The Blitz Business

by D. A. Spruzen

  “Well, you can’t win ’em all.”

  That chump Alan stole the chocs, but he couldn’t have foreseen that. He’d have to get the little retard before he spilled the beans, though, couldn’t trust him not to let it all out. He’d figure a way. And they couldn’t prove nothing from his story about Gran, anyhow. The old bag must’ve been burnt to a cinder. Silly old cow asked for it. He hadn’t ever asked her for that much. More’s the pity Jamie wasn’t toasted along with her like he’d planned. No need for people to start asking questions, though.

  Lucky he’d seen Jamie’s name in the paper. Nearly missed it. Only took a few cups of tea and a gossip in the Manor kitchen to find out where they’d put him. Made him sick the way they went on about Jamie. He’d rung up the place and asked if there were any job openings. He could have worked on the grounds or inside. Inside was easier and he could keep an eye on the little angel.

  Roy dragged his fingers through his hair. Strewth! He hated this sticking-out hair; give him a good jar of goop any time. Kept it in place. Made him look like he should, a man with the goods. Style.

  He’d work alone from now on. Shouldn’t have gone in with the Reddy boys. Them wanting more than their share, they’d buggered off and left some toughs watching. Good thing he’d legged it. Hadn’t even had time to wipe his prints off the place or even off the stuff. He’d had to throw the open bag behind him to make them stop to shove all the stuff back in. He never would’ve outrun them otherwise. What a wicked waste. He’d read in the paper they were wanted, and him, too. Someone must’ve fingered old Roy. Fucking bastards. Well, he’d just have to lie low. Rather be in the nick than behind the shed with the Reddy boys. He read the paper every day now. Best to keep up with things.

  He could trust Derek. He should leave word for him at the Golden Lion to find out how things stood with the Reddys. Maybe Derek could find out where they were and turn them in. They couldn’t kick Roy’s head in from choky. Well, he was safe tucked away down here for the time being. Needed to get back to real life sometime, though. These Blexton boys were animals.

  Now, Bernhardt up in the attic, wasn’t that a turn up for the books. What the bloody hell is he up to? Of course, he was a foreigner. Spy maybe. He’d get the rope if he were a spy. He’d have to watch him. Must be worth a bit, what he’d got hidden away.

  He’d read there’d been some local jobs pulled lately. He’d better keep his nose clean, didn’t want any questions. Best hang around people a lot, so they wouldn’t think it might be him creeping off to pinch stuff. Perhaps that was Bernhardt’s game. Well, he’d watch and wait. Watch and wait.

  And that Jamie. They must know the poison was meant for him. They’d be on the lookout. Have to wait, just a bit longer. He’d talk to the lad every night, make sure he held up. He’d find his chance to shut the little bugger up sooner or later. And that pathetic bag of bones George couldn’t talk. Jamie was as good as on his own.

  Roy stubbed out his fag on a buttercup and watched it shrivel up around the hole in its face. He hated buttercups. Gran used to hold one under his chin and ask if he liked butter. Full of sloppy talk, she used to be. Gran told Roy about her parents, how she’d gone to proper schools, talked nicely, went to church. She was always on about how talking nicely got you places. Where’d it get her, though?

  Roy wanted to know Gran’s parents’ names, told her she should let them know how hard up she was. Gran wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t let on; even so, Roy found their names through the records office, and then her sister’s name. It made Gran start talking when he told her he’d done that.

  Gran’s parents had thrown her out when she got knocked up by a brickie. Said they were dead now, but admitted she had a sister. Roy left out how he’d tracked down dear old Myrtle, visited her just before he came down here. Myrtle had been snotty, then a little frightened when Roy came up really close and looked down on her tight, bright-brown curls. Myrtle had given Roy a hundred pounds and said she didn’t think they should meet again, it couldn’t work out, they had nothing in common. Well, he had his little nest egg now, but he might want more. He’d have to see how things went. Interesting Myrtle never asked about Gran until Roy told her she was dead. Myrtle didn’t seem all that upset.

