For a moment Nancy couldn’t move. Then she ran, with Tommy hissing ‘keep down!’ as he followed behind. She halted by the shed door and bent to the ground. It was definitely Georgie’s little slipper, blue to match his favourite pyjamas. She picked it up. He was here, she could feel it in her bones.
‘Georgie!’ she called softly. ‘Georgie! Are you there? It’s Mammy and Tommy, come to get you.’
She could hear nothing but her own short breaths and the hammering of her heartbeat. Putting her mouth close to the shed door, she tried again.
Tommy crouched so that his ear was right where the door met its splintered frame. ‘Georgie!’ he called, a little louder. ‘Are you there? Can you hear me?’
For a moment there was silence, and then came a tiny scrabbling sound.
‘Georgie? Is that you?’ Tommy asked, turning so his mouth was next to the door’s edge.
There was more scrabbling, closer now.
‘Mammy!’ came the little voice. ‘Mammy! I’m cold!’
For a moment Nancy couldn’t move. Fear, relief, anger and overwhelming love for her child flooded through her in waves, rooting her to the spot. Then she sprang into action, trying to open the door, tugging at the handle, but it didn’t budge.
‘Keep down!’ Tommy hissed. ‘Look, it’s fastened with a lock. You’re just making a noise for nothing.’
‘We’ve got to get him out!’ she exclaimed.
Tommy nodded, but he was thinking fast. ‘I know. I know.’ He addressed the door edge again. ‘Georgie, we’re going to get you out any minute now. You stay quiet and keep a little way away from the door. You’ll see me and Mammy soon.’ Then he turned to Nancy. ‘Have you got a hair grip in your bag?’ he asked.
‘Tommy, this isn’t the time for—’ Nancy began, but he held out his hand and spoke over her.
‘Then give it to me,’ he insisted. ‘I’m not fooling around, I know what I’m doing.’
Baffled and uncertain, she delved into her bag and hunted around in its contents for her precious store of Kirby grips. They’d been a present from Gary. Well, if Tommy could make use of them to free her son, it would be the best present he’d ever given her. She thrust them into Tommy’s hand. ‘What do you want them for?’
‘Wait and see.’
Tommy steadied himself so that he was at the level of the lock and gently extended one of the grips. He forced himself to breathe slowly and evenly, as he’d been taught, to keep his hand steady. Carefully he manipulated the narrow prong of metal until he heard the clicks he’d been waiting for. Cautiously he tried the door. It moved.
‘Let’s go in and keep as quiet as we can,’ he suggested, and the pair of them swiftly edged inside the damp, cold shed.
There was barely any light penetrating from the cobweb-covered small window, but it was enough to see Georgie, in his blue pyjamas, standing back from the door just as Tommy had told him to. His cheeks were smeared with grime and his hair stood up on end, but otherwise he looked unhurt. His face broke into a delighted smile and he ran into his mother’s arms, hugging her tightly as she picked him up and spun him round. ‘I knew you’d come,’ he said. ‘The bad man shut me in here and said you’d never find me, but I knew you would.’
Nancy came to a stop and set him down gently. ‘It was Tommy who found you,’ she said. ‘He’s very clever, he knew exactly where you’d be.’
Georgie beamed up at his idol and Tommy ruffled the little boy’s hair. ‘All right, scamp?’ he said. ‘Sorry it took us a while.’
Nancy looked around the mean little shed. There were some sacks in the corner, pushed into a heap, but not much else. ‘Did you sleep over there?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Are you all right, the man didn’t hurt you, did he? Did he give you anything to eat or drink?’
‘No,’ said Georgie, the corners of his mouth turning down. ‘Mammy, I’m cold and hungry. Have you got any food?’
‘Let’s see,’ said Nancy, but she knew it would be a fruitless search. Her bag contained some money and items of make-up, but she hadn’t thought to put in anything else, anything useful.
Tommy dug around in his pocket and drew out a stick of liquorice wrapped in a paper bag. ‘Here you go, scamp.’
Georgie reached out for it and began wolfing it at once. Nancy raised her eyebrows at Tommy but he didn’t react. Instead he reached into his other pocket and produced a scarf. ‘Here you are, Georgie. When you’ve finished eating you can have this. It’s all right, it’s a spare.’ He paused and then took off his jacket and removed his pullover. ‘As a matter of fact, I was feeling a bit warm walking round in this, so you can have this too. It’ll be a bit big, mind.’
