Sisters Three

by Jessica Stirling

  Fiona felt sorry for the deaf girl but tinting her pity was a faint egotistical satisfaction that she had been right all along and that Kenny, dazed by love, had handled the whole thing badly. She sat primly, solemnly, hands on top of her handbag observing his restless distress, waiting for him to speak. He dropped his third cigarette to the floor of the cabin and trod on it. She looked down at the flattened butt, at his polished shoes, size twelve: policeman’s feet, her mother had called them long before Kenny had thought of joining the Force.

  ‘I’ll resign. I’ll resign tomorrow first thing.’

  ‘Why?’ Fiona said.

  ‘If I resign perhaps she’ll have me back.’

  ‘Kenneth, I really don’t think…’

  ‘What else can I do under the circumstances?’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Fiona said, though she knew it was. ‘That horrid, spiteful little woman did the damage. Did you see her enjoying herself, revelling in the misery she caused her sister?’

  ‘My fault,’ said Kenny. ‘I brought the McKerlie woman into it. I should never have done that. I should have left well alone.’

  ‘How could you leave well alone?’ said Fiona, impatiently. ‘You had a job to do. Lord knows, you gave her enough, that girl.’

  ‘I thought you liked her?’

  ‘I do. I did, but…’

  ‘I love her.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t love you any longer, that much is obvious.’

  ‘No, no, please don’t say that.’

  ‘Kenneth, pull yourself together.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘I’m going to resign. I’m going back home.’

  ‘Home?’ said Fiona.

  ‘To Mam and Dad.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not a spotty adolescent, Kenneth. You’re thirty-four years old, a grown man, a sergeant in the CID.’

  ‘I wish to God I’d never got involved.’

  ‘What? With Rosie Conway?’

  ‘No, with the Special Investigation Branch.’

  ‘Bit late for regrets now, isn’t it?’ Fiona said. ‘I thought you were going to enlist in the army or the air force, or something. Now you tell me you’re sneaking off to Islay to lick your wounds.’ She tapped his knee quite forcefully. ‘What did you hope to gain by not telling anyone about Harker?’

  ‘I thought I might be able to get rid of him without anyone finding out.’

  ‘Well, that was pretty stupid of you,’ Fiona said.

  Her lack of sympathy galled him, rendered him less distraught than defensive. She didn’t doubt that he would hear the girl’s voice clacking in his ear for months to come, that he would waken in the night shaking with the nightmare of rejection. But that, after all, was the stuff of romance, at least in Fiona’s book. Hurt, suffering and loss were just part of the price one paid for falling in love and she was glad it had never happened to her for she was pragmatic enough to realise that happy endings were few and far between.

  ‘Where is her father anyway?’ Fiona asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t lying. I have no idea where he is.’

  ‘Might it not be sensible to find out.’

  ‘For what?’ said Kenny. ‘To please that nasty wee woman?’

  ‘Kenneth, he’s a criminal.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he is.’

  ‘Obviously he doesn’t care about Rosie or he’d have made some effort to see her by now.’

  ‘Do you think that’s why Rosie’s so upset?’

  Fiona sighed. ‘She’s upset because she failed to grasp the fact that you’ve a job to do and have other obligations beside her. Harker and Manone are up to something that threatens our nation’s security and it’s your duty to stop them.’

  ‘I wondered how long it would take you to mention my “duty”.’

  ‘Look,’ Fiona said, ‘if you insist on resigning from the SIB at least do something constructive before you go.’

  ‘What?’ said Kenny, suspiciously.

  ‘Track down this Harker fellow and hand him over. With luck you might even catch Manone in the same net. Finish the job you’ve started. After all it can hardly matter to the Conway girl now, can it? You’re not doing anything – unfair.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true.’

  ‘How reliable are your leads?’

  ‘I’ve one fairly reliable contact.’

  ‘Then pressure him. Who is it – Lombard?’

  ‘Heck, no.’

  ‘You aren’t going to tell me, Kenneth, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You will use him, though, won’t you? It’s such a waste otherwise,’ Fiona said. ‘Such a dreadful waste of all our hard work.’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ said Kenny and took refuge from his sister – and his conscience – by lighting another cigarette.

