The Wayward Wife

by Jessica Stirling

  The bus ground to a halt. The conductor, a taciturn old fellow, fumbled with the door handle and put down a short wooden ladder to enable the female passenger to climb aboard. She pushed the suitcase into the aisle between the benches and, in a cloud of cold air, followed it.

  The conductor retrieved the ladder, closed the door and from beneath the skirt of his coat fished out a machine like a mousetrap from which he extracted a ticket. The woman paid her fare and settled on the bench opposite the men. The bus shuddered, lurched round in a circle and prowled uphill past the deserted market square.

  Half hidden by a hood, the woman’s solemn features were just visible in the faint light. Her ungloved hands, slender and long-fingered, were clenched in the lap of her coat. She continued to look down at her hands until the bus stopped by the Cross where the road to Deaconsfield branched off into stark, silent orchards and icy fields.

  ‘Is this as far as you go?’ she asked, looking up.

  In this weather, the conductor told her, it was.

  Griff was fast off the mark.

  ‘Are you getting off here, miss?’

  ‘Yes, it seems I am.’

  ‘Allow me to assist you with your suitcase.’

  The conductor opened the door and dropped the ladder. Danny signalled Griff to exit first then courteously took the young woman’s arm to help her alight.

  She gave a little nod of gratitude and stepped down into the swirl of powdery snow that blew off the hedges.

  They stood together, all three, and watched the bus swing back towards the High Street and disappear.

  ‘At the risk of being inquisitive,’ Griffiths said, ‘might I ask who you are and what you’re doing at Deaconsfield Cross all alone on a cold winter’s night?’

  ‘Katarina Cottrell. I expected to be met.’

  ‘Met where? Here? No chance of that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No, at the station. I have papers.’

  ‘Papers? What sort of papers?’ Griff said.

  They huddled close, facing each other. She had slipped the hood and Danny could make out dark hair and dark anxious eyes. She had the trace of an accent and might, he thought, be a Russian, a Pole or a refugee from some country in the Balkans.

  ‘I’ve come to work at Wood Norton. I was told I’d be met by a welfare officer.’

  ‘There’s obviously been a cock-up somewhere,’ Griff said. ‘I think we should take a look at these papers of yours.’

  The hooded garment was neither coat nor jacket but a light half-length thing. She had a scarf at her throat but no gloves and her shoes, Danny noticed, were quite inadequate for negotiating icy country roads.

  She crouched by the suitcase, opened it and brought out a large envelope. She closed the case and, rising again, handed the envelope to Griffiths. He switched on his pocket torch and scanned first the envelope and then the documents it contained: a typed letter on BBC notepaper, two khaki-coloured employment cards and a travel pass.

  ‘Well,’ Griff said, ‘if you are a German spy they’ve done a damned good job of forging the stationery. What do you think, Danny?’

  ‘Looks okay tae me.’

  ‘I’m not a spy,’ the woman said. ‘I’m a British citizen. Do you wish to see my identity card too?’

  ‘Where’s your gas mask?’

  ‘In my case.’

  Griff brought up the letter, held it close to his nose and poked the torch beam almost into the paper.

  ‘There’s an address where I’m to be lodged; a house in Deaconsfield, wherever that is,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll find my own way there if you’ll point me in the right direction.’

  Griff peered at the letter again and laughed. ‘We can do better than that, Miss Cottrell. We can take you there.’ He flapped the letter in Danny’s direction. ‘Guess what, old boy: she’s landed a billet with the Pells.’

  ‘You’re kiddin’.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘I wonder if Mrs Pell’s been informed,’ said Danny.

  ‘If she hasn’t,’ Griff said, ‘she’s in for a big surprise.’

  The previous August, with war inevitable, Broadcasting House had been scoured of more than half its personnel. Twenty-two variety artists and an orchestra had been packed off to the Bristol studio, others sent to Manchester or Bangor or as far afield as Glasgow. But the BBC governors had failed to foresee that imminent invasion would not be so imminent after all and that the great British public, egged on by irascible newspaper columnists, would swiftly become bored with a dreary diet of news bulletins and organ recitals and demand more and better entertainment from the wireless.

