No More Dying

by David Roberts

  ‘What about a cup of tea, Sheila?’ Jimmy said. ‘We’re frozen. I cannae feel my fingers.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy. With all this . . .’ she waved a hand expressively, ‘I’ve forgotten my manners.’

  While they were sipping their tea, Verity said, ‘I expect the police have already asked you but is there anything Tom said before he set out for Cliveden . . . anything about why he was going there or what he was going to do when he got there?’

  ‘I knew nothing – except that he was very worried about something. I didn’t take him seriously, I’m afraid. I just thought he was going after some girl. It’s odd, isn’t it? He was hardly Gary Cooper but he never had trouble finding girls. I suppose they liked to mother him.’

  ‘Why do you think he might have been going to Cliveden after a girl?’ Jimmy asked. ‘It doesn’t sound very likely.’

  ‘It was something he said when he came back from the paper one day last week. He said he was going to see a girl but I wasn’t to look at him like that because it was only a job.’

  ‘For the Daily Worker?’ Verity queried.

  ‘Yes,’ Jimmy answered. ‘We tried to give him work whenever we could. I remember now. He came into the office Wednesday a week ago and had a meeting with the editor and Griffiths-Jones. He had a girl with him called . . . what was her name? Some trollop . . .’

  ‘Was it Lulu?’ Verity asked.

  ‘Lulu, that’s it. She was putting on all sorts of airs and graces.’

  ‘I wonder what job Mr Rust gave him?’ Verity mused. William Rust was the paper’s editor.

  ‘I can tell you that,’ Jimmy said. ‘I suppose it was a secret but Tom wasn’t good at keeping secrets. He was going to Cliveden . . .’ He hit his head with his hand. ‘Of course! What a fool I am. I’ve only just remembered. He was at Cliveden on a story. Not after a girl at all.’ He sounded relieved.

  Verity did not challenge his assumption but thought she could see what had happened. He had gone in pursuit of Lulu and someone had wanted him out of the way.

  ‘Did he mention anyone – I mean someone he was worried about or investigating – apart from what Jimmy’s just told us, I mean?’

  ‘He had a thing about Danny O’Rourke, but you know that.’

  ‘Anyone else? Did he mention someone called Eamon Farrell or Mr Kennedy, the American Ambassador?’

  ‘The American Ambassador?’ Mrs Wintringham opened her eyes wide. ‘No. What would he be doing with Mr Kennedy?’

  ‘Nothing, I expect,’ Verity said hurriedly. ‘It was just an idea. You see, Mr Kennedy was at Cliveden.’

  ‘I see. No, well, he didn’t discuss his work with me.’

  ‘Did the police have any theories?’

  ‘They told me nothing at all. They seemed to think that just because he was a Communist he . . .’ she gulped back her tears, ‘that he got what he deserved.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Verity repeated and put her hand out to cover Mrs Wintringham’s. She paused and then asked, ‘Did the police tell you how he died?’

  ‘They said he’d been stabbed.’

  ‘Did they say anything about the knife?’

  ‘They said it was Italian.’

  ‘Italian!’ Verity was taken aback.

  ‘Well, that doesn’t mean he was killed by an Italian,’ Jimmy put in. ‘There must be plenty of Italian knives around – and guns, for that matter.’

  Verity thought for a moment. ‘I remember now.’ She shuddered. ‘I didn’t take much notice. We were all so shocked but, now I think of it, it reminded me of the type of knife I saw used in Spain. Did Tom have one?’ She saw Mrs Wintringham blanch. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wondered whether Tom might have had difficulty defending himself, taken out a knife and . . . you know, had it taken off him. Didn’t he hurt his arm in Spain?’

  ‘I never saw him with a knife like that,’ Mrs Wintringham said quickly. ‘He wasn’t a violent man. He wasn’t strong – physically, I mean. Mentally, he was strong – obstinate even. Once he had decided to do something, no one could persuade him against it.’

  Jimmy said, ‘He was shot in the arm in the Battle of the Ebro last year. It cut through the tendons in his right arm. He came home because he couldn’t fight any more. They wouldn’t even let him go on reporting the war. He was very upset – said reporting was all he was capable of doing. He used to send us dispatches from the front so you could really feel what it was like to be there.’

