"When you were buried last night, did you call for help?" I would ask her, and she would answer me in her mouse voice, "I called and called between prayers. Why?" And I would say, "It's nothing, an odd fixation brought on by lack of sleep. Jack spends his days in Dorking, at a munitions plant, and has exceptionally acute hearing." And there is no more truth to my theory than to Renfrew's belief that the raids were brought on by a letter to The Times .
St George's had an entrance marked "Casualty Clearing Station". I asked the nursing sister behind the desk if I could see Mina.
"She was brought in last night. The James Street incident."
She looked at a pencilled and crossed-over roster. "I don't show an admission by that name."
"I'm certain she was brought here," I said, twisting my head round to read the list. "There isn't another St George's, is there?"
She shook her head and lifted up the roster to look at a second sheet.
"Here she is," she said, and I had heard the rescue squads use that tone of voice often enough to know what it meant, but that was impossible. She had been under that headboard. The blood on her nightgown hadn't even been hers.
"I'm so sorry," the sister said.
"When did she die?" I said.
"This morning," she said, checking the second list, which was much longer than the first.
"Did anyone else come to see her?"
"I don't know. I've just been on since eleven."
"What did she die of?"
She looked at me as if I were insane.
"What was the listed cause of death?" I said.
She had to find Mina's name on the roster again. "Shock due to loss of blood," she said, and I thanked her and went to find Jack.
He found me. I had gone back to the post and waited till everyone was asleep and Mrs Lucy had gone upstairs and then sneaked into the pantry to look up Jack's address in Mrs Lucy's files. It had not been there, as I had known it wouldn't. And if there had been an address, what would it have turned out to be when I went to find it? A gutted house? A mound of rubble?
I had gone to Sloane Square Station, knowing he wouldn't be there, but having no other place to look. He could have been anywhere. London was full of empty houses, bombed-out cellars, secret places to hide until it got dark. That was why he had come here.
"If I was a bad'un, I'd come straight to London," Swales had said. But the criminal element weren't the only ones who had come, drawn by the blackout and the easy pickings and the bodies. Drawn by the blood.
I stood there until it started to get dark, watching two boys scrabble in the gutter for candy that had been blown out of a confectioner's front window, and then walked back to a doorway down the street from the post, where I could see the door, and waited. The sirens went. Swales left on patrol. Petersby went in. Morris came out, stopping to peer at the sky as if he were looking for his son Quincy. Mrs Lucy must not have managed to talk Nelson out of the patrols.
It got dark. The searchlights began to criss-cross the sky, catching the silver of the barrage balloons. The planes started coming in from the east, a low hum. Vi hurried in, wearing high heels and carrying a box tied with string. Petersby and Twickenham left on patrol. Vi came out, fastening her helmet strap under her chin and eating something.
"I've been looking for you everywhere," Jack said.
I turned around. He had driven up in a lorry marked ATS. He had left the door open and the motor running. "I've got the beams," he said. "For reinforcing the post. The incident we were on last night, all these beams were lying on top, and I asked the owner of the house if I could buy them from him."
He gestured to the back of the lorry, where jagged ends of wood were sticking out. "Come along then, we can get them up tonight if we hurry." He started towards the truck. "Where were you? I've looked everywhere for you."
"I went to St George's Hospital," I said.
He stopped, his hand on the open door of the truck.
"Mina's dead," I said, "but you knew that, didn't you?"
He didn't say anything.
"The nurse said she died of loss of blood," I said. A flare drifted down, lighting his face with a deadly whiteness. "I know what you are."
"If we hurry, we can get the reinforcements up before the raid starts," he said. He started to pull the door to.
I put my hand on it to keep him from closing it. "War work," I said bitterly. "What do you do, make sure you're alone in the tunnel with them or go to see them in hospital afterwards?"
He let go of the door.
"Brilliant stroke, volunteering for the ARP," I said. "Nobody's going to suspect the noble air-raid warden, especially when he's so good at locating casualties. And if some of those casualties die later, if somebody's found dead on the street after a raid, well, it's only to be expected. There's a war on."
The drone overhead got suddenly louder, and a whole shower of flares came down. The searchlights wheeled, trying to find the planes. Jack took hold of my arm.
"Get down," he said, and tried to drag me into the doorway.
I shook his arm off. "I'd kill you if I could," I said. "But I can't, can I?" I waved my hand at the sky. "And neither can they. Your sort don't die, do they?"
There was a long swish, and the rising scream. "I will kill you, though," I shouted over it. "If you touch Vi or Mrs Lucy."
"Mrs Lucy," he said, and I couldn't tell if he said it with astonishment or contempt.
"Or Vi or any of the rest of them. I'll drive a stake through your heart or whatever it takes," I said, and the air fell apart.
There was a long sound like an enormous monster growling. It seemed to go on and on. I tried to put my hands over my ears, but I had to hang on to the road to keep from falling. The roar became a scream, and the pavement shook itself sharply, and I fell off.
"Are you all right?" Jack said.
I was sitting next to the lorry, which was on its side. The beams had spilled out the back. "Were we hit?" I said.
"No," he said, but I already knew that, and before he had finished pulling me to my feet, I was running towards the post that we couldn't see for the dust.
Mrs Lucy had told Nelson having everyone out on patrol would mean no one could be found in an emergency, but that was not true. They were all there within minutes, Swales and Morris and Violet, clattering up in her high heels, and Petersby. They ran up, one after the other, and then stopped and looked stupidly at the space that had been Mrs Lucy's house, as if they couldn't make out what it was.
"Where's Renfrew?" Jack said.
"In Birmingham," Vi said.
"He wasn't here," I explained. "He's on sick leave." I peered through the smoke and dust, trying to see their faces. "Where's Twickenham?"
"Here," he said.
"Where's Mrs Lucy?" I said.
"Over here," Jack said, and pointed down into the rubble.
We dug all night. Two different rescue squads came to help. They called down every half-hour, but there was no answer. Vi borrowed a light from somewhere, draped a blue headscarf over it, and set up as incident officer. An ambulance came, sat a while, left to go to another incident, came back. Nelson took over as incident officer, and Vi came back up to help. "Is she alive?" she asked.
"She'd better be," I said, looking at Jack.
It began to mist. The planes came over again, dropping flares and incendiaries, but no one stopped work. Twickenham's typewriter came up in the baskets, and one of Mrs Lucy's wine glasses. It began to get light. Jack looked vaguely up at the sky.
"Don't even think about it," I said. "You're not going anywhere."
At around three Morris thought he heard something, and we stopped and called down, but there was no answer. The mist turned into a drizzle. At a half past four I shouted to Mrs Lucy, and she called back, from far underground, "I'm here."
"Are you all right?" I shouted.
"My leg's hurt. I think it's broken," she shouted, her voice calm. "I seem to be under the table."