D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

“And me.”

Brady’s face split into a grin. “Well, now, that’s the first sensible thing I’ve seen the army do.”

The final week of Thorley’s training was spent in the classroom and on the field, square bashing for their final parade. At week’s end, after a small ceremony where the others in the squad received their commissions, Thorley and Brady packed up their gear and reported to the train station in town. There they waited for over two hours for the train to arrive.

“Some of the lines are up after last night’s raid,” the stationmaster had stated when asked.

Unconcerned, they spent the time playing cards and talking about their life outside the army. Once again, Thorley avoided saying much about his job at the Foreign Office, making it sound as tedious as possible, prompting Brady to comment. “It’s no wonder you volunteered, me boy. Sounds like you were about to go crackers.”

When the train chugged into the station, they found the only seats left were in the last car. Filled with smoke and the laughter of other servicemen, Thorley suddenly felt out of place. He remembered Lillian’s words of admonishment: You could have refused.

His eyes scanned the crowd of uniforms and the flush of excitement on their young faces, and he realized there were tears in his eyes. Some of these boys, a lot of them, would never see Christmas this year.

“You okay, Mikey?”

Thorley turned and saw Brady had somehow managed to come up with a bottle of scotch whisky and two reasonably clean glasses.

Thorley nodded, blinking back the tears. “Too much smoke in here,” he said.

“After a couple of these, you’ll be as right as rain. It’s not from the old sod, but it’ll still put hair on your chest.” He laughed and handed Thorley one of the glasses, pouring in a generous amount of the amber liquor.

The train ride was spent in a delightful fog with Brady regaling the carload of soldiers with more of his inexhaustible anecdotes. They arrived at Victoria by nightfall. Their orders told them to report to their ship for transport by 0700 the next morning. That left almost twelve hours of liberty. Thorley wanted to go home to Lillian, but Brady cautioned him against it. “She’s already said her goodbyes, Mikey. You’d only be throwin’ fat onto the fire by showin’ up for one night out of the blue like that.”

While his words held a certain logic, Thorley’s heart rebelled. He wanted to hold her in his arms one last time, he told Brady. For what if it were exactly that—the last time?

“Then you’ll never know,” Brady replied. “And your wife will always have her memories. Now, come on, you old sod. We’re young and alive, and it’s time we showed the world what’s what!”

Still feeling guilty, Thorley allowed himself to be taken on a tour of Soho dives straight out of a bad B-movie. He drank more than he wanted to and as the night wore on, he regretted his decision not to see Lillian. He left Brady occupied with a couple of painted-up tarts and took a taxi straight to Brixton. It deposited him on his doorstep at precisely 2:15 a.m. The Morgan was parked out front, and house was dark, which of course came as no surprise. But he did notice that none of the blackout shades had been pulled. That was strange.

Using his key, he let himself in, closing the door behind him with a soft click of the latch. He knew something was wrong immediately. It was too bloody quiet.

Resisting the urge to call out, he crept up the stairs, grateful that they’d never thought to have a gun in the house. But when he reached the top of the stairs, his unease increased. The bedroom door was ajar. One of Lillian’s little quirks was to always close the door upon their retiring. The first couple of times she’d done it he’d laughed, claiming, rightfully so, that they were all alone in the house and that no one was about to walk in on their intimate moments. And while she had never been a prude, she put it down to childhood fears that had never released their hold on her. She simply slept better with it closed.

Seeing it yawning open now brought a chill to Thorley’s heart, and abandoning caution, he ran into their bedroom, expecting to see the worst: her body on the floor twisted into some horrific pose of death. Somehow, what he found was worse: an undisturbed bed, everything in its place, like some sterile tableau in the home of a famous person long dead, preserved to convey the impression that they’d only just left the room.

Feeling woozy from the scotch he’d consumed with Brady, Thorley sat on the bed and tried to sort out the clutter of thoughts flooding his mind. Lillian was an orphan with no living relatives, so she could not be visiting any family. The only friends they had were university friends, faculty members they’d socialized with as a matter of decorum. On more than one occasion Lillian had remarked as to how stuffy and venal they all were, especially the wives.

I must be really drunk, he thought. She’s in the bloody air raid shelter.

Thorley retraced his steps downstairs, went through the kitchen, and out into the backyard. The “Anderson Shelter,” a structure of corrugated steel, nine feet long by five wide, lay half-buried in one corner of the yard. He opened the door and peered inside. Typical of Lillian, the emergency beds were neatly made, showing no signs of having been slept in.

That left only one other possibility: that she’d somehow been in an accident in London. Perhaps one of the