CHAPTER NINE
Making herself comfortable next to the window in the first empty compartment she came to, Ena took the remaining sheets of paper that Sid had given her from her bag and began to read. Notes to clarify, Sid had titled the last half dozen pages. There was nothing new, nothing that she hadn’t already read. Sid was meticulous in his work. He had done a thorough job but he had repeated several things that Ena presumed he thought were important.
She looked again through the papers Commander Dalton had given her. After scrutinising every page she had a niggling feeling that she had missed something, but couldn’t put her finger on it. What made it worse, everything after Walter Voight’s arrest was sketchy.
Closing her eyes Ena brought to mind what Commander Dalton had said. She shook her head. Again, most of what he had told her only confirmed what she already knew. Frieda Voight had been arrested in 1944 whilst trying to escape to Ireland. He hadn’t said what had happened to her after that and Ena hadn't asked because she assumed she would be reading the details in the envelope he had given her. She had assumed wrongly.
Five words defined Walter Voight’s trial. Guilty. Brixton Prison. Maximum Security.
Curious that there was no mention of Frieda at the trial. It was not, however, the court transcript Ena was reading. Even so, Frieda was an equal partner in everything Walter did. She was equally as clever as her brother, and might well have been the instigator of much of what they did. Ena flicked back and forth through the pages but found no mention of Frieda. In fact, there was nothing about her after she had been arrested. Ena sat back in her seat, frustrated. She read the last page again. It ended with PS. She turned the page. There was no postscript.
Ena took the first taxi outside Brighton station. ‘Victoria Crescent, Hove.’ The short journey cost five shillings. She didn’t tip the driver. You could travel three times the distance for five-bob in London, or buy a roast dinner on Sunday at the Hope and Anchor. Thinking about their local pub brought Henry to mind. She hated it that he had left the flat while she was getting dressed. Hated it even more that he hadn’t said goodbye to her. Ena couldn’t remember the last time they had fallen out. In the ten years that they’d been married, they had hardly ever argued. They had made up for it since she’d seen Frieda Voight. She sighed. It seemed to Ena that they had done nothing but argue for weeks.
Ena left the taxi and crossed the road. The two-storey detached house faced the sea. She walked up the curved tarmac drive and mounted the steps to the front door. A gusting wind whistled around the corner of the house. Turning her back on it, Ena held her coat closed with one hand and rang the bell with the other.
She could see movement through the glass panels in the top of the door, but it was several minutes before the door was answered. ‘Is Mr Robinson at home?’ Ena asked a woman in her mid-to-late fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a pinafore and holding a duster.
‘He isn’t, I’m afraid,’ the woman said, ‘he is in hospital.’
‘Perhaps I could speak to Mrs Robinson?’
‘She’s gone to visit him, madam. She’s been gone almost two hours. I’m expecting her back any minute. The hospital is only a ten-minute walk along the front.’ The woman pointed to the right.
The sea was rough and the sky looked darker than it had when the train pulled into Brighton. ‘Looks like it’s going to rain.’ Ena nodded in agreement. ‘Are you a friend of Mrs Robinson, do you mind me asking, madam?’
‘We’ve met, but it’s Mr Robinson who I know. We worked together in the war.’
‘Then I’m sure it would be all right if you came in and waited for Mrs Robinson.’ Ena made no attempt to move. ‘Or I could tell her you called when she gets back.’
‘Ten minutes along the seafront, you said?’
The woman nodded. ‘No more than ten, I’m sure. The Robert Bevan. It’s a big white building.’
‘In that case, I’ll risk the rain and go to the hospital. Thank you for your help.’
Ena heard the door close as she walked down the drive. She lifted her face to the sky. The wind was bracing, the tangy salt air refreshing, but it was cold.
The Robert Bevan Hospital came into view in less time than Ena had anticipated. The early 1930s Art Deco style building, sleek and geometric in design, was painted white. Three circular steps led to wide double doors with windows on either side.