  * * *

  At half-past nine o’clock on Monday morning two gentlemen from the Housing Committee turned up at Lyons & Lloyd’s. No longer mere humble borough councillors, they came armed with badges of authority and sheaves of credentials signed on behalf of the Crown by a minion in the Scottish Office. Swollen with new-found importance, they exuded an air of officiousness that Bernard would have found amusing at any other time on any other day.

  Bernard, however, was in no mood to be patronised. He had spent a dreadful evening trying to console his wife and stepdaughter and answer their hysterical accusations of disloyalty. He’d also had the thoroughly unpleasant task of ejecting Janet McKerlie from the house and, because courtesy demanded it, walking her to the bus stop. She had gone on at him as if he’d betrayed her trust when the plain fact was that he hardly knew the woman and had never met Frank Conway. He was stewing with rage by the time Janet’s bus arrived, and had stalked about the streets of Knightswood for almost an hour before he’d calmed down enough to risk returning home in the fond hope that Lizzie and Rosie would have calmed down by then too. No such luck: the rest of the evening and much of the night had been taken up in consoling his grieving stepdaughter and trying vainly to assure his wife that their marriage remained valid and intact.

  Rosie had been too fevered to go to work on Monday morning.

  Bernard had promised that he would telephone Shelby’s and report that she would not be in that day. He had made his own breakfast and, with Lizzie still closeted in the small side bedroom with Rosie, had gone off to catch an early train without daring to say goodbye.

  He was furious at being cast as the villain of the piece, furious that all the love and trust he had built up with Lizzie’s daughter had been shattered in a single evening by a malicious old spinster and the machinations of Dominic Manone. ‘I hate you, Bernard,’ Rosie had shouted at one point. ‘I hate you. I hate you,’ and he had no reason to doubt that she meant it.

  He was still seething when he reached Breslin and too overwrought to be diplomatic when the borough councillors swaggered into the estate office. He refused to bow the knee to their badges or the signatures on their request forms, couldn’t bring himself to be civil to these petty administrators who would undoubtedly revel in the backstage war and be the first to kowtow to the Nazis if by any chance the war was lost and Scotland fell into the hands of the enemy. He despised their tight shiny suits, their bowler hats, their arrogance, and made no attempt to hide his feelings. He might even have come to blows with the younger of the two if Allan Shakespeare hadn’t arrived to smooth the councillors’ ruffled feathers, escort them into his office and, with a scowl in Bernard’s direction, order up tea and biscuits.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Sandra, the typist, enquired as she stuck the kettle on the little gas-ring in the cupboard behind her desk. ‘You weren’t very nice to them.’

  ‘They’re looking for empty properties to requisition.’

  ‘For what?’ said the girl.

  ‘Refugees.’

  ‘Refugees? What does that mean?’

  ‘To house folk who’ve been bombed out.’

>   ‘Temporary accommodations, you mean?’

  ‘Temporary or permanent, who knows? Once they get their hands on a property then there’s no saying when it’ll revert to private ownership again.’

  ‘Bombed out?’ Sandra raised a neatly-plucked eyebrow. ‘Well, well!’

  Bernard stepped into the closet, emerged with his hat jammed on his head and his overcoat tossed over his arm, went to the street door yanked it open.

  ‘Where on earth are you going?’ Sandra said.

  ‘Out,’ said Bernard and, slamming the door behind him, set off on foot for Blackstone Farm.

  * * *

  ‘I’ll say this for you, Sergeant MacGregor, you’ve some nerve arriving uninvited at my house at this hour in the morning. What if my husband had been at home?’

  ‘But he isn’t, is he?’ Kenny said.

  ‘Fortunately for you, no, he isn’t.’

  ‘Why is it fortunate?’ Kenny said. ‘I mean, he’s a civil sort of chap if Christmas is anything to go by. I’m sure him and me could have had a nice chat over coffee and cigars.’

  ‘A nice chat about what in particular?’ said Polly.

  ‘You,’ Kenny said. ‘You and Tony Lombard.’

