by Roland Moore
Connie shook her head. “I got your flaming key.”
“I can be on me way soon, then,” he said.
She felt like asking him to repeat those words. She doubted her own hearing. That had been easy.
Vince pulled out a chair for her. “Unless you want to wait.” And he gestured to the two sandwiches. “One for you. One for him. A little thank you from me.”
Connie wasn’t really hungry after eating dinner at the farm, but she sat down and picked at a sandwich. She wondered if Henry had gone to see Dr Beauchamp tonight. Vince didn’t know. He knew Henry went the night before, but he hadn’t seen much of him today. As it darkened and the clock edged towards eleven o’clock, the village square went silent as people went home to bed. Connie started to become troubled. Where was he?
Vince’s pleasant demeanour also worried her. Maybe knowing the key was back had made him relax. He didn’t have to fling his weight around any more. Wealth awaited in Hatton Gardens in one of a thousand safety-deposit boxes.
He sat in the comfortable chair by the fire, nursing a brandy, staring into the flames, lost in his own thoughts.
Connie fished in her pocket. To her alarm, she couldn’t find the key. Panic spread over her face. But then she found it in the other pocket of her trousers. She plonked it on the table by Vince’s armchair.
“Brilliant. You done good,” he said, leaving it there and taking a sip of brandy.
The mantelpiece clock showed ten past eleven. Vince noticed Connie’s worried expression.
“Sure he’ll be back soon.”
“Maybe he’s not coming back.” Connie looked at her shoes. “I’ve been –”
She stopped herself, unwilling to share.
“It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me.” Vince took a slug of brandy. “Do you want me to stay up and wait for him?”
“Why are you being so nice?”
“You got me the key.” Vince smiled. “My ticket out of here, away from this dreary little village. No offence.”
Connie studied his face, as the skin flickered red and orange, shadowy from the flames in the fire. He looked more relaxed than at any time since he had been here; no longer on edge, no longer fearful of attack. Vince downed the last of his drink and went to the door.
“You sure?”
“I’ll wait up,” Connie said.
“Night, then.”
Connie listened as his heavy frame clomped up the narrow staircase.
Twenty past eleven.
As the upstairs sounds faded, Connie looked at the second, untouched plate of sandwiches and wondered where her husband was. She stood in the doorway to the back of the house, as if hoping Henry might be doing some late-night gardening. Two chairs stood at the end of the garden. No Henry.
She paced and waited; sat down by the fire; boiled a kettle and then decided against making tea. She opened the front door and looked impotently up and down the high street. Was he with Dr Beauchamp? Maybe the Frenchman was about to pass away. Yes, that would make Henry stay a long time.
By one o’clock in the morning, Connie found herself slumped over the dining table, asleep. She thought she’d check the front of the house one last time. The road outside was quiet. There were no lights on apart from at the vicarage and a solitary light in the upstairs room of the pub. Connie shivered and went inside.
She went to bed, sleeping in her clothes, and by three in the morning a fitful sleep claimed her. She dreamt of the time she’d first met Henry Jameson, the nervous young pianist who Finch had coerced into accompanying Connie. They’d played well together and flirted in an awkward way and Finch had bought Henry more pints of beer than he could manage. It had been the start of a strange courtship for the pair of them. Other dreams floated into focus; other memories. Connie was in one of the barns with Henry. He was nervous about them becoming an official couple and she misconstrued his signals as meaning he wanted to have sex. She’d got her blouse off before she realised her mistake. Hurriedly she put it back on – just in time – before he turned round.
The next morning, Connie forced open bleary eyes, half-hoping Henry would be there to fill them. She wanted things to be as carefree as they had been during their courtship. She wanted that Henry back. And he probably wanted that Connie back. He’d tell her about the late night he’d had with a parishioner or something. But it wasn’t to be. And the cold, stomach-churning reality made Connie feel sick. She got off the bed, brushed down her crumpled clothes. It was half-five in the morning and she’d barely had three hours’ sleep. Running on empty, she dragged herself downstairs, wrote a quick note for Henry – for whenever he came in – and went off to Pasture Farm.
