Monday 21 December 1942

I cracked the case! Altho' it probably doesn't ENTIRELY count since I still don't know how I did it and Mr F is being his usual self and won't tell me but I KNOW he knows now who did it and he said I was the one who worked it out. Which must have been quite clever of me and I have been absolutely RACKING my brains to see exactly how.

Drove Mr F home and asked if he wanted me to come in again because of Mrs P (must remember! Too dreadful if I make a mistake!) but he said not and sometimes I should Watch The Wall. Well I know that but Mrs P seemed like she might be sickening for something which I said to Mr F but he said it was more likely she was getting over something. Which of course is quite screamingly obvious when one thinks and perhaps Mr F is right when he says I should think more and say less or at the very least think FIRST.

Had an encouraging talk to HP. Hope it worked.


Foyle closed his front door behind him, short of a slam but carefully loud enough to alert any other occupant to his entry. He hung up his coat and hat and looked in the sitting room.

Empty. He glanced at the mail on his desk, noted that a fire had been laid but not lit, and stooped to brush away a little soot that had fallen onto the hearth. The dining room, the kitchen, were also empty.

He cleared his throat. "Mrs Pawley?" It occurred to him she might have left, occurred to him also that he should perhaps view the prospect as a relief. Her purpose, and her problems, would remain her own: he could dismiss the unpleasant prospect of a further entanglement in the schemes of Miss Pierce.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. Hastings was his responsibility, after all, and he could not in good conscience welcome ignorance.

The back bedroom was as empty as the other rooms but Jen's suitcase was set neatly by the bed. He went back to the kitchen and looked out the window to see her standing in the narrow garden, arms folded tightly against the early evening chill, face lifted to the sky.

She turned when Foyle tapped on the window and raised a hand in acknowledgment. As she began to move toward the back door he set the kettle to boil and then went to the living room to touch a light to the fire.

When he looked up she was leaning against the door-frame, hands in her pockets. "Tea?" he asked, rising.

"Thank you," she said. "I could make it."

"Not at all," Foyle said politely.

"I registered at your grocer while you were out," she said, moving aside a little to let him pass. "I think I found the right place for everything."

Foyle glanced into the pantry as he took down the tea cannister, and noted that she had bought a whole week's rations, or close to it.

"They had oranges," Jen said. "But only for children and women enceinte." She smiled. "I was tempted to 'plead my belly' but c'est peut-être un crime."

"No perhaps about it," Foyle said. He poured the hot water into the tea pot. "I'd hate to arrest you." Unspoken But I will, if the law requires.

Her wry smile told him she had understood. "It is different, in France." Unasked, she took out teacups and saucers. "There is even less. The government has had to post notices that cats are not safe to put in stews." The corner of her mouth quirked. "They did not mention pies, which may have been a mistake on their part. But the rations, they are not ours. It is patriotique to disobey the law."

"Not everyone obeys the law in England," Foyle said. He indicated for her to take the teacups through the dining room with a motion of his head, and followed her with the teapot, the replenished sugar bowl and what was left of the Mills milk from the morning. "But guests of policemen probably should." He poured the tea. "How long do you need to stay?"

Jen shrugged, an entirely Gallic gesture that involved hands, mouth and eyebrows as well as shoulders. "Il est incertain."

He sipped his tea. "How are you? I was surprised to see you traveling so soon, and alone."

She touched the bandage on her cheek lightly, with one finger. "As you see, mending."

"And your other injuries?" Foyle asked quietly.

Her gaze flicked to his, then to the fire. "Your Miss Stewart," she said after a pause.

"She told me, yes," Foyle said. "She was concerned, I was concerned, it was perfectly clear that you'd been through more than a crash landing. Just as it's perfectly clear now that you're … nowhere near recovered."

"I have been medically cleared, Mr Foyle." Jen raised her cup, but did not drink.

"You forgot your cover story," he said bluntly. "I admit, I don't know you very well, but on the basis of our … limited previous acquaintance, I would say that's very unlike you. Isn't it?"

She set the cup down, untasted. "I would only need one if I were working."

"But you are working. The grocer wasn't the only place you went this afternoon, was it? You made sure to get the names of the police officers and Home Guard who were at the crash site and guarded it afterward from Milner at the station this afternoon; you got the home addresses for at least three of them from him and from Sergeant Brooke; and you searched this house."

Her silence was an admission, and he went on: "There was something on the plane, I'd say something quite small, easy to fit in a pocket, easy for someone to take, that wasn't there when Miss Pierce's people got there the next morning. A locket, wasn't it? That's what you asked about. Something that should have survived the fire if it were on the plane, something that you'll recognize but which isn't distinctive enough to describe precisely to someone else, which is why they've sent you, and something quite important, if they've sent you here to recover it when you're obviously less than fit for the job. How am I doing?"

