Troubled Midnight

by John Gardner

  “I’ve already explained you’re not with us any more, WDI Mountford.” He hadn’t had much fun explaining it judging by the acid in his voice. “But I have told them you’re still on this case with the Funnies. Welcome.”

  He turned back towards the blackboard and, as though he’d suddenly remembered something – “Oh, yes. I’ve also told the Squad that you’re too precious to lose, DI Mountford, so I’ve made an application to the Commissioner. I’m asking to have you back and I’m offering the Funnies WDS Wimereux in your place.” Smirk and twinkle.

  Suzie and Curry smirked back and as though by prearranged signal they both silently shook their heads; went on shaking them.

  She saw the particular glint in Tommy’s eyes, recognised it and thought, Jesus, he’s jealous, bloody jealous. He thinks Curry and me … beast with two backs … Golly. Probably wouldn’t say no come to think of it, if the light was right and there was a following wind.

  “Something you want to share with us at all, Mr Shepherd?” Tommy digging a grave for himself.

  “Major Shepherd, please, DCS Livermore, sir.”

  “Oh, of course,” any charm had gone, replaced by sarcasm laced with a tincture of cynicism.

  “All right,” he pronounced it orl right. “Royal Reserve Squad and the Royal Funnies,” trying to be amusing. “You’ve heard this before. Received wisdom is…” that was a favourite of Tommy’s, ‘received wisdom,’ “received wisdom is that when you get a brutal murder the first people you take a look at are the family. In this case that’s Mr and Mrs Adrian Fletcher Weaving who’re living out retirement in glorious Devon – he’s in the Home Guard and she’s doing auxiliary nursing which ain’t bad for late sixty-year-olds. His brother Ralph’s a CPO in the Royal Navy, aboard HMS Formidable while his sister’s Land Army, farming away like Old McDonald in Somerset, not going too fast for you Major Shepherd?”

  “I’m keeping up remarkably well, DCS Livermore. Sheep go baaah and the pigs go oink, that’s how it goes I believe.”

  “Congratulations.” Pause, another smirk. “So, I think we can reject Colonel Weaving’s side of the family as possible suspects. Regarding Mrs Bascombe there is the question of her husband, Captain Robert Bascombe VC. Well, I don’t suppose our Bobby Bascombe would be too pleased to know that his wife was doing the post horn gallop with Colonel Weaving, but, alas, Captain Bobby’s decorating a POW Camp in Germany at the moment and I should imagine the War Office is searching its collective intelligence regarding breaking the news of his wife’s death to him. Not easy at all.”

  Tommy looked round the room as though he’d just set some weighty problem that called for profound knowledge of integral calculus. “So, I doubt if hubby could have arranged for someone to come here, to Berkshire, and batter the adulterous couple’s brains out.”

  Suzie thought, Lord help us, as if Tommy Livermore’s patent and pompous schoolmasterish manner was being revealed to her for the first time. Then her mind whirled and she saw again the broken bodies in the cellar of the house on Portway, wondered about the minutes that led up to the deaths, thought about the anguish, the fear and pain that must have swept through the two wretched people who died, bludgeoned to death, in that alien, cold and hostile vault.

  Among the pictures in her head she wondered about pain, she, who had never felt excruciating hurt, only the bumps and knocks of childhood, the petty violence – the Chinese burn, the Indian rub or the penny stamp, all in the arsenal of school bullies, yet nothing like the horror of the real thing which ended only in death.

  “So, not having any leads en famille…” Tommy started again, more composed, putting the nasty little digs to one side. “We have to move to the slightly wider family, the family of the Regiment, the people serving immediately under him at Brize Norton.” His hand swept down the list on the blackboard. “And here we have them, the officers and NCOs of the Heavy Glider Conversion Unit – the people we’re going to talk to today, people who’re going to help us with our enquiries.”

  He looked around, slowly catching each face, giving Suzie a long stare so that she finally felt she knew what the word lupine meant.

  “I don’t want to go in there mob-handed,” he continued, looking a shade smug. “So we’re all going.” Laugh. Oh, Tommy you are a wag, Suzie thought.

