The Secret Keeper (28 page)

Thoughts of her brother tugged at Laurel. They ought to be together on this search, damn it. It belonged to both of them. She took out her mobile phone and checked for missed calls.

Nothing. Still nothing.

She scrolled through the address book until she found his number and pressed to make the call. She waited, biting her thumbnail as a distant telephone on a cluttered Cambridge office desk, rang and rang and rang. Finally, a click and then: ‘Hello, you’ve reached Gerry Nicolson. I’m shooting stars at the minute. You’re welcome to leave your details.’ No promise that he’d do anything with them though, Laurel noted wryly. She didn’t leave a message. She’d just have to go on alone for now.

Fourteen

London, January 1941

DOLLY HANDED OVER her umpteenth cup of soup and smiled at whatever it was the young fireman had just said. The laughter, the chatter, the piano music were all too loud to know for sure, but judging by the look on his face it was something flirtatious. It never hurt to smile, so Dolly did, and when he took his soup and went in search of somewhere to sit, she was rewarded, finally, with a break in the flow of hungry mouths to feed and an opportunity to sit down and rest her weary feet.

They were killing her. She’d been held up leaving Campden Grove when Lady Gwendolyn’s bag of sweets went ‘missing’ and the old woman had descended into a tremendous misery. The sweets turned up eventually, pressed into the mattress beneath the grande dame’s grande derriere; but by then Dolly was so strapped for time she’d had to run all the way to Church Street in a pair of satin shoes made for no greater duty than being admired. She’d arrived out of breath and sore of foot, only to have her hopes of sneaking in beneath the veil of carousing soldiers dashed. She was spied mid-flight by the team leader, Mrs Wad- dingham, a snout-faced woman with a terrible case of eczema that kept her in gloves and a filthy mood, no matter the weather.

‘Late again, Dorothy,’ she said, through lips as tight as a dachshund’s arse. ‘I need you in the kitchen serving soup, we’ve been run off our feet all evening.’

Dolly knew the feeling. Worse luck, a quick glance confirmed her haste had been in vain—Vivien wasn’t even there. Which made no sense because Dolly had checked carefully that they’d be working the evening shift together; what was more, she’d waved at Vivien from Lady Gwendolyn’s window not one hour before, when she was leaving number 25 in her WVS uniform.

‘Get on then, girl,’ said Mrs Waddingham, making a scoot-scoot motion with her gloved hands. ‘Into the kitchen you go. The war’s not going to wait for a girl like you now, is it?’

Dolly battled an urge to fell the other woman with a sharp jab to the shins, but decided it wouldn’t be proper. She bit back a smile—some- times imagining really was as good as doing—and gave Mrs Wadding- ham an obsequious nod instead.

The canteen had been set up in the crypt of St Mary’s church and the ‘kitchen’ was a small draughty alcove across which a trestle table had been dressed with a skirt and a string of union jacks to form a counter. There was a small sink in the corner, a paraffin stove to keep the soup hot and, best of all as far as Dolly was concerned right now, a spare pew leaned against the wall.

She took a last glance at the room to make sure her absence wouldn’t be noticed: the trestle tables were full of satisfied servicemen, a couple of ambulance drivers were playing table tennis, and the rest of the WVS ladies were busy clicking their knitting needles and tongues in the far corner. Mrs Waddingham was among them, her back turned on the kitchen, and Dolly decided to risk the dragon’s wrath. Two hours was an awfully long time to be on one’s feet. She sat down and slipped off her shoes; with a sigh of sweet relief, she arched her stocking-clad toes slowly back and forth.

WVS members weren’t supposed to smoke in the canteen (fire regulations), but Dolly dug inside her bag and pulled out one of the crisp new packets she’d got from Mr Hopton the grocer. The soldiers always smoked—no one had the heart to stop them—and a permanent grey tobacco cloud hugged the ceiling; Dolly decided no one would notice if a little more drifted its way. She eased herself onto the tiled floor and struck the match, giving herself over finally to thoughts of the rather momentous thing that had happened that afternoon.

