by Tessa Arlen
Bess groaned as I sat up and swung my legs out of bed. I found my mug and walked across the corridor to the bathroom. When I returned I switched off the light and, kneeling on the bed, pulled back the blackout curtain and scraped open the warped casement window. My room looked down onto the drive into the inn and the lane that led down to the village. If there was any light at all in the cloudy night sky, I would have been able to see across the drive and the lawn that ran down to the river. I peered out into the dark, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the wall of black in front of them.
A long breath of cool, damp air eased the ache in my head. If I couldn’t see the river I could certainly smell it and hear it rushing on its way to the Solent. Its dank odor filled the night and I could make out the gray-white of a heavy mist that had collected under the trees along its banks. This picturesquely dilapidated building would be beautiful in spring and summer, shrouded with trees and a lawn that fell away in a gentle slope down to the fast-flowing river Did. I shivered as the heavy moist air clung to my skin and thought what an unforgivably wretched experience winter would be in this old building.
I called a halt to my breathing exercises and pulled the window to close it, but it wouldn’t budge an inch.
“Oh, come on!” I didn’t dare to heave too forcefully in case the window latch came off in my hand. I took hold of the top and bottom corners and was about to give the whole thing a brisk tug, praying that the hinges were strong, when I heard the sound of an approaching lorry in the dark night. I concentrated my hearing on the pitch of the engine. Which direction was it taking? I leaned forward and closed my eyes. If it slowed, then it was coming downhill from the village and would stop at the junction of the two roads, but if it accelerated through the bend before the fork, as Griff always did on our way back from Didcote ATA, then it was coming from the airfield.
Bess had wormed her way between my arms and put her forepaws on the sill, her ears pricked forward as the rumble of sound grew as it came toward us. Then the driver changed gears to slow for the bend and accelerated out of it to start the climb of the incline that would take him to the village. I smiled to myself in the dark: it was coming from the airfield and instead of taking the right fork to Southampton was going up into the village. I leaned farther out as it went past the entrance to the inn’s drive. A whoosh of displaced air and the thunder of a heavy load. A cloud of dry leaves pattered back onto the surface of the lane in its wake.
My face and hands were wet and cold. I took hold of the window again and heaved. It scraped toward me with an unearthly shriek of wood on wood and rusty hinge. I scrambled back under the thin blankets and spooned Bessie against me for warmth. It must have been a farmer taking vegetables to the food distribution center on the other side of Didcote. I was asleep as I turned onto my side to dream of all the dreadful ways turnips were prepared for the dinner tables of the long-suffering people who didn’t own victory gardens.
* * *
* * *
BRIGHT SHAFTS OF sunlight shone through the gap in my blackout curtain and fell warm on my face. Bess was wide awake, fastidiously washing her paws, one by one. I folded my arms behind my head and reviewed the events of last night. I had to admit that Griff’s, or rather Cadogan’s, toxicology report was a setback. Determined not to let this put a damper on things, and with all the clarity that a good night’s sleep can bring, I considered my evening at the cottage. The questions that I pondered coalesced into one question. Zofia: next victim or suspect?
Keep your eye on that one! Ilona is always awake before me.
I next considered my cycle ride back to the inn in the dark, and Griff’s reaction to the activity by the hangar. I hopped out of bed and splashed myself awake with ice-cold water. There were two people I wanted to talk to today, June Evesham and Vera Abercrombie, before my cozy lunch with Sir Basil. Griff would surely be up by now and eating his breakfast downstairs.
SEVENTEEN
OH REALLY?” GRIFF SAID AS HE SPREAD MARGARINE ON HIS toast and bit into a corner. “No, Poppy, I completely understand. You are to interview Vera and June before your solo lunch with Basil Stowe. Should I go fishing?”
I ignored his sarcasm. Unlike me, Griff is not much of an up-with-the-lark-to-sing-and-sing type. Fishing: whyever not? I couldn’t possibly invite him along on my sought-out chats with June and Vera, but he could certainly fish.
