Winner of the 2019 Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition
‘Jo Fox, a very modern woman in wartime England. Getting to know her was a delight. More please, Claire Gradidge’
RICHARD MADELEY
‘Feisty, determined, and brave – I loved Josephine (‘Jo’) Fox. What a debut from a marvellous new author’
JUDY FINNIGAN
‘A complete delight, the story sings with authenticity . . . unputdownable’
CAZ FREAR
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Questions for your reading group
Copyright
For Nick, for everything
Prologue
14th/15th April 1941, the skies over southern England
BOMBER’S MOON. FROM TWENTY THOUSAND feet, the Solent shines like a mermaid’s tail, showing the way to the city so plainly the blackout is useless. There’s no mistaking the boatyards, the aircraft factories, the docks. The first Junkers follow the water, set down their payload as simple as laying eggs.
Targets lose their definition as the fires spread. The city answers back, ack-ack guns pouring defiance into the sky. Caught in a stream of tracer, one bomber jinks wildly, turns for home. Engine stuttering smoke, it jettisons its load ten miles off target, sees a dark spot light up like Christmas.
Unknowing, the aircraft has seven deaths on its tally sheet when a Beaufighter brings it down barely a minute later. But tomorrow, when the Heavy Rescue Crew digs the last casualty out of what’s left of the little Hampshire pub on the outskirts of Romsey, there will be an extra body to carry to the makeshift mortuary. Not seven shrouded corpses, but eight: eight unlawful deaths for the town’s coroner to investigate.
1
The same night, on the ground
IT’S MIDNIGHT WHEN THE TRAIN leaves London. I’d arrived much too early, had to wait until the carriages filled up and the labyrinthine processes of wartime travel set us on our way. Now, in the blacked-out, blue-lit, third-class compartment my fellow travellers are sleeping, stiff upper lip in the face of danger. If it ain’t got your name on it . . .
But I can’t sleep. It isn’t the bombs, I’m used to them. It’s the thought of what lies ahead.
Romsey.
So long ago.
I’d promised myself I’d never go back. If they didn’t want me, I’d show them. I’d never set foot in the place again. That’s how you think at fourteen, when your life’s crashing down around you. And though it’s ridiculous to feel the same when you’re almost forty, I do. I’m nervous, but I don’t have a choice. If I want to know the truth, I’ve got to go back.
I peer out through a crack in the blind. Before the war, this moonlit landscape would have been peaceful, eerily beautiful, but tonight the distant wail of air raid sirens seeps into the carriage, dogging our journey and sending us cross-country, miles out of our way. I watch the repeated flare of incendiaries in the distance, see the dark huddled towns spring to light, watch the slow-motion fall of bombs. Glimpses, like at the pictures; except this is life and death.
Not far now.
As dawn breaks, the train is still stopping more often than it moves. If my suitcase weren’t so heavy, I could walk from here.
But I wait, and at last we struggle into Romsey station. It hasn’t changed a bit. The stationmaster’s still waiting by the exit, alert for tips and fare-dodgers. Old Bunny Burnage studies my ticket, barely glances at my face. I don’t think he recognises me, but I can’t help remembering all the times he’d caught us playing near the railway tracks.
When we laid pennies on the line for the express to flatten. The whole gang of us, messing about, daring each other to play ‘last across’. Looking for trouble and finding it.
*
‘Penny’ll derail the express,’ Billy says.
‘Nah. Him’ll get cutten in half.’ That’s Bert.
‘Bollocks. Look here.’ Abe pulls something from his pocket, holds it out. We look, because Abe is the leader, and what he says, goes. ‘It’ll just get flattened, like this. And hot, if it isn’t pushed off.’
‘That’s treason.’ Jem fingers the squashed irregular shape. ‘My dad says—’
‘My dad’s a copper, my da-ad is,’ we taunt him.
‘Dad says you can get yer head chopped off for spoiling a coin. Put in the Tower of London with the spies and shot.’
‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,’ I chant. ‘Can’t get shot and beheaded.’
‘Can too, Carrotty-head.’
‘They can’t kill you twice, you bloody chicken.’
Spitting mad, I run to where the rail is singing already with the train on its way. The only girl in the gang, I have to prove myself every time. As I set down my penny, they scarper. Bunny Burnage is pounding towards me, cutting off my escape as the express screams past in a shawl of smoke, the rush of it nearly knocking me over. Just in time, I grab the penny. Shove it in my pocket, fingers tingling with heat, ear stinging with the stationmaster’s blow as I stumble away.
‘Josephine Fox!’ he shouts. ‘Should have known. Serve you right if you’d been killed. I’d tell your father if anyone knew who he was. Hop it, you little bastard, and don’t come back.’
*
So I’d hopped, and while the penny and the slap had cooled before I’d even caught up with the gang, the stationmaster’s contempt stung much longer. In a way it still rankles, so now when he touches his cap and calls me madam, I want to laugh, dare him to call me bastard to my grown-up face.
I push my suitcase forward. ‘I’d like to leave this here for the time being.’
‘No noxious substances, no perishable goods, no livestock.’
