Mrs Kerrigan was beside herself when the policeman broke the news to her. ‘That Nancy is a useless mother!’ she screamed. ‘I’ll have her guts for garters, losing the boy like that.’
‘Now, Mrs Kerrigan,’ said the officer, watching the woman’s wild eyes with alarm, ‘there’s no suggestion it was your daughter-in-law’s fault. As I understand it, she wasn’t even there. The boy was staying with her sister and young friend and a burglar broke in. That’s all we know.’
Mrs Kerrigan was having none of it. ‘And where was she, the little trollop? She thinks I don’t know what goes on, but I do. She’s a filthy stop-out, and now look where it’s got her. My poor grandson,’ she added with belated concern.
‘So you’ve no idea where he might be?’ the policeman persisted.
‘Run away as far as he can from her, I shouldn’t wonder.’ The woman was working herself up into a proper state. ‘I’ve a good mind to go round there and give her a piece of my mind.’ She turned to the kitchen table and grabbed her handbag.
‘Now, Mrs Kerrigan, wouldn’t it be more sensible to stay here in case he takes it into his head to come home?’ the officer suggested, but the woman was adamant.
‘I’m going to see my daughter-in-law right away and you can’t stop me,’ she told him. ‘There are things that have needed saying for a long time. I blame myself, staying quiet for as long as I have done. So now I’m not staying quiet any longer. Someone’s got to put that young woman right, and it doesn’t look as if anyone else is going to do it.’ She reached for her coat hanging on a hook beside the back door. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ She held the door open.
‘We’d better go down to his road to see if the car’s there,’ Tommy suggested, happier now that they were actually out and doing something. ‘I reckon I could spot it easily, seeing as what I’ve been in it.’
Nancy agreed, as it seemed as good a place to start as anywhere. She was tormented by thoughts of what Alfie might do to her boy. What could he possibly know about small children? Would he have thought to give Georgie a blanket or something warm, or was he wandering around in his faded pyjamas? She shuddered at the idea but could not banish the fear from her mind.
Just before the turning to the Delaneys’ road, they caught sight of a small, angry-looking figure marching towards them.
‘Quick,’ said Nancy, pulling Tommy back and into the mouth of one of the alleys that ran along the back yards of the terraces. ‘It’s Sid’s mam. She hasn’t moved that fast for years. She must have heard.’
‘Won’t she want to help?’ Tommy asked.
‘Not her,’ spat Nancy. ‘She’ll be coming round to gloat. She’ll add it to her collection of things to be sad about, that’s what she’s like.’
Tommy stared at the mouth of the alley as the woman passed by, looking neither to left nor right, face set rigid with purpose. ‘She doesn’t look very friendly,’ he admitted.
Nancy pursed her lips. ‘She doesn’t know what a friend is. At best it’s someone to moan to. Horrible old bag. To think they asked me if Georgie would have run off to go back to her. He can’t bear her, and all she’s interested in is making sure he looks good so it’ll reflect well on her. But the poor little fellow, and he’s only just got over that cough, and this will make him worse again. Sorry,’ she added, taking one look at Tommy’s dismayed expression. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, so forget what I said.’
‘Okey doke,’ he said apprehensively. ‘Shall we go on now?’
They threaded their way down the alley and out at the end nearest Alfie’s house. Tommy gazed along the road. ‘It’s not here.’
‘Are you sure?’ Nancy demanded.
‘Of course I am. I’d recognise it anywhere,’ Tommy assured her. ‘Maybe he’s gone down to the docks? He works there, doesn’t he?’
‘I don’t really know my way around there,’ Nancy said nervously, but Tommy was confident.
‘I do though. Danny used to work there, so I went there all the time when I was young. I’ll be able to search all the likely places he could hide a car, no bother.’
