All Clear

  “What did Mrs. Lambert do in the war?” he asked Talbot. Let her say she was a Wren. Or a chorus girl, he prayed.

  “She drove an ambulance,” Talbot said. “Oh, dear, she still doesn’t see us. Come along.” And Talbot dragged him across the room to Mrs. Lambert. She didn’t look as old as Talbot, but that was no doubt due to her plumpness, and Merope had been younger than Polly. The evacuation of the children had been her first assignment. And, if this was her, her only one.

  “Eileen,” Talbot said. “Here’s someone who wants to meet you.”

  Eileen had finally got her name tag attached, but it was no help. It merely read “Eileen Lambert,” and “Women’s World War II Alumni Association,” and when she looked up, her eyes were a pale aqua, which might or might not have been green when she was younger.

  “I’m sorry,” Talbot was saying. “I’ve forgotten what your name was, Mr.—”

  “Knight. Calvin Knight. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Lambert,” he said, watching her closely as he shook her hand. “I’m from Oxford,” he added, and thought he saw a flicker of recognition. Oh, God, it was her.

  “Mr. Knight is looking for someone who might have known his grandmother,” Talbot said. “Where were you, Goody? Browne said you had to run some sort of errand?”

  “Yes. At St. Paul’s. I’d asked my brother to go for me, but he couldn’t. He’s down at the Old Bailey this morning, so I had to go.”

  Brother. She had a brother. It wasn’t Eileen after all. The relief hit him with the force of a punch to the stomach.

  “And the traffic was wretched,” Mrs. Lambert was saying.

  Talbot nodded. “They simply must do something about that area near St. Bart’s. It’s impossible.”

  Pudge came up. “Oh, you two have found each other. Excellent. Did Lambert know your grandmother?” she asked him.

  “I haven’t asked her yet.”

  “His grandmother was in London during the Blitz,” Talbot explained to Eileen. “Her name was Polly—what did you say her last name was, Mr. Knight?”

  “Sebastian. Polly Sebastian.” Both ladies looked expectantly at Eileen Lambert, but she was already shaking her head.

  “No, there isn’t anyone by that name in the organization,” she said. “Was Polly a nickname for Mary?”

  “Yes.”

  “We had a Mary in our ambulance unit,” Talbot said, “but her last name was Kent.”

  Mrs. Lambert ignored her. “What was your grandmother’s maiden name, Mr. Knight?”

  “Sebastian. Her married name was O’Reilly,” he said, just in case, but he couldn’t detect any reaction from her.

  “No, sorry,” she said. “We haven’t any Mary O’Reillys either. Have you tried the museum’s archives?”

  Yes, he thought. And the British Museum’s. And the Public Record Office’s. And the morgues of the Times and the Daily Herald and the Express.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’m afraid I haven’t time today, but I’ll certainly come back. Thank you for your help. And for yours, Mrs. Vernon,” he said to Talbot, “and yours.” He shook hands with each of them in turn. “I don’t want to keep you from the exhibition.”

  “Yes. Oh, Eileen, you must see the ‘Beauty in the Blitz’ display,” Talbot said. “They have nylons from the American PX and that dreadful face powder made from chalk. And there’s a lipstick just like the one I lost when Kent pushed me into the gutter that time. It may even be the same one. I’ll never forget that lipstick. Crimson Caress, it was called.” She and Pudge dragged Mrs. Lambert off, and Calvin headed for the exit, winding his way through the displays to the VE-Day exhibit, which was complete with cheers and simulated fireworks.

  It was already after eleven, but if he hurried, he might be able to reach St. Paul’s by noon and catch some of the visitors having lunch in the cathedral’s café. He walked swiftly toward the exit.

  “Mr. Knight!” someone called from behind him. He stopped and looked back. Mrs. Lambert was bustling along the corridor after him. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. “Oh, good,” she panted, “you’re still here. I was afraid you’d already gone.” She hurried up to where he was standing.

  “What is it?” he said. “Did you remember something?”

  She shook her head, attempting to catch her breath, her hand to her bosom.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Can I get you a glass of water or something? We could go into the cafeteria.”

