When We Meet Again

by Caroline Beecham

  “Of course not.” He met George’s melancholy eyes and gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m really sorry about Rupert, George. My deepest condolences.”

  “Thank you, Theo, and thank you for coming back. I do appreciate it—I need to spend some time with Clare and the girls.”

  The telegram had reached Walter while he was deliberating over whether to give Theo those three extra months to prove why he shouldn’t sell; the news that Rupert had been killed had helped make up Walter’s mind. Rupert’s de Havilland plane had been on a reconnaissance exercise when it was involved in an accident and lost at sea, and while they hadn’t recovered the bodies, it was believed that neither the pilot nor the navigator could have survived.

  George sat with rounded shoulders and his head hung low. “We still can’t fathom it, not really. It just hasn’t sunk in, to tell you the truth. I suppose if you don’t believe that it’s real, then in a way it’s not, is it?”

  Theo could understand how refusing to acknowledge the truth might make George feel as though he could undo history, and why he was focusing all his anguish on a lesser target, one he could tolerate more than the death of his only son, which in this case was the fire. Theo also knew that only time would help George work through his grief, and not anything that he or anyone else had to say.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to carry on dealing with the civil servants for a while, until we decide what to do,” George said, exhaling heavily.

  “That’s fine, George.”

  “Rupert used to hate it, you know—used to joke that he’d rather come face-to-face with Goering than another bureaucrat,” he said, and laughed awkwardly.

  “Not his favorite part of the job,” Theo suggested lightly.

  “No—but then, of course, Rupert was used to getting his own way.”

  Alice had given Theo that impression too, even though she’d been reluctant to talk about him.

  “And what about Alice’s book?” Theo asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “Well, the book is fine,” George replied. “Emily is proofreading it at the moment. But Alice hasn’t been here in days.”

  Theo was startled. “Does Ursula know where she is?”

  “No, she doesn’t, and we’re all getting rather worried.” He shook his head in a defeated manner.

  It was worrying that not even Ursula knew where she was.

  “I’m sorry, George. I wish I could have looked out for her like I promised you.”

  “It’s all right, you had to be with your father.” He sighed. “I had an inkling that Rupert had feelings for her—nothing he said, but I always thought he paid her special attention. I wondered if she might become my daughter-in-law. Only now he’s not coming back.”

  Theo felt a stab of jealousy at the possibility of Rupert’s feelings being reciprocated. Perhaps something had happened between the two of them that could explain why Alice was so reluctant to talk about him, and so insistent they had just been colleagues.

  “And I’m particularly concerned about Alice,” George continued, “because she’s been mixing with all sorts of unsavory characters in the past few months working on this book. It’s become an obsession.”

  Theo felt as if all the oxygen had left the room. Things were far more desperate than when he had left: Rupert was dead, the printers and a whole publication run had been destroyed, and Alice was missing. He’d broken his engagement with Virginia before he’d left New York because of Alice, and now he would dedicate himself to finding her.

  The two men regarded each other for a moment, and Theo wondered what it would do to George if he knew of his brother’s treachery. Theo could have never done the same to Howie.

  He’d developed a strong desire to protect George and his company. It wasn’t about the business or the new titles anymore; it was about them—about George and Alice, and Ursula, Tommy and Emily, all the staff in fact—only Theo hadn’t seen that before. He was certain that Walter wouldn’t have him back, not just for his daughter’s sake, but because he was sure that Walter blamed him for not selling when he’d first suggested it. But Theo hadn’t considered that when George learned he’d known about Walter’s betrayal, he wouldn’t want him around either.

  “It’s so strange that she would disappear now,” George said, “just when we’re so close to getting it printed. All the publicity has been booked.”

  Theo knew he was referring to the campaign to capture public attention for the Adoption of Children Act on its passing through Parliament.

  “After all she’s fought for,” said George, looking even more anguished. “What do you propose we do, Theo? We all agree she’s been hiding something.”

  “You’ve got enough to deal with—let me handle it.”

  Theo knew that George was still in shock; once the reality of Rupert’s death sank in, he wouldn’t be able to function. It had been the same for him with Howie.

  The telephone on George’s desk rang, but he made no effort to answer it.

  After several rings, Theo asked, “Do you want me to get it?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  * * *

  Ursula was waiting in the Friend at Hand, the pub they’d gone to on his first day in London. Two tumblers of whisky sat on the table in front of her, and she pushed one toward him as he sank down.

  “I’m sorry for the cloak-and-dagger,” she said, “but I’m not sure if George is ready for what I’m about to tell you, especially now.”

  Theo’s heart was racing; he’d run the short distance to the pub, convinced that Ursula knew where Alice was, and the fact she’d had to keep it a secret didn’t bode well.

  “Where is she?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

  “She’s all right, but I’m worried, Theo.” Her eyes narrowed. “I know she was going to ask for your help before you left, so I’m asking you for it now.”

