Grest shook with laughter. ‘So someone killed her, mate, but it wasn’t me.’ He looked in my direction. ‘They’ll get what’s coming to them, though.’
I ran to Lorelei’s room, collapsing into the seat at her dresser. My hands dropped on to the table and under my palm I felt something hard and polished: her hairbrush. It still had some of her hairs entwined in it.
‘Is he telling the truth?’ Tibbot said quietly. I hadn’t heard him come in.
‘I think so.’
But what he was implying – it just couldn’t be true. I wouldn’t have done that. We know ourselves and our own lives, don’t we? Or is that what happens when we begin to mirror the divided world around us? We become strangers to ourselves. No, it couldn’t be true.
‘We have to decide what to do,’ Tibbot said. His tone was different. He was trying to work things out too.
I gazed at her hairbrush. ‘Were you keeping a watch on me?’ I asked. ‘When I went to Great Queen Street?’
‘And when you left. I had a feeling you weren’t going to leave things alone. The thing about the Secs is that they just can’t imagine someone doing to them what they do to everyone else all the time.’ There was a pause. Tibbot looked around. ‘She travelled overseas, didn’t she? Met all those foreign actors and Presidents. I bet she brought stuff back with her. Perfect way of doing it. Besides, she’s on our posters: Victory 1945. Pin-up girl for the Party. No one’s going to stop her and go through her case. It would be like stopping Blunt.’
I hesitated. ‘What about Nick now? Will they release him?’
‘Yeah, I think Grest wanted your husband out of the way so he could get the contact information and take over – one hundred per cent is better than thirty. But Grest will be a good boy now. I’ve told him that if he doesn’t, I’ll have a word in a lot of ears. Spread it around.’ He went over to the poster for The Lucky Lady, with Lorelei in a red silk gown, her face set behind a carnival mask made of red lace, and a spinning roulette wheel. There was a smaller image of her singing – it was a musical, it seemed.
‘What will they do about her death? NatSec, I mean.’
He sighed. ‘Blame it on an intruder, I expect. Burglary that went wrong. Close the file.’
‘Are you certain they will close it?’
‘You can’t tell with these people. But I think so.’ He wiped sweat from his brow. ‘Jane?’
‘Yes?’
‘Will you do something for me?’
‘Of course, what?’
‘When your husband gets out, will you keep schtum about all this? Even from him. It’s just that the fewer people who know, the safer it is for me, you understand?’
‘Yes, of course.’ I owed him that a hundred times over.
I grabbed on to the thought of Nick returning home to us, and looked to the speckled light slipping through the window.
25
I worried that, despite our leverage over him, Grest wouldn’t keep his word about releasing Nick. All morning I wavered between staring out the front window and trying to find ways to distract myself. I didn’t tell Hazel – even though I was bursting to do just that – in case it raised a false hope. Then, a little after eleven o’clock, as I was making some tea, there was a key in the lock and Nick stood on the threshold. I flew to him, and the two of us stood hugging each other as tightly as we could. ‘God, I love you,’ I whispered. And all the doubts and worries – how he had kept it from me that he and Lorelei had been involved in the black market and how it had come back to haunt us all – were buried under that truth. I would think about them later, but not now.
‘I love you too,’ he whispered back, kissing me. I knew that was true.
I wondered if he was aware of my involvement in his release, but I kept my word to Tibbot about not mentioning it – maybe one day I would be able to tell him. Luckily, the mark where Grest had hit me was small enough to be covered up by my rouge, and hopefully Hazel wouldn’t say anything. Nick called up the stairs to her and she squealed at his voice, almost tumbling down to the hall.
I held them both until he fought away from me, telling me he did need to breathe every once in a while. ‘Let’s go to that café in Victoria Park,’ he said. ‘I have a craving for ice cream.’
I just burst into laughter and drew them both to me again. Hazel kissed my cheek.
‘What was it like in there?’ Hazel asked with an untouched dish of ice cream melting in front of her. She had been too excited to eat it.
‘Oh, it was all right, really. Just boring. I spent most of my time thinking what I would buy you for your birthday,’ he replied with a wink. At home I had helped him to splint and bind the wrist Grest said had been broken by one of the guards. Nick told us it was just a sprain.
‘They didn’t hurt you?’
‘No. I think they knew they had made a mistake as soon as I got through the door; they were too embarrassed to admit it, though, so they kept me there for a while.’ He kissed her forehead and she pushed him away. ‘I won’t be taking you there on holiday but it wasn’t too bad. Now, do you want that ice cream or am I having it?’
‘I’ll have it, please. But I’m just going to the–’
‘It’s over there,’ he said, pointing. I watched her go through the shabby door to the toilets. ‘Has there been any more news about Lorelei? Anything from the police?’ he asked me.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Hmm, well, I expect we’ll find out eventually.’
I hoped so. ‘What was it really like?’ I asked.
‘Not an unmitigated delight. Worse than I told her, but they didn’t get the thumbscrews out. They threw a punch or two, but I’ll live. Bread and cold clear soup three times a day – that was probably the worst of it. Really, I was telling the truth when I said I think they realized their mistake pretty early on, but they’re NatSec, aren’t they? So they can’t admit to getting things wrong, or we little people will start to get ideas about them.’ He ate a small slice of cake that the waitress brought him. We waited until she was gone before speaking again in lower tones.
‘Was there questioning?’
‘Twice, by the same man. He looked more like an accountant than a Sec.’ That didn’t sound like Grest – presumably they had people who specialized in interrogation. ‘He was in this big high chair behind a desk and I had to sit on a low stool in the corner of the room like a child. Each time the questions were exactly the same: Why did I kill Lorelei? Who was I working for? Did she listen to Churchill’s speeches? Did she have a normal sexual appetite or was she abnormal?’ He forced down a grin. ‘But that’s when I knew I was safe – there was nothing that they actually suspected me of; they were just hoping I would volunteer something. And besides, they knew I was at Fred Taggan’s house when she died. It was just them flexing their muscles a bit. You would think they had better things to do with their time. God knows why they thought I was involved in anything. Probably given some duff information by a Citizen Informant – one of my patients or a neighbour or something. Bloody CIs. They’re vermin. Anyway, how did you bear up?’
‘It wasn’t easy. But I was OK.’
He took my hand in his. ‘Was Charles any help?’
I thought back to how he had been. ‘Hardly,’ I said, trying not to sound too bitter.
He suppressed a smile. ‘Well, he’s not brilliant on the sympathy front, is he? But he’s harmless. Lorelei used to call him “Hopalong” when he wasn’t around. His limp.’
‘Did she?’
‘Oh, yes. It was a bit rich from her, really.’
‘How so?’
He started eating Hazel’s ice cream. ‘Oh, after the War she was taken round all the forces hospitals so the chaps could meet the lovely young actress and she could stroke their fevered brows. Lot of blokes with shell shock and the like. Charles was quite churned up and she kept the act up with him, asking him how he was feeling, telling him to let it all out, that sort of thing.’