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“You’re saying Enid’s like Tiny Tim?”

“No. She’s the opposite of that.”

“I see.” John regarded her pensively. “How does Miss Martin react to all of this? What has she said?”

“She doesn’t complain. But I think the situation is worrisome for her. She needs to do her work, and it doesn’t help to have us all buzzing around here like bees in a pitcher. Even June interrupts her. Nothing I’ve said to any of them has made a difference.”

“I would have thought the fear of being sent back to Millbank would be enough.”

“No, they all know Miss Martin wouldn’t send them back.”

“It may not be her decision,” John said. At her perplexed look, he explained, “It’s at the discretion of the supervisor.”

“What supervisor?” she surprised him by asking.

“The one mentioned in the discharge papers we had to sign.”

Tuppence looked slightly embarrassed. “I don’t think any of us read those.”

“Ticket-of-leave convicts are under police supervision, with occasional mandatory inspection visits. No one from the prison or employment agency explained it to you? Miss Martin hasn’t mentioned it?”

Tuppence shook her head. “Perhaps it slipped her mind. Or maybe she doesn’t think it’s important.”

“It’s important,” John said. “Mandatory, as a matter of fact.” But as he saw the pucker of worry on her forehead, he added, “It’s all right. I’ll explain the situation to the others at dinner.”

“You can explain it,” Tuppence said. “But I’m not sure what you can make them do about it.”

Chapter Eight

Sand Script

In spite of June’s threats, the sausage dog was back. After giving it a bath, Mad Dog had brought the skinny creature to the kitchen door, holding it partially inside his coat.

“Is there any scraps for Alan?” Mad Dog asked.

As she saw the pup’s imploring eyes, June sighed and gestured for Mad Dog to bring it inside.

It was a curse, this compulsion to feed every living creature in the vicinity.

She’d started cooking when she was too young to reach the stove properly and had to stand on a wooden crate beside it. The first thing she’d ever made was an omelet. Ma’s hands had covered hers, showing her how to stir the eggs, how to shake the hot pan in the proper motion to keep the contents from sticking. It had been like a magic trick, the way the runny yellow liquid had tightened into a thin buttered circle, ready to be folded neatly onto a plate.

After June’s father, a market porter at Covent Garden, had abandoned them, they had never taken survival for granted. They both had to work hard with no time for idle amusements. But one of June’s daily enjoyments had been cooking together on the stove-plate in their flat, and in the small kitchen of Manuela Martín’s town house. She’d become proficient at “plain cookery”—basic meals like soups, stews, and puddings. Eventually, however, she’d craved higher degrees of difficulty, the ability to prepare food to the highest degree. Haute cuisine. It had never made sense to June that women supposedly belonged in the kitchen, but only men were allowed to be restaurant chefs.

Ma had tried to discourage June’s ambitions. There were limits to what women could achieve outside the home, she’d pointed out. The education and experience necessary to become a chef was only possible for men. But June couldn’t stop imagining herself with her own restaurant, her own staff, maybe even writing a cookbook of her own recipes.

It had been at Reina’s urging that June had dared to apply to the London Cookery School. “Start small,” Reina had told her. “Start somewhere. The hardest part is the beginning. There will be obstacles—there always are. But don’t waste your time worrying about those, or you’ll talk yourself out of it before you begin.”

“I can’t afford it,” June had replied, feeling defeated.

“I’ll pay for it. You can reimburse me by cooking and practicing in my kitchen.”

“Queenie, you shouldn’t waste your money on me.”

“A waste? Not at all, it’s an investment. I don’t have time to go to market or learn how to manage a kitchen range. I need someone to feed me, June. You know how I am. Half the time I forget to eat until I’ve wilted to the floor.”

Now June wasn’t cooking for just herself and Reina, but a half-dozen other people. She grumbled occasionally, just for show, but the truth was that she was happier now than she’d ever been in her life. Every day she learned something new, not just from the classes at the cookery school, but from the never-ending challenge of keeping the household fed.

It wasn’t at all like cooking at home in Nether Wallop for Ma and her plague of stepchildren. There wasn’t enough money for adventurous recipes, and the availability of special ingredients had been nothing compared to London. And whenever June had tried cooking something other than plain country fare—such as a potato curry or a rice dish spiced with coriander and saffron—they’d all complained of stomachaches and collywobbles for days afterward.