Troubled Midnight (6 page)

“Rude to stare, Curry!” Tommy barked, and Suzie noticed the younger man start as though a lightning bolt had struck nearby.

“WDS Mountford. Curry Shepherd.” Tommy waving a hand between them, meticulous about introductions.

“How d’you do?” said Curry, looking her straight in the eye. He had, she noticed, lovely grey eyes.

Suzie smiled and gave a little nod, and went on feeling uncomfortable.

They shook hands. He really is beautiful, she thought, felt a distinct frisson coming through his fingers, like an electric current.

Tommy was speaking again. “Curry was with me at m’tutor’s.”

“A shade after you, Tommy.” Curry corrected. “You were head of house when I was at m’tutor’s.”

Suzie knew the language because she had met a couple of other people who had been at Eton with Tommy Livermore. M’Tutor’s was the la-di-da Etonian way of saying they were in the same house at school. But she felt even more uncomfortable. Couldn’t explain it. Didn’t know why. Young Curry Shepherd made her feel strange, was all she knew. Edgy. Gave her a little tingle. You know.

“Your people here wouldn’t let me have a shufti at the bodies, Tommy. Really should see them y’know.” Curry talked in the same quirky shorthand all these upper class Harry Poshers spoke, but Curry was not quite as straight-faced as most of them: didn’t take himself too seriously, which made a change, and there was melody in his voice: what her mum would’ve called a ‘brown velvet voice’.

“Why on earth should I let you peep at the corpses, Curry? You working for one of those comics down the Street? Or d’you just like looking at dead people? Necrophiliac are we? Aren’t you in HM Forces at all, old son?”

“Oh, I’m in HM Forces all right, Tom; and, yes, I was posted missing presumed dead. Near Ypres of all places.” He gave one of those now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t smiles, his face going back to normal. “Got to talk to you privately, Tommy. Save embarrassment, eh?”

Tommy looked at him hard and suspicious for a good twenty seconds. “WDS Mountford shares all secrets in this outfit, Curry, but we’ll get as private as we can.” He raised his voice, calling for Brian who trotted round the car, holding open the rear door. Tommy ushered Curry into the back seat. Then Suzie. Finally he climbed in and sank down in the seat, closing the door as he did so.

Suzie felt the padding move as Tommy’s weight dinged it, she also felt Curry’s left thigh against her and wondered why she was once more starting to feel uncomfortable; but she didn’t move, covering whatever confusion she felt, putting her mind as far away from lust or discomfort as she could. Which wasn’t really all that far.

“Right, James Morrison Shepherd. Let’s hear your story.” Tommy seemed to physically relax, putting his head against the leather seatback.

“End of May ’40.” Curry spoke as though delivering evidence in court.

“I was with General Brooke: that is General Sir Alan Brooke. On his staff. Intelligence Officer – trained, done a dozen postings to get experience. Now I had ended up in a shooting war. We all had. Went up to look at the 5
th
Division near Ypres: the General gave us a short lecture on the unpleasant connotations the place had for those who served in the ’14-’18 show. Round about 26
th
, maybe 27
th
May. The 5
th
Division were getting into position along the canal. The old man wanted to see what the Belgians were doing about defending the place, but they’d buggered off, excuse my polemics, Suzie. I can call you Suzie, yes?”

“Of course,” she told him with a sly little smile.

“Nothing going on except some Frogs from the Postal Service of 1
st
Frog Motorized. I got out to take a look-see along some of the side streets and Jerry started shelling us. By the time I got back, the General and his three vehicles had gone. Finally I was trapped when Jerry blew the bridges.”

“So?” Tommy seemed unimpressed.

“So I went to ground and stayed there for the best part of six months. But that’s another, and rather long, story.” He took a deep breath and swallowed. “When I finally got back I found I was missing believed killed, and the fella at the War House said use it, make it an advantage.” He shifted, his left hand going into the breast pocket of his blazer, pulling out a small piece of pasteboard, size of a visiting card. “Military Intelligence, Tommy. It’s all there.” He gave a fast, attractive grin; almost knowing what Tommy Livermore was about to say.

“Bit of an oxymoron, Curry, eh? Military Intelligence, what?” Tommy took the card and studied it, closing one eye and giving young Shepherd the occasional droll look, lifting an eyebrow, squinting at him sideways on. Finally he grunted, sat up straight and muttered, “Better make the phone call then, eh? Better get you sorted, young Shepherd. Right?” He flung the door open and slid out, shutting it again. Rather angrily Suzie thought.