  ‘I know,’ Verity recalled. ‘He wrote a particularly moving piece about the Basque child refugees. He helped four thousand of them get to England. It was one of the things that inspired me to get the New Gazette behind organizing the refugee trains from Germany. They came to Stoneham, didn’t they?’

  Jimmy added, as Mrs Wintringham looked puzzled, ‘Verity – Miss Browne – helped organize trains to bring Jewish refugee children here – kindertransport, they call it. They’re still coming.’

  ‘But not enough,’ Verity added gruffly. ‘Tom wasn’t Jewish, was he, Mrs Wintringham?’

  ‘His mother was Polish and his father was English – a tailor – but they are both dead now.’

  ‘I remember him telling me that socialism was his religion. I asked him how he had become a Communist and he said he had been at the Battle of Cable Street. I was there too. It seems so long ago. We stopped Mosley and his Fascists marching through the East End and taunting the Jews.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jimmy said. ‘He joined the Labour Party’s League of Youth but, after Cable Street, he joined the Communist Party and then – like so many others – the International Brigade.’

  ‘I didn’t really approve,’ Mrs Wintringham said sadly. ‘I was always Labour. In fact, we met through the Labour Party – at one of their get-togethers. We didn’t get married immediately. We were very young – too young, my father said. Anyway, we hadn’t two pennies to rub together. Also, I knew Tom might not be a perfect husband. And I was right,’ she sighed. ‘We had just got married and he left me to go to Spain. You can imagine how I felt.’ She hugged herself, indignant at the memory.

  ‘But Megan must be . . .’

  ‘She’s five,’ Mrs Wintringham replied decisively. ‘She came a little early, like blessings should.’

  ‘And how old was he when . . .?’

  ‘He would have been thirty-six in November.’

  Before they went, Verity managed to ask if she was all right for money.

  ‘Yes, my father left us this house and a little money. I don’t know,’ she said vaguely. ‘I expect I’ll have to try and find a job.’

  As she left, Verity managed to have a brief word with Jimmy out of Mrs Wintringham’s hearing. ‘Is there nothing I can do for them, without her knowing, I mean?’

  ‘The paper has a benevolent fund. If you wanted to give something to me, I could pretend to Sheila that that was where it came from.’

  ‘Thank you, Jimmy. You’re a good man,’ she said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘I want to right a wrong if I possibly can. I made a mistake and Tom ended up paying for it. I can’t rest easy until I’ve tried to make amends.’

  7

  Before lunch, they all walked over to the cottage where they were welcomed by Dr Channing who was wearing a pullover – with, Edward thought, nothing beneath it – and white ducks with two-tone brogues. He looked as though he were on a yacht in the Mediterranean instead of an English country estate in late February. While Channing was bright-eyed and glabrous, the two girls, Lulu and Angie, appeared very much the worse for wear and complained of headaches. They were dressed in tight-fitting summer frocks and, unsurprisingly, shivered with cold. Edward felt frankly embarrassed but the rest of the party seemed to find nothing odd about the ménage.

  They were offered cocktails but Edward joined the Astors in opting for tomato juice. The Kennedy boys persuaded the girls to return to Cliveden to play table tennis – there was a table in the basement. The Ambassador tried to stop Lulu going but she stuck her
tongue out at him and called him a naughty boy. Instead of being furious, he appeared to be much amused. Edward was shocked and disgusted.

  When they strolled back to the house for lunch, they found Lothian – who had wisely remained behind to read the Sunday papers – in a high state of excitement. Inspector Voss had telephoned to report that his men had found the dead man’s missing clothes – a tweed jacket and a trench coat. Someone had attempted to burn them, not very efficiently.

  ‘Did he say where they were found?’ Edward asked.

  ‘In the swimming-pool.’

  ‘In the pool!’ Nancy – for the first time since the murder – sounded scandalized. ‘How horrible! We’ll have to have it drained and disinfected.’ She shuddered. ‘I feel my house is tainted by all this.’ She waved her hands theatrically.

  Edward was glad that Verity wasn’t with them to hear what she would certainly have interpreted as blame for bringing death with her.

