Murder at Bletchley Park E-Book

Christina Koning

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Blind Detective
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 412

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Spring, 1941. The Second World War has entered a dangerous phase, with British ships being torpedoed in the Atlantic and nightly bombing raids on major ports. At Bletchley Park, top secret home of the nation's code-breakers, the race is on to crack the German Enigma code and thus prevent further naval and military losses. This endeavour is suddenly very close to home for Frederick Rowlands, blind veteran of the Great War, when his daughter, Margaret, who works at 'the Park' as a cryptographer, is arrested on suspicion of betraying secrets to the enemy. Then a young woman is found murdered, and Rowlands is drawn into a deadly battle of wits where he must decode a series of clues that will lead him to the killer and enable him to discover the real traitor at Bletchley Park.

Leseprobe

3

MURDER AT BLETCHLEY PARK

CHRISTINA KONING

For Anna and Max

Contents

Title PageDedicationChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorBy Christina Koning Copyright

Chapter One

Cambridge was utterly silent and, he knew, as dark as it was quiet – the one condition, which was the blackout, bringing about the other. Not that the darkness made much difference to Frederick Rowlands. But it had certainly cast a spell upon the streets of this university town, as it had upon those of the capital, from which he had travelled earlier that day. There, the blackout had the effect of making sounds seem louder, as they did in thick fog, so that the roar of a motorbus or the clip-clopping of a rag-and-bone man’s horse seemed to come at you unmuffled by other sounds, such as the tramp of feet, or the murmur of a rush-hour crowd. Because, after three months of continuous night-time bombing, London’s streets were starting to get the deserted feel Rowlands recalled from the last war. It wasn’t quite the feeling that a curfew had been imposed (it hadn’t – or not officially), more that, if you didn’t have anywhere particular to go, you oughtn’t to be out. New sounds had also been added to the more familiar ones of traffic and people’s voices. The icy tinkle of broken glass, being swept up after a night’s raid; the sudden crash, as a building collapsed. The smell of the city had changed, too: now a smoky fog composed of brick dust and smashed plaster hung in the air, sometimes overlaid with fouler smells, of broken drains, and dank cellars full of rotting things, now exposed to view.

‘I think we must be nearly there,’ said his companion, breaking into these thoughts. Margaret sounded as if she didn’t quite believe this, however. After she’d met his train at the station, the two of them had agreed that it would be quicker to walk into the town centre, rather than to wait for a bus, which was likely to be crowded with home-going workers at this time of day. So, having turned out of Station Road, they’d set off down Hills Road and thence along Regent Street and St Andrew’s Street – not in itself a great distance, but it was funny how much further it seemed in the dark, said Rowlands’s daughter, adding, with a little laugh, that it was a good thing he’d only brought an overnight bag.

They turned at last along Downing Street, and reached the turning into Free School Lane.

‘It’s just down here to the left,’ said Rowlands. ‘If memory serves.’ Which, in his case, it usually did – memory having to stand in for the sense of sight. Not that it would be of much help in this pitch blackness, he supposed, if one could see. Through the darkness to their left, he knew, loomed the magnificent late Perpendicular Gothic edifice of King’s College Chapel – built by a succession of Tudor kings and eventually completed by the notorious wife-killer, for the glory of his immortal soul. Rowlands’s visual memories of the chapel, and indeed of Cambridge as a whole, went back to before the last war, when he’d come here as a representative of the publishing firm for which he’d worked at the time. He remembered wandering around the great building, marvelling at the splendours of its sixteenth-century fan-vaulting and Flemish stained glass, in the half-hour before his meeting at Heffers Bookshop in Petty Cury.

‘Here we are,’ he said, as they reached the junction with Bene’t Street. ‘I remember the cobblestones.’ These belonged to the courtyard of the Eagle – that well-known Cambridge hostelry, beloved of many generations of undergraduates. It was several years since Rowlands had last visited it, in the company of his old friend, the artist Percy Loveless. When last heard of, Loveless was in Canada – stranded there for the duration – having arrived in that country just before the outbreak of hostilities, in order to carry out a portrait commission. ‘This place is as cold as the ninth circle of Hell,’ he had written, with uncharacteristic gloom. ‘If anywhere could make me long for the dreary reaches of Notting Hill, then Toronto in midwinter is that place …’

Even if the feel of cobblestones underfoot hadn’t alerted Rowlands to the fact that they’d reached their destination, the sound of voices would have done so: it was only just past opening time, and yet the pub was already filling up with its regular clientele of rowdy students, glad to have finished with lectures for the day, as well as some older men – whether dons or college porters wasn’t always easy to determine – also taking a break from their labours.

‘What’ll you have?’ said Rowlands to his daughter as they reached the bar. ‘A nice glass of sherry?’

‘Daddy!’

‘Isn’t that what you university types usually drink?’ he said innocently.

‘No, thanks,’ was the reply. ‘I’ll have half a bitter, please.’

‘Right you are.’ He gave the order, and exchanged a few pleasantries with the barmaid – a friendly soul, hailed by all and sundry as Doris. ‘Busy tonight,’ said Rowlands, for something to say, as the young woman filled their glasses at the taps.

