by John Gardner
This went right over Suzie’s head. She had no idea what he was talking about. She had never even heard of fellatio let alone the slang for it. ‘And you say Steve Fermin had no idea?’ she asked with hesitation.
‘I think I’d have known if he’d found out. I suppose those in the know really didn’t want to widen the circle. Those who worked at the BBC, that is.’
‘Even the ones who were angry with her?’
‘Close to home she was careful. “It’s our little secret” kind of thing. When Jo wanted to control people she usually could, and she had a sixth sense of who was dangerous and had to be handled with care.’
‘Yet she was still a time bomb?’
‘Of course. She wasn’t infallible. She had some serious blind spots: usually about people she had known for a long time.’
‘My list of friends, no —’ She changed her mind. ‘You said she had one or two people with whom she carried on long-standing relationships.’
‘Four, to be exact.’
‘Are you willing to —?’
‘I don’t know the morality of this, but yes, I’ll tell you. I’ve wanted to share it with someone for a long time. Anyway, I think you should know.’
Suzie took out her notebook and the silver pencil that had been a birthday gift from Charlotte.
‘I’ll start with the ones whose names you’ll recognize. The actor Gerald Vine; the fighter ace Squadron Leader Fordham O’Dell DFC; the antiques expert Daniel Flint, and one you might not have heard of. Barry Forbes — he’s a financial wizard, one of Churchill’s confidants, he’s —’
‘Yes. I know who he is.’ The man was rarely out of the papers these days: advising the government, counselling Churchill. There was a desperate need for all kinds of specialist opinions and Churchill surrounded himself with a glittering court: Anthony Eden; Brendan Bracken; Beaverbrook; Professor Lindemann and, for financial advice in the country’s darkest hour, the young, mercurial Barry Forbes. ‘He has a steady girlfriend, I’m told.’ As she said it, she realized that Fermin was the only person who had mentioned the girl. What was her name?
‘Has he?’ Webster frowned.
‘A young woman called Emily Baccus.’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t say I’ve heard of her.’
Suzie was conscious of Magnus giving her a warning look.
Quite right, she should not have mentioned something that could be privileged information. ‘So these are the secret four?’ Too quick, Susannah. She had blurted it out.
‘Pretty much, yes. What about your list now?’
‘Can we stay with those four for a moment, sir?’
‘If we must, yes.’ Having spilled the information without a hitch, there appeared to be slight resistance from Richard Webster. Was he suddenly regretting it? she wondered.
‘For the time being, sir. Let me ask you, is there any specific reason why we should be suspicious of any of these men?’
‘Jo talked to me about some pretty intimate things.’
‘That doesn’t answer the question, Mr Webster. You’re being a bit of a tease. First you come out with the victim’s four long-term lovers, then you close up: put up the shutters.’ Suzie had heard this last expression from her young brother who was an avid cricketer.
This time Webster’s smile was more enigmatic than coy. ‘I think you should know that each one of those men has what you might call strange sexual habits.’ He paused and looked, Suzie thought, a bit shifty. ‘Well they had odd sexual ... er ... sophisticated tastes.’
She didn’t want to hear; didn’t want to know; wondered if she could ever possibly understand. ‘Would you say that knowledge would put her at serious risk?’
‘Normally I wouldn’t have thought so, but ... Well, she’s been brutally murdered, so ...’ Webster made a little waving gesture with his right hand.
‘So I suppose you’d better tell us.’
Webster gave a long sigh. ‘I feel a shade embarrassed, talking to a woman.’
‘You came by the information talking to a woman.’
‘Yes, I suppose, yes. But we were very close.’
‘Were you her lover as well, sir?’
‘No, alas.’
There was a pause, a long silence stretching across the room.
‘Okay.’ Suzie had to steel herself. ‘The squadron leader. The Spitfire pilot. Battle of Britain ace. What was his particular problem?’
‘He liked being beaten. With a cane, like a schoolboy. On the backside with her in her undies.’
She tried not to look shocked. ‘They actually were at school together weren’t they? Miss Benton and Squadron Leader O’Dell?’
