London—November 1940
AFTER POLLY FOUND OUT THAT THE REIGN OF TERROR had been over four years after the storming of the Bastille, she attempted to convince herself that there couldn’t possibly be that much slippage. The most on record for a non-divergence point had been three months and eight days. Someone had had six months’ slippage, and Mr. Dunworthy had overreacted and canceled everyone’s drops, that was all. And the fact that he hadn’t canceled hers proved it.
But the fear still nagged at her, so much so that she redoubled her efforts to find a way out. She put a new set of ads in the papers and went to Charing Cross to see if there was any spot in the sprawling station where Mr. Dunworthy could have come through on his earlier journeys. There wasn’t. Even the emergency staircase was filled with amorous couples. His drop had to have been somewhere else.
There was no sign of a younger Mr. Dunworthy either, though she wasn’t certain she’d recognize him if she saw him. The first few times he’d gone to the past, he’d been scarcely older than Colin. She tried to imagine him Colin’s age—lanky, eager, taking the escalator steps two at a time—but she couldn’t manage it, any more than she could imagine Mr. Dunworthy sending them knowingly into danger. Or not coming to get them if he could.
She wondered suddenly if it was not just an increase in slippage that was keeping him from pulling them out, but the fact that he was already here on a previous assignment and couldn’t come through till after his younger self had returned to Oxford. Which would be when?
Mike didn’t phone again on Tuesday or Wednesday, or write, which Eileen was convinced was a good sign. “It means he’s found Gerald, and they’re on their way to check his drop,” she said. “You mustn’t worry so. Just when things are in a complete mess, and you can’t see how they can possibly work out, that’s when help arrives.”
Not always, Polly thought, remembering the thousands of soldiers who hadn’t made it off Dunkirk’s beaches, or the victims who’d died in the rubble before the rescue teams reached them.
“When I took Theodore to the station on the train,” Eileen was saying, “he grabbed hold of my neck and wouldn’t let go, and the train was leaving. And just as I was about to despair, who should show up but Mr. Goode, the vicar, to rescue me.” She smiled at the memory. “And we’ll be rescued, too. You’ll see. I’m certain we’ll hear from Mike tomorrow. Or from the retrieval team.”
They heard from Mike, a scrawled note saying, “Arrived safely and am in comfortable lodgings. More later.” There was also a newspaper clipping in the envelope, of a sale on men’s suits at Townsend Brothers.
“Why did he write that? We already know it. And why did he put the clipping in?” Eileen asked. “Is he saying the jacket and waistcoat we sent him in were the wrong sort of clothes?”
“I don’t know,” Polly said, turning the clipping over, but the only thing on the back was a filled-in crossword puzzle.
When he’d phoned, he’d said he was doing crosswords as a cover while he looked for Gerald in pubs. Could he have accidentally stuck it in the envelope along with the note?
“Oh, Miss O’Reilly,” Miss Laburnum said, coming in from the parlor. “You had another letter in the afternoon post.” She handed it to her.
“Perhaps it explains this one,” Polly said, but it was from the vicar.
Eileen went up to their room to read it. Polly stayed in the vestibule, looking at the clipping. Mike had talked about sending a message in code, and she’d told him about the D-Day code words appearing in the Daily Herald puzzle. Could he have hidden some message in the crossword answers?
She grabbed a pencil, went up to the bathroom, locked the door, and sat down on the edge of the tub to decipher it. I hope the code’s not too complicated, she thought.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t even a code. He’d simply printed his message in the puzzle’s squares, beginning with 14 Across: NO LUCK YET CHECKING BILLETS DO U NO SITE OLD REMOTE DROP ST JOHNS WOOD OR DROPS HISTS USED B4 CLD B HOLDING OPEN EMERG XIT.
The lab had had a remote drop in St. John’s Wood, which they’d used for a number of years. Apparently Mike thought they might have opened it so they could employ it as an emergency exit, though why it would open if the problem was an increase in slippage, Polly didn’t know. But she wasn’t in a position to leave any stone unturned, so instead of going to meet the retrieval team at Trafalgar Square after work, she took the tube to St. John’s Wood. She didn’t know where the old remote drop was, but she hoped it was in some immediately obvious spot.
It wasn’t, and she didn’t know of any other London drops earlier historians had used. Except for hers in Hampstead Heath, which she’d last used just before midnight of VE-Day eve. At this point, it didn’t exist yet, but the lab might have reset its coordinates for 1940, so the next morning she put an ad in the Times, telling “R.T.” to meet her at St. Paul’s on Sunday.