‘Oh, it’ll be busier still tonight, with all the RAF boys coming in,’ she replied, in the soft accent of the region.

‘I say, Doris my love, hurry up and get us some beers, will you?’ said a bold young man, standing behind Rowlands.

‘You mind your manners,’ said Doris, then to Rowlands: ‘That’ll be one-and-ninepence, sir, if you please.’

Rowlands paid her, and then he and Margaret carried their glasses over to a table in the corner of the back bar, which was quieter than the rest of the pub.

‘So,’ he said, having taken an appreciative draught of his pint. ‘What’s all this about your giving up your studies?’

Margaret didn’t say anything for a moment. Her father got the impression she was choosing her words carefully. ‘I’ve told you – I’m simply deferring my research until the war’s over. Lots of people are doing it.’

‘I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you want to join up?’ he said.

Again, there was a slight hesitation before she replied, ‘Not exactly.’

‘Then what are you intending to do?’ He kept his voice level, but really it was exasperating – his brilliant daughter, who’d delighted them all by winning a scholarship to Cambridge to study mathematics, and then had achieved further distinction after graduation by being offered a junior research fellowship, was now proposing to give it all up, to do … what? He took another pull of his beer.

‘I … I can’t tell you,’ said Margaret.

‘But surely,’ he persisted, ‘research was what you wanted to do? Or have you changed your mind?’

‘No … it’s not that. I still want to do it – more than anything else in the world. It’s just that I’m going to have to defer it until the war’s over … Oh, don’t ask me to explain!’ she cried suddenly, sounding so miserable that Rowlands instantly resolved to drop his inquisitorial tone.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about something else … How’s that young man of yours, these days?’

‘No, that’s not fair,’ she said, lowering her voice – although as far as Rowlands could tell, there was nobody sitting close enough to overhear. ‘You deserve an explanation. At least,’ she added, ‘as far as I can give one. I’ve been offered a job. In … in a government department. But that’s all I can say, I’m afraid.’

‘All very hush-hush, eh?’ said her father. ‘“Careless talk costs lives” and so forth?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you needn’t say another thing. I’ll tell your mother she’s not to ask you any more questions, either.’

‘Thanks, Daddy.’ The relief in her voice was all too apparent. ‘And he’s not my “young man”, as you call him,’ she added, in a lighter tone. ‘We’re just friends. Why, Jonty’s almost like a brother.’

Rowlands wondered if Jonathan Simkins, the son of family friends, felt the same. Wisely, he said nothing.

‘As a matter of fact, he’s joining the RAF,’ Margaret went on. ‘His engineering course at Durham has finished, anyway, and so he’s decided to waste no more time.’

‘Very public-spirited of him,’ said Rowlands, although his heart sank at the thought of all these young men and women who were so eager to join the war effort. Memories of his own youth, and the way he and his Pals had rushed to join up in 1914, to fight for what they believed was a noble cause, could not but cast a long shadow. He shrugged away the thought. ‘So I take it,’ he said, picking up the thread of an earlier conversation, ‘that you’d rather your mother and I didn’t come and meet you at the end of term?’

‘Yes,’ said Margaret. ‘That is … I won’t be coming home when I leave college. The … the job I’ve mentioned requires me to start straight away. I’ll be going into diggings.’

‘I see.’ He wondered if Edith would. He foresaw that he would have his work cut out, explaining all this to her, when he got back to London the following day. It had been his wife’s suggestion that the two of them should go and collect their daughter from Cambridge at the end of the Michaelmas term that had set the whole thing off. A neighbour, with a son at Downing, had offered to take them in his Austin, and to bring them back, with the two young people and their luggage, the following day. They would share the petrol costs, of course. This agreeable plan had brought forth an agitated telephone call from Margaret, in response to her mother’s letter, in which she (Margaret) had said that it wouldn’t be any use, their coming to St Gertrude’s, because she wasn’t going to be at college more than another week; nor would she be returning after the Christmas holidays.

This had been followed – at Edith’s insistence – by a telephone conversation between Rowlands and Miss Phillips, the mistress of St Gertrude’s, which had left him, if anything, more mystified than he was before. They had been informed by their daughter (he said) that she would be leaving university – apparently for good – in a few days’ time. He wondered what the reason for this might be. Was the college dissatisfied with her work? In which case, shouldn’t the matter be discussed, to see if it might be resolved? At which point, he was interrupted by the unexpected sound of the mistress’s laughter.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing like that, I assure you. You and Mrs Rowlands can set your minds at rest, where Margaret is concerned. In fact,’ Beryl Phillips went on, ‘we at St Gertrude’s are delighted with Margaret’s work. She’s become a real asset to the college.’

‘Then why on earth …?’ he began, but again, she silenced him.

‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss this on the telephone, Mr Rowlands. Perhaps you’d care to come and talk things over in person? Let me see …’ She must have consulted a diary. ‘I have some time available tomorrow … or later in the week, if you prefer?’ They’d fixed an appointment for the following morning. In order to be in good time for this (given the erratic nature of the trains at present) and so that he could see his daughter beforehand, Rowlands had elected to travel up on the previous evening, and to spend the night in one of the college guest rooms. Which was how he came to be sitting over a pint of Ruddles in the Eagle’s back bar, and feeling only a little the wiser as to how his daughter would be spending her time in the months that were to follow.

