Ha'penny (33 page)

“I didn’t know,” I said, stupidly.

“No more did we, but it’s not unexpected. It might be a shock to Loy, but he’ll get over it. What’s surprised me is what she’s found out since Wednesday night about the arrests at Coltham. Lord Scott’s in custody, and so are his servants, but Malcolm and Bob were shot dead by the police. Lord Scott’s charged with murdering a policeman with a double-barreled shotgun. Seems as if the silly buggers saw the police were coming and snatched up their hunting weapons to make a desperate last stand.”

“Poor Malcolm! Uncle Phil will be gutted,” I said. “And poor Bob too. I didn’t know him well, but he always seemed so very nice.”

“Very nice,” Devlin echoed, savagely, mocking me. Then he relented. “They were both good men, none better. I’d have liked to have thought they’d be here making the world a better place. And if they’re arming the police that’s a bad sign.”

“I’d quite understand if you don’t want to go and have ice cream in the circumstances,” I said.

“I’d like to raise a glass to them,” Devlin said.

So we stopped at the next pub, which was called the Queen’s Head. It was a horrible place with brass spittoons and drunks, even though it was lunchtime. There were no other women except the barmaid, who gave me an old-fashioned look. Devlin went up to the bar and ordered two whiskies. He brought them over to me in the corner. I took a sip from one of them as a toast to Bob and Malcolm, then Devlin looked at my face and downed mine straight after his and we went out again. He didn’t normally drink very much, wine sometimes and beer sometimes, but that time and the time Loy brought whiskey to the flat were the only times I ever saw him drink spirits, despite what they say about the Irish.

“Ice cream,” Devlin said when we were back in the air.

“It’s still on?” I asked, getting back in the car.

“Makes no difference whether they’re dead or imprisoned, does it?” he asked. “Except to them.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

“Will you mourn for me, Viola?” he asked after a little while. He must have seen the shock and distress on my unguarded face, because he laughed. “Oh you will, won’t you, darling? Not with whiskey, but you’ll miss me?”

“Are you expecting to die?” I asked.

“Of course I am, you silly bitch,” he said. It was the drink talking. He caught himself a moment later. “I’m sorry, love, but you’d have known that if you thought about it. I’m not about to give them the chance, but I could die tonight if any of the bodyguards are quick enough to pop a shot off after I’ve pressed the button. Or if not, then they’ll hang me after. There’s not much chance of me getting out from the front of the stalls, and people will have seen me. We talked about this before.”

“Did you think Siddy would help?” I asked, ignoring the name he had called me as best I could. Anyone could see that he was upset.

“Loy may have. I didn’t think she’d bugger off quite so quickly, but I didn’t expect much out of her. Like we said before, Stalin’s no better, only further away.”

Perhaps I had two sisters who could bear to support terrible things. “Do you really think it’s worth it?” I asked.

“Yes, I do really think it’s worth it,” he said, imitating my tones exactly. “Jesus! If this wasn’t the kind of opportunity that comes along only once don’t you think I’d have called it off a hundred times already?”

We were at Benetto’s. The whole place is tiled inside and out in ice-cream white with the name set in green tiles. Devlin parked the car and we went in. Mollie and Pat were sitting at one of the tables in the middle of the floor. Mollie spotted us immediately and waved. “They have banana!” she called. “Can you imagine, banana ice cream?”

“Don’t have it,” Pat advised. “The mint is much nicer.”

There was nothing for it but to sit with them and eat ice cream. Devlin was surprisingly good at being casual and friendly to them, though I think Mollie guessed that he was preoccupied. He had the banana ice cream in a banana split and I had a chocolate nut sundae, which wasn’t very adventurous but it is my absolute favorite and was wonderfully comforting. There was a certain Twilight of the Gods atmosphere about everything and I thought that perhaps this might be my last ice cream ever. At the same time, everything seemed so real and undramatic that I couldn’t quite believe it. I kept on eating ice cream and laughing at Pat’s gossip and inside I was thinking that if this had been a play this would have been the time for passionate speeches.

As it was, I didn’t even get to have time for passionate farewells. It would have seemed awfully strange for Devlin not to have offered Mollie and Pat a lift to the theater, so of course he did. They crowded into the back and enthused about how much more comfortable it was than the Underground. It occurred to me then that I had hardly been on the Tube for ages, with Devlin running me around everywhere, and normally I used it every day and took it for granted that I would.

