Died and Gone to Devon

by TP Fielden

  She was glad she’d been sitting at the table in Lovely Mary’s when she interviewed Sirraway – her shorthand when standing up was often illegible by the time she got it back to the office.

  ‘Professor Sirraway gave me a lengthy lecture of how these money-making ventures had flourished during and after the Industrial Revolution, but most of which had now disappeared.’

  A heavy silence had settled over her colleagues, some of whom might even have fallen asleep, and certainly she could see a glazed look in her editor’s eye. She struggled to bring her narrative to a conclusion.

  ‘Sirraway’s point was that over the past century, the owners of these places slowly gave up and walked away. And that for the past forty years Sir Freddy had been acquiring – usually by devious means – many of these substantial properties on the moor, without anybody noticing.

  ‘It was only when the professor started investigating his own family’s property history that he discovered they’d once owned several mills, but that Hungerford had somehow acquired the land title to them. Straightforward theft, he said.’

  ‘Has he tried to get them back?’ asked Renishaw.

  ‘He told me he’s been researching and double-checking to make sure he was right. Then he went to see Sir Freddy in the House of Commons and confronted him – there was a terrible row, and he was thrown out. He was warned he’d be arrested if he set foot in the Palace of Westminster again. That’s why he protested outside the Con Club last weekend.’

  ‘When he got arrested.’

  ‘And let off with a caution.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Renishaw, ‘do you think he’d be capable of physically attacking Hungerford? Do you think it was him in the street in Westminster?’

  Betty thought about it for a moment.

  ‘He’s a very strange man, very edgy, very irritable. And he’s got a huge grudge, obviously. Yes, it could be him.’

  ‘What about abducting the man? Is he capable of that?’

  ‘Shouldn’t have thought so. He’s tall and weedy and quite old.’

  ‘With an accomplice?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Betty, enjoying the moment, ‘I don’t see why not.’

  There was a lengthy pause.

  ‘I’m going up to Hatherleigh,’ said Renishaw without deigning to consult his editor. ‘That’s just the sort of out-of-the-way place where you could hide someone you’d kidnapped. Where’s Terry?’

  The Riviera Express – the luxury Pullman steam train, not to be confused with the Riviera Express, newspaper of record – served the most delicious teacakes. They were just one of the many delights of travelling up from Temple Regis on the great, groaning, shining monster that daily plied its trade between the West Country and Paddington Station.

  Owd Bert, the dining-car steward, always had a friendly word and a special seat for Miss Dimont on her journeys to town – he’d been serving cakes and buns on his silver salvers since the end of the war, and knew just about everybody who’d travelled on the Express more than twice.

  ‘Got a seat ready for ’ee, and a nice cuppa on its way,’ he beamed as she wandered into the carriage.

  In summer, when you caught the 4.30, you watched the light slowly go down as you slid on ribbons of steel towards the capital city, the passing scenery a rich kaleidoscope of colour and memory. In winter if you looked out of the window, all you caught was your own reflection. Miss Dimont gave a perfunctory adjustment to her curls, pushed the spectacles back up her nose and got out the notebook from her raffia bag.

  ‘Shall I draw the curtains, Miss?’

  ‘No, thank you, Bert – look, there’s a beautiful moon!’

  But Bert didn’t look; he was more concerned with the state of his teacakes. He could tell where you were at any stage in the two-hundred-mile journey, he’d done it so often he didn’t need to look out.

  The moon sliced the black silhouettes of trees, and the clouds outside raced, but instead of engaging in their interplay Miss Dimont leaned forward and started to doodle, hoping the flow of her pencil would cause her brain to start working. The instruction to get aboard the 4.30 to Paddington was clear and abrupt – Peter Pomeroy may be the sweetest man in the world, but as he described the editor’s displeasure at her no-show at conference, she could judge from his tone that things weren’t going well.

  ‘You’ve got a friend in the House of Commons,’ Peter said. ‘Get in there, see what people are saying. We need five hundred words from you by lunchtime tomorrow.’