  Gran had her pride, she said that all the time. Being poor’s nothing to be proud of, not at all. Roy wasn’t going to put up with it. He’d get rich and go knock on Myrtle’s smug front door again and show her he was a big man of the world. He’d have his black oiled hair back, too, and some good togs.

  He’d get it all, but first things first.

  11

  Sir Geoffrey sat in his study, feeling grumpier than he should as he waited for Sir Ronald Marsh to make his appearance. Ten minutes late, making a point. Too impressed with himself since his knighthood. Actually expected Geoffrey to go to him, silly sod. Well, to be fair, not that unreasonable since the fellow was up to his ears in high crimes these days; nevertheless, unwritten rules and all that. Nothing Sir Ronald would have caught on to!

  The fact was Geoffrey couldn’t warm up to the chief constable, simple as that. Those small mirthless laughs that punctuated his conversation—little puffs of air shot through his nose with the faintest of heh, hehs—raised his hackles within minutes. And the vowels that elongated as time went by in a hopeless attempt to move up a couple of rungs in the social ladder made him cringe. The fellow was clever, no doubt about it, so why couldn’t he be content with his professional accomplishments instead of putting on airs that made him look like a chump? Look at the way he barged through the world with his chest thrown out as if to bulldoze any obstacles that might stand in his way. And that silly little moustache!

  He heard the car pull up and stayed where he was. He normally greeted guests himself but felt a little formality was in order.

  “Sir Ronald Marsh, sir.” Stanton’s intonation was sonorous, rather as if he were announcing the Grim Reaper.

  “Morning, Ronnie, nice to see you again, as always,” Geoffrey said, rising.

  “Yes, heh, morning, Geoffrey, keeping well, I trust, heh, heh!” Fellow’s huge, seems bigger than ever. Better put him in the big chair. Hope he doesn’t get that revolting hair oil all over it. Too bad Audrey won’t have antimacassars. “Let’s sit by the fire. Still a bit on the chilly side. Sherry?”

  “No, no. On duty you know. Needs must.” Pompous ass.

  “That’s all, thank you, Stanton. What news, Ronnie?”

  “We’ve got to beef up coastal defense, got to prepare for the worst.”

  “God, is it that bad? The papers don’t give one that sense.” My pals in Intelligence do, though. You’re not the only one with secrets.

  “Londoners could tell you. They’re being blown to pieces, and they can’t take much more.”

  The men sat morosely, staring into their laps. Geoffrey yearned for peace, to be left alone. The more all these cares and worries pressed on his mind, the more he felt the precious memories of his little Fiona receding. Her chuckles and antics had started to fade like the sepia print he kept hidden. My God, twenty years or more and he still couldn’t look at it; felt the sight of it would cut into his gut like a guillotine. Even his lovely Rosie hadn’t been able to ease it, couldn’t take her place.

  “God help us all if Jerry goosesteps his way across England, Geoffrey.” And he may well do that. Fear fogged his mind and he had to fight it down.

  “Quite. How’re your wardens doing? I’ve seen a bit of carelessness. We’ve got to be more careful. The Home Office is thinking of banning everyone from the beaches. They’re going to put more concrete pillboxes up, too.”

  “That seems harsh, Ronnie. People need their little pleasures, and surely an afternoon at the beach isn’t asking too much. Perhaps we could designate one or two beaches that the wardens could patrol. Just a few hours in the afternoons.”

  Sir Ronald puffed out his cheeks as if weighing the matter. “Well, it’s a thought. The National Guard has to patrol the beaches any
way. So limited hours might be manageable. I’ll check with Whitehall. Can’t be seen making waves, though.” You won’t do a damned thing, never one to stick your neck out.

  “Closing the beaches and making waves.” Geoffrey laughed and Ronnie looked offended. “A pun, Ronnie.”

  “Yes, quite unintentional, heh, heh. By the way, keep your ear to the ground, old chap. We think there’s a spy ring operating locally. We know who one of them is, but we don’t want to spook him. We need the others.”

  “How do you know?” Showing off again?

  “We get some radio chatter, but he’s clever, never on for long enough to let us in on anything, and we don’t know where he hides it. He’s being watched, but he hasn’t led us anywhere so far. Given us the slip once or twice.” Ronnie had relaxed now; mind clearly stationed where it felt comfortable.

