There Is No Going Home Read online

  THERE IS NO GOING HOME

  Also by Madalyn Morgan

  Foxden Acres

  Applause

  China Blue

  The 9:45 To Bletchley

  Foxden Hotel

  Chasing Ghosts

  THERE IS NO GOING HOME

  A Bletchley Park Cold Case

  Madalyn Morgan

  There is No Going Home @ 2019 by Madalyn Morgan

  Published Worldwide 2019 @ Madalyn Morgan

  All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical (including but not limited to: the Internet, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system), without prior permission in writing from the author.

  The moral right of Madalyn Morgan as the author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Contents

  LONDON 1958

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  BERLIN 1936

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ENGLAND 1958

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FUTURE BOOKS

  OUTLINE OF EARLIER BOOKS IN THE DUDLEY SISTERS SAGA

  Acknowledgments

  Formatted by Rebecca Emin

  www.gingersnapbooks.co.uk

  Book Jacket Designed by Cathy Helms

  www.avalongraphics.org

  Cover image of the church by Rob Woodward

  Couple Image @ Dreamstime

  Thanks to Maureen Vincent-Northam for proofreading, author and friend Debbie Viggiano for her help with the book blurb, and Derek Eastwood for his advice on cars in England 1958 and Berlin 1936. Thanks to Jean Martin, Geraldine Tew, and author friends, Theresa Le Flem and Jayne Curtis for their continued support. Last, but by no means least, thank you Mercury News Shop in Lutterworth, W.H. Smith and Hunts Independent Bookshop in Rugby - and the libraries in Lutterworth, Rugby and Markfield - for stocking my books.

  There Is No Going Home is dedicated to my mother and father,

  Ena and Jack Smith

  I also dedicate this novel to my dear friend, Kitty Jacklin.

  LONDON 1958

  Ena dived to the floor, pulled off an earring and threw it behind the jewellery counter.

  ‘May I help you, madam?’

  From being on all fours, Ena rocked back on her heels. She poked her head above the glass display cabinet and scanned the room. The woman she had successfully avoided was striding across the ground floor of Selfridges department store towards the door leading to Oxford Street.

  ‘I dropped my earring,’ Ena said, looking up at the sharp features of the middle-aged shop assistant standing over her.

  ‘Is this it?’ The woman bent down and picked up a white plastic earring between her forefinger and thumb. Holding it at arm’s-length, as if she feared she would catch something from it, she dropped the bauble into the palm of Ena’s outstretched hand.

  ‘Thank you.’ Getting to her feet Ena glanced over the assistant’s right shoulder to where seconds before she had seen the woman. She had gone. Ena lifted the earring up to her ear. Her hair was in the way so she dropped it into her pocket. ‘Costume jewellery,’ Ena tutted and wrinkled her nose. ‘But I wouldn’t want to lose it, it has sentimental value.’ In an attempt to make light of the situation, she gave the woman a quirky smile. ‘I shall be more careful in future.’

  The assistant didn’t respond. Her lips remained a thin red line, her eyes emotionless. ‘Customers are not allowed on this side of the counter. If you don’t mind…’ Like a policeman directing traffic, the snooty shop assistant waved Ena to the front of the counter.

  ‘Sorry.’ Ena sidestepped the woman and headed briskly for the exit.

  She emerged out of the cool store into the warm still air of late summer, put her hands up to shade her eyes from the bright sunshine and froze. She spun round and pretended to give the window display serious attention. The woman she had avoided in the store was standing a few feet away from her talking to a middle-aged man. Ena strained to see what the man looked like in the reflection of the shop window. Taller than the woman by several inches, he wore a lightweight suit in a brown herringbone weave. An attaché case hung from his right hand and a camel-coloured overcoat was draped over his arm. He had not bought his clothes off the peg at Burtons, Ena thought. His suit and coat were bespoke. They had been tailored for him in Savile Row, she would put money on it.

  Trying to get a look at the man’s face beneath his brown trilby, Ena edged along the window to where a display of ladies’ swimsuits and two-piece bathing costumes were being replaced by autumn jackets and raincoats. As she moved, the man moved. He leaned forward until his face was almost touching the woman’s face and said something that made her laugh. She pointed to Selfridges’ door, then she kissed her fingers and transferred the kiss to his lips. The man smiled, shrugged, and looked north in the direction of Oxford Circus. Ena could see even less of him now. The woman’s reflection wasn’t as clear from this angle either. Not that it needed to be. Her posture, the way she walked, laughed, and the forthright way in which she had spoken to the man, were all too familiar. She looked different. But then she was fourteen years older, as was Ena, there was no mystery there. That the woman was standing behind her was the mystery. Feigning interest in the curling battlements of a cardboard sandcastle as it was being dismantled, Ena was able to observe the woman more closely.

