There Is No Going Home

by Madalyn Morgan

  ‘Then we’ve got her!’

  ‘No. It was the day before he died.’

  ‘Could the ward sister have made a mistake about the day?’

  ‘No. She was positive. She said a nurse had found a woman in Mac’s room the day before he died, reported it to her, and she had gone along and asked the woman who she was. The woman said she was the director’s daughter. She told the ward sister some cock and bull story about not wanting her mother to know she’d been in to see her father because, according to the daughter, she had run away from home when she was young and married a man her mother didn’t approve of. Anyway, the daughter signed the visitor’s book.’

  ‘And you saw the book?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how you knew the woman was Frieda.’

  ‘Because, the phoney daughter also showed the ward sister her driving licence. The name in the visitor’s book and on the licence was, Ena Dudley.’

  ‘But– How–’

  ‘When I went up to Silcott’s Engineering there were no records of Freda King or of me ever having worked there. MI5 had taken them in forty-four. God knows why they took my records...’

  ‘Unless whoever Freda was working for took them, and not MI5.’

  ‘There’s a thought. Mr Silcott called them the intelligence people and Military Intelligence. He didn’t actually say they were from MI5.’ Ena knew Freda had done a deal with MI5 when they arrested her. Because her file was classified, she didn’t elaborate.

  ‘No,’ Sid said, shaking his head. ‘That would be too much of a stretch.’

  ‘Would it? She’s using a driving licence with my name on it, what other explanation is there?’

  ‘Oh no!’ The colour drained from Sid’s face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dudley! You said your name was Dudley before you were married, and you worked in engineering?’

  ‘Yes, I worked on the design side. What of it?’

  ‘I remember seeing a cold case file where a woman was suspected of stealing designs from a nuclear power plant. I’m going back to the office. I need to find that file.’ Jumping up, Sid flew to the sitting room door and opened it.

  ‘I’ll drive you, Sid. Have you finished with these files?’

  ‘Yes. Leave them. I won’t need to look at them again.’ Sid put on his coat and hat and yanked open the outside door.

  Locking it, Ena followed him down the steps. At the car, a flicker of what looked like a cigarette lighter from the driver’s side of a large saloon car parked along the road caught her eye. She jumped into the Sunbeam, reached across the passenger seat and opened the door. When Sid was seated, Ena switched on the car’s headlights and gunned the engine. She looked in the rear-view mirror. There were no vehicles behind her. But as she pulled out, the headlights of the car at the end of the road came on.

  Ena drove quickly out of St. Michael’s Square and turned into Stockwell Gardens. She brought the Sunbeam to a halt on Stockwell Road and waited for a gap in the traffic. Before there was space enough to safely pull in between two cars, the saloon car from the end of her road had caught up with her. When she turned onto Lambeth Road he must have hung back. She spotted him again going over Waterloo Bridge and a few minutes later on Long Acre.

  When Ena turned into Mercer Street the car that had been following her drove on. No need to follow me down here, she thought, the driver knows where I work.

  Sid shot out of her car and ran across to the office. Ena bumped the car up the kerb and onto the derelict piece of ground where a pub had once stood. The Covent Garden Tavern and the house next to it had been bombed during the war. Like a lot of London bombsites, the ground had been cleared, but there was no money to rebuild. She parked the car, locked it and crossed the road.

  The wireless was still blaring out when Ena entered the office. Sid was on his knees frantically going through files in the bottom drawer of the big filing cabinet. ‘Can I help, Sid?’ He shook his head.

  Artie came in from the kitchen. ‘What are you looking for, Matey?’

  ‘A file.’

  ‘Silly question,’ Artie said to himself.

  ‘I can’t remember the name on it, but I’ll know it when I see it.’

  ‘Sounds a bit rum, don’t you think, Ena?’

  ‘If you’ve nothing constructive to say, Artie, bugger off and leave me to get on with it,’ Sid shouted.

  ‘In that case,’ Artie said, ‘I’ll take Ena to Lyons Corner House for a cup of tea. She can buy me a cake and I’ll tell her how busy I’ve been organising the files into date order just so you can sling them about all over the place.’

