‘Its song made the trees blossom,’ he replied. And she knew there was no turning back.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Louisa’s palms felt clammy. Having established contact, she wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. Fortunately, Wellesley took charge.
The passage was empty. Cabin E-131 had presumably been chosen for the fact that there was little reason for many guests or crew to walk past it. Wellesley moved away from the door and Louisa stepped with him.
‘Did you know about me?’ Louisa asked.
Wellesley nodded. His face was serious, but he didn’t look unfriendly. Under any other circumstances, she’d have judged him to be a perfectly nice, harmless member of the crew. Now she couldn’t help wondering if he was a trained killer. All this talk of murder was making her mind plunge to the darkest places.
‘I don’t suppose I can ask what you’re doing on the Princess Alice?’ she said.
Again, Wellesley replied silently, but this time in the negative.
‘You have a message,’ he prompted.
‘I think I do.’ Everything suddenly scrambled; she couldn’t think exactly what it was that she had wanted to pass on to Iain so urgently. ‘That is, I was going to tell him about what happened last night. It wasn’t strictly the sort of thing he’d asked me to report back on. I’m here watching…’ She decided she had better not say the name. ‘Someone else. But it seemed like the sort of event he may have wanted to know about. Just in case.’ Her voice petered out, a leak in a cracked cup.
Wellesley said nothing. He continued to watch her, his eyes darting occasionally along the passage to ensure it was still empty.
‘Anyway, I suppose you’ve told him. Or will tell him.’ She was gabbling now.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I … Well, if he wanted me to find you, I assumed it’s because you’re more senior.’
‘Hmm.’
Louisa was starting to feel exasperated. She knew an agent had to keep his cards close to his chest, but how was she supposed to talk to him? It was like playing chess with someone when only they knew the rules.
‘There is something else,’ she began. ‘I overheard a conversation just now, between’ – she looked behind her and lowered her voice to a whisper – ‘Wolfgang von Bohlen and Unity Mitford.’
Wellesley’s head moved a fraction. If he was a Jack Russell, his ears would have gone up.
‘He told her that his family is involved in a rearmament programme with Hitler.’
‘Where were you when you heard this?’
Someone came into view, about fifty yards away, and Louisa almost jumped out of her skin. It was only a cabin maid, carrying a mop and a bucket. She turned off into another connecting corridor before reaching them.
‘I was walking a few paces behind them. Chaperoning Miss Unity.’
‘Stop,’ said Wellesley. ‘It could have been a trick. He must have meant you to overhear. Do not say anything more about him while you are on this ship. Do not – I repeat – do not alert him in any way to your mission on here. You are in danger of disturbing a much more senior operation.’
Louisa was too frightened to reply to this. She hadn’t even mentioned the mallet and dared not ask what Wolfgang’s part in that might be.
‘You had better go now. Your husband might come out.’
She nodded but didn’t move. Her shoes might have been nailed to the floor.
‘Go,’ he instructed, and Louisa fled.
* * *
A few minutes later, Louisa was back outside on the deck, swallowing big breaths of the sea air, calming herself down. She was in over her head. If she had been at the bottom of the sea, it wouldn’t seem as bad as the situation she was in now. She tried to disentangle the threads. If Wolfgang was in the business of tricking her, what might he be doing to Unity? She had to protect Unity, but her feelings about this were far from straightforward. She’d known the fourth Mitford girl since Unity was a small child, but she had always been a complicated character, prone to sulks and silences. Now her ardent love for fascism made her an even more difficult person to stomach. Diana was no day in the sun either. Anger overtook Louisa at having allowed herself to walk into a situation where she was spending time with these unlikeable women, away from her husband and stenography training, to be a mere servant, and now, on top of all that, also part of a sinister scheme involving the British government and fascists.
She kicked the side of the boat in fury and heard someone call out, ‘Cheer up! It might never happen.’ She was tempted to run up and toss him over the side.
