Stealing the Crown (A Guy Harford Mystery)

by TP Fielden

  ‘I’ve been wondering what to say. How to tell you this without telling you. I can’t do the next bit without you, but I simply don’t know if I can trust you to keep your mouth shut,’ he said grimly. ‘But I don’t have any choice. All I can say is, if you ever breathe a word of what I’m going to tell you to anyone else, I’ll probably be arrested. I will probably go to jail, and it’ll put paid to my reputation as an artist for the rest of my life. Do you understand?’

  Halting at the kerbstone, Rodie stood up on tiptoe. ‘What a dreadful person you must be – not bein’ able to trust people who try to help you out!’ she replied. ‘You have no faith. That’s depressin’.’

  ‘Who got you released from that court case?’ asked Guy, rising to the bait.

  The row that followed looked, to the occasional late-night passer-by, like an ongoing lovers’ tiff. Maybe the man had looked at another woman, maybe the woman was saying she was off to pastures new. The words were angry and plentiful, if lost in the night.

  By the time they reached Hyde Park Corner the worst was over, and Guy had made up his mind.

  ‘You’re not to breathe a word of this to anybody.’

  ‘You already said that.’

  ‘Because it’s top secret! There are various contingency plans if the royals are bombed out, or we’re invaded or . . . well, there’s a number of other scenarios. The first thing, obviously, is to get them away from the Palace as quick as possible. There are a handful of safe houses prepared for them dotted around the country and a group of dedicated men’ – he thought briefly of the tiresome Toby Broadbent – ‘who’ll protect them and make sure they end up where nobody can find them. Do you understand?’

  ‘Pretty obvious plan,’ said Rodie, unimpressed.

  ‘The first stopping-off point is a large flat in walking distance of the Palace.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘In Curzon Street. In Harbledown House.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rodie, not entirely comprehending. ‘So your Lady Easthampton . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know what she’s doing there, if she’s there at all,’ said Guy in exasperation. ‘But she shouldn’t even know about the place. She could pose a very severe threat to the family’s safety – the very fact she even knows the existence of this place busts our plan A. She’s probably working for the Germans, Rodie – and she knows where the King will go in an emergency!’

  They reached the corner of Curzon Street. The red-brick block of flats was set back, unnoticeable behind a large shopfront.

  ‘Number 11 is His Majesty’s bolthole,’ said Guy, whispering even though the street was almost empty. ‘Flat 11B is where the equerry and lady-in-waiting sleep. 11C is for the servants. I just don’t get it – what on earth is she doing there?’

  ‘If she’s there,’ repeated Rodie. ‘Let’s just take a look.’

  For a royal residence, however secret, there was a worrying lack of security. The building itself – empty, anonymous – gave the feeling of being abandoned, while the front door sprang open the moment Rodie worked her magic on it. Inside, a wide entrance hall gave no indication as to the number or quality of residents – it looked like a place where retired civil servants might live.

  Despite the fact he’d brought her here to burgle the place, Guy was amazed by the speed with which the tiny figure had completed her business. In less than a minute she’d located the right floor and pushed through the service entrance like a Sherman tank. Two seconds later they were round at the back of the building where the promised black door awaited them.

  ‘Just a jiffy, darling.’ She pulled something which rattled out of her pocket, and within five seconds they were inside the flat’s hallway.

  ‘Nobody ’ere,’ said Rodie with a practised air. She spoke softly but with authority. ‘I’ll put the kettle on – one lump or two?’

  ‘Don’t be so silly!’ hissed Guy. ‘They could be back at any minute.’

  ‘Who’s they?’ replied Rodie in a normal voice. ‘Nobody’s been here for days.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can tell, mate. Years of practice.’

  Emboldened by her confidence, Guy switched on a few lights. A quick walk round established it was a flat with three bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, sitting room and dining room.

  ‘We could be very comfortable here, darling, you an’ me,’ said Rodie, with a laugh. ‘And safe – what with His Majesty next door. No chance of burglars!’ She dissolved in fits of giggles.

