Island Madness

by Tim Binding

  “Well, there’s another one now.”

  “Aye. Mrs H. will be in charge, so I’m told.”

  “Oh? She didn’t seem that bothered to me.”

  Albert swirled the beer at the bottom of his glass. “You got a lot to learn, Ned. That’s just the way she were brought up. Inside’s a different story. How’s he taking it, her father?”

  “He hasn’t been seen all day. Left the house this morning and vanished in a puff of smoke. The Major’s going potty.”

  Albert finished his beer.

  “Don’t you worry about van Dielen,” he said, signalling for another. “He’ll come back.”

  But he had not come back, that strange little man. It was days later, when the hue and cry had been taken up not simply by Ned’s ill-dressed cohorts, but by the whole trembling island, that tales of his sightings were delivered piece by piece to Ned’s office or, when he was not there, to the station below where Tommy bent over the counter like a schoolboy at his desk, placing his arm across the report sheet in a vain attempt to hide his near illegible hand. Many had seen him in his deerstalker hat and his Norfolk jacket, flapping at the sides, standing on the half-finished gun emplacements, climbing down the steep coastal paths, his small figure, dark and bent, as recognizable as that of the stick-twirling Hollywood tramp, gaining attention by his very avoidance of it, seen but not intruded upon; not by the soldiers scanning the horizon standing next to their Flak-30s as he paced the newly dug concrete fields testing their vulnerability with a prod of his gnarled stick, a present it was said from Dr Todt himself; not by the motorcycle patrols brewing up their lunchtime billycans while they watched his silhouette clambering over the lattice work of newly laid reinforcing rods; not by the weary clusters of labourers who leant over their spades, thankful for the brief respite, while he jumped down into the fresh-dug trenches and shored up excavations, inspecting the depth and quality of their exhaustive cultivation; not by the Spanish Republican engine driver, sweating behind his black-belching Henschel which pulled the crates bearing the van Dielen mark from St Sampson’s harbour to the western coast, who raised his cap when he had first seen him at early morning light, down at the docks, looking out to the entrance through which he and his family had first arrived; not by the islanders on their way to morning service, processions of the faithful and the converted, who caught sight of him hurrying down the lanes, and who heard the news walking up those consecrated paths, who took it inside and passed it along in the sideways shuffle of the pews, whispering the deed as they rose from their uncertain prayers, some even scribbling the dread message on the back page of a prayer book before holding it out to their neighbour’s troubled eyes. Murder? Aye, Murder, coughed behind handkerchiefs and sung tunelessly alongside Wesleyan rhymes; murder placed on the horsehair cassocks and proffered wafers and mouthed by silent lips in the hollow echoes of a sermon. Murder half-concealed and half-bred and brought half-awake blinking out into the morning light, to be passed from islander to islander, the word and the wind scattering their faith once more; murder of their own kind buttoned under their coats, murder a street away, hidden under their hats, murder of a young daughter stuffed under the benches of the horse-drawn bus and taken to town to be fed to the seagulls pecking along the promenade or tapped out by faltering fingers on the wrought-iron benches circling the empty bandstand in Candie Gardens, where the day before the band from the Luftwaffe had played tunes that Jack Hilton and Lilly Harvey had made famous all over the cracked continent. All that day did van Dielen trudge, hopping from place to place, as he might on any other normal working day, waving his pass with its picture and his honorary rank and letters of authorization slipped inside, examining pit props in the tunnels over at La Vassalerie, harassing a nervous and flustered George Poidevin in another examination of the yard, stamping along the wide northern bays, looking out to the forbidden coast beyond. He was solicitous to those he did meet, enquiring almost as a matter of politeness as to the set of the concrete or the camber in the excavations, for it was always the materials with which he was concerned, whether the cold or the heat or some other variable had compromised their quality, and when he questioned those responsible he asked them as a visiting doctor might question a patient’s relatives, interpreting their layman’s replies while forgiving them their foolish ignorance. Those he spoke to thought no more of it, for the news of his tragedy had not travelled then, though it seemed to follow him in his wake like the draw of a great ship, churning the settled ground of occupation for the scavengers to wheel about in heady excitement.

