The Londoners (51 page)

‘Does she know the bloody danger?’ another of Daniel’s colleagues asked him. ‘We haven’t got the fire under control yet and if she gets trapped down there. .
.’

As Christina wriggled down into the debris, Kate dropped to her hands and knees at the edge of the opening. Emily, at least, was alive. Surely if Esther had been killed by the blast Emily would
have shouted the news up to them?

Reading her thoughts, Daniel said, ‘They may not have been together when the bomb fell. They may have done what a lot of other people do when it’s only a nuisance raid. Ignored
it.’

From below their feet came the sound of muffled voices.

‘Have you got her?’
Daniel shouted down to Christina, a coil of sturdy rope in his hands.
‘Are we going to be able to lift her out?’

There was a silence that seemed to last for ever and then Christina’s voice shouted back, ‘We need to get the other Miss Helliwell out first. She isn’t conscious but
she’s alive.’

‘We’ll have to get a shift on, Daniel,’ Daniel’s colleague said to him, grim-faced. ‘The fire’s still alive below the rubble. It could reach them at any
moment.’

Daniel didn’t reply. Keeping firm hold of one end of the rope, he threw the coil into the narrow void at his feet. As he did so there was a hiss and a spurt of flame shot through a narrow
crack only feet away from him. A fireman immediately doused it with a hose but everyone who saw it knew what it meant.

‘You’d best get clear,’ Daniel said to Kate. ‘There’s nothing else you can do now.’

Kate ignored him. At the bottom of a deep dark shaft she could see the tops of two heads, one white-haired and one glossily dark. The glossily dark head turned, looking upwards.
‘She’s out cold, Kate! I’m going to lift her up as high as I can. If you can reach down and get hold of her . . .’

Laying flat on the rubble, Kate stretched down into the pit and, as Daniel and another fireman began to haul steadily on the rope looped around Esther’s chest and under her arms, did as
Christina asked.

As Esther’s lolling head began to surface, other hands came to her aid.

‘Christ! Is she dead?’ someone asked anxiously.

Someone else said, ‘She needs fresh air and she needs lying down. Have you got hold of her? Can you carry her somewhere where a doctor can look at her?’

From down below there came the sound of harsh coughing and a wisp of smoke curled into the air. ‘Are you ready with the rope?’ Christina shouted urgently. ‘The fire is on the
far side of the Morrison! We’re being choked down here!’

Daniel threw the rope down again and Christina looped it swiftly around Miss Helliwell. This time, the operation was easier. Dazed and disorientated, Miss Helliwell was hauled inch by
excruciating inch to the surface, like an unwieldy bucket from a well.

‘Oh, Kate!’ she gasped as Kate’s hands reached down to her. ‘Oh dear, oh dear! I was in contact with one of the dear departed when all of a sudden the world just erupted
around me!’

‘You were very near to being one of the dear departed yourself,’ Daniel said dryly as he lifted her free of the jagged opening. ‘Now let’s get Christina out of there
before she chokes to death.’

‘I can smell gas!’
one of the firemen shouted urgently.
‘Get everyone as far away as possible, Daniel!’

As the crowd of sightseers that had gathered in the debris-strewn road retreated prudently to St Mark’s Church’s grassy island, Kate leaned so far over the edge of the opening that
unseen strong hands grabbed her legs to prevent her from falling into it head first. Smoke stung her eyes and heat beat up into her face in waves.

‘Can you reach my hands?’
she shouted down to Christina.

She could hear Christina dragging something and then scrambling on top of it and then the pale oval of her face looked up into hers.

‘I think so . . .’

Somewhere, something gave. Kate was aware of shouts of alarm. She ignored them, stretching her hands down to Christina’s. Their fingers touched and then, with the blood rushing dizzyingly
into her head and the smell of gas nearly overcoming her, Kate stretched far enough to be able to grasp hold of Christina’s wrists.

‘Pull me back!’
she cried to whoever was holding on to her legs.
‘I’ve got her! Pull me back!’

Mr Nibbs, now aided by Daniel, pulled. Seconds later Christina was being hauled to safety and Kate was pushing herself up onto torn and bleeding knees.