‘You won’t care, will you, Georgie?’ Nancy asked, as she helped her son into what was for him a huge jumper, but the little boy was delighted. Since it was Tommy’s pullover, it was the best in the world. He allowed his mother to tie the scarf around his neck and to put his missing slipper on him. ‘There you are, that’s better, isn’t it?’ She hugged him again, rubbing his arms to make him warm. ‘Tommy, we’d better be going. I don’t want to hang around in here.’
Tommy nodded. ‘Alfie probably thinks it’s all right as nobody will know to come here and that Georgie’s safely hidden as he’s locked in. But we can’t stay here till it gets dark.’ He looked down at the little boy. ‘You’d better let me give you a piggyback, Georgie, then we’ll be faster. I reckon if we head away from the river, we’ll get to a main road and find a bus.’
‘Or a police station,’ Nancy murmured, but didn’t want to frighten the little boy. Now he was warm and had devoured the liquorice stick, he had bounced back to his normal cheerful self, as if unaware that they were in danger. Given the chance to wear Tommy’s clothes and ride on his back, it was almost a treat, she could tell from his face. She had to keep him thinking that way.
‘Okey doke,’ he said.
Violet gazed anxiously out into the street from behind the curtains in Dolly’s parlour. Hours had gone by and they hadn’t heard a thing, apart from a short and unpleasant visit from old Mrs Kerrigan. The woman had been full of venom aimed at Nancy, but Dolly had firmly shown her the door. Now Violet was trying not to think the worst, but her imagination was running away from her, casting up pictures of Georgie lying helpless somewhere, cold and frightened, and of Nancy and Tommy being attacked while trying to trace him. She knew these images were making it worse but she was powerless to stop them.
‘Come away from there, love,’ Dolly said from the doorway. ‘You’ll get yourself in a proper tizzy and then the twins will feel it and start crying. We don’t need that, do we?’ She tried to keep her voice light and positive, but even she was reaching the end of her reserves of cheerfulness. The twins were in fact safely asleep, but mentioning their need was the only distraction she could think of that would outweigh Violet’s affection for Georgie. She dreaded to think what would happen if the worst had befallen him. He’d won the hearts of so many in his short life.
‘When’s Pop due back?’ Violet asked dully.
‘Any time now. The salvage boss won’t make him stay late tonight, not when he’s told them what’s going on,’ Dolly predicted.
‘Then I might stay here till he comes up the street,’ Violet said, turning back to the window.
Dolly came to stand behind her, putting her hand on her daughter-in-law’s bony shoulder. ‘I’ll wait with you,’ she said, not wanting the young woman to be alone, and feeling in need of company herself. Sarah was still asleep upstairs in her old room, time working its healing magic, and so it was just the two of them, standing and watching anxiously, staring into the middle distance as dusk fell over the few houses of Empire Street.
They were still there when the police car drew up, its shielded headlights bright in the gathering gloom. Dolly snapped to attention, jolting Violet out of her daydream, neither of them sure what this could mean. Dolly’s heart was in her mouth, wondering if they’d come in person to bring bad news.
Then the rear door opened and Nancy stepped out, followed by Tommy from around the other side, and then the small figure of Georgie, wearing an enormous pullover with the sleeves rolled up, over and over into thick cuffs. Dolly gave a little gasp and Violet jumped, then ran to the front door and threw it open. She knelt down to Georgie’s level and he ran forward to hug her.
‘I’m wearing Tommy’s jumper!’ he told her.
‘So I can see,’ said Violet, trying her best to sound normal but not quite managing it. ‘Do you want some milk?’
Dolly wiped a surreptitious tear from her eye as Violet led the little boy, apparently none the worse for wear, into the kitchen, then turned to Nancy. ‘So, where have you been? Did you find Alfie? What’s been going on?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Nancy started to say.
The policeman, a different one to the couple who had been there that morning, intervened. ‘I understand you are all acquainted with Mr Alfred Delaney,’ he said slowly. ‘I can therefore inform you that my colleagues are at this moment in the process of apprehending him. He won’t be back to cause your family any more harm, I can reassure you of that, Mrs – Feeny, is it?’
Dolly nodded, as Tommy burst out, ‘He was in the pub, Auntie Dolly. We could hear him as we got Georgie away. He was shouting and screaming about something.’