Jen was silent, studying her cup, and Foyle felt a stab of remorse. He'd enjoyed fencing with her at Ashingdon, but this wasn't fencing. It was an interrogation, and he couldn't help feeling it put him in the same class as the man or men who'd left those small, round burns Sam had seen.

Deliberately, he set it aside. "What are you planning? To sneak out after curfew for a spot of burglary?"

"Unsubtle," Jen said. "Miss Pierce would not approve.

"Well, that's a relief."

She smiled, warm and entirely false. "You don't fancy the DCS's house being used as a base for a crime spree?"

Foyle set his empty cup down with a click. "I don't fancy the idea of you trying to climb through windows or up drain pipes when you're obviously not fit for it. Mrs Chenard - Mrs Pawley - Jennifer." He leaned forward. "I understand that you're bound by the Official Secrets Act. I don't need to know what it is you're trying to find, or what it means, or why it's important. But I can't help you if you don't tell me something."

"Help me," Jen said. The smile was gone as if it had never been, her voice cold and hard as a frost-rimed road.

"Help you. We are on the same side."

Her gaze flickered at that, a slight hint of disbelief that she was not quite quick enough to hide. Foyle sighed inwardly, and wished for something stronger than tea. C'est la guerre.

"You're not back yet, are you?" he said quietly. "This is an English town, you're drinking tea with an English policeman. But you won't touch the tea in case I've put something in it. And you've been waiting since you sat down for me to bring out the thumbscrews, haven't you?"

Bright and brittle. "They preferred pliers, actually."

"Yes well I don't, thank you very much," he said acerbically.

For a long moment he thought she'd say nothing, and then, soft and heartfelt. "Je suis desolee,Kriminaldirektor Foyle." Then her hand flew to her mouth as she heard what she'd said.

"As am I," Foyle told her. "Look. You did trust me, once, d'you remember?" He set down his cup and stood, crossing to his desk. The small tin box was where he remembered, tucked at the very back of the middle drawer. He took it out and weighed it in his hand a moment, then offered it to her. "Haven't read them, haven't looked at the addresses either. You can probably have them back, now, hmm?"

She took the box and turned it over and over in her hands, then set it on the table and pushed it away with one finger. "If I had wanted these back," she said, "I would have taken them when I found them earlier. They are safe enough with you." She glanced up at him. "How did you know?"

"You missed some soot on the hearth when you cleaned up after searching up the chimney," Foyle said, and she hissed softly with disgust at herself. "As I said. You're off your game."

"I …" Her voice trailed away to silence, and for a moment she sat tracing the rim of her teacup with her forefinger, then middle finger, then ring. Foyle took his seat opposite her again and watched.

She worked her way through to her little finger and back again twice, and then she looked up to meet his gaze and, without looking away, lifted the cup and drained it dry.

"My maiden name was Pawley," she said. "The Pawleys of Housel Bay."

"Thank you," Foyle said quietly.

"It is a locket." She held up finger and thumb, less than an inch apart. "It was around my neck when we took off. It was not, when I reached Hastings Police Station. In between … my memory is unclear."

"So it could have come off in the aeroplane?"

"Peut-être, but I had put it inside my blouse, and the coveralls over." Jen shrugged. "I think very much that someone must have taken it. It would have looked valuable enough, even if its true value was not understood."

"Milner would never do such a thing," Foyle said. "I'd be very surprised if Brooke could. Sam might have taken it if she thought it was in danger of falling off, and god knows she's quite capable of putting it in a pocket and forgetting about it but that's easily checked. And I hope you've satisfied yourself that I don't have it?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I have searched your house. Je n'ai pas cherché votre corps." Her mischievous smile was what Foyle, and many another young man of the Great War, would always think of as 'entirely French'.

He let her see his amusement at her attempt to unsettle and embarrass him, and said mildly: "Steady on, Miss Pawley. Even in wartime a chap expects at least a bunch of flowers, you know."

Jen's eyes widened, and then she began to laugh helplessly, covering her face with her hands.

Her breath hitched; the sounds changed; tears spilled between her fingers.

Quietly, Foyle picked up the teapot and took it to the kitchen. He would give her whatever help he could in her search for the missing locket; for now, the most he could give her was a little privacy to recover her composure.

A small enough grace, he thought, contemplating the pantry and then the stove. But in times like these, even small graces can be hard to come by.

.

.

.


* enceinte - pregnant. "Pleading her belly" was an old term for women who, sentenced to death, declared themselves pregnant in the hope of securing a pardon or a delay in execution.

c'est peut-être un crime - "Perhaps it is a crime."

Il est incertain. - "It is uncertain."

Je suis desolee,Kriminaldirektor Foyle - "I am sorry, [German] Chief Inspector Foyle"

Je n'ai pas cherché votre corps - "I have not searched your body."