After a few minutes she had recovered enough to decide that she had better focus on the one thing she had been sent to do: monitoring Diana and Unity. She was afraid to even spend time with Guy when he was trying to piece together the events of the night before. If she knew something about Wolfgang, she dared not say it to him. All she could do was try to stall his investigation until they got back to London. When the Princess Alice docked at Rome, she would telegram Iain, tell him that she was cutting her trip short, and return with Guy. The Mitfords could go to hell.
Calmer and with a plan, Louisa went back inside to make her way to Lady Redesdale’s cabin, where she thought Unity would still be. She would go past the purser’s office on the way and leave a message for Guy, to say she was at work and would meet him at their cabin at half-past seven. By then, Lady Redesdale and her daughters would be on their way to supper and she would have respite for a few hours. Perhaps she and Guy would even manage to sit down and have supper together themselves.
Walking through the connecting hall on deck E to reach the staircase she needed, Louisa happened to glance in another direction and saw the stocky figure of Herr Müller in conversation with Sir Clive. The normally taciturn Müller was gesticulating and talking at speed as Sir Clive listened intently. She saw them only briefly, and she was certain they didn’t see her, but she did not dare to stop to check. It was them, she was sure of it.
And then she decided: what of it? If it was of importance, it wasn’t of importance to her. She would be better off dismissing the sight as nothing more than two guests talking to each other. Wellesley was presumably already on to them, if there was anything for him to know about.
But like most itches one tries to ignore, it would return to the surface again and again, tormenting her resolve.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
In cabin B-17, Ella Fowler was awake. The last effects of the morphia had worn off and she was stone-cold sober, ashen-faced and sitting on the sofa, looking at Guy with eyes as empty as the blue sky outside. He had told her that her husband was dead and he was arresting her on suspicion of colluding with Jim Evans to murder Joseph Fowler.
‘Until the ship docks at Rome, you need to remain in this cabin, under supervision. There will be a guard stationed outside the door at all times.’ Guy waited for a response, but there was none. ‘When we arrive at Rome, you will be taken to a local police station for further questioning, if necessary, until arrangements can be made for you and Jim Evans to be transported back to England, most probably by train.’
Ella blinked and seemed to shake herself awake. ‘With Jim?’
‘Yes, you’ll be kept apart but—’
‘No. I mean, have you arrested him?’
Guy affirmed he had.
Ella’s voice shook, though she spoke without hysteria. ‘Why? I’ve told you: I did it. He didn’t do it, he had nothing to do with it. It was me. Don’t you understand?’
‘I can’t say I do understand, Mrs Fowler. But I intend to get to the bottom of it before we arrive in Rome.’
‘How is he? Can I see him?’
‘I’m not at liberty to tell you,’ said Guy, not knowing if this was strictly true or not. But they were two witnesses, at the very least. He wasn’t going to tell one what the other was saying. ‘And no, you can’t.’
Ella lay down on the sofa and pulled a cushion beneath her head, drawing her knee
s up to her chest. ‘You need to talk to that bitch, Blythe,’ she said. ‘Whatever path she’s led you down, it’s the wrong one. She tried to steal Jim, but she couldn’t have him. She’s out to destroy us both.’ She pulled her knees in a little tighter and wrapped her arms around them. ‘Why did you leave her alone with me? She might have killed me.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Guy. He wasn’t convinced by this show of vulnerability and accusation. It struck him, not for the first time, that people were all too prone to believe that they were at the centre of their melodrama when it was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill love triangle that would have run out of puff before long. That a man should be dead because of it was disproportionate – like a train crashing because someone spilled coffee on another passenger’s lap.
‘Mrs Fowler, are you making a serious allegation against Blythe North?’
Ella closed her eyes. ‘I want my boys. Will someone tell me where my boys are?’ Tears began to flow, spilling across the bridge of her nose, and soon there was a damp patch on the cushion.
Guy gave up. Whether it was morphia, or hysteria, or grief, or something else alto-goddamn-gether, he wasn’t going to get anything sensible out of her. He had made his arrests; he knew what he believed to be right. All he needed now was to put together enough evidence that charges could be pressed as soon as they arrived back in London.
