Forgotten Voices

by Jane A. Adams

  He got up from the board and crept over to the door. Opening it a crack he could hear Daphne downstairs. Diane was out in the garden and Jeb could see that she was weeding or something. Or maybe just pulling up Daphne’s plants.

  ‘Good idea,’ Megan said. ‘We’d better look like we’re halfway through a game in case they come back.’

  Jeb watched as she arranged the board, playing an imaginary game from both sides until she was satisfied. Neither Daphne nor Diane played, but Jeb agreed that they should be thorough.

  ‘I heard them talking about an old boyfriend,’ Jeb said. ‘With that policewoman. She wanted to know something about a letter.’

  Megan nodded. ‘Nan was telling someone on the phone. She said Mum must have been seeing him behind Dad’s back.’

  ‘Dad’s been dead nearly three years,’ Jeb said. ‘If she was seeing someone, he’s not going to have much to say about it, is he.’ He saw Megan’s lip quiver and felt immediately bad about that.

  ‘She liked Dan,’ Megan said.

  ‘Yeah, but he’s married. I don’t think Mum would do anything like that.’

  ‘What, like Miss Greasely did?’ Megan giggled briefly and Jeb smiled at her. Miss Greasely had been a teacher at their primary school and she’d caused a bit of a fuss when she’d run off with one of the fathers.

  ‘Did Mum talk to you about her old boyfriends?’ Megan asked. Jeb, being that bit older, did sometimes glean tit bits of information that Megan didn’t.

  Jeb frowned, thinking. ‘No, she didn’t talk much about anything before Dad. But there was that man who came over that night. When the police came as well.’

  Megan nodded. She’d slept through it and Jeb had been sent back to bed, but there’d been a strange man sitting at the kitchen table and their mother had said it was an old friend. But she’d not told Jeb his name.

  ‘Diane keeps saying Mum wasn’t worried about anything,’ Megan said. ‘But she was, wasn’t she?’

  Jeb nodded. In the weeks before she died, their mother had been jumpy and anxious. Ignoring the phone and getting a new phone with a caller display box. And twice or three times she’d not been home when they got there. Jeb had let them in with the spare key and Ellen had arrived not long after saying that she’d got struck in traffic or there was an extra long queue at the bank. Little things had made her angry and that had been unusual. She’d just not been herself, but neither Jeb nor Megan – and they’d talked about it a lot – had been able to figure out what was wrong.

  ‘Do you think they’ll ever start talking to one another again?’ Megan asked.

  ‘Nan and Aunt Diane? I don’t know. I don’t really care to be honest. I thought I liked Auntie Diane but I’m not sure now.’

  Megan looked stunned and then she looked sad. ‘Well, we’ve got to live somewhere,’ she said. ‘I suppose Auntie Diane is better than Nan.’

  Footsteps on the stairs drove them back to their game. The door opened and Daphne came in with pop and biscuits.

  ‘How’s the game?’ she asked cheerfully.

  ‘Check and mate,’ Megan said.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Tim had run into William Trent a few times at Iconograph, but never really spoken to him. He knew that neither the designers nor the programmers really liked the man, but he hadn’t been sure why. At lunch in the canteen he spotted Dennie Miles, someone Tim had worked quite closely with on the Magician’s Quest series Tim had been involved with for the past eighteen months or so. Dennie was now doing some of the preliminary storyboards for the wartime project Trent was consulting on. He was exactly the person Tim had been hoping to see.

  Dennie looked up as Tim plonked his tray down on the table. ‘Timothy. How the devil are you?’

  Tim grimaced. He hated his full name and Dennie knew that.

  Dennie laughed. ‘How’s it going,’ he said.

  ‘Not so bad. You’ll be getting my research notes in about a week or so, you’ll be able to tell me then.’

  ‘Look forward to it. And how’s the night job going?’