‘Yes. She was at school with two of them, O’Dell and Flint, and the school — Farnham Place — didn’t believe in corporal punishment. He used to joke that he felt he’d missed out. It’s not an unusual sexual predilection.’
St Helen’s had played hockey against Farnham Place, she reminded herself.
‘It isn’t? I mean, no, it isn’t,’ she said quickly. ‘What about the antiques expert?’
‘He had a thing about women’s high heeled shoes. A shoe fetish. Foot fetish as well, I suppose.’
Suzie felt totally uneducated. ‘And the actor, Gerald Vine?’
‘Similar to the squadron leader, only he preferred to be tied up and whipped. I gather that was pretty extreme. It was the one that amused her — and I think gave her a little pleasure also. In many ways I think Gerald Vine was really the love of her life. It was still going on.’
‘Okay, and Barry Forbes?’
‘More complex and strange.’
‘How strange?’
‘He likes dressing up in women’s clothes. He also likes to take two women at a time: loves dressing in smart underwear.’
‘And she supplied the other woman?’
‘Yes. Another old school friend — that’s the lesbian relationship actually. A young woman by the name of Monica Parker. She’s a leading Wren in HMS Daedalus. That’s the Royal Naval Air Station at Lee-on-Solent. In mythology Daedalus made the wings for Icarus and —’
‘The wax melted close to the sun and Icarus pranged. Yes, I know who Daedalus was.’
‘Ah, right.’ He sounded surprised that a detective sergeant knew anything about Greek mythology.
‘And Leading Wren Parker got as much fun out of it as Miss Benton?’
‘I gathered it was all mutually satisfactory.’
Suzie wondered quietly how these people felt about Jo Benton getting killed. Wondering if she’d taken their little secrets to the grave. ‘I wouldn’t have thought those kind of ...’ She scrabbled around her mind searching for a word not quite as pejorative as perverted. She wondered if she was being a bit of a prude. ‘... those kind of games,’ she supplied, ‘I wouldn’t have thought those kind of games would’ve been too embarrassing.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ Webster still had the remains of a smile on his face.
‘I think, for the time being we should go through my list,’ Suzie added quickly, deciding that she really had to do some digging, and had to read a few books: talk to Shirley perhaps. Shirley seemed a pretty knowledgeable young woman.
It took the best part of two hours to check and cross-check the names she had brought with her, from the long night with Steve Fermin, against Richard Webster’s experience and memory.
In the end Suzie and Magnus came away with a muddled picture of Jo Benton’s amorous exploits. She had been the lover of many famous stage, screen and radio stars; she had seduced, or been seduced by, a large number of powerful men. She also discovered that through Jo Benton’s affair with the fighter pilot Fordham O’Dell, Jo had met a number of high-ranking military, naval and air-force officers whom she had slept with, then discarded. Nor did it stop there. At the time of her murder she could count three members of parliament, and even one member of the cabinet, within the circle of her undoubted charms.
‘Whatever else,’ she said to Pip Magnus, as they drove u
p through Kensington on the way back to Camford, ‘I think there were a few people around who would benefit from her early death.’
‘Is it all that important, Skip?’
‘It’s pretty indiscriminate behaviour. Animal really, isn’t it? Just taking your pleasure anywhere you fancy. I’m surprised she hasn’t caught something.’
‘Maybe she has. You didn’t ask Mr Webster, and I got the impression that you really had to ask the right questions, Skip.’ Again he repeated. ‘Was any of it all that important? He’s a pouf, isn’t he?’
‘Webster?’
‘Yes, he’s a screaming pouf. A homosexual.’ He pronounced it as two words, homo sexual.
‘I don’t know. Is he?’
‘’Course he is, Skip. Sticks out a mile. You can tell at once.’
I can’t, she thought.
‘Bugger,’ she said under her breath.
Before going over to the offices of Webster and Broome, Suzie had sent Shirley off to take statements from what they were calling the hired help — Arthur Dove, the odd job man; and Minnie Shotten, who was a sort of secretary and had done bits of typing for Jo Benton.
