There Is No Going Home Read online

  Without touching on Bletchley Park or Beaumanor, the women talked about the war work they did in the factory, the dances they went to, who was walking out with who, and who ended up marrying who. One of Ena’s friends showed her photographs of her husband and children and asked her when she was going to come back to Lowarth, settle down and have a family.

  ‘I’m too busy at the moment,’ Ena said, ‘but one day.’

  Another asked her about the work she did. Ena managed to bat-off most of the questions about her job, and ended up saying she was a clerk in an office in Covent Garden. After that, the conversation changed. A couple of the women said they had been to Covent Garden when they visited London.

  The time flew by. It felt as if the morning was over before it began. When the bell rang at the end of the lunch-break, Ena promised to visit again when she next came up to Foxden. As the women returned to their machines, Herbert Silcott arrived to walk Ena out of the canteen and into the reception.

  ‘Be careful, Ena,’ Herbert said. He took her hand in his and shook it gently. ‘Keep in touch, will you? Let me know what happens to Freda?’

  Before Ena could answer, the receptionist appeared at Herbert’s side. ‘There’s a telephone call for you, Mr Silcott.’ Herbert looked uncomfortable about leaving Ena. ‘It’s Mr Whittle at Bristol Aero Engines. He’ll only speak to you, sir.’

  ‘I shall have to take this call, Ena. I won’t be a minute.’ Herbert followed the young woman to the reception desk and picked up the telephone. Without taking his eyes off Ena he greeted Frank Whittle.

  Ena waved goodbye. She had no intention of involving Herbert further in the web of lies and deceit that his ex-employee Freda King had woven. To do so would be dangerous.

  Closing the door of Silcott’s Engineering, Ena became overwhelmed by a feeling of loss; of not belonging. At the car, she looked back at the factory. It had once been the most important part of her working life, but now? Now, it wasn’t. She had moved on.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the way back to Foxden, Ena stopped at a garage to put petrol in the Sunbeam for the return journey to London. The attendant came out of the garage with a baby in his arms. He handed the child to a young woman who Ena assumed was the child’s mother.

  ‘Six gallons, please.’ While the young man filled the car, Ena watched the woman jiggle the baby up and down in her arms. She had never thought it unusual not to have a child, until today; until her friend at the factory showed her photographs of her children. She wondered if her family thought she was unusual too. Her sister Bess had been desperate to have a child, wasn’t able to conceive, so she and Frank adopted their daughter. Her brother Tom, and her older sisters Claire and Margot had children, so the family probably did think it a bit unusual that Ena didn’t. Because Henry was ten years older than her, Ena had thought when they first started courting that he would want to start a family as soon as they were married. He didn’t. Nor did she for that matter.

  ‘… shillings, Miss.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘For the petrol. Nine shillings.’

  Ena had been miles away, lost in thoughts of babies. She apologised, paid the attendant, and set off again to Foxden.

  ‘I’m back.’ Ena took off her coat, hung it up in the hall, and went through to the kitchen. Her mother wasn’t there. ‘Anyone home?’

  ‘In here,’ Henry called from the sitting room.

  ‘You’re back early,’ Ena said, greeting Henry with a kiss. ‘Where’s Mam?’

  ‘Gone up to the hotel. I’m surprised you didn’t see her, she has only just left.’ Henry lit a cigarette. ‘Want one?’

  ‘While the cat’s away…’ Ena removed the cigarette from Henry’s lips and took a drag. He lit another. ‘So, what did you find out in Oxford?’

  ‘Nothing that I didn’t already know. I told the admissions officer at Balliol I was thinking about organising a get together with my old alumni but couldn’t find the addresses of Jack Heyhoe-Bloom or Walter King. He was more than happy to look up both names.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Jack’s dead. I knew he was. He was killed in a car accident, which is why I used the poor chap’s name. And there was no record of Walter King. The admissions officer was thorough. He asked me if I was sure Mr King came up to Balliol. I made a bit of a meal of thinking about it and said, now you mention it I’m not sure he did. I said perhaps I’d known the chap socially, or I had worked with him during the war. I apologised for wasting his time and left.’

