‘Of course. And don’t worry, if she arrives later today we’ll tell her to get in touch with you, Mr--?’
‘Smith!’
‘Smith. Do you have a card, Mr Smith, with a telephone number where Miss Hawksley can reach you?’
Mr Smith made an exaggerated show of lifting his hand to the breast pocket of his suit jacket. ‘Dearie me,’ he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Wouldn’t you know it. I’m all out of cards.’
Several guests bustled into the hall from the dining room and the shorter of the two men spun round. ‘Don’t say anymore,’ he hissed. Turning back to Smith he indicated with a flick of his head that they should leave.
‘We’ll be back later!’ Smith said.
‘As you wish,’ Bess chirped. The two men lumbered across the hall to the hotel’s entrance foyer, flung open the door, and left without a backwards glance.
Bess looked at Jack. His face was ashen. ‘My legs feel as if they’ve turned to jelly.’
‘Did that really happen, or were we watching one of those American gangster films?’
‘It happened, Jack, and if it was a film we were in it.’
‘Henry!’ Bess ran across the hall, excusing herself as she disrupted a group of guests mid-conversation, to get to her brother-in-law. ‘Did you see those two men?’ Henry looked bemused. ‘They’ve only just left. You must have passed them.’ Henry turned at the sound of a car revving its engine. ‘They were asking about Katherine. They said she was their niece.’
‘Did you tell them anything?’
‘Of course not!’
‘So she’s still safe?’
‘Yes. She’s with Ena in her room,’ Bess whispered.
‘Good. Telephone Lowarth police station. Tell Inspector Masters to put every man he’s got on the streets,’ Henry said, as a white saloon car roared round the side of the hotel from the car park. ‘Tell him to ring Market Harborough and Rugby - and tell them to do the same. They’re looking for two men in a white Jowett Javelin, number plate beginning with CF and ending with 3, or 8.’
Bess ran back to reception repeating the details over and over in her head.
‘Tell Ena I’ll see her later!’ Henry shouted, before running down the steps to his car.
Bess didn’t return to the office. After what she and Jack had just experienced, she didn’t think either of them should be alone on reception. However, when it was time for her break, Jack insisted he would be fine on his own for twenty minutes - and Bess, refusing to let thugs like the two who were looking for Katherine intimidate her, went outside to get some fresh air.
Still tense from having stood her ground against two fascist thugs, Bess needed to calm down and regain her composure. A stroll across the peacock lawn to the lake, she decided, would help.
She lifted her face to the indifferent afternoon sun and breathed in the early autumn air. She watched the wildlife on the lake. The ducklings, bigger now, reminded her of Nancy. She wondered how the little girl was. She hadn’t been gone twenty-four hours, but Bess missed her so much it felt like a week.
She inhaled deeply and blew out a long calming breath. All around her nature was changing. Flowers were budding less, reeds in the lake were beginning to turn yellow and some trees were already shedding their unwanted leaves. It was what Bess called the in-between time of year. It wasn’t summer, nor was it quite autumn. For the hotel, it would soon be the quietest time of the year.
Henry and Inspector Masters arrived at six o’clock. Jack had finished his shift and gone for the day, Frank was on reception and Bess was in the office, about to join her husband out front. She offered them tea, which they both refused - Henry saying he needed to see Ena and Katherine, and the inspector saying he didn’t have time.
‘I’ve only popped in to say thank you for your help today, Bess. Miss Hawksley’s bogus uncles will be enjoying the sludge they dish up in His Majesty’s prison Leicester now.’
‘Thank goodness you caught them. They were a scary pair.’
‘Dangerous too. They’ve been doing Hawksley’s dirty work for a decade or more. They’d think nothing of disposing of Katherine, or anyone else, to save their own scraggy necks.’
‘So, will Katherine be safe now?’
The Inspector’s brow furrowed. He didn’t answer immediately. ‘I think so,’ he said, ‘but I’d feel happier if she stayed out of sight for a few more days, in case any associates of Hawksley’s that we haven’t come across yet decide to crawl out of the woodwork. The major players in the Fascist Association have been arrested, and,’ he said, smiling for the first time since he had arrived, ‘we are ninety-nine percent sure that the escape route to South America has been scuppered. But,’ he put his hands up, palms together, and bowed his head, ‘until I’m certain that there aren’t any other Nazi sympathisers out there that think Katherine Hawksley is a threat to them, I’m taking no chances.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Mrs Donnelly, could I speak to you, please?’ Maeve asked, when Bess came down on Monday morning.
‘Of course, what is it?’
‘In private?’
Leaving Jack to look after reception, Maeve followed Bess into the office. ‘Take a seat,’ Bess said, motioning to a chair on the left of the hearth. Maeve sat down and Bess joined her, sitting on the chair opposite.
Bess looked enquiringly at Maeve. Was she going to explain why she hadn’t told Bess before that she knew of David Sutherland, and that she had attended his funeral? Or was she going to explain why she