  “What I suggest is that WDS Wimereux and I do the interviews, with Ron as muscle.” Ron Worrall nodded agreement. “The rest of you should mix with the customers and talk with them – nice and gentle, make mental notes, keep your eyes and ears open. I want to hear if anyone sounds like they had problems with Colonel Weaving: or if there was ill will of any kind.” Nods from around the room and Tommy asked if anybody had queries.

  Dennis Free asked, “We going to divide up the officers and NCOs, Chief?”

  “No,” the self-satisfied smile again (Oh what a bastard, Suzie thought). “What I thought we’d do is put the officers on the hop; make arrangements to interview everyone in the sergeants’ mess, eh? Good, eh?”

  Murmurs of ‘good’ and ‘yes,’ everyone happy and bright, what a clever bloke the Chief is. Good on you, Chief, and someone else asked if the Glider Pilot Regiment had separate messes for their people, there being piles of Brylcreem boys at RAF Brize Norton. Originally, in 1940 the fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain were the Brylcreem boys after the sleek advertisements for the hair cream showing a pilot with polished hair, glossy, lustrous. A ‘corker’ as Suzie would have called him. Now any aircrew seemed to be referred to by this sobriquet, while most other ranks and non-flying personnel were ‘erks’.

  There was ten, fifteen minutes chatter during which Curry asked how they could help with the questioning of the GPR officers and NCOs. This made Tommy treat him to the long state, the evil eye look. “Well I suppose you’ve got to be there, Major Shepherd, but if I had my way you’d carry out a completely separate investigation…”

  “Don’t want to duplicate it,” Curry drawled, a little loudly, as if he was spooked by Tommy’s suggestion, but Tommy’s eyes flicked away, not really meeting Curry’s.

  “You’d better sit in with us, then,” the invitation came with ill grace.

  Later Curry said that he imagined old Elsie had spoken to the Commissioner, or to Tommy Livermore himself.

  “Elsie?” Suzie asked. They were driving to Brize Norton – forty miles or so from Wantage – following Brian driving the Wolseley, with Tommy and Cathy, Tommy in the front passenger seat, Cathy behind with Laura Cotter, all girls together and the Chief being as witty as hell, talking about how they’d go through the GPR people like the proverbial dose of salts. Suzie knew because she’d been there too many times, going off to scenes of crimes with Tommy all worked up, ready to take on the world, a bit of a show-off.

  “Elsie?” she asked again.

  “Our boss,” she knew that already, his eyes watching the road and the brake lights of the Wolseley ahead, as he needed to for it was cold and freezing fog drifted in patchy waves over the hedgerows across the road. The other car was behind them, making up the little convoy, Dennis Free at the wheel with Shirley Cox beside him and Ron Worrall in the back.

  “Leonard Cyril Partridge.” Curry supplied, “Known by his initials just to confuse folk. L C Partridge equals Elsie Partridge. Likes to be known as Len Partridge, a deeply secret man; been everywhere, spent time with MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, sat on the right hand of God in Special Operations Executive; all round good egg and won’t stand any fiddling from Tommy Livermore.”

  “Really?” pleased.

  “Yes, really. Elsie Partridge got out of Berlin in his socks in September ’39; interviewed Hitler under the guise of being a journalist for some imaginary far right magazine he invented. Called it Excalibur. Asked the Führer impertinent questions; says he’s full of himself, can’t understand why the people fall for the load of rubbish he feeds them, plays on the pure German race business. According to Partridge the real brains is the little club foot Goebbels.”

&
nbsp; “Do I get to meet him?”

  “Goebbels?”

  She laughed, “No, Elsie Partridge you fool.”

  “Watch it!” This time he did turn his head; looked straight at her, smiling. Lovely smile. “Beatable offence calling your senior officer a fool; and don’t let the gaffer hear you calling him Elsie. Bit touchy about Elsie.”

  “When do I get to meet him?” she repeated.

  “Sooner than you think.”

  “When? And do I salute or anything?”

  “Nice if you call him sir to start with, and you’ll meet him tonight if Tommy gets on with this. How is he with inquisitions?”

  “Bit long winded. Calls them interviews, though – ‘officers from Scotland Yard are talking to a man who is helping with their inquiries’ – you know how it goes.”