  “Foreign or local?”

  “The one we’re watching is foreign. Dutch. Intelligence tells us he’s a member of the Dutch Nazi Party, a traitor to his own country, too. His confederates might be local.”

  Geoffrey wondered what made a man turn traitor. Anger, disappointment, feeling you yourself had been betrayed? He’d known angry men, men who couldn’t make their way in life and blamed everyone else for their failures. He’d seen that kind of bitterness. Of course, some people will do anything for money, not that they get that much by all accounts, not enough to make it worth risking the rope. But their sort can’t think of anything but their own grievances.

  “You’re sure about this Dutch chap?”

  “Alerted by a double agent. He tells a good story—refugee from the Nazis and all that—but the Intelligence boys checked on him and found out who he was. Immigration’s got no record of entry, either. We’ve got a lot of strong contacts in Holland. MI5’s got a good record of rounding up these characters, or at least finding out who they are and watching them until it suits them to close in. Got to give them credit. They’ve put a man in where he works. Doesn’t seem to come up with anything, though.”

  “I say, Ronnie, do you know anything about an incident at the Blexton Institute yesterday? It had Audrey a bit worried. Something about a black market box of chocolates the police thought Rosie might have taken to a young boy she visits there. All very odd.”

  Ronnie looked shifty. “Yes, well, I was going to bring that up. Just between you and me, you understand.” He’d turned pompous again.

  “Of course, mum’s the word.”

  “Someone sent the boy a box of chocolates. We know it was addressed to him because one of the girls who works there took the parcel up to him. There was another boy in the common room who’d been aggressive and troublesome on a number of occasions. He snatched the chocolates and ran away. They looked high and low, but couldn’t find him. The cleaning woman found him next day in the supplies cupboard. Dead. Lying on top of an empty box of Cadbury’s. Black market stuff, of course. A box of Cadbury’s is rarer than hen’s teeth, worse luck.”

  “Good God! What killed him?” Distasteful.

  “Arsenic. There was a little of it spilled into the box. He’d eaten the lot. The garden shed had been broken into and the rat poison was missing its lid.”

  “Christ, Ronnie, my daughter’s often over there. Is it safe?”

  “I think she’s safe enough. But is he? We have to ask, who would want to poison young Jamie Jenkins? The inmates couldn’t come up with something like that.”

  “There can’t be any question of money. He’s a nice boy. Simple, but polite. Doesn’t deserve that.”

  “You know his grandmother died in the big one in December. Our people checked with the local wardens after that farmer who had been abusing the boy was arrested. He told them a strange story about that boy and the grandmother being locked into the house by a cousin, Roy Beck. That blighter’s known to the local coppers up there, wanted for housebreaking in the West End, in fact.”

  So the cousin was a bad lot. Perhaps Jamie had seen something he shouldn’t. Knew about the housebreaking. Plenty of that going on. There had been an article about it in The Times quite recently. People left their city houses to escape the bombing and moved to the countryside. Might just as well issue an invitation to the Roy Becks of this world. He’d read there were plenty of fences around, and plenty of buyers, too, by all accounts.

  “Where is this Roy? He might think Jamie knows something.”

  “We don’t know where the fellow is. He dropped out of sight.”

  “Did you trace the parcel?”

  “Package was mailed in Christchurch. Post office there gets pretty busy, and the woman who runs it is usually on her own and run ragged. Doesn’t remember a thing. Anyway, what D.I. Falway wanted me to ask you, is could you put the boy up here for a while? Just until we know more, you understand.”

  “I’ll speak to Audrey now.”

  “Don’t tell her anything but the chocolates story.”

  He knew Audrey would jump on it, but he felt it only fair to let her in on the situation, to go and tell her himself rather than get Stanton to send her in.

  Audrey was writing letters in her sitting room when he found her, face dreamy. He knew that look, that mood, the one he loved so well, that would disappear in a minute. He kissed her hair and inhaled her perfume as she looked at him in the mirror, her eyes wary now. By the time he finished his story her eyes glittered with indignation. She reached the study first.

