Secrets

  Secrets

  By the Same Author

  Georgia

  Tara

  Charity

  Ellie

  Camellia

  Rosie

  Charlie

  Never Look Back

  Trust Me

  Father Unknown

  Till We Meet Again

  Remember Me

  Secrets

  LESLEY PEARSE

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  an imprint of

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  First published 2004

  1

  Copyright © Lesley Pearse, 2004

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright

  reserved above, no part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,

  or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior

  written permission of both the copyright owner and

  the above publisher of this book

  EISBN: 978–0–141–90705–5

  To my father, Geoffrey Arthur Sargent, who died in 1980, too soon to see me become a published writer. I chose to set Secrets in Rye because it was his home town and he loved it.

  Also to my uncle, Bert Sargent, who remained living in Rye until his death in 2002. Some of my best childhood memories were of holidays spent there with him, my aunt Dorothy and my cousins.

  I read too many books in my research to name them all, but the most noteworthy ones were: Fighter Boys by Patrick Bishop; The London Blitz, a Fireman’s Tale by Cyril Demarne OBE; and London at War by Philip Ziegler. And extra special thanks to Geoffrey Wellum DSO, for his inspiring book First Light, his story of his time as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. A big thank-you to William Third for digging out information on Hastings and Winchelsea. You were always a dear friend, now you qualify as a researcher too.

  Part I

  Chapter One

  January 1931

  Adele had a stitch from running by the time she reached Euston Road. She was late for collecting Pamela, her eight-year-old sister, from her piano lesson on the other side of the busy main road. Aside from the darkness and the usual six o’clock heavy traffic, crossing the road was made even more hazardous by the lumps of blackened ice in the gutters from a fall of snow a few days previously.

  Adele Talbot was twelve – small, thin, pale-faced and waif-like in a worn adult tweed coat many sizes too large for her, woollen socks fallen to her ankles and a knitted pixie hood covering her straggly brown hair. Yet despite her still tender years, there was an adult expression of anxiety in her wide, greenish-brown eyes as she hopped from foot to foot impatiently watching for a break in the traffic. Her father was supposed to have collected Pamela on his way home from work but he forgot, and Adele was frightened that her little sister might have got tired of waiting for him and set off for home on her own.

  Poised on the kerb, panting from her run, she suddenly spotted Pamela through the traffic. There was no mistaking her – the street lights picked up her long blonde hair and her vivid red coat. To Adele’s dismay she wasn’t just waiting either, but hovering on the kerb, as if intending to cross on her own.

  ‘Stay there!’ Adele yelled out, waving her arms frantically. ‘Wait for me.’

  Several more buses came past in close succession, preventing Adele from seeing what her sister was doing, and suddenly there was an ominous squeal of brakes.

  Heart in mouth, Adele darted out between a bus and a lorry. As she reached the centre of the road her worst fears were realized: her little sister was lying crumpled on the ground between a car and a taxi.

  Adele screamed. All the traffic stopped abruptly, steam rising like smoke from the bonnets of cars. Pedestrians halted, gasping in shocked horror; everyone was looking at the small mound in the road.

  ‘Pamela!’ Adele yelled out as she ran to her, terror, disbelief and absolute horror enveloping her. The taxi driver, a big man with a fat belly, had got out of his cab and was now staring down at the child between his front wheels. ‘She just ran out!’ he exclaimed, looking round wildly for assistance. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  People were already crowding around and Adele had to push and shove to get through them. ‘Don’t touch her, luv,’ someone said warningly as she finally got right into the circle and crouched down beside her sister.

  ‘She’s my little sister,’ Adele gasped, tears streaming down her wind-whipped cheeks. ‘She’s supposed to wait until she’s met. Will she be all right?’

  Yet even as Adele asked the question, she sensed that Pamela was already dead. Her blue eyes were open wide, her expression startled, but there was no movement or sound, not even a grimace of pain.

  Adele heard someone say an ambulance had been called and a man stepped forward, felt Pamela’s pulse and removed his coat to place it over her. But he shook his head as he did so. That, and the stricken faces of everyone gathered round, confirmed her fears.

  She wanted to scream, to pummel the taxi driver responsible. Yet at the same time she couldn’t believe Pamela’s life was over. Everyone had loved her, she was so bright and funny, and she was too young to die.

  Leaning over her sister, Adele smoothed Pamela’s hair back from her face and sobbed out her shock and heartbreak.

  A woman in a fur hat took hold of her round her waist and drew her away. ‘Where do you live, sweetheart?’ she asked, holding her tightly against her chest and making a comforting rocking movement. ‘Are your mum and dad at home?’

  Adele didn’t know how she replied, all she was aware of in that moment was the rasp of the woman’s coat against her cheek, and the feeling she was going to be sick.

