Disclaimer: Can I take any sort of credit for the plot, characters, or dialogue of "Casualties of War"? Absolutely not. All I do is tweak Anthony Horowitz's stuff to suit my own purposes.
Author's Notes: And we have finally left the year 1942, or, as I would call it mentally while writing the 12 (yes 12!) chapters that took place during that calendar year: The Year That Would Not End. I can tell you all right now that no other year is going to garner that much action.
Mid-March, 1943
"Hey, Copper!"
Paul kept walking, showing no outward reaction, though a distinct sinking sensation filled his stomach. He'd thought that his evening undercover amongst the participants in Hendry's gambling ring had gone rather well, but apparently he'd misjudged the situation badly. Hendry knew that he was with the police.
Paul didn't turn around until a second "Hey" reached his ears. Two of Hendry's thugs had followed him out of the ware-house.
"You talking to me?" Paul called out to them, trying to put the right note of incredulity into his voice. There was a small chance that he could still talk his way out of this.
"You think we can't see through you?" one of the men sneered, "Asking questions? Sniffing around?"
Paul kept moving, walking backwards, trying to keep both men in his line of vision, and began to really regret not having thought it necessary to keep back up nearby. You've been getting cocky, he told himself grimly as the distance between them inexorably narrowed, and now you're in for it.
"We could smell ya," the other thug growled, now close enough to shove Paul hard in the chest.
"Hey!" Paul protested, though he knew he was bluffing on a losing hand, "you've made a mistake."
"You've made a mistake," came the reply, and suddenly Paul was cornered, one thug behind him and holding his arms, the other punching him in the gut, knocking the air out of him. And then the blows kept coming, including one to the jaw that knocked Paul to the ground. He registered a kick to his ribs…and then suddenly the assault on him stopped while the sounds of a scuffle redoubled mere feet from where he lay. Paul looked up and saw the two boys from the game – they had been suspiciously flush and lost more than anybody – each tussling with one of Hendry's men. Paul hauled himself upright, adrenaline temporarily overcoming pain, and landed a retaliatory punch to each of his former assailants. With the odds now turned against them, the thugs fled, with the two boys shouting gleefully at their retreating backs.
"Thanks," Paul managed through his labored breathing, clutching at his pounding head.
"Don't mention it, Mate," came the cheery rejoinder, and then the boys took off, ignoring Paul's somewhat feeble 'Wait.' Who were those boys?
...
Thankfully, once he managed to drag himself home, Paul's injuries proved minor enough to treat on his own. When he woke up the next morning, however, he was sore all over, moving somewhat stiffly once he had forced himself out of bed. Paul made his way to the station more slowly than usual, though the walk helped somewhat in restoring his normal range of movement.
When Sam arrived at the station and saw the state of him, however, she was appalled, insisting that she re-dress the gash near his temple. She fetched the station's first aid kit and set to work while Paul reclined in his desk chair.
"Hold still," she said, dabbing his wound with antiseptic. "Sorry," Sam added as Paul winced at the sting. "Hurt anywhere else?" she enquired sympathetically.
"Everywhere," Paul groaned feelingly, remembering the vivid collection of purple bruises that had adorned his body when he got dressed that morning. Thank God their wedding was still a few weeks away; both his injuries and the discomfort that accompanied them would certainly be gone by then.
"You should have had somebody else with you," Sam fussed as she put some sticking plaster over the cut.
"Sam…" Paul protested weakly, even though he'd told himself the same thing a dozen times already.
"Well it could have been a lot worse." Sam decided to take advantage of their current positions; she caressed Paul's temple above the bandage, lightly ran her fingers through his hair, and ending by tracing the edge of his left ear, giving his earlobe an affectionate tug. In return, Paul grabbed Sam's hand, kissing her palm and then her wrist, giving her the sudden sensation that she'd been plunged in boiling water. Just another few weeks 'till the wedding... Sam wondered why it was that the closer to the wedding date they got, the less patience she seemed to have for the waiting that she and Paul still had to endure.
Then Mr. Foyle ambled in; Sam and Paul immediately reverted to their previous roles of nurse and patient. "Are you all right?" Mr. Foyle asked his Sergeant.
"Yes, Sir," Paul replied, sitting up straight in his chair despite his aching ribs and trying not to wince. "Thank you," he added. The thanks had been addressed to Mr. Foyle for his kind enquiry, but Sam appropriated it for her own role as nursemaid.
