Blackout (69 page)

She’d have liked to
, Polly thought. “No, I wasn’t sacked.”

“And your mother was all right?”

Polly nodded.

“Oh, good,” Marjorie said. “I was so worried that you’d had to stay and I’d let you down.”

“You let
me
down?” Polly said. “I let
you
down. I thought you’d gone to Bath. I should have known you wouldn’t leave London without telling me. I should have told the authorities you were missing. I should have made them look—”

Marjorie was shaking her head. “They couldn’t have found me. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”

“Where
were
you going?” Polly asked, and then regretted it because Marjorie looked stricken. “It’s all right,” she said hastily. “You needn’t talk about it if you don’t want to.” She looked over at the lifts. “I can’t imagine what’s taking Doreen so long with the water. I’ll go see what’s keeping her.”

“Thank you. Did your friend find you?”

Polly froze. “My friend?”

“Yes. She came the day you were gone. Eileen O’Reilly—”

Merope. They’d sent Merope. Of course. She not only knew Polly, she knew the historical period. But how ironic. While Merope’d been here looking for her, she’d been up in Backbury looking for
her
. “She said you were at school together,” Marjorie said.

At school. “We were,” Polly said. “She came in the Saturday I was gone?” That had been nearly four weeks ago.

“Yes. I told her you’d be back on Monday,” Marjorie said. “Didn’t she come in?”

“No. What else did she say?”

“She asked if you worked here, and I said yes, and she asked where she could find you.”

“What did you tell her?”

“She was so anxious to contact you, I told her you’d gone to Northumbria to visit your mother.”

And Merope, hearing the explanation the lab had them use to cover their disappearance at the end of an assignment, must have concluded she’d already gone back through to Oxford, and that was the reason Merope hadn’t come back on Monday.

“She gave me her address,” Marjorie said, “but I’m afraid I haven’t got it. I’d put it in my pocket, and when they rescued me, they had to cut my clothes off because of all the blood… The nurse said they had to be discarded.”

“And you don’t remember the address?”

“No,” she said, looking stricken again. “It was in Stepney. Or Shoreditch. Somewhere in the East End. I only glanced at it, you see. I intended to give it to you on Monday morning. I remember where she said she works, though.”

“Works?” Polly said bewilderedly.

“Yes, because it’s here on Oxford Street, too. Padgett’s.”

“Here,” Doreen said, hurrying up with a glass of water. “Sorry, I had to go up to the lunchroom for it, and when I told them it was for you they wanted to know how you were doing.” She handed it to Marjorie. “You’ve
got to tell us what happened. We all thought you’d done a flit, didn’t we, Polly? Why did you go without—?”

“Marjorie,” Polly cut in, “are you certain she said Padgett’s?”

“Yes, she said she worked on—” She glanced over at the lifts. Miss Snelgrove and Mr. Witherill were emerging from the center one. They’d be here in another moment.

“She worked on—” Polly prompted.

“On the third floor. In Notions. I remember, because it was the same as our floor, and when I first came to Townsend Brothers, that’s the department I—”

“Miss Hayes,” Mr. Witherill said, coming over to Marjorie, “on behalf of Townsend Brothers, allow me to welcome you back.”

“I assured her her position would be here whenever she’s ready to return,” Miss Snelgrove said.

Polly edged away from them, trying to make sense of what Marjorie had just told her. It had to have been a cover story. Mr. Dunworthy would never have allowed Merope to work in a department store on the forbidden list even for the few days it took to locate Polly. She’d only said it to establish a bond with Marjorie, and the East End address was where she and the new drop site really were.

But that made no sense. The East End was just as dangerous as Padgett’s. And when Merope’d found out she hadn’t gone back through to Oxford, why hadn’t she come back to Townsend Brothers?

Unless she wasn’t part of a retrieval team at all. Unless her drop hadn’t opened either, and she’d come to London to find Polly, just as Polly had gone to Backbury to find her. And when she said she was living in Shoreditch and working at Padgett’s, she was telling the truth.

At Padgett’s, which had been hit—oh, God, tonight. And there’d been casualties.