‘Then we tried to find a bus but we went past an ARP warden’s station and got help from there,’ Nancy explained. ‘Don’t worry, Mam, we’re fine, and Georgie doesn’t seem to have been hurt. We’re trying to say as little as possible in front of him, but really he thinks it’s all a big adventure now.’
‘You can tell me all the details later, then,’ Dolly said. ‘I’m still going to ask Rita to take a look at him. She should be back from the hospital soon. And that’s Pop now, if I’m not much mistaken.’ She hurried to greet him, keen to update him on all he had missed since leaving for work much earlier in the day.
Nancy looked at Tommy. She realised she’d always discounted him before as a young tearaway who was likely to cause trouble wherever he went. Now she saw he had grown up and was on his way to being a man – and one who could take responsibility and keep calm under pressure. He also seemed to know a few useful tricks.
‘I meant to ask you before,’ she said in a low voice so that Dolly and Pop wouldn’t catch what she was saying. ‘How did you know what to do with that hair grip? I mean, I was glad you did know, or we’d never have got Georgie away so soon or so quietly – but you didn’t learn that at school, did you? Don’t tell me they teach you that at the GPO in case nobody answers when you knock.’
Tommy blushed in the parlour’s gaslight. ‘Promise you won’t say,’ he replied. ‘Uncle Seth taught me. Auntie Joan mustn’t find out. He accidentally locked himself out one day when she was at market and we couldn’t get in. He showed me what to do and let me have a go. We had to send Michael and Megan to play with the chickens so they wouldn’t know.’
Nancy raised her eyebrows. ‘And here was me thinking he just taught you how to fix a fence or collect eggs. Well, I’ll thank him one day – don’t worry, when nobody else can overhear.’
Tommy shuffled a little guiltily but was saved from further embarrassment by the arrival of Rita, still in her nurse’s cloak. Dolly was all for hurrying her straight to check that Georgie was as unhurt as he appeared, but Rita paused, taking something from her bag.
‘Hang on, we’d better see what this is. Ruby took delivery of this telegram, which is addressed to Sarah. Is she still asleep?’
‘She was when I last looked,’ Dolly said. ‘I’d better have it instead.’ She ripped it open, though Tommy looked anxious. He knew only too well what they so often meant – and yet who would be sending messages to Sarah?
‘Oh, it’s from Kitty,’ Dolly said. ‘She’s been delayed in London – doesn’t say why, but we aren’t to worry. Well, as if we would. She’s probably been asked to go to some more meetings or something like that. That’s all right, Tommy, you can stop here with us. I don’t want you in your own house until that lock is fixed.’
‘I’ll go and do that now,’ said Pop, glad to be of use in this house of increasing chaos. ‘Want to give me a hand, Tommy?’
Nancy looked across at the boy – almost young man – and smiled. ‘Yes, you go and do that,’ she agreed. ‘You’re good with locks.’
‘Have you seen the kitchen here, Kitty?’ Frank asked as he approached the sofa in the admiral’s flat, bearing two cups of tea. Kitty was propped up there, much brighter for her hours of sleep. Her ribs and left arm still hurt, but she could wiggle her fingers and had faith in the doctor’s judgement that rest was the best medicine. She grinned as she looked up at Frank.
‘No, I haven’t been here before, only heard about it from Laura,’ she said, shuffling a little against the plush cushions to accept the fine porcelain cup. ‘This is a bit different to Derby House, isn’t it?’ She sipped carefully.
Frank sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I should say so. There’s even a chock-full cocktail cabinet over there. Haven’t seen one of those for a very long time.’
‘I knew there’d be a reason Laura liked coming here,’ Kitty laughed, and then winced as the movement caught at her ribs. ‘I shan’t be having anything from there though. I don’t think it’d go well with the painkillers.’
‘You’re probably right,’ said Frank. ‘Tell you what, when you’re better I’ll take you to the finest cocktail bar in Liverpool. How about the Adelphi? Bet they do all manner of them there. Would you like that?’
Kitty rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Frank, I don’t mind about posh cocktail bars. I’m not that keen on cocktails, to be honest. You can treat me to half a shandy down the Sailor’s Rest if you like. As long as I’m with you, I don’t care.’ Her dark blue eyes shone as she turned to look up at his face, familiar and yet alight with a look that she now knew was love, love for her. The realisation nearly took her breath away. She had waited so long for him, hardly daring to believe it would ever happen. Now here they were, together at last.
