A Match Made for Murder Iona Whishaw (pride and prejudice read .TXT) 📖

he found out. Then the man said she should run away with him.”

“Do you think she meant her husband?” Lane asked.

“I don’t know, but she did sound really frightened. Honestly, Mr. Holden wouldn’t scare a puppy. I mean, I know he’s rich, and who knows how he got that rich, but he seems really nice to her. She spends whatever she wants, and she comes and goes however she wants.” Chela managed to infuse a large measure of disapproval into the last sentence.

Lane stood thoughtfully looking at the row of oleander outside the wall. Really, this was gossip, but Chela seemed genuinely worried about it. Why?

“Chela, can you tell me what it is that worries you?”

“I don’t know. I just think it is sort of out of control, do you know what I mean? I feel like something bad could happen again. I don’t think I can really tell anyone. I’d be fired right away. After all, it’s none of my business, but after that other shooting, I’m scared. And besides, they come in and out of this service gate all the time, and they’ve seen me working here.”

It hit Lane how vulnerable Chela was. She had to protect her job and even her undocumented brother. How different their circumstances were! “I understand. Will you let me think about it? I honestly don’t know how concerned we should be. I’ll talk to my husband, but I promise not to talk to anyone else without letting you know. Can you do something for me? Can you get hold of your brother right away?” Lane wanted to give him the roll of film to develop.

Chapter Seventeen

July 10, 1944

Priscilla Barr squatted down on the station platform to button her son’s coat, noting how much nicer it was than the one she’d sent him off in the last time. An anxious woman pulling her child along to find the right carriage jostled her, but she scarcely noticed that or the noise of the crowd or the explosive little exhalations of the waiting train. She only had eyes for him.

“Am I going back to the same place, Mummy? To Dave and Paula and Trixie?” Robbie was seven now and was happy to be going back to the village. Being back with his mother had meant being alone in the flat while she went to work because the schools were closed, and he had spent his days fighting back fear and loneliness until she got home every night.

“Yes, darling. You were happy there, weren’t you?” She had to lean in to talk to him because the platform at the station was crowded with children and servicemen. Many of the children were crying and begging not to go, but some were silent, trying to be brave for their parents. A few lucky ones were going with their own mothers back to the places in the country where they had been billeted. The threat of a new wave of bombing had engendered a kind of panic that was palpable in the crowd. The stationmaster was shouting out the boarding call and the clamour intensified as parents said all the last-minute things to their children. She reached up tentatively and smoothed down his brown hair.

“Yes, Mummy. Trixie misses me. She has no one to play with.”

“I’ll see you soon, darling, I promise.” She tried to imagine that this was true so that she would not cry or think about her life without him. “Paula and Dave love you very much. They were so happy to learn that you are coming back to them.”

Her son smiled. “I love them too. Look. We have to get on. It’s important. I will miss the train.” He tugged at his little suitcase with one hand and leaned back to pull his mother to her feet. “Come on. You walk me to the stairs.”

There was a crowd at the door, but she somehow got Robbie into the train. She watched his back among all the others crowding into the vestibule, and then he seemed to disappear. She couldn’t tell one back from the other. She waited, watching the windows for a wave, but the train pulled out, and he was not among the children at the windows waving at their parents.

Priscilla watched till the smoke had cleared. So like him to use the big word “important.” He had learned that grown-up way of speaking in Hampshire. She turned, putting her hand on her chest to hold her cardigan against a sudden wind. She pressed hard as if to push her whole hand in to fill the void where her heart had been.

“Last orders!”

Sergeant Paul Galloway looked up at the publican ringing the bell and, on impulse, took the barmaid’s hand. “Just two things. Another pint, and what’s your name?” He had leaned at the corner of the bar all night, just to keep her in his sights. He hadn’t even planned on this pub, but a couple of the boys from his unit had said the barmaid was pretty, and he’d been bowled over by just how pretty she was. Blue eyes and black hair, petite and curvy. A body like a goddess. But more than that, in spite of her smiles and good-natured chatter, there was something forlorn about her that seized him with an overwhelming urge to protect her.

The barmaid slipped her hand away deftly and pulled his pint. “Drink up,” she said. “Your ten minutes is running out.”

When the publican began to push them out, he held back. “Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Keep your hair on. Look, miss. I’ll be outside. I’ll wait all night if I have to,” he called.

When she came out, pulling on her jacket and calling goodnight to the publican, the street was empty except for Sergeant Galloway.

“I still don’t know your name,” he said, tipping his cap and walking along beside her.

“I’m not in the habit of giving it or anything else to pushy men in Yank uniforms.”

“Aha! I’m