No Human Enemy (Suzie Mountford Mysteries) (22 page)

So, the big A-4 rockets would be fired at Paris on 7
th
while the attack on London would begin the following day, 8
th
September.

Voltsenvogel said something about trying to kill that walking nose General de Gaulle in Paris. ‘I suppose he’s still there.’ Paris had fallen to the Allies on 24
th
August.

General Charles de Gaulle was not universally loved. The tall Frenchman was one of the few generals who, in the days before the great tactical German victory of 1940, when the Panzers and Stukas swept across Europe, had preached the kind of warfare demonstrated by that Nazi Blitzkreig. To the dismay of the French General, Staff de Gaulle, as early as 1938, had wanted all the troops under his command to be mechanised and foresaw the fast leapfrogging of armour combined with swift, hard-hitting air power.

At the time of the Allied retreat from Dunkirk, de Gaulle slipped out of France, before the French surrender, and took command of the Free French forces in England. In this capacity he did not make himself a beloved figure among his fellow allies. ‘There, but for the grace of God goes God,’ the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was reported to have said of him, while in Nazi-occupied France he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. But a couple of weeks ago, he had led his troops into Paris, liberating the French capital.

Voltsenvogel picked up his telephone and asked his field switchboard to get him the commanding officer of Luftwaffe unit KG200, Oberst Heinz Heigl. He would either be at the battle group’s headquarters at Rangsdorf, on the placid shore of the Rangsdorfer lake, only a short distance from the centre of Berlin; or at the Führer’s headquarters at Rastenburg, the Wolf’s Lair.

KG200 – Kampfgeschwader 200 – was the most secret unit of the Luftwaffe. Formed only in February, from a nucleus of two large technical wings, KG200’s official job was to evaluate aircraft for warfare. As such they had bases all over occupied Europe, and even deep into Russia. Bomber and fighter Staffels rarely knew when they shared an airfield with a KG200 unit.

KG200 were equipped with every known type of aircraft serving with the Luftwaffe, and also had access to captured RAF, USAAF and Russian aircraft. This was their secret side: their vast collection of British, American and Russian aircraft. They had airworthy DC3 Dacotas, Spitfires, Lancasters, Stirlings, Mustangs, Thunderbolts, Wellingtons and many more. KG200 flew B17 Flying Fortresses stuffed full of radio equipment, shadowing the box formations of the Fortresses that daily bombed German targets. The KG200 Fortresses would follow and report on height, speed and course of the American bombers. They flew Sterlings, Beaufighters, Mosquitos and Wellingtons, tagged to the end of British bomber formations, creeping up on individual aircraft, catching RAF airfields off guard as aircraft were landing.

A Lancaster would be making its final approach to its home base, the crew relaxed and relieved they had completed another mission intact. Then, out of the night would come a Beaufighter or a Mosquito, hammering bullets and canon shell into the big bomber, sending it sprawling onto the runway in flames.

KG200 had many tricks up its deadly sleeve using captured Allied aeroplanes, literally flying under a false flag.

When Oberst Heigl came on the line, Voltsenvogel sounded almost lighthearted. ‘Heizi,’ he chirped. ‘It’s Max from the Research Department.’

‘So, what are you after this time?’

‘I’ve got a holidaymaker who needs a seat on one of your planes. We need a good pilot, one who’ll get him safely into the glorious English West Country. Last time we used a Grasshopper I recall.’

‘The Grasshopper could be difficult, but I’ve got a nice little Stinson. The L-5, what they call the Sentinel. Land and takeoff on an English cricket pitch. When do you want it?’

‘Sometime after 8
th
of next month: say the 10
th
or 11
th
, depending on weather, of course.’

The Sentinel was a two-seat, high-wing monoplane that the Americans used for liaison work, for taking senior officers around.

Voltsenvogel knew exactly where there was a flat stretch of ground ideal for the Sentinel, close to the rail track that ran from Exeter to Exmouth in Devon, glorious Devon.

As Schmidt left the office, Voltsenvogel called after him, ‘Tell the Ram he’ll be taking a little trip around the 10
th
or 11
th
.’

‘He’ll be delighted,’ said Corporal Schmidt, then, showing off his versatility, he broke into song—

‘When Adam and Eve were dispossessed from their garden up in heaven,

They planted another one out in the west,

T’was Devon,

T’was Devon, glorious Devon.’

*   *   *

When Schmidt returned, around thirty minutes later, Voltsenvogel was standing looking out of one of the big windows.

