Chapter 23 Lilias #2
“Oh, Lily,” she said. “If only I hadn’t been such an idiot.
I loved Gloria so much, I wanted the world to know about it.
If I’d just kept our love private, she might still be alive today.
No,” she corrected herself, “she would still be alive today. She’d never have given up her job to go to London.
She loved her job. She even loved her ragbag of a family in a strange sort of a way.
” She began to sob brokenly, holding the edges of the shawl up to her face.
“If only I could turn back time, Lily, so we could walk through Norwich Market again, just chatting. Why couldn’t I have been happy with that, Lily? Why?”
Sighing, Lilias took off her coat and laid it on the end of the bed. Then she sat down next to her sister and put an arm around her, drawing her close to kiss her forehead, as if she were a child.
“Oh, darling, I don’t think it helps to think like that, does it?
” she said tenderly, asking herself as she did whether or not she’d make use of such a time machine if she were able to do so.
Whether she’d return to a time before she had spent the night with Harry.
She rather thought she would not. That if such a machine were to exist, she might stand there, looking at it, knowing full well she ought to use it, but being quite incapable of doing so.
“I can’t help it, Lily,” Ruth said, sobbing into her shoulder. “I don’t see how I shall ever be able to move on from this.”
Lilias gave her another hug. “Shall I brush your hair, Ruthie?” Lilias asked, moving back slightly as soon as Ruth seemed a little calmer.
“If you like.” Ruth replied, blowing her nose.
But just as Lilias was crossing to the dressing table to fetch the hairbrush, there was a loud knock on the door—three hard official-sounding raps.
“Who can that be?” Lilias said, her heart racing.
“Well, if it’s anybody with bad news, tell them we’ve had quite enough lately,” Ruth said, but Lilias was already running down the stairs.
The knocking came again, before she’d quite reached the bottom. Please, she thought. Please. Although she couldn’t quite have said what she was begging for.
She pulled the door open to find their local police constable on the doorstep. “Constable Fisher!” she exclaimed, taken aback.
As the constable touched his helmet in acknowledgement, Lilias quickly examined his face, trying to glean any clues as to the purpose of his visit.
Did his features hold regret or sadness about the reported death of a beloved dog?
No, she decided, they didn’t. If anything, the constable looked stern; or at least, very grave and official.
“Good morning, Miss Carter-Brown. May I come in for a moment?” he said, and she stepped back.
“Of course. Won’t you come this way?”
She led him into the parlour, but when she invited him to sit down, he refused, and stood instead, silhouetted in front of the window, holding his helmet under his arm and his notebook in his hand.
“No, thank you, Miss Carter-Brown, this won’t take long, I’m sure.” He consulted his notebook. “It’s about your evacuee’s father. Mr. Harry Smith?”
Lilias took a step towards him. “Harry? What’s happened to him?”
Constable Fisher looked surprised. “Well, that’s rather the point of my calling on you this morning, Miss Carter-Brown,” he said.
“Mr. Smith was recently due to report for war duty but failed to arrive on the appointed date. When officers visited his home address, it was to find he hasn’t been seen there, either, not for over a week.
His wife reported that the last time she’d seen him was on the morning before he came here to visit his son, which I understand he’s done on a few occasions before? ”
Lilias nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“So, I’ve been asked to ascertain whether he did, indeed, arrive here that day.”
Lilias frowned, her brain struggling to deal with the information she’d just been given. “Yes,” she said. “He did come to visit David on that day. He left early the next morning; I assume to report for duty. Yet you say he didn’t arrive?”
“No, ma’am.”
“But whatever can have happened to him? Where is he?” Lilias looked at the constable’s face, realising from his expression what the implications of Harry’s nonappearance were.
“Oh, my goodness; you think he’s a shirker, don’t you?
You think his nonappearance is deliberate.
