by John Gardner
‘Sarn’t Mountford and I’ll be off straight after the dance, Brian. Okay?’
‘Means definitely no booze, Chief.’ Brian happy that he would be with Molly at the dance.
‘Okay. Any more questions?’
When they were alone, Suzie asked him where they were going.
‘Didn’t I tell you, heart?’ All forgetful, innocent and distracted.
‘No, you didn’t, heart,’ with bite and a knowing that came from their long relationship. He stayed silent, absorbed in something else.
‘Tommy?’ she prompted.
‘Heart, listen to me.’ He stood before her, both hands on her shoulders, gazing down with his look-at-me expression. ‘You’re not to breathe this to a living soul, Suzie. Understand?’
‘When have I ever broken your rules, Tommy?’
‘This is a bit different. So promise.’
‘I promise.’ Wagging her head from side to side, like a small child.
‘You’re going back to the flat and you’ll stay put, okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll have company. Shirley Cox.’
She gave a little squeal of delight.
‘Shirley Cox and a couple of hired guns from the Yard. Two trained officers — well four actually doing twelve on and twelve off. Don’t want any nasty surprises.’
‘Tommy, you’re not setting me up again?’
‘No. No, I’m not setting you up. Not for Golly or anybody else. But I won’t be there for three — maybe four — days. Okay?’
‘Where’ll you be?’
‘Flogging peasants,’ which was their euphemism for dealing with family business at Kingscote Grange.
‘So we can talk on the telephone? Keep in touch?’
‘Not this time, heart. No.’ The Oracle had spoken and that was that. When Tommy laid down this kind of rule, she knew it was serious.
‘Oh, Tommy,’ she hugged him tight. ‘Whatever it is, be careful.’
‘It’s nothing dangerous, heart. In fact it’s dull and routine, but I’ll be extra specially careful. Never fear.’
Suzie felt that they were starting some new phase and that worried her. She couldn’t say why, but she felt that something unpleasant lurked out in the shadows that Tommy had alluded to.
Chapter Fifteen
Tommy had told Molly to go into Suzie’s room, share with her for the evening, get dressed together for the dinner party with the Station Commander, and the dance afterwards. Three years ago he had made a near fatal mistake, taking his eye off Suzie in a place he thought safe, and Golly Goldfinch had got her. He had been so wrong then; didn’t intend to make the same error twice.
So he went round the rest of the squad, spoke to every man and woman, told them again to stay sober if there was booze around, keep their eyes open, and, ‘Earwig everywhere,’ he said. ‘An arrest may depend on chatter, gossip or conjecture. Go to it.’
He gave his pistol to Dennis Free — ‘It’d spoil the cut of my suit, old boy’ — told him to watch Suzie so that he didn’t have to do that chore alone. Molly, he knew, was carrying a small SIG-Sauer .22 — called it a peashooter — in a little holster hidden in her waistband. Everyone was briefed and knew what the visit to the aerodrome was about — see how the Yanks reacted to the murders, follow any leads, be nice and friendly but be aware that on one night in the past ten days the crew of Wild Angel had been to a dinner party with the victims, in the death house of Knights Cottage.
Satisfied, Tommy went back to his room, showered, shaved and dressed — the grey double-breasted made for him by Huntsman’s chief cutter, the white shirt from his shirt-makers in Jermyn Street, his Cambridge college tie. The final product facing him in the mirror was indisputably Dandy Tom, Fleet Street’s favourite policeman.
Suzie wore her light blue, the neat little number her mother had bought for her at Fenwicks, during the sales last year; while Molly was turned out in a white pleated full skirt, matching white blouse, over that a silk bolero jacket that went down just far enough to cover the bulge where her pistol rested at the back of her right hip. As well as all her other skills, Molly was a mean needlewoman.
Brian drove them to the requisitioned Victorian house that was the Station Commander’s married quarters, a mile east of the aerodrome, arriving on the dot of seven thirty, and there was Tommy’s old school chum, Raleigh Ridsdale, a group captain at twenty-eight, DFC and Bar, one of ‘the Few’ now chained to a desk: tall, spare, rangy-looking man with floppy yellow hair and an Errol Flynn moustache.