  Elegant in a powder blue costume, the skirt hugging her slender figure came to just below her knees. The short box jacket was the height of fashion. The collar and cuffs were piped with navy blue silk and to complete the ensemble the woman carried a navy-blue handbag, wore matching high heeled court shoes, and sported a white wide-brimmed hat on perfectly coiffed blonde hair. ‘Bleached,’ Ena said, under her breath. She had been a brunette when Ena knew her. She smiled. Brown hair or blonde, Ena would know her anywhere.

  Keeping an eye on the couple, Ena sauntered past a display of dresses and coats to the corner o
f the building. Within reach of the side entrance, she turned and quickly slipped through the door. Unseen she walked to the front of the shop and stood behind two young female window-dressers dismembering mannequins. The interior of the shop was as dark as the outside was light. Ena could see the couple clearly without them seeing her.

  There was no doubt about it. The woman Ena was told had taken her own life in the winter of 1946 was alive and standing yards away from her, separated only by a glass window.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The man was the first to leave. He took the woman’s hand and pulled her to him. As he bent down to kiss her, the woman lifted her head and her lips brushed his. He kissed her the way someone who had lived on the Continent would do, briefly on both cheeks. Ena watched the man walk to the corner of Orchard Street. He waited for only a second before a silver Rover pulled up and the driver, wearing a peaked hat and a dark uniform stepped smartly out of the driver’s side of the car. He walked swiftly round the back of the vehicle, opened the rear passenger door and the man lowered himself into the car without looking back. A second later the driver was behind the steering wheel and the sleek silver Rover was gliding effortlessly along Oxford Street in the morning traffic.

  As soon as the Rover was out of sight the woman hailed a cab. Ena watched as she gracefully opened the door and got in. ‘Damn!’ Ena hissed. From inside the store she wasn’t able to hear the address the woman had given the driver.

  ‘Damn!’ she said again, and turned with such force she collided with a boy carrying several boxes. Balanced precariously on top of the square tower was a round hatbox. The boy took a step backwards to avoid Ena, stumbled, and the hatbox began to slide.

  Ena made a grab for it, missed, but seized the rest of the boxes. She managed to steady them, but not before the hatbox had fallen to the floor.

  ‘Nooo!’ the boy cried, as the hatbox rolled away from him along the ground.

  Ena pulled the remaining boxes towards her, but the boy pulled them back. ‘Go after the hat,’ she shouted, ‘I’ll look after these for you.’

  A look of indecision flashed across the boy’s face. He was clearly unsure about leaving one customer’s purchases with another.

  ‘Go on! Quickly!’ Ena ordered. ‘Get the hat!’

  A look of gratitude replaced the look of doubt in the boy’s eyes. He relinquished his grip on the boxes and chased after the escaping hatbox, stopping momentarily when it careered past the feet of the snooty shop assistant with the pinched face that Ena had crossed swords with earlier at the jewellery counter.

  Ena made no attempt to take the boxes to the assistant. She held them at arm’s length and waited for the woman to come to her. Hoping to distract her long enough for the boy to retrieve the run-away hatbox, Ena smiled. It was not reciprocated. The look on the woman’s face as she stormed towards her was one of fury, which told Ena the boy would later get the rough end of her tongue.

  ‘Sorry again,’ Ena said. Feigning embarrassment, she lowered her voice. ‘I wasn’t having any luck getting a taxi, so I decided to go up to the cafeteria for a cup of tea. I came into the dark store out of the bright sunshine and didn’t see the young man until it was too late.’ The woman’s face was puce and her eyes sparkled with rage from beneath heavy eyelids. She whipped the proffered boxes out of Ena’s hands. ‘I’m entirely to blame that the hat… I hope the young man won’t be in trouble for something that wasn’t his fault.’

  The woman’s nostrils flared. Ena half expected to see fire come out of them. She looked along the floor to where she had last seen the hatbox. It wasn’t there. It was heading for the size nines of an elderly man coming out of Gentlemen’s Outfitting.

  Ena winced as the man brought his foot down on the round container. The box stopped rolling, the lid came off, and a large brimmed hat, similar to the one the woman in the taxi was wearing but in cherry red, escaped.

  In one hurried movement, the boy swept up the hat and put it back in the box. Replacing the lid, he nodded his thanks to the man and walked shakily back to the store’s entrance where he waited for his superior to join him. Shamefaced the boy focused on the ground and followed the miserable female assistant out of the store to the waiting taxi. She placed the boxes carefully on the back seat and, after a few words with the woman, closed the cab door.

  As the taxi pulled away the woman assistant marched back to the store - the boy trailed behind her - and Ena made her exit through the side door.

