‘What?’ Morton stammered. His mind was foggy—needlessly so, he felt. The answer should be there, in front of him, yet he couldn’t find it. If Rose’s stepfather had served with 32 Squadron, then he would have known Daniel Winter, William Smith and the man that Morton suspected of being Barbara’s father, Woody. He would know Woody’s real name—the final piece of the puzzle. Morton struggled to select from the dozens of questions bouncing around his brain.
‘I met her at an RAF dance—July 1940,’ the old man revealed with a laugh. ‘She wasn’t that keen on me, so I had to follow her halfway around the world to Malta…’
Then Morton suddenly understood everything and his abundance of questions evaporated, leaving just one: ‘You’re Woody?’
‘Would you use your real name if you were called Englebert Edward Goodall?’ he asked with a grin.
‘No, I don’t suppose I would,’ Morton concurred. He stared at him, his mind racing to catch up.
‘Now it’s your turn to show your hand. You’re not working for Rose at all, are you?’
Morton shook his head.
‘It’s her, isn’t it? The baby. Christina.’
So he knew that he had a daughter. ‘Yes,’ Morton answered.
Woody thought for a moment. ‘We always wondered if the day would come. Is she okay?’
Morton nodded. ‘Yes, she’s done well for herself.’
‘Does she know about me?’
‘No,’ Morton answered softly. ‘Not yet. She’s met with Paul and Rose—several times.’
‘My goodness…they’ve never said…’
A pair of tears raced down Woody’s cheeks and a bare silence opened up with the two men simply looking at each other. Woody was taking in the magnitude of the revelation, whilst Morton was contemplating the burden that any revelations would invariably place upon him. He would be the only person who knew everything. He would have the ominous duty of informing Barbara that Woody was her father. He needed to tread very carefully. He chose a vague, innocuous question that didn’t involve Woody to break the stalemate of silence.
‘Going back to my question yesterday—do you really not know what happened in July 1943, when Elsie left the WAAF?’ Morton ventured. ‘I’m struggling to find what happened to her.’
Woody laughed. ‘Yes, I do know, actually. I expect you had the same trouble finding her that I had.’
‘Oh?’ Morton said, pen poised and ready, his face inviting further information.
‘Second of April 1944—a rather painful day for me,’ Woody said, bending over and lifting his right trouser leg and encouraging Morton to take a look.
‘Oh dear,’ Morton said upon sight of the artificial leg.
‘It was all my mistress’s fault,’ Woody said with a wink.
‘Mistress?’ Morton asked, scribbling the words ‘Woody false leg—caused by mistress?!’
‘My Hurricane—I called her my mistress. She was the only woman that listened to me,’ he grinned. ‘Well, until that day, anyway. Then our affair was well and truly over. I was flying a reconnaissance sortie over France and got hit by Jerry. I managed to limp my way back over the channel to England before she finally gave up the ghost and refused to go on. I tried to bail out, but it was almost impossible, and we crashed into an old barn. I was trapped for some time until some local farm lads hauled me out. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in Dover Hospital minus a leg.’
‘How awful,’ Morton commented, wondering where on earth this story was headed.
Woody shrugged. ‘I got off lightly compared to my mistress. Anyway, the RAF in their wisdom decided that a one-legged pilot wasn’t of much use to them, so I was swiftly pensioned out.’ He paused a moment to think, giving Morton time to catch up with his notes. ‘But you know, I actually considered it a blessing in disguise—an awful thing to say, I know, but the chances of me continuing to defy death, day in, day out were pretty slim to say the least. So, after being abandoned by my mistress, I went in search of my other love—Elsie. But she was nowhere to be found. Nowhere. I tried her friends at Hawkinge and West Kingsdown—nothing. I tried her old home in Nutley—nothing. After a lot of searching I found her—she was in Maidstone prison.’
Morton looked up, shocked. ‘Prison? What for?’
‘I think I need to start back at the beginning to be able to answer that. Right back to when we met at a dance in Hawkinge village hall. It might take a while…’
‘That’s okay,’ Morton said with a smile. ‘Go ahead.’
And so he did. Woody spoke at length, with little interruption from Morton, who busily scribed several pages of notes, many of which served as confirmation of his own findings.
By the time he left the Eventide Nursing Home, Morton had the full picture of Elsie Finch’s war.
The final pieces began to fall into place; they needed to, as having promised that the case was on the verge of being closed, he was due to meet with Barbara, Rose and Paul in four hours’ time.
The Finch Case was almost over; there was just one part left unresolved.
Two hours later, following a short diversion into Wandsworth, Morton bounded through the western concourse of Kings Cross railway station in London. He climbed the stairs to the mezzanine level where various food outlets were situated. The first—Patisserie Valerie—was where he had arranged the meeting. He ordered a coffee and sat at a round metallic table close to the glass balcony that overlooked the heaving station.
Morton pulled out his mobile phone and looked at the time: fifteen minutes until the meeting that he had scheduled with Liu Chai via email. It was practically rush hour and hundreds of people were scurrying through the building. He studied their faces, searching for familiarity.
He was suddenly aware of movement in his peripheral vision and turned to see Shaohao Chen sliding