  Sid lifted his head and gave Artie a withering look. Artie giggled.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘How many listening devices did you find?’ Ena asked, as she and Artie walked through the stalls in Covent Garden market to Southampton Row and down to the Strand.

  ‘Two. Shall we leave them and feed the Ruskies false information?’

  ‘No, get rid of them. Sid found two in my flat.’ Artie’s eyes widened. ‘I neutralised them under cold water. Whoever planted them will know we’ve found them by now and assume we’ve done the same at the office. If we leave them, they’ll know we’re feeding them rubbish.’

  In Lyon’s Corner House, Ena gave Artie a pound note and told him to get something to eat. Having just eaten fish and chips, Ena only wanted a pot of tea.

  Looking around the spacious café and seeing no one she’d seen before, Ena did her best to relax. The door opened and she gave the man entering special attention. She didn’t recognise him either. She sighed. Not much chance of relaxing when you know you’re being followed, especially when you have no idea who it is following you.

  ‘That was a big sigh,’ Artie said, plonking a tray down with tea for Ena, and coffee and two rounds of sandwiches for himself. ‘Your change,’ he said handing Ena a ten-shilling note and couple of coins.

  She absentmindedly took the money and dropped it into her handbag.

  ‘Right, what’s going on? Sid came back like a whirlwind and you appear to be in another world.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’ve got all night.’

  While she drank her tea and Artie ate his sandwiches, Ena told him everything she had learned at the Robert Bevan hospital.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked, as they walked back to the office. ‘How did you get on in Holland Park? Were you able to get into the house?’

  ‘Yes, it was a doddle. When no one had come or gone from the house in two hours, I decided to try my luck as a telephone engineer. I took my tools, knocked on the door, and was let in by a bruiser of a fellow. He was over six feet tall, almost as wide, with a thick foreign accent. I assumed he was the diplomat’s manservant.’

  ‘His butler I expect.’

  ‘Whatever he was he happily took me to three rooms on the ground floor of the house that had telephones.’ Artie grimaced.

  ‘What’s the face for?’

  ‘He stood next to me and looked over my shoulder while I checked each of them, so I wasn’t able to do any snooping.’

  He took a box of Players from his overcoat pocket and offered Ena a cigarette. She took one and Artie took out a box of Swan Vesta. He struck a match, cupped his hands around the flickering flame and Ena leant into it and sucked. Once her cigarette was alight, he lit his.

  ‘Any evidence to suggest Frieda lived there?’

  ‘No.’ Artie blew a long stream of smoke into the cold air. ‘I purposely clocked the photographs. There weren’t many; a couple on the mantle shelf of one room and one on a side table under a standard lamp in another room. You know the thing.’

  ‘No women?’

  ‘No women under the age of sixty. I wasn’t taken upstairs to the bedrooms, where I know there were telephones because I could see the wires from the street. If there had been photographs of a wife or lady friend, they were probably up there.’

 
‘And that was it?’

  ‘Not quite. There was a telephone in a room off the kitchen. It was a small room; a large pantry kind of room with a wooden desk and a chest of drawers on one wall, and an armchair at the side of the fire on the other. Very masculine. I expect it was the manservant’s room. Four telephones in four rooms. I know there were more, but I wasn’t shown them.’

  ‘Except for the manservant, no staff?’

  ‘Yes. A barrel of a woman with wiry grey hair in her late fifties and a young girl who looked about fourteen.’

  ‘The cook and the kitchen maid.’

  ‘They were eating their midday meal when I was in the small room with the desk in it, so I didn’t get the chance to talk to them. The manservant was friendly enough. He smiled a lot, but didn’t say much. Probably didn’t speak English beyond hello and come in. I took my time checking the telephones, but once I’d finished, I had no reason to hang around. The manservant showed me out and I went back to the van.’

  When they got back to the office Sid was in a bad mood, angry with himself for not seeing the similarity between Ena Dudley who works in nuclear research and Ena Dudley who had worked in engineering.

  Ena told him he couldn’t have known about the work she did in the war because no one knew. Eventually, she ordered him to leave the office with her, and on no account was he to return until the following morning.