  “Morning, Ronnie. Nice to see you.” She spoke in the carrying voice she used to address the Women’s Institute. Geoffrey loathed and loved the authority in that voice. “Dreadful story. I insist the boy be brought here immediately. He’s a lovely chap, and we never wanted him in that place. The authorities insisted, didn’t give us a choice.”

  “That’s very generous, Audrey. I’ll make the arrangements. Today not too soon?”

  “We’ll expect him in time for tea.”

  “Don’t mention this to anyone else, if you don’t mind. Just tell Rosie some story about needing to protect him from one of the other boys. We want to keep this under wraps, give ourselves a chance to investigate the institute staff on the quiet.”

  “Anything else we need to go over?” Geoffrey said.

  “Just one thing. A woman’s gone missing. We understand she had a romantic interest in one of your laborers. One for the boys, we’re told. Her husband was badly wounded and she plays the field a bit.”

  “Yes, we know about her, Sylvia something,” said Audrey. “I’ve seen her at the baker’s shop where she used to work, and I met her husband when I visited the cottage hospital a few weeks ago. That’s where I met Jamie, by the way. Anyway, he told me she’s always too busy to visit, but on my way home from a friend’s house, I’d noticed her going into a pub with a young man, one of our laborers. Geoffrey spoke to him. He’d lose his military deferment if he got sacked.”

  “We’ve got that Mrs. Lake missing, too, you know, the one whose husband mistreated a retarded boy.”

  “That was Jamie, did you know that?” asked Geoffrey. Don’t these people talk to each other?

  “No, damn it. They should have briefed me. He comes up a lot, doesn’t he?”

  “Well, he couldn’t have had anything to do with it!” said Audrey. That voice again.

  “No, of course not, Audrey.” Amusing how that tone of voice put Ronnie on the defensive. “Anyway, Lake says she told him she was leaving, and she was gone when he got up in the morning. She’s not at her parents, which is where she told him she’d be, but she told no one where she was going. We suspect the husband may have killed her, but there’s no proof. She called Dr. Gibson out to attend to the boy—Jamie—and told him she was afraid of her husband. We’ve talked to him, naturally. We know the taxi service wasn’t running. No petrol.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection? A rampage of some sort?” asked Audrey.

  “We’ve handed out fliers on both of these women, but their descriptions are so much like each other and fifty thousand other British
woman, I don’t hold out much hope. Messy business. Well, must be off. I seem to find myself on some sort of treadmill these days.”

  He sounded hopeless for a minute, a tone far from his usual bluster. Geoffrey felt a little ashamed of his earlier behavior.

  “Thanks for your help, Ronnie. Don’t you have time for lunch? We’d be delighted to have you.”

  “No, thanks all the same, Geoffrey, most kind. Got to get back to the office.”

  Audrey and Geoffrey rose to show him out. Ronnie was quite a decent fellow, really.

  * * *

  “Where to, Sir Ronald?” asked his driver.

  “Home for lunch. Ask Sally to give you something in the kitchen. I’ll go back to the office at one.”

  “Very good, Sir Ronald.”

  He hadn’t mentioned his new directive to Geoffrey. It showed how worried Whitehall was. Not encouraging. Each chief constable must form a spy ring of six individuals, each unknown to the others. They were to report to him directly and act as informants—saboteurs even, in the event of a German invasion. He’d got five already. All walks of life.

  Would Geoffrey be too obvious? He’d have to think it through. He needed people who had good reason to be out and about a lot, and Geoffrey had good reason, what with running the estate and so on. He’d got a postman, and the proprietor of the most popular pub in town, even a dustman. Eyes and ears. But if Jerry landed, Geoffrey’s property would be the first to be singled out. The buggers were like that, only the best for their officers. What they’d done in France was banish the estate owners to a corner of the house, or worse, and taken over everything else. Though that meant there might be a lot of information worth overhearing. And Geoffrey told him once that he spoke German, had spent his summers on the farm of a family friend near Erwitte. And Audrey spoke finishing-school French, no doubt.