by Alan Hardy
He greeted her effusively—in his irritatingly slimy way—as she entered his office. Fiona held out her hand towards him to keep him from approaching too close. She disliked the itchy, sweaty feel and look about his corpulent, wobbly body; it reminded her unpleasantly of her husband.
Sitting opposite him at his desk, she discussed the nature and scope of her article with him. She asked a few questions about Paula’s duties in the ops-room, and Turnbill’s combat record. She dutifully made notes in a pad she’d sent James, the butler, out to buy.
She asked about their duties and records when they had been posted down south to England in 1940 at the height of The Battle of Britain.
“Paula’s husband actually lost his life in combat, didn’t he, while she was working there, I think?”
“Yes, that is so,” replied the Group Captain, hesitating a moment. “Very unfortunate.”
“She was on duty in the ops-room when he was lost, wasn’t she?”
“I think she was,” he said, seemingly disinterested as he stroked his ridiculous-looking handlebar moustache. “Not that she would have heard anything too…well…unpleasant… Well, one hopes not…”
“So, it turns out Flying Officer Wentworth was the one actually downed by friendly fire, and not Freddie, my husband?”
“That is so…”
“Did you ever look into the incident, Group Captain?” queried Fiona. “You know, who fired the 20 mm cannon…”
“Better to leave such matters obscured by the fog of war, my dear Mrs MacIntosh…” he murmured, giving a half-witted tap to his nose. “These tragedies do happen…”
“Well, thank you very much, Group Captain,” said Fiona with a sweet smile, and a wobble of her bosom as she stirred in her chair, which caused the Group Captain to lean forward involuntarily, with a little half-gasp, half-cough. “Would it be all right if I just had a brief word with some of Paula’s colleagues in the ops-room?”
“Of course,” said the Group Captain, half-rising from his chair, waiting for Fiona to finish re-screwing the top on to her fountain pen, and then put it and her pad away in her handbag. “I’ll just get someone to—”
At that point, Fiona was amazed by the sight of Warrant Officer Wilkinson entering the office, without knocking, holding some papers in her hand.
“Sir, just these letters which need signing straight—”
She broke off as her eyes alighted upon Fiona.
“Mrs MacIntosh,” she said, with a nod.
“Miss Wilkinson, I didn’t know you worked in the Station Commander’s office,” declared Fiona, with a curious glimmer in her eyes.
“Yes, yes,” mumbled the Group Captain. “Keeps everything ship-shape. Damned fine job she’s doing.”
“How long have you been working with Group Captain Jenkins?” asked Fiona, now standing, and facing Mary.
“Just a few weeks,” she replied politely, yet confidently. “In fact, since I came back.”
“Came back?”
“From overseas, Mrs MacIntosh,” explained Mary. “I had an overseas posting for some time.”
“Oh, where was that?”
“I’m afraid we’re not supposed to divulge operational—”
“Piffle!” cut in the Group Captain abruptly, but good-naturedly enough. “Mrs MacIntosh is an intimate friend and supporter of the squadron. Has been for many years. And her father before her. I remember him well. Grand fellow. No need for that secrecy nonsense when it comes to Mrs MacIntosh, Warrant Officer Wilkinson.”
“Of course,” said Mary, before turning to Fiona. “I was stationed in North Africa. Mainly based in Cairo.”
“Secretarial work? Or in the ops-room?”
“It varied, Mrs MacIntosh…”
“Warrant Officer Wilkinson,” said the Group Captain, “once I’ve signed these, could you accompany Mrs MacIntosh to the ops-room? She’d like a chat with poor Paula Wentworth’s colleagues.
“Of course.”
As they walked to the ops-room, Fiona explained to Mary that she was writing an article for her local newspaper on Paula, and indeed Turnbill.
“A wonderful idea,” remarked Mary.
Smarmy as ever, thought Fiona. Seemingly polite, sweet, and self-effacing. And, beneath it all, a crafty, scheming little minx.
Fiona cast her a swift glance.
She wasn’t really bad-looking. Dark hair. Nice, big eyes. Pronounced lips. The mouth just a bit too large. Nice enough figure.
