by Daisy Wood
‘Why didn’t you tell the police what you’d seen?’ Ellie asked.
‘We probably should have done. But we were evacuees, remember, with a reputation for stirring up trouble. Lord and Lady Winthrop were the village bigwigs and we’d had no business poking around their house. Anyway, the police raided Millbury Manor the day after we’d heard Nell had died, and we saw all the weapons being carried out, so there was no need to come clean.’
‘And what happened to Lord Winthrop?’
‘Vanished into thin air, so far as anyone could tell. They took Lady Winthrop in for questioning but apparently she hadn’t known what her husband was up to. Or at least, they couldn’t pin anything on her. Of course, there were all sorts of rumours flying around the village about the pair of them. Then, after the war, she sold the house to a stockbroker and moved abroad, and eventually everyone forgot about the Winthrops.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No. I was convinced His Lordship had something to do with Nell’s death. It seemed too much of a coincidence that she should have gone off with him to London, so soon before she was killed.’
‘You’re not saying he murdered her?’
‘Who knows?’ Brenda shrugged. ‘He didn’t look like the sort who’d be capable of murder but you can’t judge from appearances. I did wonder whether she’d got wind of his activities, though, and had to be disposed of somehow.’ She was quiet for a while, and then said, ‘Why did your young man ask whether she was a Fascist? Such an odd question, it seemed to me afterwards.’
Brenda Macdonald was indeed sharp as a tack. ‘Because I found a Fascist badge in her belongings, to start with,’ Ellie replied. ‘So I did some research at the Imperial War Museum in London, and saw Eleanor Spelman’s name mentioned.’
Brenda leaned forward. ‘Where?’
‘In transcriptions from MI5 interviews. An undercover agent was running meetings, pumping suspected Fascists for information, and Nell was one of them. She was saying all kinds of anti-Semitic stuff.’
‘Then she must have been working under cover, too,’ Brenda declared. ‘Trust me, she’d never have said anything like that otherwise.’ She fixed Ellie with a beady look. ‘Those files must have been released fairly recently or I would have come across them.’
Ellie stared back at her. ‘So you’ve been investigating as well? But why?’
‘Because her death was such a mystery, and I was so angry about never being given a straight answer. I’d got the idea that her husband was a spy, I can’t remember where from, and it seemed perfectly possible she might have been working with him, and that was why she’d gone rushing off to London. Her parents never talked about her after she’d died, or at least, not to us children, and I couldn’t bear that. It was as though she’d never existed. Nell made a big impression on me. She spoke to me as though I was her equal, not a child, and she was so bright and talented. Here, I found her sketchbook in the loft. You should have it. Take it back for your mother.’
She passed a yellow-covered artist’s pad across the table. Its pages were full of drawings of Alice as a baby: asleep with her thumb in her mouth, lying on her back with her chubby legs in the air, crawling up the stairs. The sketches were extraordinarily good, capturing her spirit in a few swift, assured strokes.
‘You should take over where I left off,’ Brenda said at last, when Ellie looked up from the pages. ‘If you’re serious about finding out what happened to your grandmother, that is. I’m positive a woman called Jane Coker holds the key to it all. I was making progress until the trail led to her and then I hit a brick wall. I haven’t the energy to keep looking but somebody should, for Nell’s sake. She deserves the truth to be known.’ She patted Ellie’s hand. ‘Do your best, dear, and then I can die happy.’
Chapter Nineteen
London, December 1940
Nell forced herself to smile at the two women. ‘Time for a cup of tea before you head home?’
‘Sorry. Prior engagement.’ Celia Dent checked her face in the mirror of her powder compact, then snapped it shut. ‘So nice to meet you, Mrs Spelman. Hope to see you again in the new year.’ She fastened the clasp of the fur stole around her throat, turned away from them and stalked off in the other direction down the Edgware Road.
‘Don’t mind if I do.’ Miss Pardue’s eyes gleamed, giving the lie to her words.