  ‘So it looks as though he must have been murdered somewhere on the estate,’ Lord Astor opined. ‘How beastly. I hope Voss is up to this, my dear, or do you think we should insist on getting someone in from the Yard? I know a very good man there by the name of Pride.’

  ‘Yes,’ Edward said drily, ‘I know Chief Inspector Pride. However, country police inspectors don’t take kindly to someone going over their head.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with the Chief Constable,’ Lord Astor said. ‘He’ll see that it’s the right thing to do.’ He went off to make his telephone call.

  Lunch was a sober affair and, when Lee had served coffee in the drawing-room, Edward thought he could decently slip away. Just as he was about to interrupt Nancy, who was in the middle of one of her tirades on the subject of equal pay for women, Kennedy said in his ear, ‘What say you and I walk round the golf course? I’m going crazy sitting here listening to our hostess. You noticed that Lothian and our host slid off to the library where I guess we’re not welcome.’

  ‘Golf? I’m afraid it’s not one of my games, Ambassador.’

  ‘Hey, stop this “Ambassador” stuff. Call me Joe.’

  ‘Well, as I say, I play very badly and I didn’t bring any clubs or . . .’

  ‘Just a stroll round the course. I’ll lend you what you need. Kick and the boys are going back to town. There’s some party tonight they don’t want to miss even though I reminded them it’s a Sunday. Call me a prude but I don’t approve of dancing and drinking on this day of the week.’ Edward’s gorge rose at the hypocrisy of the man but he managed to keep silent. ‘But they don’t listen to their pa,’ he continued. ‘I can’t blame them. I never did. Washington, my chauffeur, will caddy for us.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Edward said, realizing what an opportunity had presented itself for having a private word with him. ‘My man, Fenton, will give Washington a hand.’

  ‘What’s that, Joe?’ Lord Astor had returned to the drawing-room. ‘You’re not thinking of playing a round at Huntercombe without a caddy? It’s not Swinley, of course, but they won’t like it, you know. You’ll want a course guide, though, even if you don’t have a caddy. Why not take Wooster?’ Wooster was Lord Astor’s black Labrador. ‘He knows the course backwards. I always take him. Besides, he needs a leg stretch.’

  As Edward had said, he did not play golf on a regular basis and was not a member of any club although, when he did play, his straight eye meant that he never disgraced himself. Many of his friends at Brooks’s were keen golfers and he had dined at White’s with the Match Club – an exclusive gathering of golf’s aristocracy. Huntercombe – a course he had never visited before – was twenty minutes away, and as the Cadillac, with Washington driving and Fenton sitting beside him, purred along the almost empty lanes, he remarked, ‘A magnificent automobile, Joe. A bit too large for our roads but . . . well, magnificent. I was talking to Washington about it before lunch and he showed me round it. By the way, we found some spectacles of yours which someone had smashed.’

  ‘Spectacles . . .? Oh yes, my reading glasses, but I have several pairs.’

  They swooped past a man on his horse who cursed them.

  ‘This car is bigger than many people’s houses, Joe.’

  Kennedy chuckled. ‘I guess so. You know,’ he said proudly, ‘one of the perquisites of being Ambassador in this great country of yours is that I have an honorary membership of most of the top clubs.’ Conspiratorially, he added, ‘I’m glad we managed to give Casey the slip. I’m not supposed to go on jaunts without him. I feel like a kid playing truant.’

  ‘You mean . . .?’

  ‘In case someone takes a pot shot at me. I’m not quite as popular as I once was, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.’

  ‘This is England, Joe,’ Edward said, shocked. Then, remembering that this was precisely the threat Winston Churchill faced, he added, ‘Actually, that was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. You know I’m a friend of Mr Churchill’s . . .?’

  ‘Indeed!’ Kennedy snorted. ‘Why is it that wherever I go people talk to me about Winston? I tell you, he’s a warmonger. Without him stirring up hatred of Germany, England might not be facing annihilation.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there, sir,’ Edward said firmly, retreating into formality. ‘Anyway, I was going to say that Mr Churchill has received a death threat – I suppose in these terrible times other politicians have too, but this is one the security services have had to take seriously. Mr Churchill, also, is not popular with a great many people.’

  ‘What’s that to do with me?’ Kennedy looked as though he wished he weren’t trapped in a car with this English aristocrat.