  “No, they’ll all be coming in for lunch shortly. I’m sorry about that just now. I couldn’t say anything with Talbot and Pudge there.” She took his arm and led him past the gift shop and into the main hall, looking around, presumably for somewhere they could talk. “I’d hoped to catch you when you first arrived, but I wasn’t certain where you’d be. St. Paul’s is opening their exhibition today as well, and I thought you were more likely to go there to look.”

  Oh, God, it was Eileen, and the story about the brother was a fabrication, part of the identity she’d had to adopt after Polly died and she’d been left to fend for herself. She’d had to cope all alone with the duration of the war and all the long years after. And how could she stand there smiling, he wondered. Knowing what I did to her, to them?

  She couldn’t, he thought. It isn’t her. She’s talking about something else, a reporter she was supposed to meet or a—

  “… and they had exhibits all over the cathedral, in the Crypt and both transepts, so it took forever to make certain you weren’t there, and then another hour to drive out here, and—” She stopped, frowning at him. “You are Colin, aren’t you?”

  And there went any doubt. It was her.

  “Oh, dear, I’m afraid I’ve made a dreadful mistake,” she said, just as Ann had. “I thought—”

  “You didn’t make a mistake,” he said dully. “I’m Colin.”

  “Colin Templer?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh, good,” Eileen said. “I was afraid for a moment I’d got the wrong man. It’s been so many years since I saw you.” She glanced toward the gift shop. Three chattering women were headed their way from it with bags full of parcels. “Come, let’s go find somewhere quiet where we can talk.” She led him back into the Blitz exhibit and over to the door marked “Air Raid Shelter.”

  She opened the door, took a swift look around, and pushed him through it. Inside was a replica of an Underground station platform. Mannequins sat along the curved tile walls and lay on the floor wrapped in blankets.

  Eileen shut the door. “This is perfect,” she said over the muffled sound of a bomb. She sat down on a bench and patted the seat beside her.

  He sat down.

  “Now, then,” she said, and beamed at him.

  And how can she? he thought. Knowing how I failed her? “Eileen,” he said helplessly. “Merope, I am so sorry—”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “Oh, Colin, I am sorry. I recognized you, so I suppose I thought you’d recognize me, but I was forgetting you haven’t met me yet.”

  Haven’t met—

  “And even if you had, it’s been over fifty years. I should have told you straightaway.” There was another explosion and a flash of red light. “I’m not Eileen. I mean, I am, but not Eileen O’Reilly.”

  Hope leaped in Colin. This wasn’t Eileen, which meant there was still a chance he could get them out. And if this Eileen knew where they were—

  “I should have started at the beginning,” she said. “I’m Binnie Hodbin. My brother, Alf, and I were evacuees. We were sent to the manor where M—where Eileen worked as a maid.”

  Alf and Binnie Hodbin, the children everyone had remembered because they were such terrors. And apparently Alf still was, since he was “detained” at the Old Bailey. Was that merely a polite way of saying he was under arrest? Or worse?

  But this made no sense. Binnie had been a child during the war. “But the women said you drove an ambulance,” he said.

  “I did. During the V-1 and V-2
attacks.”

  “But you’d only have been—”

  “Fifteen,” she said. “I lied about my age.”

  And that certainly went with what he’d been told about the Hodbins. And now that he looked more closely at her, she was obviously younger than the other women. “But you said your name was Eileen—”

  “It is. Binnie wasn’t a real name—it was short for Hodbin. So, since I hadn’t any name of my own, Eileen said I could choose any name I wanted, and that’s the name I chose. And then after the war, when Mum—I mean, Eileen—and Dad legally adopted us, that was the name that was put down.”

  After the war. Oh, God. “You called her Mum.”

  “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you don’t know any of this yet. After we went back to London at the beginning of the Blitz, Eileen took us in and raised us. Our mother had died, and we were living in the Underground, and Eileen found us and …”

  He wasn’t listening. Eileen had raised them. He hadn’t got them out. That was why Binnie was here. Eileen had sent her to tell him he’d failed, that she’d spent the last fifty-five years waiting for him to come rescue her. To no avail. “She doesn’t want to see me, does she?” he asked. “I don’t blame her.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Binnie said. She took a deep breath. “Mum died eight years ago.”