She felt the seat blossom as Tommy removed his weight, but Curry didn’t shift, still thigh to thigh, rather enjoying it. She said, “What’s this all about?” Joined at the hip, she thought. Fancy.

“Oh, Tommy being pedantic. Checking up on me. Doesn’t change much does he?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only known him since 1940 and he’s stayed roughly the same since then.”

“Still brutal is he?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say bru…”

“I would. He used to beat people for dumb insolence in the ranks on Corps parades. Corps. OTC parades. Officers Training Corps. School.”

“M’Tutor’s,” she said with a sly-boots smirk. “How horrid.”

“I used to think it was like being in Wellington’s army. Chaps being flogged for minor infringements on parade. Dumb insolence and the like.”

“He called you James Morrison…”

“Right in one. James Morrison Shepherd. James, James Morrison Morrison, said to his mother, said he…”

“Then why the spicy nickname?”

“Curry?” A little laugh. “Oh, nothing to do with spice. We’re an Anglo-Irish family. Boat builders. Up near Galway. I’m the eldest son of the present generation and the eldest son traditionally takes over the making of small boats: currach; so Currach Shepherd; hence Curry Shepherd.”

“A currach is…?”

“A small boat; a coracle…”

“Oh, yes. And now you’re doing..?”

“I didn’t say, but your boss, Tommy, is checking up on my credentials e’en as we speak, as they say,” this last drawled out exaggeratingly. “Actually, I’m on a little roving commission that I don’t think our Ginger Tom’s going to like.”

She giggled at the Ginger Tom. In some ways it was apt. She didn’t think Tommy had ever been unfaithful to her, but he certainly eyed up the ladies: very blatant about it. Mind you she had been unfaithful to Tommy – one night with the Wing Commander: room 504. But that was different. Of course.

“So what d’you do for our Tom?”

She thought for a moment, then said, “Actually Tommy rescued me.” In her head she saw Tommy as he was when she first met him. She had been following a lead with, of all people, Shirley Cox.

In the autumn of 1940 Suzie was out of her depth. The Blitz on London was at its most horrible, she was untrained as a detective and her senior officer, Detective Chief Inspector ‘Big Toe’ Harvey, had been injured by a passing bomb, leaving her unsuitably in charge when a headline murder case landed on her patch.

Fleet Street had a field day, and the papers were quickly awash with stories about this young, inexperienced woman in charge of an atrocious killing. In those days women coppers investigating ’orrible murders raised the hackles in a certain type of ‘Concerned of Camberwell’ correspondent in the editorial columns. The Yard was angry, thought she’d been professionally putting herself about a bit.

Eventually she was told to keep her head down and, if she needed help, to ring Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Livermore. She did just that and found a pleasant, if avuncular, voice at the distant end, giving her sensible advice and telling her to just get on with it. He would step in and assist if push came to shove.

Push did come to shove and her cry for help was answered in the reception hall of a tasteless block of service apartments in Marylebone: Derbyshire Mansions where she first came face to face with Tommy.

She was later to discover that his entrances were usually made with some dramatic bravura, and on this occasion he swished in with his team around him, making Suzie comment, “Orchestra, dancing girls, the lot.”

Shirley added, “And a male voice choir.”

They both agreed that Tommy himself arrived in great style, the impeccable suit, handmade shoes, greatcoat across the shoulders, the energy, physical presence, and the all-consuming smile. It just about knocked her off her feet. (Just as you could Mr James Morrison Shepherd, she considered now. If you put your mind to it. Same mould as Tommy but much younger.)

The following night – back in 1940 – Dandy Tom Livermore had taken Suzie to dinner at the Ritz where he told her that she was one of a number of hand-picked women detectives who were to be groomed for stardom against the day when women coppers would be
de rigueur
(there were only about three people in the Met who could clearly see that female police were really here to stay. Tommy was one of them: though you’d rarely know it these days). That night she left the Ritz as one of the Reserve Squad, and during the remainder of that horrendous year, Tommy was there for her, and soon after he became her first ever lover.

Now, here he was again outside the car and talking ten to the dozen to Brian.

“Going to the nick,” he said once he’d returned to his seat – next to Brian in the front this time, his rightful place. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, young Curry, haven’t we? At least you’ve got a lot to tell me. You’re a Major I gather.” Not even a pause for breath. “Substantive rank of Major they tell me. Quite gone up in the world.”

“What about me seeing the bodies?” Curry’s voice seemed to be saying that Tommy really didn’t cut any ice with him because he had his orders to follow, his own agenda and his own most important end game to play out.

