Island Madness

by Tim Binding

  “When I was younger, yes. Uncle Albert used to sit in that very chair.”

  Mrs Hallivand squirmed. “Quite a change from my usual surroundings. Though I’ve grown used to it.” She lowered her voice.

  “It took me quite a spell to dislodge your uncle’s aroma. I think he must sleep in those gardening clothes of his.”

  “He’s of the old school, Mrs Hallivand,” Ned explained, prepared to indulge her a while longer. “Once it’s on there’s not much point in taking it off. Except Sundays, of course.”

  “Ah. The power of religion.”

  Ned shook his head. “Bowls.”

  Mrs Hallivand smiled indulgently at Ned’s joke and turned the biscuit plate ninety degrees. Digestives, those square iced ones Dad had liked so much and two Bourbons. Ned had not seen a chocolate Bourbon for three years. Quiet settled on the room. He felt obliged to offer up the statutory enquiry.

  “And your husband, Mrs Hallivand? Have you heard from him at all?”

  It was a dangerous question to ask on the island, had they heard from their relatives, akin to asking a hospital patient the state of their health. However, Ned could tell Mrs Hallivand wished he had not been so formally polite.

  “Not from him, no. About him, yes.”

  “He is well, I hope.”

  “He is safe. Whether he is well I have no idea, though I dare say he is.” She lifted a sugared biscuit from the plate and bit into it. Ned wondered whether he was going to be offered one. “However,” she continued, swallowing the morsel carefully, “you did not come here to enquire after my husband’s health. You want to know about…” She faltered.

  “Isobel. Yes. A terrible business.”

  “Yes. Poor Isobel.”

  “She visited you yesterday morning, I believe.”

  “For coffee. If you can call what we drink now coffee.”

  “Was that a regular thing?”

  “She popped in from time to time.”

  “I had the impression that you had asked her specially. Your telephone call that morning.”

  Mrs Hallivand looked surprised that Ned was so well informed.

  “I spoke to her most days. She said she might call round, that was all.”

  “And she did?”

  Mrs Hallivand nodded.

  “I didn’t realize that the two of you saw so much of each other.”

  “Since her mother died I felt responsible for her.”

  “More than her father?”

  “Her father is a man. Not the easiest of men at that. I felt for her, all alone in that house. She had lots of spirit, did Isobel, lively, undisciplined.”

  “But you weren’t close.”

  “No, we weren’t. She needed someone to keep her in check. She was young. Too young for this war at any rate. This business with the Major.”

  “What about it?”

  She wiped the corner of her mouth with a little white handkerchief pulled from her sleeve. As she patted her lips her eyes moved to the painting on the wall.

  “His head was turned. Not just by her. By the war, by the island, by their fairy-tale life. It quite upset his equilibrium. God knows what will happen to him now.”

  “You and the Major get on rather well, don’t you? Uncle Albert often used to remark about your dinners.”

  “Used to is the operative term. The Major has other guests on his invitation list now. No time for his older friends. I wouldn’t have minded if she’d been…”

  “Yes?”

  “A little more worthy of him.”

  “Did you think so little of her, then?”

  “No, no. She was a lovely girl. Bright, vivacious, kind.” She handed him the plate. He wavered for a moment, then chose the Bourbon. It was soft, slightly stale. He was disappointed. Mrs Hallivand continued. “But she had no capacity for self-improvement, no sense of place or duty. It was, ‘this is what I am’ and ‘this is what I want’. I had always hoped that she might develop, might mature. As it was she remained what she wanted to be, a naive young woman, blessed with good looks but unwilling or unable to face up to the realities of life.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, Mrs Hallivand, but you don’t seem terribly upset.”

  “Of course I’m upset. But I fear she brought this on herself, riding about the island without a care in the world. They all do it, those girls. They think it all such fun. And so it probably is. What they don’t realize is that the islanders will put up with just so much and then…”

  “So you think she was killed by one of us.”