‘Raleigh, old sport, how goes it?’ Rawley, old sport. Clasped hands, left hand above the elbow, pumping away, both men grinning, as though they knew things about each other nobody else would ever know. Probably did.
‘Tommy, nice to see you. Come in, meet the memsahib.’ The memsahib being Sally Ridsdale nee Sally Noble, high-born lady, father a knight, mother a great party-giver, known for it, and Sally herself still looking the showgirl she had been when Raleigh met her in London, just before the Blitz in the autumn of terror, 1940. Long legs, elegant: walked, turned and spoke like a dream, swept the new arrivals with a smile each would remember as personal.
Once the introductions were made, Raleigh Ridsdale drew Tommy close and murmured, ‘You’re sitting next to the Skipper of Wild Angel: Captain LeClare. Thought you’d like that.’
‘Good of you, Raleigh. Look after my little sergeant over there, the one in the blue, okay?’
‘Always could pick ’em, Tommy. Come and meet everyone.’
They went through into a long, pleasant room, sky-blue wallpaper, some nice prints and a large London street scene in oils over the marble mantelpiece, circa 1840 with handsome cabs clopping through driving rain and people hurrying along slick pavements. A large bow window spread across the far wall, leaded lights looking out on to an elegant lawn with trees hunched at the far end.
People circulated, glasses in hand, all the fun of the fair and whatever you wanted to drink. There were introductions, Michael and Bunny something, Raleigh’s adjutant, Brian Dicks, a WAAF officer, Squadron Officer Long, ‘Lottie for short, ha-ha.’ There was a civilian called Kevin, who turned out to be a local bigwig, and his wife, Elsie — wouldn’t you know it? — and a couple of Yanks. Ricky LeClare, and Will Truebond, who said, ‘Hi ya,’ shaking Tommy’s hand firmly. Until that moment Tommy had never believed that people actually said, ‘Hi ya,’ outside of on the silver screen.
Then Sally was beside him, saying Raleigh had often talked about him. ‘Don’t believe a thing,’ Tommy smiled. ‘Old Raleigh’s an inveterate liar.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ she said with a little moue and a wink. ‘Great exaggerator,’ she added.
Then Lottie — ‘Charlotte actually’ — asking how were they getting on with the case, so terrible, those poor people, and the little boy. Tommy was suitably vague. ‘One day at a time stuff,’ he told her, but they’d get whoever did it, never fear.
‘My Waafs’re a bit scared,’ she said as though she owned all the Waafs in East Anglia. ‘’Fraid there’s a maniac about, coming to get them, bogeyman sort of thing, eh? Ropey do.’ She struck Tommy as being somewhat horsey.
‘They don’t need to be afraid. We think there was an element of revenge in this, probably someone close, don’t really know yet, haven’t got all the ducks in place. But it’ll happen. Nothing to worry your girls.’
Across the room, Suzie tinkled with laughter and Tommy thought what a splendid laugh she had, ding-ding-di-ding-ding it went, and as far as Tommy was concerned she could go on chuckling out that laugh for ever. He noticed Raleigh filling up LeClare’s glass again, softening him up? He wondered what went on in these men’s minds. Did they have problems after the battle? Did they have nightmares about fire and death in the skies? Come to that, did old Raleigh get the horrors when he thought back to those summer days of 1940 when it was a daily fight with the Dorniers and Messerschmidts, or was that past reality now packed away for ever in a memory box where it cou
ldn’t hurt?
Then, suddenly, Sally was saying that dinner was served and they all trooped through, Tommy taking Sally while Raleigh squired Suzie and the adjutant led Molly through and they ended up in a slightly cramped dining room where Tommy found himself, as promised, next to LeClare on his right and Sally on his left, Sally muttering not to worry about her because she had Mister Moneybags Kevin, the civvie, next to her, indicating she knew he needed to talk to the Yank.
‘You’re all cops, I hear.’ LeClare opening the bidding.
‘Yes indeed. Common or garden cops.’
‘What about the girls?’
‘Yes, they’re cops as well.’
‘What do they do? Make the coffee, do the secretarial work?’
