Death Is in the Air Read Online Free

believe it. Yes,of course I’ll tell her. Oh, my Gawd, what dreadful news!”
    On her feet now, Elizabeth stared at Violet as she replaced the receiver and turned slowly to face her. All kinds of scenarios raced through her mind . . . the uppermost being the possibility that the Germans had launched the long-expected invasion. She waited, afraid to ask the question that hovered on her lips.
    “You’re never going to believe this,” Violet said hoarsely, “but that was Marlene. She wanted to warn Polly. That scared young German pilot you felt so sorry for has gone and killed one of the land girls from Macclesby’s farm. They just found her dead body in Hawthorn Woods.”
     
    Polly sat back on her heels and wiped the sweat from her brow. Scrubbing bathrooms was the thing she hated most about her job. She often wondered why she didn’t pack it in and go down to the canning factory. From what the other girls said, working there was a lot of fun. ’Course, she’d have to lie about her age. You had to be seventeen to work at the factory, and she was only fifteen. But then she was used to lying about her age. She’d been doing it for almost two years down at the pub, and only last week she’d lied to that nice Yank she’d met. Told him she was twenty. He’d believed her, too.
    Polly smiled as she wrung out her mop. Good-looking, that Sam. Had to be at least twenty-four. Stolen her heart right away he had, with his dark-brown bedroom eyes and that thick, black, curly hair. Proper man all right. She’d had to lie about her job, too. She didn’t want him thinking she was just a crummy servant. She’d told him she was Lady Elizabeth’s secretary. Good job he couldn’t see her now, on her knees scrubbing the loo.
    She leaned forward again and swiped the washrag around the pedestal of the toilet bowl. One day, she promised herself fiercely, she’d be living like a lady, too, with a secretary and a housekeeper and a butler to openthe door. Only her butler would have a lot more gumption than wheezy old Martin, she’d make sure of that.
    The sound of male laughter drifted down the hallway, freezing her hand. Yanks. So far she hadn’t seen so much as a glimpse of Sam since he’d moved in with the others a week ago.
    She’d been shocked to find out he was one of the officers billeted at the manor. Marlene had warned her that once Sam found out how she’d been lying to him, he’d never speak to her again. Marlene thought she knew everything, just because she was her older sister. Well, Polly told herself as she quickly gathered up her mop and bucket, Sam wasn’t going to find out she’d been lying. She’d managed to keep out of sight of the Yanks for a week now, and she’d go on doing it as long as she had a chance with the most gorgeous man she’d ever set eyes on. And like she told Marlene, she’d keep on lying to him until he was so madly in love with her he wouldn’t care when she finally told him the truth.
    The voices drew closer, and before the men could round the corner she slipped out of the bathroom and through the door that led to the back stairs.
     
    Elizabeth stared at Violet in disbelief. “That young boy killed someone? Are you sure?”
    Violet shrugged. “That’s what Marlene said. He cut her head wide open, Marlene said. Told me to warn Polly not to ride her bike home past the woods tonight.”
    “I can’t believe it. He seemed so harmless.”
    “He wasn’t bloody harmless when he was dropping them bombs over London, now was he?”
    Elizabeth shook her head. “I know what you’re saying, Violet, and I really can’t explain how I feel. I suppose it’s the fact that the young man was following orders when he dropped those bombs. Killing an innocent young woman in cold blood is something else entirely.”
    “Once a killer always a killer, that’s what I say. ThoseGermans are all alike.” Violet picked up the saucepan and began scrubbing the inside of it with a scouring pad. “I