Nancy allowed him to guide her down to the docks, where she felt extremely conspicuous in her glamorous coat and heels, but beyond a few astonished looks, most of the dockers paid her very little attention. She’d been so upset she hadn’t even thought to put on something more sensible before coming out again. Tommy ran swiftly around all the places he could think of, mostly where he used to hide when his brother wanted to fetch him home, but again he drew a blank. He knew just about every possible spot where a vehicle of that size could have been tucked away, but it was in none of them.
‘It’s no good,’ he told Nancy disconsolately, hands shoved in his pockets as he came back to meet her. The wind was whipping off the river, and her hair, for once not immaculately styled, was flying wildly around her face. For a moment he thought she was going to cry but she fought it. Instead she nodded briefly and lifted her chin.
‘Then we’ll just have to try somewhere else,’ she said.
Dolly came downstairs, having settled the twins down for a nap, to find no Violet and no Nancy. She knew she shouldn’t, but she felt a quick rush of relief at having a moment of quiet to herself. It was a rare thing in her house and she needed to make the most of it, to use it to gather her strength for whatever was to come. Dolly naturally looked on the bright side of things, but she was having a great deal of difficulty finding a bright side to this. Sarah attacked, Georgie missing – what was going on? She was prepared for tragedy when it was caused by the war. Even though she would never forget her beloved Eddy, she knew he had died in a just cause and for something he wholeheartedly believed in. However, this new turn of events had taken the wind out of her sails.
That wouldn’t do. She knew her family depended on her and she couldn’t let them down. She had to trust that the police would find out what had happened to Georgie and that Sarah’s own resilience would help her to cope with her injuries. She was still sleeping now and that was the best thing for her. Dolly herself must try to comfort Nancy and take care of Tommy when he woke, as well as trying to reassure the other members of the family.
She was under no illusions about Nancy, recognising her middle child would use every available ruse to get her own way and often shirk her responsibilities. Yet this morning had shown her, if Dolly had ever had any doubts, that Nancy genuinely loved her little boy and was heartbroken that he’d gone missing. Deep down her maternal instincts were there, despite what most people thought.
The back door banged and Violet came back in, pushing a hand through her lank hair which had been caught in the stiff wind.
Dolly took in the sight of her daughter-in-law, face pinched with worry, and knew she was extremely anxious for Georgie. The little boy had won the heart of everyone who’d ever looked after him. He’d done nothing to deserve this.
Violet glanced around the room. ‘Where are Nancy and Tommy? Are the twins all right?’
‘The place is deserted,’ Dolly said. ‘Don’t see that often, do we? Don’t worry, the babies have settled down nicely and Tommy was asleep, last I heard.’
Violet raised her hand to her forehead. ‘They’ve gone after him. I bet that’s what’s happened.’
Dolly was puzzled. ‘After Georgie? How would they know where to go?’
Violet sank down on one of the wooden chairs. ‘Because I told them about what Pop said ages ago. Do you remember? That he was sure he’d seen Alfie Delany hanging around Kitty’s front door after dark, and he’d run off as if he was up to no good. Tommy seemed to think it made sense. I asked them to stay here but—’
‘Well, they aren’t here now,’ Dolly said. ‘That Alfie Delaney is a wrong ’un if ever I saw one. I hope they know what they’re doing.’ Her face creased with worry. ‘I hope they aren’t putting themselves in danger.’
Nancy had racked her brains for any ideas as to where a person like Alfie Delaney might take off to, if he hadn’t gone to his mother or to his old place of work, but come up with nothing. ‘I’m not going home until we find him,’ she said firmly. ‘We’re doing no good there. If he makes his own way back, then Mam and Violet will see to him. We’re better out here, even if we’re just combing the streets.’
‘Suppose so,’ said Tommy, beginning to feel his lack of sleep. His feet were weary as he dragged them along the pavement, made heavier by the unshakeable guilt. He was the man of the place and yet he’d let them all down by failing to protect them, even though he’d bolted the back gate after propping up his bike.