The morning air cooled her tired face as she trudged to work. At the farm, Esther and Glory were in the kitchen, making bacon and eggs for the girls. Glory threw Connie a concerned look. Connie guessed what she wanted to know. How was Vince? Connie made sure that she couldn’t be overheard and told her that Vince seemed happy. Really happy. He had mentioned that he would be on his way now that he had the key. She thanked Glory for staying out of things. But Glory scribbled something on her pad:
“But I need to see him.”
“You will. I just need a bit more time.”
Yeah, I need to find my husband.
Subdued, Connie slumped at the big table in the kitchen and ate breakfast. Joyce was full of chatter about what her John was planning to do, now he was safely out of the RAF. Connie missed the details. Dolores was fielding any questions about her own life with her usual taciturn skill. Glory was amused as Dolores stonewalled any attempts by Iris and Joyce to find out her opinion on anything. Connie had decided that she wouldn’t mention that Henry hadn’t come home. She didn’t need the questions, the judgements. And she hoped that it would all be fine by tonight. He’d be back at the vicarage. Maybe tonight they would be waving off Vince together, Connie thought with a smile.
As Dolores left the kitchen, Joyce voiced her opinion that she didn’t trust her. Glory listened keenly to the conversation, while pretending to clean the counter. Esther was disappointed that Joyce felt the need to gossip. It wasn’t usually her way. But Joyce protested that it wasn’t gossip. Even the newspapers were warning about spies in our midst.
“You think she’s a spy? Come off it.” Esther chuckled.
“Remember Nancy?” Joyce retorted.
“Nancy wasn’t a spy.”
“No, but the Home Guard thought she was.” Joyce looked at the faces of her friends. “That’s my point. She looked innocent, but they thought she could have been a spy. And with Dolores, I don’t trust the fact that no one knows much about her.”
Esther shook her head. She wasn’t going to have this suspicion – especially not after Nancy’s ordeal. Nancy Morrell had been dragged in for questioning and was very nearly shot dead by Sergeant Tucker of the Home Guard. But the bullet had found a different victim – when Tucker accidentally shot Lord Lawrence Hoxley. Esther had seen too many people suffer from false accusations.
“Stop it and get on with your work,” Esther said, her cheeks flushing a little.
A reprimanded Joyce slunk off to the fields. And soon the rest of the Land Girls were following, their stomachs full of bacon and eggs.
After Glory had helped Esther wash up the dishes, she went upstairs to the room she shared with Dolores and sat on the bed for a while. She didn’t have any other chores until it was time to prepare lunch. Idly, she looked around. A large dressing table took up one side of the room beneath a small window that looked out onto the courtyard. A chair was propped against another wall with a suitcase on it, and two beds filled the rest of the small space.
Glory sat in front of the mirror and touched the bandage on her neck. The fabric had become tattered and yellow, and Glory wondered when she would be able to take it off. The doctor hadn’t told her what to do. She looked at her thin face, which seemed to her older than its tender years. Putting on her cloche hat, she decided that she would help t
he girls in the fields. It would occupy her. But then another thought came to her.
Could she find out if Dolores was a spy?
She opened the drawers of the dressing table. There was a Bible and a hair brush in one drawer. In another, she found some knitting – a red scarf in the early stages, cradled by two thick needles. Feeling foolish, but also quite bored, she decided to look in the suitcase. Maybe having a nose around would help her fit in, make the other girls like her.
Inside, among the clothes that Dolores hadn’t put on hangers yet, was a small metal box: ornate with Japanese-style etchings on the lid. It was locked, but that wasn’t a barrier to Gloria Wayland. Deftly she plucked a hair grip from her head and went to work on the mechanism. Within moments, she had managed to unlock it. Checking that no one was coming, she opened the tin.
Now she didn’t feel foolish. She felt guilty and ashamed. Was being part of the gang worth all this?
