by Susan Sallis
‘I know it’s sentimental, Gaffer, but it’s absolutely true! They are still – both couples – in love! Neither of them were involved in either of the wars, though I haven’t said that. But I do think it’s something to do with peace . . . and growing food!’
He threw his head back and laughed. After a second, I joined him.
It was only a week later, the first week in September, that Sylvia Strassen was murdered. That was when I stopped thinking everyone was lovely and life was mainly hearts and roses. I had posted back her rent book. My signature was repeated eight times inside it.
Eleven
THE MAN WHO killed Sylvia Strassen was arrested the next day. He had struck her from behind with her old-fashioned flat iron and then made a run for it. When they picked him up he was underneath the up platform at the old Great Western railway station. It was where all the rats were. It was ghastly; horrific. Uncle Gilbert told me this in his brusque, don’t-you-dare-cry sort of voice.
He looked at me, and added just as brusquely, ‘No story there for you, young Rachel. Tom can cover the arrest and trial. It will have to be carefully done.’ What that meant I didn’t much care, then, I was so thankful I was not to be involved any more. Not that I could ever become uninvolved. Not now. Surely even Meriel would see that?
He said, ‘You’d better go home. You look as if the hot weather is getting you down.’
I went home. Tom was back from ‘the scene of the crime’, and just put his arms round me and said, ‘It’s all right, darling.’ He rocked me gently while I cried. Then he sat me in the window, in the chair where Sylvia Strassen had asked for conscience money, and went to make coffee. He put it on the floor, then knelt by me and stroked my hands until I stopped twisting them. I told him what Uncle Gilbert had told me.
‘What made him do it, Tom? She was such a poor thing. It sounds as if they’d had a row and he did it on impulse – oh God, the thought of that iron. And he must have hated himself so much to hide where he did. I’ve sat in waiting trains and watched those rats run in and out . . . oh Tom—’ I shook with a spasm of revulsion, and he gripped my hands hard.
‘Listen, my love. Try to concentrate on the fact that the whole thing won’t be made public now. If your father did give her money for her husband’s funeral, that might have come out. And then, of course, there’s that blessed rent book . . .’ I nodded, eyes tightly closed. Indeed, when Gilbert had told me about the arrest I had felt enormous relief. The details had overlaid that. The iron, so heavy, so lethal, actually entering her skull . . . and the desperate man hiding with the rats . . .
Tom drew up the other chair and sat close to me, then reached into his pocket and produced the rent book. ‘I found this in Sylvia Strassen’s kitchen. I suggest we burn it,’ he said.
I couldn’t stop shaking. He put the rent book away again and held one of the coffee cups to my mouth. I took a sip obediently. It did help. He spoke quietly.
‘Rachel. You and I have heard some terrible stories in the time we have worked for the Clarion. The war still dominates lives. The search for my father has underscored all that. But when we’re together we’re . . . OK. It’s as simple as that. We must hold on to that, darling.’
I thought about it. My eyes were still shut, but I felt my mouth lift in a smile, and I nodded. I whispered, ‘I love you, Tom.’
‘I love you too, Rache. And that is what I meant, of course.’ He spoke very slowly. ‘Here, right here, is love.’
I opened my eyes, smiling properly, and took another sip of coffee. It was a marvellous moment. The ordinary business of sharing coffee was part of it. It gave it . . . gravitas. Nothing airy-fairy about our love. It was grounded in the ordinary things of everyday life. It was . . . OK.
He sat back with his cup, and we went on sipping and smiling at each other for some time. It was a Saturday, the day for the vegetable cart. Through the windows came the unmistakable scent of horse from below.
‘I’ve left a list with Mrs Price,’ I murmured. ‘Thought I might still be at the office.’
Sounds came from below: the clank of metal scales, Mrs Price’s voice dictating my list. The vegetable man praising the quality of his summer cabbage and lettuce. We listened to all of it with the appreciative smiles usually reserved for a special concert at the Cheltenham Town Hall from the Birmingham Symphony . . . we never missed one of those. The cart moved off, the front door closed, there was a thump from my string bag as Mrs Price deposited it at the bottom of the stairs. Then her door closed. The world had settled comfortably around us. We went into married conversation.
