My Heart Has Wings (17 page)

Dully she was aware of all these dreadful questions waiting—just beneath the level of conscious thought. Like the burden of half-remembered sorrow that hovers beyond the last precious moments of sleeping in times of deep, fresh grief. That waking to a sense of bereavement, she had experienced in the early days after her mother’s death
...

But this grief was sharper than any honourable bereavement. Her father
...
more cruelly lost to her than if he too had died. Her father conspiring with Gerda
...
ferreting out secret information by some means she couldn’t imagine, to sell to a foreign magazine. No, no; her heart cried in protest. The whole thing was crazy. It just didn’t make sense. There must be some explanation! Desperately she clung to that faint surge of hope, she’d got to hold on to
it ...
or break! It got her out of the house safely, and on to the bus.

She had left a note for the still sleeping Carole, saying: “I may not be going to Merecombe after all. Will explain why later. And don’t worry if Father doesn’t turn up today. He has been called away—on an urgent matter concerning this job he has been doing with G
er
da. I’ll explain all this too.
Am
just tearing off to catch the bus now ... In haste, Jan.”

That ought to take care of the situation at Regency Terrace for the moment. And even if Carole was a bit mystified, there was nothing in the note to alarm here. She could have one more day of painting, undisturbed...

It was a beautiful morning, the early sunlight making the surface of the river shine like polished pewter, touching with freshness the tired little suburban gardens burned by the August heat. From her seat on the top deck of the bus Jan saw all the familiar landmarks that punctuated this daily journey. Like old friends smiling at her, telling her to take courage. She looked up at the blue sky and thought about Mike’s flight, trying to concentrate on it. It was more important than anything else that might happen today
...
more important even than shame or disgrace or heartbreak or any unhappiness. Because it was brave and creative, and belonged, in its heroism, to a dimension much wider than the small realm of personal affairs. The thought brought her a sudden sense of detachment. Eagerly she seized on it binding it like armour about her heart. She would need all the detachment she could muster to get her through what this strange day might bring
.

When she reached the office where she had arranged to meet Daker a
mechanic was waiting for her. Daker, he said, had already started for Merecombe
in Sir Mark Scott-Manly’s plane. One of the big Sky-speeds,” the mechanic said.
“There’s quite a party aboard. Mr. Daker said you were to follow on in the
Firefly. A bunch of maintenance chaps are going down on her.”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

The firefly was
small and noisy and not very comfortable. A passenger plane now used mostly for conveying freight, the cabin stripped and bare. Jan sat throughout the flight on a small improvised seat, gazing through the strip of perspex by her side at the tilting port wing-tip and
the panoramic vista beneath it. A chess board landscape of white harvest fields with darker patches of woodland in between. Then for a while there was nothing but sky, packed white cumulus clouds and drifts of blue haze. The chess board fields came back again and a few moments later they were gliding in over the runway of Merecombe aerodrome.

It was hot, walking across the tarmac. Jan felt stiff and a little dizzy after the flight, her ears still ringing from the sudden loss of altitude. Merecombe was unfamiliar to her and she didn’t quite know where she was supposed to go. There was a knot of executive buildings ahead of her. She made her way over to them and opened the first door she came to. It led into a small office furnished with a single desk.

Mike Carliss was seated at the desk. He looked up and said quietly, “Oh, hullo, Jan, come right in!”

Jan took the few steps across the space that separated them. She was surprised how calm she felt—the precious detachment she’s been working up still standing her in goo
d
stead.

“I’m so glad I’ve found you, Mike, before your flight,” she began hurriedly. “I wanted to apologize to you
...
tell you how sorry I am for the
cruel, horrible, and, as I’ve since discovered, wholly uncalled-for things I said to you the other night.” The detachment wasn’t working so well now! She put her hands on to the desk to steady herself. Mike’s lean face was inscrutable; neither encouraging nor discouraging—just blankly watching her, waiting for her to go
o
n. And all at once it wasn’t easy. There was so much more to this than a simple apology.

“I completely misunderstood everything,” she faltered.

Mike nodded. “That’s all right, Jan. I guessed you did.” His tone was aloof. Not really interested.

“I ought to have known you better!”

Mike lifted a rueful eyebrow. “Maybe one day you will. There’s lots of time left to us
...
We hope
!” he added softly, under his breath, as the sound of a distant rumble came through the open door. A sound that might have been the heavy sliding doors of a hangar running along their grooves. As though it were a summons of some kind, Mike jumped up
and went over to the window.