  “It was bound to happen to one of them one day. And no German would have killed her. She was a popular girl.”

  Ned felt himself blush.

  “Do you mean she had men friends other than the Major?”

  “She had a good many suitors, I know that. Before the Major she was always out riding with some captain or other. I don’t believe there was anything serious between any of them, but nor did she turn them away. She liked the attention, did Isobel. It was fun to have handsome young men hanging on to her every word, bowing when she came through the door, telling her father what a charming daughter he had.”

  “No angry lover, then?”

  “I doubt it. She was no femme fatale, just an ordinary English girl who unfortunately saw no difference between a German uniform and a Henley boating blazer. The anger directed at her will be traced to our hearts not theirs.”

  It was true. Ned had seen her only last month, riding in the back of Lentsch’s staffcar late one afternoon. “Hide me, Bernie, for God’s sake,” he said, stepping back, and Bernie had stood on the kerb as insolently as the law permitted and stared while the car rewed its engine, impatient for the horse-drawn bus that was blocking its path to move out of the way.

  “Look at her, sitting in my car, like she owned it,” Bernie muttered, as they passed. “Just you wait, mademoiselle,” he called out. “We’ll give you a ride to remember when this is all over!”

  Ned pulled him back into the safety of a shop doorway. “Do you want to get us both deported?” he said, shaking him angrily. “What’s it to you what she does? I’m the one who should be angry.”

  He returned to Mrs Hallivand.

  “Now, yesterday morning. Nothing was said that might make you think that she was worried?”

  “Why should she be worried? She was excited about the Major coming back. She was planning a surprise party.”

  “Yes, I know. But you didn’t call her over about that, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, why, then?”

  “It was all happening too fast between them. Too many heads in the clouds and not enough feet on the ground. While he’d been away she’d been talking about their life together. She still didn’t appreciate the implications. It could never have lasted.”

  “Like me, you mean.”

  Mrs Hallivand brushed the crumbs from her lap.

  “That never bothered me at all. Every woman should have a little adventure somewhere along the way, if for nothing more than to be able to look back on it when your husband is snoring in the bed next to yours. But this was different. I was worried that she might do something she might regret. With her father’s position, it wouldn’t have been impossible for the two of them to get married here, engaged at least. I tried to dissuade her.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “What she always said. She told me to mind my own business.”

  “And then?”

  “We had a little row. I went to the kitchen to get some more hot water for the pot. By the time I got back she had gone. She must have been angrier than I thought. She forgot her bicycle.”

  “A bicycle? I didn’t know she had a bicycle.”

  “My old thing. She use to ride it back and forth, you know, on her visits. I don’t think her father approved. She used to hide it in the bushes at the back of their garden.”

  “She told you?”

  “Albert did. He came across it while he was weedi
ng there once. She swore him to secrecy, but you know Albert. Can’t resist a good gossip.”

  Ned walked up to the house. He’d never been inside the main rooms. He was hoping that his uncle might show him round. The front door stood half open. Uncle Albert was standing on a chair in the hall, dusting the picture frames.

  “If you’ve come for our house guests, they’ve all done a bunk,” he said. He stood down. “She all right, then?”

  “Less upset than me, I think.” Ned looked around. At the far end he could see the drawing room. A tray of dirty glasses and coffee cups stood on the floor. Albert nodded in its direction.

  “Haven’t finished clearing up yet,” he said. “They were in and out of here last night like ferrets down a rabbit hole.”

  “Who was?”

  “The Captain, the Major, the ugly one, Ernst. I was packed off upstairs. No one was allowed out until seven. We weren’t told until then.”

  “They were here all night?”

  “I’ll say. Telephone ringing, cars and motorcycles racing up and down the drive. I thought it was the invasion or summat, the way they were carrying on. Then the Major came up and told me. Near to tears he was. Her father was here by then.”

  “Oh?”

  “Wedel brought him over, about half five. I saw him from my window.” He pushed the duster in his pocket. “Any idea who?”