  If an air raid warning be received during the performance the audience will be informed from the stage.

  —NOTICE IN THEATER PROGRAM,

  1940

  Kent—October 1944

  “DUNWORTHY, JAMES,” ERNEST TYPED. “DIED SUDDENLY. At his home in Notting Hill. Of injuries incurred in a V-2 rocket attack.”

  Cess leaned in the door. “Have you seen Chasuble?”

  “No,” Ernest said, typing, “Mr. Dunworthy, originally of Oxford—Did you check the mess?”

  “No, I’ll do that,” he said, and, amazingly, left. Ernest went back to typing. “—is survived by his children, Sebastian Dunworthy and Eileen Ward—”

  “Hullo,” Chasuble said, coming in with several photographs. “Is that the caption for the church in Hampstead you’re typing?”

  “No, here it is.” Ernest handed it to him. “Check the time, will you? I couldn’t decipher your handwriting,” and while Chasuble was reading it, he typed hastily, “The funeral will be held at St. Mary-at-the-Gate in Cardle 20 October at ten o’clock,” ripped it out of the typewriter, and laid it face down on the desk. “Is that the right time?”

  “No,” Chasuble said. “It should be 3:19 P.M., not 2:19.” He handed it back to Ernest, who rolled the sheet in, Xed out the time, and typed “3:19” above it.

  “Where did it actually hit?”

  “Charing Cross Road,” Chasuble said, and handed Ernest several photographs. “Here are last week’s incidents, but I don’t think there’s anything we can use. Only one church and one shopping street, and they were both totally demolished. Nothing identifiable. The V-2’s simply too good at what it does.”

  Ernest leafed through the photos. “What about this one?” He held up a photo of a demolished school with a dozen uniformed students clambering happily over the wreckage.

  Chasuble shook his head. “Photo’s already been in the Daily Express.”

  “I thought they’d been told they had to run it by us first.”

  “They were, but they failed to tell the reporter that, and it slipped through.” He shuffled through the photos and handed Ernest one of a tangle of timbers. “See that?” he said, pointing to a broken sign in one corner.

  Ernest squinted at the tiny letters. “Dentist?” he guessed.

  “Dental surgeon,” Chasuble said. “Or, rather, ‘dental surg—’ I know it’s small, but I thought perhaps a personal-interest story—‘Extreme Cure for Toothache,’ or something, about a man who was on his way to the dentist when the V-2 hit, and the blast knocking the offending tooth out.”

  Ernest nodded. “Where’s this supposed to be?”

  “Brixton,” he said. “It’s actually a street in Walworth, but I was able to crop out the village hall. The bomb fell at”—he consulted his list—“4:05 A.M. on the eleventh.”

  “4:05? That won’t work. The dentist wouldn’t be open at that hour, not even for an emergency root canal.”

  “Oh, right,” Chasuble said, taking the picture back. “I’ll see what else I’ve got.” But he still didn’t leave.

  “Cess was here earlier looking for you. He said it was urgent,” Ernest said, and Chasuble finally departed so he could get back to his typing. He’d had more and more difficulty finding time to write his messages since D-Day. Now that Moncrieff and Gwendolyn were in France, Cess had no one else to pester and was always coming in to sit on the edge of his desk. And when he wasn’t there, Chasuble was, talking about Daphne the barmaid and reading over his shoulder. Which meant he had to snatch odd moments in which to compose his messages.

  And the disinformation articles he was writing now gave him fewer opportunities to work in Polly’s and Eileen’s names and information since the locations had to be the false ones they’d agreed on, and since Chasuble and Cess frequently ended up delivering the stories to the papers. But he did the best he could, writing an assortment of announcements, letters to the editor, and human-interest pieces, and sticking them in with the captioned V-1 and V-2 photographs whenever he was the delivery boy.

  “Christmas is still two months off,” he typed, “but two Nottingham girls are already hard at work on a festive project: sending a bit of Advent cheer in the form of homemade crackers to our brave lads in uniform. Misses Mary O’Reilly and Eileen Sebastian of Cardle Hill are making the—”

  “I couldn’t find Cess,” Chasuble said, coming back in.

