by John Gardner
‘You can have my London address and telephone number. With luck I’ll be back within a couple of days.’ Something else was spinning in my head. ‘When I was playing taxi drivers in Bude,’ I said to the girl, ‘you had been frightened by a telephone call. What was that all about?’
She shivered. It was not cold in the flat. ‘A man. Deep soft voice. He rang twice on the night Michael disappeared. He asked for him.’
‘For Hensman?’
She nodded. ‘Twice. He said “Is Mr. Hensman there?” I was frightened. It was, oh, menacing I suppose.’
‘Is Mr. Hensman there? Is that all?’
‘The second time, when I told him, no, he said they might come round and look for themselves. I asked why would they look in my flat. He said ... He said, “Well, he is there quite often.”’
‘Was that true? Was he there quite often?’
She formed a small yes with her lips, though the word did not reach my ears.
‘Did many people know?’
‘Nobody.’ This time firm and resolute. ‘We were tremendously careful.’
‘Like you were coming here, to Basle?’
‘Very, very careful. We ... he didn’t want Beryl to find out. It was …’
‘She held the purse strings. I know.’
Miller laughed. He was standing by the window again. ‘If you don’t get on with it and telephone your Swiss friend, I’m going to go down and invite that chap up for a cup of tea. He’s getting soaked.’
I went through to the hall where I’d seen the telephone. A minute later — my impoverished German understood by a patient operator — I was speaking to Bruno. He did have a friend with the local police. It would be highly irregular but he would try.
‘He might be an English copper.’
‘A what?’
‘An English policeman.’
‘Leave it to me. I’ll do what I can.’
We settled a couple of other small points, like where he would pick me up, and I went back into the main room.
‘If it happens at all, it will be fairly quickly, Oscar. So let me have that damned book.’
Miller went over to the oil painting. For a second a kind of jauntiness returned. ‘I buried it in the garden.’ He slid his hand behind the frame and drew out a black leather loose leaf book, round about four inches by two, the same size as rifle-cleaning material. He hesitated for a moment, then, ‘All right. Take the damned thing, but if I don’t get off the hook you won’t be around for long. I’ve got a lot of mates who owe me favours.’
I tore an empty page from the back of the book and scribbled out the Marylebone address and telephone number.
He took it from me, glanced up at Jane Patterson, who was putting on her coat, then left the room. We heard him rummaging around, throwing clothes into a case.
Across the road the Englishman with the bowler hat plodded to and fro like a sentry. His pace seemed very regular and I tried to visualize him in a bobby’s uniform. It was easy and took little imagination.
Five minutes passed before the local law turned up in a big black Hotchkiss — very swish. Two uniformed men got out followed by a gaunt-looking joker in civvies. They began arguing and gesturing for the bowler-hatted man to get into the car.
‘I’m going first,’ I yelled, trotting towards the door. ‘They don’t know I’m here. You run for it once I’m out.’
The Hotchkiss was pulling away as I got out into the rain. Around the corner Bruno was waiting in the Balilla, and the notebook was burning a hole in my pocket.
‘How did you do it?’
Bruno allowed himself a smirk. ‘I told my friend that a lady of my acquaintance had been offended by the man outside the Kunstmuseum. He had opened his raincoat and showed her his twinkle. The police here do not like that. I said I thought he was a foreigner.’
‘What if they follow it up?’
‘The lady has left town,’ he veered sharply to the right to avoid a head-on collision with a tram.
‘Well?’ he shouted above the noise of the engine and the hissing rain.
‘It wasn’t Hensman,’ I shouted back, ‘but it is all getting most interesting.’ It would not have been wise to tell him more. Having got the notebook so easily I had no desire to chance my arm further.
‘You want me again tonight?’ he asked as we drew up near the Jura.
‘Will you be in?’
He shrugged, ‘Most likely. Ring if you need me.’