"First aid training in the MTC," she boasted cheerfully, "Always knew it would come in handy."
Mr. Foyle asked after Hendry's game and the likelihood that there would be any further opportunities for nabbing them. Paul assumed that the little gang would give Hastings a wide berth for the indeterminate future. He was annoyed with himself and his failure, though Mr. Foyle didn't seem particularly fussed. It was the new Assistant Commissioner who was so keen to stamp out gambling rings like Hendry's; Mr. Foyle was more preoccupied with several reports of low-level sabotage that had been cropping up in the last few weeks.
Before Mr. Foyle went back to his own office, Paul brought up the subject of the two lads who had come to his rescue. Quite apart from wanting to thank them properly, they had been throwing around much more money than two working class boys could get their hands on honestly. Some investigation seemed called for, and perhaps a salutary check to their behaviour before they landed themselves in really serious trouble. Mr. Foyle was very willing, as usual, for his sergeant to follow his investigative instincts.
"If it hadn't been for them, who knows what would have happened," Sam said with a small shudder after Mr. Foyle had left the room. "Can't have a wedding if the groom is in hospital with broken arms and cracked ribs." If that had happened, then they really would have had to wait to be married until after Easter, as her mother had first suggested. As it was, Sam's plaintive request for someone in the family to exert some pull had – miraculously – actually had the desired result: a dispensation from her father's bishop for Iain Stewart to perform a wedding during Lent, though it had been stipulated that the dispensation did not cover the week immediately preceding Easter.
"Well if I find them, I'll thank them," Paul replied, his thoughts very far from the two youths who formed the ostensible subject of their conversation. He and Sam exchanged warm smiles, then Paul reluctantly shooed Sam out of his office so that he could begin with the day's work.
...
The following day was strange and disjointed. A few days earlier, Mr. Foyle had received an unexpected visit from his god-daughter, Lydia, and her son, James. Sam had met them both briefly when she picked up Mr. Foyle at his usual time. In answer to Sam's unspoken (but impossible to conceal) curiosity, the DCS had explained succinctly that James' school in London had been bombed a few weeks ago. Sam remembered having read an account of it in the papers. James had escaped without a scratch, but apparently he had been so badly traumatized that he hadn't spoken since, and his mother was hoping that a short holiday by the sea would set him right.
It transpired, however, that the situation was far more complicated than it first appeared. At any rate, Lydia made it so when she vanished without taking James with her or leaving any word of her plans. When Sam arrived to pick Mr. Foyle up the day after patching up Paul's injuries, the DCS looked as harassed with worry as she had ever seen him. When he asked Sam if she could mind James for the next day or two, she was happy to oblige.
Despite the oddity of being left alone in Mr. Foyle's house, Sam's day with James was very quiet, almost peaceful, even. James was tractable and followed instructions. He ate what was put in front of him. But his silence was rather eerie, even though Sam understood the circumstances that had caused it. There was a petrified listlessness that overlaid him at all times, giving Sam no indication whether James was bored by her attempts to amuse him, or whether he even noticed her at all. It didn't excuse his mother's disappearance in the least, but Sam found herself sympathizing with the difficulty Lydia must be having in trying to cope with caring for her son since the bombing.
The day had been gloriously warm and fine and the evening continued so. When Mr. Foyle arrived home and relieved Sam for the day, she walked briskly back to the station and collected Paul. They stopped at a shop for fish and chips and then settled themselves on a bench near the green, comparing notes on their respective days.
"I read to James from some comic books and did some funny voices," Sam began. "The stories were rather fun, full of half-baked plots to kill Hitler. If only all it took was to make a bomb that looked like an egg and smuggle it into his bunker for his breakfast." Paul snorted in appreciative amusement and Sam carried on talking. "I baked a cake. It got a little burned, but I think it should still be edible. I hope it turns out all right; I had to use powdered eggs, obviously. I worked on this book of puzzles and games. I wish I had a pack of cards on me; there was one that really had me stumped and I'd love for you to have a go at solving it."
"Maybe when I walk you home tonight Mrs. Lovell will let us have the sitting room for half an hour and you can show me then," Paul said.
"If this weather holds, I told Mr. Foyle that I would take James for a picnic in the woods tomorrow," Sam went on, "I thought James might like that. I hope he will, anyway."
