There was a grunt and a swear word. Whatever he’d come for, he wasn’t pleased. Doors opened and closed. Then the footsteps got faster and closer. He was coming back down the corridor now. The bedroom door handle rattled. Joan stood back. The door opened and she raised the lamp base above her head.
‘What in God’s name?’
His voice was guttural and he stood stock-still, silhouetted against the light from the hallway. He didn’t advance.
‘Who on earth are you? Put that down, for God’s sake.’
Joan lowered the lamp base slowly.
‘Who are you?’
All she could see was the broad-shouldered shape of a man in a mackintosh.
‘Who d’you think? I’m Ross. What are you doing in my spare room? Oh God – does McGraw have a bit on the side? Christ! Look, this isn’t going to work. Put some clothes on. I’ll meet you outside.’
He retreated to the sitting room, but Joan’s racing heart took a while to slow down. It was a few minutes before she emerged from her room, wearing slacks and a Fair Isle knit, her hair brushed, looking militant but unarmed.
Major Ross, her ‘absentee’ landlord, was waiting for her in an armchair, with a finger of whisky in a tumbler in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He had taken off his mackintosh and was dressed in a thick woollen cardigan and corduroy trousers. He looked confused, amused and very unthreatening.
Ross motioned to the sofa and Joan perched on the edge of it. He gestured to a cigarette box on the coffee table between them. She didn’t normally smoke, but she accepted both a cigarette and his offer of a light.
‘So,’ he began, leaning back. ‘You’re McGraw’s . . . ?’ He left her to finish the sentence.
He had an air of authority about him. Older than her: in his forties, probably. His hair fell into a cowlick that he brushed unconsciously from his face. His skin was freckled, like hers, and his eyes were tired. There was a certain cragginess to him.
‘I’m McGraw,’ she said simply.
He frowned. ‘But . . . he was called John. I was distinctly told so. That’s why I said he could stay.’
‘I’m Joan.’
‘Oh.’
They both realised what must have happened. Ross’s face relaxed.
‘That explains the damp stockings on the shower rail.’
Joan remembered that the bathroom was draped in her drying underwear. ‘Oh no! I didn’t realise—’
‘I got rather a surprise.’
‘Not half as big a shock as I did,’ she said crossly. ‘I was told I had the place to myself.’
‘Well, ah. I’m not up often, but I do come over occasionally. They should have explained . . . But you shouldn’t really be here. Anyway, I’m sorry. And for my language earlier. The shock, you know. Can I offer you tea?’ The gentle sound of a kettle boiling on the stove was just rising to a keen whistle. He got up to deal with it. ‘Or a wee dram?’ There was an edge of a Scottish burr to his voice.
‘I’ll take the whisky. Actually, both.’
‘Good idea.’
He dealt with their drinks and Joan settled herself in his comfortable little sofa.
‘There’s been a misunderstanding, obviously,’ she said.
‘Obviously.’
‘The Queen’s private secretary knew I needed somewhere to live. He arranged it incredibly fast. Something was bound to go wrong.’
Ross shrugged. ‘A chap got in touch at the club. Said he knew someone – I could have sworn he said John – who needed helping out. I was happy to oblige. We used to have guests often, but we’re not in town much these days. At least . . .’ He paused. ‘I am, but my wife isn’t. Dashed awkward.’
It was more than awkward. Joan couldn’t possibly stay in a flat with a married man. Dammit! She liked this place.
‘What do you do in town, Mr Ross?’ she asked, to take her mind off it.
He shrugged and lit another cigarette. ‘Oh, you know, this and that. Very boring. Civil servant.’
‘But you travel for work?’
‘No. That is, I tend to stay at my club these days. It’s more sociable. I was thinking of giving up the flat.’
Joan ignored the reference to the club. ‘What sort of civil servant?’
‘Hmm? You ask a lot of questions, don’t you? Just the ordinary kind, you know. Briefcase and bowler hat. Very dull.’
‘Yes, you said it was boring,’ she observed. ‘Where’s your office?’
‘Hmm? What is this, the inquisition? I might ask the same of you.’
‘You know where I work,’ Joan said. ‘Buckingham Palace.’ You really are very evasive, she thought. This interests me.
‘Yes, but what do you do?’ he persisted.
He was only trying to throw the spotlight back on her. She was already beginning to guess what he did. She knew other men who were evasive about their boring jobs and bowler hats.
‘I work for the Queen,’ she said. ‘Temporarily.’
‘Lucky you. How fascinating.’
When he smiled, his grizzled cheeks dimpled in a way that was undeniably attractive. His eyes were grey. Joan had always had rather a thing for men with grey eyes. Dammit again!
For an instant, the thought flashed into her mind that either Sir Hugh had engineered this precise situation . . . But that was so far-fetched. And the chances of such a scheme working out were a thousand to one. She might be on a secret mission for the monarch, but that was no reason to become paranoid.
Those grey eyes were peering closely at her. ‘I was just thinking . . . I’m sure I know you from somewhere.’
She smiled sardonically. ‘Really?’ It was the line so many pilots in the war had used.
He read her mind. ‘No, really! I’ve been trying to place you. The Admiralty. No . . . I know! Dorset, ’forty-four. Longmeadow. Hmm.’
‘I . . . Yes. Hmm.’
He’d been thinking aloud, but they both knew that the first rule of Longmeadow was that you didn’t talk about it. Even now, its existence and the identities of the people who had worked there remained top secret.
Joan wasn’t sure she remembered him, but men had come in and out all the time, and Brigadier Yelland had made her life very stressful. To have visited, Major Ross might well have been in Military Intelligence. And from the careworn look of him, he probably still was.
He smiled with just a corner of his lip.
‘A long time ago. Another life.’
‘Absolutely,’ she said, though she sensed that for him, it wasn’t.
They made small talk for a few minutes. He told her about the cottage in Hampshire where he was trying ‘make something of the garden’. She told him about Bow, and how much she had enjoyed living there, but that it wasn’t practical for work. Then she remembered what time it was and rushed off to the bathroom to denude it of stockings and handkerchiefs, which she had been drying against the bathroom tiles so they would be flat.
She looked at herself in the mirror and realised she was slightly flushed. Too much whisky, late at night. Her hair was a mess again and she put her fingers through it to arrange it, even though it was too late. Then she grinned at herself for being an idiot and went to bed.
Chapter 20
In the offices of Scotland Yard on the Victoria Embankment, Fred Darbishire looked up from his temporary desk. If he stood up a little and leaned to the left, he could see the River Thames through one of the office windows. On the opposite bank, where the Festival of Britain buildings used to be, they were building some sort of skyscraper between Waterloo Station and the Festival Hall.