by Tessa Arlen
“Right then, everyone, whenever you are ready. Ah yes, here’s Zofia.” She waved her hand as Zofia came out of the mess, stopped to have a few words with the pilot who had brought in the Spitfire, and then continued on toward us.
After my planning session with Griff, I was too nervous to catch Zofia’s eye, but I caught Griff’s and he reached out his hand and gave my shoulder a pat. “Keep alert and don’t look surprised; we have to look like simple bystanders.”
As Zofia came striding toward us I thought how different she looked. Her shining black hair was plaited in two braids and wound around her head. Her large dark eyes were clear and snapping with purpose, and her mouth was crimson with perfectly applied lipstick.
“She’s wearing the Polish flag as a scarf,” Griff said under his breath. “See?”
Tied around Zofia’s neck was a silk scarf with two horizontal stripes of equal width, the upper one white and the lower one red. The tail of one half fluttered in the wind. There was something celebratory, or even triumphant, about the dashing figure she made.
She said something to Vera, continued on toward us, and came to a halt in front of Huntley.
“Good morning,” she said. “I am Zofia Lukasiewicz, the Spitfire pilot for your film.” She extended her hand as if she had never seen either of them before. Huntley shook it, and I saw him gulp.
“Good morning, Countess,” he said.
“Zofia.”
“Zofia.” She nodded as if they had set something straight between them. “And what would you like me to do?” It was the politest question, but I felt myself tense.
Griff felt my tension and whispered, “Don’t worry about Zofia flying under the influence, Poppy. I have a feeling she is a very smart woman, and no one’s fool. She looks fully in control.”
Until she turns her plane upside down and falls to earth, I thought.
As Huntley, Keith, and Zofia got into a huddle of instructions, the mess door banged closed, and across the grass, bundled up in mufti, came June Evesham. She waved good morning to us but joined Vera, and the pair of them fell into a discussion about the two-seater Spitfire as they walked toward the plane and climbed up on the wing.
“All right, then.” Huntley broke up his conference with Zofia and Keith. “Are you ready, Poppy?” He turned and looked at me. “Zofia’s going to do it the way . . .” He hesitated. “. . . it was done before.”
Zofia bent down and lifted a small thermos from the grass. “Do you mind, June, or is it yours, Vera?” she called out, waving the flask. Before either of them could answer her, she poured a little coffee into the lid cup, raised it in salute, and tossed it back. I felt Griff stir next to me as I caught my breath. And then we both watched in complete silence as Zofia walked toward the Spitfire and the two ground crewmen who were waiting for her. She got up into the cockpit and started putting on her leather helmet. One of the crewmen climbed up and closed the Perspex canopy. I was so tense I could hardly breathe.
“Chin up,” Griff said, but out of the tail of my eye I saw him lick his lips.
The ground crew removed the chocks from under the plane’s wheels as the propeller started to rotate. I glanced at Huntley; he was holding a stopwatch. Keith was already bent over his camera. Vera and June had stopped talking and were shading their eyes with their hands. And just as I wondered about Sir Basil Stowe and where he was on this fine morning, his car drew up beside the Alvis and out he got.
He was almost with us when Zofia’s plane started to roll toward the airstrip. She increased power and the plane raced along the turf to the marker for takeoff.
“And she’s up,” said Huntley to Keith as he clicked his watch and turned to me with a thumbs-up. Good nature restored, Huntley was getting the film he needed to finish our project.
Up and up the plane climbed, and then, just as Edwina had done before her, Zofia zoomed back over us nice and low and waggled her wings.
“Yes, perfect,” shouted Huntley, as if Zofia could hear him. “Can’t even tell it’s a two-seater.”
A vertical climb and Zofia brought the plane around to circle the airfield, banking right to climb into our midview; then up she climbed. We watched a series of victory rolls. I looked at Griff. He had his hands on his hips as he watched with a smile on his face. For the next ten minutes Zofia performed with style, showing us what grace and speed the plane had in the air. Would she do the Immelmann turn? I asked, and felt my stomach clench as she climbed to gain height. I think I closed my eyes because I heard a round of applause.