  He knew he’d been wrong to leave without speaking to Alice, he just hadn’t known how wrong. “Tell me.”

  Ursula took a deep breath and looked squarely at him. “You know about her cousin’s baby, the one she went to look after?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it isn’t her cousin’s baby, it’s hers.” Ursula paused, letting the words land. “She wasn’t going to come back to work—she was going to stay home, looking after her daughter and telling everyone it was her cousin’s baby. But it all went wrong. Her mother took the baby as soon as she was born and gave her to baby farmers.”

  “You mean like the ones in the book?” Theo said, sickened. “How could she? Why?”

  “Ruth is a very religious and troubled woman, not of sound mind. She believed it was in Alice’s and her baby’s best interests.”

  He felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach, a real physical pain. They held each other’s gaze for a few moments.

  Friend at Hand had grown busier, tables filling with lunchtime workers and tourists who had sought out one of Fitzrovia’s oldest pubs. Theo stared into his tumbler, trying to imagine the despair Alice must have felt. And the courage that she’d shown. He ran his fingers along the edge of the glass, thinking about the pain she must have been in, trying to conceal it while still working on the book—now he could see it was partly a contrivance to help her find her baby.

  “What’s the baby’s name?”

  “Eadie.”

  A smile flickered across his face at the name inscribed in the zoo book. Then he grew serious again as another question came to mind—although he was sure he already knew the answer. “Is Rupert the father?”

  Ursula pressed her lips together as she stared at the tabletop, rolling her tumbler between her hands. Then she looked up at him, and he saw the answer in her eyes.

  “Did she love him?”

  “No! No, she didn’t. I mean, she may have once . . . but he coerced her, and he deceived her.” Urs
ula looked upset. “She never told him about the baby.”

  Theo realized he didn’t feel disappointment or jealousy, only anger at this man he’d never met, at the pain he’d caused the woman he loved. He also felt a burning desire to protect her, the sensation so strong that it wrenched at his core. She’d been a victim—of Rupert, Ruth and the baby farmers—and whatever had been between her and Rupert didn’t matter anymore. The important thing now was her and Eadie’s safety.

  “So where is she?” he asked.

  “With Olive’s informer. They’ve tracked down someone they think was involved in taking Eadie. I’ve got a name—the same one that another source gave us. And she told me to go to Marylebone Lane Police Station if she wasn’t back by four.”

  “What time did she say she was meeting the informer?”

  “Midday.”

  Theo looked at his watch; it was nearly one. They would be well on their way, perhaps even already there—and who knew what they were walking into?

  “You did the right thing, telling me,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Will you go straightaway?”

  “Yes—but look, George really needs to know. And I’d better be the one to tell him.”

  Thirty-eight

  “Remember, Alice, just make sure it’s her and come straight out,” Joe said firmly, his hand gripping her arm. “I don’t want you to get carried away.”

  They had sat in the car for several minutes watching the suburban house, but no one had arrived or left. After Alice’s reaction to their meeting with Jardine, Joe had guessed that the baby was hers and she’d been forced to tell him the truth. He’d put his foot down hard and driven her in silence across town to the north London safe house.

  “Then what?” she replied, as she pictured Eadie when she’d first seen her, skin covered in vernix.

  “Then we’ll decide. I don’t want to show my face unless I have to. Especially if she’s not even there.”

  Alice smiled tightly and stepped from the car. She’d never allowed herself to feel bereft. Sad, yes. Hollow, yes. A constant aching, yes. But she had never let go of the belief that she would see her daughter again.

  It was a case of déjà vu: a tree-lined road, a homogenous row of houses, and the same fear and anxiety. She’d visited dozens of houses and flats over her weeks of searching while working on the book, and she’d been surprised and disappointed by whom she’d met and what she’d found: people surviving in appalling conditions, but no baby farmers.

  This house was much larger than she’d expected: a mock-Tudor home with a steeply pitched roof, its half-timbered exterior infilled with herringbone brickwork. Sidney Jardine’s handling house was in the kind of well-to-do neighborhood where she would have once imagined nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Piano notes spilled from an upstairs dormer window; it was Brahms’s “Lullaby,” but the melody felt incongruous here, and disquieting.

  Alice glanced back over her shoulder at Joe’s outline behind the narrow windshield. She didn’t blame him for not wanting to blow his cover, but it meant she was alone.

  A scuffed carriage stood inside the pillared porch, half-blocking the front door, and a miniature set of broken gardening tools lay scattered across the tiles. Then a child’s cry started from somewhere inside, overtaking every other noise so that Alice no longer heard the piano music or the squeak of the brass knocker as she raised it ready to hammer back down.

  The cry had an uneven staccato rhythm; it wasn’t the mew of a newborn or the sound of a hungry child—and contemplating the root of the child’s unhappiness terrified her.