  ‘I doubt there’ll be anybody left,’ Judy had replied from the warmth of the cottage hospital where she’d gone to check up on the volunteers. ‘All gone home for Christmas.’

  ‘Just get up there and give us what you can. David Renishaw’s gone over to Hatherleigh – the man who was baiting Sir Freddy about dodgy property deals lives up there, he thinks there may be something in that.’

  ‘Good Lord, quite unlike Mr Rhys to want to send someone all the way to North Devon. Think of the cost of the petrol!’

  ‘It wasn’t his idea,’ said Peter in a flat tone.

  The teacakes going cold beside her, Miss Dimont started to make notes in the hope inspiration would come. But as the Riviera Express pulled out of Exeter and took up its steady momentum, her thoughts started to wander.

  Is it only ten years since I was in Berlin? she thought. It seems both longer ago and more recent – certainly I can recall every last detail of the job I had to do. Yet the things that happened, the people we lost, makes you want to put the memories in a drawer – wrap them in tissue paper, tie a ribbon round them, lock the drawer.

  And throw away the key.

  Yet sometimes, when Miss Dimont was caught unawares, the drawer would unlock itself and beckon her to take her Cold War memories back again. And there was nothing she could do to stop herself.

  ‘Summat wrong with they teacakes, Miss?’

  ‘Oh… sorry, Owd Bert, I was miles away.’

  ‘Reminiscing?’

  What a clever observer of humankind you are, thought Miss Dimont. ‘Yes, alas. Sometimes memories are good things, sometimes not. Don’t you think?’

  ‘I lost every lars friend I had at Monte Cassino,’ said Owd Bert slowly, perfectly understanding her mood. ‘I could never make any more after that. They died all around me, mown down, there was nothing I could do to stop it. It went on and on for weeks. You don’ want to go makin new friends after that.’

  There was a long pause. ‘I’ll bring you some fresh.’

  She’d done it – gone to Berlin – for Eric, the crazy lovely foolish man who gave his life away in the last days of war. His photograph still shone from her mantelpiece, his eyes telling her he was glad she’d found peace in Temple Regis. He was as alive today in her memory as he had ever been, while part of her had died with him.

  The moon had risen and Bert’s new pot helped to melt those thoughts. Memory is such a dangerous thing, thought Judy, maybe it’s better never to open it up. Don’t keep a diary, don’t keep a scrapbook, burn all the photographs, never see people who were part of that past. Keep forging forward in life and whatever you do, don’t ever look back.

  She looked down into her cup.

  ‘No surprise to find you here,’ said a gruff voice.

  Judy looked up, dabbing her eyes with her napkin. ‘Inspector Topham!’ she said with a smile. She felt a flood of relief to see him. ‘Won’t you join me for a cup of tea?’

  The old policeman smiled and sat down. ‘No prizes for guessing we’re on the same mission,’ he said. ‘And no prizes for thinking we’ll both come away empty-handed.’

  ‘Freddy Hungerford? The storm will have passed by the time we get to Paddington. I’ve been sent by a trigger-happy editor, what about you?’

  Topham looked at her. ‘I am very near retirement,’ he said, putting his big hands on the table. ‘I’d like to think we know each other well enough for us to have a private conversation which won’t embarrass me at a later date. Do I make myself
clear, Miss Dimont?’

  ‘One lump or two, Frank, dear?’

  He took off his hat and brushed his hair back with his hands. ‘The Chief Constable sent me. I don’t know if he expects me to find Sir Freddy sitting in his club drinking port, but I can tell you now I won’t. He wants me to keep abreast of developments in London, but Scotland Yard aren’t going to tell me any more than they’re going to tell you – sweet Fanny Adams is all I’ll get. To them, all local police are a bit of a joke, and last time I came up on something like this they spent the whole time talking to me as if they’d got a pot of clotted cream in their mouth.’

  ‘They haven’t done so strikingly well themselves, have they, in finding a lost MP? Is the theory that he’s been kidnapped?’

  ‘What else? You don’t get roughed up in the street then push off without making a complaint. Not if you’re a knight of the realm you don’t. What I can’t understand is why these thugs attacked him, then carted him away. Why not grab him then do whatever you’re going to do once you’ve got him out of public view?’

