by Roland Moore
Connie and Siegfried shared a smile. Esther threw Connie a confused look. Connie hoped she would realise that she was stalling; playing for time; rather than cosying up to the enemy.
Esther stopped scrubbing and stood motionless for a moment. She was biting her lip nervously and glancing anxiously at Connie. Her body language was screaming that something was wrong. What was she playing at? Connie needed her to get a grip before Siegfried noticed. She couldn’t have got freaked out by Connie joking with him, could she?
Connie shook her head to try to convey a message.
Calm down.
Esther shot a look of panic back, motioning towards her wrist. And then Connie realised the root of the problem.
Esther didn’t have a watch.
She didn’t know what the time was.
No, no! What had happened?
Had she had it on earlier or forgotten? Maybe she’d taken it off when she washed her face in the bathroom this morning.
It didn’t matter.
Connie had to worry about what was going to happen, not the journey that led to that point.
She glanced at her own watch and then splayed three fingers against her crimson skirt so that Siegfried wouldn’t see. For the time being, he was distracted; looking towards the open door, where winter sunlight was pouring in.
Three minutes.
Three minutes.
Joyce was empty; a staring, unthinking, exhausted husk. She had almost forgotten that the knife was in her hand.
Then the parcel, with its unfamiliar handwriting, swam back into view. Who had sent her a parcel? She was certain it wasn’t from anyone she knew. What did it matter now? Parcels didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now. She already knew what she had to do; what she was expected to do. The details of the plan had come swimming back into view; but Joyce found it difficult to think straight. She found it difficult to care.
She didn’t have the strength. She’d been through so much. She wanted to curl up under that eiderdown and let tearful and exhausted sleep wash over her. That’s what grieving people did, wasn’t it? That’s what she should be allowed to do.
Not this.
But time was running out.
She knew that everything was about to change.
And yet, she couldn’t find the energy; the motivation to continue; the impetus to even put one foot in front of the other and leave the room.
Joyce struggled to focus.
Come on, think of Esther. And Connie. They needed her.
She couldn’t hear any voices downstairs. What were they doing? Her left-hand tensed, feeling the handle of the breadknife, unyielding and warm with her perspiration.
She thought about Finch, Esther, Connie and all that had happened. A world ripped apart, the war finally landing on the bucolic doorstep of Pasture Farm. Nothing would ever be the same again. She yearned for the time before, when the war was only starting, and it hadn’t blighted her life. A time when making different decisions may have led her somewhere, anywhere, other than this bedroom at the farm, on this day.
Joyce gripped the knife, took a deep breath and moved towards the door. The floorboard near the door creaked, as it always did.
She knew that her war was about to end, one way or another.
But then she froze, finding it impossible to move forward. She had always been the stoic one; hiding her loss and soldiering on; the one who obeyed all the posters and advertisements from the War Office; the one who found a purpose thanks to the war. But she didn’t have anything left. The losses had mounted up and she couldn’t do it anymore.
She couldn’t do this.
Joyce dropped the knife to the floor.
Channing didn’t hear the knife fall as it clattered to the bedroom floor. He was busy putting unused bandages and lint back into his medical bag. He nodded to Emory that his work was complete, and the German pulled down his stained business shirt over the newly dressed arm; wincing as he did so.
‘What is your plan?’
A note of distrust was still present in the German’s voice.
‘We simply walk out of here. You make it look like you’re forcing me to comply with your wishes.’
‘I use the gun?’ Emory pulled the gun from the jacket pocket.
Channing nodded. ‘It’s a simple plan. But in my experience, they are the ones that work. You hold me across the chest and walk behind me with the gun at my side. I’ll look a suitably terrified hostage and I’ll get you into my car and we’ll drive away.’
‘This will work?’
‘I sincerely hope so. My life is on the line here as much as yours is.’ Channing looked at him coldly. This man was a burden; an irritant who could wreck everything.
‘Now, I was told there were two of you. Where’s the other one?’
One minute.
Connie placed a final egg into her basket and splayed one finger on her dress for Esther to see. Esther nodded, her mouth moving slightly. Connie assumed she was counting down the seconds. What was she doing?
But then Connie felt Siegfried brush against her.
‘What is going on?’ He had seen Esther’s behaviour too.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were signalling to her.’ Siegfried turned to look at Esther. ‘What is going on?’
Connie suspected he had a feeling that something was happening. It was like that feeling you get when you walk into a room where two people have been talking about you.
Esther froze, the old look of terror turning up like an uninvited relative. Connie’s mind whirred, as she desperately tried to think of something.
‘I was saying I think we’re done here.’ Connie tried to cover. Then she realised that there may still be forty seconds or so to go – until Joyce was synched to do her part of the plan. How could she stall him?
‘In fact, another forty seconds or so and we’ll be finished.’
That was a mistake.
Too specific.
‘You’re not as clever as you think.’ Siegfried gripped Connie’s face with his hand. He squeezed her cheeks together and forced her head round to look at Esther. Connie couldn’t speak. Siegfried addressed Esther.
‘What is happening? What are you planning?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me, or I’ll break her neck!’