“What side of the inn is your room on?” I asked, smiling as I imagined his reaction to my two-o’clock observations. His eyes flicked around to see if we were alone and settled on my face.
“My room?” he said.
“Riverside and the drive, or courtyard?”
“Nice view of cobbles, empty beer barrels, the garbage cans.”
“My room is over the drive with a view of the river.”
“How nice for you.”
“Noisy, though, because the lane from the airfield comes up to the inn on that side just after the fork. If you take the east fork you come into the village, and the west fork takes you to the road to Southampton.” I could see his interest sharpening.
“At about two this morning a heavy truck came along the lane from Didcote Airfield.”
He put down his toast and wiped his fingers on his napkin. “What type of truck?”
“I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it. It was carrying a heavy load.”
“Was it military?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It was too dark to see. I thought it would go right at the fork and on to Southampton.”
“It might if it was military.”
“But it went left, past the inn and on into the village.” A long, low whistle. “I thought it was probably a farm truck carrying potatoes or cabbages to the food depot.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he said with such finality that the hairs on my arms prickled. “Driving fast?” he asked.
“No, not really, but driving solidly, as if the driver knew he had an open road and wanted to get home.”
“I’m sure you already know this . . .” Griff has a habit of using this phrase when he is about to tell me something he thinks I may not know. “After the blitz last year on Southampton and its surrounding aircraft factories, Churchill decided that fuel depots had to be small, many, and hidden.” He folded his arms and his face was stern, as if daring me to argue. “So I guess it makes sense for gasoline deliveries to take place on a twenty-four-hour basis now they have farther to travel. What you heard was probably a tanker returning from making a delivery to the airfield.”
“Or it might be something else, Griff. You have heard of the black market?”
“At Didcote?” He almost laughed, and then he must have seen my face.
“And here is something else to chew over,” I said, embarrassed at the way I had reeled him in with an investigation of his own, while I got on with mine. “I am sure the truck was coming from the airfield; I could tell by the way it took the bend that it was going into the village and not going on to Southampton. And if you remember the village high street?” He nodded as if I was confirming something. “It peters out at the bottom by the river, into that little narrow track to the wharf and the fishermen’s cottages. This truck was big and heavy. It could not have made it down that track. So, it was not taking a shortcut through the village on to Southampton because it couldn’t possibly have made it along that track.” I wrinkled my brow as I traced my route from the inn into the village. “There are two left turns on the lane into the village past this inn. One to the old church hall, which was turned into a dormitory for the lesser Attas, and the other one leads off into nowhere.”
I sat back and nibbled at cold, leathery toast as he dug in his greatcoat pocket and hauled out a much-folded ordnance survey map of the area. He traced with his finger. “If someone was coming from the Didcote ATA . . .” He tapped his map. “Up into the village . . .” He traced with his finger. “Second turn on the
left . . . River Farm, it’s a dead end!” He smiled as he folded his map. “It is also a food collection center. How interesting.” He continued to study the folded square that was the village of Didcote. “Could be two reasons why a truck would go to River Farm.”
I nodded and took another bite of toast. “Yes, I think questions should be discreetly asked.”
“Huh,” he said, and put his map back into his pocket with a sigh. “Another friendly chat with a local farmer. Hampshire farmers are always a little bit shy when you first meet them. Suspicious that you are going to ask them if they have any ham!” He laughed, and I remembered last night’s black-market sausages. He put his map back in his pocket. “Ham or petrol? Petrol or ham? It just amazes me how much trading is going on in rural Hampshire.”
And somehow I knew from the moment I had mentioned my bike ride back to the inn last night past ATA Didcote’s hangar that Griff had known all along about Hampshire’s black market.