  “Yeees,” slow, drawn out. “We call that an inquisition, as in The Spanish, but we don’t use the Rack or the Iron Maiden. You an Iron Maiden, Suzie?”

  “Not iron. More steel I suppose.”

  “I had heard. Suzie Mountford, Steel Maiden.”

  “Not even a maiden I’m afraid. Was once, back in days of yore.”

  “Days of your what?”

  “You’ve been watching too many Abbot and Costello flicks,” she said, grinning broadly, loving this kind of surrealist backchat.

  “Who’s on first?” he asked, quoting from the comedy couple’s best-loved sketch, repeated almost in its entirety in pubs and school playgrounds: as well-known as the catchphrases of ITMA.

  She chuckled.

  After a minute or so he again asked about Tommy and his inquisitory techniques.

  “He once said something very vulgar about questioning procedures, but then Tommy was/is vulgar.”

  “He is?”

  “Extremely. You should know, you were at school with him. Tommy never stopped being a vulgar little boy.”

  “I wouldn’t have known that. School was only a couple of years. He was seventeen when I was fourteen. Those few years are an entire era when you’re that age. Gets better when you’re older, but I don’t think I could ever be on close terms with Tommy Livermore.” Another longish pause. “What was this particular vulgarity?”

  “He said that the object of questioning a suspect was like getting to the far end of a fart. But then it’s one of my mum’s favourite expressions as well.”

  Curry spluttered. “I don’t call that very vulgar. Not when put against some of the things you have to hear.”

  “No, it’s not when you put it against what Tommy used to say and do. I lived with him, Curry. Well, just about lived with him from 1940 until recently.”

  They drove on almost in silence and Suzie found herself leaning against the door, away from Curry. Are all men basically the same, full of cheap crudities? Sniggering at sex and body functions? She couldn’t believe they were all tarred with the same brush. All of them? Never.

  She was wearing her severe dark blue suit, with the skirt a fraction too short, but over it she had the very military cut greatcoat, burgundy with little metal D-rings on the belt, like a trenchcoat and long skirts she could wrap around her thighs and legs. It was a coat that gave her tremendous confidence: the one her mum had bought for her at Fenwicks.

  It was almost eleven-thirty when they arrived at the main gate of RAF Brize Norton, only they did not have gates beside the sold concrete Guard Room, they had a red and white striped pole, like you saw at some continental level crossings. An RAF Regiment sergeant, spiffy, and knowing it, in his blue beret and greatcoat, leaned down and talked to Tommy through the passenger side window. Curry stayed back, foot resting on the brake, gear in neutral and his eyes flicking up to the mirror, taking in the grey Wolseley to his rear with Dennis Free at the wheel.

  “They’re not taking any chances,” he said as the sergeant hurried off into the Guard Room and an airman with a rifle watched the cars, some menace in his eyes put on especially for the occasion.

  “Tommy hasn’t got the password for the day.” Suzie said.

  “Betcha.”

  “That the password?”

  “No, but I bet you know it.”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Piece of cake,” Curry chuckled.

  Suzie said, “Advance piece of cake and be recognised,” and they both chuckled as the sergeant came doubling out and called for the red and white pole to be raised, then bent down again to give Tommy more instructions.

  “Telling him where to go, giving him a map,” Curry muttered.

  “I’d tell him where to go,” Suzie stated, entering into a conspiracy.

  They followed Tommy’s Wolseley as it turned right and skirted past the more permanent buildings of the RAF station, the barracks, parade ground, officers’ mess backed by three big hangars, two old Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers and a big Short Stirling parked off the perimeter track, as were three Horsa gliders, while a twin-engined Oxford was coming in over the far hedges, the first aircraft to use the aerodrome that day, now that the fog had started to lift.

  Beyond the hangars a cluster of more temporary buildings sprawled out towards the north – Nissen huts and larger prefabricated, wood and block structures, marking where the Glider Pilot Regiment’s Heavy Glider Conversion Unit was stationed. They threaded through the roadways until the Wolseley turned off to the left, stopping by a larger hut marked, above the door, HGCU sergeants’ mess.

  Almost as soon as the cars came to a stop, an officer with Major’s crowns on his epaulettes, came out of the door followed by a warrant officer. Both had welcoming smiles plastered unconvincingly on their faces.