  Ned thought he would show up on Monday, but he did not. Tommy was sent back to patrol outside the house. Ned waited in his office. A light rain settled. Halfway through the morning Ned put on his waterproof and walked over to the construction yard. He could see where the foreigns had broken in on Friday night. The fence had been kicked in not a hundred yards from a harbour checkpoint. Ned stepped in through the little door set in the high double gates. In the middle of the yard stood a small hut raised a few feet off the ground, lengths of raw wood arranged by size to one side, bundies of iron rods on the other. On the ground around a strewn, slippery chaos; boxes with their sides smashed in, machinery parts in junked heaps, a dented wheelbarrow jammed with half-opened packets of nails. George Poidevin stood on an untidy stack of wooden crates, levering open their lids with a length of flattened piping. Eleven thirty in the morning and he was making hard work of it. Ned picked his way over.

  “I need to see your boss,” Ned called out. “You seen him about?”

  George wedged the pipe in the crack and clambered down.

  “Terrible business, Mr Luscombe,” he pleaded. “Terrible business. My missus is terrible cut up.”

  Ned stirred a discarded coupling with his foot and looked about him.

  “This the break-in I’ve heard so much about?” George nodded. “Made a bit of a mess, didn’t they?”

  “Blooming nuisance, those foreigns. Should be kept under lock and key, not allowed to come and go as they please.” He pointed in the direction of the shed. The door hung off its hinges. “When they broke in all the paperwork was blown to buggery. No idea what’s where any more. This week of all weeks. I’m having the devil’s own job.”

  “So Mr van Dielen hasn’t been here today?”

  “Not today. Saw him yesterday though, and Saturday.”

  “Miss van Dielen was here Saturday, is that right?”

  George nodded. “They came round to the house first. Elspeth told him where I was and that.”

  “He wanted to see about the break-in.”

  “No, he wasn’t worried about that.”

  “Oh?”

  George drew a deep breath.

  “We get instructions every Friday, see, what we’re doing the next week. What deliveries to make, what materials need to go where. It’s my job to sort it all out.” He waved his hand over the mess. “I usually do it on the Saturday morning. Get a bit of overtime that way. Well, last Friday he gives out the instructions as per usual. Number One lorry on metal rod run up over to Fort Hommet. Number Two up over to St Peter Port to piek up the colours for some extra tunnel work.”

  “I don’t understand. The colours?”

  “Each construction firm has been given a different colour. Ours is red. Every container that comes in from the mainland has the firm’s colour stamped on a little square on the side. Like that one there. That way there’s no mix-up at the harbour. It’s all done through the Organisation Todt. They specify the materials, the time of arrival, where they have to be delivered, what job it’s for. Mr van Dielen sorts it out with Major Ernst every Friday morning, and by the time we knock off, he’s worked out the schedules for the next week. But that night the foreigns broke in, so instead of doing what I normally do on the Saturday I spent all morning trying to clear up the mess. Saturday afternoon I’m back at the yard writing up the roster, when in he barges, dancing up and down like he’s got a banger up his arse. Forget the old runn
ing order, he says, everything’s changed. It’s all hands to the tunnels at La Vassalerie and the gun emplacements over L’Ancresse Bay. Everything else has to stop. And if Major Ernst changes his mind and wants us to do something else, we’re not to hang about waiting for confirmation, we do it, no questions asked. Well, that’s irregular for a start. We’re not supposed to take orders direct from the Germans. It’s against the rules. I looks at him and he claps me on the back, all friendly like, first time I’ve ever known him do that, and tells me to sort it out as best I can. Said he’d come round Sunday and help me out.”

  “And Isobel was here with him that Saturday?”

  “She were waiting by the gates when we come out. But I knew she was there earlier ‘cause I heard them coming across the road. Hammer and tongs, they were.” He paused. “Found up by the cliff, they say; horribly mutilated, that’s the word. Breasts sliced off, things in her private parts,” he said hopefully.