She had seen both of them and was now back writing up her notes and getting the statements typed.
‘They’re devastated,’ she said. ‘Real old family retainer types: hearts of gold and all that. Minnie’s in her sixties but was pleased as punch to do Miss Benton’s typing — private letters and such. Bit mysterious about them. Wouldn’t say what kind of letters she did, very loyal, just spoke of them as “private”. And old Arthur Dove, I got the impression that he did a lot of stuff around that house without even being asked. Now, what’s up, Skip? You’re in Never-Never Land, aren’t you?’ Astute, that was Shirley.
‘A bit shaken up,’ Suzie acknowledged, ‘and I’ve got to report to Sanders of the River again.’
‘This is bloody rough on you, Skipper. Being landed with a visible murder like this. You want to take the evening off, come up the Palais with me and Bernie.’
‘That’s where you’re off to tonight, is it?’
‘Once I’ve got this finished.’
A constable from the front counter came down with a large, thick sealed envelope containing the post-mortem and forensic reports from Hendon.
‘Ugh! She was raped after death,’ she read aloud. ‘Male sperm in all the usual places. Cutting and the eyes were also post mortem, that’s the gist of it.’
Suzie was sickened, wanted to throw up just thinking about it. Oh Jesus, she thought, then turned it into a kind of prayer.
Shirley asked her again if she was coining out with her and Bernie the Fearless Fireman. She dropped her voice so that nobody else could hear.
Give it a minute, Shirley. She didn’t actually say it. She closed her eyes. All she could think of was the razed body of Jo Benton. Her hand was visibly shaking as she held the PM report. Like a bloody aspen leaf. Christ, she was thinking in clichés.
‘Skip?’ Shirley waiting for a reply.
She slowly opened her eyes, then thought, Why not? Bugger it, haven’t been to a dance for months. ‘You got a dress I can borrow? In my size, Shirley?’
‘Certainly, Skip. We’re much of a muchness.’
‘Then you call me Suzie once we’re off duty. And you can lend me a pair of those ritzy knickers as well, in case I get swept of my feet.’ She grinned, swallowed, banished the lurid picture from her head.
‘Down, girl,’ Shirley growled.
‘D’you think I can sneak out without seeing Sanders?’
‘It’s pretty late, Skip. Don’t you think he’s already left?’
‘Definitely, and we’ll go off to see that Josh Dance without coming back here in the morning.’ She grinned.
*
Golly had gone into the Blue Posts at midday. The landlord told him they hadn’t been in this morning, his friends Mickey the Mangle, Bruce the Bubble and Billy Joy-Joy.
‘Probably be in later, Golly. I think they were out of town last night. Said they had something quiet on out Wimbledon way.’
Golly understood, ordered a half-pint and took a look at the Star. He recognized the photograph on the front page. It was that girl from last night. And there was another girl’s photograph, taken in front of the house. He knew it was the house because he had been there a couple of times looking it over.
He read the piece carefully. They had her name there, this other girl, and she was a policeman. They had her name, Woman Detective Sergeant Suzie Mountford. She was investigating the murder.
It made Golly quite angry. His murder. His murder being investigated by a woman. He wanted to tell someone, but knew he couldn’t. Maybe he should go into the church and say a prayer. Best thing really. Tell God about it. God would understand. Golly sometimes thought that the voice he heard was God’s voice: God telling him to do what he was told to do.
He walked all the way up to All Saints, Margaret Street. He liked the smell of incense and he talked to God for a long time.
*
Suzie and Shirley enjoyed the Palais de Dance. Bernie brought another friend, Ernie, with him and Suzie danced almost every dance with him. Not really her type, she thought, but what the hell, you’re only young once and she wanted to let her hair down tonight: wash away the dirt of the murder and of Jo Benton also. She had known Jo Benton was a dirty cow by just looking at her photograph. That’s why she had asked Steve Fermin if she had a dirty sense of humour. He got angry of course.
