"I ache from the top of my head to the tip of my tail" Chummy announced as she stood in the bedroom doorway. Peter was carefully negotiating sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"I don't know" he said, "one afternoon of physical labour and neither of us can move!"
Behind her Chummy heard his uncle walking towards them, clearly having heard either one or both comments. "The times you and your brother used to race around this place from dawn til dusk, on the tractor, milking cows, planting potatoes and I never got one complaint but now one afternoon of digging and you two are a pair of invalids?!"
He stopped beside Chummy who had turned towards him. "Go and have a bath the pair of you!"
Chummy smiled across at her husband, who was leaning, well, attempting to lean down to take off his boots.
"Young Fred's been taken down to see Mrs Bailey, so now's your chance!" he commented as he walked away from them.
"Mrs Bailey?" Chummy whispered, walking into the room to sit carefully next to her husband who had abandoned undoing his bootlaces, instead forcing them off with his toes.
"Aunty May used to, well still must, get her shopping and do her cleaning for her. She lives in that white cottage we passed on the way up here yesterday". There was a sigh of relief from her husband as he kicked the heavy leather of his boots away.
Downstairs they heard the front door go and a vague conversation between Peter's aunt and uncle.
"Toss a coin for the bath?" he suggested.
"No you go first" she replied, now hearing the whining of her son who she could tell was tired. "I'll go and get the baby. He doesn't sound too much of a jovial chap at the moment".
The pair hobbled away, Peter to the bathroom and Chummy downstairs.
Trixie had seen Jenny return from her visit with the Police, silently make herself a cup of Horlicks and retire upstairs with barely a word. She leant on the frame of their shared bedroom door.
"Jen?" she asked. "Are you alright?" She saw her friend carefully fold her cardigan into a drawer, seemingly taking an endless time to ensure it was placed meticulously inside.
"Hmmm?" Jenny replied, closing the oak chest gently, looking up at Trixie who was still standing in the doorway.
"Are you alright? You looked a million miles away".
Jenny laid her hands gently down on the top of the chest of drawers, contemplating, thinking, trying to understand. She didn't look up; still haunted by that body underneath the green surgical sheet, lying cold in that stark mortuary and still unclear, entirely, for her reasons for being there.
"I think that baby is, was, Charlie Roberts" she replied quietly, seeing Trixie walk to her own bed. As she said those words, Trixie sat down with a thump.
"That's impossible!" she exclaimed eyes wide. Jenny turned and sat opposite her.
"When I got there, David just asked me to look at him" she said. "To see if I recognised anything. They told me to tell them if there was anything about him that I recognised" she repeated slowly, remembering the apprehension on the officer's face and the pathologist who peeled away the sheet revealing to her the full horror of what had, only before now, been imagined in couched descriptions from Chummy of what her husband had told her he had seen.
"And?" Trixie asked.
Jenny sighed. "The birthmark on his arm. That baby had a birthmark on his arm. Just inside" she said, gently placing her own fingertips on the inside of her own bicep. "I think Charlie had one too. I think I must have written something in his birth notes and the Police had seen it".
"And they'd seen the body before you too" Trixie concluded quietly, putting two and two together and for once succeeding in calculating four.
Jenny nodded.
"Peter was asking me whether there was anything unusual about my examination. He was trying to push me and I missed it! Damn!" Trixie exclaimed.
"You weren't to know" Jenny replied trying to reassure her, knowing that regardless now it was too late. "He couldn't lead you and I don't know whether I am right or not". She paused again, having churned it over in her mind on the journey back to Nonnatus. "I think I remember seeing something when Charlie was born but I'm starting to think I'm imagining it now too. The more I think, the more I wonder if I'm imagining it".
"What did the Police say when you told them?" Trixie asked, mind torn between her knowledge of Angela Roberts and the absolute shock of these events that were unfolding.
"Nothing" she replied. "I told David and he just said thank you".
"Are her records still here?" Trixie asked, suddenly thinking that there was one way of finding out once and for all.
"I don't know", Jenny replied seeing Trixie frown, neither knowing if the Police had confiscated anything from Nonnatus.
"I don't understand it though" Trixie continued, shaking her head. "He was seen with her. Sister Julienne saw him".
"Yes only seen; not picked up, not examined" Jenny responded. "There's your visit when you don't see him and Shelagh said that she didn't attend clinic the day after the body was found. No-one's actually seen him closely since you".
"She might just not have wanted to be seen out" Trixie said quickly, finding an excuse regarding Shelagh's comment. "You know what the gossip can get like around here. Sometimes people round here don't let innocence or accident get in the way!"
Jenny could not help but agree as Trixie moved from her own bed to sit next to her.
"What about Chummy? She could speak to Peter and see", Trixie said suddenly, thinking perhaps he might be less guarded around his wife. She probably knew all kinds of things about it that she had kept her counsel on.
"She's in Kent" Jenny replied.
"I know" Trixie responded," and so is Peter. There's no harm in telephoning her" Trixie said, mind working overtime.
"They are meant to be having a holiday Trixie. Let's see if Sister Julienne will let us see the records first. Her records are the only way and then I'll know and it will save us bothering them", Jenny said, breathing out, straightening her back ready to stand up and walk the short way downstairs.
Jenny and Trixie knocked quietly on the door to the Sister's office.
"Come in" they heard from inside before they crept around the door, both slightly nervous, hoping and praying that perhaps just this time they were wrong.
"Sister?" Jenny asked as they both walked across. "Can we ask you something?"
"Of course" the Sister replied, placing her pen down.
"Charlie Roberts" Jenny started as they both sat down.
"Yes" Sister Julienne interrupted. "I was aware that you had to undertake that awful task today and I am grateful for you assisting the Police".
Jenny nodded, having half-forgotten in their quest to determine their suspicions. "Was there something in his records about a birthmark?" she asked.
Sister Julienne paused.
"Please Sister" Jenny asked, seeing the Sister clearly refraining from saying more. "We promise it will not leave these walls, but we need to know".
"I am afraid I cannot assist Nurse", Sister responded, hands laid gently on top of the letter she was writing. "The Police do not wish there to be any idle gossip regarding what is occurring on our doorsteps for fear of tipping off the perpetrator and whilst I will admit that I am party to their opinions and a considerable amount of evidence, I am under an obligation to keep those views confidential".
She saw the two nurses nod, knowing not to question any further. Sister Julienne's word was law.
"I am sorry" the Sister continued, "but the Police have my word and I will not break it".
Jenny and Trixie stood up to go. "Sister?" Trixie started, turning back, suddenly remembering a long forgotten conversation. "Peter's uncle's farm. Do you remember when Chummy went to visit before they got married?"
"I do" the Sister replied, recalling that slightly anxious feeling of sending her off with him as they took the taxi to the station. She had always liked Constable Noakes and had never seen anything more than the most gentlemanly behaviour around the Nurse, but she would still be alone with him, an unmarried woman, on the long train trip without a chaperone and if something untoward were to occur, it would fall to her door in the absence of any other mother figure in the young woman's life.
"She left the telephone number for us, didn't she?" Trixie asked.
"Yes, I do think she did", Sister Julienne recalled, particularly asking for it from her in her place as the nurses' quasi guardian.
"Do you still have it? She wanted us to keep an eye on the house and I just thought I would telephone her to tell her all was well". It was a half-truth as Chummy had asked and just that afternoon, Trixie had sped past the house and found it was all still in one piece.
"I think so", Sister Julienne replied, searching through the address book on her desk. "There you are", she replied, writing the number down and passing it to her.
Both girls removed themselves quickly from the office and to the telephone.