Elsie closed her eyes, her thoughts brittle, suddenly. The desire to flee, to escape this nightmare was overwhelming, but there was one thing left to do.
She tried to replay her mother-in-law’s last words before she had plummeted over the cliff, but they were grainy, vague and distorted. The Spyglass File—that was what she had said.
If Elsie found The Spyglass File, she would find her baby.
Chapter Thirty
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this today,’ Juliette moaned from beside him in bed. ‘It’s the day before our wedding.’
Morton was sitting up in bed, checking his emails on his mobile phone. At the top of the list was one from Ancestry DNA. Your results are in. He set the phone down and stroked her hair. ‘That’s exactly why I have to work today—I need the case closed before we go to America.’
‘To work on yet another case…’ Juliette mumbled.
Morton laughed. ‘That’s your fault—you booked the honeymoon. Look, it won’t take me long.’
‘If your plan works, that is.’
‘My plans always work,’ he replied with a grin, switching back to the email. He clicked to view the results and frowned as they loaded onscreen.
He checked each of the three results in turn, perplexed.
They made no sense whatsoever.
Morton found Rose’s stepfather in exactly the same position as the previous day; sitting by the window, his legs crossed at the ankle. Only his change of clothes told Morton that he hadn’t remained there unmoved since yesterday.
He smiled when Morton approached him. ‘So, you came back, then?’
Morton nodded. ‘Yes—I’d like some answers, if you don’t mind.’
‘Take a seat and I’ll start at the beginning.’
Morton obeyed, took out his notepad and pen and waited.
‘I do know more about Elsie’s war than I let on yesterday,’ he began. ‘You see, we met during the war.’
‘Oh?’ Morton said, ceasing to write to fully take in the old man. It was a curious thing to have kept secret from his stepchildren all this time. Clearly, he still wished for Rose to be kept in the dark.
‘I was a pilot with 32 Squadron and I used to fly out of Hawkinge,’ he revealed.
‘What?’ Morton stammered. His mind was foggy—needlessly so, he felt. The answer should be there, in front of him, yet he couldn’t find it. If Rose’s stepfather had served with 32 Squadron, then he would have known Daniel Winter, William Smith and the man that Morton suspected of being Barbara’s father, Woody. He would know Woody’s real name—the final piece of the puzzle. Morton struggled to select from the dozens of questions bouncing around his brain.
‘I met her at an RAF dance—July 1940,’ the old man revealed with a laugh. ‘She wasn’t that keen on me, so I had to follow her halfway around the world to Malta…’
Then Morton suddenly understood everything and his abundance of questions evaporated, leaving just one: ‘You’re Woody?’
‘Would you use your real name if you were called Englebert Edward Goodall?’ he asked with a grin.
‘No, I don’t suppose I would,’ Morton concurred. He stared at him, his mind racing to catch up.
‘Now it’s your turn to show your hand. You’re not working for Rose at all, are you?’
Morton shook his head.
‘It’s her, isn’t it? The baby. Christina.’
So he knew that he had a daughter. ‘Yes,’ Morton answered.
Woody thought for a moment. ‘We always wondered if the day would come. Is she okay?’
Morton nodded. ‘Yes, she’s done well for herself.’
‘Does she know about me?’
‘No,’ Morton answered softly. ‘Not yet. She’s met with Paul and Rose—several times.’
‘My goodness…they’ve never said…’
A pair of tears raced down Woody’s cheeks and a bare silence opened up with the two men simply looking at each other. Woody was taking in the magnitude of the revelation, whilst Morton was contemplating the burden that any revelations would invariably place upon him. He would be the only person who knew everything. He would have the ominous duty of informing Barbara that Woody was her father. He needed to tread very carefully. He chose a vague, innocuous question that didn’t involve Woody to break the stalemate of silence.
‘Going back to my question yesterday—do you really not know what happened in July 1943, when Elsie left the WAAF?’ Morton ventured. ‘I’m struggling to find what happened to her.’
Woody laughed. ‘Yes, I do know, actually. I expect you had the same trouble finding her that I had.’
