‘I was just wondering—have you ever been married? Or been in love?’ she asked.
Woody set down his knife and fork. ‘Never been married—’
‘—Because no woman can put up with your odd name?’ Elsie interrupted.
Woody grinned. ‘You might be right, actually. As for being in love—well, I hadn’t been in love until I met a stroppy girl at a dance in Hawkinge last month.’
Elsie pulled a face of mock displeasure. ‘That was very corny, Horace.’
‘Corny, but possibly true.’ He took a sip of his beer and looked her in the eyes. ‘I really wish this war were over.’
‘I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon,’ Elsie answered. ‘Come on, stop the maudlin. Drink up—I’m ready for another, Arthur.’
‘My brother’s called Arthur!’ Woody protested.
‘Tell me about him—and the rest of your family, Harold,’ Elsie requested.
Over the course of their meal and two further drinks, Woody proceeded to tell Elsie about his background, where he grew up and details of his close family.
‘And here we are—thrown together by war,’ Elsie concluded. ‘Tomorrow I’m going one way and you’re going another.’
‘You make it sound so horribly final.’
Maybe it is, Elsie thought, losing herself in his eyes. Maybe we’ll never meet again.
‘We’ve still got the rest of the evening to enjoy; come on,’ Woody said.
‘Okay, Kenneth.’
They disembarked from the bus in Hawkinge and walked hand-in-hand along the dusky aerodrome perimeter. Night was falling fast and yet the airfield was still a veritable hive of activity; squadrons were back up in the air moments after having landed and refuelled.
‘The Luftwaffe really are punishing us today,’ Woody lamented.
‘I’m glad you weren’t up there,’ Elsie whispered, gently squeezing his hand.
‘Me too.’
They reached the aerodrome gates and stopped.
‘I’ll just get my bicycle, then I’ll be off,’ Elsie murmured. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want the day to end. She didn’t want to accept the possibility of never seeing him again. She turned towards him, their faces just inches apart, then kissed him.
It was a long, impassioned kiss—something for which, Elsie hadn’t realised until now, that she had deeply craved. She broke the kiss and silenced the barrage of internal interrogations that leapt into her mind, saying, ‘Do you have somewhere we can go?’
Woody stroked the back of her hair. ‘The officers’ quarters…but, are you sure?’
‘Yes, very,’ Elsie breathed.
Her body had told her reliably each and every month for as long as she could remember when it was ripe for producing a baby; she had vowed never to give that gift to Laurie ever again. Today, she was fertile. Ready. She wanted to have Woody’s baby.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Morton opened his eyes. His right cheek was swollen, crusted with blood and felt like it was on fire. He went to touch it, but realised that his hands were tied behind his back. He sat up and looked around him. He was in a small room with a single bed. The curtains were drawn against the early evening. He stood and poked his head between the join of the curtains, the view telling him precisely where he was. ‘I’m okay,’ he murmured.
He tried the door but, as he had expected, it was locked. He tried to pull his wrists apart, but there was no movement from the thick sausage of rope binding them together.
Sitting back down on the bed, he sought to comprehend his situation.
The last thing that he remembered was being bundled into the back of a transit van in central London. Shaohao Chen had then punched him hard in the face, presumably knocking him out cold.
He couldn’t just sit here and wait for the day to end or for someone to come for him; he was getting married tomorrow. He stood up and began banging on the door. ‘Hey! Let me out!’
It didn’t take long until he heard the key in the door and he was greeted by Tamara Forsdyke’s smirking face. Behind her, stood Shaohao Chen.
‘Hope you’ve had a good rest,’ she said.
‘I want to leave.’
Tamara smiled. ‘Oh, you will—soon. We’ve been chatting, haven’t we?’ she said, turning to Shaohao. ‘We didn’t know what to do with an unannounced guest. We thought maybe a night-time walk along the cliffs might be nice. Just you and him.’ She nodded her head backwards again. ‘Maybe you can follow in my grandmother’s footsteps.’
‘You won’t get away with it,’ Morton replied.
‘Away with what?’ Tamara asked. ‘Before you go for that walk, why don’t you tell us what you think you know, exactly.’
Morton’s eyes darted from Tamara to Shaohao, as he wondered exactly how to play the situation. ‘I think that during the early years of the war your grandmother, Agnes stumbled upon a lucrative idea. I think she opened her doors to vulnerable local girls who had got themselves into trouble under some pretence of an altruistic idea of helping them, but actually she was selling the babies to the highest bidders. Her friend, Ada Potter—a social worker—ensured that all the necessary paperwork was in place. All the information was kept in various folders that made up The Spyglass File, which you destroyed when I turned up asking about Elsie Finch.’
‘Very good,’ Tamara confirmed. She turned to Shaohao with a fake look of admiration. ‘Hasn’t he done well. Hit the nail well and truly on the head.’
Shaohao regarded Morton through narrowed, searching eyes. ‘Yes, but I’d be interested to know how the past matters so much to him?’ He shrugged. ‘What does it matter what Tamara’s grandmother did during the war?’ Another shrug. ‘Should we have Tamara arrested for it?’
‘The Spyglass File wasn’t just about the war, though, was it?’ Morton asked. ‘You had files in the office just along the corridor from here that ran up to 1975—thirty-two