She danced a dozen foxtrots and waltzes with Ernie, and they all went round together doing the Palais Glide as the band played ‘Poor Little Angeline’. They also did ‘the Lambeth Walk’ and ‘the Gallop’, prancing around as the band played faster and faster. Then ‘the Last Waltz’, when they danced very close to one another, and she could feel him quite hard against her as they one-two-threed it around the polished, bouncing floor, and the big glitter ball slowly revolved sending splinters of light across the waltzing couples, flicking colours through the haze of cigarette smoke.
Ernie wanted to feel her up, Suzie knew that, and she abandoned herself after a manner of speaking. She let him plunge his tongue through her lips, and she responded, let him feel inside the blouse she’d borrowed from Shirley, but pushed him away when he tried to get further, against the wall outside Shirley’s digs.
‘You’re a bloody little tease,’ Ernie whispered. ‘Come on, let me have a feel.’
‘As long as it’s only your hand,’ she said and let him. But no further. Then later, sharing Shirley’s bed she wished she had. It was terribly difficult. But that was the way she’d been brought up. Also, of course, she was terrified. No way could she afford to get pregnant and you couldn’t trust men.
Tomorrow, she thought, I’m going to take a look at this Josh Dance from whom Jo Benton rented her house.
Out in the street some soldiers, well away, sang:
Oh, this is number one
And the fun has just begun.
Roll me over, lay me down and do it again:
Roll me over, in the clover.
Roll me over, lay me down and do it again.
They wouldn’t half get some stick from Sister Martha Mary at St Helen’s, she thought. Sister Martha Mary taught English and she was dead hot on some things. ‘Hens lay,’ she would say. ‘Hens lay, and you can lay a table, but you don’t lay something down; and you don’t lay on the bed. You lie on the bed.’
Oh, but you can get laid on a bed, Sister, Suzie whispered silently. I just wish I could find the right person. Am I consumed by sexual thoughts? I think I must be. Just once, God, I want to know what it’s like. I just want something to remember it by.
And she drifted off to sleep.
To dream of a handsome young bloke she’d yet to meet ...
*
David Slaughter wondered why Emily Baccus had come back to the office at this time of night. Couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t usual and she was all dolled up to the nines in a long dress, and her
evening cloak and bag.
‘Been dancing at the Savoy, Josh. Now you turn your head away ’cos I’ve got to get changed. Got some business to do.’
Bold as brass she was tonight and Josh turned away, but made sure he could see everything reflected in the mirror by the door. Oh, he thought. Oh my. Oh, if only, oh. And he saw the long legs and the suspenders. Everything. And of course she knew it. She winked at him as she went past wearing her smart suit and the little hat; fur coat over the shoulders and, ‘Goodnight, Josh,’ she said, and blew him a kiss.
‘Oh, if only. But that was the reason for restraint ...’
*
‘Golly, you know there’s a lady policeman looking for you now?’ It was the beautiful, soft voice that he had to obey. He would come to great harm if he didn’t obey.
The voice came spearing into his head, cutting its way in through the dark and unknowing sleep.
‘Golly, listen to me. The lady policeman will do terrible things to you if she catches you. You must catch her first. Be afraid of the lady policeman. She can do away with you. Her name is Sergeant Suzie Mountford. Remember her and be afraid. I will give you the place where she lives when I come to you next time. Golly, be aware and beware. The lady policeman is terrible. You will have to get rid of her. I will tell you how and when.’
Golly had very troubled dreams that night.
In the morning he was afraid.
Afraid of the lady policeman called Suzie. He would kill her when he was told. But he was frightened. He wanted his mum. It was coming up Christmas and he always liked to see his mum round Christmas time. His mum lived in what they called an almshouse in a village not far away from a town called Andover. Not as big as London, no, but it was nice in the village. They had ducks and everything. His mum had been born there. Goldfinch her name was. Ailsa Goldfinch. Lived near Laverstock. In a cottage off the main road. Yes, he’d like to see his mum. He’d arrange it when the throaty lady gave him the orders.
Ten
Joshua Dance walked with an almost imperceptible limp. The right leg. Suzie noticed it immediately because it was more pronounced as he showed them up the stairs, walking ahead, halting a little on each tread.