The Jigsaw Puzzle

by Jan Jones

  ‘Repeated clumps?’ said Leo. ‘How can you tell? It looks completely mad and higgledy-piggledy to me.’

  ‘Not if you think about how it was made.’ Frances’ index finger moved across the horizontal cuts on the Aunt Bridget puzzle as if she was reading lines of print in a book, left to right and then down to the next. ‘The saw blade goes from one edge to the other, cutting loops above or below the line as it travels. Sometimes the cut is level between the loops, but sometimes the maker has put in a gentle wave. After you’ve done all the lengthways cuts, you turn the frame by ninety degrees and do all the top-to-bottom ones. Regular cuts give regular pieces, but where the waves cross each other you get these crazy angled ones.’

  Leo bent his head to look. ‘I see. So this line goes up-loop, wave, up-loop, wave, up-loop, down-loop, down-loop, wave and so on.’

  ‘Exactly. All beautifully random.’

  ‘I can see quite a lot that go wave, up-loop, wave,’ objected Leo.

  ‘But not next to other repeated blocks,’ said Frances. ‘For instance –’

  Penny was having slight qualms about her daughter sitting so close to Leo. Frances might be artistically gifted, but she was the most un-streetwise teenager in Salthaven. A stranger was simply a friend she didn’t know the name of, and Penny still wasn’t wholly convinced by Leo. Oh, he seemed very open on the surface, and was certainly amusing to be with, but she really knew very little about him. She broke another two eggs into the poacher and changed the subject. ‘Last night, Leo, when you said those addresses didn’t exist, what did you mean?’

  He swung around. ‘Just that. There is no record of The Seaview Emporium in any trade directory for this area. And before you say maybe these advert-jigsaws weren’t to do with the war after all, there are no ‘emporia’ of any kind listed in Salthaven for the last hundred years. No phone number registered to that name. And no shops anywhere along Cliff Road.’

  Penny jiggled the eggs thoughtfully. ‘It might not have been a shop. How about a mail-order service run from home? You can call yourself anything as long as the local post-people know where to find you.’ She pushed the jigsaws aside to make room for three plates and shared out the toast.

  ‘You’ve got a point there.’

  ‘And the Home Welfare section may have been too temporary to be registered.’

  ‘No, that definitely didn’t exist. Oh, is this for me? You shouldn’t have.’

  Penny looked at his ingenuous face. ‘That line needs work,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t the Home Welfare section exist? It sounds as if it should.’

  ‘Doesn’t it just? Lovely official name, but a complete fabrication. Have you any salt? Thank you. Home Welfare was nothing to do with the Red Cross either – their welfare division didn’t start until 1946.’

  ‘So what was it?’ said Penny, puzzled.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? A convenient, authentic-sounding address. Somewhere to send documents and parcels that no one would pry into en route because of the magic Red Cross label. And as you say, if the local post office knew where it was supposed to be, it wouldn’t matter that the place wasn’t in the wartime equivalent of the yellow pages.’

  ‘But the Red Cross organisation is neutral.’ Penny was shocked.

  He dug into his egg. ‘Of course it is. This doesn’t mean the parcels came from them. All someone needed was access to the labels, Penny.’

  Just to smuggle jigsaws home? It didn’t make sense!

  There was something else that didn’t make sense either. After she had chivvied Frances off to the bus stop for sixth form college, she made two more mugs of tea and said, ‘If you want my help, Leo, you’re going to have to be a bit straighter with your information. What started you on this hunt? You were looking for old jigsaw puzzles at the church fete, but that 1942 advert only mentioned wanting photographs and prints for the war effort. There was nothing there about jigsaws.’

  ‘That’s very perceptive.’

  ‘I am perceptive. I’ve brought up three children.’

  The tiniest shadow passed across Leo’s face. Penny remembered too late that his own child lived apart from him.

  He stirred his tea reflectively. ‘After I came out of hospital I needed a distraction. I needed to do something. I went through my cuttings file for anything I could work on as a freelance. I came across a WW2 Cabinet Papers clipping that I’d found some time before. It was just a scribbled entry in a diary, but it had intrigued me enough to make a note of it. The entry read: ‘The Salthaven puzzles are proving most useful. Who would have thought it?’’