“You were so wonderful,” Jan went on with it, doggedly saying it to his inattentive back now. “Refusing to believe we were capable of the horrible thing S.M. suspected. Giving us a trust it seems now we didn’t deserve. Daker told me the way you stood up for us and how furious you were at being asked to check up on us. But as it turns out
...
” her voice quivered ominously, “it would have been just as well if you had! I was wrong, Mike, when I said that loyalty to one’s friends is all-important. There are times when there is still more urgent loyalty. I’ve found that out since. You’d have been perfectly right to inform against us if you’d suspected anything shady was going on at Regency Terrace
...
”

Mike wheeled round. His grey eyes were dark with an excitement that had nothing to do with what she was saying, Jan realized. He had scarcely been listening.

“Look, Jan,” he began urgently, “I haven
’
t the foggiest notion what you’re driving at. It all sounds frightfully complicated, but it doesn’t matter now. I was pretty angry with you the other night; your attack on me was so unexpected. The things you said hurt quite a lot. But
as long as you don’t think them any more
...
don’t harbour any more fantastic grudges
...
let’s forget all
about it.”

“Oh, Mike, I was wrong, so terribly wrong,
”
she put in eagerly, but he was making for the door, impatient to be gone.

“
They’ll be bringing the kite out of the hangar any minute now and I’ve got to get cracking; get into my gear and so on,” he said. “It will be
q
uite a while probably before the take-off. But stick around. Keep your fingers crossed for me
.”
He turned suddenly and came back to her, putting his hands on her shoulders, gripping her so tightly that his fingers bit into her flesh.
“I’
m glad you were able to come today, Jan. And
...
I’m glad you aren’t mad at me any more. It’s a good omen!” A brief smile flashed across his
tense, lean face.

“You’re my ‘luck’, Jan. Don’t forget that. Hold everything for me, and
...
I’ll be seeing you!” Swiftly and purposefully he kissed her—full on the lips. Then he was gone.

She stood staring after him, her eyes very wide and brilliantly alight. Then slowly, absently, she lifted one hand and rubbed her shoulde
r
where his fingers had bruised it. So easily he had forgiven her for her tirade the other night; brushing it aside, because perhaps it wasn’t very important to him. And because he was generous big, his life filled with interests and people who counted far more than her humble self. He didn’t know a thing about the fresh
Ariel
scandal, that was obvious. But of course Daker wouldn’t have bothered him with it today. He would be guarded from all such disturbing matters until after his flight. And then
...
?
Well, he wouldn’t want
to kiss her any more, or call her his “luck”. A line mascot she’d be to have around the place—a girl with a father indicted for betraying the secrets of the E.106a to a foreign power!

Once more, and as freshly as though for the first time, the enormity of her father’s conduct struck Jan like a physical blow. Why had Daker allowed her to come down to Merecombe today? He could so easily have stopped her. Was it possible that he, like M
i
ke, hadn’t yet caught up on the news of the dastardly despatch which Parker had intercepted? And if so, would she have to tell him about it?

Drifting out into the sunshine, she looked around for him, impatient now for her encounter with him, whatever misery it might bring. Anything was better than this waiting and suspense.

She saw him then, coming towards her across the perimeter track. Parker was with him, and walking between them was a tall thin man in shabby familiar tweeds. Her father! Easy and laughing, he advanced, one arm lightly about Parker
’
s shoulder. Parker, too, was laughing, as though at some joke they shared.

For one dangerous instant the whole aerodrome tilted, and the sun seemed to wheel in the sky. Then her vision cleared and she realized her father was waving to her. “Hi, Jan!” he called.
“
You didn
’
t guess you were going to find me here this morning, did you?”

She stared at him, dumbfounded
...
and went on staring, her mouth dry, her heart pounding.

“Take her over to the canteen and buy her a d
ri
nk, poor kid,
”
Parker said. “She looks as if she could do with it. You’ve given her a shock Hart
... a
whole series of shocks, I should imagine. You ought to have let me enlighten her last night when she came through on the phone, having somehow stumbled upon your murky secret.”

“I know,” Hart said contritely. “I’ve behav
ed
very badly. But I wanted to tell her all about it myself. Nor was it exactly the kind of thing to be shouted from the housetops on your telephone...
”

“It certainly was
not
,”
Daker agreed. He turned to Jan, his dark face fervent. “Your father has done us a terrific service over this
Ariel
business, Miss Ferraby. The firm owes him a debt it will be hard to repay. And if he hasn’t said anything to you about his activities on our behalf, it was because he felt silence to be imperative.”

“It was,” Hart affirmed, “but now it can be told
...
to Jan at all events. I’m sorry, my dear!” His thin face was gentle with concern as he took her arm. “It was bad luck you discovered something of what was happening last night. You must have had a worrying time.”