  Thirty-nine

  Theo’s mind wasn’t on the book, or on what George said to him as the older man leaned back against the police station reception desk, massaging his temples; all Theo could think about was why the police were taking so damned long. He’d known there was something seriously wrong, and he cursed himself for not returning sooner—and the others for not recognizing Alice’s cries for help—because now it had come to this, and she was in real danger.

  He and George hadn’t waited until four o’clock but had gone straight to Marylebone Lane Police Station and found Sergeant Burns, who had quickly disappeared, vanishing into the bowels of the building. All this time Alice could already be at the house with those barbaric criminals.

  Theo paced up and down, head inclined as he stared at the cracks in the tiles, trying to order his thoughts, and guessing that in all likelihood George was trying to do the same. It was hard to reconcile the kind, clever young woman for whom Theo had fallen so unexpectedly with the person whom Ursula had told him about, the one who’d been delving into London’s criminal underbelly in search of her illegitimate child.

  “It’s all completely possible . . . even though it is bizarre,” George said abruptly. “If everything Ursula says is true, it does explain all sorts of things.”

  Theo knew that he was referring to Alice’s reluctance to come back to work, to her frequent disappearances and uneven moods. It did explain a lot, but if he was surprised by this, then what on earth was George going to say when Theo told him who the baby’s father was? He had already had to quietly inform Sergeant Burns.

  “Women and Children First,” George continued, glancing up at Theo. “It must have been part of this.” An admiring smile played on his lips. “My, she’s clever. I always knew she was smart, but to combine the book and her detective work with finding her daughter, what a ruse! And what discipline and determination it must have taken.”

  Theo nodded. Then he stopped pacing, clearing his throat as he prepared for what was to come next. It was up to him to tell George, in the most sensitive way he could, that his dead son—a war hero—was also a scoundrel. He only hoped it would soften the blow for George to discover that he had a grandchild.

  Theo offered George a cigarette and lit it before he took one for himself, trying to steady his mind while he blew the smoke upward, following its journey as its curled away into the glass roof-light. “George . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Theo shifted uncomfortably on his feet, one hand pressed deep inside his jacket pocket as he held the cigarette in the other. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, so I’m just going to come right out with it.”

  The other man frowned. “What is it, Theo? Has something else happened?”

  “It’s about Alice’s baby. There’s something you need to know—”

  The office doors swung open, and Sergeant Burns hurried back through with two other police officers. “We’ve got the location,” she said. “Local officers are on their way.”

  “But we need to go too,” Theo said.

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. The police can handle it, I assure you.”

  “But no one knows what’s happened to the baby. We hope to God she’s safe, but can you imagine if she’s not?” The thought of it made Theo ache. “She might not even be there.”

  “Perhaps it would be best for someone to be there whom Alice knows,” George said brusquely, addressing the older of the uniformed men.

  The policeman looked at George. “I suppose since you’re the grandfather, that counts as family,” he said, weighing it up. “But you still have to stay in the car.”

  And the officers strode toward the door.

  “What did he just say?” George asked in bewilderment.

  Theo clapped him on the back. “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Forty

  Alice was about to knock, but the door was already open, and there was no one behind the panel of diamond-patterned glass. Accept your fear, Alice, she could hear Ursula say. Don’t fight it. Let it work for you.

  It only took one gentle push.

  Inside was dark and empty, and a red carpet swept away to the rear of the house where a gray linoleum kitchen and the green horizon of a garden beckoned.

&n
bsp; Alice stood on the threshold and listened, the breeze from the garden rushing through the hallway, scented with honeysuckle and grass. Fragments of conversation drifted with it, and she cocked her head to listen—but the voices were too distant, so she eased cautiously into the living room.

  It was sparsely furnished in muted colors that gave the place a transient feel, as if no one had spent any length of time there, or laid down any roots.

  The crying resumed overhead, and Alice swiftly investigated the other downstairs rooms then headed for the staircase. At the bottom of the steps she looked up—the house was as hollow as a skull, and her hand trembled as she laid it on the rail. Inwardly she was calm, moored by her self-belief, even though she wanted to scream her daughter’s name.

  Then she followed the sounds up to the next floor. Steps veered to the right, bringing her out opposite a room at the back of the house that overlooked the garden. She was possibly only feet away from where Eadie might be sleeping, and the thought drew her on, across the landing and through the glossy white door.

  An animal mobile swung above the empty crib, and there were pastel walls and a rocking chair stuffed with pink-and-white gingham cushions. It could have been her own nursery—the lullaby, the decorations, her baby sleeping soundly—only she knew it wasn’t, because she would never place the crib beside an open window.

  And there wasn’t any piano music, she realized; it was in her imagination, her subconscious weaving the lullaby into the present.

  As she headed back onto the landing and toward the second door, she believed she could feel Eadie close by. Her heart hammered in her chest; she promised her mother’s God that she would forgive her if Eadie was here, safe and well.

  A boy of about five lay asleep on top of a single bed, the curtains drawn and the room in semi-darkness. She tiptoed out and along the hallway until she was outside the only other bedroom.