A Blind Goddess

enough.”

“Anything else? Anything unusual?”

“No. She was friendly. She had confidence. It took some nerve to bicycle up and ask for a meal. I imagine she saw the girls and felt comfortable enough about it, but still, it would be hard for any girl her age to do that.”

“She was trusting,” Diana said.

“Yes. Open and trusting,” Laurianne said, clasping her hands around her empty glass. “Now she’s dead, isn’t she? So much for confidence.”

Kaz offered to drive Laurianne back to the school, and Diana and I stayed outside in the cool air under the feeble lamplight. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her or Kaz about Cosgrove’s heart attack, much less pass on his warning.

“Diana, I-” She held up her hand, watching as Kaz helped Laurianne into the jeep and started the engine.

“Wait, Billy,” Diana said, “but there’s something else. Before I left, I had a chance to speak to several of the girls alone. They all saw Margaret ride in on her bicycle. They were coming in from the playground when she knocked on the front door. But none of them actually saw her leave.”

“Where were they? Could they have seen her?”

“They’d come in through a side door from the playground. The girls I spoke to were in a classroom at the front of the house with a clear view of the drive. They saw Margaret waiting in the foyer as they entered, and then never saw her again.”

“Is there another road or path leading away from the house?” I asked, leaning back in my seat, trying to remember the layout of the place.

“I don’t know,” Diana said. “Laurianne escorted us throughout the building, so it seemed impolite to wander about. I thought it best to tell you. Perhaps Margaret hid herself there.”

“I’ll check it out,” I said. “Good work.”

In my experience, runaway girls don’t end up tucked safely away in a girl’s school, but no reason not to let that remote possibility stay with us. Chances were the girls missed seeing her leave, or she went out a different way. Miss Ross didn’t seem the type to store bodies under the floorboards, but I knew I had to look into the possibility that Margaret had come to grief not far from the school. Or at the school, which was much more sinister. Laurianne Ross was in charge at the school, she had the run of the entire building. She could have brought Margaret wherever she wanted, and quietly disposed of the bicycle. But why? There was no motive I could think of. Still, it was odd that she had forgotten to mention Margaret Hibberd until one of her schoolgirls brought it up. With one child missing, why not report a runaway who showed up and then disappeared?

“Sorry, Billy, what were you about to say?”

“It’s Major Cosgrove. He’s had a heart attack,” I said.

“How terrible,” Diana said with a gasp of surprise. “How did you hear? Will he recover?”

“It happened this afternoon, at the Hungerford police station. He came to read me the riot act about the investigation.” I gave Diana an account of our meeting, and how we’d found Cosgrove on the floor. “He’s at the doctor’s now. Luckily the surgery is right across the street from the station. Doc said he’d keep him there overnight.”

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. He was able to speak, but he looked terrible. He had a message for you.”

“What was it?” Diana asked, worry furrowing her brow. Her hands clasped the empty glass in front of her as if it might give off warmth.

“It was off the record,” I said. “He seemed very concerned about you. He said they have their eye on you, and that you should stop talking about the extermination camps.”

“Who are they?”

“Roger Allen, for one. Cosgrove said that your father may have inadvertently gotten you involved with people who do not want the truth about the camps to come out.”

“I know I ruffled his feathers,” Diana said. “He certainly didn’t like being confronted by a woman, much less a woman concerned about Jews. But what did poor Charles mean when he said they had their eye on me?”

“I asked him if it was the same as him keeping an eye on me. ‘Not like that at all’ was his answer. He was truly worried for you Diana, and now I am too.” I didn’t think Allen and his ilk would cause Diana harm, not directly. What I wouldn’t put past them was a dangerous assignment, dangerous enough to silence her indirectly.

“Billy, we have both been in danger before. Just yesterday someone tried to kill you. That is the price we pay for being who we are and the times we live in. I’m not going to be told to be quiet like a schoolgirl because it’s inconvenient for some politician. People are being murdered, Billy, by the thousands. We can’t pretend it isn’t happening.”

“I know,” I said, leaning over and taking Diana’s hand. “But you also can’t pretend these aren’t powerful men, and you’ve offended them, challenged the way they look at the world. You went into the lion’s den, Diana. Don’t be surprised at how sharp their claws are.”

“Well, perhaps this isn’t the best time to tell you, Billy, but Father has got an appointment with Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary. We are both dining with him tomorrow night in London.” She gave a rueful laugh.

“They have their eyes on you, Diana. Be careful.”

“Don’t worry, Billy. Father has known Eden since they served in Parliament together. It is more of a social occasion, really. I think Father is hoping this will put an end to my campaign.”

“I don’t want you to end it, Diana. Just let the dust settle.”

“After this dinner, I shall take the remainder of my leave and lounge about Seaton Manor, drinking tea and eating biscuits, all the time thinking of you.”

“Okay. If I wrap all this up in time, I’ll come visit.”

“That’s settled then,” Diana said, shivering as she tried to rub warmth into her arms. “Let’s go inside. This may be our last night together for a while.”

I had no argument with that. As we ascended the stairs to our room, I thought about what I’d read in reports smuggled out of Poland, where the extermination camps were working overtime, incinerating bodies in ovens and belching greasy smoke out over the countryside. I tried to clear the gruesome images from my mind and enjoy the rest of the night with Diana. But some dust never settles.

CHAPTER TWENTY — FOUR

There was a heavy rain the next morning when I dropped Diana off at the train station in Newbury. The downpour didn’t leave much time for long goodbyes or lingering kisses on the platform. I ran by her side with an umbrella in one hand and her suitcase in the other. I handed both to her as she boarded, the locomotive releasing a gasp of steam as if it were straining to depart and carry Diana away.

We kissed quickly, and Diana smiled at me, her eyes latching onto mine. Then she laughed as a stream of water cascaded off the roof of the railcar, spattering the top of my service cap. Passengers surged around us, in a hurry to get out of the rain. Civilians, soldiers, and sailors pushed Diana back as they boarded, and all we could manage was a half-hearted wave before she vanished and I retreated to the jeep. The rain on the canvas sounded like a drumroll, and I shook the water off my trench coat like a shaggy dog, glad that I had on my rubber-soled combat boots.

I sat, watching the empty street, blurry and grey through the rain-streaked windshield. Pretty close to how I felt about this investigation. Nothing made sense. I had no idea why anyone would have killed Stuart Neville. No idea why Cosgrove was preaching hands-off the Millers. No idea who had killed Margaret Hibberd. Not a clue what happened to Sophia Edwards or who killed Tom Eastman.

So what did I know? That there was something weird about the Neville murder, and Cosgrove’s instructions to lay off the Millers. And why was Neville such a cipher? All I knew for sure was that along the line I’d gotten close to something important, important enough to warrant a smack on the head and a midnight try at the dead man’s