  ‘So, Walter King doesn’t exist.’

  ‘It appears not. What about you? Did you have any luck?’

  ‘Same as you. Herbert and I know Freda King existed because she worked with us for four years, but there is no record of her ever having been there. But then you already knew that, didn’t you, Henry?’

  Henry gave Ena a look she couldn’t decipher and said nothing.

  ‘There is no record because, after Freda’s arrest in forty-four, your lot commandeered every scrap of proof that she ever existed. You could have saved me the trouble of going up to the factory and worrying poor old Herbert Silcott. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Ena jumped up, took the keys to the Sunbeam from the sideboard and left the room. Grabbing her coat she hurried down the hall and made her exit, slamming the door.

  Henry ran after her. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the Fox in Lowarth for a drink.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said, jumping into the passenger seat.

  Ena ignored him, turned the key in the ignition and put her foot down hard on the accelerator. By the time she pulled into the car park of the Fox, she had calmed down.

  Ena headed for the log fire while Henry got the drinks: gin and tonic for Ena and a pint of bitter for himself.

  They sat in silence for a while, then Henry said, ‘I knew Five had been up to see Herbert Silcott, but I had no idea they’d confiscated any staff records, Ena.’

  ‘Okay. I thought that because you didn’t believe I’d seen Freda, you were trying to put me off investigating her case. I’m sorry I blew up at you.’

  ‘You’d have had every right to blow up at me if I had known.’ Henry took a swig of his pint. ‘Curious!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That I wasn’t told.’

  Ena and Henry left for London after lunch. Ena dropped Henry at Leconfield House and drove on to the Church of St. Leonard in Brixton, where Walter Voight and his sister Frieda were supposed to be buried.

  The four spires of the old church cast shadows like daggers across Walter and Frieda’s grave. Ena read the inscription on the headstone. At Peace. Walter Voight. And beloved sister Frieda Voight.

  As the sun went down it took with it the meagre amount of warmth it had shared with the world that day. Ena left the churchyard of St. Leonard in darkness.

  Lights were coming on in the buildings along Long Acre as Ena turned into Mercer Street. She parked the Sunbeam on the derelict ground opposite and let herself into the office.

  ‘Director Bentley telephoned while you were away,’ Artie said, ‘we’re opening up the Frieda Voight case.’

  ‘Good!’ Ena sat down and exhaled loudly.

  ‘You look all in. Want a cuppa?’ Tea was Artie’s answer to every ill. He got up and put on the kettle without waiting for Ena to answer.

  ‘Find out anything we don’t already know about Voight, while you were up north?’ Sid asked.

  Ena shook her head. ‘As far as the world is concerned, Freda King never existed and Frieda Voight is dead.’

  Artie brought in three mugs of tea, plonked them down on Ena’s desk, and pulled up a chair. ‘So, what do we do now?’

  ‘We find her, that’s what we do.’

  Ena made an appointment to see Commander Dalton, the Head of Operations at Bletchley Park during the war. He had retired but still lived in the town.

 
; Commander Dalton had been kind to Ena. Knowing how she felt about Henry when he worked at Bletchley, the commander had instructed his driver to take her to see Henry before he went undercover; before he went on the run with Walter Voight in the hopes of gaining Voight’s trust and infiltrating the spy network that he and Frieda belonged to.

  ‘I don’t have much,’ the commander said, ‘but what I have you are welcome to see.’

  There was nothing Ena didn’t already know about Frieda’s trips to Bletchley, the work she delivered and the worksheets she took back to Silcott’s.

  ‘Nothing new here,’ Ena said. Then a document stamped Classified caught her eye. Flicking through it, Ena saw it was a detailed account of Frieda Voight’s arrest.

  ‘Can I take this?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. But, you’re welcome to stay here for as long as it takes to read it.’

  Ena glanced through the first half-dozen pages of typed script. Freda’s capture had happened pretty much the way she had been told at the time.

  ‘Oh?’ Ena looked up at Commander Dalton. ‘Frieda’s death certificate.’ A feeling of sadness mixed with anger swept over her. ‘I’ve never seen this.’

  ‘They have a copy at MI5.’

