The Bee's Kiss by Barbara Cleverly Read Free Book Online Page B

whatever are your usual duties. I am, as I say, most grateful and will inform Sir Nevil that you made an invaluable contribution to the enquiry tonight.’
    The blue glare stopped the words in his throat and her reply was at once soft but oddly menacing: ‘My usual duties, as you call them, take me this week to Hyde Park where I am on Public Order patrol. If you should wish to engage my further attention in the matter of Dame Beatrice you will find me there between dawn and dusk dealing with roisterers, runaways, drunks and prostitutes.’
    ‘Thank you, Westhorpe,’ said Joe, unbalanced once again by the girl’s forthright expression. ‘I hope it won’t be necessary to tear you from your valued work.’
    As she turned with a curt nod to leave, he called after her. ‘One thing before you leave . . . you were going to tell me why you came up to see Dame Beatrice . . .’
    She paused with her hand on the door knob. ‘I was going to seek her assistance in a project of mine,’ she said mysteriously. ‘I was going to ask her advice on joining the navy. I was hoping to become a Wren, sir,’ she said and smiled with satisfaction on seeing his surprise.

Chapter Four
    ‘You, Westhorpe? A Wren?’ Joe couldn’t disguise his astonishment. ‘But surely you were aware . . . they were disbanded after the war?’
    ‘I am perfectly well aware that the Wrens are no longer officially in being as one of His Majesty’s auxiliary services, of course,’ she said stiffly. ‘Perhaps you didn’t know that the association continues in an informal way? Dame Beatrice was gathering about her an elite and useful group of girls like me, a group whose abilities will be valued in the event of a future war. The armed services appear to know how to make intelligent use of their recruits. Goodnight, sir. Shall I send up . . . Armstrong, was it?’
    ‘Armitage. Thank you, Tilly. Yes. Please do that.’
    She left, dragging Joe’s thoughts after her. He was left feeling uneasy with his decision to retain the services of Armitage at the expense of Tilly and began to rehearse his explanation to Sir Nevil. There was no obligation to justify himself – after all, it would have been most irregular (unprecedented even) to make use of a woman constable in the way Tilly had apparently assumed she would be used. He recognized and admired her intelligence and strength and, unusually for a man in his profession, did not feel threatened by her presence. He was aware of a general hostility from the other men in the force to the employment of women but, while he could understand and allow for this, he could not share it. His own mother and older sister Lydia were cut from the same cloth. He had grown up in a family where females were regarded as, at the very least, the equal of males. Delightfully different, occasionally intimidating, but always competent and reassuring, was Joe’s experience. His mother had for years managed the family estates in the Borders following his father’s crippling accident while Lydia, he knew, helped to run a suffragist group which had splintered from Emmeline Pankhurst’s. Married to a wealthy, indulgent, charming but lazy man with a grand house in Surrey, she led a life which suited her exactly. While raising her two children and running a hospitable household with an indoor staff of twenty and an outdoor staff so numerous Joe had never counted them, Lydia found time to involve herself with the advancement of women, with prison reform, the welfare of retired pit ponies and other good causes. Quaker blood, Joe thought. It led to Quaker conscience and a belief in the redeeming nature of hard work. Could be a curse.
    ‘Still here, sir?’ Armitage’s brisk voice cut through his increasingly rambling thoughts. ‘Why don’t you go off home and leave me to clear up the bits and pieces?’
    ‘Thanks, Bill, but we’re almost done for now. Look, I’ll be telling my boss that I want you moved from whatever you were doing to