  Tim smiled with a little more enthusiasm. He worked at Iconograph anything between one and three days a week. Three nights a week he worked at the Palisades Hotel, performing his magic act. He was gaining a considerable reputation and was gratified to know that hotel bookings were some twenty per cent up on the nights he performed. The refurbished Art Deco theatre and restaurant at the hotel was an additional draw and was open to the public as well as hotel guests. Most nights sold out in advance and Tim enjoyed his theatrical persona. ‘It’s all going very well,’ he said. ‘We’re doing the final prep for the Christmas programme now. More research.’ Tim laughed. If he was honest, researching the history of stage magic was actually the best part of his job. He had successfully revived several classic but not much used illusions over the past couple of years.

  ‘Anything we can use?’ Dennie asked.

  ‘I hope so. Yes. Dennie, I wanted to ask you something. You’ve been working with William Trent, I think?’

  Dennie rolled his eyes. ‘Working with is stretching it a bit. I’ve been listening while he lectures me, yes. Look, no offence to the man, he’s probably a fantastic historian or whatever, but he doesn’t have a clue as to what’s useful in our field. We don’t need someone to create backstory; we’ve got writers already doing that. What we need is the action stuff. Who did what and how and where.’

  ‘I thought Lydia wanted him on board precisely for the back stories,’ Tim argued. ‘All the bits of hidden history.’

  ‘Sure, that was the original idea, but all the really unusual stuff is practically unusable. At least in the timescale we’ve got.’

  ‘Oh, why’s that?’

  Dennie stirred his tea. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be unfair to the man. He’s filled in a whole load of background of how people lived, the civil defence side of things, the restrictions on movement and all that, but the bits he’s really obsessed by we wouldn’t touch with a very, very long barge pole. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about there being a training school for SOE somewhere hereabouts, so we looked deeper into that. You know, that’s the sort of thing we had in mind. All the hidden stuff that no one knows about. Trouble is, some of it, we’re still not supposed to know about.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. He reckons there was something as significant as the work they did over at Bletchley, but we don’t know what, he can only guess and when we put in a freedom of information request we were told that the thirty-year rule didn’t apply. I mean, why, for God’s sake? They’ve even released all the cold war intel – well some of it anyway.’

  Tim shrugged, his mind drifting towards the journal that Mac had brought to them and which he’d only had time to glance at yet. ‘Did he say anything more?’

  ‘No, he just got annoyed. Said there was more than one way to skin a cat or something and muttering about oral history. Thing is, he gets annoyed with me and my team. Like I can do anything about it. I just design the damned games. I don’t run the government, do I?’

  ‘Why use a freedom of information request?’ Tim asked.

  Dennie grinned. ‘Because that way someone else has to do the leg work for you. They search the archives so you don’t have to. Give him his dues, Trent was right about that part. Pity nothing came of it.’

  Dennie tapped his watch and nodded at someone on the other side of the canteen. Glancing over his shoulder, Tim could see another member of Dennie’s team waiting for him. ‘Playtime’s over,’ Dennie said. ‘Do you know this Trent, then?’

  ‘Not really. He was a friend of that woman that was shot. Ellen Tailor.’

  ‘Ah, so your Mrs Martin is investigating is she? I heard about it. Sounds terrible. Look, got to go.’

  Tim nodded and glanced at his own watch. He too had another meeting. He drained the last of his tea and tucked the pack of biscuits he’d bought into his pocket for later.

  The journal, Tim thought. Was that what had convince
d William Trent that something mysterious, something secret, had been going on in wartime Frantham? It wouldn’t be all that surprising, Tim thought. It was hard to go anywhere on the South Coast without falling over some symbol or memory or relic from the second war as his mother always called it. Coming from a military family, Tim’s youth had been imbued with stories and family legends and his two uncles were still actively involved in the shadier aspects of that world. One had spent a lifetime in diplomatic protection and one was something vague and mysterious in military intelligence. Tim and his father were the only members of the extended family for whom the attraction of soldiering of one sort or another had passed them by. His father was an engineer and Tim … well Tim had only just found his direction.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘I told you, I didn’t want to see you again.’

  ‘Tough. Makes a change for you to be telling that to someone else, doesn’t it? It’s usually you being told to piss off.’