‘No, actually, they’re real cops. In fact the one over there,’ nodding towards Molly, ‘she’s a specialist in unarmed combat, as they now call it. She’s also a crack shot. Specialist sort of thing.’
‘Gee,’ said LeClare, not believing a word of it.
‘But what about you, Captain?’
‘Call me Ricky.’
‘What about you, then, Ricky?’
‘What about me?’ not aggressive. LeClare was a tall, lean, muscular man, tanned, pleasant round open face, salt-and-pepper hair, verging on gold streaks, and a five-mile stare, used to sweeping the air around him.
‘You fly those damned great Fortresses, Raleigh Ridsdale tells me.’
‘Somebody has to do it.’
‘Fly them across Europe, bomb the Nazis?’
‘All the time, sir.’ Pause. ‘No, that’s a bit of what your Raff boys call a line shoot. We’ve actually bombed occupied Europe twice. That’s it.’
‘Not to be sneezed at. Makes my job look a little humdrum.’
An RAF steward and two Waafs in white jackets served a clear brown soup and LeClare asked if this was a speciality.
‘Probably what’s called Brown Windsor. Supposed to be a favourite with royalty.’
‘Yeah?’ Impressed that he was drinking soup that maybe was served regularly to George VI and Queen Elizabeth. ‘You’re real lucky having a royal family. I hear they were a great help during the Blitz, when it got real bad.’
‘Well, they didn’t actually take to the skies, or man the guns…’
‘No, but they helped morale.’
‘Not as much as you do with those damned great Fortresses. They difficult to fly?’
‘They have their little idiosyncrasies like any airplane, little ways. But they’re pretty straightforward. We thought they were impregnable but…’
‘And they’re not?’
‘I guess not,’ and he was off, told the story of little Tim Ruby getting killed, and coming home again minus two of his crew and a third badly shot up, then wrecking the airplane. Not bragging but getting it all out of his head.
‘I’m sorry about that.’ Tommy put on his quiet face, relaxed, interested, and as they removed the soup plates he waited as the steward placed the rare beef before him. ‘Somehow it looks as though Raleigh has captured one of our British delicacies. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. How d’you manage that?’ he asked Sally.
‘We dig and delve, like the seven dwarfs,’ she smiled, then turned back to Kevin the civilian.
To Rick LeClare Tommy said, ‘Someone, I forget who, told me you knew the family who were murdered in the village — oh, I remember who it was. Young girl, the late Max Ascoli’s illegitimate daughter, Thetis: she told me.’
It felt as though a small charge of electricity passed from LeClare to himself: a kind of instant acknowledgement, a stiffening of muscles, a small shock that told him the American captain was uncomfortable with the facts, knew something about the Ascoli family and didn’t want to talk about it.
*
Queenie MacSweeney’s besetting fault was that she would often take action without thinking of the consequences; so it was on the night of the dance at Taddmarten aerodrome. That afternoon she got to know Golly Goldfinch, and, for Queenie, getting to know a man — even one so mentally and physically deformed as Golly — generally meant taking her little drawers down and letting the male have his wicked way with her. No getting away from it, old Queenie MacSweeney liked to be schtupped regularly and often, and it didn’t really matter if the man was a sixty-year-old horny letch or a deformed cretin like Golly or any variation in between.
There was danger about Golly Goldfinch, and that added an extra frisson to the pleasure. She didn’t stop to think about it, but it was an edge that could possibly be fatal. The only thing against Golly and a bit of the yo-ho-ho was that, because of his distorted mouth he had a tendency to slaver. Apart from that, they had managed a pleasant afternoon and she enjoyed teasing him and hearing his strange breathy laugh when he got excited.
So when the doorbell rang at half-past six she told him to stay where he was. ‘Just in case it’s one of Lavender’s regulars.’ Golly understood about Lavender’s regulars because he had worked with her when she had clients up to the rooms off Rupert Street in Soho, London. He had taken care of some of those regulars himself, ones she didn’t like, and those men never came to see her again.
If it was a regular, Queenie reckoned she would have time for a nice bath. Lavender had a washbasin in her room, so that would be okay.
It turned out to be Ed, the Yank officer from Bury St Edmunds — a major — the one who’d brought the ham, and he was a looker: dark, what they called saturnine — mysterious — which brought a little flip to Queenie’s loins.
