As soon as the service was over, Mr. Humphreys dragged the vicar off to look at Captain Faulknor’s memorial, and Eileen hustled Alf and Binnie out of the chapel, leaving Polly to thank everyone for coming and to listen to their condolences.
“We must trust in God’s goodness,” Miss Hibbard said, patting her hand.
Mrs. Wyvern patted it, too. “God never sends us more than we can bear.”
“Everything which happens is part of God’s plan,” the rector intoned.
Sir Godfrey came up to her, his hat in his hand.
If he has some appropriately cheerful Shakespeare quote, like “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,” or “All will yet be well,” I’ll never forgive him, Polly thought.
“Viola,” he said, and shook his head sadly. “ ‘The rain it raineth every day.’ ”
I love you, she thought, tears stinging her eyes.
Miss Laburnum came up. “We must have faith at trying times like these,” she said, and turned to Sir Godfrey. “I have been thinking, we should do a dramatic reading from Mary Rose. There’s a heartbreaking scene where her son comes looking for his dead mother …”
She dragged Sir Godfrey off, and Polly went to look for Eileen. She couldn’t see her or the Hodbins anywhere, and she didn’t want her to have to listen to the rector’s or Mrs. Wyvern’s platitudes. She went out into the nave and toward the dome.
Eileen was looking at The Light of the World with Alf and Binnie. Or rather, Alf and Binnie were looking at it, and Eileen was staring at Alf and Binnie with the same blind, withdrawn look. Polly’d hoped the vicar’s words would aid Eileen in coming to terms with Mike’s death, but they didn’t seem to have helped.
And the Hodbins were certainly of no help. “Why’s ’e wearin’ a dress?” Alf asked, pointing at the painting. “And what’s ’e standin’ there for?”
“ ’E’s knockin’ up the people what live there, you dunderpate,” Binnie said.
“You’re the dunderpate,” Alf said. “Nobody lives there. Look at that door. It ain’t been opened in years. I’ll wager the people what lived there went off and didn’t tell ’im. Or else they’re dead. ’E can go on knockin’ forever, and nobody’ll come.”
That’s the last thing Eileen needs to hear, Polly thought, and said, “We should be going. We don’t want to be caught out when the sirens go.” But Eileen gave no indication that she heard her. She continued to stare blindly at Alf and Binnie.
Polly tried again. “Eileen, we need to go rescue the vicar. Mr. Humphreys took him to look at Faulknor’s memorial and—”
“Alf, Binnie, come with me,” Eileen said abruptly, and herded them back to the now-deserted chapel. She opened the gate.
“Why’re we goin’ back in ’ere?” Binnie asked as Eileen motioned them inside.
“We didn’t nick nothin’,” Alf said.
Oh, no, Polly thought. What did they steal now?
“We wasn’t even in ’ere,” Alf said. “We was lookin’ at that picture the whole time.”
Eileen shut and latched the gate and then turned to face them.
“We didn’t take nothin’,” Binnie said. “Honest.”
Eileen didn’t even seem to have heard that. “How long has your mother been dead?” she asked.
Dead?
“You’re daft,” Alf said. “Our mum ain’t dead.”
“She’s down at Piccadilly Circus this minute,” Binnie said, sidling toward the gate. “We’ll go fetch ’er.”
Eileen stepped firmly between them and the gate. “You’re not going anywhere.” She looked across at Polly. “Their mother was killed in a raid last autumn, and they’ve been covering it up ever since. They’ve been living on their own in the shelters.
“Haven’t you?” Eileen demanded, looking at the children. “How long has she been dead?”
“We told you,” Alf said, “she ain’t—”
“She died at St. Bart’s, didn’t she?” Eileen said. “That’s how you knew where the hospital was, isn’t it? And why you wanted to leave, because you were afraid a nurse would recognize you and tell me what happened.”
“No,” Alf said. “You said you needed to get to St. Paul’s. That’s why we was—”
“How long has she been dead, Binnie?”
“We told you—” Alf began.
“Since September,” Binnie said.
Alf turned on her furiously. “What’d you tell ’er that for? Now she’ll turn us in.”
Binnie ignored him. “We didn’t find out till October, though,” she said. “Sometimes Mum don’t come ’ome for two or three days, so we didn’t think nothin’ of it, but after a bit we got worried and went lookin’ for her, and one of Mum’s friends said she was in a pub what got ’it by a thousand-pounder.”
And there wasn’t a body left to identify, Polly thought. Like Mike. And the “friend” was either a fellow prostitute or one of Mrs. Hodbin’s clients, neither of whom would have wanted to have anything to do with the police, so her death hadn’t been reported to the authorities.
“She’d already been killed when I came to borrow the map, hadn’t she?” Eileen asked. “That was why you wouldn’t let me in and told me she was sleeping.”
Binnie nodded. “That’s what we told the landlady, too. Mum slept a lot when she was ’ome, you see, and we ’ad the ration books, so it was all right. Till we run out of money and couldn’t pay the rent.”
“And the landlady found out about Mrs. Bascombe,” Alf said.
