by Alan Hardy
“How do you mean?” countered a perplexed-looking Belinda. “And you?”
At that moment, Squadron Leader Jackson returned, and the conversation moved on to other matters.
That was it. That was the extent of her enquiries. Nothing spectacular, but she felt she had discovered one or two threads which might one day be knitted together to help form a fuller tapestry.
Then, the day Matthew was scheduled to come back from London, a letter arrived. A totally unexpected letter. A letter which changed everything.
Excitedly anticipating Matthew’s arrival, and what she was planning to do to his gorgeous face and body, she debated what she should tell him of her investigations. She decided to wait and see how things went, and there and then make up her mind what, and how much to tell him.
As regarded the letter, for now she would keep that to herself. The time to reveal it, and inform Matthew, or keep it forever secret, would be a matter for her and nobody else.
26
Fiona and Matthew didn’t speak much on his return from London. He arrived back late, when it was dark. They had other things on their mind. A night of passion in Fiona’s grand, luxurious bed gave them more than enough to occupy themselves with.
The next morning, while Fiona was still debating what, and how much, to tell him, Matthew gave her some very interesting information.
Matthew had been told that the Anglo-American summit at Scapa Flow was scheduled for the third week in May. The American VIPs were arriving by ship. The summit would last three or four days, and, at its close, that ship, and its American and British escorts, would be leaving Scapa Flow the following morning. 287 Squadron of course would be providing air cover.
“Is President Roosevelt coming?” asked Fiona.
“Either he or Vice-President Wallace. It’s still not clear. But it will be a high-powered delegation. Top brass.”
Fiona fell silent.
“And you want me to report that to Berlin?”
“Of course,” he answered, without hesitation.
“And what have you been up to in my absence, darling?” asked Matthew.
“Oh, not too much… A little sleuthing here, a little sleuthing there…”
“What have you found out?”
“Not too sure if I’m going to tell you yet…” answered Fiona, turning over and giving him a sharp poke in the stomach.
He grabbed hold of her. She resisted. They had a tussle. A mock-fight. Man-handling each other as they lay on the grass in their favourite picnic spot. Breathing hard. Ending up sharing kisses as they still held off each other’s hands, roughly and aggressively.
Momentarily exhausted, they lay on their backs, side by side, staring up at the blue heavens, convinced that there was nothing wrong with the world that a few kisses couldn’t put right.
“Have the police divulged anything of note concerning Paula’s murder? And George Turnbill’s, for that matter?”
“What do you want to know, Fiona?” asked Matthew, with a resigned sigh.
“Was George murdered in The Mansion’s grounds, or was he—”
“Yes, he was.”
“Shouldn’t we have heard something at the time?” queried Fiona. “I mean, we were in the house the whole night.”
“Who knows? Right in the heart of the countryside. There are always noises. Even gunshots, with poachers. One gets used to the occasional sound. A car back-firing? The crack of a branch falling? Another rabbit for a poacher’s dinner?”
“And Paula? Any news of her?”
“Well, the weapon used was a Webley revolver.”
“Any significance to that?” asked Fiona, nestling her left side, hip and leg against Matthew.
“Standard RAF issue.”
“Well, that’s not surprising,” said Fiona. “From what I heard, she had a string of RAF chaps visiting her in 1940 and since her return.”
“You’ve spoken to that caretaker, I take it?”
“She described a whole host of them. Tall ones, short ones, good-looking ones, plain ones, friendly ones… One who sounded a bit like you…”
“Really? I must have a common-looking face…”
“Not for me, darling,” she said, rolling over on to him, causing him to wince.
“Could you put names to the descriptions?” he asked, putting his arms around her just below her waist and pressing her down on to himself.
“I reckon, amongst many, many lovers, she was visited by my beloved husband, Freddie, by George Turnbill, Group Captain Jenkins, John Granville, I think, even our esteemed Squadron Leader Jackson, let alone someone who sounded remarkably like you…”
She looked angry. She lowered her head, and bit his lip. Once. Twice. Three times. She opened up his shirt, and ran her lips and teeth along his flesh.
“You think Colin Jackson was one of her admirers?” asked Matthew.
“Sounded like it.”
She became distracted, raising her head, and gazing at the mountain-peaks straddling the horizon.
“I invited John and Belinda for afternoon tea. They seemed on edge. He was a bit withdrawn, more than usual. There was tension between them. I would say he was angry about something. Maybe about Belinda having had an affair with George Turnbill.”
“Interesting,” Matthew commented. “You really have been busy, haven’t you?”
“Haven’t I?” echoed Fiona, returning her gaze upon her young man.
“By the way, Fiona, keep that info about the Webley under your hat,” said Matthew. “I got that from British Intelligence. The police haven’t released the full details of Paula’s murder as yet, not even the place where she was murdered.”
“Really?” exclaimed Fiona, looking even more energized. “Squadron Leader Jackson actually mentioned that she’d been found at that rented apartment.”
“Well, well…”
“What do you make of that? A lucky guess? An obvious inference? Or something else?”
“What a clever girl you’ve been,” said Matthew, giving her a cheeky slap on her butt. “What else have you found out?”