Celia Dent and Eunice Pardue had arrived at the address in Park West together, although they looked like unlikely friends. Mrs Dent was extremely slim and fashionably dressed in a cocktail frock and pillbox hat with a short veil. Her mouth beneath it was painted in bright red lipstick, and her fingernails were red to match. Miss Pardue, on the other hand, was stout and had a nervous tic which made her screw up her eyes and blink when she talked. She had a wet mouth, with tiny beads of spit collecting at the corners. The only other person at the gathering – apart from a Mr Kenneth Greene, who was in charge of proceedings – was a teenage youth called Martin something or other, who spent most of the time staring at his feet and blushed furiously whenever anyone spoke to him. He worked at a nearby munitions factory, while Miss Pardue was a secretary at Hatfield aerodrome. Mrs Dent ‘lent a hand’ at her local WVS, but her main claim to fame was her husband’s internment at Brixton Prison along with Oswald Mosley, and the fact that she and her husband moved in the same social circles as Mosley and his wife.
‘Diana’s a great friend of mine, actually,’ she told Nell in an offhand manner. ‘It’s a scandal, the way she’s been treated. Locked up and her baby not even three months old.’ Mrs Dent smoked incessantly from an ivory cigarette holder and had a hacking cough.
Nell had found the meeting an unsatisfactory affair. Martin was trying to find out where weapons were stored around the country but didn’t seem to have got very far, while Miss Pardue could only make vague allusions to developments in design at the aerodrome. Mr Greene seemed amiable but slippery. They had all welcomed Nell, and her allegiance to the cause had apparently gone down well, yet she hadn’t found out anything of value. There certainly weren’t any plans for imminent action. The next meeting wasn’t due to take place until after Christmas and she couldn’t afford to wait that long. Still, maybe her ‘fellow’ Fascists could be persuaded to let something slip in a tête-à-tête. She knew she wouldn’t have much luck making friends with Martin so the women it had to be, and now she was left with Eunice Pardue.
‘There’s a Kardomah,’ Nell said, spying one in the other direction. ‘My treat.’
When she and Miss Pardue were sitting at the most secluded table they could find in the café and had ordered their tea, she asked, ‘I still can’t find out exactly why my husband was arrested. Do you know anything about that?’
Miss Pardue leaned across the table, cupping her chin in one hand to shield her mouth. ‘He was meant to have been putting up stickie-backs in telephone kiosks,’ she whispered. ‘I expect he got caught in the act. Not really cut out for that sort of thing, is he?’
Oh, Arthur! How he would have loathed such a grubby little escapade. Nell had seen the self-adhesive posters at bus stops and lampposts, proclaiming ‘the Jew’s war’. He must have been trying to prove himself. ‘Fancy ending up in prison for something like that,’ she said out loud.
Miss Pardue nodded vigorously. ‘It’s this Regulation 18B. The police can pick up anyone without a shred of evidence and lock them away for as long as they like. Honestly, it’s a scandal.’
Her voice was rising. Nell put her finger to her lips and Miss Pardue glanced around. ‘That’s why we’ve got to do what we can to end this war as soon as possible,’ she went on, her voice lowered to a malevolent hiss. ‘We need a strong leader to throw out all the dirty Jews and Communists, and those councillors lining their own pockets. The Germans will make a better job of running the country than this shower. We’ll soon have our empire back and get what’s rightfully ours.’
Now, thank goodness, the waitress had arrived with their tea and crumpets. Miss Pard
ue inspected the tray greedily. ‘Jam too! Shall I be mother?’
‘Yes, please. I guessed Arthur was involved in some sort of plot,’ Nell said, ‘but he wouldn’t tell me the details.’
‘Men.’ Miss Pardue sniffed. ‘They want to keep all the glory for themselves.’
‘I thought it was something big, though. Not just a few posters.’ Nell sipped her tea reflectively. ‘Have you heard any rumours?’
Miss Pardue was busy munching her crumpet and didn’t reply. She swallowed and licked her greasy fingers, one by one, looking at Nell and blinking. ‘I only want to play my part,’ Nell added hastily, fearing she had gone too far.
‘Me too. I’ve been trying to interest Mrs Dent in some sort of disruption but she’s not keen. All talk, that one. And she’s not as friendly with the Mosleys as she likes to make out. She went to a cocktail party at their house once, from what I gather.’ Miss Pardue gave a cunning smile. ‘Let’s do something together, you and I.’
