Did this Montel really love her?

Despite this thought, he added to his note for Mags details of Susan’s visit and her proposal. I must let Margaret make up her own mind. He knew that part of his motivation for even half-suggesting they let Montel help was that he would feel safer if Margaret had a man with her in France. It made him feel more confident about his plan. Montel would think like him and would take every precaution. It had to work. It had to.

Chapter Eighteen

Aggie was on the prowl again. Mags stiffened. Please don’t let her come to me. Since the night when she’d kicked out at her, Aggie hadn’t bothered her, but today Mags had noticed her staring at her.

Aggie’s shadow fell across Mags’s bed. ‘Go away, Aggie. Go away or I’ll kick you again.’

The bed sank with Aggie’s weight as she sat down heavily. ‘Aggie’s lonely.’

‘I know you are. We all are. I can be your friend, but I don’t want, or like, you trying to touch me.’

‘Aggie won’t. Aggie likes you.’

‘And I like you, dear. Now go back to bed and don’t disturb any of the other ladies. They are all tired. Let’s have a peaceful night, shall we?’

Aggie got up. ‘Aggie walk with you tomorrow? Aggie come into the garden and sit on the bench with you?’

Oh God, how am I to handle this? If Aggie started to trail around with her, Mags knew that would be a disaster for David’s plan. A plan that was very similar to her own, only it meant that the doctor would come himself, and not send a taxi. Iris was to help her leave the premises in a week’s time. She would meet Mags in the bathroom and would change clothes with her, and then get into Mags’s bed. Mags would leave the hospital wearing Iris’s hat and coat over the uniform’s grey dress. David would have money, tickets to France, and a case full of clothes and toiletries for her. He would have used the authority she gave him to access money through her father’s solicitors, and Betsy would have shopped for everything she needed. David would drive her to Dover and book them into a hotel. There she would be able to bath, wash her hair and change into decent clothes – oh, how she longed for that moment. David would then see her onto the ferry the next day and, from Calais, Mags would catch a train – or several – to get to Flora in the South of France. Not that she had Flora’s full address, that was still hidden away in her bureau, but she remembered the area and part of the name of the village. And she felt confident that, armed with this information, she would find Flora. Freedom – oh God, I can’t wait. And nothing, nothing at all, is going to stop me.

But what of this new plan of Aggie’s? What if she did befriend Mags, and Aggie tried to sit with Iris when she was pretending to be her? Iris didn’t care about being found out in the morning, or the consequences of that, for she was so happy to have the chance to help Mags and to be free of this place, with enough money to keep her and her family without worrying about where the next penny was coming from. David was seeing to that part of the plan, too. Everything was set.