* * *
* * *
JUNE WAS SITTING over an untouched breakfast. “Morning,” she said as I walked into a mess noisy with voices. “We’re waiting for a green light from our Met Office to fly. Clouds too low right now, and there are fog warnings inland.”
I remembered the firm, healthy face of three days ago as I looked into reddened eyes and hollow cheeks. June had first struck me as being one of those straightforward, handsome women who hail from warmer climates where everyone enjoys an overabundance of fresh air. The woman sitting at the table in front of me looked as if one good push would see her over.
“How much time do you spend waiting?” I asked and pulled my pencil out of my pocket.
“About as much time as you spend asking questions.”
My eyes must have widened at her brusque tone because she laughed and waved away her awkward words. “Sorry, I’m feeling off today. Vera told me that this was your first film.” I nodded. “Poor you; not only does your star die on your first day, but the next day another one of us goes west.”
I tilted my head to acknowledge the truth.
“So now you’re left with who?” she counted fingers on her right hand. “Me, Annie, Grable, and the lovely Zofia. Four.”
I was fed up with nodding along. “Did you know about Edwina’s letters?”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “The anonymous ones? Yes, of course I knew. Everyone did. At one time we had to stop her reading them out to the entire mess.”
“There are two theories. One that it was a local crackpot, or there was a more malicious intent: to put her on edge.”
She smiled; it was the saddest smile. She looked at me over the rim of her coffee cup. “You think there are only two reasons? You see, I often wondered if she wrote them.”
It was quite an accusation and it shocked me. “But what reason could she possibly have?
“Edwina was a complicated woman. The one thing she simply couldn’t tolerate was being ignored. She would do anything for attention, perhaps in the end kill herself.”
Suicide? Not for one moment had I considered that Edwina was capable of suicide.
“You don’t think it was an accident?”
She waved her hand back and forth in a shushing motion. “No, of course she didn’t crash her plane on purpose. But she was reckless. Showing off and reckless behavior; that is when mistakes are made.”
I returned to the matter of the poisoned-pen letters; at least there was proof they existed. “But to write a letter to herself exposing an attack by the Luftwaffe as a sham, a story that she made up? She must have been . . .”
June nodded: depressed and sad. “Off her head? Who wouldn’t be in the world we live in?”
“Does everyone believe that she made the Luftwaffe story up?”
June put down her cup and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “It all depends who you talk to.” A light flashed off and on over the Met Office door.
“There’s the green light. Fog lifted, so I’m off. Will you be around this evening? I only have a couple of short runs; I should be back by afternoon.” She zipped up her Sidcot suit and reached for her gloves. “Edwina wasn’t a bad sort on the whole. She was a bit crass and a bit obvious, but there was no real harm in her. She had the reputation of being a bit loose, you know?”
I shook my head. “Louche?” I asked, and this time she chuckled.
“Well, I’m just a simple Australian girl; we pronounce it ‘loose.’ She was a bit of a terror around men. But the most harm she did was to herself.” She slung a canvas map bag over her shoulder and muttered, “Map, compass, thermos. Right, I’m all set.” She was halfway to the door and then came back to the table. “Edwina’s crash was a shock, right? A real shock, especially since we all saw it. But Letty’s crash yesterday—” She pressed her lips together and her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head and tried to clear her throat. “Letty’s crash was all wrong. For her to have been flying at that height among trees, along a railway line, was the sort of thing an amateur would do. Letty had nearly two thousand flight hours. Edwina might have been the ATA’s version of Biggles with her aerial acrobatics, but Letty was a pro. The only reason that Walrus would have crashed had to be engine failure, but she would never have tried to do a forced landing on a railway line.” She inhaled her tears, her face so stricken that I reached out my hand to her, but she shook her head and, turning on her heel, left the mess. I watched her walk across to join a dozen or so ATA pilots walking toward their Anson air taxi with their parachutes slung over their shoulders.