  “Bet that’s Major ‘Shed’ Hutt and Sergeant Major ‘Kissme’ Hardy.” Curry already had the engine switched off and his door open, determined not to be left out so that Suzie had to leave the car in a sort of undignified flurry, gathering the skirts of her burgundy coat around her and almost trotting to keep up. The other car disgorged its passengers who had somehow pushed ahead – probably told by Tommy to thrust themselves forward: instructed to keep together.

  They arrived at the small knot of police officers just as Tommy was doing the introductions. “Oh,” he sounded reluctant as he flapped a hand in the direction of Curry and Suzie, “These are two people from one of the Home Office Organisations.”

  “Curry Shepherd, Major Shepherd,” Curry stepped forward, hand outstretched adding, “WOIL”.

  Major Hutt said, “James Hutt, how d’ye do?” sounding like an old time squire up at the big house, rode with the hounds in winter, fished and blew game out of the sky for the rest of the year. “How’s that agin?” he asked referring to the WOIL.

  “Jumble of letters to confuse the innocent,” Curry burbled, “and this is Woman Detective Inspector Mountford, on attachment to the Home Office.”

  “Jolly good,” Hutt smiled, sounded perky, smoothed his little waxed moustache, allowed his eyebrows to lift while the grey eyes did an alarming twinkle meant to give the impression that he was a lonely bachelor who was no end of a dog. Aloud he said, “Sarn’t Major Hardy,” and the tall warrant officer leaned forward to go through the hand-shaking routine like his commanding officer before him. The sergeant major touched hands with everyone, smiled and spoke with a seriously wha-wha accent rarely heard except at point-to-point race meetings and in old country houses.

  “Jaas, wawcome,” he said which Suzie translated as yes, welcome, then Major Hutt stepped in with something about hoping they’d all lunch in the officers’ mess, “When you’ve finished what you’ve got to do that is. Not going to take long, is it?”

  Tommy took over with what Suzie thought was unseemly haste. “It’ll take as long as it takes.” Sour. “Ought to get cracking soon as possible, eh?” a splash of self-importance.

  “I say,” said Jim Hutt, whom they called ‘Shed’ Suzie remembered. “I say. Aren’t you that copper whose always getting himself in the papers? Call you ‘Dandy Tom’ don’t they?”

  Tommy didn’t like this, Su
zie could tell because the colour came out, high on his cheeks. Dandy Tom, the papers called him because of the sharp, almost Edwardian, cut of his suits and the manner in which he approached murder cases. Tommy Livermore loved his colleagues seeing him talked about in the papers as Dandy Tom, but he didn’t like it so much when what he referred to as ‘civilians’ called him by the nickname.

  Suzie saw Curry Shepherd give a little leer and knew he was aware of the joke.

  Inside, the hut was laid out like a club, a small place just for men to come and enjoy themselves: tables and chairs dotted around, a bar to the left, steering its way out of the wall then turning and running down the room, backed by shelves with bottles and beer pumps nearest the customers. A tall grizzled man stood behind the bar, ready to serve drinks.

  “That’s Pop,” Major Hutt said with a big smile and Suzie saw Tommy nod at the barman as though he was doing everyone a great favour by acknowledging him. Pop gave a little smile, quick and far from humorous or friendly. Suzie thought, ‘Hallo, that’s an old friend. Been in more nicks than a notch. Probably done some bird as well for he had that shifty way of looking at the assembled police officers.’

  Looking round, Suzie saw that as well as Major Hutt and Sergeant Major Hardy there were two other officers, both captains, three pips on their shoulders plus four sergeants, among whom Monkey Gibbon grinned, drawing attention to himself. She tried to put names to the NCOs but, of course, couldn’t until Hutt started to do the honours. The small, chubby Captain was Puxley, “Branwell, but the chaps call me ‘Bomber’”.

  “Why would that be Captain Puxley?” Tommy, officious and unsmiling. Puxley, from the look of him was the oldest present, late thirties, maybe even forty.

  “Spent some time in the RAF. Flew bombers, well doubt if you’d call them such today. Flew Heyfords damned great things, big biplanes, two huge engines, three Lewis guns, loads of bombs. Handley Page Heyfords, last of the biplane bombers. Bit outdated nowadays.”