‘I’ve talked to the Ram,’ Schmidt told him. ‘He seems nervous. Jumpy. What if this doesn’t go properly, Herr Gruppenführer?’

Voltsenvogel shrugged. ‘If something goes wrong and the thing doesn’t work then it doesn’t work. There’s no point in being concerned. We’re not fanatics, Schmidt, my friend. I believe in the Führer and in the National Socialist Party. I believe in the Führer’s way of running Germany, the Third Reich. But, if he’s wrong then he’s wrong. We can do nothing about it. I don’t believe in fanaticism. Understand?’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The truncheon found by Ron Worrall close to Doris Butler’s garden turned out to be the goods. The fingerprints belonged, indisputably to Michael Lees-Duncan, and after three days the forensic lab came back from Hendon with the news that the blood, at least, matched that of the late Mrs B.

Tommy had not gone home to Suzie: stayed in his big office on the fourth floor of Scotland Yard waiting for the forensic results, spending the nights on the unspeakably uncomfortable camp bed, and the days reading up on Suzie’s assessment of the situation vis-à-vis the Lees-Duncans and the Toveys.

He was amused to find out about Lees-Duncan’s courtship by the security service: more than amused to discover that they weren’t sharing much with ‘Woolly’ Bear and the Branch. In theory the Branch was a kind of mailed fist for MI5, but it seemed to be a fact that they didn’t like sharing with their friends in the Met.

She had gone for Tovey immediately after he had identified the body of his daughter, Dulcie. ‘I felt he was more vulnerable than Lees-Duncan,’ she wrote: adding that she had already worked out what had probably happened: pieced it all together from the two conversations and her own observation. Tommy felt proud of her as he read the transcript.

DI MOUNTFORD: Mr Tovey, you’ve identified your daughter’s body, so now I have to return to the questions I started in your cottage, back in Churchbridge.

TOVEY: I told you, I ’en’t answering no more questions. You can ask as long as you like, but I en’t answering.

Later she told Tommy that he almost spat it at her, a fine spray of spittle hanging in the air and dropping to the table between them. ‘It didn’t matter,’ she said, ‘because you didn’t have to be Professor Joad to work the whole thing out anyway.’

Professor Joad was a household name, appearing weekly on the BBC’s
Brains Trust,
a hugely successful programme throughout the war. Joad was greatly imitated because he had what amounted to a catchphrase. When asked a question he would come back with, ‘It all depends on what you mean by … whatever.’ Comedians found him a natural. Later Joad was to fall from grace by being caught travelling by train without a ticket.

The transcript continued:

DI MOUNTFORD: Look, Eric…

TOVEY: No need for you to be familiar, miss. No need at all. I am Mr Tovey.

So, the transcript continued for several more pages of cut and thrust of questions and parry by Tovey who, to use Suzie’s description, ‘hurled the words back at her like throwing bricks’.

‘Or, perhaps, darts?’ Tommy Livermore queried.

She told Tommy that she should have hit him with her version of the truth straightaway. Hit Tovey, that was.

‘And what is your version?’ Tommy asked, and she looked at him as though he was half daft.

‘Two families…’ she started and Tommy muttered, ‘Both alike in dignity.’

‘Families lived cheek by jowl: one a servant, the other the master…’

‘I hardly think Eric Tovey thought of himself as a servant. Gardeners don’t. The garden is always
their
garden; the flowers are
their
flowers; the veg is
their
veg.’

‘OK, Tommy, but they still lived cheek by jowl and the kids all grew up together. Then both the wives flipped. One ups and leaves home, the other takes to the bottle. I haven’t worked out the dates yet but I reckon the reason was the same.’

‘And the reason was…?’

Kath went wrong,
Tovey had said. Then Lees-Duncan had commented on his wife –
Poor Isabel.

‘Dulcie wasn’t Eric’s daughter. She was John Lees-Duncan’s daughter.’

‘Prove it.’

In her head she heard Tovey again –
(John Lees-Duncan) knew her as well as I did. Maybe better’n I did.

Then Willow –
Daddy rode over Mummy like a bloody traction engine rolling out the tarmac.

‘Lees-Duncan’s almost admitted to it,’ she told Tommy. ‘No, I can’t really prove it, but I know a man who’ll give evidence.’ She thought of the butler, Sturgis, and prayed that he would give up some of the family secrets.