I said, ‘I enjoyed that.’
Tom did not ask whether I meant the coffee or the vegetable cart, he simply said, ‘So did I.’
I said, ‘What shall we have for lunch?’
Tom said, ‘I’m really tired of salad.’
I said, ‘So am I. And I’ve got that beef dripping. Shall I make chips?’
And so it went on. Foolish, easy. It wasn’t until we’d finished eating the chips that I brought up the murder again. I fiddled with the cutlery, then said, ‘Why?’ And Tom knew exactly what I meant.
‘I’ve got a very plausible theory. D’you want to hear it?’ He sprinkled some salt on his bread and nibbled at it. He often did that when he was being Pierre in War and Peace. It took some of the awfulness out of a lot of things. I smiled, acknowledging all that, plus my willingness to listen to his theory.
‘Well. I reckon Sylvia Strassen knew a thing or two about her Willi’s operations. And when that didn’t work as blackmail she talked about losing her baby and not being able to pay the rent. Then she might have mentioned conscience money.’ He nibbled again. ‘I think you weren’t the only mug, Rachel. It started with your father – I’d love to know how much he donated to the Strassen fund.’
‘He wasn’t very well off when it happened.’ I removed the salt cellar. ‘I hope it wasn’t too much.’
‘He’d finished paying your school fees. Maybe they went into Sylvia’s kitty.’
‘Maybe.’ I did not want to remember that time; the thought of Dad being dragged into it was awful. ‘So you think there were others besides Dad and me?’
‘Yes. I think there was probably the Strassen family back in Germany. And I think it more than likely that they had a lot to hide and she knew it. So it became real blackmail, nothing to do with conscience money. They could see her draining them dry. They found someone who would . . . maybe threaten her at first. Maybe hurt her a little, frighten her. Maybe he went too far.’
I looked at him. His theory hung together so well it sounded almost reasonable.
‘This is the sort of game Merry and I played. Are you trying to make this whole thing more plausible?’
‘No. But I am trying to answer your question. Motive. It’s what the police will want to know.’
‘Yes.’ I cleared the plates and brought in an apple tart and custard from yesterday. ‘D’you mind if we don’t go to the pictures tonight, Tom? I’d quite like to cycle out to the rough road and visit Mum and Dad.’
‘It’s a Raymond Chandler film,’ he reminded me, not really minding much.
‘I’ve had enough murder mysteries for one day.’
‘All right, that’s fine. But the real-life one is over for us, Rache – you do accept that?’
I made a wry face. ‘Not quite, is it? If the police go on investigating, they will pick up on the missing rent book and check at the Guildhall. I initialled the ledger thing there, too.’
I could tell he had already thought of that, and hoped I hadn’t. He cut himself a wedge of pie and spooned cold custard over it. ‘Please don’t worry about it, darling. Please. They’ve got the murderer. His prints will be on the iron. They’ll want it all out of the way as quickly as possible.’
He smiled at me and I smiled back. I wanted everything to be normal, I wanted that quite desperately.
We had such a good evening with Mum and Dad. Mum looked better than she’d looked for a
ges. They both knew the latest about Sylvia Strassen’s murder; Uncle Gilbert had telephoned them immediately the murderer had been arrested. Like me, Mum had the shivers every time she thought about it. She said soberly, ‘I’m just so thankful the murderer wasn’t someone local.’
We were in the dining room putting out pickles and liver sausage for supper. I said, ‘How on earth do you know it wasn’t someone local?’
‘Well . . . he’d have gone back home, wouldn’t he? I mean hiding where he did . . . there are rats under that platform, you know, darling.’
‘Yes.’ I almost told her about Sylvia Strassen’s demand for conscience money. Instead I said, ‘Tom thinks it might be someone connected to Wilhelm Strassen’s family.’
‘What? Back in Germany?’
‘I suppose so. It was just a theory he had.’
Mum was doubtful. ‘The war is over, darling. And Wilhelm is dead, anyway. How could she put any pressure on them?’