I’ve got to find her and get her out of there
, Polly thought, starting blindly for the lift. But it was up on sixth. She looked back over at Miss Snelgrove. At any moment she and Mr. Witherill might look up and see her leaving. Polly walked swiftly over to the door to the stairs, pushed through it, and ran down the three flights of stairs and outside.

It was raining hard, but she didn’t have time to button her coat or even pull up her collar. She ran bareheaded toward Padgett’s, fighting her way through people coming out of the shops, pushing past umbrellas and people hurrying head-down against the rain and not looking where they were going. If only she’d researched exactly what time Padgett’s had been hit…

But I didn’t think I’d be here then
, she thought, sidestepping a pram and trying to remember what she’d read about Padgett’s. There’d been three casualties, and the reason for that was that it had been hit early, during the first raid. And the raids tonight had begun at 6:22. Which meant the sirens might go any moment.

Two more blocks
, she thought, splashing across a street, and the sirens went. People began heading for shelter. Polly zigzagged through them and arrived at Padgett’s entrance. A doorman stood under the pillared porch, arguing with a woman and a small boy.

“Hail me a taxi at once,” the woman was ordering the doorman.

“The sirens have gone, madam,” he said. “You and your son need to take shelter. Ow!” he yelped as the boy kicked him in the shins.

Polly darted past them to the revolving door and pushed on it, but it wouldn’t budge. “Sorry, miss,” the doorman said, turning from the woman. “Padgett’s is closed.”

“But I’m supposed to meet a friend here,” Polly said, trying to peer through the door into the store. “She—”

“She’ll have gone,” he said. “And, as I was telling this lady, you need to take shelter—”

“I know, but I’m not looking for a customer. My friend’s employed here. On third. She—”

“I
must
get to Harrods before it closes,” the woman cut in, and the little boy pulled his foot back for another kick.

The doorman sidestepped quickly and said to Polly, “You want the staff entrance.”

“Where’s that?”

“I insist you obtain a taxi for me immediately,” the woman said. “My son is leaving for Scotland on Thursday, and it’s essential he be properly outfitted—”

Polly couldn’t wait to find out where the staff entrance was. She ran down to the side of the building and around to the rear, looking for it. Shopgirls were coming out, hesitating in the doorway to see how hard it was raining and to open their umbrellas, looking anxiously up at the sky at the planes, which sounded as if they were coming closer.

“How tiresome!” one of them said as Polly darted past her. “I wanted to buy a chop for my tea on the way home. Now it will have to be shelter sandwiches. Again. Doesn’t Jerry ever take a night off?”

Townsend Brothers’ staff entrance was guarded, but Padgett’s didn’t seem to be, thank heavens. Polly pushed past the shopgirls and their umbrellas to the entrance and slipped through the door.

And collided with a guard standing just inside. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

She’d have to pretend she worked here. “I forgot my hat,” she said, hurrying past him as if she knew where she was going. She couldn’t see any stairway, only a long corridor lined with doors. Which one led to the stairs?

“Here, wait!” the guard said behind her, and the last door on the left opened, revealing a stairway and, at its foot, two young women, pulling on their gloves. Polly ducked past them through the door and ran up the stairs. As the door swung shut, she heard the guard shout, “Here! Where do
you
think you’re going?” and then the sound of footsteps running awkwardly after her. She raced up the stairs past the door marked Mezzanine, and up to first. He’d be coming any second. She opened the door to first and ran out onto the floor, hoping there was no one still here.

There wasn’t. The lights had been switched off and the display cases covered for the night. Polly dived behind the nearest counter and crouched there, watching the door to the stairs. After a moment, it opened and she could hear footsteps. She pressed closer behind the counter, holding her breath, and the footsteps retreated and the door closed.

She waited another long minute, listening. She couldn’t hear anything but the hum of the planes, still distant but moving steadily closer. She looked over at the lift. She could operate it—she’d watched the lift boys at Townsend Brothers do it—but the dial above its door said it was on Ground. It couldn’t come up to first without an operator. And if she went back to the stairs, and the guard had gone on up the stairwell, she’d run straight into him.

She ran across the floor, hoping there was another stairway on the far side, and there was. She darted up them, counting floors.
One and a half. Two. No, mezzanine. Mezzanine and a half. Two
. Why couldn’t Merope have worked on the ground floor?