‘Now let’s get the hell away from here!’
one of the firemen shouted.
‘There’s going to be a God-almighty explosion any minute!’

The explosion came only seconds later. Kate and Christina had only just reached the comparative safety of St Mark’s when the broken debris that had once been the Misses Helliwells’
home blasted scores of feet into the sky. Tiles on houses as far away as Miss Godfrey’s shattered down into gardens and on to the pavement. Every window in Mavis’s house blew out.
Flames leapt across to the tree in the Jennings’ garden, burning furiously.

‘Don’t worry,’ Bob Giles was saying comfortingly. ‘The firemen will soon have it under control. Other emergency services are already on their way.’

‘Blimey,’ Miriam said as she looked at the yawning gap which had once been the Helliwells’ home, ‘our Billy’s goin’ to be sick as a parrot missing this little
lot.’

‘And what about Mavis’s winders?’ Leah said, hugging a still whimpering Bonzo protectively to her chest. ‘I told her she should have kept the sticky-tape across
’em, but would she listen?’

‘Are you all right?’ Kate asked a violently trembling Christina.

Christina nodded, ‘Yes. And you? Your face is still bleeding.’

‘And my hands and my knees,’ Kate said with an unsteady laugh, vastly relieved to be suffering from nothing more than cuts and gashes. ‘How did you know I was pregnant? Was it
just a guess?’

Christina shook her head, a dark wing of hair falling across a soot-smudged cheek. ‘No, Carrie told me.’

They looked at each other, realizing for the first time the way they were clinging on to each other. Neither of them released their hold.

‘I think I’m becoming very English,’ Christina said, a hint of a giggle in her voice. ‘I’m in desperate need of a cup of tea!’

‘So am I,’ Kate said as Albert’s horse and hearse clattered into the Square. ‘And I think my house is going to be quieter than yours. Come on. We can patch ourselves up
with iodine and sticking-plaster while we’re waiting for the kettle to boil.’

With their arms still tight around each other’s waist, they began to walk across the grass.

‘God works in mysterious ways,’ Nellie Miller said to Bob Giles. ‘That fidgety bastard Hitler’s done those two quite a good turn if he did but know it!’

The following Saturday, leaving Daisy in Carrie’s care, Kate travelled by train to Taunton. Although she had written a postcard to Joss Harvey, telling him of the date
and time of her arrival, no chauffeured Bentley was waiting for her. She was in too happy a mood at the prospect of being permanently reunited with Matthew to be much put out. The wartime postal
service was erratic and Joss Harvey had obviously not yet received her postcard.

She stood on the pavement outside the station in the late February sunshine, her cherry-red coat buttoned up to her throat, her long mane of flaxen hair prudently twisted into a coil in the nape
of her neck. She could phone the house, saying that she was at the station, and then no doubt the chauffeur would come and collect her. Or she could get a taxi. She wondered what a taxi would
cost.

‘Excuse me, Miss,’ a young man in a clean butcher’s apron said a little nervously, ‘you’re Mr Harvey’s daughter-in-law, aren’t you? I’ve seen you
when I’ve been delivering to Tumblers. Is anything wrong? You look as if you have a problem.’

‘I’m just trying to make my mind up about something,’ Kate said with a friendly smile, recognizing him as one of Joss Harvey’s regular tradesmen. ‘And I’m not
Mr Harvey’s daughter-in-law. I’m Miss Voigt.’

The sandy-haired young man coloured slightly. He was as well aware of her single status as everyone else who worked or had business at Tumblers, but it hardly seemed manners to draw attention to
the illegitimacy of Mr Harvey’s great-grandchild.

‘If I can be of any help . . .’ he said hesitantly, eager to remain in her company for a little longer.

‘I was just wondering what a taxi would cost to Tumblers.’

‘I wouldn’t know about the price of taxis,’ the young butcher said, ‘not ever having any call for them. It’s a fair distance, though. Whatever the price, it
won’t be cheap.’