  Ena ran to the road waving her hands in the air. She had every intention of jumping into the next available taxi and telling the driver to follow the cab the woman was in. Instead she watched the cab turn into Tottenham Court Road. A second later it was out of sight.

  When a taxi stopped a few feet away from her, Ena waited for the elderly woman to pay her fare. By the time she had sorted through her change to give the cabbie the right money, Ena was in two minds about taking a cab. After all, Madame Romanovski, at 7 Dean’s Crescent, Holland Park would no doubt be at home tomorrow or the next day. Ena smiled to herself. It had only taken her a second to read and commit to memory the name and address on the Selfridge’s boxes.

  ‘Where to, Miss?’ the cabbie called.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to walk.’

  Muttering, ‘Bloody women,’ followed by, ‘can never make up their minds,’ the taxi roared off causing a bus and the car behind it to brake sharply. The driver of the car gave several blasts on his horn, the bus driver thrust his arm out of the window and made a fist, and the taxi driver retaliated by sticking up two fingers. The sound of screeching brakes and horns blasting, caused other drivers to slow down. Some pulled into the kerb, stopped and got out of their vehicles to see what the kerfuffle was about.

  Responsible for bringing the traffic on Oxford Street to a standstill, Ena turned her back on the scene and started walking towards Oxford Circus. A woman stopped her and asked if she knew what was going on. Looking over her shoulder at the near accident she had almost caused, Ena shook her head. ‘No idea,’ she said, and walked on.

  She slowed her pace as she neared Oxford Circus underground station. Next to the railings on the far side of the steps leading down to the tube trains was a telephone box. She ran to it and pulled open the heavy glass-panelled door. As it closed behind her she picked up the receiver and inserted three pennies into the coin box.

  ‘What number would you like, caller?’ the operator asked.

  ‘Mayfair one-five-five,’ Ena replied.

  Almost at once the clipped voice of MI5’s switchboard operator said, ‘Leconfield House, which extension would you like?’

  Ena pressed button A.

  ‘Five,’ she said, breathless with excitement - and with her fingers crossed that Henry was in the office.

  A moment later her husband came on the line. ‘Green, here.’

  ‘Henry, it’s Ena.’

  ‘Hello darling.’

  ‘Frieda is alive.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Frieda Voight. She’s alive and she’s living in London.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was November 15, 1940, the day after the Coventry Blitz that her working relationship with Freda King developed into a friendship. Mr Silcott, the owner of the factory where she had worked since the beginning of the war, was needed in Coventry. Extensive damage had been done to the main factory, and he asked her to accompany Freda to Bletchley Park. She had never heard of Bletchley Park. Until that day she only knew that the work she did was destined for a place called Station-X. She remembered even now - eighteen years later - how excited she had been to be going to such an important place. If she had known what was to come, she would not have been so eager.

  A feeling of nausea swept over her as she brought to mind the day Mr Silcott had been beaten up and left for dead in the gents toilet on Rugby station. It was the same day that she had been drugged and her work had been stolen. She could still hear the voice of the man who had almost killed her. He had
initiated the conversation by asking her if she was all right, as she looked pale. She told him she suffered from travel sickness and sucked pear drops when she travelled. Out of politeness, she had offered him one. He took the packet, looked at its contents, and commented on the different colours before taking a sweet and handing the packet back to her. Putting a pear drop in her mouth was the last thing she remembered until she was woken by the ticket collector at Euston.

  When she eventually arrived at Bletchley Park she was interrogated by military intelligence. Although the head of Bletchley, Commander Dalton, didn’t accuse her outright of sabotage, she knew that she and everyone she worked with would be under suspicion.

  At the time it had been unthinkable that anyone at Silcott’s Engineering could have been involved in sabotage. Mr Silcott would have been fighting for his country if the government hadn’t told him he was needed to provide vital equipment for the war effort. Besides which, he wasn’t on the train. And it couldn’t have been Freda because she was at Beaumanor Hall, the other Station-X facility that Silcott’s did work for. She was sure it was someone from Bletchley Park who had stolen and later sabotaged her work.

  That was the last time she took work to Bletchley on her own. If there wasn’t enough petrol to drive down in the car, Freda went with her on the train. It was on one of those occasions that Freda was attacked. She had been walking along the corridor from the toilet when she heard Freda scream. She burst into the compartment to see a man with his hands around Freda’s neck. He turned when he saw her, lunged and tripped. At the same time she had swung the case of work towards the man and the corner met with his chin. He staggered backwards, fell, and hit his head on the brass ashtray attached to the window ledge. She could see him now, his eyes rolling back in their sockets. Then he let out a rasping breath, closed his eyes, and slumped sideways.