  By the beginning of the year, the first full year of war, the balance of programming had been adjusted and the listening public largely appeased.

  Appeasing a government reluctant to communicate was another, less public matter and a need to disseminate information while giving nothing away had become a thorn in the flesh of the BBC’s policy-makers. High-level, closed-door arguments as to what constituted reasonable comment as opposed to flagrant propaganda came down as mere whispers to the rank and file, however, and even Basil Willets wasn’t privy to all the issues at stake.

  Mr Willets was small, sharp-featured and, though not yet fifty, almost, if not quite, bald. Appearances could be deceiving, however; he was not afraid to take the initiative when all around were dithering, an approach that served him well when it came to getting his own way.

  Mr Willets’s office was situated off the corridor that surrounded the studios on the third floor of the tower. As offices went it was fairly spacious and held not only Mr Willets’s desk but, unusually, a small, almost child-sized desk for his assistant, Susan Hooper.

  Carrying her shorthand notebooks, Susan followed Mr Willets into the room. A nervous young civil servant from an unspecified ministry trailed after them and, while Susan busied herself at her desk, exchanged a few words with the producer before he was shown the door.

  ‘Fool!’ Mr Willets said, sighing. ‘If he supposes for one moment I’m going to take heed of anything that originates with his ministry he’d better think again.’ He looked up. ‘You didn’t hear me say that, Miss Hooper, did you?’

  ‘Say what, sir?’ said Susan.

  Mr Willets uttered a wry little snort that was his substitute for laughter and lowered himself on to the upright chair behind his desk.

  ‘Do you wish me to type up the minutes, sir?’

  ‘Lord, no. For all that’s in them, tomorrow will do.’

  ‘May I go?’

  ‘By all means.’ He rocked back on the chair, hands behind his head, like a captured prisoner. ‘Just before you do, tell me, Miss Hooper, what do you make of them?’

  ‘Make of what, Mr Willets?’

  ‘The first crop of ideas,’ he said. ‘Please, be frank.’

  Susan perched on the edge of her desk, folded her arms and pondered an answer.

  ‘I think,’ she said at length, ‘you put them on the spot.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Which,’ Susan went on, ‘was rather unfair. You gave them no advance warning of what you expected from them, therefore they had nothing to say.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I believe you have ideas enough of your own, Mr Willets, and you called another late-night meeting simply to forestall criticism that you’re …’ Susan hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Uncooperative.’

  He snorted again. ‘I see I’ll have to keep an eye on you; you’re too clever by half. Now, what do you make of The Times listing the wavelengths of German radio stations for the benefit of its readers? Why do you suppose German broadcasts in English are so popular here?’

  ‘They have top-notch newscasters.’

  Mr Willets brought the front legs of the chair to the floor and propped his elbows on the desk.

  ‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘They have radio “stars” backed by excellent research. The Germans also have the advantage of uncertainty, of being able to tr
ade on our doubts and fears. Something we – I mean this department – won’t have when it comes to broadcasting to America. What we need first and foremost is a strong, convincing voice that people will trust.’

  ‘Must it be someone from within the Corporation?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Perhaps an American might best fill the bill.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Mr Willets said. ‘You know, I never thought of that. Trouble is, the best of the American journalists are already under contract to CBS.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ Susan said.

  He cocked his head and studied her.

  ‘Do you have a candidate in mind, Miss Hooper?’

  ‘Actually,’ Susan heard herself say, ‘I do.’

  The cable of the lamp wouldn’t stretch as far as Danny’s bedside and the room’s only electrical socket was over by the window which was why the lamp had been placed on the floor and Danny, wrapped in quilt and blankets, was seated on the side of the mattress with Susan’s letters scattered around him.

  It would have been simpler to use a pocket torch but Griff claimed they were running low on batteries and must economise. With the sheepskin coat over his shoulders, a cigarette in his mouth and an ashtray balanced on his chest, he appeared content to sit up in bed and watch Danny pore over the letters from home.