  Ned shook his head. “Someone who hated the van Dielens? A way of getting back at him?”

  “Someone who wanted to teach these girls a lesson, more like.”

  “Perhaps.” Ned paused. “Isobel came up here yesterday, so Mrs Hallivand tells me.”

  Albert glanced down at the Lodge. “She wanted to know what I was doing about supper. That’s all they ever think about, this lot, what they’re going to stuff themselves with next.”

  “And that was all?”

  “It was enough.”

  He stood in the hall, unwilling to say more.

  “Long time since I set foot in here,” Ned said.

  “Hasn’t changed much,” Albert said. “Cept for the occupants. They don’t like folk snooping round here, no more than she did.”

  “We still have to know our place, you mean.”

  “It’s what armies are all about, isn’t it. Armies and class.”

  “And Mrs Hallivand? What’s her place now?”

  “To do as she’s told,” Albert said. “Like we all must do.” He looked back. “You can come in the kitchen, if you like. Have a cup of tea while I wash them cups and saucers. Take some back to your mother.”

  “I think Mum’s got enough dirty dishes of her own, thanks all the same.”

  Albert refused to see the joke. “You know what I mean. We can spare a few teaspoons. Bit of butter too, if you’ve a fancy.”

  “Like the old days.”

  Albert walked over and picked up the tray. He looked down at the cups with cigarettes and cigar ends floating in the dregs.

  “No, not like them at all, Ned. Those days have passed.”

  Seated at the enamel-faced table Ned looked at his uncle fussing in the sink. Before the Occupation Albert would have rather died than wear an apron round his waist.

  “The last time I sat here I was wearing shorts and tucking into a jam sandwich,” Ned told him, wishing that just such a treat might lie in front of him now. “Never thought I’d sit here again.”

  His uncle bent over the dirty water and stirred the crockery with reckless vigour.

  “Why’d you bother with Miss Isobel, then, if it wasn’t to pull yourself up by her drawstrings?”

  Ned took a sip of tea. Good and strong, made with not a thought to how many spoonfuls were put in the pot. God, how long was it since he had tasted tea like this? He tipped his cup up and filled his mouth, rolling the liquid round before swallowing it in one gulp. He could feel his body reel with the rush of it, like he was swigging brandy or vodka, his eyes watering, his stomach on fire. “I don’t know,” he said, suddenly garrulous. “I thought I was in love. I didn’t think about other things. She put a spell on me.”

  “Yes, well, I can’t blame you there. For all her foolishness she was a spirit, there’s no denying it. Warm-hearted too, considerate. Not like some of them here, treating me no better than a skiwy.”

  “Albertl”

  A tall woman came bursting through the spring door. When she saw Ned sitting at the table she stopped.

  “Oh?”

  “This is my nephew, miss. Ned Luscombe? Inspector Luscombe.”

  “Oh!”

  Ned got to his feet. She walked across the tiles on low heels that clicked. She was wearing a smart grey cape clasped at the top and a little blue hat perched at an angle. She held out a hand; dark red fingernails, the colour of spent blood; a ring with a diamond sparkle; perfume on the wrist. He took it in his grasp. It was a white hand, long and cold and strangely erotic, even at eleven o’clock in the morning.

  “Molly Langmead,” she said.

  “Miss Molly was here yesterday morning, weren’t you, miss?” Albert said without looking up. “When Miss van Dielen came by to see how we were doing.”

  “Mmm.” She looked around. “Matches, Albert, I need some matches. I’ve quite misplaced my lighter, the one the Captain gave me.”

  Albert crossed over to the dresser and pulled open a drawer.

  “We got a two-legged magpie somewhere in this house,” he grumbled, “the number of things that go missing. Here.”

  He handed her the box. Molly took out a packet of cigarettes and tapped one into her hand. “Ah,” she said, lighting it up. “The joys of Graven A.”

  “That’s a rare brand these days,” Ned observed.

  “One and six each on the black market, so I’m told,” she said insolently, holding the packet out. “Do you smoke?”