His bike. When had Alfie talked to him about the bike? When he’d first hoped to get his job – and also at the pub. He’d seemed to know the man at the bar there, even though the recollection was hazy. But where was the pub? He hadn’t been drunk when Alfie had taken him there, only on the way back. It struck him that it might be a good place to hole up for a while, especially if you were trying to hide a child too. He struggled to picture the sign above the door, but he hadn’t been able to see it clearly at the time. All the same, if he could just remember the way there …
‘Nancy,’ he said, more lively now. ‘I’ve had an idea. But it’ll mean a bit of a walk. It could take a while.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Nancy at once. ‘You’ve had more to do with Alfie than I have. It’s worth a try.’
‘All right, well, we’re going to find the pub he drove me to a few months back. Do you know of any that have been done up quite recently? I don’t know its name, you see.’
Nancy shook her head. ‘Not round here.’ She thought fleetingly of the places she’d gone to with Gary, or way back with Stan, but they’d always taken care to avoid the area around her home. Then she consigned such thoughts to the past where they belonged. There was only one matter on her mind now. ‘I trust you. You lead the way.’
Half an hour later, and with her feet aching, Nancy was beginning to lose track of exactly where they were. It wasn’t an area she knew well, if at all. It seemed quiet, almost empty of people, with a lot of bomb damage in evidence. She could still smell the river though. She hoped Tommy knew what he was doing.
Tommy was growing in confidence with every step. This was the right road, he was sure of it, even though he’d been taken here at a completely different time of day. Looking about him at the area, he decided that if he’d wanted to lie low somewhere, this would be ideal. There was nobody around to ask awkward questions – not like where they lived, or down at the docks. You could probably disappear here for weeks and nobody would be any the wiser.
Rounding a corner, he saw the building he’d been looking for. The pub seemed shabbier in bright daylight, even though it had been recently painted. The name was now clear: The King’s Head. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s where Alfie conned me into getting drunk. All because he was after Kitty and I didn’t realise.’
‘Then he took advantage of you,’ said Nancy firmly. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. He picked on you deliberately, so that makes him a coward. You’re worth a hundred of him, Tommy.’
Tommy glowed with the praise, even though he still did blame himself for being so stupid as to be taken in like that. Still, it was good to know Nancy thought well of him. He hadn’t had as much to do with her as the rest of her family, and up till now had assumed she didn’t really know much about him either. He drew back his shoulders. Now he had to live up to the praise.
‘We could keep to the shadow of that wall so they’re less likely to see us coming,’ he suggested, and she fell in line behind him as they proceeded more cautiously now. After a minute, Tommy came to a halt. ‘See there? The pub has a back yard.’ He pointed through a flimsy gate, to a yard with barrels stacked along one side. A few low storage buildings lined two other sides of the square. Parked close to one of their doors was a car. ‘Nancy, that’s it. That’s Alfie’s car, I’m certain of it.’
‘Then we’d better be careful,’ said Nancy, edging forward a little. ‘Alfie could be anywhere.’
‘He’s probably in the pub,’ Tommy predicted, taking a good look at the building. ‘If he is, all the bar windows face to the front or round the other side. We could get into the yard if we kept well back.’
‘But we don’t know he’s in there,’ Nancy pointed out. The enormity of the risk they were about to take suddenly hit her. ‘What if he’s waiting in the yard somewhere?’
Tommy shrugged. ‘We’ll have to chance it,’ he said. ‘We’ll just be as quiet as possible and keep to the shadows where there are any.’ He paused for a few moments. ‘I can’t hear anything from the yard, can you?’
Nancy had a sense that they were stepping off a cliff into the unknown. ‘No. Let’s try it and see. Anything is better than sitting around waiting, not knowing anything.’
Silently they edged along the rest of the wall and through the gate. Staying in the shadow of one of the outbuildings, they approached the car. There was nobody in it and no sign of Alfie or the little boy.
‘If we keep down below the level of the car roof, no one can see us from the upstairs windows,’ Tommy pointed out. All his years of playing hide and seek with Michael and Megan on the farm were coming in useful, he realised. He just had to keep all his senses alert.
‘Tommy.’ Nancy stopped dead, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘Look over there, by the door of that shed. Can you see something?’