Poppy still sat in the lounge, remnants of cake on the table. Her smile of welcome told me what I wanted to know. I told her that I needed a bath and she offered to scrub my back. It was as pod a way to start as any I knew.
Upstairs, before we got down to cases, I locked the door of my room and looked around for a hiding place for the notebook, taking it out of my pocket and riffling through the pages. It was a few seconds before I realized that I had been duped. The pages were empty, virgin clean.
Chapter Six
It is amazing how another person can keep your mind off the worries and rough and tumble of life. By rights I should have been going out of my mind with concern regarding the notebook: trying to piece fragments together, cutting through the experiences of the afternoon and coming to logical conclusions about Oscar Miller, Jane Patterson, Michael Hensman and the geezer in the bowler hat.
Strange as it may seem, all these things remained far from my thoughts for the next few hours.
Poppy scrubbed my back. She also did some gentle washing in other areas. Then she stripped and joined me in the tub. I could not recall when a simple bath had given me so much pleasure. We dried each other off with the rough towels provided by a thoughtful management and sought refuge in my bed until around seven, when Poppy slipped back to her own room to prepare for dinner. I suppose it was the air which gave her such a hearty appetite.
Poppy’s enthusiasm operated on several levels, and she worked her way through five courses of magnificent Swiss cuisine — all the way from the rich soup to the even richer apple tart with whipped cream. It was a joy to see a young woman who did not just push food around her plate.
We didn’t speak much until the coffee.
‘I suppose we’re lovers now,’ she said, looking as ingenuous as ever.
‘Something of the sort had struck me.’
Her hand crossed the table, crawling on her fingers like a small and delightful little animal. ‘If it’s just a passing fancy, I’ll understand.’
‘I don’t really know what it is.’
Her face went solemn. ‘Do you still love Sarah?’ Then, hurriedly, as though she had made a blunder, ‘I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it …’
‘No, I don’t love Sarah.’
‘She hurt you terribly. She was a bitch. Even though she was my friend, she was a bitch.’
‘I was the one who divorced her.’
‘It was just your face when I told you Tommy had left her. I thought ...’ The sentence trailed off like steam from an engine’s funnel, drifting away to nothingness. Around us waiters swerved and pirouetted while their customers hardly noticed. Absurdly I thought what a good ballet it would make.
‘I still think of her, yes. Poppy, there hasn’t been another woman since her, until …’
‘Until me?’ Her eyes opened wide. ‘But you must have had lots of chances.’
‘Not really.’
‘You meet so many people and, well, it’s easier these days, people being more liberated. After all, it’s 1938.’
‘There hasn’t been anyone I really felt I could care about.’
‘You could care about me?’
I heard the laugh in my ears and it sounded false. ‘Of course. I’m not that kind of man, Poppy. I’m not one to take advantage.’
‘I know,’ she said softly. “I could care for you without much difficulty.’
I didn’t know how to answer that. There was a time when I would have had the exact words on my tongue, running like balm. Once I had known all the
tricks, but not any more. The practice had been lost in the few years with Sarah.
‘If you want to go on, back in London, I’m game,’ she smiled.
‘You’re a splendid girl, Poppy. Yes, I’d like that.’
‘What about the story? Are you going to get the story? You’ve told me nothing about this afternoon.’
‘It’s better that you shouldn’t know. There’s a story but it’s dangerous: hardly work for a woman.’
She made an exasperated noise. ‘Now you’re being positively Victorian. Women can cope, you know. Look at what they did in the Great War. If there’s another then the women will show you what’s what. We’re not confined to the distaff side any more.’
‘I dare say, but this really is man’s work.’
‘What about the lady Patterson?’
‘I promise you would not like to be in her shoes at the moment.’
‘You’re not going to tell me any more then?’
‘No. Not yet. When the story’s out I’ll fill in the bits we won’t be allowed to print.’ It was my private opinion that if we ever did get to the bottom of the whole business, we’d be lucky to print any of it.
