Bottled Spider

by John Gardner

  As it happened they did get some strange stares from the military diners and their ladies. But the food made up for the iffy looks.

  You didn’t often come across lobster in London at this point in the winter of 1940, Suzie considered, and the roast beef was rare in every sense.

  Dandy Tom made his pitch almost as soon as they sat down. He had his leather notebook to the right of his place setting, the gold fountain pen next to it. ‘Not done,’ he smiled. ‘Not really the done thing. Business at the dinner table.’ Then — ‘How would you care to work directly to me, Suzie?’

  ‘Meaning exactly what, Guv’nor?’ She had dressed up for the night out: a turquoise frock with a slim skirt and a nipped-in bodice with some frogging in a slightly darker shade up the front, like a hussar, all of it done in an imitation raw silk. Dandy Tom said it suited her and that she looked very nice and tonight they’d be slumming it at the Ritz, which thrilled Suzie who had wanted to be dined at the Ritz since she had first seen its colonnade at the age of twelve.

  But tonight Detective Chief Superintendent Livermore seemed to be all business from the moment the head waiter led them over, oozing charm and telling Dandy Tom that they had given him his usual table and madam looked particularly enchanting tonight. But really Suzie didn’t get to savour the event. Dandy Tom was still lovely, but any sense of a flirtation had disappeared.

  You old tease, she thought, got me here under false pretences. ‘Meaning what exactly, Guv’nor?’ she repeated: cautious and wary, looking up and seeing Tommy tapping his lower teeth with the capped end of his fountain pen, lost in thought.

  ‘She’s a very wary girl,’ Tommy said later to the Commander (Crime), and the woman police super in charge of A4, the one with the kipper-coloured hands who had given Suzie her marching orders from Scotland Yard. ‘Very cautious, which is a good thing.’

  In the here and now, having dinner at the Ritz he answered her. ‘Meaning that you’d be groomed for stardom, young Suzie. We’d be covering murder mainly, which is what I do best. We’d do the cream of the crop here in the Metropolitan area. Sometimes, out in the sticks as well.’

  ‘Do I have any option?’

  ‘Not really, heart. You’ve more or less been working for me since you got yourself posted to Camford.’

  Tommy Livermore thought it was time to tell her what had been going on. It had started back in June or July. ‘Some of us felt we should look to the far future.’

  It was at the time when each day was expected to bring squadrons of gliderborne nuns with submachine-guns, or regiments of priests with grenade launchers parachuting into the British channel ports, and shiploads of Nazis, Sieg Heiling their way up the beaches. At first light and dusk the aged, frail, maimed and the boys not old enough for the military had to stand-to with their home-made pikes and ancient weapons.

  ‘It was before what we’re now calling the Battle of Britain, and some of us felt a bit sick at the way we’d been jumped. Angry about the manner in which we’d been caught off guard and the way Hitler had bounced us out with our trousers down, so to speak. After France we were left to bungle our way out. Everyone said, “There go the Brits, muddling through as usual.” Not really an enviable reputation.’

  ‘Well, there was Dunkirk,’ Suzie countered brightly, ‘and we seem to be left with a better reputation than the French.’

  ‘Not difficult, but it would have been better still if we hadn’t boasted about hanging the laundry on the Siegfried Line. And Suzie —’ a cautionary finger wagged — ‘never confuse a successful retreat with victory.’

  None of them, his colleagues, ever doubted victory in the end, but it was going to be a long haul — maybe eight or even nine years. One of them had said that, in order to win the war they should start building the peace here and now. It was going to be a very different world after they’d cleaned that bluebird mess off the White Cliffs of Dover.

  ‘We expect one of the changes’ll be our attitude towards women, and we should start behaving differently straight away. Now. Because when peace breaks out a lot of women’re going to want the same rights as men: a real education and a chance to do the same jobs: the kind of jobs they’re doing now — and more. There are diverse views of course, but a lot of people agree that’s how it’s going to be.’

  ‘Who’s we?’ she asked. ‘We as in those who’re seeing the future in their crystal balls, telling the tea leaves, reading the runes. I mean you, sir, obviously, but who else?’