Tommy squinted towards where she was pointing. There was something there – something blue. He couldn’t quite tell what it was. They crept closer until the little object came into focus.
‘Tommy.’ Nancy thought her heart would break. ‘It’s Georgie’s slipper.’
In London, Laura decided she had better let Frank and Kitty sleep in. She wrote a swift note saying she would be back later and crept out of the admiral’s flat. She had to get back to her billet for a change of clothes, and then put in an appearance at her work, although they were aware of what had happened last night and had granted her the morning off. She was slightly muzzy with so few hours of sleep, but exhilarated from the thrill of seeing her friend rescued, when for a while she’d feared Kitty had perished in the bomb strike. She was also thrilled that Kitty had finally seen sense about Frank. It had been obvious to Laura that her friend felt strongly about him and, now that she’d seen them together, she was convinced they were meant for each other. Laura had been fond of Elliott, who had been a decent and loving man, and yet she could tell the connection between Kitty and Frank went deeper still. They definitely needed their privacy when they woke up in the admiral’s flat.
She caught a bus that for once wasn’t diverted, nearly all the way to her front door. She still couldn’t think of this as any kind of home and, as she’d foreseen, her attic room had been perishing cold over the winter, but now spring was here it had started to improve. Sadly relations with her tight-lipped landlady hadn’t.
The woman was waiting for her as she stepped into the narrow hallway, with its mean selection of coat hooks and little else apart from a sorry-looking plant that Laura sometimes secretly watered. ‘Miss Fawcett. A word, if you please.’
‘Good morning. Lovely day for once, isn’t it?’ said Laura brightly. She didn’t intend the woman’s gloom to rub off on her.
The landlady ignored her cheerfulness. ‘A young man called for you. He was most offhand, rude even. I’ll thank you not to bring down the reputation of this house with such guests. He looked most irregular. His hair was sticking up all over the place, not at all like a gentleman from any of the services.’
‘Was it dark blond by any chance?’ Laura asked.
‘I assume you know him, then?’ the woman fired back.
Laura fixed her with her most solemn gaze. ‘If it is the person I’m thinking of, then I can assure you that he has served his country in ways that you or I can scarcely imagine. The fact that one of the only traces of this is visible in his slightly irregular haircut is nothing short of a miracle. If that is all, then I’ll go to my room.’
The woman sniffed. ‘Indeed. That’s as maybe, but I’d be grateful if he wasn’t seen around here again. Meanwhile, he left you this.’ She took a small envelope from her pocket, then spun on her low heel and made her way back to her own quarters at the rear of the house.
Laura mounted the stairs wondering how soon she could transfer to a different billet. It was true that Freddy still didn’t look much like the average airman in uniform, but he had improved tremendously under his doctor’s care, the regime of proper food and special exercise, alongside careful debriefing, working wonders for his health in every way. That the narrow-minded landlady could insult him so readily was deeply enraging. Still, she probably knows no better, Laura muttered as she stepped into her cramped room and sat down on the window seat to read his note.
A moment later she was on her feet again, almost leaping for joy. The message was terse, evidently written in a hurry, most likely with the unsympathetic gaze of the landlady curtailing his time.
L. No time for details but Marjorie’s made it. Message received via very brave French agent last thing yesterday. She’ll be home as soon as can be arranged. More news to follow. Contact me when you’ve read this. F.
Laura shut her eyes and breathed a long, drawn-out sigh of relief. Her friend and Freddy’s soul mate was alive, contrary to their deepest fears. On top of the lack of sleep, she felt as if she might crumple, and she put out one hand to steady herself.
She was severely tempted to rush back to the admiral’s flat, wake up Kitty and tell her then and there. She stopped herself, knowing her friend needed her sleep and that a few more hours would make no difference. The second she finished her shift, however, she was going to be back there, sharing the news. Last night, for one bleak moment, Laura had thought she’d lost both of her dearest friends. Now they were both restored to her. To hell with her miserable landlady – life was wonderful again.