She grinned. ‘Then let’s go upstairs and do it again.’ She was a most candid modern woman.
We slept in Poppy’s bedroom because she said her bed might get jealous of my bed, and she believed in fair shares for all. Twice she said she loved me, clinging on as though if she let go the dream of romance might vanish. On the second occasion I heard myself say that I loved her. I more than half believed it.
I woke at around six o’clock, sweating a little and wondering for a moment where I was. For a fraction of a second I imagined that I was back in the flat and it was Sarah lying close to me, her legs entwined with mine.
It was only then that I began to think about the events of the previous afternoon: Miller’s story, Jane Patterson’s face, the drenched man in the bowler, and the empty notebook. The story was too fantastic not to be true. There had to be a fair volume of fact in it. Ramsey, Nettlefold and Trim all raking in shekels from some unknown source. All policy makers, men of great influence: an eminent grey trio with their hands on the nation’s tiller. It had to be something of international importance. I tried to think it through with cool logic and after an hour knew that what facts I had would have to be put in front of Guy. The thought depressed me, because it meant trekking back across France and leaving Poppy behind in Paris. She would still be adamant about persuading her mother.
Outside, down in the square, the trams were starting to clank again; above, dawn threaded dirty grey streaks in the sky. Poppy slept on, moving once to push her naked body closer to mine and grunting happily. I kissed her twice — on the forehead and the lips — and she half woke, murmured my name and snuggled even closer. We lay together as she wakened completely. It was a long time since I had felt anything so safe and hopeful.
When the last shuddering sighs were over, and had merged into the morning noises, she rolled away and whispered ‘Good morning.’ I must have been looking very grave because she immediately sat up. ‘What’s wrong? I haven’t done something wrong, have I?’
‘Not at all. I was wondering how long we could spin this out for. Another day? Another week?’
‘You said a couple of days.’ It was her turn to look grave. ‘I have to settle things about my mama.’ A long look as though she was searching my face for some defect. Her hand came up and ran lightly down my cheek. ‘There’s London. There’s always London.’
‘Yes, there’s London, all waiting for us.’ I was going to say that we had all the time in the world, but I stopped. Nobody had a franchise on time. Not any more.
After a few minutes she squeezed my arm and slid from beneath the covers. I lay there and watched her dress. Half way through she began humming ‘Whistle While You Work’ — it was just becoming the rage then, because of Snow White. Glancing up from fastening her suspenders she started to giggle.
‘It’s time you were back in your own room, Simon Darrell. You have no shame.’
Half an hour later we went down to breakfast.
I saw it over her shoulder first, across the croissant-strewn table, the headlines in a French paper being read at the next table. There was a photograph as well — the same one we had used of Oscar Miller when the police first announced they were looking for him. The headline sent a shaft of ice from my coccyx to the nape of my neck. If my translation was accurate, Oscar Miller was dead.
I tried to look as cool and unconcerned as Gary Cooper in Lives of a Bengal Lancer, excused myself for a moment, and went out to the reception foyer. There were no English papers yet, but Le Monde carried the story on its front page, as did all the other continentals. Oscar Miller, wanted in connection with the bank robbery in Mayfair, had been found shot dead in a first-class railway coach near Lucerne. There was talk of police from Scotland Yard coming out to assist the Swiss authorities, but no mention of Jane Patterson, or of any other likely murderer. I wondered about the man in the bowler hat and, as though in answer to my thoughts, I looked up to see Bruno Haas standing in the hotel entrance. He looked pale and nervy.
‘The police,’ he said with a slight shrug as I reached him.
‘What about them?’
‘They are not happy with me. I mean my friend in the police is not happy.’
‘Because of the Englishman? Bowler hat?’
He nodded curtly, like a German. ‘I have kept things smooth, for the time being, but the Englishman seemed to have important connections.’
‘The police in London?’