Connie tried to speak, but Siegfried’s hand was pinching her cheeks together. She struggled and Siegfried raised his other hand into a fist. She wasn’t going to wriggle out of this.
‘No!’ Esther screamed.
Connie used the momentary distraction to knee Siegfried as hard as she could. The German screamed and doubled up in agony; spittle falling from his open mouth as he retched.
Connie didn’t have time to celebrate. She started for the door; Esther following as quickly as she could.
‘Lock him in here while I get the gun! Lock him in!’
Connie was out of the door and running hell for leather towards the shed.
‘Stop! You witch!’ Siegfried rose painfully to his feet. Esther looked at him, calculating what to do. But she hesitated for too long. She seemed mesmerised as Siegfried used the wire on the cages to drag himself up. His face was red, and his eyes were wet with tears. He gasped for breath as he steadied himself on shaky legs.
Esther snapped out of it.
She ran to the entrance, ran through it and closed the door. She was about to slide the bolt across when Siegfried pushed hard against the door, sending it smashing open.
‘You get out of the way!’ Siegfried pushed Esther onto the ground, as he stumbled and ran towards the yard.
But in the parlour, Emory heard the shouting. He gripped the pistol and moved towards the door. A confused Channing followed.
Thirty seconds.
Joyce stared numbly at the knife on the floor. She didn’t care if they’d heard it. She couldn’t go on.
But then something made her look back towards the bed, towards the package. Joyce picked up the parcel and held
it in her hands, confused, numb. And then she tore it open.
When she saw the contents, nestled within the ripped brown paper, Joyce felt like she’d woken from a dream. It wasn’t possible. How could this be? Her fatigued mind fumbled to make connections; fumbled to make sense of this impossible package.
Chapter 15
Four days to Christmas, Birmingham.
Trade had been slow. Bethany Wallace watched the men and women rushing by. They had more haste than usual; keen to finish their shopping and beat the queues at the butchers for Christmas day. The drizzle and cold weather of the last two days hadn’t helped; and the snow at the start of the month hadn’t either. They kept their heads low and their hats pulled down. Few of them were distracted in their tasks by the menus that hung in the window; and fewer still came in over the threshold.
Each time someone neared the door, Bethany would prepare her best smile, a menu ready in her hand. For the most part, it was a smile that was never seen as the people kept walking instead of coming in.
She knew it would be like this. Having run Butler’s Tea Rooms for seven years, Bethany had seen the repeated patterns of feast or famine and was sanguine about it. Her brother, Barnaby, was less inclined to shrug it off, worrying about each fallow day that the restaurant suffered. He would be the one pacing around in the upstairs flat as Bethany tried to sleep in the next room. He would be the one who would drink too much as he worried about their rent and the wholesale prices they had to endure.
Bethany had never married. Instead she had taken it upon herself to look after Barnaby, who had been afflicted with severe asthma all his life. This was the reason that he hadn’t had to go to war. It pained her to see the customers who would look down their noses and quiz him as to why he wasn’t fighting. Every day someone would ask.
‘Why aren’t you fighting then, son?’
Once, someone had sprayed the word ‘conchie’ on the windows outside, deciding erroneously that Barnaby was a conscientious objector. This daily stress only added to Barnaby’s anxiety.
This current slack period had lasted a week and a half. Bethany knew it would pick up between Christmas and New Year, and again, better than ever, in January.
‘What are we going to do?’ Barnaby was worried.
‘What we always do. Wait.’
She’d made a list of tasks and jobs that needed doing. During the busy periods, they never had time to do them, but the slack periods were ideal for repairing a shelf, repainting a wall or revising a menu. Barnaby was always annoyed at helping with these jobs, thinking that they distracted him from the business of willing customers inside solely by the power of thought.
A few days ago, Bethany had taken it upon herself to clear their lost property box. It hadn’t been done in ages, and some of this stuff went back several years. She threw away the items that she’d find hard to reunite with their owners; the umbrellas, the scarves, the books; the teddy bears; and concentrated on the ones that she might rehome. She had found it an exciting process, trying to find addresses for names; tracking down people. It was like doing detective work and that felt more thrilling than managing a tea room. Bethany wished that she had worked in the police force. She’d often imagine what it would be like writing up case notes for the officers where, of course, she’d solve the crimes; spotting things that the men had missed.
But no, she was running a tea room instead.
And now, the postman, the elderly Joshua Burton, stopped his bicycle outside, tipped his hat to Bethany and brought in the post. Seeing him approach, Bethany wondered if he’d want a cup of tea, but decided that he might view her offer as being on the house. She couldn’t afford freebies; not this time of year. The postman gave her a bundle of mail.
‘Here’s today’s for you, Miss Wallace.’
‘Thank you, Mr Burton.’
When she looked at her letters, Bethany was disappointed to see that the parcel had come back. It had a Coventry postmark and was sealed within a small hessian sack with a note explaining why it couldn’t be delivered. She’d sent it off a few days, perhaps a week, ago when she first worked on the lost property box.
