As Milly shook his hand, she was more than a little taken aback by the warmth of his welcome, especially when she considered how unpleasant he had been when Eustace had taken her to his studio in London.

He must have noticed her trepidation. ‘Firstly, I feel I owe you an apology,’ he began. ‘The last time we met, I was annoyed that Eustace had brought you to the London studio. Constant visitors disturb the artists’ concentration and, quite frankly, I had had enough of it. That said, I was rude to you, and for that I am truly sorry.’

Milly gave him a courteous nod.

He continued. ‘I had no idea of your talent, but when Principal Salt sent your portfolio, I must say I was very impressed.’

Milly felt her face colouring as she thanked him.

‘So . . .’ he said, letting out a satisfied sigh, ‘without further ado, let me show you around.’

He took her along a corridor and into a larger room which, though dimly lit, was a hub of activity. The people inside, mostly men but she spotted two women, were huddled over their desks, either model-making or apparently experimenting with colours on large canvases.

‘We’re still relatively new to this game,’ Stanley continued, ‘but our designers and technicians work on all aspects of civilian camouflage. The sole aim of this unit is to find ways of disguising key bombing targets should the worst come to the worst. When I first met you, you had mentioned your understanding of camouflage in the natural world, and since seeing your work on this, I am sure you would be a great asset to the team.’

As they walked around the building, Milly saw people working on things like giant nets which would be draped over buildings, and model-makers who were working out the best colours to use when painting fake road markings onto rooftops. They were obviously hoping to fool enemy planes into believing they were flying over the countryside rather than an area littered with factories. Though the gravity of the work was a bit scary, it was also exciting and inspiring, and everybody seemed friendly and helpful.

‘If I come here to work, Mr Richardson,’ Milly eventually asked, ‘will I be asked to sign the Official Secrets Act?’

‘Oh no, my dear,’ he said. ‘We want the public to understand what we are doing. Up until now there has been an unholy clamour to include buildings which it is not necessary to protect, so the powers-that-be feel that the more the public understands about camouflage and why we do it, the better. We want them to be supportive rather than critical.’

She hesitated. ‘I shall need somewhere to stay.’

‘We have a house just down the road,’ he went on. ‘You would have your own room and board. And while we’re on the subject, we will pay you £200 a year, less thirty bob a week for board and lodging.’

Of course, the men in the room would most likely be getting at least a third more (that was the way of the world), but she would still be getting a good wage. If she came here, and it was until Christmas, she could save quite a bit towards her marriage.

They had reached the door.

‘Do you have a place to stay tonight?’ he asked.

‘I’m catching the train back home,’ she said, glancing up at the clock. ‘There’s one at five-ten and the last one is at six-fifty.’

‘Then I shall run you to the station myself,’ he said with a smile. ‘We can’t have you stumbling about in the pitch black on your own, can we?’

She arrived at the station in good time.

‘I hope you enjoyed your visit, Miss Shepherd,’ he said as she climbed out of the car.

‘I certainly did, Mr Richardson,’ she said and, as she went to close the car door behind her, Milly hesitated for just a second before she added, ‘and I should very much like to work with you.’

Strangely enough, Lena was in Horsham having an interview herself. In the capital in September there had been an air of panic. Although the National Air Raid Precautions for Animals Committee had produced a leaflet advising people that if they couldn’t send their pets to the country, the kindest thing would be to have them put down, there were still plenty of pets who needed help. However, as time went on, more and more RSPCA inspectors were being called up, so for the first time in its history the charity had looked to women to fill in the gaps. They were not allowed to be inspectors (that was too large a pill to swallow), but they could learn the basics of animal husbandry and how to drive an animal ambulance. Lena saw her chance to make a difference at last. Her interview went well. She was invited to learn how to drive and, once she’d mastered that, she could be trained in animal first aid. All that remained before she made a start was getting a medical, the usual requirement when joining a uniformed service.

Lena was already working with her pigeons. Most of the birds she’d had at the time of the fire had returned to the cottage, but of course she now had to retrain them to ‘home’ to Cyril’s cottage. He helped her build a new cage with a small drawbridge opening which would allow the pigeons in while deterring predators. She spent whatever spare time she had off from the stables in encouraging the young birds – aged six to eight weeks and called squeakers – to get used to being handled by hand-feeding them. The slightly older pigeons, five to six months old, were being trained to home. That meant she had to take them a mile, then two miles, and anything up to ten miles from home and release them.

‘They say the way to a pigeon’s heart is through its stomach,’ Cyril told her in the beginning, so Lena made sure the birds were ready for a meal when she set them free. Usually, they would circle for a few minutes until they got their bearings, and then they were off and, more often than not, they beat her back home. By the end of September, she was sending them on long train journeys to have them released, and most of them made it back to the cottage. All that remained was to ensure that her pigeons were registered with the armed forces so that – should the war escalate – her birds could carry vital messages from conflict zones.