Slowly he bowed his head forward and kissed her gently, as much as her awkward position would allow. ‘That’s just for starters,’ he said tenderly. ‘We’ll go wherever you like, Kitty. You’ll make me the proudest man in England with you on my arm.’
She gazed up at him, still having to pinch herself that this was really happening. Yet it felt totally real and absolutely right. She was meant to be in Frank’s arms – of that she had no doubt. She had the sensation that at last she had come home.
She had lost count of how long they had sat like that, wrapped in the half-embrace, taking in each other’s eyes, when they heard a key turning in the lock of the front door. Reluctantly they pulled apart, and Kitty took a sip of the tea, which had gone cold.
Laura stepped into the room, smart in her uniform. ‘Don’t separate on my behalf,’ she said at once. ‘You don’t know what a tonic it is to see you two together. Well, actually alive at all, after yesterday. That you’ve finally seen sense and worked out you’re right for each other is the icing on the cake.’ She turned blithely and hooked her jacket over a nearby chair. ‘How are you after your sleep, Kitty? You don’t look as pale as earlier, I must say, although that could be the therapeutic presence of Lieutenant Feeny here.’
‘Much better, thanks,’ said Kitty at once. ‘I’ll be on the mend in no time.’
‘Good,’ said Laura, ‘because I have some news.’ She retrieved the note from her pocket.
Kitty tried to sit up to see what her friend was doing, but with a gasp she sank back on the sofa. Maybe she wasn’t as improved as she’d hoped.
‘Steady on,’ said Frank, immediately concerned.
‘I’m all right,’ Kitty said. ‘What is it, Laura?’ She had a strong inkling that Laura would have left them alone to enjoy their new-found love unless it was something very important. She tried to guess what this might be but could not.
Laura cleared her throat and for a moment couldn’t quite say the words. Then she looked up at them with a broad smile. ‘It’s Marjorie,’ she said. ‘She’s managed to get in touch with Freddy. Don’t ask me how or where she’s been, we simply don’t know, but she’s alive and she’s coming home. Isn’t that marvellous?’
‘Oh, Laura.’ Kitty shook her head and then was filled with almost incredulous joy. ‘Is it really true? She’s alive, after all this time? Does he really not say anything more?’
Laura pulled a face. ‘He can be a man of few words, my brother, but this time I think he genuinely doesn’t know. He would have said, or at least told me where I could phone him from here. I’m going to try to see him later on. But anyway, it’s just such a relief to hear she has not been killed off in a Resistance cell somewhere. That’s what I feared, I can tell you that now.’
Kitty nodded. ‘I never wanted to say either, but that’s what I was scared might have happened too. We know she must have gone in undercover – it doesn’t bear thinking about what might have happened to her. She was so brave before she went, though. So determined.’
‘Yes, underneath that quiet exterior, she always was as stubborn as a mule,’ said Laura cheerfully. ‘No doubt that’s stood her in good stead. Frank, I’m sorry, you don’t know this person, but she’s been like a sister to Kitty and me ever since we did our initial training, and she’s been missing for ages. So you see, it’s rather good news.’
Kitty sighed. ‘It’s almost too much to take in. Frank, you’d like her, she’s terribly clever. She’d love you too – I mean she’d admire you, and would probably want to know exactly what you do at work. It would get her brain cells ticking and she likes nothing better.’
Frank nodded. ‘I’m glad she’s all right, then. It’s not much fun waiting to hear if someone you love has made it or not, is it?’
There was moment of silence as Laura recalled the years she’d agonised over Freddy’s fate, and then over Marjorie’s. Kitty recalled the awful time near the beginning of the war when they’d thought Jack was lost at sea, and then the terrible blow of Eddy’s death. That Marjorie had somehow survived her secret mission was nothing short of a miracle.
‘Right, time to celebrate,’ said Laura, heading with habitual accuracy to the cocktail cabinet. ‘Frank, have you seen the admiral’s treasure chest here? What will you have? Kitty, don’t tell me, you still don’t care for them.’
‘I’ll have whatever you’re having,’ said Frank bravely.
Kitty gave a wry grin. ‘You two go right ahead. Laura, you know me too well. What I’d really, really like above anything is a cup of proper tea.’