  Polly gave a curt little nod as if his reply had merely confirmed her suspicions. She was irked at being caught in a stained skirt and a floral apron which made her feel like the sort of women the detective was used to dealing with. If Leah hadn’t been hanging about in the drawing-room with her ears flapping she would have excused herself and gone upstairs to change into something more respectable, though to judge by the stern look on MacGregor’s face and his aggressive manner it wouldn’t have mattered to him if she’d been clad in clogs and a shawl. She led him out of the hallway into the back parlour, lit the electric fire and offered him tea, an offer he politely refused. Pleasant and pliant Sergeant MacGregor was pleasant and pliant no more.

  ‘It’s no use denying it, Mrs Manone,’ he said. ‘We know how often you’ve been with Lombard at his flat. We’ve dates and times recorded in our logs.’

  Polly tucked in a curl that had escaped the dust-cap. ‘It’s no secret that I spend a great deal of time with Tony Lombard – with my husband’s knowledge.’

  ‘At Lombard’s flat?’ Kenny said. ‘In Lombard’s bed?’

  ‘Be careful, Sergeant, just be careful.’

  ‘I’m not the one who has to be careful,’ Kenny said. ‘We can prove you’ve been up there with Lombard, an hour here, an hour there. Did your husband condone those meetings?’

  ‘You think I’m having an affair with Tony Lombard, don’t you?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ said Kenny MacGregor.

  ‘Of course not. Tony is, or was, my bodyguard.’

  ‘From who or what is he supposed to be protecting you?’

  ‘From John Flint,’ said Polly, without hesitation.

  ‘Flint? Why would Flint threaten you? Dominic and he are…’

  ‘Oh, they may be friends now,’ said Polly, ‘but that wasn’t always the case. Granted I haven’t needed protection for three or four years but Tony proved useful in many other ways. He drove the car for me, took the children to school when our nanny was busy. Looked after us generally, you might say. Now do you honestly suppose I’d have an affair with a man who guarded my children and is my husband’s most trusted employee?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kenny said. ‘I think you might.’

  ‘Has my sister, has Rosie seen this side of you?’

  ‘Rosie and I aren’t together any more.’

  ‘Oh, really!’ said Polly. ‘Too much of a bully for her, were you?’

  He wasn’t cowed by her sharp tongue. She felt a wriggle of fear at the realisation that she had lost her protection – not Tony but Rosie. Until now she had regarded the sergeant as a bit of a joke and someone who might be useful to her if she played on his love for her sister. But now she saw that he was a copper through and through and realised that she could expect no favours now that he had broken with Rosie.

  She said, ‘I was under the impression that we had a mutual agreement.’

  ‘Were you?’ Kenny said. ‘I don’t remember any such thing.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘I need to know where Lombard’s hiding and who he’s working with.’

  ‘He works for my husband.’

  ‘Who’s he working with right now.’

  ‘I really can’t say,’ said Polly. ‘Why did you fall out with my sister? Was it her deafness? Can’t be much fun whispering sweet nothings to a girl who can’t hear them. I expect you’ve lots of other girls on the string.’

  ‘What I have on the string,’ Kenny said, ‘is your father.’

  ‘Bernard? What does Bernard…’

  ‘Your real father,’ Kenny said. ‘Frank Conway, back from the dead.’

  She knew at once that he was speaking the truth – neither Kenny nor his superiors were imaginative enough to have devised such a wicked lie – and a vision of the little man she’d met in at John Flint’s office flashed into her mind.

  She began to shake.

  She sat down on a chair by the French doors and pressed her knees together.

  ‘Where…’ She cleared her throat. ‘Where exactly is he?’

  ‘Oh, he’s around.’ MacGregor had the upper hand now. ‘Tony probably knows where he is. Your husband certainly does. We’d like to find him before he does any more damage.’

  ‘Has – does my mother…’

  ‘Yes, she knows he’s alive.’

  ‘Are you sure it is my father?’

  ‘We’ve obtained a positive identification from someone who knew him well.’

  ‘Janet!’ Polly nodded. ‘My aunt, Janet McKerlie.’

