Page 88 of Strangers in Time

“He said he bought it with the shillin’s he stole from the shop. But that were a lie ’cause he give the money back.”

“Sodidhe nick it, then?” persisted the detective inspector.

“Dunno. But he didn’t want us to go round to the shop. He tried to stop us. Maybe he was a friend ’a the bloke’s.”

Willoughby glanced at his notebook. “This Ignatius Oliver?”

Lonzo rubbed his damaged nose and touched the wound on the back of his head. His fingers came back all sticky with his blood. “Dunno, maybe. But Charlie ain’t want us to steal from him, I can tell you that.”

Willoughby sat back and thought this over. “Okay, Lonzo Rossi, theforeigner, that will be all.”

Lonzo peeked up at the man. “C-can… can I go now, guv? I… I wanted to join up, fight the Jerries, see?”

The detective inspector looked at him incredulously. “The only place you’re going is to prison.”

“But you said—”

“A constable has died,” interjected Willoughby. “While this country was at war and needing every able-bodied man in either a policeman’s or a soldier’s uniform. And you and this Charlie Matters as good as killed him. If I have any say in it, and I do, you and he will grow old and gray in prison. That is unless they hang you, which would bemypreference.”

Lonzo started to blubber and Willoughby impatiently waved at the constable to drag him away.

When Willoughby was alone, the man had one overriding thought: to find this lad, Charlie Matters. And he knew just the place to start searching.

Tomorrow he would head to Covent Garden. To The Book Keep.

NURSEAUXILIARY

THE WHISKERED, APRONED MANin the chemist’s shop politely declined Molly’s offer to mix the powders, but commended her proper English spirit in trying to do her part in the midst of a global conflict.

“And you tell your mum I said so,” he added in an encouraging tone.

I wish I could, thought Molly.

She trudged down the street feeling dirty and unkempt. She had searched through Imogen’s old clothes, as Oliver had suggested, only to find them full of mold and mildew from water leaks in the flat. So she had sponged her clothes as best she could, and used a few articles of Imogen’s to shape her hair and clean her face and the rest of her body. But her shoes were stained and her stockings were beginning to droop and her hat had been squished in on one side, what with all the jostling in the Underground that night.

Two more chemist’s shops rejected her request, and neither was nearly as gracious about it as the first. The last fellow actually accused Molly of wasting his time while playing an obvious joke on him before sending her off with a flea in her ear.

“Get on with you before I say something you won’t soon forget,missy. Don’t you know there’s a bloody war going on? A belt to your shins would be the ticket if you were my daughter.”

She tried other places, shops and markets and emporiums and cafes and anywhere else that had aPOSITION NEEDEDsign. But the folks inside always found some reason to deny her employment. Perhaps it was her age, or her clothes—which were, though a bit grimy now, evidently once costly. They might be saving the jobs for those who they believed truly needed them, she thought.

Even though I truly do.

She had been about to give up when she saw a sign and wondered how she had missed it:COVENT GARDEN MEDICAL CLINIC BRANCH.

It was posted outside of a brick building with one door and four windows facing the street. She peered in one of the windows and saw beds with sick and injured people lying in them, and nurses in skirts, capes, and hats rushing around with bottles and trays and anxious looks.

Then, when she drew away from the window and stepped inside the small vestibule, Molly saw the placard:NURSE AUXILIARIES NEEDED. INQUIRE WITHIN.

She squared her shoulders, righted her dented hat, gripped the door handle, and prepared herself to inquire within.

Molly was met by a slim nurse in a dark pleated skirt and white rubber-soled shoes. Thick worry lines etched her forehead.

“Yes?” she said. “Are you here to visit someone?”

“No, I’m here to apply for the position as a nurse auxiliary.”

The woman frowned. “What? I do not have time to waste with silly—”

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