  “You heard wrong,” Ned told him sharply. “What was the quarrel about? Did you hear any of it?”

  George shook his head.

  “Same old palaver, I reckon. Wouldn’t do as she was told. ‘Once more unto the breach,’ he says, when we were done, her standing over there, looking like thunder at a picnic party. ‘What she needs is the back of your hand,’ I tells him. ‘That’s what my Elspeth gets’.”

  “You never spoke to her.”

  “No. Never have, as a matter of fact. Never will now.”

  “And where were you on Saturday night, George?”

  “Saturday. Me and the missus went out, first to the Britannia, then on to the Albion. Very nearly missed the curfew.”

  “That would never do. And Sunday…”

  “He was waiting for me when I arrived! Would you believe it? Went through it all calm as anything. You wouldn’t think that…I mean, he never let on.” He coughed. “Do you think he might, you know, have done her in himself? It’s a thought, isn’t it, considering he’s gone AWOL.”

  “Very helpful, George. Anything else?”

  George looked round, making sure they were alone.

  “About the break-in.”

  “George, we’ve been through this.”

  “No, no, Mr Luscombe. I wasn’t criticizing. I know how stretched you are. I was thinking, well, of deputies.”

  “Deputies, George. How do you mean?”

  “Well, seeing as you’re so busy with this murder and the Feldkommandantur not really interested, I was thinking, if you were to deputize me I could go looking for the crates myself—search houses, question folk. Like a proper policeman.”

  “Forgive me for mentioning it, but didn’t you have some difficulty a couple of years back with receiving stolen goods?”

  “That were a long time ago, Mr Luscombe. I had bills of lading, receipts. It was what you call a mistreatment of justice.”

  “Sorry, George.”

  “But the break-in! No one’s doing anything about it.” He looked around at the confusion. “What about the foreigns?” he persisted. “Has anyone searched their billets, noticed anything odd going on? Stains on their clothing, like?”

  “George, what are you talking about?”

  George pointed to one of the empty containers.

  “Paint,” he said. “The bastards nicked a load of yellow paint.”

  “What would the foreigns want a load of paint for?”

  “There’s no knowing what they get up to, is there? They’re parts of this town it’s not safe to walk through of a night. Slant-eyes roaming the streets in little better than nightshirts.”

  Ned couldn’t help himself. “So you think they’ve been painting the town yellow, do you?”

  He walked back along the promenade. A light mist hung over the sea about a mile out. The tide was on the turn. A group of Todt workers came trotting round the corner, the rasp of their breath louder than the fall their feet, the smell of them lingering as they passed; a company of cycle infantry approached in the opposite direction, their heavy bicycles hissing on the wet road. Across the way a line of lorries were loading up on the quay and by the little sentry hut a motorcycle patrol was starting off on its hourly circular inspection, the outrider waving a rueful farewell to his mate retreating back into his warm wooden shell. Over by the harbour an anti-aircraft gun, its muzzle protected by a thick tarpaulin, was being hoisted up from one of the barges heaving on the oil-spilled water. Ned stood still and gripped the railing, the only islander in sight.

  When he got back to the station he found his outside door swinging in the wind. He kicked a loose stone in temper. One of the amateur dramatics had forgotten to close it again. As he starled up the stairs he heard a rattling noise directly above him. Someone was trying his door handle. He moved quietly, trying to remember which boards creaked and which didn’t. Coming up level with the landing he saw Veronica pushing an envelope under his door. He rested his chin on the floor and spoke to her ankles.

  “So it’s you is it, writing all these anonymous letters?”

  Veronica straightened up, unable at first to see him. She wore a pale blue patterned dress and a blue hat and her coat was unbuttoned, held together only by the belt. He blew up her legs. She stepped back.

  “There you are. Gave me a proper fright.”

  “Not like you, V, telling tales out of school.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The little white envelope lay on the floor.

  “You’d better come in and tell me what this is all about,” he said. Veronica stayed put.