“Well done,” said Griff. “Well done.”
I opened my eyes. The plane was coming round in a great circle to land on the airfield. Down she came and with perfect precision bumped down onto the grass.
As Zofia walked toward us taking off her helmet, the red and white of her scarf flew straight out behind her. Sir Basil stepped forward. “Nicely done, Zofia,” he said. She nodded and continued on toward June, and the two women hugged. June slapped Zofia on the back.
“She’s down safe,” I said and realized that I had held my breath until she had jumped out of the cockpit.
“And not the next victim after all.” Griff smiled.
“It’s a wrap!” cried Huntley.
“Congratulations,” said Sir Basil.
“Oh my God.” Keith smacked the palm of his right hand to his forehead. “I forgot to put film in the camera.
“You did bloody what?” Huntley turned on him like a viper, and Vera was already halfway across to him with her clipboard to the fore.
“Just kidding.” Keith ducked. “Blimey, can’t you take a bleedin’ joke?” he yelled at Huntley. “Have you completely lost your sense of humor, mate?”
“Does this call for a drink?” Sir Basil was laughing.
I turned to Griff.
“What happens now?” I asked him.
“I’ll keep them all talking while you check out their library for one of June’s books, and if you find what you think you’ll find, then duck out the back and I’ll meet you by the dustbins, okay?”
“Yes, but we have to be quick. I don’t want Huntley and Keith to leave while we are out there.”
“Just stick to the plan,” Griff said. “I won’t let Huntley and Keith leave.”
We were the last up the steps to the mess, where we found Sir Basil, looking frightfully pleased with himself, holding a bottle of chilled vintage champagne and glasses. “Come on, gather round. Now, in a couple of weeks’ time, we’ll all go down to the Gaumont in Southampton and watch our film together.” He looked around. “Hold on a minute, where’s Vera?”
“Phone call,” Vera’s voice came from her office. “With you in a sec.”
“And be quick about it, please—we’re thirsty!” He grinned around at all of us.
“Beautiful bit of flying,” said Griff to Zofia. She lowered her eyes and tilted her head on one side. “Who taught you to fly?”
Her large dark eyes gave him an appraising stare. “My husband,” she said simply. “He flew against the Germans in Romania, then France and here in England.”
“Ah,” said Griff, nodding, his face serious. “Battle of Britain?”
“Yes, he died in that fight.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Griff, but Zofia didn’t acknowledge his condolences. Vera’s office door slammed closed as she came back into the mess, her brown eyes crinkled at the corners as if she were squinting into the sun. “That was White Waltham Accident Committee’s Captain Amherst.” She turned to Sir Basil, her eyes concerned. “They have completed their findings on both accidents; the report is finally formal, so I can share it with you. Edwina . . .” She paused, bit her lip, and looked down. I held my breath. “They could find no fault with the plane at all, and they have reached the conclusion that Edwina’s accident was caused by pilot error.” There was a sigh. But I had been
watching the expressions on Zofia’s face, and on June’s too. Zofia didn’t bat an eyelash. She looked straight at Vera and said, “Did you tell them about her nerves?”
Vera nodded; then she looked up at June.
“And Letty?” June asked her. Griff’s shoulder nudged gently into mine. “Go on,” he breathed, and I edged away from the group and walked back toward the dartboard and the bar. If anyone saw me walk away they would assume I was going to the loo.
“There was nothing wrong with the Walrus. But there was with Letty,” I heard Vera say as I reached the tall wooden bookshelves at the room’s far wall. I could hear them quite well, but they couldn’t see me.
“Since there was no evidence that Letty had been killed in the crash itself, they did an autopsy. She died, probably in flight, from a brain aneurism.” I froze as I heard gasps and exclamations from the front of the mess, but loudest of all from June.
For God’s sake, concentrate—you don’t have long, Ilona instructed.
