‘Well you’ll need the ladder,’ Lily Dudley said, making for the door.
‘I’ll get it. You stay here and have your tea.’
Claire went outside to the wooden shed at the top of the garden. Her father had kept chickens in it during the war. Now, except for old paint tins and empty beer bottles, kept by her mother out of habit, the shed housed her bicycle and the ladder. ‘I will have a cup of tea with you, Mam,’ Claire said, carrying the ladder through the kitchen. ‘I won’t be long.’
Unable to see anything in the attic because it was so dark, Claire crawled on her hands and knees to the far wall. She ran the flat of her hand along the brickwork until she came to eaves on the left. A few inches further along she found a pile of old curtains, and behind them, her WAAF case. She opened it and took out a leather shoulder bag. She undid the buckle at the front of the bag and pulled open the middle section. She found what she was looking for and put it in her pocket. After buckling the bag, she returned it to the case, pushed it against the wall and covered it with the old curtains.
‘Good God!’ Lily Dudley said, when Claire returned to the kitchen, ‘you look as if you’ve been up the chimney.’
Claire leant to the left and caught sight of herself in the small mirror that her mother kept on the kitchen window sill. ‘I do, don’t I?’ she laughed.
‘I hope you found what you were looking for, girl.’
‘I didn’t actually. My old military bag was in the suitcase, but there wasn’t a photograph in it. There were a few papers, but nothing of importance. Never mind, I expect the photo will turn up at home. I’ll have put it somewhere safe...’
‘Too safe,’ her mother said, adding boiling water to the teapot.
‘I expect so,’ Claire said, laughing. ‘I’ll put this back,’ she said, dragging the ladder out of the kitchen door into the yard.
‘I’ll pour your tea,’ Claire’s mother called after her, ‘and I’ll put a pan of water on the stove. You’d better have a wash before you go.’
As she turned into the short drive at the front of her house, Mitch’s grandmother pulled up behind her in her car. The old lady wound down the window and beckoned Claire. ‘Don’t leave your car outside the house. Put it in the garage, dear. I’ll park around the corner, so mine’s out of sight,’ she whispered, put her foot on the accelerator and sped off.
Claire did as Esther said. By the time she had unlocked the garage door, put her car inside, taken her case out of the boot and locked the garage, Esther was waiting for her at the front door. ‘What’s going on, Esther?’
‘I’ll tell you when we’re inside. Quickly, unlock the door, dear,’ Esther said. She looked up and down the road. ‘Best if no one knows you’ve come home.’
Claire opened the front door and Esther jostled her into the hall. ‘Is this cloak and dagger stuff really necessary, Esther?’ Claire asked, doing her best not to laugh.
‘Yes, it is!’ Esther said. ‘I’ll tell you why when we’re inside.’ Esther glanced over her shoulder before closing the door. ‘We don’t want Commander Landry and his bully-boys to know you’re back yet, so we’ll go through to the kitchen. If they come knocking, they won’t see us in there.’
Claire took off her coat and kicked off her boots, replacing them with a thick cardigan and her old slippers. ‘How did you know I was back? Are you psychic?’ she asked, following Esther into the kitchen.
‘Nothing as exotic as that, I’m afraid. I called round to see you this morning, on the off chance you’d be here, but you weren’t, so I telephoned the Foxden Hotel and spoke to Bess. She told me you had just left and estimated the time you’d be arriving home,’ Esther said, out of breath.
Claire felt a sudden surge of panic rise from her stomach to her throat. ‘What is it, Esther? Is it Mitch? Have you heard from him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he all right? Where is he?’
‘No. I mean, yes. I have heard from Alain but I don’t know how he is, or where he is. The reason I needed to see you as soon as you got home was because - well it’s two things really, but the first is, I had a visit from Alain’s commanding officer.’ Esther shook her head. She looked flustered.
‘Sit down. I’ll make us a drink.’ Claire pulled out a chair from under the kitchen table and Esther dropped onto it. ‘Now, start at the beginning and tell me what happened.’
‘Commander Landry said he came to see you yesterday, but you weren’t here, so he came to my house,’ Esther said, wringing her hands.
Claire filled the kettle, put it on the stove and took a bottle of milk from her shopping bag. ‘And?’ she said, looking over her shoulder at Esther.
‘And the commander said RCAF intelligence has received information that Alain is in France.’
‘France? Why would he go--?’ Claire stopped speaking mid-sentence. Simone!
‘The commander had received Alain’s medical file. He told me that the doctor who treated Alain in Canada said that under hypnosis, Alain had talked about a woman in the French Resistance who he became ... close to.’ Esther paused, took a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed her nose. She