A private hospital, Ena thought. It would be expensive, but then as director of MI5 Mac Robinson would be the highest paid person at Leconfield House. Ena entered the white entrance lobby with doors to the left and right of a white reception desk. She crossed the pristine black and white tiled floor and asked the receptionist if she could tell her which ward Mr McKenzie Robinson was in.
‘Room one, ward seven, on the first floor.’
Ena took the lift and walked the short distance along the corridor to the ward. She looked through the glass pane in the top half of the swing doors.
‘Excuse me?’ she said, to a staff nurse who was leaving the ward as she arrived, ‘could you tell me how Mr Robinson is?’
‘Are you a relative?’
‘No, I’m a friend of the family. A close friend,’ Ena added, which was a gross exaggeration. ‘I’ve dashed down from London, you see–’
‘He is responding well. There is no reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery. Complete rest is what he needs. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for the doctor’s rounds.’
‘Of course. What time shall I come back?’ Ena asked, expecting the nurse to say in half an hour or this evening.
‘Next week.’
Ena began to protest.
‘As you are a good friend, I’m sure Mrs Robinson will keep you up to date with her husband’s recovery.’
‘Yes, of course. Would you give Mr Robinson a message, please? I wouldn’t ask, but it’s rather important. Would you tell him I came to see him?’
The staff nurse took a pen and a small notebook from her uniform pocket and nodded.
‘Ena Green. Wife of Henry Green.’
The staff nurse wrote down Ena’s name.
‘Would you say, Commander Dalton referred me.’ Ena watched the staff nurse write down the commander’s name, and then snap the notebook shut and returned the book and pen to her pocket. At that moment a doctor wearing a traditional white coat, with an unlit pipe in his mouth, breezed around the corner followed by several junior doctors. The staff nurse left Ena and followed the party into the ward.
CHAPTER TEN
‘Ena?’
‘In the kitchen.’
She carried in two plates of sausage and mash, peas and gravy. It was what they usually had for lunch on Saturday because they went to the cinema most Saturday nights and afterwards stayed in town for a bite to eat. Tomorrow, however, Ena was going down to Hove to see McKenzie Robinson, and Henry had to work, so they were having Saturday’s lunch on Friday night.
Absentmindedly, Henry reached for the mustard and spooned a line along each sausage.
‘Pick up a joint for Sunday on your way home from the office tomorrow, will you, darling? I won’t be back from Hove before the butcher closes.’ Ena cut off the end of a sausage and speared it with her fork. ‘Visiting time in the afternoon is from two till four.’
She looked at Henry. ‘What is it? You’ve hardly said a word since you got home.’ Henry didn’t reply, but gave Ena a sad smile.
‘Darling, what’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, Ena, but Mac Robinson is dead.’
Ena put down her knife and fork with a clatter. ‘How? When? What happened? The nurse said he was doing well when I was there last week. She said he only needed rest. He’d had a stroke, yes, but it was a mild one. Did he have another stroke?’ Tears filled her eyes.
‘No one knows. The section manager came into the office and said Director Robinson’s PA, who had been at the director’s bedside at the time - with his wife - phoned to say the director had died s
uddenly and would the section manager let us know. She didn’t elaborate,’ Henry said. ‘Everyone’s in shock.’
Ena got up from the table without speaking and took their dinner plates into the kitchen. On her way back she took a bottle of Teacher’s Whisky and two glasses from the sideboard.
Henry poured them both a double. ‘To the director,’ he said, raising his glass.
‘Director Robinson,’ Ena whispered.
Ena went back to the hospital in Hove as planned and asked to see the staff nurse who was on duty the week before. She hadn’t arrived she was told by a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as a friend of The Robert Bevan Hospital. Giving Ena a patronising smile she said, ‘Perhaps I can help you?’
‘I’d be grateful if you could. I’ve come from London, you see,’ Ena said, taking a handkerchief from her pocket and putting it up to her nose. ‘I was hoping to ask the staff nurse how my friend McKenzie Robinson had died. It was such a shock. I hope he didn’t suffer,’ Ena said, with despondency in her voice.