‘Oh yes. Let’s!’ Nell played for time. ‘What do you suggest?’
Eunice leaned forward, sheltering behind her hand again, and mouthed, ‘There’s a Jew tailor’s shop near where I used to live on the Mile End Road. We could burn it down. All that cloth would make a lovely bonfire.’
‘What a hoot!’ Nell laughed, horrified. ‘Except I think you’d need petrol and rags to start a fire and that would be difficult to explain if we were stopped on the way. Good idea, though.’
‘All right, then. We’ll throw a brick through the window.’ Miss Pardue sat back, satisfied. ‘And leave a few leaflets behind so they’ll know it was us.’
‘Marvellous.’ Nell could wriggle out of it somehow; say she was ill, perhaps. ‘When did you have in mind?’
‘It’ll have to be soon, before they shut for Christmas – not that they’ll be celebrating, bloody heathens. Tomorrow evening would be a good time. We’ll go after dark but early, so I can get home before the raids start. There won’t be anyone around and Grossman will see the damage first thing on Monday. That’ll start his week with a bang.’ She giggled.
‘Don’t you think we ought to clear it with Mr Greene first, though?’ Nell asked. ‘It might be better to wait until the new year and see what he thinks.’
Miss Pardue pursed her lips. ‘He’d probably try to talk us out of it. I’ve got my doubts about our Kenneth.’ She filled the teapot with hot water. ‘Top up, Mrs Spelman?’
Nell pushed forward her cup. ‘May I ask what you think of our friend Mr Talbot? Do you have your doubts about him, too?’
‘Let’s just say if I had to choose between the two of them in hopes of future glory, so to speak, I should throw in my lot with Bill. I’m sorry not to have seen him at Park West for a while.’ Miss Pardue patted her hat complacently. ‘Still, we speak from time to time.’
‘Oh yes, I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Nell said, as though she’d just remembered. ‘Someone in my parents’ village keeps a private plane at Hatfield. A Lord Winthrop? Have you by any chance come across him?’
‘Can’t say I have. There are so many people coming and going at the aerodrome, especially these days. You can imagine.’
‘Of course. I thought he might have attended one of these gatherings, that’s all. I’ve an inkling he’s sympathetic to our cause.’
‘I don’t doubt it. Any fool can see which way the wind’s blowing.’ Miss Pardue blotted her mouth with a napkin. ‘Well, thank you for the tea, Mrs Spelman. Most kind. I shall look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening. Shall we say six o’clock sharp at Mile End tube station?’
‘I can’t wait.’ Nell did her best to smile again.
‘It was sordid but somehow rather trivial,’ Nell told Hetta. ‘Not what I was expecting at all. I can’t believe those people know anything about—’ She stopped short, even though they were up on the roof with no one else in earshot. ‘About you know what. And now I’ve got myself involved in this ridiculous scheme with the Pardue woman.’
‘You don’t have to go through with it,’ Hetta said. ‘You could go back to your baby and forget about the whole thing. Don’t expect any support from the lot at St James’s. Jane Coker might look like a curate’s wife but she’s ruthless. She’ll drop you without a second thought if you end up in the soup.’
‘I can’t give up now. I have to stick up for Arthur and besides, if something big is being planned, surely it’s my duty to help foil it?’
According to Hetta, several recent encrypted messages from sources at the very highest level had featured that word they dare not name. Hetta, Nell had discovered when she confronted her about her role in Miss Coker’s organisation, was surprisingly well informed about a number of things.
‘You should have been honest with me from the start,’ Nell had reproached her, but Hetta had only laughed. And now they were working together. Hetta was to be her contact: Nell would tell her anything of interest, and she would pass it on to the team at St James’s.
‘Don’t bother too much about reporting what happens at Park West,’ she’d told Nell. ‘That’s already covered. This Talbot fellow sounds more interesting.’
And Lord Winthrop, too, Nell thought. She still felt certain he was involved. She’d remembered Brenda running after the car as it had left Millbury Manor. What had the girl been trying to say? She would have to telephone her mother again sooner or later, so perhaps she could talk to Brenda then.