“Are you going to be watching tonight, Devlin?” Mollie asked.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Devlin said. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

I kissed him when I got out. “Break a leg,” he said. They were still there and could hear. “You’re a good girl, Viola. Break both legs, eh love?”

“You too,” was all I could think of to reply. He laughed and shook his head. He had such a versatile face. He’d have made a great actor. He could go from looking like thunder to soft as butter in two seconds.

“Break a leg!” he called to Mollie and Pat and then we all went up the alley to the stage door and he went off to park the car.

Mollie let Pat go a bit ahead. “Had the two of you had a fight?” she asked.

“Something like that, but it’s all right now,” I said.

She looked at me severely. “I hope so. You shouldn’t let it upset you and disturb the play.”

“No, mother,” I said.

We had to show our cards and be searched going in through the stage door. I was glad I didn’t have the radio detonator on me, because they even opened my little compact. The man who spoke to me was English, but there were Germans there too, in uniform. I tried to imitate Mollie’s impatience with them. “At least this will be back to normal tomorrow,” she said, over her shoulder as they were going through my bag.

Unless the bomb had been stopped at the stage door, it ought to be in my dressing room. I had one last cowardly thought then that I could leave it there, where Devlin’s detonator wouldn’t reach it through the walls, and we could all walk away safely, at least unless Uncle Phil incriminated us. I thought about Lord Ullapool’s quiet voice, his fear, although he was who he was, and Devlin saying “Jesus!”

Mrs. Tring was in my dressing room. The place was full of flowers, so many there was almost nowhere to walk. It was quite natural to remark on them. “More flowers than ever,” I said, blinking.

“There’s a whole tree from your young man,” Mrs. Tring said, indicating a huge flowering jasmine in a pot.

“That’s really sweet of Devlin,” I said, and it was. I knew it was part of a bluff with Siddy’s florist, but even so, it was a lovely thing, covered in flowers and very fragrant.

“That’ll last the run, if we don’t forget to water it,” Mrs. Tring said.

“Maybe even longer,” I said. “I wonder if we have anywhere to put it at home?”

“Oh, so you’re planning on coming home after? I was wondering.”

I looked at her, completely at sea.

“Well, you seem so taken up with this Devlin, and he with you, I wondered if he was thinking of this tree as something he’d be getting back in your bottom drawer.”

I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to cry too. Marriage with Devlin was so far from anything we’d been able to think about I couldn’t even begin to guess if it was something I wanted—would have wanted, in other circumstances—or whether he would. He had called me “love” there at the last, but he was always calling me love or dear or darling, I had no idea what, if anything, it meant to him. “I don’t know,” I said, helplessly. “He hasn’t said anything about that.”

“I didn’t mean to speak out of turn,” Mrs. Tring said, and put her arm around me.

“Well, what else do we have in the way of flowers?” I asked, hoping she’d think I just wanted to change the subject, but really to get hold of the bomb as fast as possible.

“Huge bunch of roses from Her Hitler.” She always pronounced it that way, and it always made me smile. “Big bouquet from Mr. Normanby, orchids and carnations and everything. Irises from your sister Dodo, very pretty, more roses from your sister Celia, and all this lilac from your sister Siddy—your family are very well represented today, I must say! Then these pink roses are from Antony, the spring bouquet is from the management of the theater, the apple blossom is from the cast, this white bud in the vase is from Mollie, and I hope you remembered to send her something.”

“A bunch of roses,” I said, confident, though I hadn’t checked that Devlin had remembered. “I sent buds to everyone else.”

“These carnations are from a Captain Keiler,” she went on, reading the label. “Then this African violet doesn’t have a tag. The purple lilac is from Andrew.” Andrew was an old boyfriend.

“How about that big thing in the corner?” I asked, having spotted what I thought was it. It was a red and white box, like a window box, full of red and white azaleas.

“It’s from Mrs. Normanby,” she said.

I went over and looked, and saw how clever they had been. The top label said it was for me, from Daphne Normanby, which would encourage the guards not to check it too closely, but underneath was another tag, saying it was for the Royal Box. I half-pulled off the top tag, tutting.