‘Oh?’ Morton said, pen poised and ready, his face inviting further information.
‘Second of April 1944—a rather painful day for me,’ Woody said, bending over and lifting his right trouser leg and encouraging Morton to take a look.
‘Oh dear,’ Morton said upon sight of the artificial leg.
‘It was all my mistress’s fault,’ Woody said with a wink.
‘Mistress?’ Morton asked, scribbling the words ‘Woody false leg—caused by mistress?!’
‘My Hurricane—I called her my mistress. She was the only woman that listened to me,’ he grinned. ‘Well, until that day, anyway. Then our affair was well and truly over. I was flying a reconnaissance sortie over France and got hit by Jerry. I managed to limp my way back over the channel to England before she finally gave up the ghost and refused to go on. I tried to bail out, but it was almost impossible, and we crashed into an old barn. I was trapped for some time until some local farm lads hauled me out. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in Dover Hospital minus a leg.’
‘How awful,’ Morton commented, wondering where on earth this story was headed.
Woody shrugged. ‘I got off lightly compared to my mistress. Anyway, the RAF in their wisdom decided that a one-legged pilot wasn’t of much use to them, so I was swiftly pensioned out.’ He paused a moment to think, giving Morton time to catch up with his notes. ‘But you know, I actually considered it a blessing in disguise—an awful thing to say, I know, but the chances of me continuing to defy death, day in, day out were pretty slim to say the least. So, after being abandoned by my mistress, I went in search of my other love—Elsie. But she was nowhere to be found. Nowhere. I tried her friends at Hawkinge and West Kingsdown—nothing. I tried her old home in Nutley—nothing. After a lot of searching I found her—she was in Maidstone prison.’
Morton looked up, shocked. ‘Prison? What for?’
‘I think I need to start back at the beginning to be able to answer that. Right back to when we met at a dance in Hawkinge village hall. It might take a while…’
‘That’s okay,’ Morton said with a smile. ‘Go ahead.’
And so he did. Woody spoke at length, with little interruption from Morton, who busily scribed several pages of notes, many of which served as confirmation of his own findings.
By the time he left the Eventide Nursing Home, Morton had the full picture of Elsie Finch’s war.
The final pieces began to fall into place; they needed to, as having promised that the case was on the verge of being closed, he was due to meet with Barbara, Rose and Paul in four hours’ time.
The Finch Case was almost over; there was just one part left unresolved.
Two hours later, following a short diversion into Wandsworth, Morton bounded through the western concourse of Kings Cross railway station in London. He climbed the stairs to the mezzanine level where various food outlets were situated. The first—Patisserie Valerie—was where he had arranged the meeting. He ordered a coffee and sat at a round metallic table close to the glass balcony that overlooked the heaving station.
Morton pulled out his mobile phone and looked at the time: fifteen minutes until the meeting that he had scheduled with Liu Chai via email. It was practically rush hour and hundreds of people were scurrying through the building. He studied their faces, searching for familiarity.
He was suddenly aware
of movement in his peripheral vision and turned to see Shaohao Chen sliding into the chair opposite him, like a summoned devil. ‘Expecting someone else?’ He looked at Morton with a fixed stare. He leant over the table, placed his hands on Morton’s phone and dragged it towards him. ‘We need to talk. Somewhere much quieter.’ He stood up and gripped Morton’s arm. ‘Let’s go.’
Twisting Morton around, Shaohao led him down the stairs, dropping Morton’s mobile in a dustbin as they walked.
In the chaos of London life, nobody paid any attention to the firm grip on Morton’s arm, forcing him out of the station.
As he was led along a series of ever-quieter streets to the back of a waiting white van, Morton was strangely calm. There was now no way he was going to make the appointment with Barbara, Paul and Rose, which he wasn’t too worried about. It was making his wedding tomorrow that troubled him the most.
