No Human Enemy (Suzie Mountford Mysteries) (25 page)

The priest gestured her into an easy chair as he sank into its twin in front of the fireplace (complete with fire irons with devil’s-head handles), and lit a cigarette without offering one to Suzie who took her own blue paper packet of Players from her bag, selected a cigarette and lit it with a match. Even then, he didn’t apologise for his rudeness.

‘I simply came as a representative of the Metropolitain Police to offer our condolences.’ Suzie leant forward. They had not allowed any hint of Michael Lees-Duncan’s death as a disguised nun to seep out into Fleet Street or the wider world. She was there ostensibly to offer the Met’s commiseration; in reality to see if he could give them any further information.

‘Nothing bothering your daughter was there, Father?’

‘Bothering? Why? No.’ Naturally the old priest couldn’t get the drift of Suzie’s question. But, as she was leaving – after Father Harding had made her kneel with him and pray for the repose of the souls of Sister Bridget Mary and her companions – he grasped her arm and said, ‘But, yes. Yes. The last time she was here, Bridget was most concerned for one of her colleagues – no name, no pack drill, what?’ And it came out, some morbid story about this friend’s past life, and how she so regretted it and how she was plagued with the desire to murder the man responsible. ‘Whoever it was, it seemed to me that the woman needed the services of a psychiatrist as well as a priest.’

Suzie nodded calmly, knowing exactly who he was talking about – Dulcie Tovey driven half mad by the knowledge that she had committed fornication with her own half-brother.

There was a distant rolling roar and the ground throbbed beneath Suzie’s feet while Father Harding looked up, alarm in his eyes.

‘Dot vos a bomp,’ Suzie thought. V-2s could be heard over thirty miles away.

Back at the Yard she talked it over with Tommy and they came to the conclusion that for a religious woman it was the kind of sin that could drive you to the edge of dark madness: had indeed done so.

Laura Cotter had now returned from Sheffield so Tommy, out of the goodness of his heart, sent her and Dennis Free to Farnborough to the House of the Holy Family where the novice nuns had spent much of their time before returning to Silverhurst Road, and their deaths. ‘I want to know how Michael Lees-Duncan insinuated himself into that party,’ he said. When the couple returned – full of their plans for marriage – they brought with them a good picture of what had gone on.

The House of the Holy Family turned out to be a large, pleasant 1920s villa, set back from the road and screened by a stone wall and trees. A gravelled drive ran right around the house, the kitchens of which were at the rear. ‘The kitchen staff had orders to be generous to any vagrant coming to the back door,’ Dennis told them. ‘And the morning the nuns were leaving they had a man begging at the kitchen door – on that Sunday. Didn’t seem like a vagrant but they gave him a bacon sandwich.’ (The holy sisters received more than the usual bacon ration. Dennis said they had a God-fearing butcher.) ‘This bloke at the kitchen door asked for Sister Theresa by name and Poppy – that was the cook I got all this from…’ (Here Laura gave him a suspicious look, a sneaky look up from under her eyelids and Dennis told her there was no need for her to be jealous because Poppy was a Ten Ton Tessie type and Laura knew what he, Dennis, thought of chubby women – couldn’t abide them.)

Anyway, Poppy had gone up and fetched Sister Theresa down to see the man. ‘Oh, she knew him all right,’ Poppy said. ‘That was obvious, ’cos she went chalk white … no. No, I didn’t see him leave, but he must of done ’cos there was no sign of him later.’

‘There you have it,’ Tommy said. ‘Premeditated. Dulcie must’ve decided what she was going to do. Madness, of course. Like a fever. Dress him as a nun, get him to Silverhurst Road then do away with him. Only thought that far. Didn’t work the rest of it out.’

Tommy Livermore did not like to leave loose ends dangling so he went off to Gloucester, with Ron Worrall in tow and, as he said, ‘Put Lees-Duncan to the question.’

To Suzie’s chagrin he returned with a nod from both Lees-Duncan and Tovey.

‘Don’t know if they’ll sign anything when it comes to it, but they both blinked. Sure as eggs are eggs, Lees-Duncan is Dulcie’s father. Absolutely no doubt.’

Suzie was not so sure about the blinking. She knew Tommy of old: he would never admit to a failure.