Eileen was unexpectedly argumentative about it. “But we already placed one meeting the retrieval team at the National Gallery concert,” she said.
“You can do that one, and I’ll do St. Paul’s,” Polly said.
“But I’ve always wanted to see St. Paul’s,” Eileen argued. “Mr. Dunworthy was always talking about it. Why don’t I do it, and you do the concert?”
Because it’s more difficult faking having been to a concert, Polly thought. And besides, I’m not certain how long this will take.
“No,” she said. “I know one of the vergers at St. Paul’s—Mr. Humphreys—and he’ll know if any strangers have been in.”
“I could go with you. The concert isn’t till one.”
I should have said I was going to Westminster Abbey or something, Polly thought. “But I don’t know when the retrieval team will be there. I forgot to give a time,” she said. “I’ll meet you after the concert and we’ll go to Lyons Corner House for tea, and then I’ll take you on a guided tour of St. Paul’s.” And make certain she was gone before Eileen woke up.
Sunday morning she took the tube to Hampstead Heath and climbed the hill. It was raining, a fine mist, which was good—there wouldn’t be that many people about—but she wished she’d brought her umbrella. She hadn’t been able to find it in the dark this morning, and she’d been afraid to switch on the light for fear of waking Eileen and having her insist on coming with her.
She hurried across the heath and into the trees, hoping she’d recognize the spot. The last time she’d been here, it had been May. Now the trees were russet and brown and heavy with rain.
No, there was the weeping beech, its golden-leaved branches sweeping the ground. The rain was coming down harder. Good, she thought, pushing the curtain of leaves aside. If anyone catches me, I can say I was taking shelter from the rain.
She stepped quickly under it, let the concealing leaves fall together behind her, and looked around at the dim, tentlike space. The ground was covered with curling yellow leaves and twigs. A lemonade bottle and a torn paper ice cream horn lay half buried in the leaves, but both were weather-faded.
The retrieval team hasn’t been here, Polly thought, looking at the undisturbed leaves.
But the drop might only have been set up for them to return through. She sat down against the beech’s mottled white trunk, checked her watch for the time, and settled in to see if the drop would open.
It was cold. She pulled her knees up under her skirt and hugged her arms to her chest. The rain wasn’t coming through the leaves, but the leaf- and bark-covered ground was icily damp, its wetness soaking through her coat and skirt.
And as she sat there, all the things she was worried about began to soak through her, too—her deadline, and Mike, and whether the incident which had destroyed St. George’s and the shops hiding her drop was a discrepancy. She’d assumed the church hadn’t been on Mr. Dunworthy’s forbidden list because she’d intended to stay in the tube shelters, but it hadn’t been in the implant Colin had made for her either.
Which meant he could have been near her drop when the parachute mine exploded.
No, he couldn’t, she thought, fighting down sudden nausea. He didn’t put it in the implant because he thought I’d be safely in a tube shelter when it went off.
And Colin had talked to her about parachute mines. He’d lectured her on the dangers of shrapnel and the blackout, and he was endlessly resourceful. And she knew from experience that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. If anyone could find a way to get them out of here, he could.
Unless Oxford’s been destroyed, and he’s dead, she thought. Or there was an increase in locational slippage as well, and the net sent him through to Bletchley Park. Or Singapore.
She sat there as long as she could stand it, and then wrote her name and Mrs. Rickett’s address and phone number on the paper ice cream horn, took an Underground ticket stamped Notting Hill Gate out of her pocket, wrote “Polly Churchill” on it, stuck it under the lemonade bottle, and went to St. Paul’s, even though the retrieval team wouldn’t be there either.
The journey back into London took forever. There were three separate delays due to air raids, and she was glad she’d refused to trade with Eileen and go to the concert. She didn’t reach St. Paul’s Station till after noon, and it was pouring outside. By the time she made it to the cathedral, she was drenched.
On the porch lay an order of worship someone had dropped. She picked it up. She could show it to Eileen as proof that she’d spent the entire morning here. The sermon this morning had apparently been on the subject “Seek and Ye Shall Find.”
If only that were true.
She shook out her wet, clinging skirts and went inside. The partition in front of the Geometrical Staircase was still up. The fire watch must have decided that preserving the stairway was more important than having access to the west end.
She walked out into the nave. It was dim and gloomy today, gray instead of golden, and so dark she couldn’t even see the far end of it. And cold. The elderly volunteer selling guidebooks at the desk had her coat on.
