Page 20 of Return Ticket

Gabriella had expected that if she found her father alive that he would be married. That he would be a bigamist. He’d done enough to hide his whereabouts, after all. But she had never suspected he had a title. Never suspected he came from wealth.

She had been very young when he’d left, and couldn’t remember if he’d ever said anything about his upbringing, but her mother had worked long, hard hours every day in the bakery, and she couldn’t really recall what her father had done.

He must have worked somewhere. She would write to her mother and ask her.

“You’re shocked,” Ruby said.

Gabriella nodded. “Can we somehow confirm this Lord Granger is my father? Find out if he lived in Melbourne during the war?”

“I’ve already asked my contact at the Home Office to do that.” Ruby patted her arm gently. “But we know for sure he spent some time there, as he got on the ship in Melbourne and got off in Southhampton.”

“Ruby.” Gabriella grabbed her friend’s hands and squeezed. “I don’t know how to thank you. I’ve been here six months, and I hadn’t gotten anywhere in my search. You’ve helped me so much.”

Ruby smiled. “It’s been my pleasure. It feels a bit like the old days.”

Gabriella knew Ruby would never reveal what she’d done during the war, but she suspected it involved the intelligence services.

Hence her very good connections in the Home Office.

As she used Ruby’s umbrella to make a run for the bus stop, she had to give it to her father. It had taken an old WWII operative to find him.

He thought he was safe and untouchable.

And she was about to reach out and rip back the curtain.

She didn’t fool herself that it wouldn’t be painful. For them both.

chapternine

“We found the body there.”Mr. Stanhope, a thickly-accented northerner, pointed to a rough-dug trench running through the middle of an allotment, and James saw a few pieces of crime scene tape were still tied around some of the trellises.

He stepped closer, and then turned as DC Hartridge pushed through the squeaky gate into the urban garden, and came to stand, stiff and uncomfortable, at his side. He’d been that way since the night Galbraith had hunted him down.

“Good morning, sir.”

James nodded to him, then focused back on the ditch. “You found her face down, I heard?” He glanced at Stanhope.

“Face down, and partially buried,” Mr. Stanhope said. “Like they tried to fill the trench back up, as if we wouldn’t notice after we’d just spent all day digging it for drainage. Bloody idiot.”

“So they started to bury the body, and then abandoned the effort?” James crouched down, but there was nothing in the trench now but mud, probably because it had rained through the night. He hadn’t been able to come yesterday or the day before, when he’d wanted to, and five days was a long time for a crime scene.

He’d had to dance around the bureaucracy all day yesterday and the day before, and still didn’t have permission to take this case on as his own. But he had eventually been granted access to the files and permission to interview witnesses.

“Did you know the victim?” James asked. She was still listed as unknown, but what he’d seen of the investigation so far was so haphazard, he didn’t take it for granted that the officer in charge had done his job and asked if any of the people who’d found the body recognized her.

Mr. Stanhope shook his head. “Nah, poor lass. I thought at first she’d wandered in by mistake and fallen in, you see. But then I saw the soil over her, and she’d hardly have tried to cover her own body up, now would she?”

“No.” James pushed back to his feet. “You see anyone lurking about recently?”

“Looking it over, like? As a good place to dump a body?” Mr. Stanhope’s eyes were hard as he spoke. Then he gave a quick shake of his head. “Not that I saw. Wish I had. Wish I knew who did this. They’ve ruined this place for some of the old timers.”

“Old timers?” DC Hartridge asked, and Mr. Stanhope gave a chuckle.

“You’re thinking, aren’t you an old timer, old man,” he said, then his laughter turned into a hacking cough.

Hartridge blushed. “No, sir.”

Mr. Stanhope thumped his chest and took a breath. “I’m old enough,” he said. “But I’m talking about those who lived here during the war. I’m a relative newcomer to the allotment. This place was an old factory during the Blitz. Went up in flames and they found someone dead inside once the fire was out. Some of the current gardeners live in houses overlooking this place and were there when she was found, so this is bringing it all back.”

---