  “Only what I can afford,” Ned told her. He took out his notebook. “You saw Isobel too, then?”

  She looked down, amused at his hands, patting his pockets for his pen.

  “Me and Veronica, yes.”

  “Veronica Vaudin?”

  “Is there another Veronica in St Peter Port?”

  “I wouldn’t know. What was she doing here?”

  “What we were all doing. Preparing for the party.”

  “She was a regular too, was she?”

  Molly blew smoke into the air and threw the box back to Albert. Sitting back on one of the chairs she undid the clasp and let the cape fall open. Ned fought to keep his eyes on her face. She watched him closely, to see when he would succumb.

  “No, this was her first time. I thought she might enliven the proceedings. It can get a bit stale, the same people day in, day out. There were a couple of men who’d shown interest in her.”

  “In Veronica?”

  “Well, don’t sound so surprised. Of course Veronica.”

  “Who, exactly?”

  “I thought you wanted to know about Isobel? All right, all right.” She looked up to the ceiling. “Our own dear Bohde, for a start. Apparently he’d been to her about his feet and came back smitten. God, what a thought. Bohde’s feet!”

  Ned was worried about his own. He had to tread carefully here.

  “The Major told me that Bohde doesn’t approve of English girls.”

  “Not approving of them and wanting to sleep with them are two quite separate marters.”

  Albert pulled the plug in the sink violently. Molly turned.

  “I’m sorry, Albert, I know how this kind of talk upsets you, but it’s true. Bohde couldn’t take his eyes off her all evening. Isn’t that right?”

  “Not for me to say, miss.”

  She leant over and flicked ash into the gurgling water. Ned let his eyes fall. When they returned Molly was looking at him with amused satisfaction.

  “Your uncle is the very soul of discretion,” she said, holding the cigarette over her shoulder, daring him to take another look. “But it’s my belief every night he scurries up to his room and writes down all our m
isdemeanours in some horrid little exercise book of his. Where do you keep it Albert, this tittle-tattle which will undo us all? Under the mattress? Up the chimney?”

  She turned and looked at him. Albert stood there, fixed. He had been caught out, Ned was sure of it! Molly laughed and leaning across, stubbed the cigarette out in Ned’s saucer. She had heavy, smoker’s breath.

  “Teil him not to worry. His secret is safe with me.”

  Albert gathered Ned’s cup and saucer from the table and ran them under the cold tap. The crockery rattled in anger.

  “You’re a close friend of Captain Zepernick, I believe?” Ned asked her. She smiled sweetly.

  “What a very polite young man you are.”

  “And he was there all the time, for the party?”

  “Inspector, when it comes to parties, the Captain is always the first to arrive and the last to leave. This was his party. He organized it, not Isobel. He invited the men, I brought the girls.”

  “Except the nurses from Bremen.”

  “Well informed, too. Yes. Without wanting to sound at all snobby, they were there for the lower ranks, the Wedels of this world.”

  “For Bohde too, I believe.”

  “Isn’t that a hoot! I suppose it’s the only way Bohde can get anyone to oblige—to bare her all for the nation state. That’s the real reason they were there that night. No English girl would submit to that, though he’d asked most of us at one time or another. Apart from the nurses, who the good Doctor Mueller organized, Zep and I were in charge. It’s a talent we have. Making whoopee.”

  “But Captain Zepernick left the party with Miss Vaudin, is that not right?” Ned decided to call him by his formal name. With her connections Molly could make life difficult for him, and they both knew it.

  “No, that is not right.” Her voice had lost its sense of play. She got up and fastened the clasp. “He did not ‘leave’ the party at all. He was called away when they found her. Of course we didn’t know then that it was Isobel. He gave Veronica a lift home. She lives in one of those dingy fisherman’s cottages by Cobo Bay. With her mother and father. Very cosy.”

  Ned refused to rise to the bait.

  “And he was there in the club all the time before that, and during the party.”