  Danny wasn’t surprised when the Welshman said, ‘Can you hear her, boyo? I swear I can. Breathing as gently as a summer breeze on her scented pillow next door.’

  ‘She’s snorin’, that’s all,’ said Danny.

  ‘Beauties like our Miss Cottrell do not snore.’

  ‘She isn’t our Miss Cottrell.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Griff. ‘But fate has been kind to us, Danny boy. Fate has been very kind, indeed.’

  ‘Fate has nothin’ to do with it. Some erk in admin cocked up,’ Danny said. ‘It’s just as well Mrs Pell saw the funny side, an’ had a bed to spare. I wonder what happened to the letter from Welfare. Lost in the post, like as not.’

  ‘Now we have her, I trust we’ll keep her.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody daft. She’s a clerical error. By tomorrow night she’ll be settled somewhere else.’

  ‘Mrs Pell is much taken with her.’

  That much was true; precious few landladies would have greeted the unannounced arrival of a bedraggled stranger with such composure. Mrs Pell had taken it all in her stride. Dumplings had been added to the stew, more potatoes to the pot and a hot bath drawn to thaw out the poor lass. By the time supper had been served in the living room Katarina Cottrell – Kate – had been relaxed enough to answer the Pells’ questions.

  The only child of an Austrian mother and an English father, she had been born in Linz, where her father had taught modern languages in the International Academy. She’d been educated at an English boarding school and had gone on to Oxford where she’d gained a First in Teutonic Studies, soon after which, on a tutor’s recommendation, she’d been invited to join the BBC’s monitoring unit.

  ‘Are your parents still in Austria?’ Danny asked.

  ‘No, they left Linz in 1935. My father found a teaching post in a public school, St George’s, near Coventry. He’s still there, still teaching.’

  ‘And we’ve got you?’ Griff said. ‘Only the best for old Hogsnorton. We pinched that name from one of Gillie Potter’s pre-war monologues, by the way.’

  He’d gone on to explain that work in the villa was not all sweat and tears and had mimed some of his colleagues’ more outrageous eccentricities until Mrs Pell had reluctantly called a halt to the proceedings and shooed them off to bed.

  It was late now, almost midnight, but Griff continued to wax lyrical on what joys the future might hold.

  ‘It’s obviously escaped someone’s notice that two red-blooded males are already in residence chez Pell. We must be up with the lark tomorrow to see what strings we can pull to keep Miss Cottrell here,’ Griff said. ‘You wouldn’t mind that, Danny, would you?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Danny, gathering up Susan’s letters. ‘I wouldn’t mind that at all.’

  5

  Neither Breda nor her mother quite grasped the ins and outs of the war in Europe in spite of all the chat Stratton’s customers exchanged over the tea mugs and coffee cups. Nora, in particular, couldn’t understand what was going on between the Russians and the Finns up there in the frozen north, and, to the despair of her ‘lodger’, Matt, and her son-in-law, Ronnie, continued to refer to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as Herr Stalin.

  The rationing of sugar, butter, bacon and ham worried Nora more than the rumours that Hitler had his sights on Belgium and Holland. Breda, however, was more able when it came to squaring up to possible shortages. She was fast out of the starting gate in currying favour with anyone who could help keep the larder filled and it wasn’t long before extra stocks of sugar and salted butter piled up in the cupboards in the terraced house in Pitt Street, paid for by her wages, not Ronnie’s.

  It also crossed Breda’s mind that if things got worse – and not everyone was sure they would – then she might call in her dues from her daddy who, she didn’t doubt, would know people who knew people who would soon have the keys to a vast emporium of goods, lost, stolen and strayed, that might make wartime life more tolerable.

  On nights when Ron was on duty she’d lie in bed and try to calculate just how many tins of peaches she might need to see the family through a war that had no end in sight.

  In the room next door Billy was curled up in an army sleeping bag that his grandpa had bought from a shady market trader. Breda was warm enough in the double bed, provided she didn’t roll too close to the outside wall, which was usually Ron’s place anyway. She was still struggling with the problem of dividing days of the year into tins of fruit when she heard the stealthy creak of the bedroom door and saw a shadow pass across the wall above her head.