But, the following week there was confirmation of their suspicions; plus some of the reasons. When it came, the end was quick and dangerously violent: an end that, had it been a success, might have made a grave difference to the last months of the war.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Before taking up his new posting, Lieutenant James Mountford RM was instructed to report to Eastney Barracks, Portsmouth: the Royal Marines Barracks of Portsmouth Division. There, he was told, he would be familiarised with his new duties in the CWR – the Cabinet War Rooms, Winston Churchill’s bunker, ten feet below ground level under the New Public Offices building, hard by Horse Guards Parade and St James’s Park.

He had been stationed in the Officers Mess at Eastney only once before. Just after being commissioned, completing the Royal Marines OCTU at Thurlstone in Devon, Jim Mountford had been sent to ‘Pompey’ – as Portsmouth was known to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and practically everybody else – to be initiated into the arcane world of mess etiquette.

While preparations were being made to complete the training of many military personnel before Operation Overlord, the invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe, this group of young officers were taught essentials such as the ritual of taking snuff after dinner: being passed the beautiful silver snuff horn with its four implements hanging on chains from its outer side. You tapped on the lid with the tiny hammer; raked the snuff with the silver rake; placed a spoonful of the powder on the indentation below the apex of thumb and forefinger of the left hand; divided it in two – one for each nostril; closed the lid, took the snuff and brushed off the excess with the rabbit’s foot. This, and the correct way to pass the port, were still seen as part of an officer’s training. Jim always thought that the Royal Marines were covering their rear. Having made these men into officers they felt they should make absolutely certain that they had chosen gentlemen.

Now, Jim reported to the adjutant and was told he would be promoted to captain, ‘Purely on a temporary and unpaid basis, young Mountford,’ the adjutant said. ‘Don’t get any ideas above your station. It’s simply that the post requires a Captain of Marines. Winston demands that and he’ll probably call you “my good boy”. That’s what he appears to call his male secretaries. He’s God, Mountford, remember that as well.’

The prime minister, Mr Winston Churchill, was thought of and spoken of as ‘Winston’ by practically everyone – though not to his face of course. Jim Mountford soon got used to that and noticed that NCOs and other ranks often spoke of him as ‘Winnie’.

Captain ‘Hank’ Hennessy, the officer who had been in charge of the Royal Marine detachment at the CWR – now leaving to take up sea duties – arrived the next morning and took Jim through the job in detail. ‘You’re going to have a dozen men under you,’ he said. ‘Plus the excellent Colour-Sarn’t “Tubby” Shaw, and I see from a signal just received that they’re posting another sarn’t to you.’ He held the flimsy signal form up to the light, squinting at it as though looking to make sure it wasn’t a forgery. ‘A Sarn’t Harvey. Can’t think why because Colour-Sarn’t Shaw knows the drill, you won’t go far wrong with him. Good type. Salt of the earth.’

The marines at CWR, including himself, would be dressed in Number Ones – blues – at all times, and worked in four-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day. The dozen men were relieved every six weeks for a second twelve men who carried on the four-hour-stint routine, turn and turn about. The Captain of Marines was not relieved. He soldiered on, twelve months of the year with the occasional spot of leave.

‘The job is to safeguard the prime minister; his cabinet; the service advisers and staff. But we put the prime minister first. Initially the unit was designed as a fighting force to repel any German attack on the bunker. Shouldn’t see that as a problem now, but it’s as well to keep your fellows on the qui vive. You should be aware of who is in the bunker at all times, and what they’re doing.’ Hank Hennessy laid a conspiratorial forefinger along the side of his nose.

Men were posted at significant points in the warren of offices and rooms. A couple of men were usually outside the Cabinet Room itself, and there was always somebody close to the Map Room and one outside Mr Churchill’s private room.

Hennessy told him that, while things were still fairly busy and urgent in the CWR there was not the pressure that had existed during late 1940 and early 1941 during the Blitz. ‘And, of course it was hectic as all hell in the weeks leading up to D-Day,’ Hennessy said. ‘But don’t be worried about upsetting people. If necessary follow individuals if they roam around, particularly at night. Better safe than sorry: that’s the watchword.’

James Mountford left Portsmouth, most conscious of the extra pip on his shoulder, and wary of the new and important job he was about to take on. Also, he was not a little excited, because he, James R Mountford, was to be close to the centre of things, guarding the legend, Winston Churchill, and all those who had worked so hard to save Britain from becoming enslaved under the Nazis. Heady stuff for a twenty-one-year-old recently commissioned officer.

