Stripped of her coat and scarf and the woollen cap, her face was revealed as more bony than Madden remembered it, the craggy features accentuated by the shedding of what little surplus flesh had once covered them, and seen in repose her thrusting jaw combined with a flinty gaze gave her the look of someone to be reckoned with. But when her tight-lipped mouth broke into a smile, which it did at the sight of the crayon drawing of a cat which her little granddaughter had been clutching, waiting to show to her, her face took on a quite different aspect.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do when the war’s over,’ she had confessed to Madden while the children were out of the kitchen for a few moments washing their hands. ‘I’ve got used to taking care of these two: I won’t fancy giving them up. But I dare say Denny’ll get married again one of these days and then he’ll want a home of his own.’
Before long the smell of frying bacon filled the kitchen as Nelly bustled about preparing supper for her two charges, who on returning had been urged by their grandmother to take their seats at the table. Tommy, a wiry six-year-old with straw-coloured hair cut close to his scalp, placed himself opposite Madden, obliging his little sister, whose own fair hair hung in ringlets, to clamber on to a chair beside him, where she seemed uncomfortable, her chin barely clearing the rim of the table, until Madden, with a smile, scooped her up and placed her on his lap. ‘There — isn’t that better?’
‘Well, look at you,’ Nelly said, seeing the beaming smile on her granddaughter’s face as she brought their plates from the stove and then set about spreading margarine on the slices of bread she’d cut earlier.
When the two children had munched their way through their sandwiches, Madden reached for his shopping bag, which had been resting on the floor at his feet.
‘What’s this, then?’ Nelly demanded, her eyes sparkling, as four bars of chocolate appeared from its depths as if by magic. They were followed by a tin of biscuits and then three oranges which Madden produced from the bag one by one with the air of a conjuror drawing rabbits from a hat and laid on the table in front of them. ‘Bribery and corruption?’
She caught her granddaughter’s eye.
‘You’ve never seen an orange, have you?’
The little girl shook her head. She gazed in wonder at the fabled objects.
As her brother reached for one, Nelly checked him.
‘Not so fast.’ She seized the orange herself. ‘One’s enough for the two of you. The others’ll keep for later. But who’s going to peel it — that’s the question?’
She made a show of looking around the table.
‘I know — Mr Madden!’
She passed him the fruit, then sat back with folded arms to watch as he plucked at the rind.
‘Now you see what you’ve let yourself in for.’
Tommy, too, had been eyeing him from across the table.
‘Was you a copper once, mister?’ he asked, bolder now that he and his sister were getting used to the tall stranger’s presence.
‘Yes, I was, Tommy. But that was a long time ago. I’ve got a farm now. It’s not far from London.’ He caught Nelly’s eye. ‘You must bring them down,’ he said. When the weather gets warmer. Let them come and spend a week with us. Helen’s always saying the house seems empty without children.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see about that.’ Nelly was at pains not to show any undue pleasure at the invitation, but the flush in her cheeks betrayed her true feelings.
‘Have you got a horse, mister?’ Tommy had been paying close attention.
Madden nodded. ‘An old mare called Daisy. I use her for getting about the farm.’
‘Can I ride ‘er?’
‘You certainly can.’ He nudged the small figure on his lap. ‘What about you, Sally? Do you want a ride on Daisy?’
She shook her head, still too shy to speak.
‘We’ve got other animals. Rabbits and dogs and cats …’
‘What about piglets?’ She spoke up at last.
‘Oh, we’ve got lots of those.’
His task complete, Madden divided the orange in two and handed half to Tommy. Then he began to separate the other half into individual lobes, popping them one at a time into Sally’s open mouth. She chewed luxuriously, oblivious of the juice running down her chin. Nelly watched for a minute, shaking her head, then got up and went to the sink, returning with a damp cloth which she handed to Madden.
‘Here — you’re going to need this.’
She studied him while he mopped the little girl’s face and then took care of her hands, one finger at a time.
‘You’ve done this sort of thing before, Officer Madden.’
‘We’ve got two of our own, Nelly. They’re grown-up now. Rob’s in the navy. He’s serving on a destroyer. Lucy joined the Wrens this year.’
Madden bent his head to look at the small face below his.
‘There now. Is that better?’
Nelly guffawed. She clapped her hands.
‘Right, now. Off to bed, the two of you. I’ll be up in a minute to say goodnight and if you’re good there’ll be a piece of chocolate for each of you.’
Tommy scampered off obediently, but Sally lingered on, leaning back against Madden’s chest, head tilted to look up at him.
‘She wants you to carry her upstairs. That’s what her dad always does when he’s here.’
Madden rose at once and, hoisting his small giggling burden on to his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, he bore her up the narrow stairway to the children’s room at the top of the house, which he found papered with daffodils and decorated with a poster of a Spitfire speeding through a sky darkened by the smoke of exploding anti-aircraft shells, its guns blazing. Tommy had already slipped into his pyjamas — he was lying beneath the bedclothes — but it quickly became apparent that the process would take longer with his little sister, who was in no hurry to dispense with the services of the willing slave she’d acquired.
‘What? Not in bed yet, young lady?’
Nelly had dallied in the kitchen to clear the table before coming up. She stood in the doorway now with a fierce frown.
‘Someone doesn’t want their bit of chocolate.’
Sobered by the threat, Sally abandoned her delaying tactics and, helped by Madden, who was sitting beside her on the bed, struggled to push her hands through the narrow sleeves of her flannel pyjamas.
‘Come on,’ he coaxed her, as he’d once coaxed Lucy when she’d been little. ‘Let the dog see the rabbit.’
‘What rabbit?’ Tommy shot up in bed.
‘Now see what you’ve started.’
Laughing, Nelly shooed him out, and a few minutes later she joined him in the kitchen downstairs.
‘They’ll be looking for that rabbit all night.’
In her absence Madden had emptied his bag on to the table.
‘That’s a bit of home-made cheese, Nelly, and some butter, too. And I can vouch for this pork pie. Nobody makes a better one than May Burrows.’
Nelly Stover ran her hands over the greaseproof-paper parcels. She sighed.
‘I reckon it’s time we had that cup of tea.’
Silence fell between them as she busied herself with the kettle. At the table, Madden sat lost in thought. Nelly glanced at him over her shoulder.
‘I used to wonder what happened to you,’ she said. ‘After you left Bethnal Green. After I heard you’d quit the force. I’ve never forgotten what you did for my Jack. It might have seemed a small thing to you, bringing him home to me instead of taking him down to the station. But it’s small things like that can make a difference to a boy’s life.’
She poured boiling water into a teapot, emptied it, spooned tea-leaves into the heated interior and then refilled the pot.
‘Take Alfie Meeks now. He never had a chance, poor lad. Not with a father like that. Jonah used to hit him with his belt, and he made a point of using the buckle end. You could hear Alfie yelling up and down the street. But Vera couldn’t do nothing. She was too scared.’