  ‘The woman superintendent in charge of A4; the Commander (Crime): and myself to begin with. There are others, just as there are also quite a few people who don’t see it our way.’

  ‘And you’re doing what, sir?’

  He said that by the end of the war most large organizations, civilian and paramilitary — like the Met — would want to contain a well-trained and experienced corps of women. ‘Women who’ve been at the sharp end. Who’ve got some time in, got their knees brown, their hands dirty and their brains in gear.’ What they needed to do at this moment was sort out the available chaff from the useable wheat. ‘We’ve got to steer the most likely girls on a fast track. Give them a couple of years lead. Put them ahead and see how quickly they sink or swim.’

  ‘And you’re suggesting that I’m one of the class of 1940?’

  ‘Heart, you are the class of 1940. We picked six of you, pulled you in from the typewriters, the tea makers, the duty cells, the kiddie patrol, the whore minding, the nursing and doing the inspector’s shopping on a Wednesday afternoon. We shoved half-a-dozen of you out into a whole rack of divisions, under some of the hardest cases in the Met. Then we sat back and watched. We’re doing the same thing in January with a new half-dozen, God help them.

  ‘As for your lot, four of the girls folded in a month, the fifth is about to crumble any minute. Couldn’t take it, didn’t like the atmosphere, felt they couldn’t slap a detective inspector’s face when he stuck his hand up their drawers; didn’t like it when the men tweaked their titties, or patted their soft little bums. You name it, they couldn’t deal with it, so the problems run both ways. Mind you there was one whose head was turned by the promotion. Thought it meant bitching at everyone and being an unbearable martinet.’

  Some of his remarks were a bit frank and open for Suzie who felt a flush rising from behind her ears and spreading, crimson, down her cheeks.

  ‘You, on the other hand, heart, you got a break.’ Pause and a big smile for the Movietone News cameras. ‘You lost Big Toe Harvey and took over a headline murder; and I for one think you’ve done bloody well.’

  She wanted to tell him that she’d not really done that well. She’d wanted to give up on the interviews, wanted to run away and not ask the real questions. ‘I didn’t know what questions I should ask,’ she said. ‘Hopeless. Interviewing those blokes and all I found out was that Jo Benton was a libertine whose idea of a good time was having a roll in the hay with a new man — or one she’d known since childhood. I was about as useful as a chocolate cigarette.’

  She had taken against the boyfriend, Fermin, didn’t care for any of the others either, and made a lot of mistakes, antagonized people. ‘As for the problems going both ways, that’s not fair.’ She got quite bolshie, ‘Women in the Met are totally outnumbered. And the men have never been seriously challenged when it comes to the way they behave when the girls are around. The men don’t really like taking orders from a woman, that was obvious. They don’t even like us being right about decisions.’

  Dandy Tom said that would work itself out. ‘They have the same problems in HM Forces, Navy, Army and Air Force. The girls do their best. Show spunk. Damn good, the girl officers and NCOs.’ He had been to a conference where they’d come to the conclusion that all they needed was time. ‘Girls settled down quickly. Bit keck-handed some of them, but they had male recruits who were just as bad.’

  She thought of Big Toe — I hold a firm belief that women drivers all have two left arms and three left feet. Then the moment whe
n she’d got into the papers. Not the kind of publicity we either like or countenance, Sanders of the River had told her. She passed this on to Tommy Livermore now and he gave a deep belly chuckle.

  ‘Idiot.’ He scowled for a moment. ‘Just the kind of idiot we’ve got to change. Sort of fellow who wants to keep women in what he thinks is their place — in bed, pregnant or chained to the kitchen sink. But the papers were wonderful, Sue. Played straight into our hands. Really lacked finesse, the silly buggers, toeing the line. Remember what I said?’

  ‘You said they’d make up things about their grandmothers if it helped sell papers, and they’d make up things about me.’

  ‘Quite. And now you should know that I was instructing Mr Sanders to go easy on you and let you have your head. He was obviously taking no notice of me.’

  He gave a big aristocratic grin.

  The Pears Belle Helene arrived. Just like any other Saturday night dinner with the nobs.

  ‘So what happens now, Guv?’