  This was wonderful stuff. Old Topham assumed Judy knew the facts of the case whereas until this moment her grasp had been confined to two or three bare sentences from Peter Pomeroy on the blower.

  ‘Between us,’ said the copper, stirring his tea, ‘the most likely candidate is a fellow who’s been causing him trouble locally. Lives up Hatherleigh way. He’ll be in custody by the time we get off the train. But if he has an alibi, there’s nothing more my department can do – it’s up to the Met.’

  His eyes dropped to the knives and forks jingling on the tablecloth as the express hurtled over a set of points. ‘May I have one of your teacakes?’

  ‘You certainly may, Frank. As many as you like.’

  Ten

  Despite her prediction, the House of Commons was still busy and with surprising ease Miss Dimont found herself in the library where an old friend from Admiralty days, April Needham, awaited her.

  ‘I can’t be long, Judy, I’ve got a dinner engagement. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve been sent up here to do a story on the disappearance of Sir Frederick Hungerford.’

  ‘Huh!’ said April. ‘That old poodlefaker! He can stay disappeared as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘When you work here you get to know most of them. Not that he ever comes in – most MPs have to bone up on their subject before speaking, so we see a lot of them, but not Hungerford. He’s such a know-it-all. No, it’s in the corridors and on the stairs you have to watch out for him – wandering hands.’

  ‘I’m in a bit of a spot, April. I’ve been sent up here to find out something – anything – and I’ve got less than twenty-four hours to do it. I tried ringing Sir Freddy’s office in the hope somebody would be there, but no luck. Got any thoughts?’

  ‘Well,’ said April, putting on her coat. ‘You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like – just sign the book when you leave. But without wanting to sound too negative, I don’t think you’ll find the answer to a missing person inquiry buried in the shelves of this library, wide-ranging though it be.’

  ‘Do you know who his friends were in Parliament?’

  ‘Anybody with a title. Sorry, Judy – must dash!’ Slinging her handbag over her shoulder, April walked over to the door and shut it behind her.

  A moment later it opened again.

  ‘I think you may be in luck. There’s a woman in the reading room next door who, if I’m not mistaken, is the candidate hoping to take Hungerford’s place at the election. She’s very keen. Comes in at odd times and is reading up all sorts of things – I hope she gets in, just the sort we need in here.’

  ‘Is it Mirabel Clifford?’ The trouble was that, in Temple Regis, all three main parties were fielding female parliamentary candidates.

  ‘The very one. Byee!’

  Miss Dimont followed her friend out into a large grey room dotted with leather sofas, upright chairs, and mahogany tables with reading lamps on them. A dozen people were doing what the room was designed for – reading – while a handful more were snoozing until it was time for dinner. In the far corner, bathed in a pool of light, sat an earnest-looking woman with urchin-cut hair and a serious expression.

  ‘Er, Mrs Clifford? I don’t think we’ve met, and I must say it’s a surprise to find you here. Judy Dimont, chief reporter of the Riviera Express.’

  The woman looked up and eyed her shrewdly, estimating whether she faced friend or foe. ‘Hello,’ she replied, neither a welcome nor a rebuff.

  ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘As you can see I’m busy, but yes. I’ve met your photographer, of course – Mr Eagleton, is it? Very nice. But your editor seems to be determined not to mention the upcoming election in his pages until the campaign starts.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘In about six weeks – just waiting till the dust settles after the New Year, then off we go. I’m just mugging up on a few things before we go out and start kissing babies.’

  She’s attractive, thought Miss D. Clever, purposeful, nicely dressed but not bossy. She’d certainly be an improvement on the present incumbent.

  ‘Well, I hope we shall see much more of each other,’ said Judy warmly. ‘But the reason I’m here is Sir Freddy.’

  Mrs Clifford shot her a suspicious look. ‘You’ve come all the way up from Temple Regis to ask me about Sir Freddy?’