  ‘Come on,’ said Guy anxiously, wanting to get away. ‘Let’s get this over and done. I need your intuition – if Lady Easthampton isn’t here and she isn’t over the road in the other flat, where the hell is she?’

  Rodie gave no answer – instead she sized up the sitting room, furnished in precisely the same old-fashioned, down-at-heel style as the rooms at Buckingham Palace which housed the worker bees. Dull, plodding pieces were augmented by prints of sailing ships on the walls, drab curtains, and listless antimacassars on the lumpy sofas.

  ‘Call this royal?’ she said, looking at Guy. ‘It’s a bit of a dump, ain’t it!’

  ‘We courtiers like to live simply.’ He smiled, lightening up. It was extraordinary how her presence, her confidence, filled the room.

  ‘Let’s have a look-see,’ she said, disappearing through a doorway. ‘You help yourself to a whisky.’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  Five minutes later she was back. ‘Your friend’s been living here, and a man. Clothes are the same size and style as in the flat across the road – she’s not short of a bob or two, is she? Bond Street, this lot.’

  ‘Any indication where we might find her?’

  ‘Not yet. Come into the big bedroom.’

  Guy followed behind her into a large room whose closet doors were flung open. ‘Here’s the man’s stuff,’ said Rodie, pointing. ‘You know about men. Regimental ties, that sort of thing – you should be able to work out who her partner in crime is.’

  It took less than a minute. There on the dressing table were two silver-backed hairbrushes bearing a monogram and the initials ‘EVMB’.

  Guy picked them up, turned them over, put them down again.

  ‘So this is where Ed Brampton went into hiding,’ he said slowly. Turning to Rodie, he asked, ‘You’re sure that the clothes in the closet belong to Lady Easthampton?’

  ‘If the woman living in the other flat was Lady Easthampton, yes.’

  ‘In your opinion, were they living here together as . . . man and wife?’

  ‘Hard to say. Her clothes are in here but they’re also in the room next door. He might have had this room and she moved her clothes in after he died.’

  ‘Well,’ said Guy briskly, ‘we have to find her. Any clues?’

  ‘I’m looking, I’m looking!’

  Rodie was right; the atmosphere here was the same as in Ed Brampton’s Chelsea house – a suspended animation. Furthermore, the sounds a residential building usually gives out – distant doors closing, the sound of a lift, the occasional clanking of water pipes – were all absent. The place was empty.

  He wandered back into the sitting room, opening drawers and feeling under sofas and chairs. In a cupboard he discovered a dusty telephone, disconnected, its wire wrapped around the handset. In its base was the slim drawer reserved for emergency numbers. He pulled it open to discover a written sheet bearing the switchboard details of Buckingham Palace and St James’s Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham and Balmoral. Further up the list was a listing for ‘Fort Belvedere’. All were written in a cramped but scholarly style, but at the bottom one new number had been added in an altogether different hand.

  D.

  PADdington 6971

  ‘Gotcha!’ said Guy triumphantly.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘I don’t suppose, in that strange dark world you inhabit,’ said Guy, pouring tea, ‘you’d be able, if I gave you the number, to find the name of a person who owns a telephone?’

  ‘Mi
ght do,’ said Rupe, stretching his legs and accepting the cup like a pasha in repose. Once again they’d run out of whisky.

  ‘It’s quite important.’

  ‘There’s a thing called the GPO back-to-front directory, if that would be a help. What’s the number?’

  Guy told him.

  ‘Leave it with me. How’s everything going, generally?’

  ‘I know what you really mean by that – have I been able to get rid of the parrot yet. Well, the answer is no. I’ve tried Queen Mary, I’ve tried Lord Sefton’s future wife. I even tried Aggie, my clerk. Nobody wants her.’

  ‘Have you thought of just leaving the door to her cage open, window ajar? Maybe an irresistible treat on the windowsill outside?’

  Guy looked shocked. ‘Let the king’s parrot out into the street? Look at her, Rupe!’

  His friend refused to turn his head, even though Charlotte was a mere three feet away, having a contented conversation with herself.

  ‘She was one of the old king’s most treasured possessions – let her out and she’ll certainly die. Run over by a bus, caught in an air raid or something equally gruesome.’