‘No dear, be assured that your friend didn’t suffer, he just slipped away in his sleep.’
‘Oh? I mean that’s good. That he didn’t suffer. Strange though,’ Ena said, ‘I was told he was getting better, that all he needed was rest.’
‘He was. But you never know with strokes. I’ve been a volunteer here for many years, since my dear husband passed, and I’ve seen it all. As I said to Mr Robinson’s daughter–’
‘Daughter? I didn’t know he had a daughter.’
‘Yes,’ the woman said, ‘a lovely lady. I was going into Mr Robinson’s room with the book trolley as she was leaving. She asked me not to tell her mother she’d been to see her father. They are estranged you see. Her mother disowned her over the man she married. The poor lady said even though it was more than ten years ago, her mother had never forgiven her.’
‘How sad,’ Ena said, ‘but I’m not surprised. Mrs Robinson, good woman that she is, can be…’ Ena searched her mind for a word that wouldn’t sound too harsh. Evelyn Robinson was the epitome of the phrase, behind every big man is a bigger woman. ‘Strict,’ Ena said eventually.
‘She specifically came out of visiting hours, so her mother wouldn’t see her.’
‘Did she. And how long was Mr Robinson’s daughter with him?’
‘Not long. It was a shame she wasn’t able to stay longer. She told me she had travelled down by train from somewhere in the Midlands. I can’t remember where she said now, but I remember thinking at the time that she’d come a long way.’
‘Did Mr Robinson say anything about his daughter when you took the books into him.’
‘He was asleep by the time I went back.’
‘Thank you for the chat,’ Ena said, taking the woman’s hands in hers. ‘I feel much better knowing my friend wasn’t in pain when he died.’
As she was leaving, Ena heard someone call her name. She turned to see the staff nurse she’d spoken to the week before walking briskly along the corridor. ‘I told Mr Robinson you had been to see him, Mrs Green, and I gave him your message.’
‘Did you tell him that it was Commander Dalton who suggested I spoke to him?’
‘I did. I also told him you were coming back today.’ The staff nurse looked embarrassed. ‘I am sorry you didn’t get to see him.’
‘So am I,’ Ena said.
Getting back to London earlier than expected and bursting to tell Henry that she’d discovered McKenzie Robinson had a daughter, Ena went to Leconfield House. ‘Would you tell Henry Green I need to see him. It’s important.’
The receptionist picked up the telephone and dialled Henry’s internal number. She gave Ena a smile and raised her eyebrows. ‘No reply.’ She looked at the clock on the wall. ‘He won’t be at lunch. I’ll try one of the secretaries.’ She dialled again. ‘Janet, is Henry Green in the office today?’ The receptionist shook her head at Ena. ‘Thank you, Janet.’ She put the receiver down.
‘Mr Green isn’t in the office today.’
‘He’s probably working from home,’ Ena said, doing her best to hide the shock in her voice. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
‘It isn’t my place to tell you this, Mrs Green, but…’
The word but sent Ena’s heart into a tailspin.
The receptionist looked to her left to make sure her colleague on the other side of reception couldn’t hear her. ‘Janet said Henry is out of the country and she doesn’t know when he’ll be back.’
Ena didn’t know whether to be angry that Henry hadn’t told her he was going abroad, or worried for his safety.
‘Janet shouldn’t have told me, and I shouldn’t have told you, so--’
Ena nodded that she understood. ‘I won’t say anything. Henry would have told me himself, but I’ve been away on business and only just arrived back.’
‘Ships that pass in the night. That’s what my mum used to say about my dad.’
‘Something like that.’ The telephone rang and the receptionist picked up the receiver. Ena whispered thank you and left.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ena held onto her hat with one hand and the ornate railings that separated the beach from the path - and a six feet drop - with the other. The wind, thick with salt and minute particles of shell, stung her face as it growled along Brighton’s seafront. Shop assistants from the newsagents, fish and chip shop and souvenir shops, battled the blustery weather to retrieve advertising boards that had been blown over. And café owners, their aprons billowing like ship’s sails, took long poles with metal hooks on the end and pushed back striped awnings that in the summer gave shade to holidaymakers lunching at tables in the window.