‘We should drink up,’ she said, in the faintly anxious tone that seemed to have become habitual. ‘If we want to get the bus back in time for Hall.’

Rowlands took another sip of his beer. He remembered those dinners at St Gertrude’s from the last time – now five years ago – he’d been staying at the college, during what had turned out to be a murder investigation. The memory, like everything else associated with that troubling episode, wasn’t an especially pleasant one – not least where the food was concerned. Female academics, unlike their male counterparts, had to put up with distinctly unexciting fare.

‘I rather thought,’ he said quickly, ‘that we’d have dinner out. I don’t very often get the chance to treat my favourite junior research fellow.’ Although it occurred to him as he said it that, as of next week, he could no longer consider her as such.

To his relief, she didn’t seem to notice his slip. ‘That’d be awfully nice,’ she said. ‘If it wouldn’t be too expensive, we could try the Varsity. I’ve heard they sometimes have roast chicken.’

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough. They managed to get a table at the establishment Margaret had mentioned – which was a bit of luck, she said, since otherwise the choice was between steak and kidney pudding at the Baron of Beef, or shepherd’s pie at the British Empire restaurant in Petty Cury, neither of which would have matched the culinary delights on offer here. Roast chicken, as it happened, was ‘off’, but steak was available – a rare treat, in the first year of the war. With it, there was mashed potato and green peas (tinned), with half a bottle of Burgundy to wash it down. At her father’s insistence, Margaret had the pudding – a treacle sponge she pronounced ‘almost as good as Mother’s’, while he himself had the cheese, and a brandy to follow. The meal, although unexceptional to his mind, was far superior to the one they’d have had in Hall – ‘Watery stew, with prunes and custard for afters,’ said Margaret, with a shudder. No more was said about her plans for the immediate future, which, Rowlands sensed, came as a relief to her; Edith, he knew, wouldn’t have let it go quite so readily.

Instead, they talked of other things: the driving lessons Edith was taking (‘Although how we’ll be able to run a car, let alone afford the petrol for it, is anybody’s guess,’ said her husband); how Anne was getting on in Oxford, where the Slade had established temporary quarters at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art; and Joan’s prowess in the school hockey team: ‘Nice to have one sporty child, at least,’ said Rowlands, savouring his brandy. Although she contributed her fair share to this conversation, Rowlands couldn’t help feeling that his eldest daughter’s thoughts were elsewhere. ‘Promise me one thing, Meg,’ he said, when he’d paid the bill and summoned a taxi to take them out to St Gertrude’s. ‘That if there’s anything worrying you about this new arrangement of yours, you’ll let me know.’

‘I can’t …’

‘I know, I know. You’re not supposed to talk about it. But you can at least let your mother and me know you’re all right. A postcard when you get there will do.’

‘All right,’ she said, after a moment. ‘I’ll try.’

Next morning, after breakfast, Rowlands strolled in the grounds of the college, to smoke a cigarette and think over what to say to his wife about the situation. Margaret said she had some things to see to – library books to return, and notes to leave for her supervisors. So Rowlands had time to kill before his meeting with the mistress at half past ten. Fortunately, the St Gertrude’s grounds were extensive, and the weather (in late November) too cold to tempt the undergraduates outside – always supposing that any of them had leisure to stroll about the woods and meadows surrounding the college, and were not presently engrossed in study. At this thought, he felt a pang of sadness at the choice his daughter had made. What exactly that choice entailed he couldn’t be sure, although his (albeit limited) encounters with the secret service in past years gave him an inkling of what Margaret’s future work might involve.

He was so absorbed in these reflections that it took him a moment to realise that somebody was trying to attract his attention, by vigorously tapping on one of the first-floor windows beneath which his perambulations had brought him. A moment later, the window in question was flung up, and that somebody stuck her head out. ‘Hi! Fred! Fred Rowlands! I thought it must be you.’

‘Hello, Maud.’

‘Come up to my office, will you? No, on second thoughts, wait there. I’ll come and get you.’ As he waited, stamping his feet to keep himself warm, Rowlands groaned inwardly. Fond as he was of Maud Rickards, she was the last person he’d wanted to run into on this particular visit. Quite how much she knew of his reasons for being here – or of his daughter’s predicament – he could only surmise. One thing was certain: he didn’t feel like discussing it with her – not least because she was Edith’s oldest friend. If he was going to find it difficult to persuade his wife to be discreet on this matter of Margaret’s new role, it would become doubly so if Maud added fuel to the fire.

But, not for the first time, it appeared that he had misjudged her. ‘Do come in out of the cold,’ she said. ‘I wonder that you can stand it. Such a raw morning! I’ve a nice fire in my office, you’ll be glad to know. You’ve time for a cup of coffee before your meeting with the mistress.’

So she knew about that, then? thought Rowlands. Well, that was hardly surprising. As college bursar, it was Miss Rickards’s business to know everything about the running of the college – including, no doubt, the fact that one of its brightest research students was shortly to leave, to take up an unspecified post at an unnamed destination. Yes, Maud Rickards must have known all this, but you wouldn’t have guessed it, as, having ushered him into her room (‘Take the armchair next to the fire – it’s the most comfortable …’), she busied herself with brewing a fresh pot of her famously good coffee.