  ‘Do I hear the sound of a man talking himself into owning a lead weight that’ll be with him for the rest of his days?’

  ‘I’m doing my best, Rupe, I’m doing my best!’

  Rupert got up and pointedly put the embroidered cover over Charlotte’s cage. ‘Don’t want her hearing anything untoward,’ he said with a wink. ‘Tell me about Suzy Easthampton.’

  Guy brought his flatmate up to date. They discussed Rodie’s unparalleled skill at getting through a door – ‘You see how vital she is to the war effort, Guy’ – and how Guy had used his influence as a Buckingham Palace courtier to pervert the course of justice with the help of a biddable Bow Street brief.

  ‘Rupe, what on earth was she doing taking part in a wages snatch? She seems to have enough money to live on, why risk a jail sentence?’

  ‘Let me explain something. You think she’s just a gifted criminal, no more than that. In fact, she’s far more, and if she weren’t quite so ill-disciplined she could be playing a significant part in the war effort. She’s exceptionally bright, though I doubt she’s ever read a book to the last page, and there’s something extraordinarily intuitive about her which sets her apart.’

  ‘But turning over a warehouse with that bunch of no-hopers! You should have seen them standing in the dock – jailbirds, now and for the rest of their days. And then Rodie, alongside them, chalk and cheese!’

  ‘That’s her crazy nature. She loves adventure, she’s as brave as any man I know, and she gets bored easily.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, why doesn’t she get a job?’

  ‘She wouldn’t last an hour, that’s why not. Listen, before I recruited her we had several lengthy chats, and to put it in a nutshell, her activities are an expression of frustration.’

  ‘What d’you mean by that?’

  ‘She grew up one of six children in Elephant and Castle – not exactly Belgravia, you know. Her mother died when she was two, and her father spent his time in the pub – I guess to get away from his children, who were a rowdy lot. There were two sisters who ran the show, then two brothers who were the naughty boys, then Rodie, and finally a baby boy who everyone doted on.

  ‘In that rabble, she got talked down to, pushed around, and bullied by the two older brothers. What she’s doing now – what she’s doing so spectacularly well – is getting her revenge. The burglary is just a way of expressing her power, showing she couldn’t care less about life’s rules. She escaped her childhood and decided she’d live life for her – nobody was going to tell her what to do.’

  ‘Poor girl.’

  ‘Far from it. She lives life on the crest of a wave. Her childhood made her what she is – and just at the moment, in this war, she’s a useful cog in the machine. Plus, as I’m sure your artist’s eye has not been slow to gather, she is a quite remarkable-looking woman.’

  ‘Are you . . . ?’

  Rupe shook his head vigorously. ‘Not my type.’

  Guy wondered briefly who was Rupe’s type; he never seemed to express any special interest. ‘What you say does sort of make sense – I’ve been struggling to understand her. She’s been so useful in this search for Suzy Easthampton – though why I go on with it, I really don’t know. Out of some sort of sense of duty, I suppose. To Ed Brampton, or Adelaide, I’m not really sure.’

  Rupert opened up a notebook and riffled through its pages. ‘Don’t be so despondent,’ he said. ‘Believe it or not you’re being of tremendous help to us. The newspapers are always saying no spy has escaped the attentions of the security services, but that’s not true. We think we know where everyone is, and what they’re doing, but that’s not really the case. If I can put it this way – we’ve got a load of suspects locked up in a room, but outside it’s dark and how many more of them are surrounding the house? We simply don’t know.’

  ‘And Suzy Easthampton is in or out of the room?’

  ‘I’ll be frank. We just don’t know what’s in her mind, what she’s trying to achieve. She arrived here to win friends and influence people, that much we know – passing back whatever gossip she heard to this man Zeisloft. She could be part of a plan by the enemy to win over key members of the royal family – Gloucester, possibly Kent – but we’re not sure. That’s why you’re being such a help in trying to track her down – we’re overstretched, Guy, and things are getting worse by the day.’

  ‘London is crawling with enemy agents, are you saying? But you don’t know who they are or where they are?’