I reached up and ran my finger along a line of book spines and the last names of their authors. “C, D, E.” I caught my breath. There was no Evesham. I searched the Ds and the Gs just in case someone had misplaced the books when they returned them.
“What’s an aneurism?” asked Keith.
“Shush,” I heard Huntley reply.
Think girl, think! I told myself in a panic. What was June supposed to have written about, anyway?
Stop panicking, you ninny. She was a travel writer, Ilona instructed. Look for books about travel.
I obediently skimmed on, running my finger along countless titles, and then there they were, three of them: Travels in Tunisia and Morocco; River Travels: The Amazon; and River Travels: The Nile. I glanced at the author’s name J. S. Holmes.
I heard Sir Basil say, presumably to Vera, as I opened Travels in Tunisia and Morocco to search for information on the author, “Poor little Letty. Who would have thought she was ill? It has been such a strain on you, Vera, I know. But it’s all over now.”
“What is a brain aneurism?” Keith was not going to be ignored this time. There was moment of a silence, and then Vera’s voice, still husky with emotion, said, “I believe it is caused by a rupture of a vessel that bleeds into the brain. Which is why the man who saw the crash described the Walrus as flying erratically. They believe Letty died just before the plane crashed.”
I was just about to turn to the back of the book, but Vera’s last words froze me on the spot. That wasn’t right! That wasn’t what Mr. Mackenzie had said at all! He had said that he thought Letty was “trying to do something” when he had driven alongside her plane when it crashed. And when he had gone into the Walrus’s cockpit he had said that it looked as if she had been trying to put on her parachute, when she should have been trying to pull up the plane’s nose. I could remember the despair in his voice. “Why wasn’t she trying to get the damn thing’s nose up?”
I stood there with my mouth open at Vera’s evident lie. And then to my horror Huntley must have said something about saying good-bye, because I heard Keith say, “Where’s Poppy?”
I looked down at the book I was holding and saw a black-and-white photograph of a younger version of June. “Born in the outback of Australia, June Holmes was an engineer and pilot before she turned to . . .” Got you! I almost said out loud.
Then I heard June’s voice. “But would Letty have known?” she asked. “Would she have been in pain?”
“No, June,” Vera’s voice answered. “She was not in pain. Her end would have been instant: one moment she would have been flying; the next she would have gone.”
The room was silent, and then I heard June say, “That’s such a relief,” but Griff was talking over her to Huntley: “—hang on for a second or two. I think Poppy was planning on driving back with me. But we should ask—”
There was no time at all to ask myself why Vera was sharing this new information about Letty’s death with June. I had to be quick. I looked down at the book in my lap. I skipped through a brief foreword written by June about her love of the people of North Africa, acknowledging the diversity of the food region by region and the different local cultures. The table of contents listed chapters by the different regions. I flipped to the back of the book and the index, aware only of a babble of shocked discussion about brain aneurisms and train timetables from my friends gathered at the other end of the room.
I lifted my head briefly, at the sound of Griff’s voice, as I ran my finger down the index to D. Nothing for datura. I turned to M. Medicines? Nothing at all. What else could it be listed under? What had Cadogan’s friend said datura was classified as? A plant? A herb? Herbal cures. I fanned the pages back to H. “Herbal remedies: datura, uses of . . . p. 59.”
There was a confusion of voices as Vera and Sir Basil called out good-bye and presumably left the mess.
“It’s always been something I’ve wanted to do,” I heard Griff say as I frantically thumbed through pages. “I think all American fighter pilots have a secret hankering to fly a Spitfire.”
I turned to page 59. There was a short paragraph that dealt with the various herbal medicines used by nomadic desert people for eye infections and lung problems. Datura was mentioned several times—it was called Alghita by the Moroccan people. And then right at the beginning of the next page, it said, “Unlike the indigenous people of South America, the desert tribes do not use the seeds of the Alghita plant as an aid in spiritual ritual, as Islam forbids the use of alcohol or hallucinogenic drugs.” I caught my breath. June Evesham née Holmes was quite clear in her travelogue about datura seeds and what they should or should not be used for. I dog-eared the precious pages 59 and 60. And closed the book.