  ‘And I bet it looks authentic too.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Because Frieda isn’t dead. At least she wasn’t when I saw her in London in August.’

  Commander Dalton pushed back his chair, stretched out his legs, and clasped his hands behind his head.

  ‘You don’t look surprised, Commander.’

  ‘I’m not. The death of Frieda Voight, as we now know her, was too sudden and too convenient.’

  Ena laid her hand on top of the papers Commander Dalton had given her to read. ‘These are false. Frieda Voight’s death was fabricated by MI5, her funeral staged by them. Which,’ Ena said, contempt creeping into her voice, ‘is why her file is locked and the spooks at Five are tight-lipped about her.’

  Commander Dalton’s eyes widened. ‘Including Henry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have something you can take with you that will help,’ Commander Dalton said, going to his bureau and taking a manila envelope from it. ‘This was given to me by McKenzie Robinson at MI5. Mac’s the man you need to speak to.’

  Ena took the envelope. ‘Director Robinson is on sick leave.’

  ‘He is,’ Commander Dalton said, with a sad smile. ‘And when his sick leave is over he will retire; put out to grass like me. Harold Macmillan’s lot have no use for old warhorses like Mac Robinson and myself. Gaitskell’s no better,’ the commander said, skimming through a large black telephone book. ‘Mac moved out of London. I’ve got his address somewhere.’

  Ena opened the envelope, took out a couple of pages and glanced through them.

  ‘I expect your husband is kept busy,’ Commander Dalton said.

  Ena lifted her head from the sheet of paper she was reading. ‘I rarely see him these days. He works in the German office - but is occasionally seconded to the Russian desk.’

  ‘Bloody Russians. You can’t see your enemy in this damn cold war. You don’t know who he or she is, or where he or she is coming from. It’s a rum game. The Russians were on our side five minutes ago, now they’re our greatest threat.

  ‘Ah, got it!’ Commander Dalton took a lined notepad from the drawer in his desk and wrote Mac Robinson’s address down. He tore off the page and gave it to Ena.

  ‘Get him to show you the archived files, spies, agents, double agents! Tell Mac I told you he would help you. Tell him what you told me and say, Dalton said the situation could end up damaging National Security.’

  Ena returned the documents to their envelope, put it in her bag and picked up her coat. ‘Thank you,’ she said, turning to leave.

  ‘Keep me up to date with the Voight enquiry.’ Commander Dalton put out his hand. ‘And give Mac Robinson my best, will you?’

  ‘I will, sir.’ Ena took the commander’s hand. His skin felt dry. She looked into his face. He had aged. But then it had been fourteen years.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘I thought you were cooking dinner?’

  ‘I am.’ Ena got up from the table and went to the kitchen. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’ She took two lamb chops out of the oven. ‘Don’t touch anything. It’s in chronological order,’ she shouted over her shoulder.

  ‘The vegetables need another minute,’ she said, dashing into the sitting room and stacking the files and documents - one straight, the next sideways, the third straight, and so on until she had a brick-pattern of papers. ‘Set the table, darling,’ she said, quickly moving the envelope Commander Dalton had given her to the sideboard and putting the papers on top of it before returning to the kitchen. ‘Clean tablecloth, second drawer down in the sideboard; below the cutlery.’

  She grabbed the handle of the saucepan and took off the lid. The potatoes had boiled dry and had stuck to the bottom of the pan. She put the spatula under them. They weren’t burnt. Exhaling with relief, Ena took half a pound of butter from the cupboard, sliced off a wedge, and dropped it into the potatoes. After straining the greens she mashed the potatoes and made the gravy. A minute later she set two delicious smelling dinners on the dining table.

  While they ate, Ena told Henry that Dick Bentley had given her permission to open a cold case file on Frieda. ‘He was fascinated by the idea. And Sid did some digging. Apparently, Frieda was a double agent. He said MI5 would definitely have files on her.’ Ena looked up from her meal. ‘Was she, Henry?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Frieda? A double agent? Sid said Dick Bentley told him she broke the Official Secrets Act and was rapped well and truly over the knuckles. He said it was then that she began working for the Russians. Is he right? Did she? I mean, does she work for the Russians?’ Henry didn’t answer. ‘She does doesn’t she?’

