Stratton's War (28 page)

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Authors: Laura Wilson

BOOK: Stratton's War
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She watched from her window until the trap had taken them out of sight, then dressed and crept down the staircase, keeping an ear out for Mrs Birkett and Ellen, and fled into the garden. After a couple of hours’ aimless walking, she found herself standing beside the lake where, two years ago, her beloved dachshund had drowned. She wept, knowing that the tears were for herself rather than poor little Clarence, and disliking herself for it.
Trudging back to the house, she told herself not to be ridiculous. Far worse things happened to people, especially at the moment - husbands killed overseas, wives killed at home, people and their children being wounded and crippled, their homes and possessions destroyed. What did she have to cry about?
Lunch had been left for her in the dining room - ham, a few pieces of tired lettuce, half a tomato and a slice of beetroot which had bled over everything else on the plate. Even Mrs Birkett, the cook, seemed to hate her, she thought. She forced some of it down and secreted the bits she hadn’t managed to eat inside her handkerchief. It would be ruined, but that couldn’t be helped. Angry that she was being treated like a schoolgirl - and aware that she was behaving like one - she went up to her bedroom and stayed there, lying on her bed and trying to read, but mostly staring up at the ceiling, until four o’clock.
During tea, which was taken in the drawing room, Guy and Evie maintained an exaggerated politeness towards her but talked mainly to each other, discussing the people they’d lunched with, whom she’d never met. After about half an hour of this, Guy, at a nod from Evie, stood up and said he hoped they’d excuse him, but he needed to speak to Reynolds about the garden. Diana rose from the sofa to follow him, saying, ‘I think I’ll just go and—Ouch!’ Evie’s hand shot out and caught hold of her wrist. She tried to jerk away, but Evie, still seated in her armchair, had a surprisingly strong grip. ‘I think it’s time we had a chat, don’t you?’ Behind her, Diana heard a quiet click as the door closed. ‘Please let go, Evie. You’re hurting me.’
Her mother-in-law stared at her for a moment before releasing her. ‘Sit down.’ Defeated, Diana did so, rubbing her arm.
‘I have a lot of friends in London,’ Evie said, ‘And I have heard certain rumours. I didn’t give them much credence - people will talk about anything, especially nowadays, and you know that I have always tried to see the best in you.’ She gave Diana a small, poisonous smile. ‘I thought it was probably some stupid infatuation - after all, you’re still young, and you haven’t had a mother to advise you, but I had hoped that by now, as a married woman of twenty-four, you would be mature enough to know better. I was sure it would blow over in time - these things always do - and as the man in question has a reputation as a philanderer, I comforted myself with the thought that you could not possibly be so idiotic as to fall in love with him. I was determined to say nothing, but what Guy told me last night about your coldness towards him puts the matter in a rather different light. I have not, of course, mentioned this sordid business to him - after all, he has quite enough to do with fighting this war, and it’s hardly the time to start worrying him over trifles. Especially when . . .’ Evie lowered her eyes. When he might not come back, Diana thought, with such an uprush of guilt that she felt as if she were about to be sick. ‘However,’ Evie continued, ‘I see that it has gone further than I thought. Surely, Diana, you want to make Guy happy?’
Unable to speak, Diana stared at her shoes.
‘Perhaps you don’t think he deserves happiness?’
There was only one answer to this, and Diana gave it. ‘Of course I do.’
‘A child would make him happy, Diana. A son. And that is your duty, just as Guy’s duty is to fight for his country. You know that, don’t you?’
Diana nodded.
‘Do you? I want an answer.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, let’s have no more of this nonsense. If you give me your promise - your solemn promise - that you won’t see this man again, we will say no more about it. Otherwise I will have to tell Guy, and that would hurt him more than anything, to know that while he has been risking his life for his country, his wife has been making a fool of herself over some . . . some roué. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes,’ said Diana. ‘I understand.’
‘Good. I know that what happened before - losing the baby - must have been upsetting for you, but that’s no reason not to try again. I take it you haven’t compromised yourself with this man.’ Evie stopped, waiting for a response. When none came, she said, ‘You know what I am talking about.’
