must obtain permission from your floor supervisor.”
“Miss Snelgrove’s not here.”
He glanced over at his secretary, who nodded confirmation. “She telephoned to say the trains weren’t running, and she was going to attempt to take a bus.”
“Oh. Your aunt, you say?”
“Yes, sir. My Aunt Louise. She was killed in a raid.” She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief.
“My condolences. When is the funeral?”
“Eleven o’clock at St. Pancras Church,” Polly said, and if Mr. Witherill (or, more likely, Miss Snelgrove) checked the funeral notices, they would find “Mrs. James (Louise) Barnes, aged 53, St. Pancras Church. 11 A.M. No flowers.”
“Very well,” he said, “but I expect you to return immediately after the funeral.”
“Yes, sir, I will,” Polly said and ran down to tell Doreen where she was going and to tell anyone who inquired after her that she’d be back by one, took the tube to Fleet Street, and walked quickly to the Times office, hoping ordinary people were allowed access to the morgue.
They were. She asked for the morning and evening editions from September twentieth through the twenty-second and was shocked to be handed the actual newspapers—though this was of course before digital copying or even microfilm. She paged through the large sheets, looking for the death notices and reading down through them—“Joseph Seabrook, 72, died suddenly of enemy action. Helen Sexton, 43, died suddenly. Phyllis Sexton, 11, died suddenly. Rita Sexton, 5, died suddenly.”
Polly’s name wasn’t on any of the lists, and the news article was only a brief paragraph headed “Beloved Eighteenth-Century Church Blitzed”. There were no details, no photo, not even the name of the church.
Good, she thought. She returned the papers to the desk and went on to the Daily Herald, checking the news story about St. George’s—“Fourth Historic Church Destroyed by Luftwaffe in Failed Campaign to Demoralize Brits”—and the death notices. Her name wasn’t there either, or in the Standard, which was all she had time to check. She would have to check the others later.
She raced back to Townsend Brothers, stopping at Padgett’s to rub a bit of rouge around her eyes in the ladies’ lounge and splash water on her eyelashes, cheeks, and handkerchief. And a good thing she had. Miss Snelgrove had arrived and clearly did not believe she’d been to a funeral.
And Colin wouldn’t believe I was dead either, she thought, even if he did see my death notice. Colin would refuse to give up. He’d insist they continue looking for her just as Sir Godfrey had.
Then where are they? she thought, writing up purchases and waiting for Miss Snelgrove to leave so she could ask Doreen whether anyone had asked for her while she was gone. Why aren’t they here? It had been nearly four weeks since the drop was damaged and five since she should have checked in.
She had to wait till after the closing bell to speak to Doreen. Doreen told her no one had come in and asked her about Marjorie. “Miss Snelgrove said she won’t be well enough to have visitors for at least a fortnight,” she said. “You don’t think it means she’s getting worse, do you?”
“No, of course not,” Polly lied.
“I keep thinking about her lying in that rubble and us not knowing what had happened,” Doreen said, “thinking she was safely in Bath when all the time… I feel so guilty not sensing she was in trouble.”
“You had no way of knowing,” Polly said, which seemed to reassure her. She went off to cover her counter, but Polly stood there, lost in thought.
No way of knowing. What if the reason the retrieval team hadn’t come wasn’t divergent points or their thinking she was dead or any of the other things she’d imagined? What if it was simply because the lab didn’t know they needed to send a team? That they didn’t know anything was wrong? Like I didn’t know Marjorie was lying in the rubble.
The lab had been swamped with retrievals and drops and schedule changes, and Mr. Dunworthy had been busy as well, meeting with people and going off to London. Could they all have been so busy and distracted they’d forgotten she was supposed to check in? Or could something have happened to Michael Davies at Dover or Pearl Harbor, and everyone’s attention was on pulling him out, and they’d put every other retrieval on hold?
If that was the case, they wouldn’t find out her drop wasn’t working till the day she was supposed to be back. Which meant they’d be