No More Dying

by David Roberts

  She was rather frightened of Mr Kennedy and would be glad when it was all over. If he ever found out that she was bait for blackmail, she thought he might kill her. They had met in the flat in Curzon Street – conveniently near the embassy – which David had provided and she had ensured that the photographs, which had been taken through a two-way mirror, were quite explicit. Lulu prayed fervently that neither Kennedy nor David discovered that she had also slept with the Ambassador’s twenty-two-year-old son, Jack. She knew all hell would break loose if that ever came out. Jack did not love her, she knew. She was just an ‘easy lay’ – he had told her so with icy contempt – but, despite the way he treated her, she adored him. He was so handsome, but that wasn’t it. He had an attraction that grew – paradoxically – from his coldness. He never seemed to question his charm. He knew he could have her – would have her – from the moment he had set eyes on her at that dinner at Cliveden. It wasn’t important to him but it was convenient. Lulu was one of those girls who found that sort of arrogance irresistible.

  As Joe Kennedy slipped out of the flat into a waiting car – not the Cadillac, he wasn’t that stupid – and told Washington to take him back to the embassy, he did not know that he would never see Lulu again. Her duty done, she would disappear. What had David said when he had ordered her to seduce the old man and she had demurred? ‘Lie back and think of England.’ She had guessed it was some sort of joke and had tried to laugh.

  Chief Inspector Pride looked at Edward gloomily. They were in his cramped, spartan office at the Yard discussing whether there was a connection between the murders and the possible attack on Churchill. ‘Between ourselves, Lord Edward, Voss would have done well to have invited me to take over the case right at the start. These country coppers can never resist the temptation to show off, as though investigating a murder case was not very different to arresting a “drunk and disorderly”. He’s gathered very little evidence and his interviews with the staff and guests at Cliveden were inadequate.’

  ‘I doubt he could have done more without causing the most frightful fuss, Chief Inspector. As it is, the papers have had a field day. Mr Kennedy cannot understand why they have turned on him so savagely since the Munich Agreement. And then my presence didn’t help. Was I investigating something murky, they want to know? Or was I part of the so-called Cliveden Set? Well, no doubt you read the beastly rags. A combination of the Astors and the Kennedys topped with Cliveden conspiracy theories – I think we were lucky to get away without being lynched. If Voss had impounded Kennedy’s Cadillac because he suspected it had been used to transfer Wintringham’s body from wherever he was murdered to the pavilion, the press would have slavered at the mouth. I imagine the Foreign Office would have had a few things to say about damaging our relations with the United States.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Pride said, sounding even more gloomy. ‘It always doubles the difficulty when I have to investigate a crime where public figures are involved and the United States Ambassador is one of the biggest fishes I’ve ever had to interview.’

  ‘Did you ask him about the spectacles in the boot of the Cadillac? He told me they were one of his pairs of reading glasses, but then he would.’

  ‘I didn’t. He would hardly have confessed that they belonged to Wintringham. It would just have increased his suspicion that we were trying to pin something on him.’

  ‘And it would have put me in a difficult position because he would have known that I was the source of any evidence against him. He suspected I worked for Liddell’s mob and I had to do a good deal of spadework to convince him I didn’t. I don’t want him now to think I’m just a “copper’s nark”. I think that’s the phrase, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s the phrase. I certainly don’t want to queer your pitch. At the moment, you are our best chance of getting information out of him. You say you found his chauffeur cleaning the Cadillac?’

  ‘Very thoroughly,’ Edward agreed.

  ‘And the chauffeur found Farrell’s body?’

  ‘Strictly speaking, Wooster, Lord Astor’s Labrador, found it. Washington and Fenton were caddying for us so Washington was the first person to see the body, but would he have “found” it if he had actually murdered the man?’

  ‘He might have if he wanted to throw suspicion on Mr Kennedy.’

  ‘The logistics don’t work unless he had a partner in crime. He was with us in the car and then was never out of my sight. He couldn’t have been ferrying a corpse around at the same time.’

  ‘Who knew that you and Kennedy were going to Huntercombe to play golf?’

  ‘Anyone at Cliveden. Lord Astor – or rather his butler – rang the club secretary so there would be no trouble about us playing a round even though neither of us is a member. I say, Chief Inspector, are you sure Farrell wasn’t murdered where he was found? Did Voss establish when he was last seen alive?’

  Pride looked through Voss’s notes. ‘He was last seen about an hour before you went off to play golf. Where he was in that hour we have yet to discover. As for the time of death, the doctor says it is very difficult to estimate how long Farrell had been dead. It was a cold day, as you remember, and you noticed that his body was cold yet there was no rigor mortis. The doctor says Farrell was probably killed about an hour before he was found but it’s little more than a guess. It’s not an exact science.

  ‘The body was taken to the golf course in a car or van,’ he continued, reading from Voss’s notes. ‘Before you ask, no one saw a van or car and the tyre prints weren’t clear. Photographs and casts were taken but won’t be conclusive.’

  ‘The gardener thinks Dr Channing’s car was used to transport Wintringham’s body to the Blenheim Pavilion. He rang me to say he thought the tyre marks outside the pavilion were from his car.’