  Sid’s house - or his mother’s house, Ena had never worked out who actually owned the place - was on her way home. If she hadn’t insisted on giving him a lift, he would probably have stayed in the office and worked all night.

  Ena liked Sid. She liked Artie too. But Artie was apt to cut corners where Sid was old school, steady and responsible - and stayed at work until the work was done. She admired him for his dedication but worried that he sometimes became obsessed with a case. That’s what Henry said she was, obsessed. Ena brought the Sunbeam to a halt outside Sid’s house. ‘See you in the morning. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.’

  ’No, don’t worry about me. There’s a couple of things I need to do before I come into the office, so I’ll be leaving home really early. Besides which, my sister is coming down at the crack of dawn. When she and Mother get yacking, I get out of the way.’

  Ena laughed. ‘All right, if you’re sure.’ Sid left the car, slammed the door, and tapped the roof. ‘See you at the office,’ she shouted, and drove away.

  As she turned into St. Michael’s Square Ena spotted the dark-coloured surveillance car. Its sidelights were on. She wound down her window as she approached and slowed to a crawl. If she wasn’t mistaken the car’s engine was ticking over. Her first thought was her tail had kept the engine running for a quick getaway. But it was more likely that, on a cold night like tonight, it was to keep the heater on and him warm.

  By the glow of the streetlight, she saw the large saloon car was a green Austin Cambridge. Not an MI5 vehicle then, she thought. And not a car from the Home Office’s pool of vehicles either. The cars of both arms of the intelligence service were black.

  Ena parked in her usual place in front of the flat. She opened the door, swung her legs out, and pushed herself up until she was standing. She reached into the back of the car and took her handbag and satchel from the back seat. After locking the driver’s door she went round to the passenger door and locked that. Satisfied that the Sunbeam was secure she climbed the steps to the flat. At the top, she looked back. The green Austin was still there. She was desperate to know who was watching her but having been awake the entire night the night before she was more desperate to get some sleep. She would confront the driver of the Austin another time. Tonight, she was going straight to bed.

  The smell of stale fish and chips and vinegar-soaked newspaper met her as soon as she stepped into the hall. Closing the door she groaned. For a second she thought about taking what was left of the cold fish meal to the dustbin. The second passed. She was too tired. All she wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep.

  She took off her coat and hung it up. As she turned to go to the bedroom she heard the sitting room door open. She squealed and spun round. ‘Henry?’ Stumbling sideways she caught her head on a coat-hook. ‘Damn it, Henry, what are you doing back?’

  ‘Nice to see you, too, Ena.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course it is. Here.’ Henry put his hand under Ena’s chin and lifted her face to his. ‘Let me look at your forehead.’

  Ena flicked his hand away.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What is it? You have a bloody nerve, Henry. Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘No. But you could have told me you were going off grid. I’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, it was very last minute.’

  ‘It always is.’

  ‘You know how these things work,’ he said, kissing her forehead.

  ‘All right. But next time…’

  ‘I’ll tell you, I promise.’ Henry pulled Ena to him and put his arms around her.

  She rested her head on his chest. ‘It’s been a very long day.’

  ‘You’re freezing,’ Henry said.

  Holding her hand, Henry led Ena into the sitting room. He went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of Teacher’s Whisky and Ena knelt in front of the fire.

  ‘Here.’ Henry handed her a glass of scotch and sat down beside her. He took a drink and exhaled with appreciation.

  With her head on Henry’s shoulder Ena watched the orange and red flames jump from one lump of coal to another.

  Henry put his glass on the hearth and wrapped his arms around her. Rocking her gently he kissed the back of her neck. Then he nibbled the lobe of her ear and, breathing heavily, said, ‘I’ve missed you, Ena.’

  Ena, almost asleep, snuggled into her husband. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she mumbled, stifling a yawn.

  Henry took the glass of whisky Ena was about to spill out of her hand. He put it on the hearth next to his empty glass and helped her to her feet. With her arms around Henry and her eyes shut, stumbling like someone who’d had too much to drink, Ena let her husband guide her out of the sitting room and into the bedroom.