Lena felt contented at last. She was still living with Cyril, and the arrangement suited them both. He still treated her like a daughter and enjoyed her company; she had a roof over her head and someone to care about. Yes, they were living in perilous times, but so long as she felt useful and she was with her beloved animals, life was good. Nipper had joined them and grown very close to Cyril. As for Cyril himself, he regarded the dog as his, even if Seebold was still around.

Lena’s piece of land by Bridge Halt had been requisitioned by the army. They didn’t seem to be doing much with it at the moment, but it was rumoured that it might become an ammunition dump, or maybe a camp site for some of the hundreds of Canadian servicemen believed to be on their way. Lena had been given some war bonds in exchange for the land, and they’d told her that as soon as hostilities ended, she would be compensated. Her hopes and dreams were on hold right now, but the country was at war and that had to take priority.

Cyril was out when she got back home; nothing unusual about that because he always played skittles in the Black Horse at Findon with some of his old World War I comrades on a Wednesday. Nipper lay contentedly on the path leading to the back door; however, as she came round the cottage, she realised something wasn’t quite right. The pigeons were spooked, and Lena thought she could hear someone moving about in the big shed. Who could it be? And what were they doing there? Were they after Cyril’s tools, or maybe some of Nan’s preserves? She’d bottled just about everything and, even though she’d been gone a couple of months now, the shelves were still stacked. Lena thought about calling out, but as her heartbeat quickened, she decided to go for the element of surprise instead. Why hadn’t the dog reacted? He was old and she had long suspected that he was a bit deaf, but surely he should have guarded his domain?

Picking up the garden fork which leaned against the wall by the kitchen window, Lena crept towards the shed as quietly as she could. As she drew closer, she could make out that it was a man – he had his back to her, but he looked quite hefty and she was only a slip of a girl. She chewed her bottom lip anxiously and then decided that as Nipper was right behind her, as soon as she cried out, the dog was bound to leap into action.

Taking a deep breath, Lena shouted, ‘Hey you! Come out from there, whoever you are.’

The person jumped and she heard the sound of something, a tool perhaps, falling with a loud clatter, then a man’s voice said, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. You frightened the life out of me!’

Milly arrived back in Worthing at seven-thirty. She was exhausted but happy as her train pulled into Worthing station. In her last snatched conversation with Stanley Richardson, it had been arranged that she would receive a formal letter, and probably travel back to Warwickshire later in the month. She was also famished, so her first thought had been to dash over to North Street and Worley’s fish-and-chip shop. Hurrying out of the station, she ran down the steps and crossed the road when someone called her name. She stopped in mid-track and turned around slowly. It couldn’t be, could it? It was!

‘Seebold,’ she cried; a moment later, she was in his arms.

He had taken her to Worley’s, and from there to the seafront, where they ate the best fish and chips on the planet. Milly was blissfully happy.

‘It’s so good to see you again. How did you know I would be at the station?’

‘Lena told me. I was checking the lorry over in Cyril’s shed when she crept up behind me and gave me the fright of my life.’

Milly laughed aloud as he told her what had happened. ‘I bet she was just as scared as you were.’

‘I think she was,’ he said, screwing up the newspaper that had kept their food warm. Taking her into his arms, he kissed her tenderly, then hungrily. ‘This isn’t very romantic,’ he apologised, ‘but I think I shall remember this moment for the rest of my life.’

She gently tugged at his hair at the front until the curl, much shorter now, fell onto his forehead. ‘So will I,’ she whispered, ‘and you’re wrong. This is the most romantic place in the whole world.’

Chapter 43

With the last of the boxes almost empty, and most things where she wanted them to be, Agatha sat down and reached for her cigarettes. It was pretty decent of Bunny Warren to offer her a place to live for as long as she wanted it. She knew he thought she was wonderful, and he’d made no secret of his affections ever since Charles had died. That’s why it was easy to ask him to give Pearl away on her wedding day. He’d been over the moon to have the honour, and he’d thrown in a couple of crates of champagne as well, which of course she knew he would. Agatha smiled to herself. She had always been a good judge of character.

Bunny had asked Agatha to marry him more than once, but he really was the most irritating man with a rather silly disposition, and she knew she couldn’t live with his ridiculous laugh. She shuddered at having to submit to those puffy wet lips daily, and the thought of his podgy fingers seeking out her private parts made her feel positively queasy. As time went on, he was becoming bolder. When he pressed himself against her and kissed her, for her the earth never moved but for Bunny something definitely did. On the plus side, he was very rich, and before the Great War his passion for big-game hunting had often taken him abroad. Not so now. This war which, like the last one, was supposed to be over by Christmas, was clearly going to be a long-drawn-out job. He was at least twelve years older than Agatha, and she wondered vaguely if she could bear to live with him for the rest of his life, even if he didn’t last that long. Probably not. In order to have a secure and comfortable life, marriage was very tempting, but not unless she could work out a way to spend as little time with him as possible.