  The Chief Inspector raised his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘I don’t know – even the gardener turns out to have been a better detective than Voss. I’ve had the forensic boys go over the car but they found nothing conclusive – nothing that would stand up in court. As far as Farrell’s body is concerned, it could have been trans ported in Mr Kennedy’s Cadillac. It could have been taken in Channing’s Ford. It might have been taken in a completely different car. Unfortunately the ground was dry and we couldn’t follow the tracks very far. However, there’s a quiet lane leading from the eleventh hole to the village but we’ve found no one in the village who has admitted to seeing a car or anything unusual last Sunday.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector, for sharing all this with me. Voss wouldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘It is irregular but we have – what shall I say? – co-operated on several occasions in the past and I think, with your entrée to the Astors and the Kennedys, you should be able to help us.’

  Edward nodded. ‘So both the victims were transported from where they were murdered to where their bodies were found. No clue . . . nothing has been found near either body which could tell us anything about their murderers?’

  ‘Nothing, Lord Edward, and I rather doubt we are going to get lucky and find something. The murderer has had ample time to clean up and destroy anything incriminating.’

  ‘The golf course has been searched?’

  ‘With a fine-tooth comb.’

  ‘What have you learnt about Farrell, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘I suppose it’s not surprising but I can’t help noticing that the Kennedys aren’t interested in Wintringham’s murder but they are cut up about Farrell’s. He was almost one of the family. Kennedy relied on him to get him a good press and he would have been particularly useful now. Kennedy was a friend of his father’s and had to telephone him to break the news. It can’t have been an easy call to make. One thing though – for what it’s worth, Farrell was homosexual.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Edward was surprised. ‘I thought he was in love with Kick Kennedy.’

  Pride shrugged. ‘Maybe he worshipped her without any . . . you know, sexual feelings.’

  It was the ne
arest Edward had ever seen him to showing embarrassment.

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose. Have you found out about any . . .’ he hesitated and settled for, ‘friends of his?’

  ‘As far as we can tell, he lived a celibate life over here but in Boston it was well known that he had “leanings” in that direction. Mr Kennedy made no secret of it. He said Farrell’s father had sent him as a young man to doctors and psychiatrists but none of them had been able to cure him.’

  ‘Kennedy told you that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Edward meditated. ‘I don’t think it can be “cured”. It can be suppressed, of course, but that can lead to all sorts of psychological problems.’

  ‘It’s against the law,’ Pride reminded him.

  ‘Yes, and I’m inclined to think the law is an ass. Be that as it may, could Farrell have been murdered in some sort of mix-up with either a lover or someone who was going to get it into the press?’

  ‘But why would they do that?’

  ‘To embarrass Kennedy? The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that all this is aimed at harming Kennedy.’

  ‘And you could be right at that,’ Pride agreed.

  10

  As the cab cut through Belgrave Square, Verity mused on the two very different Londons which existed in the same city, each totally ignorant of the other. It was not yet nine o’clock and the square was still empty. A few bowler-hatted, overcoated gentlemen, briefcase in hand, strode purposefully towards Sloane Square to catch a bus or the Tube, although in this area most were collected by chauffeur-driven cars rather later in the morning. Doorsteps had already been scrubbed and there was no life to be seen or heard behind the heavy doors and windows – some still shuttered – which, blind and hostile, seemed determined to ignore the world outside.

  She had no difficulty imagining the ladies of the house hold still abed – not even breakfasted – and certainly not ready to begin the laborious daily endeavour of hiding the advancing years behind elaborate but discreetly applied make-up. If there were small children, they would be breakfasting in the nursery before Nanny took them out, the babies in perambulators large and heavy enough to intimidate anyone in their way. The grandest baby carriages bore the family coat of arms and the nannies wore starched uniforms. Slightly older children, smartly dressed in coats and hats never to be muddied in boisterous play, would walk beside the pram, perhaps trying not to walk on the cracks between the paving stones in case the bears got them. The older children would be dropped off at exclusive nursery schools in the New King’s Road.

  Less than a mile away, in Victoria and Pimlico, children of an altogether different class would be shivering in cellars and vermin-infested rooms, perhaps several siblings to a bed, with little prospect of breakfast or schooling, condemned to a life of poverty and deprivation. On the other hand, if they survived infancy, they enjoyed a freedom undreamed of by the children of Belgravia. They could play in the street from morning to night the age-old games of the poor – hopscotch and tag – skipping to rhymes so ancient as to be unintelligible even to the children who chanted them.

  Verity believed in social mobility and equal opportunity but was well aware that the class system was rigid and power was concentrated in the hands of the few. These might be civilized and benignant like Edward – people hard to dislike – but she firmly believed this was wrong and that it was necessary to bring about a revolution in society whatever the cost. So what was she doing marrying into the class she so despised? It was a conundrum to which she had no answer and she was dreading another meeting with David Griffiths-Jones.