“That’s enough for now,” she said, undoing his belt with her right hand, and fiddling about with his flies with her left hand.
“Are your intentions honourable, Mrs MacIntosh?” enquired Matthew, already rocking from side to side, and pushing up on Fiona with his lower torso.
“I’m just going to show you who’s master, my darling,” she answered, sitting up, fiddling with her own clothing, shifting about, as she straddled Matthew, like a horsewoman making herself comfortable in the saddle. “I sometimes think you don’t know your place.”
She still hadn’t told him she was expecting his child. She was saving that news for a special occasion. When, maybe, it would be really needed. She couldn’t wait too long, of course. It wasn’t just that pregnancy had a way of revealing itself without the need for words—time waited for no man or woman—but there was that other problem, that wretched, nauseating waste of space locked away in a safe house in London.
What to do about Freddie? She had to regularize everything between herself and Matthew well in time, not only to legitimize, but also to dignify the birth of her child. Everything had to be tip-top. Above board. Above suspicion, give or take a few months. As long as she was married to Matthew a respectable amount of time before the birth, her ‘set’ wouldn’t bother about the mathematical niceties of a month or two. Such moralistic nonsense was for the bourgeoisie, and the lower orders.
It was just that sooner, rather than later, Freddie had to be removed from the scene. Clinically. Surgically.
She glanced at Matthew by her side, as they strode back towards The Mansion, arm in arm, lip-clinging kisses being exchanged, bodies tingling as their limbs and torsos touched.
Would he help her sort it out? Once she explained the situation, could she leave it in his capable hands?
If she was going to broach the matter shortly, it would probably be a good idea to divulge the other piece
of news she had been keeping from him this last day or so.
“I’m planning to go down to London next Friday, Matthew,” she informed him over their gin and tonics in the drawing-room.
“Really? The bombing’s getting quite bad,” responded Matthew, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “When I was there, you could see how things had deteriorated. Whole streets bombed out.”
“I’ll be all right. I won’t stay overnight. That’s when the Blitz is at its worst. I’ll take the night-train back. The Flying Scotsman, with any luck.”
“Do you really need to go?” asked Matthew, his pleading tone of voice gratifying her.
“I’m arranging a meeting with one of your old colleagues, Matthew,” she informed him, with a mysterious, cheeky smile.
“Yes? Who’s that?”
“Earlier in the year, when I wrote to you asking for any information you might have on Freddie’s death, and the letters which claimed to be from him, I—"
“Yes, you also wrote to George—”
“Group Captain Jenkins gave me the names of the pilots who’d been transferred before Freddie’s supposed death, namely you, George Turnbill, and John Granville.”
“So?” grunted Matthew, looking interested.
“Well, John Granville just wrote to me the other day. He’d been posted overseas, as you know, and says by the time my letter got to him, knowing he would be back home in Blighty soon, he waited until he was here before writing.”
“What else does he say?”
“He’s that short, innocuous-looking one, isn’t he? I remember him from the early days, at the time of my marriage. He formed a little group of pilot officers with my ghastly husband, and others. I didn’t see too much of him from then on. Just now and then at a do. Quiet chap, wasn’t he? Pale-faced? A bit nervous?”
“What else did he say?” repeated Matthew impatiently.
“Well, he was quite nice,” replied Fiona. “Said he’d be happy to meet up whenever suited me. He’s in London now for a spot of leave. He mentioned you…”
“Really?”
“Yes,” said Fiona, giving him an unfriendly stare. “He said it was Freddie, George Turnbill, Group Captain Jenkins, you, and him, of course, who started off that letter-writing sham… Well, I already knew that. He apologized, and all that. Said it was just to help out a lazy, thoughtless old friend…”
“Why bother going to see him?” asked Matthew.
“Well, you never know what one can pick up,” Fiona ruminated. “A little chat might reveal something of importance.”
“About what?”
“Who knows? If one doesn’t try, one’ll never know.”
“Do you think you might turn up something which could lead us to the third spy?” asked Matthew, in a flat, dry voice.
“Maybe…” she murmured coyly.
“Don’t go, Fiona.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because I’m asking you. It’s pointless.”
“But why shouldn’t I?”
“If you really insist on going, I’ll fly you down. There are a couple of old two-seater Defiants at the airfield. We’ll take one of them.”
“That’ll be nice,” said Fiona, surprised but pleased. “But much as I’m thrilled you’re coming, Matthew, why the concern?”
“It’s for the best if I’m there, too.”
“You feel the need to protect me?” asked Fiona, laughing gently, but so gratified.
“That’s right,” he answered flatly.
“From who? Tiny, quiet John Granville?”
“Yes.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because he’ll try to kill you.”
27
Fiona was fuming. She and Matthew had had to go out into the gardens. They had exchanged some hot words, and Fiona had tried to smack him a couple of times. He’d managed to fend off her blows, so, to make up for it, she had spat at him at least three times.
Her first words following Matthew’s revelation that John Granville would try to kill her were that it was about time Matthew laid out the full facts, and stopped keeping secrets from her.