‘At least smashing a shopkeeper’s window might convince Bill Talbot I’m serious,’ she said.
Hetta stamped out her cigarette and got up from the packing-crate seat. ‘Try not to get caught. Although they might let you share a cell with your husband, I suppose. Well, I’m off. Places to go, people to see, etcetera. I’ll sound the alarm if you don’t turn up tomorrow evening.’ She picked up her lamp. ‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks.’ Nell watched the small beam of light bob through the dark, feeling very much alone. She had been nervous, standing outside the flat in Park West, but the thought of Bill Talbot terrified her. The danger from bombs was more straightforward. Yet all the same, she was relieved to find the sirens didn’t sound once that night. She was able to have a leisurely supper in the staff canteen with the nurses, who were a jolly, uncomplicated trio, and sleep through with only the odd distant thump to disturb her.
She found Talbot hunched over an empty glass at the bar of ‘their’ pub the next morning. ‘Time for another?’ she asked, shamed by the tremor in her voice. A quick drink and then she could go.
He gave her a sour smile. ‘Well, look what the cat dragged in.’ And she had to laugh, as though it were funny.
When the drinks had arrived, she lit a cigarette, hoping he hadn’t noticed her hand shaking, and waited for him to speak. ‘So,’ he said eventually. ‘Did you have a good time yesterday?’
‘It was all right, I suppose.’ She blew out a cool plume of smoke. ‘A little tame, though. I was hoping for some more direct action.’
‘Well, aren’t you the one.’ He didn’t like women, she could tell. He’d probably had his share of rejections and was determined to take his humiliation out on all of them. Or perhaps he just hated everyone.
She gulped the fiery gin. ‘Miss Pardue seems a decent sort, though. She was enquiring after you. Said you hadn’t dropped in for a while.’
‘I’ve had other fish to fry.’ Talbot swallowed a mouthful of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Oh?’ Nell raised a flirty eyebrow, which he ignored. There was so much she wanted to ask: whether he had taken over Arthur’s work, for a start, because surely somebody had to be maintaining the clocks if her husband wasn’t. Yet Talbot would become suspicious if she were too inquisitive. She wondered whether he had mentioned her name to Lord Winthrop. The two of them were working together, she was certain, but the connection seemed impossible to prove when she daren’t risk showing her hand.
When the silence was becoming awkward, she said, ‘As a matter of fact, Miss Pardue and
I are planning a little jaunt together this evening.’
Talbot stared at her without speaking. ‘Yes,’ she went on, as though he’d just declared that was the most riveting thing he’d ever heard, ‘we’re going to surprise a certain Jewish tailor with a brick through his shop window.’ She smiled, copying Miss Pardue’s glee.
Talbot lit a cigarette of his own. ‘Think that’s going to make much difference?’
‘Well, it’s a start!’ The man was infuriating. Why had he arranged to meet her if he wasn’t interested in what she had to say? She was so irritated that for a moment, she forgot to be frightened. ‘I’d have thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Better not get yourself arrested, like someone we know.’
Nell was encouraged by the ‘we’.
‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I told you I’d be more careful. But you should understand I’m serious, Mr Talbot. About helping the cause, I mean.’
‘Maybe you are.’ He pushed back his cap and gave her a long, appraising look. What was he thinking? She was proud that she managed to meet his eyes without flinching. At last he said, ‘All right. If you’re so keen, there might be something you could do. I’ll have to talk to a few people and get back to you.’
‘Well, don’t take too long about it.’ Nell drained her glass. ‘You’ll find I’m in demand.’ Oh God, why had she said that?
‘Spare me the details,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll see you here, then, tomorrow evening at six.’
The barmaid smiled at Nell as she left the pub; she was turning into a regular. What would Arthur have said?
Miss Pardue was waiting for Nell outside the tube station in a camelhair coat with a paisley headscarf, her handbag over her arm. Nell was respectably dressed, too; they had to look like a couple of friends, out for an evening stroll. Although Nell couldn’t see much of the area in the blackout, she could tell by the way the wind howled around them that it had been badly knocked about.