  He was steel to her soft lead. He would not hesitate to accuse her of apostasy but neither would he hesitate to use her position in society for the sake of the Party, which he equated with the historical imperative. It did not worry him that the Communist Party had lost most of the popular support it had gained during the General Strike. To its leaders, popularity was at best irrelevant or at worst a distraction. A Communist government in Britain would never be won at the ballot box and Labour had now established itself as the visible champion of the working class. David had agreed with Verity when she said that the working class was innately conservative and suspicious of change. The proletariat had to be ‘mobilized’ – a favourite word of his – and made to see where its future lay. He would point to the way in which the Bolsheviks – a tiny splinter party – had instigated and led a revolution in Russia. He sincerely if, in Verity’s view, mistakenly believed that a ‘coup’ of this kind was possible in England.

  He had summoned her to a meeting to discuss Wintringham’s murder and find out if she had made herself, as he had instructed, one of Kennedy’s trusted intimates. He said he had a message he wanted her to give him – a message he could hardly give her over the telephone. As Party headquarters were under continuous surveillance by Special Branch, they were meeting at Ransom Street.

  When the cab stopped outside George Castle’s lodging, it was immediately surrounded by small children – street Arabs – unused to seeing respectable folk alighting from cars or even taxis in their neighbourhood. Just a few streets away outside Heal’s in the Tottenham Court Road cabs stood in ranks, and in Fitzroy Square the houses were substantial and their owners prosperous middle class, but the world of these children encompassed little more than three or four streets from which they seldom if ever strayed.

  ‘Why a cab?’ David asked crossly as he took her coat. ‘If anyone were watching, they would have noticed you arriving.’

  ‘So what?’ Verity answered defiantly. ‘I’m not ashamed of being seen here. Hello, George,’ she said, wondering if she dared kiss him but deciding that it was better just to shake his hand. ‘Where’s Mary?’

  ‘She’s at work and that’s where I’m going once the kettle has boiled and I’ve made you a nice cup of tea. You look perished.’

  ‘It is cold,’ she agreed, ‘and since . . . since I’ve been ill I do seem to feel the cold.’

  If David recognized this as a plea for sympathy, he ignored it. ‘You should have come by Tube. It’s perfectly warm. I despair of you sometimes, Verity. Well, come in and sit down.’

  George brought her tea in a mug, which she held in both hands to warm herself. There would be no fires in Ransom Street until the evening and then only a few coals smouldering in the tiny grate. When George had left for work, slamming the door behind him, David made Verity recount in detail exactly what had happened since they had last met.

  ‘So you think Wintringham came to Cliveden to see you?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ She looked at him speculatively. He was still very good-looking but he appeared noticeably older than when they had been lovers. There were creases in his face and his hair was thinning. She wondered if the constant travel – he was never in one place for more than a few days at a time – and the absence of any sort of home life were beginning to take its toll. So far as she knew, he had no woman in his life and the knowledge that, at least in this country, his movements were monitored by the security services must be a terrible strain.

  How could it be otherwise? He protected himself by developing a carapace beneath which no one was allowed to probe. His eyes were steel blue and his gaze was steady but she detected a tiny tremor in one hand when he lifted his mug of tea. He wasn’t the same man she had met five years ago and there was a moment when she wanted to soothe him. The impulse faded as quickly as it had come. She had always been rather frightened of him. It had been part of his attraction but now she was frankly scared. What would he do if she told him she had decided to leave the Party? To what would he not resort to protect himself? Would he kill? She was sure he had it in him to kill. Would he betray his friends? Of course he would, because he had no friends. His life was the Party and yet he must know that the Party had no gratitude. Once his usefulness was deemed to be at an end, he would be jettisoned and probably destroyed as he had jettisoned and destroyed others. After all, he knew too much to be allowed to sink into
obscure retirement. Would he think the same about her? She shivered.

  ‘Are you ill?’ For a moment she thought she detected real concern in his voice.

  ‘No, not ill. Exhausted. Those people at Cliveden – it was all I could do to be polite.’

  He looked at her so fiercely that she had to lower her eyes. ‘That is good. They are the enemy. This is the war – the real war – and don’t you forget it.’

  She told him everything without glossing over the smallest detail. Long ago she had resolved never to lie to him except once or twice by omission – because she recognized that he would immediately know it.

  ‘Wintringham didn’t come to see you,’ he said when she had finished.

  ‘No? Then why was he at Cliveden?’

  ‘He fancied he was in love with Lucinda.’

  ‘With Lulu?’ she asked, surprised. ‘I didn’t know they knew one another.’

  ‘Well, they did.’ David sounded irritated. He hated giving information. ‘He met her with me.’

  ‘With you?’ She was puzzled until she remembered Tom had told her that he had been following David. He had called him a bad man but she hadn’t wanted to listen. She had said she was busy. She realized – now that it was too late – that she ought to have asked him what he meant. She decided to change the subject. ‘What about Dr Channing?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Who is he? Does he work for you?’

  ‘He’s not really a doctor. He’s a . . . what do you call it? An osteopath, but he also practises what he calls natural medicine – herbs, massages with natural oils – that sort of thing.’

  ‘I thought he was a charlatan the moment I saw him,’ Verity cut in. ‘Is he a member of the Party?’

  ‘No, but he has been useful. I suppose you’d call him a pimp.’