‘How’s Edith?’ she asked, setting out cups and saucers on a tray and placing this, with the stainless-steel percolator that was her pride and joy, on the low table in front of the fire.

‘She’s very well,’ he replied – at which Maud laughed.

‘Silly question. Edie’s always well. And how’s Anne? Enjoying Oxford?’

‘Very much, from what she says in her letters,’ replied Rowlands.

‘That’s good,’ said the bursar vaguely. ‘Although I still think it’s a pity that she didn’t try for St Gertrude’s. She could always have carried on with her drawing in her spare time.’

To which Rowlands diplomatically said nothing, although this was far from being Anne’s own view of the situation. Ever since the visit to Paris she had made, aged sixteen, and what it had revealed to her of the bohemian life, she had been determined to become a painter – or, failing that, a best-selling novelist. Academic life played no part in this vision.

The conversation turned to other things – Miss Rickards’s walking tour of the Scottish Highlands the previous July (‘It was supposed to have been Italy, but I don’t suppose I’ll be visiting that country again for a while.’) and the conversion of the new St Dunstan’s building at Ovingdean, opened only two years before, into a hospital and training centre for newly blinded casualties of the war.

‘So where are you going to put the existing residents?’ enquired Miss Rickards, refilling her own cup and that of her guest. ‘It must be rather hard on the long-term men, to have to turn out so soon after moving into that nice new accommodation.’

‘Oh, we’ll find places for them, never fear,’ he said. ‘There’s a building at Church Stretton we’re in the process of adapting. And most of our chaps understand perfectly well that priority has to be given to the new cases. Why, some of ’em have got sons in the forces, and so …’ He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

‘Quite,’ said Maud Rickards drily. ‘I think everyone knows that sacrifices have to be made.’

This oblique reference to what was uppermost in Rowlands’s mind – his daughter’s decision to leave St Gertrude’s – was all that was said on the subject, until, a few minutes before eleven, he made a move to go.

‘I’ll walk as far as the mistress’s office with you,’ said the bursar. ‘I know it isn’t the first time you’ve been here, but finding one’s way in college can be confusing.’ Rowlands, recalling the seemingly endless corridors that were a feature of the place, was grateful for her offer. She gave him her arm.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she said – and he guessed it wasn’t only the forthcoming interview to which she referred. ‘You’ll see.’

The mistress’s rooms were to be found at the end of a corridor on the first floor of the old wing. Rowlands and his companion were a few paces away, when the door opened, and someone came out – perhaps ‘swept out’ was a better description, thought Rowlands, feeling the brush of the man’s voluminous doctor’s gown, as the latter passed him.

‘Good morning to you!’ sang out this individual, to which Miss Rickards returned a suitably cordial reply. Footsteps tapped briskly away along the corridor.

‘Now, what’s the famous Aubrey Blake doing here, I wonder?’ said the bursar, sotto voce. ‘He doesn’t often venture out of Trinity – let alone as far as St Gertrude’s.’

‘Blake?’ said Rowlands. ‘I don’t think I …’

‘Oh, you won’t have heard of him!’ said Maud Rickards. ‘Although he fancies himself a bit of a star in his own field. Modern languages. His real interest is in art history, but of course we don’t consider that a subject here. I gather his lectures on French painting are much admired by the aesthetic element in Cambridge. All young men, of course,’ she added with a sniff. ‘I can’t imagine what brings him to this college … Well, here we are,’ she went on, as they reached the mistress’s door. ‘Good to see you, Fred. Give my love to Edie, won’t you?’

‘I will,’ he said, waiting until she had walked away before announcing his presence with a soft double-knock.

‘Mr Rowlands. How very nice to see you again!’ said the mistress, as she opened the door of her office – if that was the right word for what he recalled from previous visits to be a large and well-appointed sitting room. ‘Do come in.’ She guided him to a chair opposite her own in front of the fire. ‘Can I offer you something? A cup of coffee, perhaps?’ He explained that he had just come from Miss Rickards’s room. ‘Ah, so you’ll have had some of her splendid Italian brew? In which case, how about a cigarette? I’ve Turkish or Virginian.’ He accepted one of the latter, and she lit it for him, and then lit one for herself. ‘I hope you and Mrs Rowlands are keeping well?’ she said, when this little ceremony had been performed. ‘It was so nice to see you both at the graduation ceremony in June. Although,’ she added apologetically, ‘one of the disadvantages of this job is that one never does get to talk to people for very long.’

‘No,’ he said. The meeting to which she referred had occurred during his last visit to St Gertrude’s – one of the few occasions he’d been to the college, in fact, since that previous, ill-fated, time five years before, when he and Edith had come as guests of Maud Rickards to an end-of-term garden party. Of course, at that time, Margaret hadn’t yet applied to the college; it had been the mistress herself who’d suggested that Rowlands’s eldest daughter, then only fifteen, should apply for a scholarship when the time came. With the school’s encouragement, she had done just that. And just look where all that hard work had ended up, sighed Rowlands.