  She fell onto the bed exhausted, turned over and sighed heavily. Henry took off her shoes and kicked off his own. By the time he had taken off his shirt, Ena was fast asleep. Lifting the eiderdown from his side of the bed he folded it over her.

  Putting his shirt back on, he returned to the sitting room and finished Ena’s drink.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When she opened her eyes the following morning, Ena sprang out of bed and went into the sitting room. ‘I thought I’d dreamed you were back,’ she said, throwing her arms around Henry. ‘Why didn’t you ring the office and tell me you were coming home?’

  ‘I didn’t know I was until yesterday. I got a last minute flight. Besides, I wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘Flight? So you were overseas when Mac Robinson was buried?’

  ‘Of course.’ Henry looked shocked that Ena could think he had lied. ‘If I’d been in England I’d have been at Mac’s funeral, you know I would.’

  ‘I know. That’s what I told Helen Crowther.’ Ena hoped her voice didn’t reveal the disappointment she felt and changed the subject.

  ‘Tea and toast?’ she said, leaping out of her chair and going into the kitchen.

  ‘The tea might be a bit stewed by now.’

  ‘I’ll make a fresh pot.’

  ‘How about we do something today?’ Suddenly behind her, Henry put his arms around her waist and held her close. ‘We could go back to bed,’ he whispered, blowing warm air on her neck. Ena felt the flutter of butterflies in the pit of her stomach as she became aroused. ‘This afternoon we could see a film at the Ritz, have an early dinner somewhere and,’ he buried his face in her hair, ‘we could have an early night.’ He lowered his hands and began to caress her.

  Ena swayed with desire. She wanted Henry. She
needed him, but not today. Today she had important work to do. ‘That sounds perfect, darling, but I can’t take today off. Today is the worst possible day…’ She felt Henry’s hands leave her. ‘Tomorrow. We can do all that tomorrow.’

  Without saying a word, Henry left the kitchen.

  When she had made the tea and toast, she took it into the sitting room. Henry was sitting on the settee reading the newspaper. He had turned the wireless on, the volume up.

  ‘Can we talk?’ Ena said, putting the breakfast tray on the table.

  Henry lifted his head from the paper. ‘Do we have anything to talk about?’

  ‘Henry, please don’t be like that. I know how you feel about the cold case investigation into Frieda Voight.’

  Henry folded the newspaper and lobbed it at the coffee table. Leaning his head on the back of the settee, he closed his eyes and sighed.

  ‘It’s now a live case.’

  Henry’s eyes shot open. They were bright. Ena wasn’t sure whether they were shining with anger or interest.

  She poured two cups of tea. She didn’t ask if Henry wanted toast, she just gave it to him. While she drank her tea she told him about the funeral, that Eve Robinson was convinced her husband had been murdered and that she had blamed Ena. She also told him that Mac Robinson’s daughter had visited him in hospital.

  ‘Mac doesn’t have a daughter,’ Henry said, ‘the hospital must have made a mistake.’

  ‘They didn’t make a mistake, Henry. Mac may not have a daughter but a woman posing as his daughter visited him the day before he died.’

  Henry slowly shook his head. The lines deepened on his forehead and his eyes flashed. This time it was anger that Ena could see in them. In the ten years that they had been married, Ena had never seen Henry so annoyed.

  She drank her tea and forced herself to eat some toast. When she had finished, she said, ‘The name of the woman who visited Mac in the hospital was Ena Dudley.’ Henry remained silent, his face blank. Because she couldn’t read him, Ena said again that she needed to go to the office.

  ‘Dick Bentley has given me forty-eight hours to find proof that the woman using my name and my driving licence is Frieda Voight. That’s why I have to go to work today. When I told Sid, he remembered seeing the name Ena Dudley in one of the cold case files. He thinks Frieda is working as an engineer in a nuclear research facility somewhere. He knew I’d worked in engineering, but he didn’t know my maiden name so he didn’t make the connection. We’re hoping when we find the file, we’ll be able to prove that Frieda is working in nuclear research. And, because her address is the same as a Russian diplomat in Holland Park, I think she is spying for the Russians.’