Because she’d driven Stephen, Paige Fairchild had gone with her to Croydon and had stopped the car to confront Polly. If she hadn’t, they wouldn’t have been there when the V-1 hit, they wouldn’t have found the man with the severed foot. Had she saved his life, too?
I hope so, Polly thought, remembering how he’d clutched her hand, how he’d told her he was sorry.
Just as I told Sir Godfrey I was sorry for getting him killed. But the man at Croydon hadn’t got either of them killed. It was just the opposite. If Paige hadn’t been bringing the medical kit, she’d have been in the ambulance when the V-2 hit and been killed. So why had he said he was sorry—?
“Oh, thank goodness you’re all right!” Hattie said, bursting into the ward. “I was so afraid—I kept telling the incident officer Reggie’d seen you run into the Phoenix, but it took me an age to convince him.” She handed Polly her clothes. “Tabbitt says you’re not to come in tonight or tomorrow night.”
Good, Polly thought. That will give me time to go to St. Bart’s. But when she arrived home, Eileen wouldn’t hear of it. “You’re going to bed,” she said. “You’ve only just got out of hospital, I’ll go. What is it you want me to find out?”
“The names of the people you took to St. Bart’s on the night of the twenty-ninth, especially the officer you kept from bleeding to death. And any information you can find out about them and about what happened to them after they got out of hospital, if they did get out of hospital.”
“You think I did something to lose the war, don’t you?” Eileen said, anguished.
“No,” Polly said, “I think you may have done just the opposite, but I need proof. Where are Alf and Binnie?”
“At school.”
“What about Mr. Dunworthy?”
“He’s sleeping, finally, and you’re not to wake him. He’s been so worried.”
“But there’s something I must ask him.”
“You can do it after I come back,” Eileen said firmly, and made Polly get into bed.
“Wait, before you go, you said Alf did the navigating that night. How did he know the streets?”
“From his planespotting,” she said. “He pored over his maps of England and London for hours.”
“Where did he get them? Did you give them to him?”
“No, the vicar did. During the quarantine. Alf was driving me mad, and I asked Mr. Goode to please send over something to keep him occupied.”
And if Eileen hadn’t been there, none of it would have been able to happen. Alf wouldn’t have known the streets, and Binnie wouldn’t have known how to drive, wouldn’t even have been alive. It all fit perfectly, as if it had been planned: Steps for Saving a Bombing Victim During an Air Raid.
“You’re to rest till I get back,” Eileen said.
Polly promised, and Eileen left. Polly waited five minutes, in case she came back to check on her, and then dressed and went to Alf and Binnie’s school and told the headmistress she needed to take them home. “It’s an emergency,” she said, which was true.
The headmistress sent a student to fetch them.
“Where’s Eileen?” Binnie asked when she saw Polly.
“At St. Bart’s,” Polly said, and Binnie went ashen.
“She’s dead, ain’t she?” Alf said hoarsely.
“No,” Polly said. “She’s perfectly fine. I sent her there to find out something for me.”
“You swear?”
“I swear,” Polly said, and Binnie’s color began to come back.
“Then what are you doin’ ’ere?” Alf asked.
“I came to take you out for a sweet to thank you for helping me at the hospital.”
“What sort of sweet?” Alf asked suspiciously.
She hadn’t thought that far, but the Hodbins knew exactly where to go. Polly bought them both ices and then asked, “This autumn did you ever go to St. Paul’s Station?”
Binnie, her mouth full, began to say no, but Alf was already blurting out, “That guard was lyin’. We didn’t do nothin.’ ’E give me that shilling. For tellin’ ’im what station it was, and then the guard come along and said we picked ’is pocket, but we never. ’E ain’t gonna put us in jail, is ’e?”
“I don’t know,” Polly said consideringly. “If the guard says you did … Do you remember what the gentleman looked like who gave you the shilling? Perhaps if we could find him, he’d be willing to speak to the police—”
“It weren’t no gent,” Alf said. “ ’E was a boy.”
“How old?”
Alf shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Older ’n us,” Binnie said. “Maybe seventeen.”
“And where were you when he gave you the shilling?”
“By the map,” Binnie said. “ ’E was standin’ there, and we come up to look at it. There ain’t no law says we can’t look at a map, is there? ’Ow else do you find out which line to take?”
“And then what happened?”
“The guard come up,” Binnie said, sounding outraged, “and told ’im ’e’d better check ’is money and papers.”
“We didn’t do nothin’,” Alf said.
Except delay him in the tunnel for a critical few minutes. If it was him.
Binnie was frowning at her thoughtfully.
I need to change the subject before she puzzles it out, Polly thought. “It was very clever of you to think of the snake at the hospital, Binnie,” she said.
“It was my idea,” Alf said, offended.
“It was not, you slowcoach.”
“Well, it was my snake. D’you want to see ’im?” He reached for his pocket.
“No,” Polly said, bought them both a lollipop, delivered them back to the headmistress, and hurried home. Eileen wasn’t there yet, and Mr. Dunworthy’s door was still shut. Polly rapped gently on it and went in.
Mr. Dunworthy wasn’t in bed. He was sitting by the window, looking out, and she was struck all over again by how weary and defeated he seemed. “Mr.
Dunworthy,” she said gently.
“Polly!” he cried and held out his hands to her. “Last night when you didn’t come home, I was afraid—”
He stopped and gave her a searching look. “What is it? Has something happened to Eileen?”
“No,” Polly said. She pulled a stool over in front of his chair and sat down facing him. “I need to ask you some questions. Mike said the night of the twenty-ninth, Mr. Bartholomew saved the life of the firewatcher who was injured. Is that right?”
“You think he contributed to what’s happened, too?”
“Yes, but not in the way you think. Did he? Save his life?”
“I don’t know. He said Langby had fallen on an incendiary and was badly burned. He might have.”
“I thought so,” Polly said. “Now, I need you to tell me exactly what happened that first time you came through to the Blitz, when you collided with the Wren. You came through into the emergency staircase and went out into the station—”
“Yes, to ascertain my temporal-spatial location, and when I found I was near St. Paul’s, I ran up to see—”
“No, before that. In the station.”
“I went to look at the Underground map, but there was nothing on it to indicate where I was, so I asked two children who’d come over, and the boy—it was a boy and a girl—said they’d only tell me if I paid them.”
Of course, Polly thought.
“So I gave them a shilling,” Mr. Dunworthy went on, “and they told me I was at St. Paul’s. And then a station guard came up and asked if they were giving me trouble and told me to check to make certain they hadn’t picked my pocket. And then he hauled them off, I think, or they ran off—I can’t remember. It was so long ago.”
“Do you remember what they looked like?”
“No, aside from their being extremely grubby.” He squinted, attempting to call up a picture. “The boy might have been seven and the girl—”