The Londoners (52 page)

She spun on her heel, panic bubbling high in her throat. He’d taken Matthew and hidden him but he couldn’t get away with it. He
couldn’t
!

‘I can,’ Joss Harvey said with terrible certainty. ‘Two illegitimate children in little more than two years? The second one to a black sailor? No judge in his right mind would
grant you custody of Matthew when he could grant custody to me. You may have made a fool out of my grandson and a fool out of young Merton, but you haven’t made a fool out of Joss Harvey. I
knew what you were the first minute I set eyes on you. A scheming, money-grabbing, Kraut-trollop . . .’

She didn’t wait to hear any more. Nothing could be gained by staying to argue with him and he certainly wouldn’t listen to reason. She needed to get back to London as quickly as she
could and she needed advice; professional advice.

She rushed out of the house at such high speed that the butcher, a delivery made and an order taken, almost ran her over.

‘Do you want another lift?’ he asked unnecessarily. ‘Hop in. I’m going straight back to Taunton.’

‘’E’s done
what?
’ Miriam exclaimed, standing over her steaming copper, drumming the clothes clean with a posser. ‘’E can’t
’ave!’

‘You must go to the police!’ Christina said urgently, sitting at the kitchen table, Rose on her knee. ‘The police will help you. Kidnapping is a crime . . .’

‘You need a solicitor.’ Carrie had been putting her father’s shirts through the mangle, being careful to keep the buttons to the very edge, free of the rollers, so that they
wouldn’t break.

She let go of the mangle handle. ‘I don’t know where you’ll find one, but Miss Godfrey will know.’ With her eyes dark with compassion she crossed the kitchen floor,
hugging Kate tightly.

‘There’s something else you have to know,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Leon’s ship has been torpedoed. It was on today’s lunchtime news. There are reports
that some survivors were picked up by a U-boat, but that losses were heavy. I’m sorry, Kate. Truly sorry.’

The next few days were a nightmare. She wasn’t officially Leon’s next of kin, although when the naval authorities knew that she was carrying Leon’s child they
were duly sympathetic. Even so, there was very little they could tell her.

‘Some survivors of
The Maiden
were picked up by the U-boat that sank her,’ she was told when she enquired. ‘How many we still don’t know. Eventually the Red
Cross may be able to provide us with a list of names of those taken prisoner, but that won’t be forthcoming for quite some time. If we have further news we will of course contact
you.’

‘Kidnapping?’ the sergeant at Shooters Hill police station said, scratching the top of his bald head. ‘But didn’t you say, Miss, that the gentleman in
question is the child’s grandfather . . .’

‘Great-grandfather.’

‘And that he’s Mr Harvey of Harvey Construction Ltd?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that the child has been an evacuee with him since last March?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I don’t rightly see how Mr Harvey, having removed his great-grandchild to a place of safety, can be accused of having kidnapped him. You’re worrying unnecessarily, Miss,
if you don’t mind my saying so. All mothers of children still evacuated feel the same way, it’s only natural.’

‘But Mr Harvey no longer has Matthew with my consent!’ Kate persisted passionately. ‘And I don’t even know where he is!’

‘No-one knows where anyone is, these days,’ the sergeant said wryly. ‘Take my eldest boy. He’s with the Eighth Army in North Africa, but whereabouts in North Africa, God
only knows. As for Mr Harvey, he’s a very respected and responsible citizen. When those houses in Point Hill Road were bombed it was Mr Harvey who saw to it that temporary accommodation was
erected on the site almost immediately. Believe me, Miss, your little lad couldn’t be in better hands.’

‘And Mr Joss Harvey is the great-grandfather of the child in question?’ the solicitor Miss Godfrey had referred her to asked, taking his spectacles off his narrow
nose and placing them on his leather-topped desk.

‘Yes.’

‘And you were not married, or ever married, to the father of the child, Mr Harvey’s grandson, Toby Harvey?’

‘No. We were engaged to be married when he was killed at Dunkirk.’

‘And Mr Harvey has accepted that the child in question is his grandson’s child?’

‘Yes,’ Kate said, disliking the solicitor’s tone intensely.

‘And as I understand it, Mr Harvey’s objection to returning the child to your care is that you are at present pregnant again?’

‘Yes.’

‘And still unmarried?’