‘Conscience money?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. You’ll have a lot to write to Meriel about, won’t you?’
Again, I almost told her that Meriel knew about Sylvia’s visit already. Again, I stopped myself in time. We’d got into the way of trying to save Mum a lot of worry. Instead I said, ‘Are these Mr Myercroft’s tomatoes?’
‘Certainly not. I grew them with my own fair hands!’
We laughed. I began to cut the tomatoes into zigzag shapes, Mum arranged slices of liver sausage around them. Then she upended the carving knife and fork and drummed on the table, and announced in sonorous tones the call-sign of Lord Haw-Haw’s war-time broadcasts.
‘Germany calling. Germany calling,’ I picked up nasally, snuffling with laughter already.
She replied with the percussion on the table, ‘La-la-la-Laah. La-la-la-Laah. La-la-la-Laah. La . . . Laah!’ We took deep breaths and crashed into Beethoven’s Fifth. I speared a tomato and held it high. She lifted her knife and fork and did likewise. We faced each other, two conductors, one brilliant symphony. We went for it. Time scrolled back. Dad and Tom appeared at the open window and became our audience. We finished our performance together, let our batons come to rest on the table, bowed to the tomatoes and liver sausage and turned to the cheering audience in the window.
Dad yelled ‘Bravo!’ and Tom begged an encore. It was all so silly and so marvellous.
Strangely enough, Sylvia Strassen’s murder was dealt with very quietly. The man confessed and was sent to prison in Birmingham to await trial. Police investigations stopped there. Gilbert’s did, too, which was a surprise. The story could have run for some time if he had given it to his chief reporter. But he insisted that it should be brought to a decent conclusion. ‘We’ve had enough gory glory to last the old Clarion a long time,’ he told Tom almost wearily. ‘People want to hear about lighter things: weddings, fashion. Get Rachel to use her influence and do a series on Nightingale’s. Dennis will cooperate all the way, such good publicity.’
We had a feeling that someone had killed Sylvia’s story. Tom was thankful in many ways, but in others he had welcomed the opportunity to look into the 1944 thing. Three deaths then: Willi, Eva and Mr Silverman. Now a fourth: Sylvia Strassen. He wanted to link all of them. I pointed out that we couldn’t possibly link Sylvia’s murder with the three suicides, and he frowned and said, ‘Maybe they weren’t all suicides. Maybe Sylvia could have told us a thing or two.’ But it was four years ago and now Sylvia was dead, too. We burned the rent book with mock ceremony, and told each other that was that. I went to interview Dennis Nightingale and found him far more interested in Meriel than I would have believed possible – if only he’d been like that when she was around. In the end I got more from Maria Nightingale, the dressmaker – she had changed her name to Nightingale by deed poll until the divorce was through. I wrote to Meriel to ask her whether she minded all this stuff, and she replied to say she didn’t. I knew she did. But I told myself it was a job and went ahead.
October came in like a lion that year. The leaves were torn from the trees much too soon. The subway by California crossing was knee-deep in them. I made a point of walking through each day, recalling how I’d done it as a very small girl with my grandparents. The clocks went back, and suddenly it was winter.
I got in late one evening, after having tea with Dennis and Maria in the stock room at Nightingale’s. I was beginning to understand Meriel’s father at last. He was the usual mixture of strength and weakness. A man who couldn’t say no, and needed someone like Maria to sort out his self-made muddles and messes. She was strong; powerful. Very like Meriel in a lot of ways. Meriel was coping with an erring husband and a disabled son; not just coping either, making something very good from it all. Maria had done the same. I could imagine that Dennis still strayed, and she had had to learn to accept that. She knew she was good for him, that was the thing. He needed her. I couldn’t make up my mind whether she loved him or not, but I thought she probably would never let him go again.
Anyway, it was dark and dismal, still blowing fiercely, and it was good to get inside the hall and smell that Mrs Price had run her mop over it that very day. The lights were on in our flat so I knew Tom was home; probably tapping away on the Oliver. He was. And he’d got something cooking; the smell was wonderful. And he’d put a match to the fire, and everything looked cheerful. We hadn’t started regular fires, though of course there had been the incineration of the rent book.
