She tactfully made herself scarce while I made my telephone call. Stolidly, my man-at-arms stood by me while I waited to be connected to Martin Yeats. I thanked Philip for leaving his treatise on rhubarb in the third bee bole.

Martin could not promise that he would be able to arrange a second visit for me to see Stephen Walmsley tomorrow morning, but he would do his best. “What time do you want to go?”

I thought for a moment. The sooner the better, as far as I was concerned. “If I could see Stephen first thing, say 7 a.m., I could be back in time for breakfast.”

“I’ll do my best, Kate.”

There are some people whose best will always be good enough.

Chapter Eighteen

My car likes to be heard. Without shouting at the top of one’s voice, it is impossible to have a conversation over the racket of the engine while driving.

We reached Thorpefield. Mr. Arkwright yelled directions to the top of Silver Street, end cottage, number 42. This was the street leading to Mrs. Farrar’s shop. This was the house Stephen Walmsley had walked to with Joan, after band practice.

Although I needed to be back for Sunday lunch with Gertrude and Benjie, I was glad that they asked me in. There would be time for a chat.

Mrs. Arkwright was apologetic. “We’re not settled, but you’ll excuse our mess.”

We stepped into the single downstairs room that doubled as kitchen and parlour, with a door leading to a small scullery. Mrs. Arkwright hung our coats on the back of the door. I was urged into the upholstered cane seat that must be Mr. Arkwright’s. Mrs. Arkwright sat in the rocking chair.

The kettle was on the hob. He put on a couple of cobs of coal and used the poker to push the hob nearer the flames.

After I had admired the room, and assured them that it wasn’t at all a mess, I gave my by now practised account of the planned photographic essay for a magazine—my passport to nosiness. “I had hoped to photograph the Bluebell Home. I’d no idea it had closed. Was that recent?”

Mrs. Arkwright nodded. “And sudden, very sudden.” She took out a hanky.

“Now, now,” her husband said. “Don’t fret.”

“What was it like there? I used to cycle out this way with my friends. We’d look through the railings and envy the children their swings and slide.”

She smiled. “We were there twenty years. The couple before us, they did everything they could to make the Bluebell a proper home, the best kind of family home.”

“We followed suit,” Mr. Arkwright said. “It was never a heartbreak house. Trustees insisted on after-school training. I taught woodwork and suchlike to the boys.”

“And for the girls, I would have taught cooking but we had a lovely qualified teacher.” Mrs. Arkwright set her chair rocking. “No one demonstrated bedmaking with neater hospital corners than Miss Stafford. She brought out the best in the children and so did we. Joan and Stephen are living proof. And if they don’t let the lad out of prison soon, there’s no justice in this wide world.”