Chapter Thirty-One
7th June 1944, Dover, Kent
The backdoor was open. Pools of warm light fell on the square terracotta tiles. The sweet, refreshing aroma of elderflower from the two trees in the garden wafted into the kitchen, where Elsie was sweeping debris into a small mound in the centre of the floor. She tutted, having no idea where it all came from. It was incredible. She had only cleaned up this morning, and yet here she was stooped over again clearing up.
Emptying the dust pan into the bin, she leant on the work top to take a moment’s pause. Wearing just a light cotton top and woollen skirt, with her hair pulled back into an untidy bun, she was sweating from the heat of the day and the seemingly endless housework. She was desperate for a cigarette and cup of tea, but it was a while yet until she could have a break.
She tidied the muddle of newspapers on the kitchen table into a neat pile. Today’s copy of the Daily Express was at the top of the stack. ‘Tanks 10 Miles in,’ read the headline. ‘No longer any opposition on the first beaches.’
The end of the war was coming.
She thought for a moment of her previous life in the WAAF. It seemed an eternity ago. She would have loved to have been in the operations room at RAF Bentley Priory when the D-Day landings had started. The atmosphere down in the hole would have been electric…but it just wasn’t to be; that was no longer her life.
The striking of the grandfather clock in the hallway made Elsie jump. It was ten o’clock; she was late in preparing the tea. Quickly, she boiled a kettle on the stove and made the drink. She set the cup and saucer down onto a tray, hurriedly added a small slice of carrot flan, then carried it all upstairs.
She tapped on the door lightly. ‘I’ve got your tea.’
‘Come in,’ a voice croaked.
Elsie nudged the door open and entered the room. The curtains were drawn, pushing back against the sunlight. Elsie placed the tray down beside the bed. ‘Are you feeling any better yet?’
The young woman in the bed—just a few years older than Elsie—looked pale, drawn and considerably unwell. ‘You know, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s that awful National Loaf that’s the cause. Nasty, dirty and indigestible. Please don’t buy it again—you can make your own.’
‘Yes, I will do that,’ Elsie answered. She hated cooking. She hated cleaning. In fact, she hated every part of being the live-in housekeeper. Almost every part.
‘I think after lunch-’ she began, cutting herself short when the horribly familiar groan of the air raid siren began to seep insidiously into the bedroom. She sat bolt upright. ‘Oh glory! Not another one… Well, I’m in no fit state to take her to the shelter—you’ll have to do it. Quick, go!’
Elsie floundered. ‘But…but I can’t—you know how I hate the shelters.’
‘Never mind that—you must take her—now.’
Elsie’s heart began to thud. She knew that she had no choice. ‘Christina!’ Elsie called, darting into the hallway outside the little girl’s bedroom. ‘Christina—we must go to the shelter.’
The girl appeared in a pretty white frock clutching a ragdoll. She giggled. ‘You said Christina again. I’m Barbara. Remember?’
A wash of panic cascaded over Elsie. Her cheeks flushed and her already pounding heart seemed to quicken to a new unsustainable rhythm, snatching her breath. She reached for the girl’s hand, daring not to look back at Mrs Binney.
Together, they hurried down the stairs and out of the front door of the chunky Edwardian house.
‘Where are we going?’ the girl asked, skipping to keep up with Elsie’s pace.
‘To the shelter,’ Elsie managed to say. She felt sick. Sick for her stupid slip-up. Sick for where they were about to go.
The public shelter—nothing more than a box made of thick concrete—was situated at the cross-roads a short walk away. Elsie had never been inside. It had been almost three years since she had last stepped foot in a public shelter.
‘Come on, love,’ an ARP warden called from outside. ‘Hurry up!’
‘Are we expecting more raids? Could this just be a false alarm?’ Elsie demanded, as they neared the entrance. The rancid, yeasty, smell that seemed to epitomise every shelter that she had ever had the displeasure to encounter, rolled out from inside.
The warden seemed not to have heard her and kept swishing his hands back and forth, trying to usher them in.
‘Only, I was under the impression that the air raids had finished now,’ Elsie persisted.