Dolores was no spy. Instead, the contents were devastating, searing images on Glory’s retinas that she would never forget, a wave of emotion rising in her throat and threatening to choke her. The box revealed a heartache that explained why Dolores never opened up, why she never told anyone anything, why she wanted to keep her head down until this war was finished.
There were some cards, a newspaper cutting and a tiny stuffed bear. The cards were yellowed condolences for the loss of a child. The browned newspaper cutting reported a tragic accident on a boat, where a small boy drowned. And Glory guessed that the bear belonged to that little boy. Dolores’s son. Carefully, she put the contents back as close to how she had found them as she could and shut the lid. It was a great deal harder to try to lock the tin with the hair grip than it had been to open it. Glory spent about twenty minutes trying to do it. She would have continued trying but then a voice made her jump.
“Gloria?” It was Esther calling up the stairs for her.
Glory put the tin back in the suitcase – and hoped, against hope, that Dolores wouldn’t register that it was unlocked. She raced downstairs, a feeling of sadness and unease washing over her. She felt ashamed for looking and anguished that she couldn’t comfort Dolores in any way. But when no one knew Dolores’ secret, how could she?
After work, Connie Carter walked back across the fields with Roger Curran. She had to go slowly as he wasn’t the fittest of men, huffing and puffing to keep up. Eventually, as the evening sun set, they reached the brow of the hill that overlooked Jessop’s Cottage. The home of the reclusive Michael Sawyer.
Connie now had grave misgivings about what they were about to do.
“Won’t we just make him angry?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find out.”
“But he might take his anger out on Margaret.” Curran looked blank. “The little girl.”
Connie didn’t want to make things worse for Margaret. Roger reassured her that they were just going to ask some questions. That was all. It was Roger’s duty as a journalist – albeit one on a backwater newspaper. Connie suspected that he felt buoyed, not only by his exciting foray into real investigative journalism, but also because his story about Connie’s heroism had been picked up by a national newspaper. Roger Curran was on a roll. Connie feared his gung-ho attitude would lead to an explosive situation with the reclusive Michael.
Roger guessed she was having more doubts. “Stay here if you want.”
“I’ll come.” Connie owed it to Margaret to be present. She reassured herself that she was doing the right thing.
Connie and Roger reached the edge of the neat cottage garden when the front door slowly opened. Michael Sawyer stood there, glaring at them. He’d seen them coming up the path, had been ready for them.
“Didn’t you say enough last time?” he hissed at Connie.
“I saw Margaret’s face,” Connie said. Roger threw her a curious look. What was this about? He didn’t like that he didn’t know about this aspect of the story. “She had been hit,” Connie added for his benefit. “There was a bruise.”
Roger announced that he was a reporter for The Helmstead Herald.
Michael suddenly looked haunted, unsure of what to do. It was one thing having a nosey Land Girl pestering him, but a journalist was a different matter. He wanted to close things down. “Well, we just live here minding our own business, trying to do the best we can for Margaret. There’s no story here, mister.”
“We know you’re a deserter,” Connie said.
It was as if he’d been shot. Michael’s face drained of colour, panic in his eyes.
“I want you to go,” he stammered.
“Although the authorities haven’t been actively looking for deserters since 1933, I’m sure that the story would be of interest to our readers,” Roger said, detailing the exact nature of his interest.
“Just leave, will you?” Michael shouted.
“What are you hiding?” Connie chanced her arm.
“Why are you here?” Michael screamed. Without warning, he launched himself towards Connie, knocking her back onto the path. As she struggled to get on her feet, he pushed one forearm over her windpipe and raised a fist. The violence was so unexpected that Connie found it impossible to make a sound or even to really register what was happening. Roger Curran was rooted to the spot, shocked. She knew she was on her own. Michael’s pulled back his fist, lining up a shot. Connie had one chance. She brought up one of her wellington boots, kicking Michael as hard as she could between the legs. It was a good shot. He grimaced in pain, his eyes bulging and his face red, as he collapsed in a heap by the path. Connie dragged herself to her feet and brushed herself down, ready to kick him again if he needed it.
