Indian Summer by Elizabeth Darrell

the time I get back.’ Taking up the key to the central room he left her sitting in his bed.
    After an uncomfortable, tormented five hours in an armchair Max walked in to his kitchen to find a note propped against the toaster. The bedroom door was open. Livya’s suitcase and cabin bag had gone, although her perfume lingered. He opened the folded sheet and read her words.
    Dearest Max, I’ve loved you as fully as I could and I’ve valued those times we spent together. That will never change. Please accept my word that I’ve never used you as a substitute for him – until last night. For that I’m deeply, deeply sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive, but please try to understand that we’ve both loved and lost.
    Tom had had a disturbed night after an in-depth session with Cheryl Major, Starr’s close friend who had gone with him and Connie to identify the crash victim. She had been very upset, crying the whole way back to the base where another of Starr’s friends had been baby-sitting the Major children. Both women had mounted a case for Starr, claiming she had been forced to become the dominant partner because Flip was such a wimp.
    Tom had pointed out that Keane had achieved rank and was an excellent soldier, which was hardly indicative of wimpishness. They had both sneered and maintained his refusal to leave the Army was because he knew he would be totally pathetic as a civilian. They rounded off their tirade of contempt by revealing that he had been sleeping on the sofa because Starr had wanted another baby and he could no longer get it up.
    Neither of them knew where their friend had left her children. The best they could come up with was the fact that Starr had an old friend who had married a German bookseller, and now lived with him outside the base. They could offer no more on the subject, and echoed Tom’s belief that whoever had the youngsters would call in once they realized Starr was long overdue to collect them.
    About to go to bed, Tom had then taken a call from George Maddox which added a further slant to the case and prevented sleep for more than an hour. Starr’s family had been informed of her death, and of Keane’s. Her mother had lost control and said a number of wild things: Starr had called saying she had something important to do before coming home for good; she was leaving the bastard and suing for divorce; she was going to take him for every penny he earned and get a court order to prevent him from seeing the kids. That would punish him for what he’d done. Now her poor girl would be unable to get her revenge on him.
    Gloria Walpole stated that she was coming immediately to Germany with her two sons to collect Prince and Melody. She had been deaf to warnings that the children would be put into foster care by the British Forces Welfare Services until their future was decided in court. The woman had then let fly invective, stating that if anyone tried to keep her grandchildren from her they would be very sorry. When it had been pointed out to her that there was another pair who might be eager to claim their grandchildren, Gloria had demonstrated surprising shrewdness. Flip had died first, therefore the kids had belonged solely to Starr when she was killed. That surely gave her full rights to them. The Keanes were nowhere in the picture.
    Tom had lain awake knowing they could not prevent the woman and her two truckie sons arriving to further complicate the case, and he wished the hours away until whoever Starr had left her little ones with contacted the base. As a policeman he was concerned for their safety; as a father he felt pity for the young orphans.
    Weekday breakfasts during term time were noisy and busy. Tom always descended first to the kitchen leaving, as he had once said to Max, four females of varying sizes and in varying states of undress to wander back and forth to the bathroom moaning, groaning and generally being feminine.
    As