‘None of those.’
‘That’ll be thruppence.’ He hands me a pink ticket. ‘No claim without a ticket.’ He licks the back of the counterfoil, sticks it to the corner of the case. ‘Southern Railway wishes to make it clear that the company takes no responsibility for loss or damage caused by war operations.’
I can’t help smiling. ‘Safe enough in Romsey, surely?’
‘Begging your pardon, madam, but that’s all you know. We had a tip and run raider come over last night, flattened the Cricketers’ Arms. Still digging them out last I heard, dead as doornails, the whole lot.’
‘The old place in Green Lane? That’s bad.’
‘You know it?’ He peers closely at me as I turn away. ‘Hang on a minute. You got the look of—’
I pretend not to hear, keep on walking.
2
15th April, Romsey
In all cases of sudden death . . . it is the duty of those who are about the deceased to give immediate notice to the coroner. If possible, notice should be given while the body is fre
sh, and while it remains in the same situation as when the death occurred (Jervis on Coroners, 1927:24).
THE CRICKETERS’ ARMS HAD NEVER been one of those picturesque country inns mentioned in guidebooks. Brick-built and ugly, it stood alone on the lane for almost a century, a taproom bar where farm labourers went to drink at the end of the day. A place with a reputation – a mind-your-own-business kind of a place where a man could drink undisturbed, so long as he paid his score.
Now, the bright morning sunlight shows where the bomb sheared through the building. Though most of the pub has been demolished, one corner stands almost to roof height. An iron-frame bedstead balances precariously; scraps of wallpaper flutter in the breeze. At the foot of the wall, amongst the heaps of rubble and scattered timbers, a narrow crack pitches into the void beneath.
Sidelined by the Heavy Rescue Crew, Romsey’s coroner stands waiting. Bram Nash knows how lucky he is, even if he doesn’t feel it. He might have been under the rubble himself. Less than twelve hours ago, he was sitting in the bar, spinning out a whisky, watching the faces come and go.
He’d known them all. Old Ma Bryall, ferret-faced and vulgar. Fred, never-say-boo-to-a-goose Fred, long-suffering worshipper at Ma’s shrine. Henry and Bob with their dominoes, poor daft May on her knees by the fire, brushing out the hearth.
Young Stan Hoskin had received his call-up papers that morning. He’d been proud and scared, full of the glory of war. Nash could remember how that felt. He’d watched as Stan picked up Sal, or maybe it was Sally, picking up Stan. She’d been old enough to be the boy’s mother, but no lad had to go to war a virgin while Sal was around. She’d always do a soldier a favour, no matter what. Young, old, maimed, it’d all been the same to her.
Despite the sunlight, the persistent breeze, Nash feels suffocated by the thought of them, buried beneath the press of earth and debris. No sounds from below, no chat from the rescue crew. They work methodically, stopping now and again to listen. To call.
‘Anyone there?’
Nothing.
‘Anyone?’
He rubs his face, tries not to remember how it feels to be buried alive. Tries not to think about the buried dead.
By lunchtime, they’re ready to let Alf down on a rope. He’s the smallest, the lightest, nerveless with youth.
A voice lifts across the rubble, trying to argue him out of it.
‘Leave it, mate, there’s no hope. No point risking it.’
But Alf won’t be moved. Everyone waits while he scrabbles over the edge. A flash of torchlight shows against the dark. Then, his voice.
‘A girl, just here. Not buried nor nothing.’ A pause. ‘Nah. She’s gone. Cold.’
*
As a child, I’d dreamed of walking into Romsey’s most respectable hotel. Taking tea and cucumber sandwiches like a lady. But the wartime reality this afternoon is Camp coffee and a dry biscuit.
The lounge is gloomy, practically deserted, lamps unlit. The only brightness falls where I sit, close to a window overlooking Market Place. At a safe, English distance, an elderly lawyer type in a navy pinstripe suit is plumped down, head buried in a newspaper. Beyond him, two stalwarts in Harris tweed are engaged in conversation. I can hear the rumble of words, but I’m too far away to make out what they’re saying.
I recognise the one facing me. Stout, obnoxious, balding, Mr Maitland used to be our family dentist. As a child, I’d loathed him for the way he appeared to delight in giving pain. He’d seemed older than God to me then, but he can’t be more than sixty-something now. The other man’s unfamiliar, but I take a good look anyway. Much as I hate to think it, both are the right kind of age for my search. Either could be my father.
Disgust sweeps over me as I sip the sweet coffee substitute. I still can’t believe it. That he’s alive, somewhere in this town.
All my life, I’d thought my father was dead. That he’d died before I was born, leaving my mother to face the disgrace of my birth alone. Nell had been banished from the town like a girl in a Victorian novel, while I was left for my grandparents to bring up. I suppose I might have discovered the truth if I’d been allowed to stay in Romsey, if I’d lived there as an adult. But when I was almost fourteen, my grandmother died. Without her buffering presence, my grandfather saw no reason to keep me. I’d always known that he was ashamed of me, that he hated the fact I was illegitimate; but once my grandmother was gone, I discovered it wasn’t just my birth he hated. It was me, too.
