Ashes to Ashes by Barbara Nadel Page B

some considerable time fighting fires, had followed George in and now sat down beside him. His face was blackened and he gasped for breath over the top of his cocoa cup. ‘Mr Churchill . . . gives us a few more firemen . . .’ He sounded a bit contemptuous, but I said nothing. It wasn’t my place. ‘That little, er, the girl . . .’ he started to ask me.
    ‘I’m going to go and have another look around in a bit,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen her and we’ve spoken. She’s called Milly, but she’s not in here.’
    ‘Probably nicking the silver candlesticks!’ Mr Webb said. ‘If I know Milly! I’d forget her, if I was you, mate. She’ll be all right.’
    Mr Smith gave me what I thought was a confused look.
    I attempted to explain. ‘M-Mr Webb here lives near to a g-girl we think might be the same M-Milly as—’
    ‘I see,’ Mr Smith said cutting me off as a lot of people do when the stutter begins to get on their nerves. ‘Well, there’s every watchman here tonight from all points north, south, east and west. One of us is bound to find her eventually.’ He looked at me closely. ‘You look all done in.’
    I told him I always do, which is the truth. I told him where I was from and Mr Smith frowned. ‘You East End boys have been taking it for a long time.’ He then looked first at Mr Webb and then at me again and said, ‘You should do as this chap says. Leave it. Rest up now. Who knows what we all may have to do in the next few hours? This church, believe me, is no easy lady to protect!’
    I was exhausted – not that that was anything new. Young George had talked about how Hitler was targeting St Paul’s and all the time I was thinking about how he was battering the docks. Mr Churchill wasn’t apparently too worried about them at that moment. I could understand it. To destroy St Paul’s would wound the soul of every Londoner alive. But still, killing the docks cuts us off from the world and the food it still manages to give us. The docks are our legs, if you like; take them away and we can’t move. What Hitler was doing to the docks had kept me awake for months and, to be truthful, I was noticeably tired at this point. It wasn’t like me. Maybe it was being around so many people hunkering down on cots and on the floor for the night? In spite of myself, for the first time in a long time, I felt quite peaceful. Were I a religious man, I might say that it was something to do with being in a church. But I’m not religious and so there had to be some other cause. Whatever the reason I went, very briefly, to sleep. When I woke up it was to find George, Mr Webb and Mr Smith gone and Mr Andrews standing over me.
    ‘Mr Hancock, we have to talk,’ he said.

Chapter Six
    M r Andrews led me out of the crypt and back into the nave of the cathedral. I’ll be honest, I was done in. I hadn’t slept in any real sense for months and as usual with me, every little bit of sleep that I did get was so precious, my waking from it was always a shock. As I climbed back up the stairs, my heart pounding in my chest, I felt sick and really quite unwilling to hear Mr Andrews out. But he gave me no choice which, as it turned out, was just as well.
    Once into the nave, we made our way through the darkness, underneath the dome to the place where Mr Ronson’s body had been. As I shone my torch at the pool of blood and offal that remained, Mr Andrews stopped and whispered, ‘I’ll explain in a moment. We’ll sit in the quire stalls.’
    I was horrified. I’d told him, and he should have known, not to move Mr Ronson’s body until a copper could be found to take charge of it. If Mr Andrews suspected that Mr Ronson had been murdered, that was the right thing to do, even in very difficult conditions. The German raids are all too often used as cover for people wanting to knock off their relatives or rivals or both. It’s so easy to miss clues in all the stink and destruction of the bombing. Now the coppers would never be