‘Oh, did you now, my love.’ He chuckled. ‘Who told you that? Hitler? Come on, get her inside,’ he insisted, gesturing at the girl.
Elsie sighed, squeezed the girl’s hand tightly and led the way into the shelter, shocking all of her senses simultaneously. She stood still and waited for her eyes to adjust. It was so terribly dark—only a thin horizontal slit in one wall provided any light.
Blurred faces began to appear, as if someone was slowly turning a dial that controlled the brightness of the room. Haunting faces, staring back at her from the wooden benches that edged the inside. There was a low murmur of conversation, punctuated by the guttural grunt of a group of old men asleep on mattresses raised up on wood in the middle of the floor.
‘Come on,’ Elsie whispered, taking a long route around the obstacles on the floor to the other side, where she had spotted a space to sit beside an old lady, who was gaping out from beneath a thick woollen blanket. Elsie sat the girl on her lap, noticing that she was shivering from the fear and squeezed her tightly.
Her eyes adjusted and she took stock of the place. The four walls, damp with green slime, contained around thirty people blighted by misery. She suddenly leaned forward sharply, touching her back, damp from the moisture streaming down the walls behind her.
‘You get used to it,’ the old lady beside her muttered. ‘She’s a pretty one, your girl,’ the old lady said to Elsie. ‘You look alike.’
Elsie smiled and stroked Barbara’s bright blonde hair. ‘Thank you.’
She closed her eyes and gently rocked the girl back and forth, trying to push back against the torrent of memories that were threatening to invade her mind. But as hard as she tried to think of something else, the dank, fusty air unified with the gloominess and the howling siren, altogether conniving to put her back into the shelter at Hawkinge aerodrome on the 15th August 1940.
But she refused it. Fought it.
‘Are you okay?’ Elsie asked Barbara, by way of distraction.
The girl nodded. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Soon,’ Elsie promised. ‘Soon.’
Then the all-clear sounded, followed moments later by a bright—terribly bright—torch light illuminating the shelter. ‘You can go, if you want,’ the voice behind the torch barked. It was the ARP warden. ‘It’s the all-clear—looks like you were right, madam,’ he said, flashing the torch into Elsie’s face. ‘No sign of enemy aircraft.’
There was a cacophony of cheery, grateful chatter as people rose from the benches and began to follow the path of light across the shelter towards the entrance.
‘Don’t worry a
bout them,’ the warden called, ‘just step over them—they’re homeless…well, this is their home.’
Elsie placed one hand over her eyes and the other over the girl’s eyes as they stepped out into the assaulting brilliance of the day. ‘Thank you,’ she said to the warden, beginning to trek back up the hill towards the house.
She walked in a ghost-like trance, struggling to hear the little girl; memories of that day in August 1940 continuing to attack her heart and mind.
She saw the black Ford outside the house and heard the girl’s comment about it as they walked up the garden path. The front door was already open and Mrs Binney was there. She said something, calling the girl to her and directing Elsie into the parlour.
Two men in long black coats and bowler hats stepped forward.
‘Squadron Officer Finch,’ one of the men said, ‘I am charging you with desertion under the Defence Women’s Forces Regulations of 1941. Please come with us.’
She was back at the Air Ministry building in London. Back inside the very same room in which she had been enrolled in the WAAF four years earlier.
Opposite her were three women. Two whom she didn’t recognise. The third was Jean Conan Doyle, who refused to meet her gaze.
Elsie stared at the floor.
The woman in the centre spoke first. ‘Squadron Officer Finch, we will keep this brief. You have been put up on a charge of desertion. Do you have anything to say for yourself?’
Elsie shook her head. ‘No, ma’am.’
Jean Conan Doyle cleared her throat. ‘Elsie, it might help if you tell us where you’ve been—what happened to you,’ she said softly.
It was pointless. Being absent without leave for eleven months wasn’t likely to get reprimanded with the usual punishments of extra duties or confinement to barracks. She looked at Jean. ‘Is there anything that I can say which would allow me back into the WAAF?’
The Spyglass File (The Forensic Genealogist Book 5) Page 31