“You sure you don’t want to tell me nothin’?” Connie shouted. “Why do you hit that girl? What’s going on here? Where is she?” Her questions came fast and furious, with no real focus. Each one was an attempt to unlock the vault and get Michael to suddenly admit something.
Roger put a hand on her arm and indicated that they should go. Michael was gasping for air and in no condition to talk. Reluctantly, Connie allowed herself to be led away. But she couldn’t resist a parting shot: “You hit that girl again and you’ll have me to answer to!”
Michael groaned and slowly sat up, clutching his groin.
As they walked back to the brow of the hill, Roger admonished Connie for trying to get information under duress. They could never run a story in those circumstances in a family newspaper.
“I wasn’t torturing him,” Connie protested. “I was saving my bacon. By the way, thanks for all your help there.”
“I’m not really a fighter.”
“And I am?” Connie tutted.
They walked in silence most of the way back to Helmstead. Connie guessed that she might have made things worse for Margaret. But she also hoped that Michael would behave, knowing the press were sniffing around.
As they reached the bridge into Helmstead, Connie couldn’t resist asking Roger if he’d seen Henry. The journalist pondered for a moment and then said he’d seen him the day before last, cycling over the fields on some errand or other. But he hadn’t seen him since. Why?
Connie found another lie popping out of her lips. “I just wanted to make sure that Henry wasn’t spending too much time with his flock, that’s all.”
“Such a caring wife,” Roger replied.
“Yeah, that’s me,” she said.
At the vicarage, Connie found things as she’d left them. Her note to Henry sat on the table, untouched. He hadn’t come back. Thinking of something, Connie ran upstairs and flung open the wardrobe doors. If there were a row of skeletal hangers in there, she’d know that he’d left her. But all of his shirts were lined up, his trousers folded. Maybe he hadn’t left her. But then she remembered stories of men just disappearing from home one morning and starting new lives from scratch. Maybe he’d done that.
She slouched downstairs and crumpled into the armchair and began to sob. Where was he?
Chapter 16
Henry ha
d been missing for two days.
And the morning after seeing Roger Curran, Connie set off to Dr Beauchamp’s cottage before work. As she’d left the vicarage, Vince had surprised her by padding out from his bedroom and asking if Henry was back. She’d shaken her head.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He looked genuinely concerned. “I wish I could do more to help you.”
“No one can help. But thanks.”
Connie found it oddly comforting that he had stayed since getting his key. It meant there was some companionship when she got home, someone to talk to who understood her loss. And Vince was the only one she could talk to, really, without telling the rest of the village that her husband was missing.
As she crossed a stile, Connie berated herself for not going to see Dr Beauchamp sooner.
Getting nearer, her breath condensing in the cold morning air, each footfall left her feeling worried that she might find Henry injured along the side of the dirt path to the old man’s house. He might not have left her, he might have been hurt in some way. What if he’d been hit by a lorry or something?
She reached the run-down cottage by six in the morning, knowing it was too early to wake the elderly Frenchman. But she’d come prepared and posted a letter through his letterbox enquiring about when he’d seen Henry. She hoped that his eyes would be good enough to read it and that he didn’t give it to his part-time carer from the village to read. She was a friend of Mrs Gulliver’s and such an action would mean all the cats would be out of the bag. After posting it, Connie took a shortcut across Gorley Woods to walk the few miles to Pasture Farm. She was deeply worried now. Two days was a long time. She hadn’t seen much of Vince – the result of working such long hours – but he seemed concerned and supportive in his own gruff way. She also found some comfort that someone was there in case Henry came back while she was out.
During the day’s work in the fields, Connie managed to catch up with Finch. He was sitting on a hay trailer, excavating his fingernails with a pen knife. “You haven’t seen Henry, have you?” she asked as casually as she could.