His second interview with Jim had yielded little more, either. Jim had been frightened and Guy suspected he was something of a simple man, pushed around by the desires and demands of both Ella Fowler and Blythe North. Whether they had driven him to murder was the question in Guy’s mind. Could someone who was apparently not a nasty or scheming person be driven to kill someone in cold blood with a heavy instrument? Striking the blow not once but three times? Three times indicated intent to kill, or a ‘frenzied attack’, as the newspapers liked to call it. Joseph Fowler was not a man in the best of health, judging from his grey appearance, not to mention his general depression, and it may not have taken much physical effort to end his life. But even without his attempt to fight back, there would have been cries of pain, the sickening noise of the wooden mallet as it smashed open the soft skin of his head, then struck and splintered the bone, with the splattering of blood across the cream carpet. The killer had to have had a certain amount of determination. It couldn’t be written off as accidental or a clumsy attempt to teach Joseph a lesson.
And then, the oddest thing of all, both Ella and Jim pleading guilty, not because they both did it but, it appeared, to prevent the other from being arrested. Why would they do that? Ella had two children, young boys who needed their mother at home, not languishing in a prison cell. Jim had plans for a life with Blythe – if the maid was to be believed. Or had he thought Ella was going to keep him in style, remove him from his lowly work as a steward, possibly extricate him from his demanding and difficult relationship with Blythe? Even so, why would he have chosen last night to kill Joseph Fowler? A night when he had already been seen engaged in a fight with the deceased, in which punches were thrown. If there had been planning and intent, surely he would have waited and chosen another time. If he’d been clever, he’d have killed Joseph Fowler shortly before the ship docked at Rome, so he could make good his escape and flee to Europe. It would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to catch him if he had done that.
The pieces in the jigsaw that Guy had were not making a coherent picture.
Ella had now cried herself to sleep. Guy wished he could lie down and do the same. He would find Louisa, hope that the two of them could steal away somewhere quiet, talk it over. She might have some good ideas as to the motivations of these awful people. Louisa was always the solution for Guy.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Having left a message at the purser’s office, Louisa decided to go to her cabin for a quick wash and a change of clothes. Her body clock felt completely out of sorts and she felt as if she’d been in the same skirt and shirt for days. Without looking at the time she couldn’t tell how long it was since she had last eaten or when she needed to go to bed. It didn’t help that unless one was outside on the deck, everywhere was either dark or lit by bright electric bulbs. She yearned for a cup of strong coffee, eggs on toast and a few crispy rashers of bacon, and yet it wasn’t breakfast time, or even anywhere close to it. The ship rolled, and Louisa lurched with it. On the whole, she had been pleased to discover that she had sea legs, but occasionally one would be caught out by an unsteadying movement that tipped one’s stomach to unlikely places. She had a moment of desperately wishing this was all over and they were back on land, on their way home. All she could do was remind herself that the ship was sailing, moving onwards, and eventually it would dock and they would disembark and this claustrophobic horror would be over.
As she was brushing her hair in front of the mirror, inspecting what she thought might be a new wrinkle at the side of her eyes, there was a gentle knock on her cabin door. She thought it had to be Guy and opened it, smiling, only to see Blythe standing there.
‘Can I come in?’
Louisa held the door open wider. ‘Yes, it’s quite small in here…’
‘I know, it doesn’t matter. I have to talk to you.’ Blythe pushed in and sat down on the narrow bed. Louisa put down her hairbrush and leaned against the closed door. She didn’t feel unfriendly, but she did feel disconcerted. She knew Blythe would be pulling her further into the situation between Ella and Jim; she didn’t want to get involved.
It turned out she was wrong.
‘I’ve come to talk to you about Sir Clive Montague,’ said Blythe. She’d managed to get some rest, by the looks of it, though the strain of the night’s events still showed on her face. Her dark curls were drooping and though her skin was as smooth and white as porcelain, it only served to show up the grey shadows beneath her eyes.
