Princes Gate (4 page)

“I expect it’s nothing. A cold perhaps or some small problem at home,” said Priestley, who was a small, pale man with buck-teeth. “Funny though. I could have sworn I saw the two of them going into the café round the corner on Thursday.” He greedily demolished a teacake. “My missus keeps on at me to get some spectacles but I don’t think there’s really a need. Probably saw him with another of his floozies.” Kathleen blushed. “Well we all know what Johnny’s like, don’t we?” Priestley wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Anyway, I don’t think it’s right for a chauffeur to wear glasses, do you? Don’t think the Ambassador would like it either.”

Morgan returned and flashed a winning smile in Kathleen’s direction. “Fancy a drink after?”

“I don’t know. I was going to try and get home early and…”

“And what? Don’t be a spoilsport. Just a quiet one. To properly celebrate my birthday. What do you say?”

“Alright then. Just a quick shandy.” Morgan patted her shoulder and she felt a warm tingle run down her back. The mystery of Joan’s whereabouts faded from her mind.

CHAPTER 2

Wednesday January 24
^th

Merlin awoke in his Chelsea lodgings with a groan. His mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert. He sat up in his bed, pulled back the heavy grey curtains and looked out of the window. He was living in a pleasant part of town but he couldn’t say his view was that wonderful. He could see the backs of two terraces of houses, separated by a row of tiny gardens. In the distance he could see the steeple of a church covered in scaffolding. Problems with the roof apparently. Turning inwards he gazed blearily at his small bed-sit. The Bush radio he’d spent a couple of guineas on at Christmas sat heavily on his bedside table. He had an old red armchair that needed recovering next to the table and not much else. A dark brown wardrobe and chest of drawers stood by the washbasin opposite the door. Another Van Gogh print, the one of the starry night, hung out of alignment next to the mirror above the sink. His battered old record player sat on the floor by the window. There was little comparison with his and Alice’s cosy quarters in their old Fulham house.

He rose, walked over to the basin, straightened the Van Gogh, and bent to drink copiously from the tap. He had sold that house as quickly as he could after Alice’s death. The agent had told him he could have got a much better price if he’d just been a little more patient. But Merlin hadn’t wanted to be patient. He’d also sold most of the household effects at knockdown prices, needing desperately to get shot of everything as quickly as he could. Alice’s death had been so sudden. The house was full of her – the ornaments, the furniture, the pictures, the china, the air – everything vibrated with her personality, her beauty, her spirit. He couldn’t bear it. Jack Stewart had been a brick. He’d found the agent. He’d found the people to dispose of the household effects. After the funeral, he’d put his friend up for a while at his little flat in Pimlico. And when Merlin had insisted on not being a burden any longer, Stewart had found the bed-sitting room off the King’s Road in which Merlin now shivered.

He had wanted something simple and central. He had the money now, after Alice’s death, to afford something better. He could have bought another house in Fulham or a nice flat in Chelsea. But these lodgings were fine for the moment. He was, in many ways, a solitary man, but he liked the sound of human activity in the house. His landlords were good people. Dr Hewlett was a retired GP, a genial, white-haired man, seldom seen without his pipe and with a penchant for malt whisky and lengthy discussions about the merits or failings of the Surrey cricket team. Mrs Hewlett was a bubbly little Northerner, who chided her husband over the polluting impact of his pipe-smoking but shared his drinking and sporting tastes. In many ways they had the same sort of down-to-earth teasing relationship that he’d had in his marriage.

He splashed the freezing water over his face. It had been a mistake to meet up with Jack Stewart. He’d never been much of a drinker before Alice died – an occasional pink gin perhaps or a glass of red wine. Stewart had encouraged him to drown his sorrow with beer and plenty of it. He had now acquired the taste and was, he knew, drinking too much. This was hard to avoid if your principal, indeed only, drinking companion was someone like Stewart who could, and often did, put six or seven pints away without batting an eyelid. This his friend had done last night at The Surprise. Apparently, he’d been on continuous AFS duty for seventy-two hours, during which time Merlin presumed he hadn’t drunk any alcohol. But then again, since the anticipated airborne arrival of the barbarian hordes had yet to materialise and the Auxiliary Fire Service had little to do but organise sandbagging and practice running up and down their fire towers, what was to stop the firemen dropping into the pub for a few drinks every once in a while? Stewart’s duties certainly didn’t inhibit his scope for pulling girls, as he had elaborated on at length last night after the apologia for Marshal Stalin had been duly delivered. In any event they had drunk a bucketful and Merlin couldn’t remember whether at any stage they’d taken any food to soak up at least some of the alcohol. He thought not.

There was nothing at the Yard to cheer him up and his hangover, if anything, seemed to be getting worse, despite the consumption of three head-clearing mints.

“I think you could do with a nice cup of tea, sir,” said Detective Sergeant Bridges, with what seemed an offensive level of cheerfulness. Merlin grunted and Bridges took this to be an affirmative response. The first thing that he saw on his desk was a memo from the A.C.

I would appreciate, at your earliest convenience, reports on progress on the following items:
The Barnes Incident
The Birdcage Walk hit and run of a week ago, and Johnson’s progress thereon.

Verey’s progress with the East India Dock investigation.

The forthcoming McGillvray IRA terrorist trial.

The review of our fingerprinting methodology requested several weeks ago.