A guidebook was a good idea. She could pretend to be reading it while she looked for the retrieval team. She went over to the desk.
The volunteer was helping a middle-aged woman choose a postcard like the ones Mr. Humphreys had shown her. “This one of the Wellington Monument is very nice,” she said. “It shows Truth Plucking Out the Tongue of Falsehood.”
“You haven’t any of the High Altar?” the woman asked.
“I’m afraid not. They went very quickly.”
“Of course,” the woman said, shaking her head, “such a shame,” and began browsing through the rack of postcards again. “Have you any of the Tijou gates?”
They’ve been removed for safekeeping, Polly thought, blowing on her numb hands and wishing the woman would make up her mind. It was even colder in here than it had been on Hampstead Heath, and there was an icy draft from somewhere.
She looked up. Two of the gallery’s stained-glass windows had been blown out, and fairly recently. No attempt had been made to cover them, and jagged edges of red and blue and gold still lined the frames. A bomb must have exploded near the cathedral, and the blast had broken them.
“What about The Light of the World?” the woman was asking. “Have you any postcards of it?”
“No, but we’ve a lovely lithograph,” the volunteer said, indicating it on its stand. “It’s sixpence.”
Polly looked at the print. Its color was slightly bluer than the painting, and Christ looked as chilled as she was, his face pinched with cold.
It’s too bad that lantern he’s holding isn’t real, she thought, gazing at its warm glow. Mr. Humphreys was right about seeing something new each time one looked at it. She hadn’t noticed before that the door Christ was about to knock on was medieval. Neither it nor the lantern he was carrying could possibly have existed in 33 A.D.
He must be a time traveler like us, Polly thought. And now he’s trying to get back home, and his drop won’t open either.
The woman had finally made up her mind and paid. Polly stepped up to buy her guidebook. “Three pence,” the volunteer said, and Polly reached into her purse for the coins, but her hands were so stiff with cold, she dropped them. They made an unholy, echoing clatter on the marble floor.
Well, thought Polly, if the retrieval team is here, this is one way to get their attention, but no one turned around.
“Sorry,” she said, gathering up the coins and paying for the guidebook.
The volunteer handed it to her. “I’m afraid the Crypt and the choir are closed today.”
The choir? Polly thought, wondering why, but asking would mean continuing to stand there in the draft from the windows.
She thanked the volunteer and walked up the nave. No one approached her, and she didn’t see anyone who seemed to be there to meet someone. Several people knelt praying in the middle of the nave. Two Wrens stood in front of the bricked-up Wellington Monument, looking puzzledly up at it, and a pair of soldiers stood a few feet away, looking at the Wrens.
Just past the next pillar, a young woman stood, wearing a pair of open-toed shoes that looked like one of Wardrobe’s bright ideas for an icy 1940 November and gazing around as though searching for someone. But before Polly could make her way around the chairs and across the nave to her, a member of the fire watch came up to the woman, and it was obvious from his smile, and hers, that they knew each other.
So clearly not the retrieval team, Polly thought. She turned to go see if anyone was in the transept. And nearly collided with a beaming Mr. Humphreys.
“I thought you’d come when you heard about our incident,” he said. “We’ve had any number of people come to see the damage.”
“Yes, it’s dreadful about the windows,” Polly said.
“It is,” he agreed, looking back at them. “They should have been taken to Wales for safekeeping along with the other treasures. Still, it may turn out to have been a blessing in disguise. Sir Christopher Wren designed St. Paul’s to have clear panes of glass in the windows, and now there is a good chance he will see his dream realized.”
He would. At the end of the Blitz, there’d only be one intact window left in the entire cathedral, and that would be broken in 1944 by a V-1 that had exploded nearby, and all the replacement windows would be of clear glass.
“In the case of the altar, however,” Mr. Humphreys went on, “I’m afraid it’s another matter.”
The altar?
“Luckily, the bomb damage was confined to it and the choir.”
The choir. That’s why the volunteer at the desk had said it was closed today.
Mr. Humphreys walked across the space under the dome and to the choir. The entrance was blocked off with a sawhorse. He moved it aside and led Polly through. “And the bomb went through to the Crypt, unfortunately just at the spot where our fire watch sleeps …”
She wasn’t listening. She was staring at the choir. And the destruction beyond.
Where the altar had been was a tumbled heap of timbers and shattered stone. Polly looked up. There was a gigantic jagged hole in the ceiling. A gray tarpaulin half covered it, water dripping from its edges onto a rickety-looking scaffold beneath.