"I know I would," Paul replied, admiring the way the sun was burnishing Sam's hair. He reached for a tendril at the back of her neck that had escaped her up-do and wound it around his finger, causing a shiver to run down Sam's back. She turned her head towards Paul, eyes shining, and their lips met. Sam's free hand crept up and traced the edge of Paul's ear, then down the line of his jaw. With regretful chagrin, they broke the kiss after allowing their tongues to briefly meet, each bearing in mind that they were still in public and exposed to the gaze of all passers-by.
"Did you make any progress with your cases today?" Sam asked a few moments later, when they had returned their attention to their food, "Anything exciting turn up at the station?"
Paul began recounting his day. "There was a report of shots fired last night, and when I went 'round to make enquiries, we found a body in the woods nearby."
Sam's eyes went wide. "Did you really?" she exclaimed, chagrin visible on her face, "Just my luck for something really interesting to turn up when I wasn't on hand. Were you able to identify the body?"
"It so happens that I already knew who the victim was; he was at that dice game I attended the other night. He lost pretty heavily and didn't have the money to pay what he owed. Something like thirty bob."
"Do you think that gang killed him then?" Sam asked with a touch of scepticism, "For thirty bob?" It seemed like a terribly paltry sum over which to commit murder.
"Well, we'll certainly need to question them. I saw the same men who attacked me loitering in front of the victim's house just yesterday. They made themselves scarce when they saw me." Paul paused to collect his thoughts. "The place where we found the body is odd, though. It's out in the middle of nowhere, near this non-descript little building where some scientists are working on something hush-hush for the war. No connection to Hendry's gambling ring that we know of. But the victim's wife worked there."
"And is she a suspect?"
"Definitely. The victim – his name's Richards – was dressed rather smartly when he was killed…"
"And why would anyone smarten themselves up to pay a debt of thirty bob?" Sam interrupted eagerly.
"Exactly. And Mr. Foyle thought that he saw a small bouquet of flowers on the floor of the laboratory, behind some equipment. Mrs. Richards admits that she and her husband didn't get on; that he resented her working. He used to be a teacher at a good school somewhere, but most of the schools have been closed down or taken over for the war effort and he's been giving lessons and coachings in their sitting room while she's the private secretary of some important professor."
"What a shame," Sam lamented, both for Mr. Richards' bad luck in his own career and for the fact that he had let his wife's success come between them. She edged slightly closer to Paul so that their shoulders touched.
"You really are the most marvelous man," she beamed at Paul, though she sounded close to tears at the same time.
"Am I really?" Paul queried with a smile.
"Well, you don't mind me carrying on working for Mr. Foyle after we're married, do you?"
"No, I don't mind in the least," Paul replied with equanimity. He knew that, with the war on, Sam was still needed at work once they were married, though that would change once they started a family. But even without the claims put forth by the War Office, Paul knew how important working for the police was to Sam, knew the dedication she brought to her job, and how much satisfaction it gave her to be contributing to something important, and taking part in something exciting. Well, occasionally exciting, Paul amended privately, In between the tedium of paperwork and all the less glamorous, run-of-the-mill cases.
It wouldn't really seem fair, or even necessary, for Sam to have to give up all of that in exchange for…queuing at the shops, ironing his shirts, and getting dinner on the table. The two of them had been managing the housework and cooking quite well between them, these past months, and he imagined that they would carry on in much the same way once they were married.
"And really, just think how well we've been managing everything together so far," Sam beamed, unconsciously echoing Paul's thoughts. "And it will be that much easier – and so much more fun – to leave for work together every morning and come home together at the end of every day. I wish we were getting married tomorrow," she added, with a pout that might have veered towards petulance if her face hadn't been aglow with happiness and enthusiasm.
"Just a few more weeks; we'll manage for that long," Paul said, doing his best to offer consolation. They kissed again briefly.
"I told you, didn't I, what Mr. Foyle said to me when he visited me in hospital?" Sam said as they rose from their bench to begin walking towards her lodgings.
"Oh, only a couple of dozen times," Paul had retorted teasingly. He knew the DCS never bestowed praise lightly, and that he wouldn't have told Sam that she was an "invaluable" member of the team if he hadn't meant it sincerely. Nevertheless, Paul wondered sometimes whether Mr. Foyle realised how deeply Sam had taken those words to heart and the degree of responsibility she felt in trying to live up to the idea that the DCS "couldn't go anywhere" without her.