  ‘You know I can’t confirm that.’

  ‘Good God. What happened to her that was so awful that she went to work for the Russians? The Germans, yes. East Germany with her coming from Berlin, but Russia, her country’s greatest enemy?’

  ‘Ours too.’

  ‘That’s why her file is locked.’ Ena was itching to tell Henry about her afternoon, but he didn’t appear to be interested.

  ‘Is tinned fruit and Nestlé’s cream all right?’ she asked when they had eaten their chops. It was a rhetorical question that didn’t warrant an answer. ‘And, cheese and biscuits,’ she said, putting a dish of fruit salad in front of Henry, and a plate with cheddar, stilton and savoury biscuits in the middle of the table.

  When they had finished eating Ena took the dishes into the kitchen and washed up. By the time she returned to the sitting room, Henry was looking through the first pile of papers that Ena had brought home.

  ‘Worth his weight in gold is Sid,’ she said, taking the papers from him.

  ‘What was that?’ Henry asked, ‘Missing Women 1944 to 1958.’

  Ena hadn’t intended Henry to see the files. Sid had persuaded a chum of his at Scotland Yard to let him borrow it. He shouldn’t have taken it out of the building and promised to have it back at the Yard within twenty-four hours.

  ‘Not for your eyes. Sorry.’ Ena hated going behind Henry’s back and felt the blush of embarrassment colour her cheeks. ‘I thought, as Frieda isn’t dead, she couldn’t have been buried in a double grave with Walter, so whoever was buried that day had probably been reported to the police as a missing person.’

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ Henry said.

  ‘I’ll come with you. We could call in the Hope and Anchor for a drink.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to crack on with that lot?’

  ‘Fine! If you don’t want me to come.’

  ‘Of course I want you to come. I just thought–’ Henry went to the hall, put on his coat and returned to the sitting room. ‘Well, come on, then.’

  Ena put up her hands. ‘Forget it. ‘You go on your own and I’ll crack on
.’

  Ena was in bed by the time Henry came home. She wasn’t asleep but didn’t respond to him when he crept into bed and put his arm around her. If she’d have said anything it would have been, take your freezing arm off me. Knowing that would upset him, Ena lay still, her breathing even and rhythmical.

  The next morning, Henry left for work while Ena was in the bathroom.

  She sauntered into the kitchen, felt the kettle, it was cold. Yawning, she flicked it on and spooned tea leaves into the pot. Cutting two slices of bread she put them under the grill and made the tea. By the time the tea was mashed the bread was toasted. She buttered both slices, poured a cup of tea and took it through to the sitting room.

  Unable to ignore the paperwork on the dining table, Ena pulled a sheet from a pile she hadn’t yet looked at and began reading a statement from the Russian Embassy.

  The body of Russian diplomat Sergei Romanovski was found in his Holland Park residence on August 28, 1958. After an investigation by Scotland Yard and the Soviet Union’s premier security agency, Madam Frieda Romanovski was cleared of any involvement in the diplomat’s death. A spokesman from the Russian Embassy called Mr Romanovski’s death - a heart attack causing him to fall down a flight of stairs - a tragic accident.

  ‘Good God!’ Ena said aloud. Was Sergei Romanovski the man she had seen Frieda talking to outside Selfridges in Oxford Street? She’d go to the library and look at the newspapers printed on August 29. If she couldn’t find what she was looking for locally she could go to the British Newspaper Archive. But what would be the point? Even if there was a photograph of the diplomat, Ena wouldn’t know whether it was him she had seen in Oxford Street, she hadn’t seen his face.

  Fortified by a second cup of tea, Ena dressed, put on her makeup and gathered up the papers she hadn’t had time to read. She put them back in the envelope and placed them in her satchel next to the papers Commander Dalton had given her.

  She tidied her hair and went into the hall. That morning the weatherman on the wireless said it was going to be another cold day. Ena grimaced. Henry had the car today. She tied a scarf around her neck, and put on a thick coat, hat and gloves. With her satchel over her shoulder, she set off for the railway station at Clapham Junction to catch a train to Brighton.