If Pearl had been with her, the cottage would have been rather cramped, but right now her daughter was incarcerated in a mental institution. As terrible as that was, Agatha knew that it was a blessing in disguise. Had the doctors decided she was in her right mind, Pearl would have been indicted and most likely hanged for her crimes. The murder of Nan had indeed been unintentional, but the attempted murder of Millicent was deliberate and – with four policemen as witnesses in the room – could not be denied. Some said she was wicked, but Agatha put it down to the stress of her husband’s betrayal. She was relieved, though, when the doctors decided that her beloved daughter was insane and put her in a secure unit.

As for Freddie himself, he was in prison. He might have been simply interned, as were many of his ilk, but for the fact that he had left so much evidence of what he’d been up to in the ice house and downstairs in the basement. MI5 had gone through every list, and realised that he had not only collected the names of people who were Nazi sympathisers and others who were against Hitler’s regime, but he had also photographed key installations and put together a detailed account of the workings of the surrounding ports and airports. All of that could have been very helpful for the enemy. The only thing which saved him from being executed as a traitor was the fact that he’d carried out his plans before the war started. He had been tried and found guilty of aiding and abetting an enemy, and sentenced to twenty years, with ten years hard labour. Of course, Agatha wasn’t in the least bit sorry for him. She had treated him with respect, had him in her house, and allowed him to court her daughter, but all along he had duped them with his lies. She had thought of him as a member of the aristocracy, when he had been nothing more than a dirty little spy.

Surprisingly, most of Agatha’s ‘set’ had sympathised with her rather than ostracising her. She was no longer young, but she was still an attractive woman and, as such, she got plenty of invitations to parties. There weren’t so many now, but she belonged to a group of ‘haves’ who were sitting it out and carrying on as if the war didn’t exist. Agatha was sure they talked behind her back, but she didn’t care. She still managed to have a decent social life, and that was enough for her.

Millicent never did go to live in Muntham Court. Soon after Freddie’s trial, the house was requisitioned by the government and was now a base for army officers, but quite what went on there was anybody’s guess. At the beginning of November, Agatha read with disgust in the local paper that Millicent had joined the Camouflage Directorate unit in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Apparently two hundred and fifty artists, designers and technicians worked there and, according to the newspaper, her daughter had been one of two thousand applicants for the position. The article went on to say that her gift with a paintbrush was truly exceptional. Agatha scoffed at that idea, although she did wonder vaguely what they actually did in the directorate. Probably more window-dressing, or some such useless occupation.

She’d seen that dreadful showman Millicent was so keen on a few times. He was in uniform. He’d joined the Royal Engineers. Well, what did you expect? There was a war on, so she supposed the army would be forced to take on any old riff-raff. And as for the whore’s daughter . . . she couldn’t come back to the cottage until it was repaired after the fire, and that wasn’t very likely to happen any time soon. She wouldn’t have the money. Agatha had heard that she was living with Cyril. Apparently she’d been with the old man when she was a child and he treated her like a daughter. More fool him, that’s all she could say. The girl had gone there with her menagerie, and someone had said she would soon be wearing an RSPCA uniform. When she heard that, Agatha had cancelled her subscription to the charity. In her opinion, if they were employing the likes of her, the organisation was definitely going downhill. As for the girl herself – well, she was no better than she ought to be.

Finishing her cigarette, she went back to the boxes. The last thing at the bottom of the box was an old handbag. Heavens above! She hadn’t seen that thing in years. Agatha held it out in front of her. Did she like it? She wasn’t sure. Would she use it again? Probably not. She was about to throw it in the bin when she thought she’d better open it to make sure there was nothing inside. To her surprise it contained a letter. An unopened letter. Agatha frowned. What on earth . . .?

It turned out to be a letter from Charles. As she rotated it in her hands, she realised it was the letter the solicitor had given her on the day Charles’s will was read. Good Lord, all that time ago and she’d never even looked at it. She’d been far too angry with how little he had left her. All she remembered from that day was that silly little note. Silence is golden. I remembered my promise. She scoffed. She’d known what he’d meant, of course. He’d kept her secret about Pearl. Charles had never adopted Pearl; Agatha wouldn’t allow it because the fact that she had never married Pearl’s father would have become public knowledge, so the girl remained illegitimate. Agatha knew people would call her ‘second-hand goods’ had they known and so she had made Charles promise to never tell.

And now she had this letter. What on earth had he said to her? She lowered herself into a chair and unfolded the paper.

My dear Agatha