The lanky cockney whom I had played darts with reached out an arm and pulled June alongside her. And the strawberry blonde came up on June’s other shoulder. They walked her forward between them to the Anson, where Annie Trenchard was waiting, her fine dark hair blowing in the wind.
June, Annie, Grable, and Zofia: they were such a tight-knit group. But did tight-knit groups murder each other in such a merciless way as tampering with their aeroplanes or food?
“Come back safely,” I called out as they lined up to get into the Anson, but they were too far away to hear me.
I fed the rest of my breakfast to Bess and looked around the mess. Vera’s door was closed, and I had no intention of knocking on it. There was no sign of Zofia. It was time to return Grable’s bike to their cottage. Maybe Zofia would offer to make me a cup of coffee.
* * *
* * *
“COME IN, PLEASE.” Zofia was still in the red-and-black silk kimono she had worn last night. “I am making coffee, and then I must dress. I am flying some bigwig from Biggin Hill to the Castle Bromwich factory. But, no, please to come in.”
In the early-morning light Zofia’s pale face looked older than it had last night. “Grable is still asleep; June and Annie already left,” she explained as she filled a kettle and put it on the hob. “I am just cleaning up last night’s dinner—such a mess. These girls never know how to clean as they cook.”
“I just wanted to return Grable’s bike. I borrowed it last night.”
“You heard about what happen to Letty? Her Walrus crashed? Yes, of course, you were here when June came back last night.” She nodded, not, I hoped, at the inevitability of Letty’s crash but acknowledging that I knew about it.
She turned to me, resting the small of her back against the kitchen range, and folded her arms. “There will be a full inquiry by the—whatever they call themselves. The authorities don’t like it when valuable planes crash.” She reached for the ubiquitous bottle of Camp coffee and shook it before measuring two large spoonfuls into a jug. “Milk?”
“No, thanks, I had breakfast.”
“Edwina,” she explained to me as if I had asked. “She should not have been flying the other day. Her nerves were broken—broken after the Luftwaffe chased her. I went to Vera and told her: ‘Edwina should be given some time off: grounded.’ Reluctantly, she agreed
with me, but she let her fly anyway.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Sir Basil said that Edwina was a grown woman with nerves of steel!” Her eyes flashed. “Perhaps, I said, but you are not here often enough to know that she is having a rough time.” She shrugged off Sir Basil’s insensitivity and muttered something under her breath in Polish.
“What do you know about the letters?” I asked, and the look she shot me was triumphant.
“Ah, so you know about those too, do you, Miss Redfern? Yes, I thought you were more than just interested in your film. I said to myself: ‘Who is this lovely young woman, who sits and listens to everything so sympathetically and so very closely, and whose eyes don’t miss a trick! She is onto something,’ I said.”
She handed me a tea towel and I dried the cups and saucers that she washed and handed to me.
When everything was put away Zofia turned to me. “For some time now, things have not been right here. You know that? For some time now there has been a lot of stress, a lot of overwork. I know on the surface it is all playful laughter among our little group. But that is just the surface.”
She poured coffee, took a sip, and frowned down into her cup. “I hoped if I make it strong it might taste better.”
“What do you think was causing this tension, other than overwork?” I dared to ask.
She thought for a moment. “It won’t hurt to tell you, since I know you are not a gossip girl. The strain was between Edwina and Vera. Bad feelings, you know? Because Edwina made a big play for Sir Basil.” She paused. “Or was it the other way around? It is sometimes hard to tell with sex.” She laughed. “Whenever he came down to Didcote, he would take her for a drive in that ridiculous car. Who drives a Bentley when there is a petrol shortage? We would all be in the mess and look around: no Sir Basil or Edwina. It was naughty of her. I told her to leave him alone. Vera said nothing, but her eyes were sad. Sometimes Edwina could be very selfish; she liked attention, you know, but it was unkind to flirt with Basil Stowe. It hurt Vera and it encouraged a man who needs little encouragement to behave like an old fool.”