  ‘Yes, apparently he’s passing himself off as Edgar Harker,’ Kenny said. ‘We know he’s in Glasgow and has been in contact with your husband. Didn’t Dominic tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Harker – your father – has been resident in the United States of America for the past umpteen years. He works for Carlo Manone.’

  ‘I see,’ said Polly.

  She had been prepared to brazen out her affair with Tony and run off with him if it ever came to a showdown but this news was more than she could bear. She struggled to be selfish, to appear unaffected but suffered an urgent desire to be with her Mammy, to comfort Mammy, assure Mammy that Dominic would take care of this matter as efficiently has he had taken care of everything else. But Dominic had lied to her, had kept this astonishing fact from her too. Was it him, she wondered, the bullish wee fellow with the military moustache and scarred lip who had looked at Babs and her without compassion or sentiment and spun a glib fable about a hero’s death? She remembered how the meeting had affected her, all without cause or reason, except instinct, the calling of blood to blood.

  ‘Now he’s over here in Scotland, working hand in glove with your husband on something that our government’s very interested in,’ Kenny pushed on remorselessly. ‘They’re all involved: Flint, Lombard, Harker and, of course, Dominic. It’s something too important to be shoved under the carpet and my boss will move heaven and earth to find out what it is and lay the culprits by the heels.’

  ‘Culprits,’ Polly heard herself say. ‘What a quaint way of putting it.’

  ‘Whatever you choose to do about your father is a matter for the family,’ Kenny continued. ‘How this will affect your relationship with your husband…’

  ‘Just what do you want from me?’

  ‘I need to know where Harker is and precisely what he’s up to.’

  ‘So that you can arrest him?’

  ‘If charges are brought, yes,’ Kenny said.

  ‘Tony too?’

  ‘Tony?’ Kenny said, surprised.

  Perhaps he had expected her to trade for her father’s safety or her husband’s but she no longer cared what Kenny MacGregor thought of her.

  She said, ‘I’ll get you all the information you need – on one
condition.’

  ‘What’s the condition?’

  ‘I want you to give Tony an opportunity to get out.’

  ‘I can’t make that sort of promise.’

  ‘Time,’ Polly said. ‘I require just a little bit of time, Kenny MacGregor. Surely you can manage to delay matters for a week or two.’

  ‘What will you give me in exchange, Mrs Manone?’

  ‘Absolutely everything you need to make an arrest.’

  ‘Including your husband?’

  ‘Including my husband,’ said Polly.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bonskeet’s builders were pushing on with the bungalows over the hill from Blackstone Farm. The big villas were already up and subject to the attentions of plasterers and electricians. The first would be occupied before Easter, most of the others by June. Lyons & Lloyd’s had taken their percentage as agents. The rest of the profit would go into Bonskeet’s coffers from which, Bernard supposed, Dominic would duly extract his share.

  The bungalows were proving much more difficult to shift, however, for the market had gone stone cold in recent weeks. Allan Shakespeare had suggested that the properties be advertised as safe havens from German air raids, which, Bernard knew, was a palpable untruth. Hardgate, Duntocher, Blackstone and Breslin lay close to the Clyde and however efficient the Luftwaffe might be he doubted if German bombardiers would be able to target the shipyards with precision.

  Such thoughts bobbed about in Bernard’s head as he tramped up the track from the road and, stepping over a fence, approached the farm.

  It was a breezy day, cloudy, more moist than cold, the wind gusting from the east. He heard nothing from the farm until he reached the whitewashed wall behind the stables and picked up the clack of machinery running an interrupted pattern that reminded him of a weaver’s loom. He looked up at the roof. There wasn’t a pigeon, crow or gull to be seen on the slates, not one hungry sparrow; whatever was going on inside was noisy and constant enough to keep the birds away. He tightened the belt of his overcoat, went around the gable, found a wooden door, opened it and slipped into the building unseen.

  Beams overhead, a stone floor, empty horse stalls: he faced a flight of wooden steps that led up to a gallery protected by rails and straw bales. He climbed the steps and looked along the level of the raw wooden boards at the deafening machine. At first he thought there was no one there, only a scowling tabby crouched on the straw above him, Then a chap in a collarless shirt emerged from behind the machine, a screwdriver clenched between his teeth, an oilcan in his hand.