“They’re pretty terrible and I want the doc to do his business before anyone else sees them. Your bosses say I can show you the happy snapshots when we have them. They also say that what you have to tell me is urgent. So we’ll do it down the nick. Okay?”

“As our American allies say, ’aw my aching back.’” Curry didn’t even smile and this was a long way from dumb insolence. Suzie could feel Tommy’s fury from where she sat in the back of the Wolesley. Indeed, she feared for his spleen. “Ask you a question, Tommy. What’s so terrible about the bodies?”

Tommy took half a minute to make up his mind. “Because they’re a mess, Curry.”

“You know who they are? Identified them?”

“Oh yes. The doc knew both of them. Colonel Tim Weaving, Glider Pilot Regiment and Mrs Bascombe, wife of Bunny Bascombe VC.”

“And what kind of mess are they in?”

“Some sod’s really roughed them up: some sadistic bugger. Or, and this sounds daft, it looks like someone put ’em to the question.”

“Really?” Curry said, as though this fact was the last possible thing in the world to interest him.

Back at Wantage Police Station Shirley Cox had the new office up, running and almost organized, with the exception of the extra telephones that, she assured Tommy, would be installed by noon tomorrow. In his current mood a grunt was high praise.

“You mind if I check up with the Station Master, Chief?” she asked.

“Just see what he’s got in the way of digs for us? Doss house? Bed and Breakfast, or palatial hotel suite?”

“Yes. Right. Do your worst Shirley, and if it’s a palatial suite it’s mine.”

As Shirley made her way out, Suzie thought to herself that she had been right when she first saw her in 1940. Shirley was very like Hedy Lamarr: the hair, a quick glimpse of her face and certainly her figure brought to mind that film star who caused such a stir in Hollywood when it was revealed she had – long ago (1932) – done a nude scene in a Czech film titled Ecstasy. Old Shirl could have done a lot of nude scenes and got applause all round from the boys in the Reserve Squad. Some standing ovations an’ all.

Suzie looked back towards Tommy who was staring at Curry Shepherd. “So, you’re a funny, young Shepherd. Major Curry Shepherd of the oddities. They told me I should ask you for the details.”

Curry looked hard at Tommy Livermore. He nodded and, in spite of what he had already been told, asked if someone could definitely confirm one of the bodies in Portway House was Colonel Tim Weaving of the Glider Pilot Regiment. Tommy said yes, the local doctor had confirmed it, and the woman’s ID as well.

“Then I’ll have to use your telephone.” He spoke to the operator about making a trunk call to London, and a minute later had someone on the line. “Firefly for Dormouse,” he said, briskly and Suzie thought, ‘Gosh, they really do use that gobbledegook with code words, just like in the moving pictures. Gobbledegook was a word she’d learned from one of the American officers when they were in East Anglia: meant to sound like turkeys gobbling all over the place and meant language made into nonsense by elaborate words and technical terms.

“Yes,” Curry confirmed to someone at the other end of the telephone. “Of course, sir … Yes, absolutely. Detective Chief Superintendent Livermore … sir, yes I was … Restricted … Totally, sir … Definitely Weaving … Yes, very good. I think they should be exceptionally careful regarding promotions to that spot, sir. Yes, I’ll put him in the picture. That’ll be okay, no worry.” And more along those line. “I’ll see to it, sir … Right…” and he closed the line, hung up the handset and smiled, first at Suzie, then Tommy. “It would seem that, because you’re working the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Weaving I can give you the gen. Strictly need-to-know of course.”

“Oh, strictly, of course.” Tommy was being persistently difficult.

Curry lit a cigarette, didn’t offer them to anyone else and blew a long stream of smoke towards the ceiling before starting his tale. “I got back to England in a fishing boat from somewhere close to Ostend. Very cold, January 1941 and the man I saw at the War House had what he thought was a great idea. I was put on to training men who were going to work at Camp XX – Camp 20. They were faced with me, a man who claimed to be Anglo-Irish but could not prove he wasn’t missing believed killed in Belgium in ’40. Most of them thought I was a real Nazi infiltrator. My old boss, General Brooke wasn’t told and he was approached several times, said he doubted that I was alive.” Taking another lungful of smoke and bringing it down his nose this time – brandished his smoking tricks did our Curry. “By this time,” he continued, “We’d put most of the Nazi spies in the bag before they got very far. Blundering lot of idiots most of them. Put ’em in the bag then took the bag down to Camp XX.”