“Worrying!” Jan echoed weakly, still struggling to adjust herself to the extraordinary turn of events. Her father here at Merecombe, apparently on the best of terms with Parker and Daker
...
talking openly and cheerfully about the
Ariel
despatch. What did it all mean?

“What gave you a
cl
ue?” her father asked her.

“A screw of discarded carbon copy you had left on your desk. I was answering the phone, and picked it up absent-mindedly. Not meaning to snoop. A message signed G.B. and addressed to
Ariel,
giving details of today’s flight,” she broke off abruptly and drew in a long quivering breath. “I couldn’t believe you had really helped to send it
...
”

“I didn’t,” Hart said. “Come on over to the canteen and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

It is astounding, Jan thought, how simple every problem becomes when you know the answers! And how good this coffee was, pungent and fresh; the way things taste when y
o
u are getting better after a serious illness. The whole world seemed suddenly new and sparkling. Even the sunshine looked different—clearer and brighter, shining on the pale tiled walls of the canteen. Beyond the window by which they sat, the line of downs was sharply etched against a cloudless sky. A perfect day for flying. But Mike wouldn’t be starting his flight yet. Daker had just been in to tell them they needn’t hurry over their coffee. Jan was glad about that; there were still several questions she wanted to ask.

“So it began way back that day Gerda flew over from Paris and came to Regency Terrace, pretending she couldn’t find a hotel?” she said; going over it again for the sheer luxury of hearing her father’s assurances. She’d never be done with the relief of it!

“My first impulse was to throw her out of the house,” Hart said. “Then it occurred to me that maybe I was up against something more sinister than Gerda’s greed for easy money. So I went along and had a chat with Digt
o
n, one of the chaps at Scotland Yard who used to take care of hand-outs to the Press when I was on the
News.
He told me they’d had an eye on
Ariel
for some time and were anxious to find out exactly who was behind the paper. It was on Digton’s instructions that I allowed Gerda to think I was collaborating with her. The idea was to string her along
...
and see where it led. Meanwhile, I was to keep quiet about it, to speak to nobody about it, not even you. And it would be wisest, Digton decided, not to take it up with Scott-Manly’s until we had something concrete in the way of evidence to offer them.”

“Had Digton seen those first E.106a paragraphs in
Ariel
?”
Jan asked.

“Yes, and he had traced their origin to a chap called Roswith, an apprentice who was sacked by Scott-Manly’s some time ago. Roswith admitted he’d taken a carbon copy of a memo concerning E.106a from your desk one day when he was sent to your office with a message from Daker— neither you nor Daker happened to be about
...”

“The times I’ve searched for that carbon!” Jan gasped in outrage. “Daker thought Helen Stanford had lost it when she was in charge of the files. But I wasn’t so sure. I felt in my bones its disappearance was a sinister coincidence
...
though I never thought of Roswith. I remember him being sacked, and how angry he was. Do you think he sent the memo to
Ariel
as a kind of petty revenge, or was he definitely subversive?”

“He wasn’t definitely
anything
,”
Hart said. “Just a nasty psychopathic little adolescent with an instinct for mischief-making. Having got all the information he could out of him, Digton gave him a good talking to and let him go. To have brought a charge against him would have raised the alarm with the
Ariel
crowd, and Digton didn’t want to do that until they had well and truly committed themselves.”

“How did Gerda come to be working for them?” Jan asked.

“A chap on the
Ariel
editorial staff met her at a cocktail party in Paris, and they started going about together. When he discovered she had once worked as a journalist in England and was coming over to London to do the fashion shows he asked her if she knew anyone in aviation journalism here, and if she would like to earn some easy money by picking up a few details about a hush-hush fighter prototype under construction at the Scott-Manly works. Gerda jumped at the offer—apparently without a qualm, and decided I was just the person to help her.”

“The meanness of her!” Jan’s hazel eyes flashed angrily. “Remembering I worked for Scott-Manly’s; forcing herself on us as a house guest, thinking she’d be able to persuade you to pump me for secret information. She couldn’t h
a
ve had much of an opinion of your character!”

“She knew I was desperately in need of money,” Hart said, “and I suppose she thought I couldn’t afford to be too squeamish.”

“Did she give you any money?” Jan asked bluntly.

“Not exactly,” Hart said with a rueful laugh.
“
She was being well paid by
Ariel
I imagine, with the promise of a final lump sum when the snooping on E.106a was successfully concluded. I was to share in this—but knowing Gerda, I don’t suppose I’d have got very much. To salve her conscience, however, she did sell a couple of aviation articles for me to a French agency; quite legitimate stuff. But the snippets I concocted about the E.106a—all, of course, entirely imaginary—she passed on to
Ariel
as her own.