But you’re wrong! I know you are. Harry would never do such a cowardly thing. ”
When Constable Fisher began to look at her strangely, Lilias realised she’d probably given away something of her feelings for Harry in her reaction; but at that moment, worried about Harry as she was, she didn’t particularly care.
“Well, at the moment, until we can locate the gentleman, nothing is proven, Miss Carter-Brown. If I may, ma’am?” he held his helmet above a side table, seeking permission to place it there, and Lilias gave a brisk nod.
“Yes, of course, Constable.”
Constable Fisher set his helmet down on the table and took a pencil from his pocket. “You say Mr. Smith left you early on Friday morning. Can you be more precise as to the time, Miss Carter-Brown?”
Lilias walked over to the fireplace to straighten an ornament, giving herself time to think.
She had to give accurate facts without revealing the truth.
“I didn’t actually see Mr. Smith leave, Constable.
We were at Lavender Cottage, you see. I’m afraid my sister was taken ill, and Mr. Smith delayed his departure to help me deal with her.
It was just after midnight when we said good night, I believe. In the morning, he was gone.”
Constable Fisher frowned. “I see. And he didn’t mention where he was going?”
“No. He only spoke of his having to report for duty and the training he expected to be doing.”
“I see. And was he acquainted with anyone else locally, do you know? Is there anyone else he’s likely to have paid a visit to?”
Lilias shook her head. “No, Constable, no one.”
The constable closed his notebook and retrieved his helmet. “Thank you, Miss Carter-Brown. You’ve been very helpful. I’ll be on my way.” He gave her a nod and walked to the door.
Lilias followed him. “Thank you, Constable. And should you discover Mr. Smith’s whereabouts, you will be sure to let me know, won’t you?”
“Of course, Miss Carter-Brown.”
Closing the front door behind him, Lilias leant back against it, her eyes wild as feverish thoughts raced around her head.
Could it really be true? Had Harry run away to avoid enlisting?
She couldn’t believe such a thing of him; she really couldn’t.
He hadn’t wanted to go, that much had been clear during their conversation, but he’d seemed resigned to it; had recognised the need for everyone to do their duty.
Suddenly, Lilias thought of the constable questioning whether Harry was likely to have visited anyone else in the area.
What if Harry had encountered Cook somehow?
The wretched man was quite capable of doing him some harm; he might have even considered it to be self-defence, given Harry’s threat of using his East End friends against him.
Not giving herself any more time to think, Lilias paused only to tell David she would be gone an hour at the most before heading out of the door.
The car—which she’d barely used in months—started on the third try.
In no time at all she was parking outside the Cook home and striding up the garden path.
When Lilias knocked sharply on the door, she had absolutely no plan whatsoever about what she was going to say.
But there was no answer to her knock, anyway, so she called out, “Hello!” and knocked again, the rough wood hurting her knuckles, her eyes taking in the peeling paintwork on the windows and the weeds and old junk in the flower borders.
Where most people had plant pots, Cook had an old toilet cistern and a stack of rotting wooden pallets.
This was a desperate, bleak place, and Lilias closed her eyes as she waited, hopelessness beginning to dissolve the adrenaline surge that had brought her tearing over here.
She recalled the bruise on Irene’s cheek the evening Lilias had first collected David from the village hall, and tears gathered in her throat.
This was a place where dreams and hopes died even before they had been given a chance to spark into life.
Cook’s children all looked out from beneath their unkempt fringes with wary suspicion, no doubt used to dodging swiping hands.
If Cook had wanted to harm Harry or Compass, what did she expect to do about it?
Without evidence, she couldn’t even go to the police.
No. No. She wouldn’t allow the despair of this godforsaken place to get to her.
She would not. If there were answers to be found here, she was jolly well going to find them.
Leaving the door, Lilias took the path that led round the side of the house to the backyard.
“Hello?” she called out as she went, and at her voice, a dog began to bark in an outbuilding.
“Compass?” Lilias’s footsteps quickened, taking her down the uneven garden path, a spark of hope making her oblivious to the brambles tearing at her stockings.