‘The house isn’t there anymore,’ Bethany read the note giving the reason for the return.
‘Ah, that’s that then.’ The postman touched his cap.
‘Not necessarily,’ Bethany was warming to her idea. ‘Maybe I can find out from the War Office where she moved to …’
‘She’s lucky you don’t give up.’ Joshua considered. ‘She’s a lucky woman, this Joyce Fisher …’
One day before Christmas.
With the countdown forgotten and the knife on the floor, Joyce Fisher stared at the contents of the impossible package. There was a small note on lilac notepaper inside. The headed paper was from Butler’s Tea Rooms and it had been signed by someone called Bethany Wallace.
She read the handwritten note.
Dear Mrs Fisher,
I hope this finds you. This item was handed to us a few years ago. It was found dumped in the street outside our restaurant. I would have sent it sooner, but we’ve only recently had a clear out of our lost property. I apologise for the delay.
But when I sent it to your address that I found stitched inside, it returned to me saying that the house wasn’t there anymore. And that’s when I had the most fortuitous piece of luck in finding you. I telephoned the War Office and explained my predicament and they let me know that you are a land girl in Warwickshire.
If it is you, please find enclosed the purse you lost nearly four years ago.
Yours sincerely,
Miss Bethany Wallace
Joyce held the purse in her hands, feeling its shape and texture. It was strange, four years ago she would handle it nearly every day, but now it felt odd and outsized in her hand. She’d got used to making do with a smaller one since it had been stolen. She opened it. Any money that had been inside had long gone thanks to that thieving Alice Ashley, or whatever her real name was. Joyce was about to put the purse down when she spotted a sliver of white paper sticking out of one of the pockets. She pulled it up out of its leather enclosure and looked at it.
It wasn’t a piece of paper.
Some days change your life forever. And Joyce knew that today was one of those days.
It was a small photograph of the house on Friday Street in Coventry. Joyce’s old home. There were people smiling outside the house. Joyce was standing with John, her mother and sister. They were all smiling for the camera as Charlie took the photograph.
At the time it was nothing special; a forgotten moment. But now, it was the only photograph Joyce had left.
The only image of her family.
And they had come back to her.
Joyce traced the tiny image of her mother, proud in a house coat. On that day, she’d been baffled by the need to come outside and have her photograph taken. But Charlie had borrowed a camera from somewhere. Joyce remembered her mother wanting to go back inside, fearing that the neighbours would wonder what they were doing. Look at them with their airs and graces. Joyce had told her not to worry. Stuff what people thought. She’d touched her mother’s shoulder to put her at ease and her hand was still there when the photograph was taken. Gwen was looking pissed off, annoyed perhaps at another one of Charlie’s get-rich schemes. This time he’d wanted to be a photographer. Weddings would be profitable, he said. And maybe even funerals. Gwen had frowned with contempt, quashing that idea. Then Joyce remembered that Charlie’s friend wanted the camera back and that was the end of that scheme.
And there they were; a moment long gone, on a street that was no longer there.
Joyce was surprised as she felt her spirits lift. She couldn’t work out the reaction. Maybe it was because she had something; a memento more reliable than her memories. She could look at their faces; see their personalities; remember how they were. Maybe it was because it had come back into her life when she was feeling at her lowest ebb. But whatever the reason, now she had something to
touch; a solid reminder of the time before the destruction of Coventry. Whatever she was going through, she could look at that old image and remember a time of love and joy.
Now, she could see her mother’s face as clear as on the day it was taken. She knew they were still with her, watching over her. She felt her strength returning.
Tears came, but this time they were happy, hot tears of joy.
They’d come back to her.
At a time when she’d needed them the most.
At a time—
God, the time!
With horror, Joyce realised that the deadline had passed! The ten minutes had ticked away and she hadn’t noticed. She was two minutes late.
Connie and Esther were out there!
And she was two minutes late.
Joyce clutched the breadknife in her hand and ran out of the bedroom dreading what she would find outside and hoping against hope that they would be all right.
The life-changing photograph was left on the eiderdown.
Connie ran into Finch’s shed; scanning the cluttered surroundings for the shotgun. Where was it? At first, she couldn’t see it among the junk, broken tools and off-cuts of wood. Talk about needle in a haystack. But then she saw it propped up against the work bench.
She plucked it up into her hands. It was a heavy, single-barrelled Purdey. Outside the sound of fast-moving boots was getting closer. She didn’t have much time. Snapping it open, Connie was relieved to see it was loaded, but she couldn’t see any other shells. But then she saw a small hessian sack that contained about six more. Stuffing them messily into her pocket, she snapped the gun shut and ran back into the yard, nearly colliding with Siegfried.
He skidded to a halt as she brought the shotgun to bear on him. Esther was running up behind, and in the distance, Connie could see the other German running from the house. Doctor Channing was with him and Joyce was some way behind, coming out of the door.
Where had she been? Why hadn’t she stopped the other German like she was supposed to?
‘Get back or I’ll shoot!’ Connie waved the gun threateningly at Siegfried.
Siegfried hesitated and then grabbed Esther; using her as a human shield.