‘You may know it to be true,’ Tommy had said. ‘You may know it, but if you can’t prove it…’

‘Tommy, the meanest intelligence could…’ She stopped.
The meanest intelligence.
Lawks, one of her dreaded stepfather’s favourite expressions. She was ashamed of herself for using it.

‘I think you’re right, heart. There’s little doubt. But we’re going to have to get something solid. One of ’em’s got to admit it out loud and in front of witnesses.’

This was after Tommy had finally curry-combed all the paperwork and returned to the flat in Upper St Martin’s Lane.

‘I’m cock-a-hoop,’ he said, coming into the sitting room. James Mountford looked up from reading the official-looking letter that had just been delivered to him by dispatch rider.

‘It’s good to be back,’ Tommy rubbed his hands together briskly, dropping a file of papers onto one of the side tables, the photographs of Michael and Gerald Lees-Duncan spilling out from the papers. ‘So how’re you, young James? How’s the foot?’

‘Lot better, Tommy.’ He came over and peered at the photographs. ‘Pair of right Harrovian thugs you’ve got there, all right.’

‘Not sure about the Harrovian bit but they’re certainly a pair of thugs. That one’s no longer with us, by the way,’ touching the picture of Michael Lees-Duncan.

‘Sorry to hear it.’

‘I’m not. Bloody murderer. One of the reasons that I’m cock-a-hoop. Solved my murder up in Sheffield.’

‘Well, I won’t be around for long.’ James eased himself into a chair. ‘Got my marching orders.’

‘Oh. Good. Suzie around?’

‘Not back yet, Tommy. Want to hear about my posting?’

‘Let me guess: they’re sending you to Brazil, where the nuts come from.’

‘I’m to be OC the Royal Marines Detachment at George Street. How about that?’ George Street was shorthand for the Cabinet War Rooms, the underground bunkers, fashioned from the chambers below the Public Works Building on the edge of St James’s Park and Horse Guards Parade. Only relatively few people were aware of this sophisticated shelter, but Tommy was obviously one of them.

‘You’ll have to be smart on that one. You’ll be up to your arse in generals and cabinet ministers, not to mention the prime minister.’

‘Absolutely. I’ll have my fingers on the pulse of history.’

‘Well, you watch it, laddo. Fingers near the pulse of history sometimes get burnt. And you have to be ready with the odd bon mot.’

‘Such as?’

‘You know the kind of thing – “the lights are going out across Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” Good stuff like that.’

‘I think I’ll leave that to Winston,’ James said, sounding most serious, and at that moment Suzie walked in.

‘Ah-ha, the good old English Tom is back home at last.’

‘Just dropped in for a saucer of milk and the odd fish bone.’

‘Super to see you, Tommy.’

James hardly acknowledged his sister, still staring down at the photos. ‘You say this one’s dead?’

‘Shut up.’ Tommy sounded like a bad ventriloquist.

‘Well. How?’

‘Tell you later, old boy. Got adult things to do now.’

She walked across the room to him, conscious that she was being provocative in the way she moved, and he took her into his arms, one thigh between hers as he hugged and kissed her, whispering in her ear. ‘I have a nice present for you, Suzie darling. When you’ve got a minute.’

She looked over at her brother. ‘We have a lot of business to discuss. See you later, brother dear.’

‘He said he was cock-a-hoop.’

‘Did he now.’ She led Tommy away, his face wreathed in smiles, as they say.

‘Cock-a-hoop.’ She gave him an arch look.

‘Plenty of one and not much of the other,’

‘Oh, Tommy!’

Later, in their bedroom she raised herself on one elbow, looked down at him and said she’d done as he had asked.

‘I know, heart, and you’re magnificent.’

‘No, Tom, I’m talking work. I did as you asked: about the Haynes family. Mr and Mrs and little Doris who became Doris Butler. The late Doris Butler, née Haynes.’

‘Solved the murder.’ Tommy grinned and looked self-satisfied.

‘So you said. You want to hear what I discovered? It’s interesting, I promise.’

‘Go ahead. But nothing would surprise me about Doris Butler now.’

‘She was German.’

‘I wondered.’ He sat bolt upright as though a trap had been sprung behind him. ‘She was. Really?’

‘So were her mum and dad. Came over from Frankfurt in 1932. Changed their name from Hahn. Carl and Lottie Hahn. He was a qualified chemist and of course it was long before Hitler came to power. Lottie Hahn was originally Charlotte Fisher.’