Polly tried again. “Eileen, we need to go rescue the vicar. Mr. Humphreys took him to look at Faulknor’s memorial and—”
“Alf, Binnie, come with me,” Eileen said abruptly, and herded them back to the now-deserted chapel. She opened the gate.
“Why’re we goin’ back in ’ere?” Binnie asked as Eileen motioned them inside.
“We didn’t nick nothin’,” Alf said.
Oh, no, Polly thought. What did they steal now?
“We wasn’t even in ’ere,” Alf said. “We was lookin’ at that picture the whole time.”
Eileen shut and latched the gate and then turned to face them.
“We didn’t take nothin’,” Binnie said. “Honest.”
Eileen didn’t even seem to have heard that. “How long has your mother been dead?” she asked.
Dead?
“You’re daft,” Alf said. “Our mum ain’t dead.”
“She’s down at Piccadilly Circus this minute,” Binnie said, sidling toward the gate. “We’ll go fetch ’er.”
Eileen stepped firmly between them and the gate. “You’re not going anywhere.” She looked across at Polly. “Their mother was killed in a raid last autumn, and they’ve been covering it up ever since. They’ve been living on their own in the shelters.
“Haven’t you?” Eileen demanded, looking at the children. “How long has she been dead?”
“We told you,” Alf said, “she ain’t—”
“She died at St. Bart’s, didn’t she?” Eileen said. “That’s how you knew where the hospital was, isn’t it? And why you wanted to leave, because you were afraid a nurse would recognize you and tell me what happened.”
“No,” Alf said. “You said you needed to get to St. Paul’s. That’s why we was—”
“How long has she been dead, Binnie?”
“We told you—” Alf began.
“Since September,” Binnie said.
Alf turned on her furiously. “What’d you tell ’er that for? Now she’ll turn us in.”
Binnie ignored him. “We didn’t find out till October, though,” she said. “Sometimes Mum don’t come ’ome for two or three days, so we didn’t think nothin’ of it, but after a bit we got worried and went lookin’ for her, and one of Mum’s friends said she was in a pub what got ’it by a thousand-pounder.”
And there wasn’t a body left to identify, Polly thought. Like Mike. And the “friend” was either a fellow prostitute or one of Mrs. Hodbin’s clients, neither of whom would have wanted to have anything to do with the police, so her death hadn’t been reported to the authorities.
“She’d already been killed when I came to borrow the map, hadn’t she?” Eileen asked. “That was why you wouldn’t let me in and told me she was sleeping.”
Binnie nodded. “That’s what we told the landlady, too. Mum slept a lot when she was ’ome, you see, and we ’ad the ration books, so it was all right. Till we run out of money and couldn’t pay the rent.”
“And the landlady found out about Mrs. Bascombe,” Alf said.
“Their parrot,” Eileen explained to Polly.
“So we told ’er we was all goin’ to live with Mum’s sister in the country.”
“And you went to live in the shelters,” Eileen said.
“But what did you live on if you hadn’t any money?” Polly asked, and then thought, Picking pockets and stealing picnic baskets.
Mr. Humphreys and the vicar were coming back, Mr. Humphreys still talking of Captain Faulknor.
Binnie looked stricken. “You ain’t gonna tell the vicar, are you?”
“Promise you won’t tell nobody,” Alf said, “or we’ll ’afta go to a orphanage.”
“Ah, here you are,” Mr. Humphreys said.
The vicar looked at them, taking in the latched gate, Eileen’s sentrylike stance, the children’s expressions. “What’s going on here, Miss O’Reilly?” he asked.
Please, Binnie mouthed.
Eileen turned, unlatched the gate, and let them into the chapel. “Alf and Binnie were just telling me about their mother,” she said. “She was killed last autumn.
They’ve been living on their own in the shelters.”
Binnie looked utterly betrayed.
“What’d you do that for?” Alf wailed. “Now they’ll send us away, and you’re the only one what’s nice to us.”
“We don’t need no one to take care of us,” Binnie said belligerently. “Me ’n’ Alf can take care of ourselves.”
“I’ll take them in,” Eileen said.