‘What about him?’
‘I know your husband has talked to him about last night. Sir Clive will have told Mr Sullivan that he was in his room alone when … when Mr Fowler was … you know.’ She gave a slightly exasperated sigh, as if Louisa was forcing her to say something she didn’t want to admit out loud.
‘Wasn’t he? In his room alone?’
‘He might have been; that’s not really the point. What I’m trying to say is that your husband will believe Sir Clive knows nothing about what happened to Mr Fowler, but he does.’ Blythe coughed. ‘Can I have some water?’
Louisa rinsed out a tooth mug and filled it with water from the tap. ‘It’s all I’ve got in here.’
‘Thanks.’ Blythe took a big mouthful and seemed to resettle herself. ‘Sir Clive is in love with Mrs Fowler; he loathed Mr Fowler, even though they did business together. I think he thought he might persuade them to divorce and then he would marry Mrs Fowler. I don’t know. They’re strange people, and I can’t understand why anyone would want to be with that old bag, but each to his own, I suppose.’
‘I suppose,’ Louisa agreed, to encourage Blythe to get to the nub of her story.
‘Sir Clive paid me to look on the advance passenger lists and tell him when the Fowlers were coming on board the Princess Alice, so that he could be sure of staying at the same time.’
‘Why?’
‘At first it was so he could make sure of seeing Mrs Fowler. I didn’t mind, seeing as I wanted that old witch distracted from my Jim. But then…’ She let out another big sigh.
‘Then?’
‘I don’t know the exact ins and outs of it, but Sir Clive invested in a business deal with Mr Fowler, and it went wrong. Mr Fowler owed him money and Sir Clive wanted it back. He thought the Fowlers were avoiding him, but he knew about Mrs Fowler and my Jim, he knew they’d want to come back on this ship, and he planned to corner Mr Fowler then.’
‘Blythe, what exactly are you saying?’ Louisa wanted to find out more, though she had a sense of foreboding that it was not her that should be hearing this, but Guy.
‘I think Mrs Fowler and Sir Cli
ve planned the murder. Don’t you see? She would have persuaded Sir Clive that if she was widowed she would marry him, and I suppose she’d have inherited Mr Fowler’s money, too. Sir Clive would have been paid back, if that was what he really wanted. Only she duped him. She doesn’t want to marry Sir Clive at all, she wants my Jim. But I’ll tell you something for nothing – she won’t have him, neither.’ Blythe stood up, a trembling hand holding the empty tooth mug.
Louisa spoke calmly; she didn’t want Blythe getting overwrought. ‘That’s all very well, but is there any evidence?’
‘Sir Clive and Mr Fowler had a fight last night.’
‘No, that was Jim and Mr Fowler, in the Blue Bar.’
Blythe put the cup down and stood close to Louisa. She whispered: ‘I know about that one. This was later, in the smoking room. Sir Clive hasn’t told DS Sullivan about that, has he?’
‘How do you know what Sir Clive and my husband talked about? They had a confidential conversation.’
‘I know now, don’t I? It was easy enough to guess.’
Louisa reminded herself that she could handle this, she wasn’t out of her depth here. It was nothing more than a vindictive young girl trying to protect her lover. She only had to ask the difficult questions until Blythe realised she was the one who was swimming out of the shallows.
‘Well, then, how do you know about the fight? What was it about?’
‘I don’t know what it was about. But my friend, Alfred, who works in the bar, he told me. He knows about Sir Clive and everyone knows who Mr Fowler is now. I mean, since he died, lots of the crew have put two and two together.’ Blythe gave a smug smile.
‘Even if they did fight, it doesn’t mean Sir Clive killed him later, does it?’
‘Then why didn’t Sir Clive tell your husband? Why doesn’t he want the police to know?’
‘Fine,’ said Louisa. This had gone far enough. ‘I will talk to him. I think you’d better go now. But, Blythe…’
The Mitford Trial Page 21