‘I like to watch them through my window,’ he had declared at one point. ‘Though Lord knows they tear up the lawn with their games. They seem so young to me … so carefree. One has to remember what they’ve been through. What they’ve survived. Somehow it makes my four score years seem trivial by comparison.’
Listening to the old gentleman, Sinclair had been moved to consider his own mortality and to wonder how and where he might spend his last years. It had always been his intention to retire to his native Scotland, where he still had family. But as the time drew nearer he felt a growing reluctance to make the necessary preparations and now, once again, found uncertainty nagging at him as he contemplated this thorny question.
As ever, much of the conversation at lunch had concerned the war and the depressing news of the latest German counter-attack in the Ardennes that was threatening to extend the conflict still further; and at a time when many had hoped it might be drawing to an end. The matter was naturally of deep concern to both Maddens, who still had no word of their son, or of the whereabouts of his destroyer, and who dreaded a continuation of the dangerous convoy duty on which he was engaged. But it also weighed heavily on Lord Stratton, who had seen neither his eldest son and heir, an officer serving on Mountbatten’s staff in India, nor his daughter, who was married to a diplomat in Washington, for nearly two years, and was beginning to fear that time was running out for him.
‘Medical opinion notwithstanding,’ he had declared drily, though with a smile at Helen, ‘I feel my days are numbered and would like to have my family around me when I make my adieus.’
Nevertheless, in spite of his own preoccupations, he had not allowed the lunch to end and his guests to depart until he had asked Sinclair about the investigation he was conducting.
‘I had no idea who the child was, not until John told me, but I remember how beautifully she played the piano at the concert we had here. What a waste of a young life! As if enough have not been cast away already.’
In response, Sinclair had spoken perhaps too encouragingly of the progress being made in the inquiry. Or so Madden had seemed to feel when they were pacing the platform a little later that afternoon, waiting for the train.
‘Don’t be too sure you’re closing in on him, Angus,’ he had cautioned, reverting to the subject that had occupied their morning. The chief inspector had used these same words a little earlier in replying to their host. ‘If you’re right about the link to that Fontainebleau business — if it really is Marko — then it’s worth remembering he’s never been arrested and that can’t just be down to luck.’
‘He’s taken pains to stay out of sight, you mean? And made sure there were never any witnesses to identify him. Yes, I’m aware of that. But the war has changed everything. It’s almost impossible for a man to go to ground now. We’re all hemmed in by regulations. Identity cards, ration books. They’re unavoidable. All we need is a clue to his identity and we’ll track him down.’
Madden’s shrug had been noncommittal, his closing words all but drowned by the whistle of the approaching train.
‘Well, I hope you’re right,’ he had said. ‘But bear in mind he’ll be aware of that. And he may have other surprises up his sleeve.’
13
Paddington Police Station was quiet that Sunday evening, and the desk sergeant, an elderly Ulsterman named Paddy McDowell, was dozing quietly on his size elevens, swaying from side to side like a horse in its stable, Lily Poole thought, as she rapped smartly on the counter with her knuckles.
‘What … what …?’ Paddy woke with a gulp and a splutter. ‘Here now … what do you think you’re doing, young lady …?’
The glare he fastened on her lasted for only a second or two. Then a broad grin took its place.
‘Hello, Lil.’ He regarded her with affection. ‘Didn’t recognize you out of uniform. Not in that get-up.’
‘What? This piece of haute couture?’
Lily indicated her coat, a shapeless, dun-coloured garment furnished with narrow lapels and a single pocket. Produced under government regulations designed to save precious material and with the depressing description of ‘utility’ attached to it, it was an article shunned by many of her sisters, but not by Lily Poole, who cared little for her appearance.
‘I’ll have you know it’s the latest style, Sarge. Fresh from Paris.’
‘If you say so,’ Paddy grinned. ‘You’ll be looking for Fred, I dare say. He came in ten minutes ago for his break. Try the canteen.’
He hooked his thumb at the door behind him and watched with a smile as she went by.
‘It’s good to see you again. You’ve been missed.’
Lily was pleased to hear him say it, even if the accolade had been hard won. She’d spent her first two years in the force at Paddington before being posted to Bow Street, and with female officers still a rarity in the Met had faced more than her share of hostility, both silent and acknowledged. But she’d won them round at last — or so she liked to think — and when she stepped into the canteen a minute later it was to a muted rumble of greetings and one or two friendly waves.
‘There you are, lass.’
Fred Poole rose from a table in the corner where he was sitting with a cup of tea, a pie and his conical helmet parked in a neat line in front of him. Broad-shouldered, and with cropped sandy hair that only now was starting to grey, he’d been a police constable for thirty years. And Lily’s Uncle Fred for twenty-five of them.
‘Sorry I wasn’t home,’ he said. Shy of showing his feelings, he slid a hand across the table to press hers. ‘I got called in sudden.’
‘Aunty Betty told me. Are you short-staffed?’ Lily asked.
‘That and the usual colds and flu.’ Fred brushed the matter aside. But I wasn’t best pleased since it meant missing you. How’ve you been, love? We’ve not seen you for a while, and you know how worried your aunt gets, the way she starts imagining things. “When I think of that young girl all on her own out in the blackout patrolling the streets …”’ His imitation of Aunty Betty’s anxious voice brought a grin to Lily’s lips. ‘I tell her, look, any bloke with mischief on his mind runs into our Lil, he’ll wish he’d stayed at home.’
Again he reached for her hand and Lily returned the squeeze he gave it. Fred wasn’t just like a dad to her: he was the elder brother of the father she had never known, who’d been killed in the last weeks of the Great War before Lily was even born and whom her mother had mourned for only two years before she herself had died in the great influenza epidemic that had followed. It was Betty and Fred who had raised her and whom Lily loved as much as if they were her true parents. Her earliest memory was of a large blue-uniformed figure bending down from what seemed like a great height to sweep her up in his arms. And she firmly believed it was the sight of Uncle Fred preparing to leave for work each morning, slipping his silver whistle into his pocket and donning his helmet, weighing his heavy truncheon in his hand, that had fixed her heart on following in his footsteps. Even though he’d tried to dissuade her.
‘Believe me, love, it’s no job for a lass. There are things you don’t want to be doing, ever, stuff you don’t want to see.’
But that was just what had drawn Lily to the job. Knowing there were things she might never see or know about if she went the way of other girls. The ones she knew, her friends even. All they seemed to care about was clothes and make-up. All they talked about was boys. Lily knew she wanted something else.
‘And don’t count on getting a warm welcome, either,’ Fred had counselled her. ‘There’s plenty of blokes in the force don’t like the idea of policewomen. You’ll be up against it from the start.’