The drone of the planes was substantially louder. She hoped the sound was being somehow magnified by the narrow stairwell. If it wasn’t…
Two and two-thirds… three
. She opened the door silently and peered out onto the floor. She couldn’t see any sign of the guard. Or of Merope anywhere on the darkened floor. The sound of the planes was less loud here than in the stairwell, but only marginally, and far off to the east Polly could hear the faint crump of a bomb.

She slipped through the door and started across the floor, looking for the notions department. “Merope!” she called. “Where are you?”

No answer. Polly remembered her saying she hadn’t recognized Polly calling her name that day in Oxford, and if anyone else was here, they’d know her by the name Eileen, too. “Eileen!”

Still no answer.
She’s not here
, Polly thought, running through the linen department.
Or the planes are drowning out my voice
. “Eileen!” she shouted more loudly. “Eileen O’Reilly!”

A hand clamped on her arm. Polly whirled, trying to think what excuse to give the guard. “I know you said the store was closed, but—” She stopped, her mouth open in astonishment.

It wasn’t the guard. It was Michael Davies.

“I DO BELIEVE THAT EVERY SINGLE UNPLEASANT PERSON
in London has decided to shop in Padgett’s today,” Miss Peterson whispered to Eileen in the stockroom, and Eileen had to agree. She’d spent all afternoon waiting on Mrs. Sadler and her wretched son Roland, who was being belatedly evacuated to Scotland on Thursday.

And it’s too bad it’s not Australia
, Eileen thought, bringing out yet another blazer for Roland to try on. He refused to extend his arm so she could get it into the sleeve and, when his mother turned away to look at the waistcoats, he kicked Eileen hard in the shins. “Ow!”

“Oh, did I knock into you?” Roland said sweetly. “I beg your pardon.”

And I thought Alf and Binnie were bad
, Eileen thought. They were angels compared to Roland. “How is this, madam?” she asked Mrs. Sadler after she’d finally managed to force the jacket onto him.

“Oh, yes, the fit’s much better,” Mrs. Sadler said, “but I’m not certain of the color. Do you have it in blue?”

“I’ll see, madam.” Eileen limped into the curtained storeroom, her ankle throbbing, to fetch the blazer in blue and then brown, and wrestle them onto the resisting Roland.

Why am I always stuck dealing with horrible children?
she thought.
I should never have let them transfer me up here from Notions, shorthanded or not
. And now it was perfectly obvious
why
they’d been shorthanded in Children’s Wear.
When I get back to Oxford, I am never doing another assignment involving children. Even if it means giving up VE-Day
.

“This blue is much nicer,” Mrs. Sadler said, fingering the lapels, “but
I’m afraid it won’t be warm enough. Scotland’s winters are very cold. Have you something in wool?”

The first four blazers he tried on
, Eileen thought. “I’ll see, ma’am,” she said and made another trip to the storeroom, thinking,
Why couldn’t I have searched the stores on the other side of Oxford Street first?
If she had, she wouldn’t have missed Polly. She’d still have been at Townsend Brothers when she went there, and they could have gone through to Oxford together. Instead, Polly was gone, and she was stuck here at Padgett’s waiting on six-year-old psychopaths till either someone came for her or she saved enough money to return to Backbury.

She’d written the vicar on the pretext of telling him she’d safely delivered the children, so he knew where she was staying and could tell the retrieval team, but if she were in Backbury, they wouldn’t have to come to London looking for her.

And it was far safer there. Stepney was bombed constantly, and Oxford Street had already been hit twice. The first time John Lewis had been gutted, which meant it hadn’t been the one Polly had mentioned. She must have got it muddled with the similar-sounding Leighton’s, and Townsend Brothers was where she’d got the idea it was a man’s name.

Thank goodness she hadn’t been hired on at John Lewis. But nowhere on Oxford Street was truly safe. If she’d been on her way to the tube station when John Lewis’s windows blew out…

But at this point she hadn’t managed to save enough money to go to Backbury. She needed not only train fare, but enough to pay her expenses once she got there. Mrs. Willett wasn’t charging her to stay since she watched Theodore at night and since they’d spent every night thus far in the Anderson. But she
was
charging Eileen board, and there were also her lunches and tube fare. She would have to work another full fortnight before she could afford to go.