  But she must have answered her questions before she broke free to vomit by the kerb, for later, after the arrival of the ambulance and the police, she heard the same woman informing them that the sister of the child who had been run over was Adele Talbot and she lived at 47 Charlton Street.

  Yet in the time until the police and the ambulance arrived, Adele wasn’t aware of the faces of those around her, what they said to her, or even the biting cold wind. She felt only her own anguish, saw only the golden glow of street lights picking out Pamela’s blonde hair fluttering in the wind on the black, wet road, and heard only the noise of car horns honking impatiently.

  Euston belonged to her and Pamela. Maybe to others it was the dirty and dangerous hub of London which people were forced to pass through on their way to other safer and more attractive parts of the city, but to Adele it had always felt as harmless as a park. Charlton Street was right between Euston and St Pancras, and the railway stations were like her personal theatres, the passengers characters in a drama. She was always taking Pamela into them, particularly when it was cold or wet, and she would make up stories about the people they saw
there to entertain her. A woman in a fur coat, tripping alongside a porter carrying her big suitcases, was a countess. A young couple kissing passionately were eloping. Sometimes they saw children travelling alone with a label pinned to their coat, and Adele would make up some fantastic adventure story involving wicked stepmothers, castles in Scotland and treasure chests full of money.

  At home there was always an atmosphere. Their mother would sit for hours in sullen silence, barely acknowledging her children or her husband’s presence. She had always been the same, so Adele just accepted it, but had learned to read the danger signs which preceded the eruptions of wild rage and got herself and Pamela out of there as quickly as possible. These rages could be terrifying, for their mother would fling anything that came to hand, scream abuse and more often than not lash out at Adele.

  Adele tried to convince herself that the reason the full force of her mother’s anger was always directed at her, rather than Pamela, was just because she was the elder. But deep down she knew it was because Mum hated her for some reason.

  Pamela had sensed it too, and she had always tried to make up for it. If she got any money from their mother she always shared it with Adele. When she got her new red coat for Christmas she’d been embarrassed because Adele hadn’t got one too. In her little way she’d done her best to make amends. With her sunny smile, her generosity and sense of fun, Pamela had made Adele’s life bearable.

  Now, as she stood there crying helplessly, wanting an adult to put their arms around her and reassure her Pamela wasn’t dead, merely unconscious, Adele was all too aware that if her sister was really gone for good, then she might as well be dead too.

  A burly young policeman took Adele’s hand as Pamela was lifted into the ambulance. As they laid her on the stretcher, they put the blanket right over her face; unspoken confirmation that she was really dead.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ the policeman said gently, then bent down so his face was on her level. ‘I’m PC Mitchell,’ he went on. ‘Me and the Sergeant will take you home in a minute, we have to tell your mum and dad about the accident, and get you to tell us exactly what happened.’

  It was only then that Adele became afraid for herself. From the moment she’d heard the squeal of car brakes, her mind had been centred entirely on Pamela. All her thoughts and emotions were single-track, nothing else existed but her sister’s little body on the ground and what they were to each other. But at the mention of her parents, Adele was suddenly terrified.

  ‘I c-c-can’t go home,’ she blurted out, clutching the policeman’s hand in fear. ‘They’ll say it was my fault.’

  ‘Of course they won’t,’ PC Mitchell said disbelievingly, and rubbed her cold hand in his two big ones. ‘Accidents like this can happen to anyone, you’re only a kid yourself.’

  ‘If I’d just been a bit quicker,’ she sobbed out. His big kindly face full of concern for her was only a further reminder of how little her parents cared for her. ‘I ran all the way, but she was already by the road when I got up here.’

  ‘Your mum and dad will understand,’ he said, and patted her shoulder.

  The ambulance drove off then, and the crowd began to disperse. Only the taxi driver was left talking to the two policemen as Adele waited. Everything went back to normal so quickly, cars now driving over the very spot where Pamela had lain just minutes before, the onlookers fading away to go to the pub, catch a bus or buy the evening paper. For them it was just an incident, a sad one maybe, but they would have forgotten it before they even reached their homes.

  Adele had been aware right from when she was very small that Euston was a place of huge inequality. The stations, those vast and magnificent buildings, presided over the neighbourhood like towering cathedrals, employing hundreds of people. Those wealthy enough to travel relied on the labours of the poor to make their journeys comfortable and enjoyable.

  The railway workers lived in the mean, dirty streets around the station. A porter might know the times of every single train, each stop and halt from London to Edinburgh, and he would strain his back and arms each day carrying heavy luggage. Yet he would never visit any of those places whose names tripped off his tongue so effortlessly. If he managed to take his wife and children for a day at the seaside he’d consider himself fortunate. Likewise, the maid who changed the beds in the smart hotels where the travellers stayed probably had no sheets on her own bed, let alone an indoor lavatory or a real bath.