To which he replied that it was for her to come clean about what she had been up to, and what she knew, and thought she knew. He said she was the one with the secrets.
Then Fiona had lost it. That mist descended upon her again, and the only way to stop her head from imploding was to hit out.
One moment, they’d been trapped in an ugly embrace of arms locked in aggressive or defensive intent, and the next, as the glare in their eyes had softened under the other’s stare, they were kissing and rubbing faces, their interlocked arms now shoving and pushing self-indulgent moves of love.
They had agreed they had to go outside in the fresh air. Maybe then they could speak calmly and fruitfully, without risk of harm, or the distraction of making love.
“All right, Matthew,” she said, breathing deeply, and holding her black coat tightly around her, “I think you have to tell me why you think Flight Lieutenant Granville would want to kill me.”
“For the same reason that you want to see him,” he replied delphically.
“Which is?” asked Fiona, her face stony and pale.
“You think he’s the third German spy,” he replied. “Don’t you?”
“What if I do?”
“Just him, or—”
“Maybe working with someone else,” she cut in.
“Can’t you come clean about what you found out, or think you found out, during your sleuthing?”
“Well,” began Fiona, rather coyly and proudly, “we know Granville has been overseas until now. He was posted there late last year. He was with the squadron here at Scapa Flow until last summer when he went south with the rest of you. So, it could easily have been him who passed on the details of HMS Tamworth, so that the Germans could hit her. You know, its departure date and time. Agreed?”
“It’s possible,” answered Matthew, looking intently at her, with a smile playing about his lips. “Or it could have been Colin Jackson, or Belinda, or Jenkins, or Wentworth of course…or you…”
“I think I did mention something about it,” admitted Fiona, “but I never knew anything about the precise details of its departure, after its refit was completed. Freddie never let anything slip about that…that is, if he ever knew anything in the first place…”
“Even if Granville was the third spy at that time, he’s not been doing any spying around here since 1940, whatever he’s been up to in North Africa,” said Matthew.
“Is that where he was, then?” echoed Fiona.
Matthew smiled again.
Whenever he smiled like that, it was like a gloved hand gave her a punch in her abdomen, and she felt once more like a schoolgirl lying on a dorm bed with silly nothings in her head and unbearable palpitations in her body.
“You said yourself, Matthew, that it could be a third spy, or a third cell. Maybe a duo?”
“Who do you have in mind?” asked Matthew, grinning quite annoyingly.
“A young lady who was also stationed in North Africa until quite recently,” answered Fiona, looking quite smug.
“So, is that how you see it?” quizzed Matthew. “John Granville was Spy Number Three, plays his part in the HMS Tamworth episode, gets posted down south during the height of the air battles over England, and then to North Africa, where at some stage—”
“—he bumps into young Warrant Officer Mary Wilkinson, and recruits her as a German spy, already knowing perhaps she’s about to be posted to Scapa Flow alongside his old squadron, and so—”
“—she can carry on where he left off, once he has passed on to her his code name and identity for wireless transmission purposes… Is that it?”
“Why not?”
She stared at him defiantly, daring him to rubbish her suggestions.
“North Africa is quite a big place to fortuitously bump into one another…” he murmured, but Fiona shrugged and grimaced at that remark, consid
ering it carried no real weight.
“We know that her family was very close to that oily old fool, Lord Mendelson, and she still is, maybe very, very close to him, despite his age…” she persisted, undaunted. “He was a Fascist before the war, maybe still is… So, she had plenty of occasion to be indoctrinated into sharing his beliefs.”
“It’s possible, of course,” said Matthew, not sounding too convinced.
“I’m certain she’s the third spy, or at least a member of its two-person cell,” she insisted. “You see, there’s something else.”
“Which is?”
“I saw her at the airfield when I was with Group Captain Jenkins. She asked me about you, the cheeky minx. I told her you were in London for a few days.”
“So?”
“She showed no interest whatsoever. No reaction of any sort.”
“So?”
“Well, Matthew, I think if someone is told another person is spending three or four days in London, now in 1941, at the height of the Blitz, and that person is a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces, then I think there should be some sort of a follow-up. For instance, ‘Oh, is he on leave?’, or ‘What’s he doing there?” or ‘Tell him to keep his head down’… Something at least. But she was totally disinterested.”
“I don’t get your point, darling.”
She sighed, as if he were the class dunce, and she the exasperated teacher.
“Because, darling, she already knew where you were, and what you were doing. She knew you would be doing what she would be doing if she were in London, and doing it at the very same place. You would be with your MI5 handlers. She didn’t need to comment on it. She had no need.”
“So, she made a mistake?”
“Yes, she did,” remarked Fiona. “She didn’t react as an innocent person would have reacted. It was plain she knew what an innocent person wouldn’t have known.”
Matthew said nothing. He seemed transfixed by her words, and by her person. And that black coat drawn tightly around her. An auburn-haired figure in black. Fiddling with her left wrist. Tears welling up in her eyes, especially the left one.
Fiona sensed his admiration. His love. His awe, even. And she returned that love with her whole body and soul. If this was a glimpse of heaven, then death would hold no fears for her.