‘You know Queenie?’ Lavender asked him, giving him a little kiss, peck on the cheek.
‘Gee, no. I’ve heard a lot about you, Queenie. Real nice to meet you.’
Queenie simpered a bit, but she knew men and could sense that he didn’t really mean it.
‘Lavender,’ he said, turning away from Queenie in a manner she thought quite rude. ‘Look, honey, I’ve got a jeep downstairs all gassed up and ready to go, parked right in front of the house. I got some tickets see, invitations to the dance out at the Long Taddmarten base. Wondered if you’d like to step over there with me.’ He leaned towards her, on the balls of his feet. ‘And Queenie of course. She’s welcome as well.’
Too late, Queenie thought. Wouldn’t come if he got down on his knees and begged.
‘Nice of you, Ed,’ Lavender said. ‘I’ll have to get ready though. Yes, I’d love to come with you, but you’ll have to wait a half-hour or so while I change.’ Lavender giving a look at Queenie that said, okay, maybe it’ll come in useful.
‘You get ready then, honey. And what about Queenie?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t. Not tonight, Ed. I’m meeting someone, later.’ Very firm.
‘Well, in case you change your mind you can bring him along, if you get transport.’ And he handed her two invitation tickets to the dance.
Immediately, Queenie, being Queenie, began to have the stirrings of an idea.
Lavender said did he mind if she dressed up and changed how she looked and Ed seemed bemused and asked what she meant, changed how she looked?
‘I’ve a friend in the theatre in London. Gets me these proper professional wigs. Changes your appearance.’
‘Bet it still makes you look sexy.’
And it did. When she came out in her little grey dress, with the long pleats that made the skirt rise and fall as she twirled — gave onlookers a peek at the bridge — she looked quite different to the Lavender who’d gone into the room. Neater figure, much shorter girl without heels, myopic, with the spectacles and ravishing deep dark-red hair, almost aubergine colour, sweeping back, making waves against her shoulders.
‘Gee,’ Ed said. Then again, ‘Hey, Lavender, you look a million dollars.’
‘Not Lavender, Ed. Not tonight. Tonight I’m Daphne, right?’
‘Daphne? Okay, so you’re Daphne.’
‘Good. Don’t forget it, sweetheart.’
When they had gone, Queenie went through to Golly, woke him up. ‘Come on sleepy head, h
ow d’you fancy a ride in the car, go on out to that ’drome at Long Taddmarten, go to the dance?’ It was a typical Queenie cock-up, really believed it was a good idea. Idiot.
‘I can’t go to no dance, Queenie. Get recognized straight off. They’d have me quicker’n a fart in a box.’
‘I didn’t mean you to come into the dance, Golly. I mean you could hide in the car, get into the base and we might have a wander round. Everyone’ll be at the dance. There’ll be a lot of empty rooms. People leave stuff lying around in empty rooms. Might make ourselves a bob or two, have a root round the aerodrome. How about it?’
Golly started to chuckle, the breathless laugh. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, Queenie, better’n a kick in the arse wi’ a frozen foot.’ And he began to laugh and laugh, getting out of control, so Queenie did what Lavender had told her, gave him a little slap and shouted at him.
Golly stopped laughing, stood crouched in the middle of the room, breathing heavily, eyes going from side to side, this way and that as if looking for someone out to get him, creep in the room and kill him.
‘Come on, Golly,’ Queenie smiled at him. ‘Let me get ready, change, and you put on those plimsolls Lavender got for you and we can go out.’
‘I watch you get changed, Queenie?’
‘Course you can, you little devil. But you mustn’t touch.’
‘Yeah. Right.’ Golly began to laugh again.
*
‘Was it you, Ricky, who knew the late Ascoli family?’ Tommy tackled his beef, which was not as tender as he would’ve liked, though the Yorkshire pudding was a treat: great drowned in gravy and covered in mustard.
‘Yes.’ Ricky LeClare didn’t meet his eye, kept his head down, refused the horseradish, which was probably wise of him. ‘Sure, yes. I met them. Had the whole of my crew in to dinner. Great party. Nice people.’ Somehow didn’t ring true coming from him.