“This isn’t for me at all. This tag must have come off whatever Daphne really sent me, probably that violet, and got attached to this somehow. This is part of the display for the Royal Box. I should take it round to them at once.”

“Get a porter to do it,” Mrs. Tring advised. “Not that they’ll probably miss it.”

“I don’t know, they might have a hole this size,” I said. I bent and picked up the flower-topped bomb. It wasn’t as heavy as I had expected. Devlin had sworn it couldn’t go off by anything I could do to it carrying it, but even so I felt quite light-headed holding it and as if I couldn’t quite get enough breath. “I’ll run round quickly with it, and then when I get back we should start my makeup.”

“Plenty of time yet,” Mrs. Tring said, but she didn’t stop me.

I went out into the corridor. Mollie popped her head out of her dressing room. “Thank you for the roses,” she said. “And Devlin sent me some freesia—do thank him for me. That’s very kind of him.”

“He must like flowers with scent,” I said. “He sent me a whole jasmine tree in a pot. Mrs. Tring thinks it means he wants to marry me.” I rolled my eyes.

Mollie avoided the issue by changing the subject. “What have you got there? Something misdelivered?”

“Meant for the Royal Box,” I said. “I’m taking it through now.”

“Right,” she said, entirely uninterested.

30

C
armichael limped around the car to see Royston’s body on the gravel, his arms flung out away from the red ruin of his chest. “He should have stayed in the car,” Ogilvie said, sounding very far away. “He got out after the first shot.”

Coming to help, Carmichael thought, uselessly. Royston’s eyes were open, staring up in blue outrage at the unclouded sky. He must have taken a whole shotgun blast at close range and fallen backwards.

Ogilvie was saying something about the damage to the car. “They’ll be able to beat the dents out and it will be good as new,” he said.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carmichael said.

“You really should get to the doctor, sir,” Ogilvie said. “You’re very pale. I’ll clear up here.”

Carmichael supposed the numb state he was in must be shock. He nodded and let efficient flat-faced Ogilvie manage him and the other wounded into the van and have them driven to the hospital at Maidstone. There he almost welcomed the pain as the doctor dug the pellet out of his calf. He kept his eyes open. Whenever he closed them he saw Royston splayed out on the driveway. He had lost friends in the war and got over it. He wished he could remember the trick of it.

His leg felt much worse with the pellet removed, though it looked much better neatly bandaged. They had cut off his ruined trousers.

The doctor wanted to keep him in hospital for a couple of days for observation. “The wound isn’t serious, but you lost a quite a bit of blood,” he said. “We’d like to keep an eye on you.”

“Just let me telephone the Yard and my man and let them know where I am,” Carmichael said.

They pushed him to a corridor phone in a wheelchair. He used his police priority to call the Yard first.

Stebbings took the news calmly, as always. “That’s too bad,” he said, unemotionally, when Carmichael told him Royston was dead. “So where is Deputy Inspector Ogilvie taking Lord Scott? The Chief will want to know.”

“I don’t know,” Carmichael said. “He didn’t say. I told him to keep them all together. No news of Mrs. Green, is there?”

Stebbings remained unruffled. “Nothing has turned up on her yet, sir. Do you know when you’ll be fit for duty?”

“They’re just keeping me here overnight to keep an eye on me. I daresay I’ll be able to limp in tomorrow or Friday.”

Jack, who had always been a little jealous of Royston, without any cause at all as far as Carmichael was concerned, was shocked. “Just like that?” he said.

“It’s a dangerous job,” Carmichael said.

“I suppose you haven’t quite taken it in yet,” Jack said. “Are you sure you’re all right, P. A.?”

“I caught the extreme edge of a blast of bird shot, that’s all. I’m fine.”

“Where exactly are you? Do you want me to come down?”

The corridor was public, people kept passing. Jack’s voice in his ear was like a connection to sanity and warmth. He wished they could speak freely.

“Of course I want you to, I’m not sure it would be wise.” A pretty nurse, passing, turned and gave Carmichael a smile. “Why don’t you come down tomorrow afternoon and bring me some clothes. They should be ready to let me out by then. It’s Maidstone General Hospital. I don’t expect it’s far from the station, and if it is, take a cab.”