Fiona wondered whether Mary and Matthew had ever had sex. The idea really annoyed her.
Mary smiled at her, as they walked down a long corridor.
“How is Matthew?” Mary asked sweetly, as if reading Fiona’s mind. “I haven’t seen him for a while.”
“He’s fine,” answered Fiona, made to feel defensive, and embarrassed. “He’s in London for a few days.”
Mary nodded automatically, without showing any great interest. Fiona thought she glimpsed a slight wetness in Mary’s eyes. Regret, maybe. Jealousy, even. She hoped so, anyway. Envy that Matthew wasn’t hers, but Fiona’s. Eat your heart out, Mary.
“How’s your husband?” asked Mary, with a naughty, cheeky smile.
She really was a nasty, little bitch.
Paula’s colleagues in the ops-room were fairly unresponsive to Fiona’s questions.
She decided to check out the tiny bed-sit Paula had rented, and where her body had been found.
It was a decidedly run-down area—litter-strewn streets and slum-like dwellings well beyond their demolish-by-date—and Fiona felt nervous and out-of-place.
The caretaker of the apartment-block, a fat, ugly, middle-aged woman, who smelled of onions, was only too ready to talk, even more so after Fiona had greased her palm. She told Fiona that Paula used to entertain a whole series of men there.
“All sorts, luvvie,” she said, drawing in nicotine from the fag stuck to her lips. “Tall ones, short ones, good-looking ones, and others who weren’t so good-looking… Quiet ones, and others who always had a nice word…”
“Who were her regulars?” asked Fiona.
“I don’t know their names. I know my place, Madam, and it’s not for me to pry into—”
“Can you describe them?” Fiona cut in, her unsteady voice betraying her anxiety.
“Well,” said the caretaker, screwing up her face, “there was a tall, good-looking one, with lovely muscles, full of himself, he was… Then there was another good-looking one, younger he was. Nice way about him…”
“Blue eyes?”
“Sorry, Madam?”
“Blue eyes… Did he have blue eyes?”
“Maybe he did…” answered the caretaker, hooding her own eyes as she looked at Fiona, and pursing her lips.
“Brown hair?” Fiona enquired, frowning, and quite angry.
“Brown hair? Could be… Or was it black?” she murmured. “Difficult to remember… Then there was the little, funny-looking one, quiet, never said much, face pale as death… But then I’m going back quite a while now… Then there was the smart-looking one, polite enough, not so young anymore… Then there were a few you couldn’t miss as RAF types. Y’know, those funny moustaches, y’know, they’re—"
“Handle-bar moustaches,” cut in Fiona, with a heart-felt shudder. “Nasty things!”
“Yes, there was two or three of them, y’know, I—”
“How far back are you going, if I may ask?” cut in Fiona, suddenly getting quite animated.
“How do you mean, Madam?”
“Well, in recalling the men who visited Mrs Wentworth, how far back are you in fact going?”
“Well, she had the room a long time. I’m going back to last year. Before things started to go bad, y’know, the fall of France, and all them bombs started falling…”
“Back to 1940? Before the squadron was moved south?”
“Yes, Madam,” replied the caretaker. “I mean, Mrs Wentworth was away, like the squadron was, all that time, from summer 1940, until th
ese last few weeks…”
“Of course,” murmured Fiona, looking quite pensive and distracted.
“In all that time, first half of 1940, and these last few weeks of this year, Mrs Wentworth had quite a number of visitors, Madam.”
“I can imagine.”
From what the caretaker told her, Fiona could well imagine that Paula and her debauched mates had as good as set up what she had once heard called a ‘knocking-shop’. It didn’t bear thinking about. It really was for the best that Paula was dead. Such degenerates had no right to life.
“Did any of the men who visited her in early 1940 also visit her upon her return this year?” asked Fiona nervously, giving a throaty cough or two.
“They may have,” commented the caretaker enigmatically.
“Anyone in particular?”
Fiona tried to appear blasé, but noticed the woman was staring at her hands. She looked down. She was doing that thing with her left wrist again.