Shutters were quickly pulled together and padlocked to keep out the tempest and out of season visitors to the popular East Sussex resort hurried along wet pavements to their hotels.
Ena watched the sea crashing onto the pebble beach, pushing the shingle into ridges and covering it with seaweed only to recede and suck the shingle clean again. She buttoned her coat and pulled up the collar. The clock on the pier said one o’clock. There was plenty of time before she needed to be in Hove.
Mac Robinson’s death didn’t sit easily with Ena. He’d had a stroke, but he was recovering. How then could it be that he had died? Inhaling the cold damp air, Ena wiped away her tears. The director’s funeral was at two. It would take her half an hour at the most to drive to Hove and find the church. She kept walking.
When the funeral service ended, the vicar said, ‘Mrs Robinson has asked me to say, if anyone would like to go back to the house after the interment there will be refreshments.’ Ena didn’t like funerals, who did? She had attended too many in the war. She joined the procession of mourners walking behind Mac Robinson’s coffin out of the church. She didn’t go to the graveside. She wasn’t family, she wasn’t even a friend. It had been fourteen years since she first met Mr Robinson in Commander Dalton’s office at Bletchley Park. She hadn’t known then that he was the head of MI5. Ena was miles away when she noticed the mourners leaving the grave.
There was a queue to go into the Robinson’s house. Eve Robinson was at the door.
Ena smiled sympathetically. ‘Hello, Mrs Robinson.’ Her greeting was met with stony silence.
The widow of the head of MI5 put out her right arm and barred Ena from entering. She picked up a nondescript cardboard file from inside the door and said, ‘My husband’s last words to me were, make sure Ena Green gets this.’ She thrust the file into Ena’s hands. ‘I hope what you find in there was worth my husband’s life. If you hadn’t come to the hospital to see him, he would still be alive.’
Ena opened her mouth to ask Mrs Robinson what she meant but wasn’t able to speak.
‘My husband admired you, Mrs Green. He told me once you were a clever young woman who wanted to make the world a better place.’
‘Did he?’
‘I didn’t agree with him then, and I don’t agree with him now. I told him I thought you were hard an
d selfish. And, like him, you would go to any lengths to prove you were right.’ Eve Robinson burst into tears. Ena took a step towards her. Eve backed away. ‘You remind me of my husband when he was your age. He wanted justice at any cost. He was an idealist in those days. He thought he could make the world a better place.’
Ena put her hand on Eve Robinson’s arm, ‘I’m so sorry.’
She snatched her arm away. ‘No, you’re not. Not really. As my husband would have been, you’re sorry you’ve lost someone that could have been useful to you, someone who could have helped you.’
Ena looked away from the angry wife of the man she had respected, who she knew would want her to find Frieda Voight for the sake of justice.
‘You have what you came for. Take it and go. You are not welcome here, Mrs Green.’
Ena couldn’t move. Her legs felt like jelly. She looked into Eve Robinson’s tear-stained face, lost for something to say that the grieving woman wouldn’t throw back at her. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘Don’t thank me,’ Eve Robinson spat. ‘Find out who murdered my husband. You owe him that much!’
Shocked that Eve Robinson believed her husband had been murdered, Ena was again unable to speak.
‘Goodbye Mrs Green. Don’t come back.’ Turning her back on Ena, Eve Robinson went into the house and closed the door.
Reeling from what she had just heard, tears falling onto her cheeks, Ena walked shakily down the steps.
‘Mrs Green?’ someone called from the door Eve Robinson had just shut in Ena’s face.
Ena stopped, hastily wiped her tears with the palm of her hand, and turned again.
‘Helen Crowther,’ the woman said, catching up with Ena. ‘Helen! I was McKenzie’s personal assistant. I work with your husband.’
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