Half an hour later I made breakfast for Hazel. She looked even more wan than yesterday. ‘You have to eat something. Your dad would want you to,’ I said, persuading her to take some bread and butter and a glass of milk. ‘It’s going to be all right now. Today’s the day he comes back.’ I squeezed her hand in mine. She didn’t squeeze back but neither did she immediately pull her hand away, which was something. Six years of war had taught us how resilient kids could be: they had seen their families buried in rubble or graves and still those children managed to survive. I just hoped she could find it within herself to keep going until her father was free.
When the telephone rang, I jumped and hurried to it. ‘Hello?’ I said, lifting the receiver.
‘Mrs Cawson?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘This is Detective Sergeant Tibbot at Tower Hamlets Central. We met yesterday.’
The relief washed through me. It was a step towards getting Nick back. ‘Oh, thank you so much for calling,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
‘I haven’t done anything yet,’ he replied. ‘Why did you want to speak to me?’
‘My husband. You know who took him.’
There was a pause. ‘Yes, I know.’
I tried to weigh up his tone of voice. Given his age, Tibbot had probably joined up forty years earlier. He had been there long before the Soviets arrived, long before they had helped Blunt’s comrades set up NatSec. A lot of the older police felt the same way about them as the rest of us, and I had seen Tibbot’s anger when Grest had pushed him aside at Lorelei’s house. But I didn’t want to tell him that Grest had come for me: it would put him on guard, wondering if anything he said would get back to them. ‘Can you help me find out about him?’
He hesitated. ‘That’s not really for me to do.’
‘Please, I just want to know if he’s all right and if he’s coming back or…’ I left it hanging because my own words brought home to me the fact that he might not. I waited.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ said Tibbot.
‘He has a daughter.’ I was growing desperate.
There was another pause, and he answered in a voice harder than before. ‘I can’t help you.’
He hung up and the line hummed with a mechanical buzz. By now Nick had been in their custody for eighteen hours. At least they hadn’t found what was in Lorelei’s house, I told myself. But suddenly, thinking of that, a thought struck me.
According to Hazel, Lorelei had been storing those secret items in the house even when she and Nick were together – meaning there was a good chance he had been involved. In that case, if NatSec were to search our own house, there was no telling what they would find. If there were something incriminating, I had to get to it first.
The place to start looking would be Nick’s study, where he did his paperwork. That door was always locked and he said that was because it contained confidential medical records, but now I wasn’t so sure. And I knew the key was in his chest of drawers in our bedroom.
I looked through the doorway to where Hazel was waiting to see if the call had brought news about her father. ‘I’m sorry, it was nothing. Do you have a friend you would like to go to today?’ I asked, even though I presumed they would all be at the Liberation Day events. ‘As soon as your dad is back, we’ll come and collect you.’
She shook her head, dejected that it wasn’t news that Nick was coming home. ‘I want to stay here with you,’ she said. I was surprised by the closeness of those words. Our shared fears for Nick seemed to have brought us together. ‘Can I?’
‘Yes, of course. I just have to do some things upstairs. You could listen to the radio or to some records. Take your mind off things.’
‘OK.’
She went to her room and I looked up towards Nick’s study. Perhaps it would provide the key to what I had found hidden in Lorelei’s house.
10
In May, four months after he caught me falling out of a train at Waterloo, Nick met me outside Lambeth Records Office, where we signed the marriage register. He had bought a bunch of sunflowers and Sally threw a packet of confetti over us as we left the building.
I think Sally had a bit of a soft spot for Nick herself, and it was the morning of October the twenty-fifth, a few weeks before Liberation Day, when I received a letter from her that ended with: So tell me about the dashing doctor. When will he do the decent thing and get you knocked up? After all, IT’S OUR DUTY TO THE STATE. I wondered if any censor reading the last line would hear the irony in her words.
What she didn’t know was that I already was pregnant. When, in August, I had missed my first period the thought had occurred but I didn’t pay too much attention. Then I’d missed another and soon each morning had become a scramble to the bathroom to be sick. I would see women with children in pushchairs and I couldn’t stop myself smiling. They always smiled back and I was sure they could tell. Nick had performed a test – he called it an hCG test – and told me I was definitely pregnant. While he had been closely monitoring my temperature and blood pressure, I had been thinking about names.
It was chilly that October evening as I walked up and down the steps of the Brookfield Hotel until Nick arrived at last, wearing his evening suit. I was in the simple white dress I had worn at our wedding, and we were there for some dreary function with a bunch of Party dignitaries, welcoming Comintern delegations from Poland and Russia. Nick thought he might be able to make some connections that would be helpful for his career, but I had felt ill all day and didn’t want to be there. ‘Hello, darling,’ he said as he started out of the cab. I was about to kiss him but as he fully emerged I saw that he wasn’t alone. Charles was behind him. I took Nick by the arm and led him away as Charles paid the fare.
‘Why is he here?’ I asked.
‘He was the one who got me invited. He heard there are going to be some very important people here tonight. You know Charles – always star-struck.’ He looked at me, concerned. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Let’s go inside.’ We went to the corner of the lobby. Charles waited a little way off. ‘What’s wrong?’ Nick asked.
‘I’m feeling quite sick.’
‘Oh.’
‘This is bad timing, isn’t it?’ I said, forcing a smile.
He smoothed down my hair. ‘All right. It’s just morning sickness – they really should call it something else. But shall we go home anyway?’
I was grateful to him and was about to say yes, I did want to go home and curl up by the fire or listen to the evening concert on the radio, when Charles strode over. ‘Dr Cawson, I really do think we should try now, before he sits down to dine,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘He won’t be here very long. Just for Comrade Burgess’s address, then he’ll probably go.’
I must have looked confused. ‘A patient of mine is at the Ministry of Food,’ Nick explained. ‘He’s offered to introduce me to one of Burgess’s people tonight.’
‘Who?’
‘Ian Fellowman. Assistant Secretary of State Information. In charge of broadcasting.’
‘It would be excellent to meet Comrade Fellowman,’ Charles added. ‘Of course, there’s no real chance that we can meet Comrade Burgess himself. He–’
‘Charles, could you give us a minute?’ Nick said, without looking at him.
‘Yes. Of course, Dr Cawson.’ He went through into the ballroom.
There was a silence between us. I really didn’t want to be there. ‘Would it be useful to you?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘An Assistant Secretary is a useful contact, and perhaps things could develop from there. I’ve heard his usual GP is planning on retiring soon.’