...
In the end, Sam never got to find out whether the cake she had made for James was or was not a success. The next day, she and the boy had spent a few hours first thing in the morning visiting some shops on the High Street. Sam had had some idea of getting James a stuffed animal, something soft and comforting that had nothing to do with the War. She might as well have been in search of the Holy Grail. The shopkeeper really had nothing in stock that wasn't to do with the war; games and puzzles that involved shooting planes out of the sky or torpedoing boats out of the water. James trailed after Sam silently, never taking an interest in anything.
So at last they'd headed for the woods. It was a perfect day for a walk, the sun spilling through the just-budding trees and the rich, warm smell of new growth wafting up from underfoot. Sam was keeping up a running monologue, pointing out all the different types of trees and birds. She and James headed down a hill towards a spot that seemed a likely place for their picnic.
A little ahead of them, in the clearing towards which Sam and James were headed, she spotted two young men – neither of them looked a day older than twenty, if that – wearing rough working clothes. When they spotted her, they started yelling frantically, at her and at each other. Before Sam could catch their meaning there was a flash and an earth shattering explosion. The impact knocked Sam clear off her feet and threw her, hard, amongst the dead leaves and bracken of the forest floor, showering her with twigs and bits of dirt.
The first thing she became aware of, once she'd gotten her breath back and managed to sit up and take stock of the situation, was someone yelling at the top of their lungs. And it wasn't herself or the young men she'd seen, who had now disappeared. It was James.
"Mrs. Dukes!" he was yelling frantically up at the sky while lying on the forest floor as Sam had been moments before. She scrambled to her feet and rushed over to him.
"Are you alright?" Sam asked, trying to gauge whether the explosion and the impact had injured him in any way. Her appearance seemed to have a stimulating effect on the boy as well. He stopped yelling and sat straight up.
"Who are you?" he demanded, looking at Sam as though she'd sprouted horns, wings, and a tail.
"I'm Sam," she replied matter-of-factly.
"But you're a girl," he retorted derisively, "That's not a girl's name."
"Well, it's my name nonetheless," Sam countered briskly. "Now let's get you back home and tidied up, James," she added, reaching out to help him to his feet.
"My name's Jimmy," he protested, jerking his arm away from Sam and scrambling to his feet in his turn. "Where are we? Where's my mum?"
"We're in Hastings," Sam replied, wondering what, if anything, James remembered of the past few weeks. "Your mother brought you here to visit Mr. Foyle. I was supposed to take you on a picnic today, but that's clearly been scuppered. We'd best be getting back now and tidy ourselves up. Come along, young man." Sam managed to get hold of James – no, Jimmy's – forearm and held on despite his best efforts to squirm out of her grasp. She half led, half dragged him back to 31 Steep Lane and managed to get him upstairs to wash his hands and face and change his clothes while she telephoned Mr. Foyle at the station.
The DCS arrived home in record time, and pressed a glass of whisky into Sam's hand while she recounted the events of the morning, including Jimmy's miraculous recovery. Mr. Foyle revealed, in his turn, that Lydia had been located, though he didn't go into details.
"Do you realize this is the third time I've been blown up?" Sam announced at random after taking a burning sip of the alcohol.
"Can't say I was counting," Mr. Foyle replied drily.
"First there was the pub," Sam began. Her second day on the job – talk about a trial by fire! "Then Jerry dropped a bomb on my house…now this! I was only going for a walk in the woods. It seems nowhere is safe these days." And of course, today's bomb hadn't even fallen out of the sky, which might have made some perverse sense. Instead it had just been planted deep in the woods, miles from anything that any decent saboteur might actually want to blow up.
"And you saw what?" the DCS asked, yanking Sam's train of thought back to what she had witnessed.
"Two youths," Sam began confidently, "They were both about eighteen, I'd say. One was tall…had dark hair. And his name was Terry. I heard the other one call out to him."
"The other wasn't called Frank by any chance?"
"Do you know," Sam replied after pausing for a moment to consider, "I think that might have been his name. How did you know?" Mr. Foyle always seemed to know everything; it was uncanny sometimes.
"They're the same men who helped Milner when he got into trouble the other night."
