped up the teapot with boiling water. ‘I made
a loaf this morning, then I popped into Mr Moore’s in Woodcote and bought a nice bit of gammon, a tin of salmon and half a pound of Cheddar. Course, I’ve got other food, so if Henry fancies something else,’ she said, refreshing their cups. She picked up the knife to cut another slice of cake.
‘No more for me, Mam, or I won’t want my tea. That’s assuming you’re not keeping all that delicious food until your son-in-law gets here tomorrow.’
‘Any more cheek from you, our Ena, and I’ll send you up to your room without any supper.’ Lily Dudley grinned. ‘Come on, love, let’s go into the sitting room. I’ll take the cups and you bring the flowers.’
Ena did as she was told, opened the door for her mother to leave the kitchen and followed her into the sitting room. It hadn’t changed since the last time she was home, or the time before that. The same floral-patterned covers were on the seats of the settee and chairs - and the same antimacassars on the arms. She was surprised to see the small coffee table had an ashtray on it. For Henry, Ena thought. Her mother hadn’t put it there for her. She thought Ena had stopped smoking long ago. She had, almost.
On the right of the mantle shelf above the chair her late father always sat in was his pipe-rack and four pipes. He only smoked a pipe on special occasions, like Christmas and New Year. The rest of the time he smoked Capstan Full Strength cigarettes, or rolled his own. Ena picked up one of the pipes. Her father was the only person in her life, other than her oldest sister Bess, who Ena could confide in. She missed not being able to go to him with her problems or ask his advice. He was a calming influence, a strong intelligent man who never took sides and never judged.
Ena missed her siblings too. When her brother Tom came home from the army at the end of the war he moved to Kent with his wife and daughter. He managed a country estate and bred horses. Bess was the only one who lived locally. She had been in charge of an army of land girls in the war and had turned the Foxden Estate into arable land. She now owned the Foxden Hotel with her husband Frank and had adopted a daughter. Margot, Ena’s second oldest sister was a singer and dancer in London during war. She was the leading lady in a number of West End shows, but left the theatre at the end of the war and moved back to the Midlands to start a family. Ena laughed remembering how on Saturday afternoons, when they were children, Margot would make her and Claire sit and watch her practice the dances and songs she had learned that morning in the village hall. Claire, closest in age to Ena, had worked with the French Resistance in the war and her work - like Ena’s for Bletchley Park - was top secret. Claire, now married with a daughter, taught French and German at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
There Is No Going Home Page 3