“So Archie Coombes has a bit more money than we thought he might,” said Maisie. “Or at least he has friends who have money. Did you manage to look at the lodgings, by any chance?”
“I went across and knocked on the door. Nicely turned out woman comes to answer, and says I’d just missed him. I did my best forlorn look, you know, the one I put on to get round someone, and I said I wanted to leave a message for him. I pulled out my notebook and began scribbling—you know, blah-blah-blah-blah—and asked if I could put it in his room. She looked suspicious, but I said it was private, and she said she would take me up there so I could just slip it on the table. The table? Lodgings only usually come with a rotten old cast iron bed with a horsehair mattress and a couple of blankets, p’rhaps a washstand if you’re lucky. So she took me up there, opened the door and there before me is a very nice gaff indeed—two rooms, one a sitting room and one a bedroom as far as I could see. ‘He had his own furniture put in here,’ said this landlady, all proud of the room. ‘He says that when he gets his house, he’ll leave it here for me.’”
“When he gets his house?” said Maisie.
“That’s what I thought. Doing very well, for a lad of—what?—twenty, is he?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions—he could just be very careful with his money.”
“Not buying new suits, he isn’t!”
“The motor car outside—what was the driver like? Did you get a look at him?”
“Older than Archie. I’d say he was in his thirties, or even forties, but you can never be sure, not from a distance, and I didn’t want to stare and draw attention. I was taking enough of a risk as it was.”
“Yes, you were,” replied Maisie, remembering a time when Billy was beaten up by a suspect in a case, and left for dead—she had told him then, that under no circumstances must he ever put his life in danger ever again. No job was worth his life. “It’s unusual, and added to your observations about the Coombes family, it seems there are some significant contradictions.”
“I’ll say there are,” interjected Billy.
“On the one hand they are very tight,” continued Maisie. “They appear a very loving family, very honorable in fact. But these little things come to the surface—flashes of expenditure on items that would otherwise seem to be out of the budget of a family in their position, and then some discord in the home.”
“So where’s the money coming from?”
“I think we have to be very careful about following that particular stream—at least until we have more of an idea as to where it might lead. I’ll pop in to talk to Phil and Sally again, and I’ll see what I can do about finding Teddy Wickham. And I think I want to see Archie myself.”
“Are you going down to Hampshire?”
“Yes, but I might wait until I hear back from you or Priscilla.”
A silence descended on the conversation. It was broken by Billy.
“You think going down to Ramsgate is a fool’s errand, don’t you, miss?”
“I confess, it was my suggestion. And I certainly think you’re right about it being chaotic there. But I know Priscilla, and I know she has to feel as if she has some control over the matter, so going to Ramsgate and being there when boats come in will keep her from losing her mind completely.”
“There’s talk that this evacuation could go on for days. She won’t see him until the end, will she? Because what a lot of these little boats are doing is going in there, picking up men who’re waiting, then taking them to the bigger ships, the ones that can’t get in because of what they draw—it’s too shallow.”
“You’re sounding like a sailor, Billy,” said Maisie.
“My boy’s over there, so I’ve been reading up on it, this business of ships and where they can dock. And I’ve been listening to the wireless. They don’t say everything, sort of let out the news bit by bit.”
“That’s what Douglas said. Apparently it’s being orchestrated by a man named Duff Cooper. So people are informed, but not enough to cause panic—he told Douglas that it’s no good trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the British people, because they know very well when the language used in newsreels is designed to manipulate them.”
“That didn’t work, did it—your friend is panicking for all of us.”
“I know—but most people are calm, getting on with their lives.”
“Miss, you think the world of Tim. You must be worried sick.”
“I am, Billy—really worried. And I’m not sure Ramsgate is the place to wait. When they come back toward the coast, I have a feeling they might make their way to Rye. They’ll take their usual route, because they will want to get home—and they’ll want to get home because they will have seen things they might never have imagined even in their worst nightmares.”
Maisie considered her plans for the following day. Phil and Sally Coombes, Mike Yates and Archie Coombes were all on the list. And Vivian. Vivian Coombes was an interesting study, thought Maisie, not least because it was fair to assume she wanted to do what both her brothers had done quite successfully—get out from under their parents’ roof.
When a telephone call came later, it was Priscilla reporting to say they had reached Ramsgate and could find out nothing.
“Maisie, I never thought I would see this sort of thing again, really I—oh hell, the pips are going . . . Douglas . . . Douglas, give me some more change. Right—” There was a brief pause as Priscilla put more coins in the slot. “It—it’s taken me back, Maisie—I feel as if I’ve been swept into France in 1916. I remember driving back toward a casualty clearing station in my ambulance—I was so new, it was only my second or third run—and I passed a line of men walking the other way, young men who’d been in the trenches, filthy and sodden with mud, a good number wounded. It’s like looking at that all over again—” The line crackled, and Priscilla’s voice was clear again. “Anyway . . . anyway . . . we’ve spoken to some officials—well, they looked official. And no one has a record of this boat they’ve gone out on—Cassandra is her name. Well, they wouldn’t, would they? The boys joined unofficially, and no one was going to turn them back because everyone was so determined to get on themselves.” There was a gasp on the line, followed by a crackling silence.
“Priscilla! Pris! What’s wrong?”
“There’s a long line of men disembarking one of the boats, and they’re walking toward the station for trains to take them back into London—it’s a never-ending snake of soldiers. Billy and Douglas were waiting outside for me and—I can’t quite see what’s happened, but Billy just ran off. I’ve never seen him move so fast. I can’t quite see. Oh dear, he’s almost fallen—it’s his weak leg, he shouldn’t try to run like that.” Another break in the telephone line, which Maisie recognized as the pips sounding for more money. “I think I’ve almost run out of coins here, Maisie,” continued Priscilla. “I can’t say, but . . . but I think Billy has seen his son. Gosh, I hope he’s not mistaken—it would be so easy. Douglas is walking down there now. Hang on, let me open the door to get a better look.” There was a pause. Maisie heard voices in the background, the muffled sounds of people moving along outside the kiosk. Priscilla came back on the line. “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness—” She wept into the telephone. “It is. It’s his son—he’s found his son.”
And as the line disconnected, Maisie replaced the receiver, brought her hands to her face, and wept as well—for Billy, for Priscilla and Douglas, and what they already knew of war. She wept too for Phil and Sally Coombes—for whatever had come to pass in the family, they had still lost a beloved son.