It had all got off to rather an ordinary start: Dolly had been dispatched to the grocer’s after lunch and, embarrassing as it was to remember now, the task had put her in a foul mood. It wasn’t easy to find sweets these days, sugar being rationed and all, but Lady Gwendolyn was never one to take no for an answer and Dolly had been forced to trawl the back streets of Notting Hill in search of the friend of someone’s uncle’s landlord, who—it was whispered—still had such contraband to sell. She’d only just got inside number 7 two hours later and was still removing her scarf and gloves, when the doorbell rang.

The type of day she’d been having, Dolly had fully expected to find a rabble of pesky kids collecting scrap metal for Spitfires; instead, she’d found a tidy little man with a thin moustache and a strawberry birthmark covering one cheek. He was carrying an enormous black alligator briefcase, bulging at the seams, the weight of which appeared to be causing him some discomfort. One glance at his neat comb-over was enough to recognise, however, that he wasn’t the sort to admit vexation.

‘Pemberly,’ he said briskly. ‘Reginald Pemberly, solicitor at law, here to see Lady Gwendolyn Caldicott.’ He bent forward leaning closer to add, with a secretive hushing of the voice, ‘It’s a matter of some urgency.’

Dolly had heard mention of Mr Pemberly (‘A mouse of a man, not a patch on his father, knows how to keep a clean ledger, though, so I permit him to do my business …’), but she’d never come face to face with the man before. She let him in, out of the freezing cold, and ran upstairs to check that Lady Gwendolyn was happy to see him. She was never happy, not really, but where matters of money were concerned she was ever vigilant and so—despite sucking in her cheeks with sullen disdain—she waved a porcine hand to signal the fellow might be admitted to her bower.

‘Good morning, Lady Gwendolyn,’ he puffed (there were three flights of stairs, after all). ‘So sorry to call suddenly like this, but it’s the bombing, you see. I was hit rather hard back in December, and I’ve lost all my papers and files. Dreadful nuisance, as you can imagine, but I’m putting it all back together now—I’m going to carry the lot on my person henceforth.’ He tapped his bulging bag.

Dolly was dismissed and spent the next half hour in her bedroom, glue and scissors in hand, updating her Book of Ideas, and glancing at her wristwatch with increasing anxiety as the minutes ticked ever closer to her WVS shift. Finally, the silver bell tinkled upstairs and she was summoned again to her lady’s chamber.

‘Show Mr Pemberly out,’ Lady Gwendolyn said, pausing to concede a bloated hiccup, ‘then come back and tuck me in for the night.’ Dolly had smiled and agreed, and been waiting for the solicitor to heave his bag, when the old girl added, with customary insouciance: ‘This is Dorothy, Mr Pemberly, Dorothy Smitham. The one I was telling you about.’

There’d been an immediate shift in the solicitor’s bearing after that. ‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance,’ he’d said with great deference, and then he’d stood back for Dolly and held open the door. They’d exchanged polite conversation all the way down the stairs and when they reached the front and were conducting farewells, he’d turned to her and said, with a hint of awe, ‘You’ve done a remarkable thing, young lady. I can’t think that I’ve ever seen dear Lady Gwendolyn so cheerful, not since the terrible business with her sister. Why, she didn’t so much as raise a hand in anger, let alone her cane the whole time I was with her. Splendid stuff. Little wonder she’s so tremendously fond of you.’ And then he’d stunned Dolly by surrendering a little wink.

A remarkable thing … not since the terrible business with her sister … so tremendously fond of you. Sitting on the flagstones in the crypt canteen, Dolly smiled softly as she turned over the memory. It was just such a lot to take in. Dr Rufus had hinted at Lady Gwendolyn changing her will to include Dolly, and the old woman sometimes made teasing comments along those lines, but it wasn’t the same thing, was it, as actually talking to her solicitor, telling him how fond she was of her young companion, that they’d become like fam—

‘Hello there.’ A familiar voice cut through Dolly’s thoughts. ‘What’s a fellow’s got to do to get some service around here.’

Dolly glanced up, startled, and saw Jimmy leaning to peer over the counter at her. He laughed, and that lock of dark hair fell forwards across his eyes. ‘Playing hookey are we, Miss Smitham?’