“It’s not really for me to say, Madam,” said the woman, eyeing Fiona suspiciously.
“What—What about the young man with the blue eyes, did—did he come—”
“It’s not as if you’re the police or something, is it, Madam? I don’t know that I should, y’know…”
“What about the man who found Paula’s body? Was he—”
“Really, Madam! I can’t answer such… It’s not right…”
“Of course,” murmured Fiona. “It’s of no consequence.”
Probably Matthew had paid her off. She sensed it. He had paid her to keep her mouth shut, apart from mouthing aimless generalities.
When Fiona arrived back at The Mansion, she got James to run her a bath, and she lay there a good half-hour, soaking away the clammy contamination her brush with low-life immorality, she felt, had smeared on her own body.
She invited Squadron Leader Jackson and his wife, Belinda, for afternoon tea one day.
She spent a pleasant enough hour or so with them in the drawing-room. She asked Squadron Leader Jackson one or two things about George Turnbill, and Paula, although he seemed not to have had much contact with her.
She immediately noticed a tension between the married couple. Colin Jackson seemed a little withdrawn, a tiny bit ill-tempered, which was a surprise, as normally he was on an even, good-natured keel. He kept throwing Belinda glances, which Fiona could only define as accusatory.
He seemed even more disturbed whenever discussing George Turnbill, and the hurt looks he threw at his wife resembled a nervous tic.
“Did you know him at all, Belinda?” Fiona asked innocently.
“Not particularly,” she replied, her plump face creased into a frown. “No more than other members of Colin’s squadron.”
“Of course.”
It seemed as if Colin Jackson gave Belinda a dirty stare.
So, that was it. It was blindingly obvious.
Belinda at some stage had had an affair with Turnbill. Well, that was no surprise. Belinda had had many affairs. George Turnbill had had even more. But Fiona had never realized the extent of Colin Jackson’s irritation at his cuckolded state. The strained relations between Belinda and her husband was something Fiona had never really taken on board before. Probably, in earlier years, she had been so wrapped up in her own marital travails with Freddie that she had selfishly paid little regard to others’ problems.
Even Belinda, beneath the surface gaiety, gave strong hints of dissatisfaction and non-fulfilment. Something about her expression, and her body’s posture. She wasn’t quite at ease. There was a facial blankness, and a fidgety nervousness, which caught Fiona’s attention.
“He was quite a ladies’ man, wasn’t he?” stated Fiona, ignoring Belinda’s pointed, and annoyed stare.
Belinda said nothing, merely giving Fiona another stare or two.
“Have the police ever found out what he was doing in your gardens in the middle of the night?” Belinda asked naughtily, determined to get her own back.
“I don’t think so…”
“Do they think he was murdered there, or moved there when already dead?” asked Squadron Leader Jackson, making forced, tight-lipped conversation.
“I’ve no idea,” replied Fiona. “I always assumed he had a rendezvous of sorts, and—”
“In your gardens, Fiona?” interrupted Belinda, laughing smugly. “With whom?”
“Our grounds are so huge that we can hardly control who enters them either day or night, and for what purpose…”
“Of course not,” agreed the Squadron Leader.
“How dreadful, though, for two murders to occur at more or less the same time,” commented Fiona. “The squadron will pull through. I mean, it pulled through during 1940 and The Battle of Britain, didn’t it?”
“But surely the murders had nothing to do with the squadron?” asked Belinda, looking rather appalled.
“Well,” said her husband, “I shouldn’t think the two murders are linked. I would imagine Mrs Wentworth’s murder to be, well, a separate issue, more to do with her… How shall I say it delicately? More to do with her lifestyle? I mean, she was killed in an apartment-block which, after all, was no more than a bordello.”
“Well, George Turnbill’s lifestyle was also quite questionable, wasn’t it?” added Fiona, much to Belinda’s chagrin, as Belinda continued to cast imploring glances at her. “Contrary to your opinion, Colin, I think the murders could well have been linked. Jilted lovers. Jealous husband or wife. You know the sort of thing…”
“Yes…” murmured Belinda, meeting her husband’s equally irritated stare.