But St. Paul’s wasn’t hit, she thought, staring unseeing at the gaping hole, at the rubble. It survived the war.
“When did this happen?” she demanded.
“The morning of October tenth, just as we were making one last round of the roofs. I was—” he said, and must have seen her face. “Oh, I am sorry. I thought from what you said that you knew. I should have prepared you. It gives one a shock, I know, seeing it for the first time.”
Mr. Dunworthy hadn’t said a word about a bomb hitting the altar. He’d spoken of the UXB and the incendiaries on the twenty-ninth of December, but nothing about an HE on October tenth. “The altar was entirely destroyed, and these two windows were broken,” Mr. Humphreys explained.
“And the windows in the nave,” Polly said. It hadn’t been blast from a bomb the next street over which had broken them. It had been this bomb. Which Mr. Dunworthy had never mentioned.
“Yes. The bomb brought down more of the lower courses there.” Mr. Humphreys pointed up at the edges of the hole. “Which hit the reredos. You can see where it’s chipped, and where St. Michael’s nose was broken off.”
He went on, pointing out the damage, but she could scarcely hear him over the thudding of her heart. What if the reason Mr. Dunworthy hadn’t told her about it was because it hadn’t happened? Till now.
She’d persuaded herself there weren’t any discrepancies, that the problem was increased slippage. Which was frightening enough. But this was even worse.
This is the proof that we’ve altered events, she thought.
“How bad is the damage to the structure?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
“Dean Matthews is hopeful the underlying supports weren’t cracked,” Mr. Humphreys said worriedly, “but we won’t know till the engineers have completed their examination. The explosion lifted the roof off from end to end, and when it came down it may have damaged the supporting pillars.”
In which case the blast from the bombs falling all around the cathedral on the twenty-ninth might bring the weakened pillars down, and St. Paul’s with it. And what would that do to civilian morale? St. Paul’s had been the heart of London. The photo of her dome standing firm above the fire and smoke had lifted the contemps’ spirits and hardened their resolve for the remaining long, dark months of the Blitz. What would its destruction do to them? And to the outcome of the war?
“We were actually very lucky. It could have been far worse. The bomb struck the crown of the transverse arch and detonated in the space between the roofs. If it had hit farther down the apse or in the choir, or if it had fallen on through the roof before it exploded, the damage would have been far greater.”
But this much damage may well be enough to alter the course of the war. I must write to Mike, she thought. He’s got to get out of Bletchley Park.
“The organ case was badly damaged,” Mr. Humphreys was saying. “Luckily, the pipes had been taken down to the Crypt for safekeeping—”
“I must go,” Polly said. “Thank you for showing me the—”
“Oh, but I haven’t shown you what the bomb did to the choir. Luckily, these pillars protected the stalls from—”
“Mr. Humphreys!” someone called. It was the firewatcher who’d been talking to the young woman with the open-toed shoes. He pushed past the barricade and came up to them. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, nodding to Polly, “but we need the duty roster, and Mr. Allen said you had it.”
“You’re busy,” Polly said, taking advantage of the interruption. “I mustn’t keep you. Goodbye.” She walked quickly away.
“I gave it to Mr. Langby,” she heard Mr. Humphreys say as she squeezed past the barricade.
Polly hurried down the nave and out of the cathedral. It had stopped raining, but she scarcely noticed, she was so intent on getting home and writing to Mike.
I hope Eileen’s not there, she thought, and only then remembered she’d promised to meet her.
She glanced at her watch to see if she had time to go home, write the letter, and come back, but it was after two. The concert would be nearly over. And if I’m not there, she’ll know something’s wrong.
And she might know if it’s truly a discrepancy or not, Polly thought. She said Mr. Dunworthy spoke to her about St. Paul’s. He may have told her about the altar’s being hit. If it was hit.
But it could easily have been hit without my knowing about it, Polly tried to persuade herself. The tenth of October would have been when she was preoccupied with Marjorie, not with reading newspapers, and before she’d gone to the morgue to look for her own death notice.
Or the bombing might not have been in the papers, given St. Paul’s vital importance to the war, she thought, heading for the tube station. They wouldn’t have wanted the Germans to know about it.
She reached Trafalgar Square just as the concert was letting out. Concertgoers were streaming out the doors and onto the porch where she’d seen Paige standing on VE-Day eve, buttoning coats and pulling on gloves, holding their hands out to see if it was raining, opening umbrellas.