As if she guessed something of what was passing through his mind, Miss Phillips said, ‘You wanted to talk to me about Margaret?’

‘Yes. That is …’ He hesitated. ‘I gather from talking to my daughter earlier that I’m not supposed to ask questions about … well, whatever it is she’s made up her mind to do.’

‘She’s told you that much, has she?’

‘And no more than that,’ he said. ‘In fact, I can honestly say that I’m almost as much in the dark as I was before … which is saying something,’ he added with a smile.

If she got the joke, it wasn’t obvious from the gravity with which she replied. ‘One thing I can tell you is that your Margaret is a very clever young woman. As I mentioned when we spoke on the telephone, she’s set to become one of our most outstanding alumnae. We’ve high hopes that she’ll eventually come back to us.’

‘“Eventually” being the key word,’ he said.

‘Well, yes …’ He couldn’t see the shrug with which Beryl Phillips accompanied the words, but it was implicit in her tone. ‘This war,’ she said, ‘has thrown everything out of kilter.’

‘Wars do,’ he replied. ‘And I know you can’t tell me any more about what Margaret will be doing. Although I think the very fact that it’s such a secret tells its own story.’

‘It’s work of national importance on which she’ll be engaged,’ said Miss Phillips. ‘You – and your wife – have a right to know that much.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s rather what I thought.’

So that, it seemed, was that. Rowlands took his leave of his daughter (‘At any rate, we’ll be seeing you at Christmas, won’t we?’ – ‘I don’t know, Daddy. I hope so.’) and got his taxi to the station. In spite of Miss Phillips’s words of reassurance, it was with a heavy heart that he left the university town. What depressed him wasn’t just the thought of how he’d explain things to Edith, as the fact that he now had a pretty good idea of the kind of world to which their daughter would now belong. The little experience he’d had of the secret service had been acquired through his relations with one member of it in particular: the woman who called herself Iris Barnes, and with whose path his had crossed on several occasions since their first meeting in London more than ten years before. From her, he had learnt as much, if not more, than he wanted to know about the workings of the world of espionage.

He wondered now, as he stood in the corridor of the packed train, whether it might make sense to try to get in touch with Miss Barnes again, then realised that he had no idea how to do this. Besides which, he thought wryly, Margaret would never forgive him if he went behind her back to find out what exactly it was that constituted the ‘work of national importance’ on which she’d be engaged. As the train rattled over the points outside Bishop’s Stortford, he puzzled it out: what in Heaven’s name could the spies want with his gentle Margaret? She was only twenty-one – and hardly cast in the same worldly-wise mould as Iris Barnes. The latter, to Rowlands’s certain knowledge, was fluent in several languages, as well as being a dab hand with a .38, whereas Meg … ‘One of our most outstanding alumnae,’ Miss Phillips had called her. So was that the reason she’d been chosen for this particular kind of work? He found it hard to imagine how a superior knowledge of mathematics might be an asset to the war effort.

Chapter Two

Liverpool Street station was a teeming hive of human activity of every variety, from the military (the station was the departure point for RAF and army bases in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk) to the domestic. As he got off the train, a large woman with a clipboard barged into him (he felt the impact of both woman and clipboard), evidently too preoccupied with her task of marshalling a band of evacuees to notice a blind man – even one provided, as he was, with a white-painted walking stick.

‘Come along, children!’ she bawled. ‘Form up in a line – that’s right! Now quick march! You don’t want us to miss our train, do you?’ At once a chorus of wails started up – these emanated as much from the mothers who had come to see their infants off, as from the infants themselves, it seemed. Smiling and apologising, Rowlands made his way as best he could through this clamorous throng, and reached the ticket barrier at last.

Most people, it was true, got out of his way once they saw the stick. It had been Edith who’d insisted he should start using it; up until a few months ago, he’d managed without. Then, on a visit to friends in Ireland the previous year, he’d borrowed an ordinary walking-stick from his host, to help him over rough countryside. The habit had stuck. Since the early days of his blindness, Rowlands always hated being perceived as ‘different’, but Edith had persuaded him in the end to put these feelings aside. ‘It isn’t fair to other people,’ she’d said. ‘I know you can manage without a stick – but how do they know that? And it’ll stop you walking into things when I’m not there to guide you.’ All of which was true enough – he’d come a cropper more times than he cared to admit, by simply acting as if he wasn’t blind.

So, holding the stick a little way in front of him, he moved through the crowd in the main concourse, and got himself to the head of the steps that led to the Underground.

‘Give you a hand, mate?’ said a cheery voice next to him; the next moment, he felt his arm gripped just above the elbow, and the uniformed man (the peculiar smell of khaki serge was one Rowlands recalled from his own army days) piloted him down the stairs, talking all the way. ‘On your way home, are you? That’s the ticket. I’m off to see the wife myself. Two days’ leave, and then we’re for it. Won’t tell us where we’ve been posted, o’ course …’ His companion insisted on seeing Rowlands all the way down the escalator and onto the Metropolitan line platform before taking himself off (‘I’m going in the other direction. Cheery-bye, old son’).

