Disclaimer: these characters belong solely to Anthony Horowitz, as do the two lines of dialogue in this story. No profit is either sought or made hereby.
Further disclaimer: I wrote the original version of this story in May 2015, which is before I came across this site. When I started browsing here, I was unnerved to find a very similar piece, written from a different POV but based on the same premise. (Great minds think alike!) Shortly after I registered, the story disappeared from the site, along with any trace of its author. It is still available elsewhere, so I am publishing this with a deep bow to that earlier work.
The day appears to start well. The weather is better than it has been in a week. The paper carries no particularly bad news, or at any rate no entirely new bad news. The morning post consists solely of a letter from Andrew – the first since January, unbelievably, and the envelope noticeably thicker than in the past. Andrew's letters from Debden have usually been a matter of just one sheet, sometimes just one side of that sheet; Foyle supposes that his son has been putting most of his effort into writing to Sam.
He goes into the sitting room, finds a letter opener on the desk, slits the envelope, and returns to the kitchen to read the letter while he finishes drinking his tea.
Dear Dad,
To begin, please accept my apologies for not having written in so long. To make things worse, it's most likely you will not hear from me again for a while after this. For the next couple of months, or perhaps a bit longer, I am going to be on call, if that's the right way to put it, to fly ops for a mission that I'm not free to discuss, as it's covered by the Official Secrets Act. That's actually why I never wrote to you after January – I was away from Debden being trained for this job, first in ...
The rest of the line and most of the next one have been cut right out of the letter. There is an R.A.F. censor's stamp at the bottom of the page.
... I have taken this on because I am easily the most experienced pilot here, particularly for night ops, low-altitude flying, etc., and most of the others are really just kids ...
... There is, of course, a very slight possibility that I won't return ... I know how hard it has been for you to be both mother and father to me since Mum died ... I can't even begin to express ...
... and on for three full pages.
The room now feels terribly close. Foyle thinks of going out to the garden for some air, but Sam will come by to collect him at any moment. He won't hear her knock at the door if he's in the garden.
Andrew will have written to her about this as well, he thinks, but she might not have read his letter yet. He remembers Sam saying that the morning post is often late in her street, and that even when it isn't she often saves what she calls 'real letters' – those that aren't entreaties from her parents to return to the nest, he imagines – to read at the end of the day.
He looks down at the third page again and, for the first time, sees the notation pto in the bottom right-hand corner.
P.S.: Dad, I'd be very grateful to you if you could avoid mentioning this letter to Sam. I will write her a letter later today, or tomorrow at the latest. I haven't yet completely decided what to tell her about all of this, but I want to spare her from any pointless worrying. She deserves better than me in any case.
The door knocker sounds.
He is right, it seems, about a letter to Sam. More than a day passes before she mentions Andrew, not until she is driving them up the approach to the disused school where the Americans have been billeted.
'Have you heard from Andrew, sir?'
He takes a breath.
Dad, I'd be very grateful to you if you could avoid mentioning this letter to Sam.
'No,' he says.
FINIS
Author's notes:
Several weeks after publishing this story I learned (from What the RAF Airman Took to War, by Bill Howard; Oxford: Shire Publications, 2015) that only enlisted personnel and non-commissioned officers (other ranks) were required to submit their letters for censorship. Commissioned officers like Andrew were permitted – and, of course, expected – to censor themselves. Oh, well: we'll suppose that the letter excerpted here was an exception, perhaps because of its content and the circumstances under which it was written.
The title of this story is, of course, the inscription on the waiting area wall at the (old) Hastings Police HQ.