*
‘Where are we going?’
Grandfather doesn’t reply. It feels daring to question him, but if he loses his temper at least he’ll have to say something. He hasn’t spoken to me for days, ever since Granny died. Not even yesterday, at her funeral.
This morning, first thing, my Aunt Mags had come in and told me to put a change of clothes in a bag. She’d been crying, but so have we all, except Grandfather. He’s been like a stone man. At the funeral, he was the only one who didn’t need a handkerchief.
‘Please, Grandfather?’
I’m frightened. Mags wouldn’t look at me at breakfast, and after we’d finished washing up she’d cried when she told me my grandfather wanted me to go with him.
He speaks without turning, without stopping.
‘No use begging me,’ he says. ‘My mind’s made up.’
We’re coming to the tunnel under the railway. A horrible, dank place. I hate it. I always run through as fast as I can when I’m on my own, but today I drag my feet. I’m sick with dread so even when we come out into the sunshine beyond the tunnel, I feel cold.
Grandfather marches up the slope to the station, through the deserted booking office and onto the platform. He walks to the farthest end, looks around. Looks at me.
There’s no one else about, and the expression on his face scares me. He thrusts out his hand, and instinctively I step away, back from the platform edge.
‘Don’t put ideas in my head,’ he says. ‘I want to get rid of you, but not like that.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Nothing to understand. I only kept you because your grandmother insisted. Now she’s gone, you’re out.’
‘But . . . what have I done?’
‘Don’t have to do anything. You’re a bastard, that’s enough. You bring shame on the family. Well, now it’s over.’
‘You’re throwing me out? What am I going to do?’
‘Get a job. You’re fourteen in a couple of weeks. Plenty old enough to work.’
‘I can find a job in Romsey.’
‘Not while I’m alive, you can’t.’
Tears come to my eyes. Not so much for him – there’s never been love between us – but there’s Tom and Jim and David, Mike and Mags and Lizzie. My uncles and aunts. We’ve been brought up together, more like brothers and sisters. Mike’s only a couple of years older than me.
‘No point turning on the waterworks,’ he says. ‘Don’t make any difference to me. And don’t you go snivelling to the family, either. I’ve told ’em all. They won’t help you.’
The idea of them all agreeing dries my tears. I feel like I’ve been turned to stone myself. Tom’s already in France, he might not even know, and Jim’ll be leaving for the war before long, but surely the others could have stood up for me?
‘Where am I supposed to go?’
He opens his hand, pushes it towards me again.
‘That’s a ticket for London,’ he says. ‘Third class. And five bob so you won’t starve. Your mother works at a place in Pimlico. Longmoor House.’ He spits. ‘See what she makes of you.’
I take the coins, sweaty from his palm. The ticket.
‘Grandfather . . .’
He’s moving away already, he doesn’t even turn to speak.
‘Train’s due in ten minutes,’ he tells me. ‘Get on it, Josephine, and don’t come back. No one wants you here.’
*
So I’d gone. For a girl who’d never been out of Romsey before, London was terrifying that ho
t July afternoon. And when I managed to find my way to where my mother was working, she couldn’t take me in. She was employed as a parlourmaid in a respectable household, they would’ve sacked her if they’d known she had an illegitimate daughter. But I’d seen a poster at Waterloo station, recruiting girls for the munitions factories, so I went and signed up, started straight away. The factories were working non-stop by then, taking on practically anyone. They didn’t even check my age.
While I was working in London, I saw my mother once or twice a year, though we were never all that close. But it was through her I learned that Uncle Jim had lost an arm in the war, and David and Mike had been killed. Tom had come home safe, brought a French wife, Sylvie, with him. It was she who’d got in touch with my mother, who stayed in touch with her despite my grandfather’s ban.
After I moved away, we’d write occasionally, Christmas and birthdays. But it wasn’t until the last few months of her life that we had any real contact. When I heard she was dying, alone and frail, it had seemed the right thing to do to offer help. I was on my own again by then; there was nothing to stop me spending time with her.
It had been late August when I moved into her cramped little flat in Southwark, and by September the Blitz had begun. Between her illness and the bombs, we’d been too busy trying to survive to worry about the past. I didn’t realise there was anything I should know, questions I ought to ask.
She was in hospital when it happened. They were giving her morphia by then, and because she was so ill they put her in a side ward, let me visit whenever I liked. When she was awake, I’d help her wash or eat, read to her. Talk about ordinary things: the neighbour’s cat; how difficult it was to find elastic in the shops. That day, I’d taken in a paper, the local Romsey rag Aunt Sylvie sent each week. I left my mother leafing through it while I went to get fresh water for her flowers. When I came back, she was hysterical, the paper crumpled on the floor.
Weak as she was, she wouldn’t tell me what had upset her so much. All I could understand before the nurse shooed me out was that my father was alive. And I saw she was frightened, heard it in the way she kept saying he’s there, he’s there, over and over. I rescued the paper, took it home with me, but I never got the chance to ask her about it again. Less than two days later, she was dead.
The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox Page 1