  ‘The Salthaven puzzles?’

  He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know what it meant, but spending holidays here with my great-uncle have always made me feel proprietary about Salthaven. I’d snipped the item because of the name, thinking I might follow it up one day. Then, on the NUJ website, I saw a post advertised with the Salthaven Messenger. I never pass up coincidences.’

  The explanation rang true, but Penny was sure it wasn’t the whole truth. ‘What sort of accident were you in?’ she asked.

  He gave her a wry look. ‘I had a car crash, breaking my leg in four places. Trust me, prolonged bed-rest isn’t ideal for a workaholic.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Penny drummed her fingers on the table. ‘So you took the job here because you thought it would be less stressful? Easier than London?’

  ‘That was the idea, but I’m now going out of my mind reporting on how the recession is affecting the bed & breakfast trade.’ Leo tapped the jigsaws. ‘What do you say to these being cut into a code?’

  And now he was changing the subject. Penny let it go. ‘A code? How? And what would be the point?’

  He levered himself up. ‘No idea, that’s what makes it fun. Frances’ comment about repeated sections suggested it to me. I’ll email photos of these to a boffin mate of mine. Meanwhile you investigate your address book for anyone who might know how the post was delivered in 1943.’

  So they were partners now? Penny was startled by the gratified flicker this gave her. Even so, she wasn’t about to be taken for granted. ‘You’ll be lucky. Anyone who was delivering the post in 1943 will be in their nineties!’

  ‘Great-uncle Charles is ninety-four and he can remember those days as clear as anything. The only thing he has trouble recalling is whose round it is.’

  Penny suspected that particular trait might run in the family. ‘Leo, I do have a life. For a start, I need to drop off more clothes at the hospice shop. I can’t rent out the bungalow with Mum’s possessions still in possession. So to speak.’

  Leo’s eyes gleamed. ‘Why not spread the bounty around? One bag of clothes per charity. Then you can ask in each shop if they’ve ever had old photo-jigsaws brought in. What we need is a body of evidence.’

  ‘What you need is a body of evidence, you mean. I’ll give you the bungalow key – you can haul the sacks of stuff around yourself.’

  ‘You can’t fool me, Penny. You know you want to find out what it’s all about too,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘And you’ve got all these delicious local contacts. It would be a sin not to use them.’

  The worst of it was that he was right.

  In fact, finding out about wartime post was laughably easy. The lady who used to deliver Penny’s mail had now retired and helped out in the hospice shop. Penny had already known she’d followed in her mother’s footsteps by joining Royal Mail so it was a simple matter to introduce the subject into the conversation while she was dropping clothes off. It turned out Effie’s mother had been with the Post Office her whole working life.

  ‘Oh yes, Mum used to do the Salthaven sorting. There was a bit of bother when the men came back after the war, because she said she needed a wage as much as the next person with Dad gone, and she wasn’t going make way and live on the welfare when she’d been doing the job just fine for the last six years. She was ever so fast. Beat all the others hollow. She still thinks postcodes are unnecessary.’

  ‘My word, she m
ust have known everyone in Salthaven.’ This was hopeless. Penny could hear herself sounding more like a fake Agatha Christie character by the second. She decided Leo could do his own dirty work. ‘The new reporter on the Messenger is looking for human interest stories,’ she said. ‘How about if he takes you and your mum out to tea one afternoon?’

  Effie considered, her head on one side. ‘I think she’d rather have a nice stout at the pub, if it’s all the same to him.’

  ‘I haven’t been to a pub at lunchtime for years,’ said Penny, holding the door as Leo manoeuvred the wheelchair of Salthaven’s one-time chief postmistress into the Crown & Anchor. ‘This feels very decadent. I suppose you’re used to it.’

  ‘It’s a common fallacy that journalists live in bars,’ said Leo. ‘Nowadays we all use the internet.’

  ‘Hi, Leo,’ said a cheerful waitress. ‘Usual table?’

  Penny chuckled.