Polly looked for Eileen. She was standing off to one side. Her face looked drawn and worried, and she’d wrapped her black coat tightly about her. The National Gallery must have been as frigid as St. Paul’s.
“Eileen!” Polly called, and hurried across the wet square, the pigeons scattering before her, flying up to perch on the lions at the base of the monument.
Eileen saw her and raised her hand in recognition, but she didn’t wave. Or smile. Polly glanced at her watch. It wasn’t that late, and the concert had obviously just let out. And Eileen was always so cheerful and optimistic. Some of Polly’s anxiety these last few weeks must have infected her.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything about St. Paul’s, she thought. It will only make things worse.
But Polly had to know. And there was no one else to ask. She ran up the steps and over to Eileen. “I need to ask you something,” she said urgently. “Was St. Paul’s—?”
But Eileen cut her off. “The retrieval team didn’t come to the concert,” she said. “Did you find them?”
“No, there was no one at St. Paul’s.”
“No one?” Eileen said, and there was an edge to her voice. Was she angry at her for insisting she go to the concert? If she was, it couldn’t be helped. There were more important matters at hand.
“No historians at all?” Eileen persisted.
“No, and I was there from nine o’clock on. Eileen, do you know if St. Paul’s was hit by any HEs during the Blitz?”
She looked surprised. “Hit by HEs?”
“Yes. Not incendiaries, high-explosive bombs. Did Mr. Dunworthy say anything about its being hit?”
“Yes,” Eileen said. “But you—”
“Did he say when and which part of the cathedral?”
“I don’t know all the dates. A UXB landed under the—”
“I know about the UXB. And the twenty-ninth.”
“And the altar was hit on October tenth.”
Thank God, Polly thought. It was supposed to have been hit.
Eileen was frowning. “If you were at St. Paul’s this morning, then you saw the damage, didn’t you?”
Oh, no. In her anxiety about the bombing, she’d totally forgotten Eileen knew nothing about her and Mike’s fears that they’d altered events. “Yes, I mean, I did see it,” she stammered, “but I didn’t know … Mr. Dunworthy had told me all about the UXB and the incendiaries, but not about the altar, and when I saw it, I—”
“Thought it might have happened this morning?”
This morning? What did that mean? But at least Eileen hadn’t guessed the real reason she’d asked all these questions. “No, last night,” Polly said. “And there was so much damage, it looked like the entire thing could collapse any minute, and even though I knew St. Paul’s had survived, I thought … I mean, I wasn’t thinking. It was such a shock, seeing it. I hadn’t realized St. Paul’s had ever been hit by an HE.”
“Two,” Eileen said.
Two? Mr. Humphreys had said one.
“The other one was in the transept,” Eileen said. “I don’t know when.”
“The north transept?” Polly asked, thinking irrelevantly of the memorial to Captain Faulknor. Mr. Humphreys would be so upset if that was destroyed.
“I don’t know which transept. Mr. Bartholomew didn’t say.”
Mr. Bartholomew? Who was Mr. Bartholomew? Had someone here at the concert told her about the bombing of the altar? If so, then it could still be a discrepancy.
“Mr. Bartholomew?” Polly asked.
“Yes, John Bartholomew. He gave a lecture about it when I was a first-year.”
Oh, thank goodness, it was someone from Oxford. “He’s a professor at Balliol?”
“No, an historian. He gave a lecture about his experiences on the St. Paul’s fire watch during the Blitz.”
“He’s here?” Polly grabbed Eileen’s arms. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“No, he’s not here now. He was here years ago.”
“In the Blitz. In 1940,” Polly said, and when Eileen nodded, “It doesn’t matter when he was here Oxford time. This is time travel. If he was here in 1940, he’s still here now.”
“Oh!” Eileen clapped her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t even think of that! Is that why you—?”
“How could you not think of it?” Polly burst out. “Mike asked us to try to think of any past historians who might be here,” she said, but even as she said it, she thought, That was that day he came to Townsend Brothers, before he left for Beachy Head, and Eileen wasn’t there. And immediately after that, all their attention had turned to Bletchley Park.
“Mike never said a word to me about past historians,” Eileen said defensively. “How—?”
“It doesn’t matter. Now that we know he’s here—”
“But he’s not. He was injured when the bomb fell on the altar and went back to Oxford.”
“The next day.”
Which meant he’d gone back two weeks before Mike had found her and the two of them had found Eileen.
“Oh, if I’d only realized,” Eileen lamented.