  ‘Nothing earth shattering. You go off and interview the Fighter Ace, what’s-his-name ...?’

  ‘Squadron Leader Fordham O’Dell DFC.’

  ‘Him. Yes. Who you don’t really need to see.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ Hell, she thought. The jig’s up.

  ‘Because he couldn’t have been near Gorham Cross Road, because there he was with his squadron at Middle Wallop Aerodrome fighting the Hun. Nobody there has had leave over the past month.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but someone’s got to have a word with him.’

  ‘I quite agree, young Suzie with a zed.’ He lifted his eyes, under the lids, squinting up in a look that said now we are in league with one another. ‘You know it’s not going to be the full interview with stuff being taken down and used in evidence, because you’re not taking anyone to RAF Middle Wallop, someone to sit in on the interview, as it were. I don’t blame you, it’s only a spit and a stride from your sister’s place after all.’

  Then, slowly she asked. ‘And after Christmas?’

  ‘You go back to Camford, and tell nobody about this conversation. In a week or so I’ll arrive and take over the investigation —’

  ‘With the full team ...?’

  ‘With some of the team.’

  ‘Molly Abelard?’

  ‘Try and stop her.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘She’s my biggest fan, heart.’

  ‘It shows, sir.’

  ‘Don’t be too hasty about Abelard. She’s my secret weapon, and she’s the best-educated girl we’ve got — I mean the best-educated girl we’ve got in the entire Met. Knows every damn thing from Shakespeare to Shagnasty, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

  ‘And where were you educated, Guv’nor?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Eton and Oxford, she thought. In the nursery they’d told him. Tommy you’re going to be one of the great rulers. Whatever you do you’re going to be boss, and you’re going to be at the front. Sun never sets on the Empire — the red colouring on the map. Keep the red inside the lines, Tommy.

  There were other things he asked her to do. ‘Let me take a look at la Benton’s address book — all the stuff you’ve told me about. I’ll go through it and we’ll quietly have a look at every one of her friends and acquaintances. I’ll set the lads on them — and the lasses as well. Maybe even take a peep myself.’

  ‘Who’re we really interested in, Guv?’ She accepted a cigarette, and he lit it for her.

  ‘It’s an inside job.’ He sounded almost disinterested, meaning the involvement of someone close to her.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Smells like it. I don’t think some passing homicidal maniac thought, Ah, I’ll try this house. Don’t think it’s a burglary gone wrong, either.’

  ‘With respect, sir. You haven’t been to the scene of crime.’

  ‘I’ll get over there soon. Scrutinize. Have a dig around. Let the lads have a bit of a rootle, tie up the loose ends, but it smells as though someone set this up. Somebody wanted her dead and didn’t want to hang around waiting for the right bomb.’ Pause, the fountain pen gently tapping his teeth again, as though he was trying to remember something.

  He remembered — ‘Oh yes, heart. Bit of a mystery. That fellow Dance. Josh Dance.’

  ‘The estate agent?’

  ‘Little oddity. He telephoned Camford nick this afternoon. Said to your friend Shirley that Emily Baccus couldn’t be dead because she was in his office very late Friday night, or early this morning. Quite steamed up about it. Not urgent, but you might have a word with him. Needs clearing up.’

  It was real coffee they served at the Ritz as well. Nothing like the muck she’d had in Selfridges this morning. She wondered where the devil they got all that good stuff. The lobster? Beef? Pears?

  ‘Tinned pears,’ the DCS said as though reading her mind.

  ‘You do the Tarot as well?’ she asked.

  ‘Only when there’s no R in the month.’

  ‘And my future’s mapped out then, Chief Superintendent?’

  ‘If you can do it, you stand every chance of ending up as a very senior woman officer, yes. But only if you have the application. Desire — application — attention — single-mindedness. If you can fill the unforgiving minute ... Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it ... And — which is more — you’ll be a Woman, my girl. Or something like that, heart.’

  ‘Better than old Rudyard’s original.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The pause that was a part of his style. ‘Now, heart — ’ again a pause — ‘now, there’s the question of Emily Baccus’s death.’