Dolly felt the blood drain from her face. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said, scrambling to her feet.

‘I was in the area. Working.’ He indicated the camera slung over his shoulder. ‘I thought I’d swing by and collect my girl.’

She lifted a finger to her lips and shushed him, extinguishing her cigarette on the wall. ‘We said we’d meet at Lyons Corner House,’ she whispered, hurrying to the counter and straightening her skirt. ‘I’m not finished my shift yet, Jimmy.’

‘And I can see how terribly busy you are.’ He smiled, but Dolly didn’t.

She glanced beyond him at the busy room. Mrs Waddingham was still nattering about knitting and there was no sign of Vivien—all the same, it was risky. ‘You go on without me,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’ll come as soon as I can.’

‘I don’t mind waiting; it gives me a chance to watch my girl in action.’ He leaned across the counter to kiss her but Dolly pulled away ‘I’m working,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘I’m wearing my uniform. It wouldn’t be proper.’ He didn’t look entirely convinced by her sudden dedication to protocol and Dolly tried a different tack. ‘Listen,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘You go and sit down—here, take some soup. I’ll finish up, get my coat, and we can leave. All right?’

‘All right.’

She watched him go, and she didn’t exhale until he’d found a seat, way over the other side of the room. Dolly’s fingers were tingling with nerves. What on earth had he been thinking, coming here when she’d been so explicit about meeting him at the restaurant? If Vivien had been working as she was scheduled to, there’d have been nothing for Dolly to do but introduce the two of them, and that would’ve been disastrous for Jimmy. It was one thing at the 400, with him so dashing and handsome in the guise of Lord Sandbrook, but here, tonight, dressed in his usual clothing, all tattered and dirty from a night out working in the Blitz … Dolly shuddered to think what Vivien would say if she realised Dolly had a boyfriend like him. Worse, what would happen if Lady Gwendolyn were to find out?

So far—and it hadn’t been easy—Dolly had managed to keep Jimmy a secret from both of them, just as she’d been careful not to overwhelm him with chatter about her life at Campden Grove. But how was she supposed to keep her two worlds separate if he made a habit of doing the very opposite thing of what she asked? She fed her feet back inside the painful pretty shoes and chewed her bottom lip. It was complicated, and she’d never be able to explain it to him, not so that he’d understand, but it was Jimmy’s feelings she was trying to spare. He didn’t belong here at the canteen, just as he didn’t belong at number 7 Campden Grove or behind the red cord at the 400. Not like Dolly did.

She glanced over at him, eating his soup. They’d had such fun together, the two of them—the other night at the 400 and afterwards in her room; but the people in this part of her life couldn’t know they’d been together like that, not Vivien and certainly not Lady Gwendolyn. Dolly’s whole body burned with anxiety imagining what would happen if her old companion found out about Jimmy. The way her heart would break all over again if she feared herself at risk of losing Dolly, just as she’d lost her sister …

With a troubled sigh, Dolly left the counter and went to fetch her coat. She was going to have to have a talk with him; find a delicate way to make him understand that it was best for both of them if they played things a little cooler. He wouldn’t be happy, she knew; he hated playing pretend; he was one of those terribly principled people with a habit of seeing things too rigidly. But he’d come around; she knew he would.

Dolly was almost starting to feel positive when she reached the storeroom and slipped her coat from its hook, but then Mrs Wadding- ham brought her spirits right back down. ‘Taking an early mark, are we Dorothy?’ Before she could answer, the other woman sniffed suspiciously and said, ‘Is that tobacco smoke I smell back here?’

Jimmy sneaked his hand inside his trouser pocket. It was still there, the black velvet box, just as it had been the last twenty times he’d checked. The whole thing was becoming a bit of a compulsion, really, which was why the sooner he put the ring on Dolly’s finger, the better. He’d been over it countless times in his head, but he was still nervous as hell. The problem was he wanted it to be perfect and Jimmy didn’t believe in perfect, not generally speaking, not after everything he’d seen, the broken world and all its death and grief. Dolly did though, so he was going to do his best.