‘No,’ lied Diana, ‘I haven’t.’
‘I love my son,’ said Evie. ‘I cannot protect him in battle, but I will do everything in my power to protect him at home. Do you understand that?’ Diana stared at her - the mouth was smiling, but the eyes were alight with a terrifying fervour that made her heart thump painfully in her chest.
‘Do I have your word that you won’t see this man again?’
‘Yes.’ It came out in a whisper.
‘In that case, we’ll say no more about it. Now, I imagine you’d like some time by yourself. Perhaps you should go for a walk. Mr Reynolds has taken Guy to see the greenhouses, so you might prefer to avoid that part of the garden.’
Once outside, Diana leant against the conservatory wall and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. By the time she’d finished it, the memory of the fanaticism in Evie’s eyes had receded a bit, and she began to berate herself for being feeble and not standing up to her instead of meekly agreeing not to see Claude again. What else could she have done, though? That look on Evie’s face . . . Diana shivered. She hadn’t been imagining it: Evie would do anything to protect Guy, she thought, deliberately shying away from considering what ‘anything’ might involve. Fancy a grown man allowing his mother to fight his battles for him! But, she thought, that wasn’t entirely fair, because Guy didn’t know anything about Claude. And of course she didn’t want to hurt him, but . . .
Guy did want a child, she knew, but he undoubtedly wanted one more because Evie desired a grandson. Supposing it was a girl, anyway? Then she’d have to have another, and if that wasn’t a boy, either . . . Except that she hadn’t actually agreed to have a baby, had she? Evie had simply taken that as read. But the thought of never seeing Claude again, never kissing him, never . . .
It was the only thing, she admitted to herself, that had kept her going this week, imagining herself reunited with him in London, and now that had been taken away, there was nothing . . . In a few short weeks, Claude seemed to have become the foundation stone of her life; now she’d have to learn to manage without him. Resign herself. Life could - and would - go on, and there was her work. Well, she’d keep her promise, but that was all. Pregnancy was unthinkable.
For an insane moment, she imagined herself asking Guy for a divorce, but that was unthinkable, too. In four days’ time he’d be back with his regiment, bound for God knows where. She couldn’t do it. In any case, he’d undoubtedly refuse, and if by some miracle he agreed, what would F-J think? He might be forced to dismiss her, or, failing that, demote her. And how would Claude react? He’d said he loved her, but there was Lally’s story about the woman who’d killed herself -
she
had thought Claude was in love with her, hadn’t she? And as for Evie . . .
I will do everything in my power to protect him at home
.
Flinging away her cigarette, she ran down the terrace steps and across the lawn, scrambling down and then up the steep sides of the ha-ha, her breath coming in tearful gasps as she stumbled over the tussocky grass of the field beyond, watched by a dozen pairs of melancholy bovine eyes. Once in the woods, she sat down at the base of a big tree and pulled out her handkerchief to blow her nose, only to discover that it was full of leftover bits of ham from lunch and blotched pink from the beetroot. For some reason, the sight of this made her cry even harder than before, and, engulfed by a tide of self-pity and unconstrained by thoughts of other people’s problems, she howled with misery.
At quarter to seven, she realised she ought to go back to the house and dress for dinner. Leaning against the rough bark, surrounded by the earthy, comforting smell of leaf mould, she suddenly wondered why she should. She wanted to stay put and fall asleep like one of the babes in the wood, but people didn’t do things like that in real life. Besides, there was bound to be a Home Guard Patrol later, and she’d probably be mistaken for a German parachutist and shot. I wouldn’t care, she thought. At least, if she were dead, she’d be released from this pretence, from Guy and Evie’s wishes, from her longing for Claude. She struggled wearily to her feet and walked back to the edge of the trees. The cows had gone for milking, and the house, standing at the top of its slope of lawn, its gables and turrets dark against the weak evening sun, looked forbidding and hostile, like a prison. ‘What am I going to do?’ she said, aloud.