  He’d got the post-mortem results. She looked hard into his face, loved the tiny trembling of his lips as he smiled, saw how the eyebrows moved and the length of his eyelashes, and how they curved upwards. A woman would give a lot for lashes like that.

  Using one finger, he slid a three-by-four black and white photograph across the crisp damask tablecloth. ‘Picked it up in her flat and had some copies run off. Hang on to it. Just to remind you. We may need to trace her movements over the last hours of her life.’

  The final face, in its hideous death grin, only hinted at the in-life attractiveness, but there it was, in sharp focus, and the snub button nose seemed to be the only flaw. A looker, possibly Greek, Turkish maybe. Hadn’t delved into that, the lineage, but she was certainly attractive. Very attractive. She reminded Suzie of somebody. The face was very familiar but she couldn’t place where she knew her from, this Emily Baccus who owned a couple of properties on the edge of Soho and collected her own rents.

  ‘And she didn’t die from a crushed windpipe, Guv?’

  ‘Much more sophisticated. Been dead for a couple of days when we found her. Been drinking. Quite a lot of chloral in her as well as brandy. Enough chloral to send her bye-byes. And someone topped her up with morphine. Heavy and high dose. The kind of dosage they’re now giving officers and NCOs to take on to the battlefield: to kill the pain for serious wounds. That and the alcohol did it. Also some geezer had pulled hard on that bit of wire but it broke nothing. Didn’t do a thing. She wouldn’t have suffered. Got a bit drunk and slipped off to sleep. Woke up in the next world.’

  Between discussing the way Emily Baccus had died, telling her about the course they’d mapped out for her. Dandy Tom asked about her mother, the Galloping Stepfather, as he called the Major, her baby brother and her sister.

  ‘Like two peas in a pod, I hear,’ he said.

  ‘Heard from whom?’

  ‘I get about, Suzie. Maybe I sent Abelard to Newbury and had her ask around. I’m prone to do things like that.’

  ‘Nothing would surprise me, sir.’

  ‘And what about Big Toe Harvey?’

  ‘What about him, Guv?’

  ‘Just tell me the truth. Nothing’ll end up on your shoes.’

  ‘Harvey? Local boy makes good. You know he comes from Camford?’

  ‘I’d hea
rd.’

  ‘I could never prove it, but I think he does a bit of billing and cooing with childhood friends.’

  ‘Anything I should be concerned about?’

  ‘Not unless your name’s Mrs Harvey.’

  ‘And what else?’

  She counted to herself. Twenty-five. It was something she had done most of her life. If I count to twenty-five and he hasn’t asked again I don’t have to tell him.

  ‘What else d’you feel about Harvey? Like him?’

  ‘He’s a bully boy at heart.’

  ‘And ...?’

  ‘He could be bent, sir.’ She regretted saying it, so — ‘I shouldn’t have said that, Guv. I couldn’t prove it in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘You just have a feeling about it, right?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. You come to the Ritz often, Guv?’

  ‘It’s my local, heart.’

  ‘Must be a bit steep on a detective chief super’s pay.’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky, Sue.’ He meant it because she felt a draught of ice flick from his eyes and saw a shadow cross his face.

  When they reached the building off Upper St Martin’s Lane he told the cabby to wait while he showed the lady to her door. He came up with her, but stood outside.

  ‘You alright?’

  She nodded, wanted him to kiss her so much, and knew there was no chance. Wondered what it would be like. And waited in hope. Wanted to feel his body close to hers. Waited in vain.

  ‘You have a happy Christmas, then, heart.’

  ‘And you, sir.’

  He leaned forward and put a card in her hand. She could smell lemons. Scented bath soap, she thought. How smashing.

  ‘You’ll get me there from Christmas Eve until about eight on Boxing Day evening,’ he said, looking at the card.

  She glanced down and saw that he had written a telephone number in blue ink. ‘Thought you were giving me the Black Spot, Guv.’

  ‘You’d know it if I was. That’s just in case anything comes up after you’ve talked to O’Dell. Just if there’s anything you feel we’ve got to act on immediately.’

  ‘I’ll try not to bother you, Guv’nor.’ Pause. ‘This the country seat, then?’ she asked, and waited for the steam to come out of his ears.