  “Try the mess,” Ernest suggested.

  But it was too late. “There you are, Chasuble,” Cess said, appearing in the doorway. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Remember how Daphne told you she wouldn’t go out with you?”

  “I’ve been trying to forget it,” Chasuble said glumly.

  “Well, you needn’t. I’ve got good news. I’m taking her to a harvest fête in Goddards Green this afternoon. Wait!” he said, backing away from Chasuble’s raised fists and putting his hands up to protect himself. “Hold on till you’ve heard the whole thing.”

  “Go ahead,” Chasuble said grimly. “How exactly is this good news?”

  “Because she’s bringing her friend Jean with her, and I told her I’d bring along a friend for her. Wait!” He circled around behind the desk.

  Ernest draped a concealing arm over the paper in the typewriter.

  “Don’t you see?” Cess said. “While you’re impressing Daphne with your prowess at the coconut shy, I lure Jean off to the tea tent, and by the time you find us, I’ll have worked my fatal charm on Jean, you’ll have worked your fatal charm on Daphne, and we swap. We’re leaving at ten.” He started out the door.

  “Wait,” Chasuble said. “Isn’t it a bit late in the year for a harvest fête? And why is it on a Wednesday?”

  “The fête had to be delayed when a V-2 hit the Women’s Institute,” Cess said. He started out again and then leaned back in. “Oh, I nearly forgot,” he said to Chasuble. “Lady Bracknell wants to see you.”

  “What about? You don’t think he’s found out about the Austin, do you?”

  “I do hope not,” Cess said. “You’re no use to me dead.” And the two of them finally departed.

  And hopefully whatever it was Lady Bracknell wanted, it would take at least half an hour, Cess would be curious enough to listen at the door the entire time, and he’d have time to finish his article. “The Christmas crackers are made of pasteboard tubes and wrapping paper donated by Townsend Brothers Department Store and contain tissue-paper crowns. As for the traditional pop of a cracker, Miss O’Reilly, known to her friends as Polly, said, ‘No, our soldiers have had enough “bangs” for the year and should like peace and quiet for the holidays.’ ”

  Not that they’d get
it. Christmas week was the Battle of the Bulge. Another event I’ll never be able to observe, he thought, remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor, which he’d spent decoding intercepts. And during the Battle of the Bulge, I’ll be typing articles about Christmas on the home front and sending V-1s and V-2s down on innocent people’s heads.

  “The Christmas crackers will also contain a sweet,” he typed, “and a handwritten motto, such as ‘A stitch in time saves nine,’ and ‘Seek and you shall find.’ ”

  Chasuble stomped in. “Well, that’s that,” he said disgustedly.

  Cess leaned in the door. “What happened?”

  Damn it, Ernest thought, stopping typing. At this rate, Christmas would be over before he finished the story.

  “The boiler at St. Anselm’s in Cricklewood blew up,” Chasuble said angrily.

  “Cricklewood?” Ernest said, frowning. “I thought you were taking the girls to Goddards Green.”

  “Not now. I’m not taking them anywhere. It seems the bell tower is still standing.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Norman. And famous. Bracknell wants photographs, captions, and accompanying stories delivered to all the London papers for the evening-edition deadline.”

  Oh, now he understood. The damage from the boiler explosion looked like that from a V-2 attack, and the famous Norman tower would have been in travel guides, which would make the identification of the church by the German Abwehr not only possible but likely. And it was northwest of London, where they were trying to convince the Germans their V-1s and V-2s were landing.

  “It’s not fair,” Chasuble said dejectedly. “I’ll never get another chance at Daphne.”

  “You’re quite right,” Cess said. “You go to Goddards Green with the girls, and I’ll go to Cricklewood.”

  “No, I will,” Ernest said. And deliver my pieces to the village weeklies on the way back.

  “You will?”

  “Yes. But before you go, get me the time of the V-2 we’re going to say this is. And I’ll need directions to St. Anselm’s. Oh, and ring up the Herald and tell them not to print anything about St. Anselm’s till we say so.”