‘Yes.’

The solicitor picked up his glasses and replaced them carefully on his nose. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Voigt. Under the circumstances I don’t think I can act for you. Mr Harvey’s
reputation is unimpeachable and . . .’

Kate didn’t wait to listen to any more. As she strode out of the stuffy offices into the brisk March air, she wondered savagely if she would have been treated in such a cavalier manner if
she had been a man and had fathered two children out of wedlock.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ Carrie asked as they walked across the Heath, Hector and Bonzo bounding ahead of them.

‘I don’t know,’ Kate’s hands were plunged deep in her coat pockets, the knuckles clenched. ‘But I’ll think of something and I’ll get Matthew back.
Nothing
is going to stop me getting Matthew back!’

That evening, when she had put Daisy to bed, she sat before the fire, racking her brains for a way of gaining the kind of support that she needed. If only she knew whereabouts Matthew was, it
would be a help. The fire crackled and spat. Wherever he was, she had one thing to be thankful for. He was in the care of Ruth Fairbairn and being well looked after.

Her heart seemed to miss a beat. Ruth! Ruth had always been sympathetic towards her. Ruth wouldn’t have taken Matthew to another address if she had known that by doing so she was colluding
in a virtual kidnapping. If only she could get in touch with Ruth Fairbairn her problem would be solved!

‘Try contacting her via the
Lady
magazine,’ Harriet suggested helpfully. ‘All nannies read it because it’s stuffed with adverts for nannying
jobs. It’s where Mr Harvey probably advertised Ruth’s position.’

The notice Kate had inserted in the Personal column was short and to the point.
Would Miss Ruth Fairbairn please contact Miss Kate Voigt, 4 Magnolia Square, Blackheath,
London. Urgent.
‘If Ruth sees it, she’ll contact me,’ Kate said to Carrie, deep circles carved beneath her eyes. ‘God, but I can’t believe anyone can behave as
Joss Harvey is behaving!’

‘I can’t believe so many people seem to think he’s behaving rationally and within his rights,’ Carrie said grimly, thinking of the police sergeant and the solicitor.
‘Mum always says if she’s ever born again she’s going to be a man. I’m beginning to understand what she means.’

The week-long wait until the next copy of the
Lady
was published was the longest week of Kate’s life. What if Ruth didn’t buy the magazine that week? What if none of her
friends did either and no-one told her of the notice in the Personal column? Even worse, what if it came to Joss Harvey’s attention and he dismissed Ruth and moved Matthew to a different
address with a different nanny?

‘Cheer up, it might never ’appen!’ Billy called out to her cheekily as she set off down to Lewisham market to do some shopping. Clad in a moth-eaten jumper and short trousers
and a balaclava helmet and hob-nailed boots, he was straddling a branch of Miss Godfrey’s magnolia tree, waving a rusty bayonet high in the air. ‘Do you like it?’ he shouted down
to her. ‘I scrounged it from the ammunition dump. I’ve got loads more at ’ome. If the Jerries ever land I’m goin’ to multicrush ’em . . .! Pulverize
’em!’

Kate continued towards Magnolia Hill, wondering what else Billy had scrounged from the ammunition dump. It would be typically careless of Mavis to have allowed him to amass an arsenal in their
back garden. From behind her she could hear him singing lustily:

Despite all the worries on her mind, a smile touched the corners of her mouth. Billy, at least, was having a good war.

‘I didn’t see any sense in simply writing,’ Ruth Fairbairn said to her, standing on the doorstep looking like a vision from heaven, Matthew jumping up and
down excitedly in her arms. ‘As soon as I read the message I knew that you didn’t have a clue where Matthew was and that Mr Harvey had lied to me.’

‘Mam . . . Mam . . . Mam . . . Mamma,’ Matthew chanted, stretching out chubby arms towards her.

Kate was beyond speech. With a sob of joy and with tears of relief streaming down her face she reached out hungrily for him.

‘Mr Harvey told me you were quite happy with the new arrangements but that you wouldn’t be visiting as often because you were having another baby and the travelling was
difficult,’ Ruth said as Kate hugged Matthew so tightly that he yowled with protest. ‘I shall lose my job now, of course, but I don’t care. He was never an easy man to work
for.’

