‘Good morning,’ a young waiter greeted. ‘What can I get you?’
‘A large latte,’ Morton ordered. ‘And Cheddar Eggs, please.’
‘Lovely. Thank you.’
Morton tore first into the GRO envelope and pulled out the certificate.
When and where died: 12th July 1943, Capel-le-Ferne, Kent
Name and surname: Agnes Finch
Sex: Female
Age: 54
Occupation: Widow of James Finch
Cause of death: Suicide during a state of temporary insanity
Signature, description and residence of informant: Certificate received from J.R. Nightingale, deputy coroner. Inquest held 21st July 1943
Susan had been correct; Agnes Finch had killed herself. The certificate confirmed it but beyond that failed to provide any detailed information. Morton stared out to sea, considering the implications of Agnes’s suicide. Did he need to follow this up? Did it have any bearing on Elsie Finch’s war?
Setting the certificate to one side, Morton opened the Ministry of Defence envelope and removed the contents: a letter of explanation, a list of common abbreviations and three sheets of folded A3 paper containing Elsie’s Record of Service.
According to the letter of explanation, references to medical or disciplinary action would not be disclosed. On one sheet was written Elsie’s name, date of birth, details of her marriage and her nationality. On another was a list of her promotions and on the last was a list of official movements and engagements.
‘One latte for you,’ the waiter announced, setting the drink down in front of Morton. ‘The food’s just coming.’
Morton thanked him, took a sip of the drink, then started to read through Elsie’s promotions. They matched exactly those that he had found on the website of the London Gazette. He moved on to the list of Elsie’s postings.
27th June 1940 – 15thAug 1940 – RAF Hawkinge Wireless Intercept Station
16th Aug 1940 – 14th Jan 1942 – RAF Kingsdown Wireless Intercept Station
15th Jan 1942 – 24th Jan 1942 – Field Unit Valletta, Malta
25th Jan 1942 – 19th January 1943 – RAF Kingsdown Wireless Intercept Station
20th January 1943 - 12th July 1943 - RAF Bentley Priory
Immediately below the last entry was a white censoring rectangle; the information about what had happened to Elsie following her posting to RAF Bentley Priory had been redacted.
Morton was curious.
He picked up Agnes’s death certificate, holding it beside Elsie’s Record of Service. Both events had occurred on the same day; something of either a medical or disciplinary nature had occurred on the very day of Agnes Finch’s death. Yes, he did need to follow up Agnes’s death; he needed to take another trip to Folkestone Library and search the local newspapers for mention of her suicide.
He returned to Elsie’s previous postings; something else had drawn his attention. Valletta. Morton’s eyes settled on the word, his mind probing for significance. Clearly, her stationing on the island of Malta held sufficient importance for her to name her house after a city in which she had only spent little over one week of her life. But what was that significance? Morton opened his emails and sent a brief message to Barbara Finch, informing her that Elsie’s WAAF records had arrived, and asking that she enquire with Paul and Rose if they could shed any light on the Valletta connection.
Morton had just typed ‘Valletta’ into Google when the waiter arrived carrying his lunch. ‘Cheddar Eggs,’ he declared.
‘Thank you,’ Morton replied, sliding back his laptop, as the waiter placed the toasted cheese scone topped with poached eggs, grated cheese and a side order of bacon in front of him.
He ate quickly, his impatience at this critical stage of his research driving him to bolt down his food. After some time searching, he had found that the Y-Service in Valletta had played a vital role in intercepting radio and Morse traffic in the Mediterranean. As a consequence, the island was heavily defended throughout the war, despite relentless attacks from German and Italian forces based in Sicily. Elsie’s time on the island had coincided with the worst attacks in its history, dubbed ‘The Siege of Malta’.
Morton copied a raft of sobering statistics from the internet. By the end of 1942, 14,000 tons of bombs had fallen on just 143 square miles of land, killing one in every two hundred island residents. One month after Elsie had departed Malta, King George VI had awarded the entire island the George Cross ‘…to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history.’
As he continued to read, he remembered wryly what Paul Finch had said of his mother’s wartime: that she had just ‘muddled along,’ like everyone else.
Morton sank back in his chair and finished the last of his drink, staring out over the rooftops to the River Rother that meandered through the cracked and parched salt marshes.
He was keen to get to Folkestone Library to learn more about Agnes’s suicide but there was still one thing that he needed to do online.
He ran a search into Liu Chai, the journalist whom Shaohao Chen had been convicted of assaulting. Morton found that he was a freelance journalist from Wandsworth, his name cropping up in several stories with links to China. The most recent story included Liu’s email address. Morton sent him a message asking him what he knew about Shaohao Chen, then shut his laptop and began to pack up his things.
He paid his bill and sauntered home, enjoying the warmth of the early afternoon, as he jostled amongst the town’s tourists. Unlike some of his neighbours, Morton welcomed the great influx of visitors, even when, like now, they were staring at his house.
A rotund lady with olive skin, struggling with the undulating cobbles, narrated—in Spanish, Morton thought—with grand hand gestures to buildings of interest. Evidently his house—with its two front doors—was one them. He really needed to clean the windows, he noticed, as a profusion of mobile phones began forever immortalising