Kate frowned slightly . . . She hated the thought of telephoning and specifically asking to be collected from the station. It was too much like asking a favour of Joss Harvey. On the other hand,
she couldn’t afford an expensive taxi journey.

Thinking out loud, she said regretfully, ‘I think I’ll have to telephone the house.’

‘There’s no need for that, Miss,’ the young butcher said helpfully. ‘I’m on my way out there now. That’s my van across the street. If you’d like a lift,
it would be my pleasure.’

It was a far pleasanter ride than usual. He chatted to her about Toby, referring to him as ‘Mr Toby’. ‘I’d be about twelve and Mr Toby would be fifteen or sixteen,’
he said as they motored gently through the undulating countryside. ‘He took me fishing and I caught the biggest trout I’ve ever seen in my life. It were a grand day. He never had no
pretensions, Mr Toby. No pretensions at all.’

The pang of loss she always felt when she thought of Toby swept over her. Her hands clasped a little tighter in her lap. Thank goodness Leon had come into her life. Toby would have liked and
approved of Leon. Unlike Lance, Toby had possessed no snobbishness or prejudice where class or creed or colour were concerned. As her present companion had said so succinctly, he had had no
pretensions. None at all.

When they reached Tumblers the butcher dropped her off at the front of the house and then motored round to the rear and the tradesmen’s entrance.

She pressed the doorbell, fizzing with happiness at the thought that she would never do so again, at least not in order to visit Matthew.

‘Mr Harvey would like to see you, Miss Voigt,’ the maid who opened the door to her said, avoiding her eyes. ‘He’s in the drawing-room.’

Kate suppressed a surge of impatience. She didn’t want to see Joss Harvey. She wanted to dash up the stairs to the nursery and scoop Matthew into her arms and never let him go.

Briskly she walked across the hall to the drawing-room door and opened it. Joss Harvey had been grudgingly civil to her ever since it had occurred to him that she might one day marry Lance
Merton and the last thing she expected was a reenactment of their terrible interview in his boardroom. The minute she saw his face, however, she knew that that was exactly what was going to
happen.

‘You got here then?’ he barked ungraciously.

‘Yes.’ Her eyes held his unflinchingly. If he wanted to mar the occasion with rudeness and hostility then there was nothing she could do about it, but she certainly wasn’t
going to allow him to intimidate her.

‘And I suppose you think you’ve come for my great-grandson?’

He was standing in front of the marble fireplace, his legs apart, his hands clasped behind his back.

‘I don’t think,’ she said, stung into waspishness. ‘I know.’

‘No, you don’t.’ There was such triumph in his voice that warning bells began ringing in her ears. ‘I had a visitor last week,’ he continued, ‘and my visitor
told me a lot of very interesting things about you, Kate Voigt.’

She knew then. Before he said another word, she knew what was about to come. His visitor had been Lance. Lance had told him about Leon and that she was pregnant. And Joss Harvey’s attitude
towards Leon was quite obviously exactly the same as his informant’s.

‘I’m going to the nursery,’ she said crisply, turning away from him, knowing there was absolutely no point in remaining to talk to him.

‘Feel free.’ Joss Harvey rocked back comfortably on his heels. ‘You won’t find anyone or anything in there. If it comes to a court case I have no doubt at all that the
law will be on my side. You’re nothing but a trollop and totally unfit to have care of a child, certainly not
my
great-grandchild . . .’

She whipped round to face him, hardly able to believe her ears. At the gloating relish in his eyes the blood drained from her face. He wasn’t going to give Matthew back to her. He had
never had any intention of giving Matthew back to her.

‘What have you done with my son?’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘Where’s my baby?’

‘Where you won’t find him,’ he said succinctly.

Her heart felt as if it had ceased to beat. Without wasting another second in fruitless argument she spun on her heel, running from the room; running across the hall; running up the broad,
curving staircase; running along the corridor towards the nursery; running, running, running.

The nursery door rocked open. The room was empty. Not even the chest of drawers that had contained Matthew’s clothes remained. Around the lemon-painted walls nursery figures jeered down at
her. Miss Muffet. Tom, the Piper’s Son. Humpty-Dumpty. Wee Willie Winkie.