  “It’s not about anything,” she said. “Just a ticket for the show next month. Thought you might like to come along. For old times’ sake.”

  Ned put his finger under the flap. Inside was a pink slip, smudged and badly printed. April Frolics, it read. Sparkling Wit, Excellent Vocalism, Vivacious Dancing, Mysterious Conjuring, and those Irresistible Coons, the Nigger Minstrels.

  “What are you?” he said. “Vivacious Dancing?”

  “And Excellent Vocalism,” she said. Ned nodded.

  “Come in anyway. I wanted to talk to you about the party on Saturday. I didn’t know you mixed in such high-flown circles.”

  She stood in the doorway, defiant.

  “Don’t you start getting at me again! You can question me all you like, but I’m not having you looking down your nose like that.”

  Ned sighed. “Sorry. Just tell me. I won’t jump down your throat, promise.”

  “Scout’s honour?”

  “Scout’s honour.”

  “Go on then, make the sign.”

  “V, I’m a policeman.”

  “Not to me you’re not.”

  “That’s the trouble with this place. I’m not a policeman to anyone. Albert thinks of me as his brother’s son, Mrs Hallivand thinks of me as her gardener’s nephew, Mum thinks I still wear short trousers and you…”

  “I think you put on long trousers too soon.”

  “Thanks!”

  Veronica relented. “It’s not easy for either of us, Ned, seeing what we were. But what we were is what we were. Not what we are.”

  She sat down. It was strange the two of them sitting opposite each other, him with his notebook, her with her hands folded in the lap of her buttoned dress. Time was when he had held her and kissed her, when they had leant back and whispered private things to each other that made thetn laugh. All right, he thought, be what you are, but whether you like it or not you’re also what you were. He leant back. He wanted to see her body relax and assume that volupruous familiarity his mother had found so disturbing. He spoke softly.

  “Teil me about the party, then.”

  “Nothing much to tell. Molly invited me. Said it would be fun. It was all right at first, down at the Casino, but as the evening wore on and Isobel didn’t turn up things went from bad to worse. By the end it was more like a wake than a party. Molly was all for sending the car over again, but the Major wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Again?” Ned asked quickly. “He sent the car ov
er before?”

  “No. We drove past there on the way back to the Villa. Dr Mueller, one of the nurses in the front with the driver, and me and the Major in the back.”

  “When was this?”

  “Ten thirty, eleven, I don’t know.”

  “And?”

  “The house was in total darkness. I was all for banging on the door but he wouldn’t let me. Said she’d be up at the Villa. She wasn’t, of course.” She paused. “How’s he taking it?”

  “Badly.”

  “Do you think I should go round later, to offer my sympathies?”

  Ned couldn’t help himself. “You’ve only just met him, V.”

  Veronica rose to her own defence. “It’s not like that. We’ve a lot in common, that’s all. Singing. Music. Fritz Kreisler.”

  “Who?”

  “Fritz Kreisler. He’s a violinist. Jazz. Quite the rage on the Continent. The Major’s got all his records. He was going to lend me some for my routine. I’m getting quite popular these days.”

  “On the stage, you mean.”

  “Yes, Ned, on the stage. I got three encores the last time I sang Nanki Poo.”

  Ned felt his displeasure rising. He’d always distrusted the exhibitionist in her.

  “Don’t get me wrong, but it’s a very captive audience you’re playing to.”

  “Ha ha very funny I don’t think.”

  “Teil me about Bohde. He left the Casino early, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know, I wasn’t keeping an eye on him, the little creep. But he was at the Villa when we arrived.”

  “And how did he seem?”

  Veronica shuddered. “Horrible. He doesn’t like us English girls. He was giving me filthy looks all evening.”

  “Lots of men give you filthy looks, V.”

  “I don’t mean like that. I can handle those. No, this was like I shouldn’t be there, like I shouldn’t be alive. I put it to the back of my mind, but thinking about it now, and what happened…” She started to cry. Ned made no attempt to comfort her. It was his way of punishing her.