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Polly said, sorry she’d upset her. “By the time we found one another and realized there was something wrong with our drops, it was already too late. He was already gone. You’re certain he went back on the eleventh?”
“Yes. I don’t remember very much about the lecture because it was on 1940, and the only part of World War III wanted to go to at that point was VE-Day—”
So you didn’t pay attention, just as you didn’t pay attention to Gerald, Polly thought bitterly. But that was unfair. Eileen could scarcely be expected to know that three years later the details of a first-year lecture would prove to be vitally important.
“—but I do remember Mr. Bartholomew talking about going back the morning after St. Paul’s was attacked,” Eileen went on. “Because I assumed it was because he was injured and needed medical attention.”
Like Mike, Polly thought. Only no one had come to pull him out. “I don’t suppose he said where his drop was, did he?”
“No. But if he’s gone back, his drop wouldn’t be working now, would it?”
It might, Polly thought, but she couldn’t tell Eileen that or she might begin questioning Polly about her earlier assignments. Might his drop have been in St. Paul’s?
No, not with people there all day and the fire watch there at night. She wondered suddenly if John Bartholomew had been in the cathedral that first day she’d gone there. He might very well have been that firewatcher she’d seen coming on duty as she left. Or one of the men out by the UXB.
If I’d known he was there, I could have gone back to St. Paul’s and told him I was in trouble as soon as I found out my drop wouldn’t open, she thought, and he could have got word to Mr. Dunworthy …
“Would it?” Eileen was asking. “Still be working? Mr. Bartholomew’s drop? I thought drops shut down when the historian returned and the assignment was over.”
“They do,” Polly said. Standing here was only going to get her into trouble. “It’s starting to rain again. We don’t want to get drenched.”
But Eileen made no move to leave the shelter of the porch. “You still haven’t told me about St. Paul’s. Nobody came in all morning who might have been the retrieval team?”
“No, there was scarcely anyone there at all, not even for the morning service.”
“The morning service?”
Polly nodded, glad she’d picked up that order of worship. “The place was almost completely deserted. Let’s go before it gets any worse.”
Eileen still didn’t budge. “You needn’t protect me, you know. I know this is my first assignment, but that’s no reason for you and Mike to treat me like a child. I know how much trouble we’re in—”
No, you don’t, Polly thought. You have no idea.
“—and I know how dangerous it is here. You needn’t keep things from me.”
“No one’s keeping anything from you,” Polly said. “If this is about our not telling you about the historians who were here before, I intended to, but then you remembered Gerald was at Bletchley Park, and I didn’t think we’d need to find anyone else—”
“Then why have we been putting all those personal ads in the paper?” Eileen asked belligerently. “Why did you send me to the concert today and go to St. Paul’s?”
“As backup. In case Mike can’t find Gerald. Come along—”
Eileen shrugged off her hand. “Has something happened to Mike?”
“To Mike?”
“Yes. We haven’t heard from him in days.”
“No, nothing’s happened to Mike. He very likely doesn’t want to communicate any more than necessary so as not to arouse suspicions.”
“And you haven’t been in touch with him? You didn’t go meet him today?”
“Meet him?” Polly said, surprised. Was that why Eileen had been so upset since she got here? Because she thought Mike had returned and the two of them were meeting secretly?
“Yes, meeting him. Was that clipping Mike sent a signal the two of you’d arranged for you to go meet him?”
“No, of course not,” Polly said, and Eileen must have heard the bewilderment in her voice because she looked relieved. “Is that why you think I went to St. Paul’s, to meet Mike? I didn’t. I haven’t seen Mike since he said goodbye at the station weeks ago. I went to St. Paul’s to see if the retrieval team showed up in answer to our ad, that’s all. And I nearly froze to death. I had to sit through an absolutely interminable sermon on the subject of ‘Seek and Ye Shall Find.’ ”
Eileen stiffened. “ ‘Seek and Ye Shall Find’?”
“Yes. It wasn’t nearly as good as the one your vicar gave that day I went to Backbury. And it was twice as long. You should be glad you didn’t come with me. We’ll go to St. Paul’s another day, when it’s warmer. Now come along. You’ll get soaked.” She took Eileen’s arm and propelled her across the wet square. “We’ll have a nice tea, and no cottage pie. Do you know, I think Mrs. Rickett makes hers from actual cottages.”
Eileen didn’t even crack a smile. “I don’t want tea,” she said, hugging her arms to herself against the cold. “I want to go home.”