  ‘You said that, Guy, not me.’

  ‘Do you think she killed Ed Brampton?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘I ask because, if you can get me a name and address for that telephone number I gave you, I may have found out where she’s hiding. And I’d just like to know what the chances are of another funeral being booked for the Guards Chapel sometime soon.’

  ‘I’ll let you know in the morning. What’s the latest on Topsy Dighton?’

  ‘He’s at Windsor, I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Does he go there often?’

  ‘Not since I’ve been at the Palace. He was up at Balmoral for a time when I arrived. Why do you ask?’

  ‘He could be a person of interest, Guy. If you know what I mean.’

  ‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘Could that be something to do with the English Mistery?’

  ‘Anything’s possible – they could be a threat. It’s not what’s happening now, but what might happen in the future. The war isn’t going well, Guy. We all put a brave face on it but Dunkirk, the Blitz, Dakar, Crete – the list of defeats goes on and on. If Churchill’s seen to be losing the war, you can bet your life the Misters will suddenly rear their ugly heads – plotting and planning to preserve their way of life no matter what happens to the rest of us.’

  ‘They’ll become collaborators?’

  ‘Some of them, yes. Look at those aristocrats who flocked to Berlin in 1936 – building bridges, establishing contacts, taking out their insurance policies.’

  ‘Treason, then.’

  ‘Depends what you’re talking about. If we’re invaded, if the King goes, if some puppet is put in his place, it’s likely these vested interests will rally to the new king’s side. They’ve had it their way since the Norman Conquest, they’re not going to give it all away now just because Hitler parks his boots in 10 Downing Street.’

  ‘And you think Topsy Dighton would have a part in that?’

  ‘I don’t think, Guy, I know.’

  Despite all that had happened in recent days, the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Sorrows still heroically advertised a Lotto afternoon every Friday at 3 p.m. It was the one building in the street the conflict had left untouched, all the others mangled by the Luftwaffe or left for dead by their neglectful landlords.

  The terrace of houses opposite the church once had aspirations to grandeur
, with pedimented windows on the first floor and solid-looking front doors. But the street lamp outside number 47 leaned at a crazy angle, pointing to an array of broken windows and, in the early-evening light, a disorderly pile of rubble.

  Somewhere inside, lost in the chaos, was a telephone bearing the number PADdington 6971 – Rupe had confirmed the address with his back-to-front directory.

  Guy had no idea who lived here, or what their connection to Suzy Easthampton was, but it was his only lead.

  He rang the bell.

  No response. He waited and tried again.

  Still nothing. He looked up and down the deserted street and wondered whether everyone had left ahead of the bulldozers’ arrival. While in Mayfair there was undeniably a war going on, out here near Paddington station things looked very different. The houses had long ago descended into slums and, really, wasn’t Hitler doing everybody a favour by finishing them off?

  But then Guy spotted an abandoned pram, one wheel missing, and in an instant the tragedy of Bellure Street came home to him.

  ‘Was you knocking?’ A head was poking out of the first-floor window of the next-door house.

  ‘I’m looking for Suzy.’

  ‘Right-o. ’Old on a minute.’

  The head withdrew and a moment later stuck itself out of the front door.

  Guy nodded but offered no form of identification. ‘Lady . . . er . . . Mrs Easthampton?’

  ‘Oh,’ said the woman, whose body seemed bowed down by a heavy weight. ‘No, sir, you’ve got the wrong place. I thought you was looking for someone else.’

  ‘Suzy.’

  ‘Well, yes, there is a Suzy. But not that other name.’

  ‘Well, I think it must be her. There’s no reply here. Do you happen to know where she might be?’ His voice trailed off. ‘I’ve got a message from her husband.’

  The woman looked him up and down, weighing up the lie she’d just been told. After a pause she said, ‘Over there’, nodding towards the church. ‘She does the cleaning.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘We had a direct hit,’ she said.

  ‘I can see. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘My Freddy had just gone down the corner shop to get a scrap o’ something to eat. He never come back.’ She was looking at Guy but her eyes, he could tell, did not see him.