 
Diana stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Somehow, she’d managed to get earth all down the front of her dress, under her fingernails, and in her hair. She looked as if she’d been rolling in it. Her eyes were pink-rimmed and swollen, and her nose red. Splashing her face, she wondered if there might be enough hot water for a bath. For the sake of her dignity - what was left of it - she did not want to go down to dinner looking like a ragamuffin.
A great deal of banging and groaning from the plumbing produced three inches of warm water and a lot of condensation. Diana bathed quickly and returned to her bedroom to change her clothes. She put on her favourite evening dress, re-did her hair and covered her face with a thick layer of powder. It occurred to her, as she was blotting her lipstick, that she would need to replace her ruined handkerchief. Opening the drawer where the maid, Ellen, had unpacked her underwear, she took a clean one from the embroidered case her mother had given her for her seventeenth birthday. As she was about to close the drawer, it struck her that its contents did not look quite as she had left them. There’d been no reason for Ellen to go through her things - there was no laundry to come back, and no mending to be done, so . . .
Kneeling in front of the chest of drawers, she scooped out brassieres, stockings and knickers and threw them onto the floor. Petticoats and camisoles followed until the drawer was empty. Diana stared at the lining. The tube of Volpar paste and the round box containing her cap, which she’d carefully hidden beneath her underclothes, had disappeared.
TWENTY-NINE
Policewoman Gaines was waiting for Stratton when he arrived at Great Marlborough Street at half-past eight. ‘Good morning, sir. I’ve been asked to tell you that DCI Machin wants a word, sir.’
‘Machin?’ Stratton was momentarily confused.
‘Our governor, sir.’
‘Yes, of course. Now?’
‘Yes, sir. He said immediately.’
‘Right-o. Lead the way.’
Following Gaines down the corridor, Stratton wondered at the sudden urgency. He hadn’t seen anything of DCI Machin, beyond a quick welcome-to-the-station and we’re-rather-tight-for-space conversation, and had assumed, or, rather, hoped, that he’d be left alone to get on with his job.
‘DI Stratton, sir.’ Gaines withdrew, and DCI Machin, who had been seated behind his desk, half rose, looking uncomfortable. ‘Stratton. Take a seat.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Machin sat down again, cleared his throat several times, and said, ‘Settling in all right?’
‘Yes thank you, sir.’ For God’s sake, thought Stratton, get on with it, man. You didn’t summon me here for that. Machin hummed and ha’d a bit, in the manner of someone who wasn’t sure how to break bad news. Stratton’s mind leapt immediately to the obvious, and he said, urgently, ‘It’s not my wife, is it, sir? She hasn’t been . . .’
‘No, no. Nothing like that.’
Thank Christ for that, thought Stratton. Relief made him miss the first part of what Machin said next.
‘. . . from Scotland Yard. I understand you went to see . . .’ he glanced at his notes, ‘Sir Neville Apse, yesterday morning.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well . . .’ Machin looked even more uncomfortable. ‘He’s not very happy about it.’
‘Sir Neville isn’t?’
‘No. And neither was SDI Roper, when Sir Neville made his complaint.’
‘I don’t understand, sir. His handkerchief was found on a murder victim. The body hasn’t been identified yet, and . . .’
Machin held up a hand. ‘Be that as it may . . . ’ Be that as it may? I don’t believe I’m hearing this, thought Stratton. ‘I have strict instructions that he is not to be troubled again.’
Troubled? ‘This is a murder investigation, sir. I have to—’
‘SDI Roper was very clear. You are not to approach Sir Neville again unless you have permission to do so.’
‘May I ask why, sir?’
Machin looked at Stratton with an I’m-finding-this-hard-enough-so-don’t-make-it-any-worse expression on his face. ‘Sir Neville is engaged in work of national importance.’ He pronounced the last two words with audible capital letters.
You mean he’s MI5, thought Stratton. A spy, and a well-connected one at that. ‘I’ll request permission next time, sir.’
‘It would be better if there wasn’t a next time,’ said Machin, pointedly, adding, ‘but I’m sure there won’t be any need.’

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