On taking over command of the Royal Marine detachment of the Cabinet War Rooms, James had done another swift flanker. He had quickly discovered that the unit was entitled to a jeep and driver and, by way of sucking up to the adjutant at ‘Pompey’, he had managed to get Leading Wren Emily Styles assigned to them as the detachment’s driver. It was Emily who drove him to George Street on his first day when he learnt that he would be given a bed in what they called the ‘Dock’ below the CWR. Emily was found comfortable quarters in the New Public Offices. ‘Bloody sight more comfortable than mine,’ Jim later complained.

Colour-Sergeant Shaw turned out to be an old-school Royal Marine NCO; stiff bearing, correct attitude, pride seeping out of every pore of his skin. Slightly portly, as his nickname implied, Colour-Sergeant Shaw could be relied on in any circumstances. Jim knew the type and was grateful for his presence.

‘We had a long quiet period here, sir,’ Shaw told him. ‘But Winnie’s back to holding Cabinet and War Defence Committee meetings down here. Done that since the buzzbombs and these rockets. The V-2s.’ They were standing just outside the New Public Offices building, and Colour-Sergeant Shaw signified the CWR with a slight nod of the head. ‘It’s an honour to work here, sir. See all the great figures passing through. Help them. Give them a hand. Get to serve men like Winnie, the … er … the prime minister, sir.’

He said he would introduce the men to Captain Mountford at the six o’clock parade, and Jim said he was looking forward to it. Gave the colour-sergeant his best beam: ear to ear.

‘You’ll eat in the War Rooms Canteen, sir.’ It was almost an order. ‘I’ve heard it’s not bad. Some grumble, but when didn’t men grumble about food? I hear there’s a lot of tinned soup and sausages. Nothing wrong with sausages, though, sir, and I expect they ginger it up, ring the changes with “Herrings-in” from time to time.’ ‘Herrings-in’ was a Royal Marines treat, short for herrings in tomato sauce, served hot or cold, often a staple for Saturdays when a lot of people wanted to go ashore. In the Royal Marines you went ashore even if you were based ashore in what was often termed a stone frigate, or shore establishment.

‘Know anything about the new sergeant they’re posting to us, sir?’ Shaw asked him later. ‘I don’t think I’ve served with him before. Have you, sir? Name of Harvey.’

Jim said he had not, and it was readily obvious that ‘Tubby’ Shaw was intrigued by the new posting. ‘I’ve been here almost two years. Now, when the end’s in sight, they send me some help.’

‘You know what it’s like, Colour-Sarn’t. Chap’ll probably get claustrophobic.’ People always said that all postings were strange: a good cook was sent to a MT unit, while a skilled motor mechanic was remustered as a cook.

Harvey arrived at noon the following day, just as Jim was starting to find his way around the underground bunker with its single long narrow corridor, and ceilings crossed by thick, red-painted metal girders that reinforced the roof. It would be easy, Jim quickly discovered, to get claustrophobic because the main problem with the CWR was space, and it was difficult to envisage how they had managed when the whole of the Prime Minister’s Office had been permanently down in the War Rooms in 1940/41.

Even now, when the main threat was still from the skies there was a hum of activity that seemed to spill from the rooms, spaced along each side of the corridor. People’s voices could be heard and the telephones constantly rang, runners and messengers pushed their way along the central passage, avoiding the big plain map storage chests and aware of the hiss of the compressed air that sent message capsules along the Lanson tubes, from office to office. Everyone was used to the Lanson equipment as it had been a regular feature all over the country in larger shops and department stores before the war – flinging accounts and cash to the girls who sat in till booths saving shoppers from queuing or paying their bills at a till. The Lanson tubes distanced the shopper from the sordid financial part of the transaction. Now, like most things, the Lanson system had been called up for war work.

At around eleven-thirty Colour-Sergeant Shaw took a phone call from Harvey who was at Paddington Station having travelled from Exton via Exeter. Jim immediately authorised the jeep to pick him up.

‘Cheeky bugger,’ Emily told him that evening when they managed to slip away for a quick drink in a pub where they weren’t known. ‘Tried to pinch my bottom as we arrived in George Street. Made some remark about me probably being an officer’s groundsheet. Not very nice.’

‘He’d better stop that or he’ll find himself up the creek without a paddle,’ Jim assured her.