  Philip Soames scowled at her. ‘What the hell do you want anyway?’

  ‘Well—’ Diane settled into her chair and added sugar to her coffee – ‘I just thought you’d want to finish what you started, so to speak. A job half done is only half a job. Did your mum never tell you that?’

  ‘Piss off, Diane. This is your game. I never wanted any part of it.’

  ‘You think anyone will believe that?’ She leaned forward. ‘Phil, my sister’s dead. You are number one on the list of guilty parties. You surely don’t want me to make life even harder for you than it already is.’

  ‘Like you’ve already done.’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve not even started.’

  Philip Soames pushed his own cup aside and stood up. ‘Piss off, Diane,’ he told her again. ‘You want something done, you do it yourself.’

  She watched him leave, a frown creasing deeply between her brows. ‘Damn.’

  Diane sighed. Nothing was ever bloody simple. She glanced at her watch and knew she must think about getting back. Daphne would be taking advantage of Diane’s absence to sow her poison.

  She finished her coffee, glancing around the little cafe and feeling suddenly very obvious. The cafe was round the corner from the Marsden warehouse. It catered for the factory workers and the warehousemen and the bacon butty brigade and Diane was very obviously not one of the usual clientele. She’d been dressed for another visit to her solicitor and the impulse to drop in on Phil Soames in what was one of his usual haunts had just been overwhelming.

  Now she began to wonder if it had been a major error of judgement.

  Diane got up and left, aware that her departure had been watched by the woman behind the counter and the two men perched on high stools seated beside it.

  ‘Think she’s lost,’ one of them joked.

  ‘Think she rubbed Phil up the wrong way,’ Jake said. His companion laughed. ‘She can rub me any way she likes,’ he said and earned himself a reprimand from the owner.

  ‘Sorry, Mel. He’s a dark horse, our Phil.’

  Jake’s companion nodded. He watched through the window as Diane walked back to the end of the street and disappeared round the corner. He wondered if his boss knew that Ellen Tailor’s sister was coming round asking questions. Decided that maybe he should be the one to make certain that he did.

  Megan was playing on the swing again and Jeb, in desultory mood, kicking a ball around the garden. They had discovered that their nan left them alone if they went into the garden and ‘played’. If they hung round the house and tried to talk, she’d be there, listening in at their conversations or checking to make sure they were out of earshot when she made her phone calls. They had spent a lot of time outside these past few days and thankfully the weather had held for them.

  Jeb was dreading the winter.

  On his list of things to dread, though, he was dreading the funeral first. The body would be released ready for next Friday. He had heard Daphne tell someone that on the phone – he found it hard to think of her as nan these days; his mother’s voice seemed to echo in his head whenever he tried to say the word. She hadn’t told him that though. And he wasn’t sure that Diane had heard the news either.

  ‘I want to go back to school,’ Megan said. ‘I want to see my friends. I want—’ She broke off and looked at her brother.

  Jeb nodded. ‘She’s not going to let us, though. She doesn’t want us out of the house and talking to other people, does she?’

  Megan shook her head. ‘I don’t get why.’

  Neither did Jeb, but he knew he was right. Daphne had watched them like a hawk. The only respite had been the afternoon that Diane had taken them out to the beach. The day she had met up with that policeman. They’d got home just ahead of Daphne and Jeb knew it was more by luck than organization on Diane’s part. He knew how relieved his aunt had been though. The only other respite had been when the policeman had taken them away for a bit on the day of the Big Argument. That couple of hours at the old woman’s house had been a major relief. Rina and everyone had been nice to them and not asked stupid questions.

  Daphne had been furious about that and he had overheard her telling someone on the phone that she was making a complaint about the inspector. She had quizzed them frequently and at length about that couple of hours away. What did people ask them? What had they done? Who were these people they had been with? What had the policeman asked them?

  She hadn’t believed Jeb at all when he told her that he and Megan had learnt a card game with a weird name and eaten cake. Even when Megan, questioned separately, had given the same responses, Daphne had still yelled at them for lying to her.