  Adele had so often watched the rich collide with the poor around here. An elegant lady in a fox fur buying flowers from a ragged old soldier with only one leg. A gentleman in a gleaming car signalling impatiently for the dwarf who sold newspapers to bring him one. Adele knew the dwarf lived in an archway under the railway. She had seen the old soldier doff his cap and smile at his customers even though he was frozen with the cold and tottering on his crutches. When the business people left their offices to go home to the leafy suburbs, out came the poor to clean up after them.

  Yet Adele had always vowed to Pamela that there was something better in store for them. She had spun her stories of them living in a posh part of London, and how one day they’d visit all those destinations they saw on boards in the stations. But now, as she waited to go home, without her sister, all those dreams and ambitions were gone for good.

  The taxi driver got into his cab, and for a moment he looked at Adele as if wanting to say something to her. But maybe he was too shaken himself to speak, and he drove off as the two policemen came back to her.

  ‘It’s time to go now,’ PC Mitchell said. Then, taking her hand firmly in his, he led her off towards the police car.

  Adele had never been in a car before, but just that was a further painful reminder of Pamela. Her favourite game had been to put two chairs one behind the other to make an imaginary car in which she was always the driver, and Adele the passenger who decided where to go.

  The Talbots had three small rooms on the top floor of a terraced house in Charlton Street. The Mannings lived beneath them with their four children, the Pattersons and their three children on the ground floor.

  As in most of the streets in the area, the front door opened straight on to the pavement, but unlike most of the others the house was occupied by only three families and had the luxury of a shared bathroom and inside lavatory.

  The front door was shut because it was so cold, and Adele put her hand through the letter box and pulled out the key. She looked back at the policemen before she used it. The younger one, who had said he was taking her home and introduced himself as PC Mitchell, was blowing on his fingers to warm them. The older one, whom Mitchell had called Sarge, was standing further back from the house, looking up. They both looked apprehensive, and that made Adele even more frightened.

  As they mounted the stairs to the top flat, Adele saw the building as the policemen must and felt ashamed. It was so dirty and smelly, bare wood on the stairs and the distemper on the walls so old it had no real colour. As always there was a great deal of noise, the Mannings’ baby yelling blue murder and the other children shouting over the top of it.

  The door to the top flat was flung open before they reached it, presumably because her parents had heard the sound of men’s feet on the stairs. Adele’s mother, Rose, looked down at them, her face contorting when she saw the uniformed men and Adele. ‘Where’s Pammy?’ she burst out. ‘Don’t tell me something’s happened to her?’

  Adele had always thought of her mother as beautiful, even when she was miserable and nasty. Yet in that moment, with the light from the living room behind her, she saw her as she really was. Not a golden-haired beauty with an hour-glass figure, but a tired, worn woman of thirty, with a sagging body, muddy complexion and bedraggled hair. The pinafore she wore over her skirt and jumper was stained and torn, and her slippers, brown checked ones, had holes in the toes.

  ‘Can we come in, Mrs Talbot?’ the sergeant asked her. ‘You see, there’s been an accident.’

  Rose let out a terrible shriek, taking A
dele by surprise. Her mouth just dropped open and out came the noise like a runaway train.

  All at once Dad was there too in the doorway, demanding to know what was going on, and all the while Adele and the policemen were still standing on the stairs, and down below people were opening doors to see what was going on.

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ her mother screamed, her eyes closing up till they were just two slits. ‘Who did it? How did it happen?’

  The policemen almost pushed their way into the flat then, PC Mitchell nudging Adele in ahead of him. The room was both kitchen and living room. It smelled of frying and the washing drying round the fire, and the table was laid for tea. The sergeant made Rose sit down in an armchair and he gently began to explain what had happened.

  ‘But where was Adele? She was supposed to collect her,’ Rose interrupted, looking daggers at her elder daughter. ‘Why did she let Pammy run across the road?’

  Adele had expected to be blamed, purely because she always was, whatever went wrong. Yet a small part of her had clung to the hope that with something as awful as this, the usual system would be bypassed.

  ‘I ran all the way to get her, but she was already trying to cross Euston Road when I got there,’ Adele said frantically, tears running down her face. ‘I called out for her to stop, but I don’t think she saw or heard me.’

  ‘And she was hit by a car?’ Rose asked, looking up at the sergeant, her eyes begging to be told this wasn’t so. ‘And she was killed? My beautiful Pammy is dead?’

  The sergeant nodded, looking to Jim Talbot for help. But he was slumped in his chair, his hands over his face.

  ‘Mr Talbot.’ The sergeant touched him on the shoulder. ‘We are so sorry. An ambulance arrived within minutes, but it was too late.’

  Adele watched her dad take his hands from his face. He looked towards her and for a brief moment she thought he was going to beckon to her to come to him for comfort. But instead his face contorted into a scowl. ‘Too late,’ he roared out, and pointed his finger at her. ‘You were too late to collect Pammy, and now she’s dead because you were too bloody idle to get a move on.’