The Underground train was packed, as usual, even though it wasn’t yet the rush hour, and Rowlands stood most of the way, refusing the offer of a seat from another considerate member of the public, and only accepting the offer of someone else’s arm when alighting at Baker Street because he didn’t want to offend the chap. With what remained to him of sight (he could tell light from dark, and make out shapes of things), and with his excellent hearing, he’d been used to getting around without asking for help more than was absolutely necessary. Now, with the stick as his ‘badge’, he often found help thrust upon him.

It was a relief to leave behind Marylebone Road and its roar of traffic – buses, taxis and heavy goods vehicles, mainly. It struck him that the number of private cars on the road had declined in recent months – the result of petrol rationing, no doubt. Regent’s Park, too, was quieter than usual, owing to the inclement weather. As he left the Outer Circle for the gravel path that would lead him, by a circuitous route, to the building he and his fellow St Dunstaners referred to as The Lodge, he reflected on what he had learnt that day. One thing was certain: he couldn’t discuss the matter, even with his nearest and dearest. That was the thing about the secret world – it imposed its silence upon all who came into contact with it. This fact was put to the test rather sooner than Rowlands had expected. He had just arrived in his office, and sent Miss Symonds for lunch, when the phone rang.

‘Ah, you’re back. Good,’ said a familiar voice. ‘I was wondering if I might pick your brains about something.’

‘Hello, Major. Yes, of course, I’ll come over straight away.’

‘My wife wondered if you’d had lunch? Only she says you’re welcome to join us, if not. Just pot-luck, you know.’

‘Thanks. Please tell her I’d like that very much,’ said Rowlands, and rang off. A few minutes later, he was crossing the wide lawn that lay between his office – located in the mansion’s former stable-block – and the main building, once a private residence, which was now St Dunstan’s HQ. The larger part of this had been converted during the last war for residential use; the main rooms – library, ballroom, sitting and dining rooms – being reserved for communal activities. Now that most of the long-term residents had been moved out of London for their own safety, there remained a core of thirty or so – mostly employed in and about the grounds and workshops. As he passed, Wilf Thackeray, one of the gardeners, called out a greeting, which Rowlands returned, adding a cheery, ‘Cold enough for you?’

‘It is that, Mr Rowlands. Not that I mind a bit of cold. It’s the damp as gets to you.’

In the cosy dining room of the Frasers’ flat (‘Quite a squeeze to get eight around this table, but three or four’s just right,’ said Lady Fraser), Rowlands felt himself relax for the first time that day. The ‘pot-luck’ turned out to be a very good mutton stew; remembering Margaret’s disdain for the ‘watery stew’ on offer at St Gertrude’s the night before made Rowlands smile. This lunch, modest as it was, was doubtless considerably better than the standard fare of a women’s college operating on a wartime budget. Although of course, he reminded himself, Margaret would soon no longer be in a position to complain about this or any other aspect of college life. At this unwelcome thought, Rowlands must have frowned, for Iris Fraser, always sensitive to the moods of others, said, ‘Haven’t seen you in ages, Fred. Edith’s well, I hope – and the girls?’

‘All well, thanks.’

‘Ian tells me you’ve been up to Cambridge to see Margaret.’

‘Yes.’ At once Rowlands felt uncomfortable, not knowing how much he could or should divulge about the reason for his visit. ‘She … she’s decided to defer her studies for the time being and get a job,’ he said. He supposed it would do as a form of words to cover the situation.

‘Only what I’d have expected of her,’ said Lady Fraser. ‘So many young people are wanting to do their bit for the war effort.’

‘Very commendable,’ agreed her husband. Neither of them asked what the ‘job’ entailed. The conversation moved on to other things. ‘This is really a matter for the next committee meeting,’ said the major. ‘But I wanted your opinion, Fred …’ It was already apparent, he went on to say, that this was going to be a different kind of war from the one in which they had both served, over twenty years before. That had been predominantly a war of armies in the field, facing each other across a militarised landscape of trenches and redoubts. The injuries suffered – including those to the face and eyes – had been consistent with this. Now the theatre of war had become much wider, encompassing not only the battlefield, but civilian terrain. ‘We feel … that is, I feel … that St Dunstan’s needs to open its doors to a broader clientele,’ said Sir Ian. ‘We’ve always been an organisation that catered mainly to servicemen.’

‘And servicewomen,’ put in Iris Fraser.

‘And servicewomen, too, of course. Now we think … I think … we ought to offer our assistance to the wider community – the police and fire services, civil defence, the women’s services, naturally …’

‘I agree,’ said Rowlands.

‘Good. Thought you might,’ said the major. ‘We’ll still remain principally a service for soldiers, sailors and airmen … and their female counterparts,’ he added hastily. ‘But if this war becomes total, as I fear it might, then …’ He let the sentence tail off. They were all silent a moment. Both men, and Iris Fraser, in her days as a VAD, had seen enough of what war could do to be able to envisage what ‘total war’ might mean.

‘On a lighter note,’ went on Ian Fraser, ‘I’ve been asked to give a talk on Getting About in the Dark, for the benefit of people coping with the blackout. Apparently, rather a lot of Londoners have been having accidents – falling down area steps and walking into lamp posts – through not being able to see where they’re going. Extraordinary!’ All three laughed. ‘Any suggestions as to what I might recommend, as safety procedures to follow during the blackout?’