  Frankly, Jeb didn’t get it. His grandmother had always had a bit of a temper and he knew she’d never liked their mum, but she’d never gone off on one like that. She’d never been this mad.

  Turning with the ball, he caught a glimpse of Daphne in the upstairs window, looking down at them, a fierce expression on her face. She’d threatened not to let Diane in when she came back. Diane had then threatened her with the police or even that she’d call social services. Jeb felt like he and Megan were caught between two crazy women. Like they were a living rope in a tug of war. He didn’t know what he could do about it.

  Megan slipped from the swing and aimed a kick at the ball. She missed, so Jeb nudged it back to her so she could try again. ‘You think Auntie Diane will take us up to York?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably. She says it’s up to us. That she’d move down here if we wanted, but I don’t think she means it.’

  ‘You want to stay here?’

  Jeb shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. What he wanted wasn’t going to happen. What both of them wanted was never going to happen. They wanted their mum back. They wanted it to be all like it was before.

  ‘You’re sure it was her?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Certain. Ellen was with her sister when I ran into her one day in town. I came to pick you up – she was with you, and her sister was with her.’

  Dan nodded. He remembered the occasion now. Diane looked a lot like her sister. Jake would remember meeting her all right. ‘So what was she doing with Phil Soames?’

  ‘I don’t know. Couldn’t very well go and listen in, could I, but he wasn’t pleased that’s for sure. He told her where to go and left and she didn’t hang around afterwards.’

  Dan nodded. ‘Thanks, Jake. I’ll have a word with him.’

  Rina and Tim had been scanning through the documents Mac had left with them. ‘I had a meeting today with Richard Freeman, head of the Home Guard Auxiliary Unit for this area. He seems like a sensible man and looking at his record is well equipped, mentally and experientially at least. I’m going to try and arrange a weekend up at Farnham for him and maybe a couple of his men. I’m trying my best to pull strings to get him the equipment he’s requested but it’s a slow process. I’m due for a visit to the Diamond Company next week and I’ve promised to put his case.’

  ‘I think I’m in need of an interpreter here,’ Rina
said.

  ‘So did I, so I called Uncle Charlie. The Auxiliary Units were the home guard equivalent of commando groups, specializing in guerrilla warfare and trained to be the last line of defence in case of invasion.’

  ‘Ah, I read something about that,’ Rina said. ‘And the Diamond Company.’

  ‘Now that really is interesting,’ Tim told her. ‘At the start of the war part of the Secret Intelligence Service operated out of the eighth floor of Bush House in London. Cover for the operation were two shop fronts. One was—’ he paused to consult his notes – ‘Geoffrey Ruveen and Co and the other was Joel Brothers Diamond Company. I’m betting that’s what this entry means.’

  ‘No wonder William Trent was so interested. Did this come from the Tailor family, I wonder?’

  ‘Well, that would be logical, I suppose,’ Tim said. ‘Ellen Tailor loaned them to William Trent.’

  Rina nodded, but she was thinking about Vera Courtney. About the possessions missing from the storeroom at the airfield. Could Ellen have loaned Vera’s family documents to William Trent? It was a consideration.

  ‘Keep looking,’ she told Tim. ‘See what else you can find out, but it’s no wonder William Trent was all excited by this journal, is it?’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was two weeks since Ellen Tailor had been shot and her funeral took place at St Peter’s Church where she had arranged the flowers.

  The press were out in force, Mac noted, and for once Daphne and Diane presented a united front, shepherding the children between them and doing their best to keep them away from prying eyes and invasive lenses.

  The children were dressed in black. Jeb looked mutinous. Megan had a bright red scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and Mac guessed this was her version of protest. From what he knew of Ellen, he didn’t see her as being a woman who’d like to see her kids dressed in formal funeral clothes.

  Still, what did he know?

  Daphne looked suitably formal in a dark suit and Diane in a blue dress beneath a dark coat. Make-up couldn’t hide the fact that she was tearful and had already been crying.