  ‘Ron?’ She sat up. ‘Ron, is that you?’

  No answer came from the shadowy figure.

  ‘Ron,’ she said, ‘for God’s sake stop muckin’ about.’

  The torch beam, as blinding as a searchlight, encompassed her. She opened her mouth to scream, then, remembering Billy asleep next door, clamped a hand to her mouth and drew her knees up to her chest.

  Her first thought was that the Germans had invaded Shadwell in dead of night and that she was about to be raped. That was how they would do it, her father-in-law had told her. They’d come dropping down out of the skies on their parachutes when nobody expected it to round up all the men and rape all the women before they took over the country.

  Breda peered, dazzled, into the light, and listened for sounds of other men, other Germans, crashing about in the kitchen or, worse, gleefully scrambling upstairs to pin her down and take her one after …

  ‘Is he here?’ said a voice, in English.

  ‘Uh?’ said Breda.

  ‘Leo Romano, is he here?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’

  The beam slithered away, picking out objects in the room one by one then climbing up the far wall to illuminate the ceiling as if her daddy might be hanging there like a bat.

  ‘Don’t gimme that,’ the voice said.

  She peered at the figure at the foot of the bed: no webbing, no buckles, no swastikas, no gun. The intruder, she realised, wasn’t a German invader but a plainclothes copper in the belted trench-coat and soft hat that was practically a uniform for the sneaky pigs from the Yard.

  ‘Leo Romano, your father,’ the copper said.

  ‘Oh, that Leo Romano,’ said Breda. ‘Ha’n’t seen ’im in years. What you want with ’im anyhow?’

  ‘Never you mind what we want with ’im. Is he here?’

  ‘Does it look like ’e’s ’ere,’ said Breda. ‘Nobody in this ’ouse but me an’ my kid. What you doin’ breakin’ in after dark without a warrant when my hubby ain’t ’ome?’

  ‘Don’t need no warrant,’ the copper said. ‘D
on’t you read the papers, girly? No use you yowling about illegal entry. We’ve got a free ’and now. Where is he?’

  ‘I told you, I ha’n’t seen—’

  ‘Your husband, I mean.’

  ‘What you wanna know that for?’

  ‘My report,’ the copper said. But there was something in the way he said it, a slight patronising edge, that made Breda wonder if he really was a copper after all.

  ‘My ’usband’s a fireman. He’s on watch up at the Oxmoor Road station, you must know.’ She sat forward. ‘You ain’t no copper, are yah?’

  ‘’Course, I am. Special Branch.’

  ‘What’s special about it?’

  ‘Special powers. Now, who else is here?’

  Doubt increased her caution. ‘Only my kid.’

  ‘I’ve searched ’is room already. He didn’t even stir. I found all that stuff you got stashed away downstairs, though.’

  ‘Bought an’ paid for, all bought an’ paid for.’

  ‘Hoarding’s illegal, case you didn’t know,’ the man said. ‘I could have you up for that.’

  He came closer to the bed and Breda saw his face above the torch beam for the first time: a youthful face, younger than the voice suggested, with an ugly scar meandering down from the corner of one eye to the point of the jaw.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I ain’t got time to frig around. If you know where Romano’s hiding, you’d better come clean.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Breda said. ‘Honest to God, I don’t.’

  To Breda’s relief he pulled back and, swinging the big torch like a drumstick, tapped the bed-end. ‘Say nothing about my little visit, not to no one, not even your hubby. If Romano does turn up you let me know pronto.’

  ‘How do I let you know?’

  Her question brought him up short. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that if her old man did happen to appear on her doorstep she might telephone Scotland Yard but she was too scared to push the point.

  At length, he said, ‘You see your daddy, you tell him he better turn himself in. He don’t, we’ll make it hot for his nearest and dearest, you included. Got that?’

  ‘He won’t come ’ere, but if ’e does, I’ll tell ’im.’