‘Well, counting steps between one’s starting point and destination, for a start,’ said Rowlands. ‘It’s how I learnt to get about London by myself in the early days.’

‘Holding on to banisters,’ put in Lady Fraser. ‘Or a friendly arm, if offered.’

‘Leaning back slightly when walking,’ went on Rowlands. ‘Watching out for the edges of things …’

‘Doors, especially,’ said the major. ‘Good Lord! The black eyes I gave myself at first, before I got used to that rule.’

‘Using one’s other senses as much as possible,’ said Rowlands. ‘Hearing, mainly – but also touch, and sense of smell.’

‘Excellent,’ said Fraser. ‘Iris, you’ll make a note of all these for me, won’t you? Funny, isn’t it?’ he added. ‘The blackout’s made us all equal in that respect, hasn’t it? Now we’re the ones helping the sighted, instead of the other way around.’

After his pleasant lunch with the Frasers, the rest of the afternoon passed quickly enough for Rowlands. As well as the extra paperwork generated by the adaptation of the Ovingdean centre into a hospital (a new wing, complete with operating theatre, was presently being constructed) there was also the day-to-day administrative work to do with running a large organisation. Since the outbreak of war, it had become clear that changes would have to be made to that organisation’s output. St Dunstan’s men whose skills had been directed, say, towards the weaving of baskets and the manufacture of doormats might now be conscripted into the making of camouflage nets. And so Rowlands dictated letters to the said departments and to the War Office about the nets, and signed those Miss Symonds typed up – although if push came to shove, and his admirably efficient secretary decided she’d be more usefully employed in one of the services, he’d be perfectly capable of typing his own letters. It was one of the first skills he’d been taught when he arrived at St Dunstan’s in 1917. But for the moment, he was grateful for those nimble fingers of hers, which flew over the keys of her machine with impressive speed. Yes, he’d be sorry to lose her, if it came to that. It occurred to him as he signed the last letter of the day, ready for Miss Symonds to stamp and address it, that he didn’t really know her very well. She’d only been with him six months – the previous incumbent, Miss Collins, having left to get married the week before her bridegroom was posted overseas. He wondered if perhaps this girl – Jean, wasn’t it? – had a young man in the services, too; it was something he ought to find out, he thought.

Edith, although evidently glad to see him back from Cambridge, was strangely reticent about the matter that had taken him there. Rowlands assumed that it was the presence of the other members of the household – his mother-in-law, Helen, and his youngest daughter, Joan – that prevented her from speaking. When they were alone together after supper, Helen having retired to her room to write letters, and Joan occupied with homework, he braced himself for what was coming. Which turned out to be surprisingly little.

‘Maud telephoned,’ said Edith. She was busy knitting something – a sock, he guessed, since there had been an appeal at church for local women to contribute in this way towards the war effort. Socks for Sailors … or maybe it was Socks for Soldiers? Her needles clicked. ‘She said I wasn’t to pester you … at least, that was the gist of what she said. “Don’t ask him any questions he won’t be able to answer,” was how she put it. I suppose it was questions about Margaret she meant. Just what is going on, Fred? Has Margaret done something wrong?’

‘Emphatically not. Miss Phillips was quite clear about that. In fact, she let me know in no uncertain terms that we can be very proud of Margaret.’

‘Then what …’

‘We’re not to know what this new job of hers entails – and we mustn’t ask,’ he said. ‘One thing the mistress did say was that it’s important work – important for the country.’

‘Fred, she’s twenty-one. What can somebody of her age possibly contribute?’

‘Her brains,’ he said. ‘At least, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to. And it sounds as if this will be an office job of some sort, so she won’t be joining one of the women’s services.’

‘Well, that’s a relief, I suppose,’ said Edith. ‘Which reminds me … I had a letter from Daphne Simkins this morning, to say that both the twins are joining up. Rory’s plumped for the navy, because that was John’s service, but Jonathan’s still hesitating between that and the RAF.’

‘Yes, Margaret said.’

‘How is she?’ said her mother. ‘I mean, how did she seem?’

‘She seemed all right.’ He shook his head. ‘No, not all right. Anxious. But I think it’s mainly because she’s been told that she mustn’t talk about any of this – the job, or what she’ll be doing, or even where they’re sending her.’

‘A bit cloak-and-dagger, isn’t it?’ said Edith, clicking her needles. ‘But she seemed otherwise all right, you think?’

‘Oh yes. You know our Margaret. An old head on young shoulders.’

‘Perhaps it’s just as well, if she’s to cope with all of this. Did the mistress say what’s to happen about her research? It seems such a waste to have to give it up, after all her hard work.’

‘The mistress,’ said Rowlands, ‘seemed confident that Margaret can look forward to a distinguished academic career, when the time comes.’

‘Ah, and when will that be, I wonder?’ said his wife sadly.

A postcard arrived a few days later. ‘Post-marked Bletchley,’ said Edith, turning it over. ‘Where’s that exactly? Somewhere in the Midlands, isn’t it?’

‘Buckinghamshire. What does she say?’