I hadn’t a moment to think, as I heard Zofia say, “We don’t have much time. The Spit has to go back to Supermarine—” I tucked the book under my arm and dodged behind the bar. I could still hear Griff and Huntley arguing about departure times as I opened the bar door into the kitchen, ran across its greasy floor, wrenched open the back door, and found myself in the smelly outside world of dustbins.
TWENTY-SEVEN
STRUTH, WHAT A PONG.” KEITH, HUNTLEY, AND GRIFF CAME through the wooden gate to join me in the walled-in area behind the mess kitchen. “Blimey, don’t they empty these things?”
“I really hope they haven’t, at least not since last week,” I said.
I felt a hand slide the book out from underneath my arm and a voice say, close to my ear, “This it?” I nodded.
“What exactly are we here for, Poppy?” Huntley sounded irritated again.
“The piece of film that was taken from the back of your van,” I said. I took the lid off the first bin, and Huntley stepped back and put his hand over his nose.
“We don’t need it this badly.”
“But we do,” I said. “Because it contains something so useful that it could mean the difference between Edwina being written off as a drunk and an incompetent pilot and her being . . . murdered.”
Huntley took the lid from me and put it back on the bin. “Are you crackers? We all saw her plane—” He stopped himself and said, “Was she drunk when she flew that Spitfire? Well, that explains everything!” He turned away in disgust. “Come on, everyone. Let’s go back to the inn for a pint and some of Mrs. Evans’s terrible food.”
“Wait a minute.” Keith put out his hand. “I didn’t lose that bit of film, Hunt, it was nicked. Pure and simple.” He turned to me. “What do you think was on it, anyway?” He held his hand up to Huntley. “No, mate, listen to her. Come on, Poppy, come clean and tell us what’s been going on in this hellhole.”
I looked at Griff and he nodded his agreement.
“We think that Edwina was given a drug. Something that she ate or drank before she flew had been doctored with a hallucinogenic.” I heard myself and stopped. It sounded like the worst sort of thriller. “We suspect we k
now who, but if we find that piece of film it might be useful evidence as to their identity.”
Keith lifted the dustbin lid. “It was in a can, a film can. But if someone nicked it they might have thrown them away separately.” He lifted out a parcel of oily newspapers. “Crikey, this is full of fish bones and heads.”
“What a waste,” Griff fumed. “They could have been used to make a very tasty fish stock. Too late now.”
Huntley lifted another lid. “This one’s full of wood ash. Give me that broom handle.” He stirred. “No, ash all the way down.”
My dustbin yielded nothing but potato peelings, cabbage stalks, and at the bottom a mess of fried flour that had once been part of an attempt to make batter. There were two more bins left. One was full of torn-up documents. Old buff envelopes used so often that the sides had split. Shorthand notebooks covered in the lines and dots used by Pitman shorthand writers. Carbon paper worn transparent with use and two empty ink bottles. Gaily decorating this mess were pencil shavings by the bucketload. I turned to a smaller bin and lifted the lid.
The combined smell of fish scraps, rotting bones, and a tub that obviously contained stale lard used for deep-frying was so overpowering that we all fell back.
“Aw, come on, you lot,” Keith said as he stripped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “In for a penny, in for a quid.” And he carefully lifted the foul-smelling articles one by one and put them carefully on the ground. Underneath were more oily newspaper parcels. We lifted out each one and spread its layers open. At the bottom of the last one, nestled among the grease, was an envelope.
“Bloody bingo!” said Huntley as Keith lifted it out. “Look.” He opened the envelope, peeked inside, and, laughing, tipped its contents out onto Keith’s jacket. A slither of shiny brown thirty-five-millimeter film showered down onto its inner lining.
“Damn it all to hell,” said Griff in disgust as we looked at a pile of film neatly cut into six-inch lengths. “It’s been exposed.”