  Edward ploughed on, knowing he was getting nowhere and was merely antagonizing the man whose goodwill he needed.

  ‘Well, sir, there seems to be a connection with the American Embassy.’

  ‘The embassy? Hi! Wait a minute, who are you?’ The Ambassador gave Edward a fierce glare. ‘You’re from Mr Churchill or . . . wait, I’ve got it! You’re a secret service agent. Casey warned me against you. I see it now. He was suspicious about you from the beginning. Don’t try and deny it. You and your precious fiancée wormed your way into Cliveden and into the good graces of the Astors to get to me. I’m right, aren’t I? I guess I’ll stop the car and you can walk back.’

  He leant forward to pull open the glass partition but Edward put a hand on his arm. ‘Please, Joe, I’m not employed by the secret service or by anybody. I’m just a friend and admirer of Mr Churchill’s. Yes, I wanted to meet you and ask for your help, just as your son would do anything he could if he thought your life was in danger.’

  Kennedy hesitated but was still angry. ‘He sent you to spy on me?’

  ‘No, not at all – it’s just that . . .’

  ‘Why didn’t he ask me himself? He knows me. I don’t bite.’

  ‘He won’t take it seriously – the threat, I mean – but I’m told the security service does.’ Edward was being deliberately vague about which service he was in touch with.

  ‘You think an American wants to kill Winston? That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘It may not be an American. Our people have reason to believe that someone in the embassy knows about it. That’s all.’

  ‘Have you talked to Casey? If there’s anything in it, he would know.’

  ‘Casey was as sceptical as you when I raised it with him at dinner the other night. That’s why he hasn’t mentioned it to you, I suppose.’

  ‘But you believe he’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s too important for us to take chances. I realize you don’t agree, sir, but we feel that, in the event of war with Germany, Mr Churchill is our only hope.’

  ‘So you think it’s a Nazi threat?’

  ‘We can’t be sure of that. It might be the IRA or the Ghada Party. The Germans might have decided to use some other group to do their dirty work for them. The information we have – and it’s very sketchy – emanates from Berlin.’

  ‘What the hell is the G
hada Party?’

  ‘An Indian independence movement, so I’m told.’

  ‘And you think someone at the American Embassy . . .?’

  ‘Or someone your people know . . .’

  ‘You think we would countenance such a thing?’

  ‘No, of course not, but I thought you might ask Casey to make some inquiries. He won’t do anything without your express authority.’

  At that moment, the Cadillac drew up in front of the Huntercombe clubhouse and Edward sprang out, almost tripping over Wooster as he did so. It was a relief to be in the fresh air. At least, he thought, he had not been thrown out of the car. But what would happen now? He stretched and looked around him. On a different occasion, he might have found this beautiful place relaxing. Huntercombe, five miles west of Henley, was owned by Lord Nuffield. It had been designed by Willie Park Jr and opened in 1901. It had an exclusive membership and a reputation as one of the finest inland courses in the country.

  ‘Would you like me to return to the house, sir?’ he asked Kennedy as Washington held the car door open for his master. He was conscious that both Washington and Fenton were looking at them curiously, sensing that there had been some sort of a quarrel.

  ‘No, I guess not,’ Kennedy said grumpily. ‘That is, unless you’re going to ask me any more damn foolish questions.’

  ‘I promise . . .’ Edward grinned and, after a moment’s consideration, Kennedy nodded his head.

  The Ambassador was obviously expected and Edward guessed that Lee had telephoned ahead to warn the club that he was descending on them. They were greeted respectfully by Jim Morris, the long-serving Pro, and offered caddies, but to the visible annoyance of the Caddy Master, who saw a handsome tip slip away, Kennedy grunted that they would use his chauffeur and Fenton. Edward added, apologetically, that they were just going to walk the course – not play a proper round.

  A few members looked at them with interest but there was something in the Ambassador’s face which made them hesitate to greet him. Kennedy was dressed in a gaudy Fair Isle jersey, plus-fours and two-tone shoes with a tartan cap on his head. Edward had removed his jacket and borrowed a jersey from Lord Astor but was otherwise in his normal clothes. As Washington sorted out clubs, Kennedy took out a scorecard and Edward suddenly realized that he intended to take the game seriously.