"Well that's nice of them." Now Sam was indignant. "Rescue Paul and then try to kill me. I wish they'd get their priorities sorted out. You can't have a wedding without the groom, but the bride is also rather important, wouldn't you say?"
"You going to be all right?" Mr. Foyle asked, ignoring her attempted witticism.
"Absolutely. Tip-top. And thank you for the whisky." She downed the rest of her drink then walked back to her lodgings to freshen up. Sam caught sight of herself in Mrs. Lovell's hall mirror on the way upstairs and grimaced. Her face and clothes were all smudged with dirt and her hair was a rat's nest. She rejoiced that her landlady seemed to be out, thus saving her the bother of explanations and further fuss.
Although Sam felt that she could have cheerfully paid any exorbitant sum for the chance to luxuriate in a hot bath (even the scant five inches of water imposed by rationing would have seemed heavenly), she made quick work of cleaning herself up from her morning's adventures. Thankfully the grime that coated her uniform (and herself) was fine and dry. After brushing her uniform thoroughly (and doing the same to her hair), she gave her face and arms a quick sponging off. Sam promised herself a proper bath and a chance to wash her hair later that evening, and managed to return to the station – not much the worse for wear – by the early afternoon.
Her return was perfectly timed. Paul had just returned from Hythe, where he and a dozen uniformed officers had raided another one of Hendry's gaming sessions – this time nabbing the whole crew. Sam was able to tell him about her most recent brush with death before he heard about it from anyone else at the station. Paul gaped at Sam in horror for half a minute when he heard the news, but her appearance was so completely brisk and serene that in the time it took for them both to wolf down late-lunch sandwiches in the canteen, he had completely recovered his professional demeanor and was able to carry on throughout the rest of the busy afternoon.
With Hendry in custody and under interrogation, everything began coming together with the swift precision of a line of falling dominoes. Hendry denied any involvement in the death of Mr. Richards, but he did know where the police could lay their hands on the mysterious, bomb-wielding brothers, Frank and Terry.
Once their own interrogation began, Frank and Terry Morgan proved to be a positive treasure trove of information. The long and short of their story was that they had been committing the petty acts of sabotage within the past few weeks, paid handsomely for their work by a Spanish diplomat who lived in the vicinity. Their last assignment had been to plant a bomb at that building in the woods. Terry insisted that they really had meant for this job to be their last – despite being the younger of the two brothers, he clearly had the lion's share of both brains and common sense. When they had arrived at their intended target, however, they had seen two men and a woman removing a dead body from the building and carrying it to the woods out back. The brothers had scrounged the wallet off of the dead man and taken the unused bomb to the woods the next day, meaning to set it off with no harm done to anyone and clear out of Hastings.
It was at this point that developments stopped running smoothly, becoming an increasingly snarled mess. Sam drove Mr. Foyle and Paul out to see the Spanish diplomat who had been instigating Frank and Terry's acts of sabotage. He was polite, suave, and charming. And protected by diplomatic immunity, since Spain was officially a neutral country.
The inquiry into Mr. Richards' murder didn't go much better. They confronted Evelyn Richards, Professor Townsend, and another scientist – a Mr. Lindemann – with what the Morgan boys had witnessed. In response, Mrs. Richards admitted to shooting her husband, claiming that he had showed up unexpectedly, drunk, and attempted to destroy the mechanisms that she and the others had been working on. She had been defending their work.
Paul could see numerous holes in this story – for a start, it didn't explain why Mr. Richards had taken the trouble of smartening himself up or the nosegay that Mr. Foyle had seen. And then, of course, the bullet in Mr. Richards' head would have required more precise aim than Evelyn Richards should have been capable of on her own, confronting a drunk, violent man. It didn't surprise Paul in the least when the DCS took Mrs. Richards into custody.
What did surprise Paul, though by his reaction Mr. Foyle had been half expecting it, was when a naval captain showed up at the station within an hour of their return, with Assistant Commissioner Parkins in tow, and ordered Mrs. Richards' release. Paul was sure that the DCS would simply dig in his heels – he had seen his boss butt heads with army brass any number of times – but the Assistant Commissioner lent his support to Captain Boothroyd's claims, and Mr. Foyle had no choice but to comply.