‘Not much. One can’t, on a postcard.’ Although Margaret’s letters had always tended to be brief and to-the-point, unlike the more fulsome productions of her sister Anne, which sometimes ran to pages of description. ‘“Dearest Mother and Father,”’ read Edith aloud. ‘“I hope you are well, and that Granny and Joanie are well, too. I have settled in nicely and am quite comfortable in my new ‘digs’. Letter to follow …” Well, that’s something, at least.’

‘What?’

‘She says the lodgings are comfortable.’

‘Mm. Does she give an address?’

‘That’ll be in the letter, I expect.’ Which it was, the next day. ‘She doesn’t say very much about it – the place she’s staying,’ said Edith, having skimmed the two closely written sheets of this missive. ‘Only that she’s sharing with another girl … Pamela Wingate. Her people live abroad, Margaret says … Stranded there by the war, of course.’

Rowlands wasn’t particularly interested in Pamela Wingate. ‘How’s Margaret?’

Edith turned over a page. ‘She’s well, as far as I can make out. You know Margaret. She never says much about herself.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I suppose,’ he added after a moment, ‘she’d tell us if there were anything wrong?’

‘I expect so,’ was the reply. ‘Anyway, there isn’t.’

‘Isn’t what?’

‘Anything wrong. It’s nice that she’s got this other girl for company. They have to take turns for baths. I remember that from my days in the VAD,’ said Edith, as if the memory were a happy one. ‘Shillings in the meter. She asks if I’ll send her warm nightdress, and the bed-socks Mother knitted for her last Christmas.’

From which Rowlands deduced that, wherever it was that his daughter was currently lodging, the heating was far from adequate.

The weather continued to be cold. In the first week of December, it snowed. Trudging along in the icy slush of Marylebone Road, Rowlands thought that this would doubtless mean an increase in the number of accidents for those already struggling with blackout conditions. More twisted ankles, black eyes and broken legs … He wondered if the major had thought to add another suggestion to his list of hints for getting about in the blackout: ‘Wear rubber-soled shoes – or better still, stay at home’ was advice more people ought to take to heart. Underlying the daily struggle to get by in this grimmest of seasons was the news of the war, as it was being played out across the world. The news from Greece in the past few days had been encouraging, with Mussolini’s forces suffering defeat after defeat. British and colonial troops had invaded North Africa, and successes against the enemy were being reported daily. At home, the news was less heartening: bombing raids on Coventry, Liverpool, Southampton, Birmingham and Bristol added to the misery being endured by the capital.

For Rowlands, all that mattered was that his loved ones were all right. His job was to keep them safe. Failing to do so, through some unforeseen circumstance – enemy action or otherwise – didn’t bear thinking about. And so, although he couldn’t stop himself worrying about them collectively and individually, he did his best to suppress these feelings. At least they’d all be together at Christmas. Anne’s term had already finished, and she’d arrived home a few days before, full of the joys of Oxford, and what her painting tutor had said about her work. Then a letter came from his eldest daughter, saying she’d be coming home on Christmas Eve. Forty-eight hours’ leave. ‘That’s good news,’ said Rowlands.

‘Yes,’ said his wife. ‘Oh! She’s bringing that girl with her.’

‘What girl?’

‘That girl. You know …’ She read aloud: ‘“I’ve asked Pamela to stay. I hope that’s all right, Mummy? She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, and she oughtn’t to be on her own at Christmas. I thought she and I could share my old room, if Anne doesn’t mind going in with Joanie.” Just as well I’ve ordered a goose from the butcher’s,’ said Edith. ‘I had to queue for an hour to get it. Let’s hope it’ll stretch to feeding seven.’

It was a fifteen-minute walk from Kingston railway station to the Rowlandses’ house in Grove Crescent; last night’s fall of snow would make it a longer one. Rowlands offered to go and meet Margaret and Pamela’s train, which was due at four-fifteen, but Edith overruled that. ‘Mr Harris said he’ll drive us.’ Harris was the neighbour – a retired civil servant – who’d offered to drive them up to Cambridge; he’d also been teaching Edith to drive. ‘Actually,’ she added. ‘I’m going to drive. I need the practice.’

‘But it’ll be dark by then. And the roads’ll be icing up.’

‘All the more reason to fetch the girls by car.’ The vehicle, a four year-old Austin 7, had room for four passengers – including of course Harris, who would be there in his role as driving instructor – and so Rowlands had agreed to stay home, in order to make things ready for the arrivals. After Edith and their neighbour had set off, at what her husband had to admit was a suitably cautious speed, he occupied himself by building up the fire in the sitting room. When he had a nice blaze going, he set the guard in front of it, and thought what else he might do by way of welcoming his daughter home. Tea. Those girls’d be chilled to the bone after their journey. He went to the kitchen to see about it, and found that his middle daughter, and his mother-in-law, were ahead of him.

‘I won’t make the toast until they arrive,’ said Anne, stacking plates and cups on a tray. ‘It’ll be nice to see old Megs again. It’s been ages.’

‘What time do we expect them?’ asked Helen.

‘A quarter to five, at the latest.’ But it was gone half past by the time they heard the Austin pull up outside Number 44. ‘What took you so long?’ he couldn’t stop himself from saying as he opened the door.