He packed up work immediately and leapt up to grab me and waltz me round the room.
‘I called on Flo and George, and Flo had made us a stew in a casserole which exactly fitted into my bike basket!’
‘Oh darling . . . How were Mum and Dad?’
He stopped dancing, held me away from him. His eyes were blue. Just blue to anyone else but I could see silvery specks in them; azure.
‘They’ve been asked, both of them, to visit the Lufthaus factory in Düsseldorf!’
I was completely astonished. The war had been over for three years. You had to be a politician or a field marshal or – or a spy – to go to Germany. Or, I suppose, a respected inventor. But if Dad hadn’t developed his modification to the Spitfire fin, he would still be another draftsman; actually, within Smith’s he still was. He’d got a rise and a bonus from the fin, but mostly he saw it as his special war effort; a tiny mathematical adjustment that he had come upon accidentally.
I laid the free half of the table – giving the Oliver a wide berth in case of spillages – and brought in Mum’s cast-iron casserole. She had tied on the lid with string, which Tom hadn’t removed when he’d put it in the oven, so I dusted the charred remains from that into the sink first of all. We sat down and discussed the Düsseldorf thing exhaustively.
At first I didn’t think Mum should go; she usually went to bed for a couple of hours after lunch, and how could she do that in digs?
Tom said, ‘I’ve misled you. The MD is going with his wife, plus two of the directors with theirs. It was the Lufthaus people who asked for George, and of course your mum was included. The MD’s wife has always liked her, apparently, and has told your dad that she will make sure she rests.’ He was so happy for them, his face alight. ‘It’s such an honour, Rache. And George . . . well, he deserves some kind of recognition. They actually asked for him.’ He usually called Dad by his first name, though sometimes ‘Flo’ became ‘Mum’. I knew why it was: he wouldn’t usurp his own father’s place in any way whatsoever. I did not comment. Instead I asked a load of questions about when and how . . . it was staggering to hear that they would be flying from Staverton airport. ‘Private plane,’ Tom put in with relish. ‘Posh hotel, too. George has found out all about it. My God, the Germans might have lost the war, but they live all right.’
‘People who have money generally do,’ I reminded him. ‘There will be others who have no money.’
We finished the stew with plenty of bread, and washed-up, and Tom got on with his piece, and I darned
some socks and made notes about Nightingale’s winter coats, which were all featuring hoods. Maria had plans for a mannequin parade, which I had found interesting. I frowned as I went back to darning; I had to write to Meriel and try to explain why I was getting on so well with her birth-mother. And then, or perhaps before then, I ought to call on Myrtle Nightingale in the old house and ask after the boys. She would want all the latest news about Meriel. I bit my lip, wondering whether she knew about Georgie.
‘All right, love? Why the frown?’ Tom was stacking pages into a neat bundle, smiling at me from beneath the desk lamp which Uncle Gilbert had given us for a wedding present.
‘I’m fine.’ I turned the frown into a grin. ‘Relishing the fire . . . the safety . . . every last little thing.’
He came over and sat opposite me, and nodded. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘Don’t mock. Soak it up.’
I finished my sock. We drank cocoa and talked more about the Düsseldorf trip and wondered what sort of reception they would get from the Germans generally.
‘George won’t come into contact with anyone outside the factory, I wouldn’t think,’ Tom said judiciously. ‘It might be different for the wives.’
He picked up my empty cocoa cup and made for the kitchen. ‘By the way,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘One of the directors is the Wingco. Did you know?’
He was referring to Mr Smith, Hermione’s father, husband to the very mysterious Mrs Smith. ‘How could I not know? Same name, of course, though there are so many Smiths around. Mrs Smith informed Mum that her husband’s father had founded the engineering firm at the beginning of the century, and as Dad worked there she expected I would befriend Hermione at school.’
‘But you and Meriel—’
‘Exactly. I was at least sorry for Hermione. Merry despised her. Well, until the time she gave us some ice-cold milk out of their ultramodern fridge!’ I chuckled at the thought, and added, ‘Poor Hermione. She was frantic about her mother that day.’