All Clear

He descended the last two rungs and started across the hold, but before he’d waded two steps, the Commander had him in a bear hug. “You’re a sight for sore eyes!” he bellowed, pounding him on the back. “What the bloody hell are you doing here, Kansas?”

For many years the prince wandered until at last he came to the lonely place where the witch had left Rapunzel.

RAPUNZEL

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

IT WAS A QUARTER PAST NINE WHEN HE REACHED THE museum. It didn’t open till ten, but he’d come through early, hoping they’d arrive early, too, and he’d be able to talk to them before they went in.

But there was no one standing outside the doors or on the steps, and no one in the courtyard, where a tank, an anti-aircraft gun, and a motor-boat were on display.

He tried the main doors on the off chance that the lobby was open, but they were locked, and he couldn’t see anyone at the ticket desk yet.

He walked down to the courtyard and looked at the tank, wishing they’d get here. There was a “St. Paul’s in the Blitz” exhibit opening at St. Paul’s Cathedral today as well. He’d debated going to that one instead, then decided his chances were better at this one, since there’d be more attendees here. But he’d hoped that by coming early, he could make it to both. And now there wasn’t a soul here.

He wandered over to the boat. It had Lily Maid stenciled on its bow. There was an impressive array of machine-gun bullet holes in its stern, and a placard on it reading, “One of the many small craft manned by civilians which participated in the evacuation of over 340,000 British and other Allied soldiers from Dunkirk.”

He examined the bullet holes and then retrieved a museum brochure someone had jammed in the windscreen of the boat and went back to sit on the steps and read it. “FINEST HOURS: A Fiftieth-Anniversary World War II Tribute,” it read, and listed the museum’s upcoming special events and exhibitions: “The Battle of Britain,” “The War in North Africa,” “Women at War,” “The Secret That Won the War,” “The Evacuation of the Children.” If he didn’t find anyone here or at St.

Paul’s, he definitely needed to attend that last one.

If he could get here. Badri and Linna hadn’t been able to get a drop to open anywhere near “Women at War” ’s opening date, even though they’d labored over it for months and gone as far afield as Yorkshire. When was “The Evacuation of the Children”? If it was soon, he might be able to stay till its opening. It wasn’t till September. He couldn’t waste four months on the off chance that he could find an evacuee who’d had contact with Merope after she went to London. Or who knew what other children had been at Denewell Manor.

The Evacuation Committee’s files had been destroyed by the same pinpoint bomb which had vaporized St. Paul’s, and all he’d learned from local records was that the evacuees hadn’t been so much assigned to a particular family or house as dumped on them. A committee head he’d interviewed in 1960 had only been able to name three of the thirty children who’d been at Denewell Manor, and the only reason she’d remembered two of them was that they’d been such hellions.

“Alf and Binnie Hodbin were dreadful children. Lady Denewell was an absolute saint to have them there,” she’d told him. “They stole things, tormented livestock, damaged people’s property. And then they’d stand there and tell you the most outrageous lies.” And when he’d asked her if she’d had any contact with them since the war, she’d said, “No, thank heavens. I shouldn’t be surprised if they were in prison.”

She had known where the third evacuee—Edwina Barry, née Driscoll—was, but Mrs. Barry had been sent to another home before Eileen had left the manor, and she hadn’t known what had happened to the Hodbins either, though she knew they were from Whitechapel. He’d spent the next six months scouring prison rosters and Whitechapel’s housing records. He’d found out their address, but their tenement had been destroyed in February of 1941. Their names hadn’t been on the casualty list for the bombing, but a list of casualties for the entire Blitz had confirmed that their mother had been killed, which meant they probably had been, too.

He wrote down the opening date of the children’s evacuation exhibit and perused the rest of the brochure for any other possibly useful exhibitions, then glanced up.

Someone was coming. It was only a pair of tourists. They were in their fifties and, from the look of it, American. They both wore white plimsolls and had large cameras round their necks. The wife was wearing sunglasses even though it looked like it might rain at any moment, and the husband was grumbling, “I told you it wouldn’t be open yet.”

“It’s better to be too early than too late,” the wife said, and started up the steps. “Is the museum open?”

“If it was open,” the man growled, “he wouldn’t be sitting out here.”

“I’m Brenda,” she said, “and this is my husband, Bob.”