Sam watched from the hall behind the front desk as Sergeant Brooke processed the forms for Mrs. Richards' release. He was moving and writing rather slower and more deliberately than usual, she thought. Possibly as a way of showing his support for the impossible position into which Mr. Foyle had been thrust. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned, startled, to find Paul beckoning her into his office. He closed the door behind her.
"Mr. Foyle wants me to follow Mrs. Richards once she's released and see where she goes and who she meets," he said quietly as he shuffled papers around on his desk, "I don't know how late I'll be, so you'd best get on home and not wait for me. I'll fill you in tomorrow," Paul concluded, reaching for his coat and hat.
"Oh, how thrilling," Sam whispered. "You'd best get on with it then," Sam smiled, bestowing a quick kiss on Paul's cheek before opening the door and watching him hurry towards the rear exit, calling gaily, "Because I was going to stand you up this evening anyway – I've got to wash my hair!"
...
Sam thought that Mr. Foyle seemed rather grim the next morning as she drove him and Paul to the Royal Victoria Hotel for a meeting with Assistant Commissioner Parkins. She didn't see why this should be so. Paul had told her when she had arrived to collect the Wolseley that morning that his assignment to follow Evelyn Richards had been a huge success; he now had proof that she was carrying on an affair with her co-worker, Mr. Lindemann. Sam would therefore have assumed that Mr. Foyle planned on re-presenting the facts to the Assistant Commissioner and then arresting the pair of them.
When they arrived, however, Mr. Foyle told Paul to stay with Sam in the car rather than accompany him. He seemed gloomier than ever. Paul and Sam watched their boss climb the steps and disappear inside the hotel.
"Why don't we take a bit of a walk?" Paul suggested after a few moments, "It's a nice day, and the AC is bound to keep Mr. Foyle for a while."
They got out of the Wolseley and their stroll took them out along the groyne. Sam tucked her hand into Paul's arm and drew herself closer to him as they walked. The sea breeze was brisk, and fresh, but rather chilly. They were both quiet for a few minutes; the muted thunder of the waves washing ashore and the cries of wheeling gulls filling their ears.
"Paul?" Sam began, breaking the silence between them.
"Yes, Sam?"
"I need to ask you something – about after the wedding?"
"What is it?" Sam sounded uncharacteristically hesitant, and Paul wondered what could be troubling her.
"After we're married, when I'm not working for the police anymore, you'll still discuss your cases with me, won't you?"
"We always have." Paul sounded somewhat confused by her question. "We were doing that just the other night. Why would we stop?"
"Well, I hoped we wouldn't. But I've just been worrying a bit that maybe it was because I already know about what goes on with your investigations from being at the station and driving Mr. Foyle. And that once we started a family and I would be at home all day and you would be out and about, that I would end up…left behind. And you might get it into your head that you shouldn't tell me things to protect me, or get to thinking that I wouldn't be interested."
Paul began to make reassuring noises, but he saw immediately that Sam had more to say, so he remained quiet in order for her to continue talking.
"Because I'll always be interested in your cases, even if they're about who swiped five quid from the grocer's till. And you know that I can keep secrets; you don't have to worry about me passing on information to the baker or the butcher. And it'll do you good to talk cases over with someone who has a fresh perspective, because often they'll make a useful suggestion or observation that will set you on the right path. And even if I didn't do that," Sam added, "just talking things over aloud can get your own mind moving along different tracks…"
"Sam," Paul said firmly when it finally looked as though Sam had run out of steam, "I promise that I won't stop telling you about whatever goes on at the station."
"Good," Sam sighed with relief and hugged Paul's arm. "I'm going to hold you to that," she added with a smile. Spending the day away from the station, minding James, had been a small taste of what Sam supposed her life with Paul would become, in a few years. It hadn't been unpleasant, per se, and she assumed that she would find their own children more interesting and absorbing than one belonging to a stranger. It had reminded her, however, that her time with the police was bound to run out sooner or later, and when it did, she would have to depend on Paul to keep her informed.
Either Mr. Foyle's meeting with the Assistant Commissioner had ended sooner than anticipated, or they had lost track of the time on their walk, because halfway back to the car, Paul and Sam were surprised to see the DCS strolling towards them.
Promptly letting go of Paul's arm, Sam gave her tunic a smart tug to signal her return to duty. They walked side by side, no longer touching, until they reached Mr. Foyle….
Who quietly informed them that he had just tendered his resignation to AC Parkins. Effective immediately.