Between pressing kisses on Matthew’s rosy cheeks Kate said, ‘Come in, Ruth! Please come in! I’ve been out of my mind with worry! I was terrified you wouldn’t see the
message and I didn’t know what I would do if you didn’t!’

Ruth followed her into the house saying, ‘I never did like the set-up down in Somerset. Even though it was awkward, you not having been married to Matthew’s father, there was no need
for Mr Harvey to have made it
quite
so awkward. The staff didn’t even know your name when you first visited.’

Kate wasn’t listening to her. She was feasting her eyes on her son’s face, saying joyously, ‘You’re home, Matthew! You’re home and you’re never going to go
away again without me, not ever!’

Ruth stayed with her for the rest of the day, accompanying her down to the Jennings’ where Daisy was playing with Rose. They were still there, eating jam-filled pancakes that Leah had made
for them, when Bob Giles arrived.

‘What a nice vicar,’ Ruth said later as they eventually made their way home. ‘Did you say he was widowed? I like this part of London, Kate. It has all sorts of unexpected
attractions. I might try and land a job in Blackheath and if I do I might just start going out to church again!’

‘I’m glad you’ve got the little fella back home with you,’ Nellie Miller said to her as Kate bandaged her legs, ‘but you don’t want to be
too complacent. A man like old ’arvey won’t take kindly to being bested. What you need is a solicitor . . .’

‘No, I don’t,’ Kate said with feeling. ‘I went to a solicitor when I was trying to get Matthew back legally and he was stupefyingly unhelpful.’

‘That’s because he was a man,’ Nellie said dismissively. ‘What you need is a lady solicitor and I know just where to find one.’ She lifted a bandaged leg out of the
way with both hands and submitted the other leg for treatment. ‘This will probably come as a surprise to you, and it came as a surprise to my brother as well, but his eldest girl, Ruby, is a
qualified solicitor. Gawd knows where she got the learnin’ from, but she’s sharp as a razor and if anyone can take on old ’arvey, she can.’

‘Mr Harvey doesn’t have any legal rights whatsoever where Matthew is concerned,’ Ruby Miller said breezily, a cigarette crammed into the corner of a
carmine-red mouth. ‘And in case he thinks he can make a fight of it, in my letter of warning to him I shall point out that he is both a liar and a thief and that he runs the risk of these
regrettable qualities coming to public notice.’

‘A thief?’ Kate said, startled. ‘I’m not sure that . . .’

‘He stole your child from you,’ Ruby said flatly. ‘Pillars of the community do not resort to baby-thieving. Nor can they afford to be branded liars and I shall inform him that
I am quite prepared to testify against him on both counts. Now to practicalities, I don’t suppose you’re adverse to Matthew visiting him as long as you can be sure he won’t try
and pull another fast one on you, are you? It would be daft not to when that little nipper of yours could stand to inherit a tidy sum.’

‘If I do agree to Matthew occasionally visiting him, it’s not because of mercenary reasons, it’s because I know that it is what his father would have wanted,’ Kate said,
feeling breathless by the speed at which events were now beginning to move.

Ruby grinned and took the cigarette from her mouth. ‘I believe you, thousands wouldn’t. And I can promise you that from now on Mr Joss Harvey will mind his manners where you and
Matthew are concerned because if he doesn’t, he’s going to find himself languishing in a prison cell at His Majesty’s leisure. Would you like a glass of Jack Daniels? I have an
American serviceman client who keeps me well supplied.’

‘So now your worry is whether Leon was one of the survivors picked up by the Germans when
The Maiden
sank,’ Carrie said, her thoughts not only on Leon but
Danny.

It was now nearly two years since he had been taken prisoner and though she was able to make contact with him by letters and parcels sent via the Red Cross, the two years felt like twelve.

‘I
know
he was one of the survivors,’ Kate said fiercely, rolling out pastry for jam-tarts. ‘He survived when his ship was sunk off Norway and he’ll have
survived when
The Maiden
went down. If he was dead I would know. I would be able to
feel
it, in my heart. And he isn’t dead, Carrie. He said he would come back to me and one
day he will.’

All through the summer she waited for confirmation from the Navy that Leon had been picked up from the sea alive. None came. As the baby within her womb began to move and to
kick vigorously she lay awake night after night wondering if, before
The Maiden
had been sunk, he had received her letter telling him that she was pregnant.