  Old Rose, as she was known, was thoroughly enjoying herself. The dining room had a grand view of the river and the main bridge linking East and West Salthaven, so there was plenty to look at and comment on. She eyed the tape recorder Leo set up, observing roundly that they didn’t train young people to memorise any more. Not like in the old days.

  ‘They do,’ replied Leo without batting an eyelid. ‘This is so when you sue me, I can prove you really did say all those indiscreet things.’

  Old Rose cackled delightedly. Penny had brought along Mum’s jigsaw and envelope to see if it jogged any memories. She waited for Leo to draw the old lady out, then asked if she remembered delivering envelopes like this.

  ‘Ooh, I haven’t seen one of those for years. That does take me back. The Home Welfare people were always getting packages. Effects, we thought they might be, seeing as they were through the Red Cross.’ Her eyes misted. ‘All those poor young men.’

  Leo agreed it must have been a sad job and casually asked where the Home Welfare section had been situated.

  ‘Cliff Road, up in West Salthaven,’ said Old Rose promptly. ‘We were ever so pleased, because before the war it was all parties and picnics and tennis there – never thought they had it in them to do much good. Lovely parties, mind. Best of everything laid on in the way of food and champagne. Shame he never married. There was one very nice young lady … but then, she was French, and she went back to be with her family. Didn’t like to ask what became of her. Big place. Room for a dozen welfare departments.’

  ‘All those houses are flats or guesthouses now,’ said Penny. ‘I always think it’s a pity, but I suppose it’s better than them being pulled down and built over. Which one was it, Rose?’

  ‘Outlook House, dear. Didn’t I say? Lots of people they had living there during the war. Polite, but odd, if you know what I mean. All from London, I daresay. They weren’t locals.’

  Leo’s hand jerked, spilling his beer. He mopped it up, a blank look on his face.

  ‘And where was the Seaview Emporium?’ asked Penny, after a swift look at him.

  ‘That was up at Outlook House too. Sideline, I reckon. Couldn’t have been any money in it because it didn’t carry on long.’

  Rose continued to reminisce. After a few minutes Leo pulled himself together and joined in. Interesting, thought Penny, watching him. He’s had a shock, but he’s still functioning as a journalist. And then she thought it wasn’t odd really, it was just human nature. She’d been knocked endways by Mum’s death, but there was still laundry to do, still Frances to look after. There were still local functions to attend and meals to cook. You simply had to get on with it.

  ‘Do you mind walking?’ said Leo as the cab containing Rose and Effie disappeared over the bridge. ‘I need to clear my head.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ Did sitting for a long time make his limp worse or better? Penny eyed him surreptitiously as they strolled along the wide street bordering the river. What was it about water that made the world seem more peaceful? Beside them, day boats sailed past, a cabin cruiser nosed into a berth, the river police launch chugged by. Lovely.

  ‘I suppose you’ve guessed Outlook House was where my great-uncle lived.’

  Penny shrugged apologetically. ‘I couldn’t see why else you’d freak out.’

  Leo sighed and thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘I don’t know why I should be surprised. Uncle Charles has invented stuff all his life and he was at university with chaps who went on to be ‘something in politics’. So he’d have connections as well as that sideways, back-room-boy mentality. I can just see Outlook House being turned into an oddball ideas factory to help with the war effort.’

  ‘Like Q’s workshop in the Bond films?’

  ‘Exactly like that. Do you know what clinched it? It was Rose talking about picnics. I suddenly remembered a jigsaw of a picnic that I used to play with when I stayed here. It fascinated me because it was so extraordinary. Grown-ups in their best clothes with a tablecloth on the grass outside and everything arranged properly on plates, with knives and forks. In a batty way it fitted the whole batty house. Let me see your envelope again.’

  There were benches placed at intervals so people could sit and watch the river. Penny sat down and rummaged in her bag. ‘I forgot to say – there’s a thank you note written on the inside of the envelope. Saving paper in wartime, I suppose. Here you are.’

  He squinted to read it. She saw a shock of recognition in his eyes. ‘Another clincher,’ he said. ‘Penny, I think this is Uncle Charles’s writing.’

