‘Yes, great—thank you,’ Morton said. ‘Hopefully he can shed some light. Perhaps Elsie even told him some things about her time during the war.’
Barbara snorted. ‘Don’t be too sure. Paul and Rose have asked him several times over the years but I get the impression that Elsie didn’t talk to anyone about the war years, even her husband.’
Morton laughed. ‘Okay, well, it’s worth a shot.’ He thanked Barbara, ended the call, then returned to the evidence wall behind him.
His eyes settled on the timeline. He was still troubled by what had occurred on the day of Agnes’s death. Having been newly promoted to the rank of Squadron Officer, working out of RAF Bentley Priory, Elsie’s time in the WAAF had mysteriously come to an end.
Morton had tried searching for various combinations of Elsie’s name alongside the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force before, but now he tried searching for her under her various ranks.
When he searched for ‘Assistant Section Officer Finch,’ Google suggested a link to an article in the digitised Flight magazine 1909-2004. He clicked and waited.
Moments later, a scanned version of an edition, dated February 1942 loaded onscreen. The page was filled with a selection of photographs, mainly of pilots going about their business. He skimmed across, searching for whatever was on the page that Google felt had matched his search criteria. Then he spotted it. It was a photo of a WAAF lady, stepping down from a Sunderland seaplane, smiling for the camera. It was Elsie. Below her picture was the caption: ‘Assistant Section Officer Finch, returning from valuable work on the island.’
Morton knew from Elsie’s records that the island referred to had to be Malta but nowhere on the page was that actually mentioned. He clicked to view the page before and it became clear. The section was headed ‘Round the Clock with the RAF in Malta’ and the following two pages featured RAF personnel working on the island. Morton smiled at the image of Elsie. She looked happy and he imagined that it would be a lovely photo for Barbara, Paul and Rose to see. He printed both pages and carried them over to the evidence wall. As he attached the first page, his eyes were drawn to another photo on the page. It was of several pilots playing cards. The caption read ‘A relaxing game of bridge between sorties.’ The men were unnamed, yet one of them looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to his face.
Morton jumped back onto his laptop. The quality of the page was excellent and he was able to zoom into the pilot’s face. Yes, he had definitely seen him somewhere before. But where? He hurriedly took a screenshot of the pilot close up, printed it out then made a bee-line for Susan Stubbs’s photos. Sure enough, the man was in the group shot of pilots from 32 Squadron resting beside their Hurricanes in August 1940. Beside the photograph was a list of the pilot names. According to Susan Stubbs, this man was called Woody. Not a very helpful name for identification purposes, but it was a start.
He continued checking the remainder of the photographs on the wall, when he spotted something of interest in the photograph of Elsie and William Smith at the RAF dance in Hawkinge. He pushed his face close up to the black and white picture. Woody was at the back of the room near to the bar, looking on.
Morton’s mind began to race, ruminating on the possibility of Woody being Barbara’s father. What if the story that Elsie had given to the social worker was partly true? That she had met the baby’s father at the RAF dance, but, for some reason—perhaps to protect his identity—she had instead given the name of a dead pilot, knowing that he could not protest or deny it. That would explain, Morton thought, why Elsie had named her house Valletta—it was nothing to do with her second husband at all, but to do with something that had occurred on the island during the war—perhaps with Woody.
His mobile began to ring. An unidentified caller.
‘It’s Liu Chai,’ a voice said in a hushed tone. ‘We need to keep this very brief, Morton.’
‘Yes, that’s fine. I just want to know about Shaohao Chen—’
‘—Tell me what you think you know,’ Liu interrupted.
This wasn’t going to go well, Morton could tell; he needed to cut straight to the point. ‘In 2012 he was arrested for beating you up. He was given a fine. He was living at 62 Hanover Square—’
‘—Not living there—working there,’ Liu corrected in a low voice. ‘What’s at that address?’
‘I’ve no idea. I assumed it was residential.’
‘It’s not,’ Liu mumbled. ‘Why would he beat me up?’
Christ, this is going to be hard work, Morton thought. ‘I don’t know, that’s what I was hoping you were going to tell me.’
‘What’s my job?’
‘Journalist,’ Morton answered. Then he got it. ‘So you were writing a story on him, he got wind of it and beat you up? Is that right?’
‘What links together all the stories that I write?’ Liu probed.
Morton thought for a moment. ‘Injustice?’ he offered.
‘Right. Time’s up. Goodbye.’
‘Wait,’ Morton pleaded. ‘I think we can help each other.’
There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘Go on.’
Ten minutes later Morton was replaying the conversation in his mind. Liu had said that the address given by Shaohao Chen held some significance, so Morton ran a search for 62 Hanover Square. It was the address for the UK arm of a Hague-approved Chinese orphanage. Morton worked his way through various pages of the company’s website. It appeared that the company—of which Shaohao