  Well, no actually, thought Miss Dimont, I hope you haven’t already caught the politician’s disease of assuming the story is always about you. I’m sitting here opposite you because I’m desperate for a line – any line – on Sir Freddy which will give me something new for my newspaper’s front page. Please say something which I can offer my editor tomorrow morning. Please!

  ‘Actually, I was just passing,’ she lied, but with a purpose – it took the pressure off the interviewee. ‘A friend works in the House library and I dropped in to see her. Just as I was leaving I spotted you in the corner here, and it seemed an appropriate moment to come and introduce myself.’

  ‘Because I’d really prefer my name and the present Member’s not to be bracketed in the same story,’ continued Mrs Clifford, very firmly.

  Good Lord she’s sharp, thought Judy. Keeping her distance. Doesn’t want to be tarred with the same brush.

  ‘Well, in this place,’ said Judy, waving her hand upward towards the carved stone ceiling, ‘there’s such a thing as off the record. You help me with my inquiries in return for my promise not to name you.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘It’s an accepted custom.’

  ‘Look,’ said Mirabel Clifford, ‘and you may not quote me on this. The way things are going, my party is going to lose the seat they’ve held for forty years. It’ll be me who takes the blame for that, even though – as I’m sure you’re only too aware – the love affair between the present Member and his constituents went stale years ago, and this is the natural consequence.’

  ‘Yes but…’

  ‘It’s his unpopularity, his negligence, which will cause me to lose the seat. I’m a solicitor, Miss Dimont, and a widow. I have two children whom I rarely see at the moment. I’ve worked hard over the past few years to prepare myself for Sir Freddy’s retirement, at considerable cost to my private and personal life. Do you have a husband?’

  ‘No, I…’

  ‘Neither do I, nor do I have time for one. I believe, very passionately, that women have a right to a voice in politics and yet how many MPs in this place are women?’

  ‘Twenty-four,’ said Judy.

  ‘Oh,’ said the solicitor, looking anew at her questioner. ‘Well, thank heavens at least one person has taken notice of that fact! We make up more than half the population, but have less than four per cent of the membership of this House.’

  She stood up. ‘The 1960s are just around the corner, but there are no High Court judges who are women – no surgeons, no vicars or bishops. No chairme
n of major public companies, heads of the armed services – the list is endless of the things we don’t do.

  ‘And so, Miss Dimont, you will see how precious this forthcoming election is to me. My job is to turn over the apple cart – make a change, make things better, alter the direction this country is going in.’

  ‘Sir Freddy…’ reminded Judy, though she knew it was futile.

  ‘I want nothing to do with him. I hope he’s OK for Lady Hungerford’s sake and I hope they find him soon, but I keep my distance. I’m not going to say a thing.’

  ‘I understand you didn’t go to his Christmas party last weekend.’

  ‘Wasn’t invited. But I wouldn’t have gone anyhow.’

  My goodness you are resolute, thought Miss Dimont. And look at you – you have a lovely face, pretty clothes, a studied elegance and a responsible job – for some women that would be enough. But here you are, scratching away trying to climb aboard this male-dominated juggernaut just so you can make a change.

  ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you,’ said Judy getting up. ‘I’ll be seeing a lot more of you once the election is announced, and I wish you luck.’

  ‘What do you think of my chances? At the election? You’re a reporter, you’re out and about meeting people – what are people saying?’

  ‘Mostly they’re talking about Christmas,’ said Judy, frankly. ‘After the next edition of the Riviera Express they’ll be hotly debating the idea of an entrance fee being imposed on visitors to Temple Regis – asking whether it’ll offend people and kill business off, or increase the town’s prestige and set it apart from its rivals on the English Riviera.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ exclaimed Mirabel Clifford, ‘where did that come from?’

  ‘Well,’ said Judy, neatly turning the tables, ‘you wouldn’t enter an off-the-record agreement with me so it’s only fair our arrangement is evenly balanced. You can read about it on Friday in the Riviera Express. Because of this hoo-hah over Sir Freddy it’ll probably be on Page Three with a turn to Page Four. A snip at only sixpence a copy, highly recommended.’