  Penny gazed through the Victorian wrought-iron railings at the river. Sun sparkled on the water. Boats bobbed gently at their moorings. The tang of salt air came up from the sea, mixing with the familiar, ever-present smell of barley from the Seagull brewery. It was ridiculous to feel down. ‘Then it’s easy,’ she said briskly. ‘You can get the whole story straight from the horse’s mouth. End of puzzle.’ The odd feeling must be the effect of a glass of wine with lunch, she decided, and had a sudden huge thirst for tea.

  ‘You’ll have to come too,’ said Leo.

  Penny was startled right out of her doldrums. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Oh come on, Penny! I can’t sit down for a whisky and soda with my great-uncle and ask him if he happened to be involved in WW2 espionage.’

  ‘You big wuss.’

  ‘Got it in one. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  Penny stared at him. Did he read minds as well? ‘I’d kill for one.’ She scanned the shops lining the road. ‘There’s a café across there if it’s not full of tourists.’

  Leo grinned and climbed over the railing. ‘Who needs a café?’

  Penny’s eyes widened. Leo had stepped aboard a neat blue-hulled cruiser and was fitting a key into the hatch lock. ‘What are you doing?’ she shrieked.

  ‘Putting the kettle on.’

  She darted through the nearest gap in the railings. ‘Leo, whose boat is this?’

  ‘Mine. I live on it.’

  ‘With your leg?’

  ‘Well no, obviously, I take that off and leave it on the bank.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’m not a cripple, Penny.’

  She’d offended him. She hastily followed him on board. ‘Sorry. You said you’d broken your leg in four places – I assumed a boat would be hard work, physically.’

  ‘I manage.’

  Oh dear, she really had offended him. She cast around for something to make amends. ‘I’ll come and see your uncle with you if you really want me to.’

  Leo disappeared down the cabin steps. She heard him strike a match, heard him set a kettle on the hob. ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK.’ He came back up to the cockpit. His sudden change to cheerfulness suggested she’d been had. ‘Have a look around if you like.’

  Penny couldn’t resist the invitation. She’d been on boats before – living in Salthaven it was difficult not to – but there was something endlessly fascinating in seeing how everything was arranged to make the maximum use of the space.

  She wasn
’t sure what she’d expected, but as soon as she descended the steps she realised that the boat felt like Leo. The saloon was neat and tidy, not in a minimalistic way, but because everything had a place. And all those places were used to capacity. Frances would love this, thought Penny as she lifted a seat cover to reveal a cubby hole stuffed with books. On the shelf above the seat was a photo of a small dark-haired boy, one of those endearing first school photos taken before the child has quite grown into his new uniform. There was no photo of the boy’s mother. The kettle was boiling. Penny turned off the gas, only to realise that the engine had started. What’s more, the boat was moving!

  She shot up the steps. ‘Leo! I said a cup of tea – not a cruise!’

  ‘We’re going to visit Great-uncle Charles.’

  They were what? ‘I can’t!’ she said in consternation. ‘I’ve got things to do. I have to be back when Frances gets home.’

  ‘Text her. She’s got a key, hasn’t she? Penny, if I don’t do this now, I’ll start thinking about it and then I won’t do it at all.’

  Madness. Penny always thought about things first. ‘Why by boat?’ she said helplessly.

  ‘I don’t have a car.’

  ‘Why not? Motability do adapted ones if your leg is a problem.’

  His voice flattened. ‘It’s not that. Leave it, Penny.’

  A tiny shock rooted her to the deck. She had been thinking of Leo as a pleasant opportunist, but all of a sudden he’d shown a streak of granite. She looked at his set face, thinking she might have to reassess him.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continued, still staring ahead at the rippled water as he steered to one side of a line of half-grown ducks. ‘This is quicker than going by road. Thwaite Hall is only fifteen minutes down the river.’

  His great-uncle lived at Thwaite Hall? That was a very posh retirement home indeed. It had been a proper manor house until the family had run out of money and were forced to sell. And Leo had retreated somewhere inside himself. Penny went below and made the tea with a great deal of unnecessary noise. When she brought the mugs up to the cockpit, they’d left Salthaven behind and were heading upriver. Woodland had taken the place of roads and houses. It was nice, but Penny still felt perturbed. ‘Handy,’ she said, ‘your uncle being close.’