And yet, if she had been involved in subversion, as NatSec’s presence seemed to suggest, what could have brought her to it? Her friend George Orwell had been through one of the re-education camps at Ian Fellowman’s behest. Had there been other friends who had suffered? Perhaps that had hardened her feelings and pushed her to make contact with people who thought as she did. After all, during the War, we had seen acts of extraordinary courage from people one wouldn’t have expected to act that way – housewives who had joined SOE and lived in occupied France with the prospect of Ravensbrück hanging over them; quiet family men who, when the time came, led battalions into the teeth of the German guns. I suppose we all have the capacity within us – it’s only a question of circumstances.
‘We’re stuck there,’ Tibbot sighed. ‘Unless we can get into this book of hers, we’re blind.’
I had a thought. ‘There was something else I found,’ I said.
‘Go on.’
‘Stay here.’ I went to my room and fetched the photograph of Nick, Lorelei and the dark-haired woman. I had put it from my mind because the book had seemed far more important.
‘The car isn’t theirs, I think, so it’s probably that woman’s,’ I said, handing the photograph to him.
‘Probably,’ Tibbot said. ‘But I can’t see that it means anything.’
‘But it’s how I found it – it was hidden at the bottom of a drawer, covered in a sheet of paper.’ I was trying to convince myself as much as him.
‘So? I’ve got photographs in my desk under paper. It protects them from dust.’
‘Well, yes, but I thought,’ I hesitated, not wanting to tell a police detective his job. ‘It’s Nick and Lorelei together. How many men keep photographs of them with their ex-wives? It’s strange.’ And at the back of my mind was the thought that it was also disturbing – was it something that I wouldn’t want to know? ‘And she’s written on it, “To a brighter future!” That must mean something, mustn’t it? It’s something we can try.’
He looked unconvinced. ‘Jane, it’s something to look into, but please don’t get your hopes up. Most of these kinds of… odd things, turn out to be nothing to do with what you’re investigating; they’re just a distraction. The truth is, nine times out of ten, it’s just a nasty little domestic incident. No big crime.’ He sat back in his chair and pointed to a badge on the car’s front grille. ‘Nice machine. Sunbeam. I remember them.’ He closely examined the woman in the driver’s seat holding a glass of wine. ‘So who is she?’
At least he was taking an interest. ‘I don’t know. Hazel says she recognizes her a little but doesn’t know who she is.’
‘Is there anyone else who might know? Someone you can trust to keep all this to themselves – you understand?’
‘Yes. I suppose I could try Charles. I’m not sure it will help, though.’
‘Give it a go.’
I knew he was right. I went to the telephone. My call was answered as immediately and efficiently as I had come to expect.
‘The consulting rooms of Nicholas Cawson, Charles O’Shea speaking.’
‘Charles, it’s Jane Cawson.’
‘Oh, Mrs Cawson. Has Dr Cawson been released?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said.
‘Could you do something for me?’
‘I will try.’
‘Could you come here? There’s something I want you to look at.’
‘Mrs Cawson, I am at work, running the surgery.’ He sounded irritated.
‘I fully understand that, Charles. Please come here.’ I was firmer with him than I had been before.
‘Very well.’
‘You put him in his place,’ Tibbot said, as I returned to the parlour.
‘Yes, I suppose so. He can be very difficult.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh, nothing much. He’s just very off-hand. Nick says it’s because Charles went to Harrow and resents having to take orders from a grammar-school boy, let alone from me.’
‘I’m sure that’s quite the comedown in his world.’
After twenty minutes, Charles stood in the hallway, brushing down his jacket and muttering about the cost of having come by cab. Tibbot was waiting out of sight upstairs. On the way to the parlour, Charles tripped over the paraffin lamp that Nick used when the smog was heavy or when the electricity to the house cut out, refilling it from one of the nearby bottles of oil that also went into our heaters. He swore in annoyance.
‘Do you remember this photograph being taken?’ I asked when we had sat down.
He glanced at it. ‘No.’
‘You weren’t the one holding the camera?’
‘No, I don’t believe so.’
‘What about this woman?’ I said, pointing to the driver of the car.
‘No idea. A friend of your husband, I presume. And his wife.’
‘You’re positive you don’t know?’
He took out one of those foul Soviet cigarettes, tapped it on the packet and lighted it. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you know when it was taken?’
Charles looked at it again briefly and shrugged. ‘Pre-War?’
‘Pre-War? Nick doesn’t look that young. A few years younger, perhaps. And, look, there’s bomb damage to the street.’
‘If you know yourself, why are you asking me?’
‘Charles,’ I soothed my own voice. ‘Nick is in trouble. I think we can help him. But I need to know who this woman is.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘But, Mrs Cawson, one thing I do know is that if you do anything that the Secs don’t like, such as poking around or talking to people about his arrest, it won’t go in Dr Cawson’s favour. Or in anybody else’s. If Dr Cawson has done nothing wrong, as I am sure is the case, he will soon be released and we can go back to how things were. It’s not worth the risk.’
He was being cagey and I knew why. I had once asked Nick why Charles didn’t get another job if he disliked being a secretary so much. ‘Frankly, no one else would give him one,’ Nick had replied. ‘His parents ran off to Northern Ireland with the Royals, you see – I believe his father’s from Dublin and was supposed to be some sort of envoy to the Irish government – and they’re up in Edinburgh with the new Queen now. So no one wants to touch him for fear of being tainted by that. But he was in my regiment on D-Day and when you’ve gone through that together, well…’ He drifted off and his face took on a troubled, faraway expression that I saw from time to time when the War came up. All I could do was place my hand on his arm and hope he understood.
‘Charles,’ I said, ‘I appreciate what you’re saying.’
‘I’m glad,’ he replied coldly.
‘I know your parents are in Edinburgh with the Queen–’
He jumped up. ‘What does that have to do with it?’
‘So you don’t want NatSec knocking on your door, but–’
‘I am not responsible for what my parents do.’ He angrily stubbed out his fag on the grate. My eye was drawn to the livid clutch of little blisters on his hand.
‘Of course not. I only meant–’
‘Are you responsible for what your parents do?’ he demanded.
Damn it. I had wanted to reassure him, but all I had done was to alienate him more. I was losing what little help he had been giving me. ‘I was saying that–’
‘Will there be anything else, Mrs Cawson?’
I gave up. I couldn’t think of anything worth asking and he probably wouldn’t have answered anyway. ‘No.’ He glared at me for a long time before he went to the front door. Just as he was about to open it, however, he whirled around and dashed up the stairs. ‘Who are you?’ he said angrily. He was staring at Tibbot. Tibbot didn’t reply.