There are a number of other outstanding items as you know but I regard an update on the above as the most pressing.

“Very kind of you to be so accommodating,” Merlin said to himself.

“Beg pardon, sir?” Bridges deposited a steaming cup of tea on Merlin’s desk.

“Nothing, nothing. Thanks, Sergeant. Let’s hope this does me some good.”

Merlin parked the memo under the paperweight on the right of his desk. The paperweight, a bronze replica of the Eiffel Tower, had been a souvenir from his last holiday with Alice before she died. Paris in June 1938 – what a time they had had. He pinched himself hard. At the beginning of the month he’d made a New Year’s resolution to avoid wallowing in the past. He was determined to keep it. There was no room for any more self-pity either. He pinched himself again.

“Any news on Barnes?” It had been forty-eight hours since the girl’s body had been discovered and they still hadn’t received Dr Sisson’s report, promised for the day before.

“I’ve put another call in this morning, sir, but Venables said the doctor had been called out to a road accident in Richmond and that his assistant had no news.”

Merlin slammed his right hand down on the desk a little harder than he’d intended and winced. “What the hell does he think he’s playing at? Idiota!”

Bridges, acknowledging one of the few Spanish pejoratives of his boss which he understood, shook his head sadly and sucked in his breath.

“Did you ask Venables whether he had anything to add to his own completely unenlightening report?”

“He doesn’t.”

“Huh! Any interesting missing person reports?”

“Nothing that really matches in yesterday’s batch but I’m expecting last night’s reports to be sent to me in the next hour.”

“And what about that boat?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Very well. Be sure to chase that police doctor during the morning, won’t you?” He closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “Now perhaps you can ask Peter Johnson and Verey to come up and update me on their cases. Oh, and Sergeant?”

“Sir?”

“Could you have a look in the medicine box and see if there’s anything in there for my headache?”

Arthur Norton straightened his bow tie and applied the last touches of oil to his hair. Wearing his new Savile Row evening wear, he preened in front of the full-length Venetian mirror in his entrance hall. To the casual observer, Norton’s features might appear acceptably regular, though a little spoiled by a weak chin and a puffiness which bore witness to the liveliness of his social life. To Arthur Norton, however, the face which stared back at him was one of which he was inordinately proud. His looks, he thought, especially with the recent addition of a little dignified salt and pepper in his hair, were even improving with age. He wondered briefly whether now was the time to remove the moustache which he had added to complement the portrait a year or so ago. “No,” he murmured, remembering the young debutante who had commented favourably on it the other night. His figure wasn’t so bad either, though his waistline had expanded a little since his arrival in England.

He stepped into the living room and poured himself a large Scotch. He still felt the need for a little Dutch courage before entering the social fray. So unlike his friend and patron, the Ambassador, who had for many years maintained a fantastically complicated private life against a background of expanding family obligations and buccaneering business dealings, yet had little need for alcoholic stimulation. Norton didn’t think he’d ever seen the Ambassador take more than one alcoholic drink in an evening of entertainment, and more often than not he’d seen him drinking only water or a soda. Women were Joe Kennedy’s alcohol, and he didn’t need the hard stuff to put lead in his pencil.

Norton stepped into the pitch-black Mayfair street below his flat and set out on the short walk to his evening’s destination. It was twenty-to-eight and he was due on the hour. As he walked around the corner into Hill Street, he heard steps. He had forgotten his torch and swore at himself. He hurried across the road. Street attacks had multiplied tenfold since the introduction of the blackout. The steps behind him picked up their pace and he began to run.

“Mr Norton!”

Norton recognised the voice and stopped.

“It’s me, sir.”

Norton caught his breath and turned to face his pursuer.

“Goddam it, what do you want? I’m in danger of being late for a very important dinner.”

Not for the first time, Johnny Morgan sniggered to himself at Norton’s strange way of speaking. ‘New England Lockjaw’, he heard someone call it when discussing the Ambassador. For some reason the Ambassador’s version of the accent was much easier on the ear than Norton’s braying nasal twang.

“Come on Morgan, spit it out or get on your horse. I have no time to waste.”

“It’s about the arrangements, sir.”

“What arrangements?”

“You know. With the girls. Those arrangements. I need…”

A loud bang sounded from nearby and Norton jumped.

“Only a car exhaust, sir.”

“Look, I can’t talk now. Let’s have a word tomorrow.”

“When?”

“I’ll meet you in that pub just around the corner from the embassy – no, then again, let’s meet a little further afield. St. James’s Park, at the entrance nearest The Ritz. Say at about midday. You can get away then, can’t you? With the Ambassador away you can’t have much to do at the moment.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get away somehow.”

“Very well. So, good night.”

“There’s one thing that can’t wait.”

“What, Goddamit?”

“The money, sir.”

“We can discuss that tomorrow.”

“No, sir. I need some now. I want what’s due. You know the amount.” Morgan’s voice now had a steely edge.

Norton paused for a second before reaching into his trouser pocket. “Lucky for you I’m carrying some cash.”

“I knew a fine gentleman like yourself would be carrying cash on a night out on the town, sir. Better watch out for ruffians, though. Plenty of them about in the blackout.”

Norton handed over some notes then hurried away towards Berkeley Square, while Morgan turned into The Running Footman to check that he hadn’t been short-changed.