‘I don’t know. I made my friend look a fool apparently. That doesn’t matter, but I thought I should warn you.’ He tapped the photograph of Miller, ‘Was he the man you found in Dufourstrasse?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought as much. You are not implicated — not yet — but the police here can be very unpleasant. They like things right. My story is that a lady friend rang me from the railway station. She said there was a man on Dufourstrasse who had just exposed himself while she was looking for a taxi. She had a train to catch but was most upset. I suggested that the man they picked up was not the one concerned. I might have to tell more lies. It is all most unfortunate.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘They know that a young woman was with this Oscar Miller yesterday. It was not your young woman, no?’
‘No.’
‘Good. They think he might have had another visitor. They are most thorough. Maybe someone saw you. I think it would be best if you left Basle as soon as possible.’
‘I’m going back to London today.’
‘I will still get the story when it breaks?’
‘Of course. I’ll tell Guy what a help you’ve been.’
‘That would be good. I will not stay now, just in case ...’ He did not explain in case of what.
I was turning back towards the dining-room when the porter called me. ‘Herr Darrell there is a telephone call from London.’
It was Guy asking me to follow up on the Oscar Miller shooting, and the line was very bad.
‘I can’t do it,’ I shouted. Everyone in the foyer would be able to hear.
‘Why in blazes not? You’re there on the spot.’
‘Bruno will cover it for us. He’ll have to. I can’t explain, Guy, but it’s tied in with the other matter. I’ll be back by tomorrow night with any luck.’
‘It’s the chance of a lifetime. The Yard’s sending a man out.’
‘It’ll have to be the chance of a lifetime for Bruno. I’ll explain when I see you.’ I wanted to shout, ‘trust me’, but in the cramped box, within earshot of a lot of people, it might have sounded odd. ‘The line’s terrible, Guy.’
He made disgruntled noises and disappeared from my ear.
Like all women, Poppy was inquisitive and could not leave well alone. ‘Why have we got to go back today, darling? You said two days. Why so suddenly? Why can’t we stay on until tomorrow?’
‘Because I just might get arrested,’ I hissed.
This morning I could willingly have stayed on for a week. She stipulated two days. Now she was quibbling. She opened her mouth and I anticipated that she was going to ask more, and loudly.
‘Please,’ I hissed again. ‘Leave it alone. I’ll tell you all about it later.’
‘But …’
‘When ... we ... are ... alone,’ I mouthed.
‘Oh,’ she looked around suspiciously and began to mouth back. ‘Is ... it ... to ... do ... with ... the ... story?’
I nodded.
‘Drink your coffee, dear, it’ll be getting cold.’
At last she got the message. ‘Well, I suppose we ought to think about moving on,’ she said loudly.
There was a train out at noon. The porter reserved seats for us and we went upstairs to pack. I rang Bruno, and back in her room Poppy forced the greater part of the story out of me.
‘You could be in real danger.’
‘You don’t have to tell me.’ I counted them on my fingers: Beech, Hensman missing, Miller. ‘Knowledge of that blasted notebook is like having been near a rabid dog.’
‘I don’t want to leave you alone.’ She put her arms around my neck then stepped back, taking a deep breath as though coming to a momentous decision. ‘Sim, if you really think we might make a pair, I’ll come back to London with you. Mama can wait.’
I think it was then that I truly found her and knew we were going to be together for a long time. Unless the people who were after the notebook had other ideas.
There was no trouble on the train and we got back to Paris just before ten, booking into a small hotel near the Gare du Nord. We got a double room; they didn’t seem to be in the least bit worried that we weren’t man and wife.
‘I feel terribly sinful,’ giggled Poppy, the idea of physical danger superseded by the more immediate pleasure of the intriguing emotions now surrounding us. ‘I’ve never done this with a man before.’
‘I’m not touching you.’
‘I mean I’ve never booked into an hotel with a man. Not sharing a room anyway.’