Belinda was a long-time friend of Fiona’s. They weren’t intimate friends, but certainly long-standing.
They’d gone to the same posh girls’ private school.
In fact, it had been Belinda who had initiated those sexually-charged group sessions a bunch of them used to share, sprawled out on their dormitory beds. They used to push two or three beds together, and four or five of them would snuggle up together, and discuss stupidities, and even try out one or two.
Belinda was the one of the group who had acquired experience in such matters. She had actually done it. She was viewed by the others with a mixture of awe, envy and disbelief.
She showed them how it was done. She got on top of each one of them in turn, and gyrated, ground away, twisted and shoved, while keeping up a running commentary.
All the girls got silly and excited, quite a few evenings, over a school-semester or two.
That was when Fiona started to get her ideas about men and love. When her dreams started. Impossible dreams. Dreams which could never be realized. Dreams of perfection, and total fulfilment. All based on girls’ silly giggles and childish chat, and their awkward fumbling and touching, which had led her to first experience physical ecstasy. She imagined she would meet a young man, for whom she would feel an intense, as yet unknown emotion, at the same time as attaining physical release.
She still believed that would happen long after she had grown out of those silly sessions on the dorm beds, and had even started to consider Belinda to be no better than she should be.
When she did finally get married, she found her fantasies bore no relation whatsoever to the awkward young man she had wed, who had his own concerns, and an anatomy totally different from what she had experienced in her dormitory. In particular, he had a ‘thingy’ which he wished to use to penetrate various parts of her body, to her shock, horror, and, eventually, complete indifference.
Funnily enough, it was through Colin Jackson that Fiona had met Freddie. Belinda had got married quite young. At that stage Fiona didn’t mix too much with the 287 Squadron chaps. Her father was still alive, and dealt with all that; he instituted the family’s close connection with the airfield and squadron. But Belinda’s marriage to Pilot Officer Jackson, as he then was, resulted in Belinda drawing her into that circle of pilot officers. Chaps like Jackson himself, John Granville, and others, and, later, George Turnbill, although that was a fe
w years after. Matthew, of course, being so much younger, didn’t turn up on the scene until Fiona had been married many years. In fact, not until the war had started.
So, she and Belinda went back a long way. What was strange, though, was to sense their roles were now reversed. Where she, Fiona, had long been so unfulfilled and dissatisfied, and Belinda had seemed flightily satiated by life, it was now Fiona who had actually found somebody who thrilled her in a way probably not even Belinda had experienced. Belinda had soured, Fiona understood that. Her life of sexual indulgence hadn’t worked out, whereas Fiona, with her strange sexual delusions, had found fulfilment.
Belinda told her off when they had a quick chat together, while her husband was making a trip to the boys’ room.
“Did you have to go on about George?” she snapped. “You know he and I had a… Well, you know…”
“Yes, yes. Sorry.”
“You’ve changed, Fiona,” Belinda remarked. “You’re much more direct. Less hidden. Less secretive. You’re much more confident. Is that because of Matthew? Is that love?”
Fiona smiled.
“Have you ever really been in love, Belinda?”
Belinda didn’t reply, but looked a little morose.
“How we all envied you,” continued Fiona. “At school, you know. You were the fearless one. The one who had done things. Who dared to do anything and everything.”
“Oh, well, I’m still willing to do most things…” Belinda said, with a silly chuckle.
“You were even quite daring and shocking with your political views, if I remember properly,” continued Fiona, staring pointedly at her old friend. “You were quite the admirer of Mussolini when we were at school, and Hitler too later on, weren’t you?”
“Many people were then, Fiona, you know that,” responded Belinda, looking curiously at her. “Look at Lord and Lady Montacue, and old Lord Mendelson.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“And you too, I seem to remember,” added Belinda. “You were an admirer of those torch-lit Nazi processions. The glamour of it all. The thrill.”
“Were you ever tempted to take it further, Belinda?” asked Fiona, her face quite expressionless.