Authors: Suzette A. Hill
Stanley had been impossible – demanding this, that and the other; cowing his students and even reducing Mrs Burkiss to baleful silence. (She still hadn’t yielded up the key to her broom cupboard, and given the latest display was unlikely to do so.)
‘The flak’s flying today,’ Leo had announced cheerfully. ‘I rather suspect someone has questioned his judgement over a footnote in
The Museum Quarterly
. Smithers probably – he bides his time, you know, and then pounces.’
Rosy did know. The academic rivalry of the two colleagues would occasionally rise to cabaret heights, but most of the time it was merely irritating and today was no exception. She was tired and not in the mood for Stanley’s tantrums or Smithers’ pettish complaints. There was plenty of work to do as it was, and she was impatient to get home, have a bath and brace herself for the rendezvous with Donald. Brace? Well perhaps not that exactly, but to focus her mind on meeting this man whom she hadn’t seen for
several years and of whom she had only a vague memory. As promised he had telephoned earlier in the week to say he was staying at the Shadwell and hoped she would join him for dinner at seven-thirty on the Friday. She was both nervous and curious. Apart from the topic of Marcia, would they actually have anything to say to each other?
Eventually escaping Dr Stanley and the museum’s portals, she hurried home; and between sips of vermouth started to put her hair in rollers and run the bath. It all seemed to take a long time, particularly as in her haste she had smudged the mascara and had to redo the ritual of spitting on the brush and carefully flicking the tips of her lashes. But at last, smoothing down the silk dress and grabbing coat and handbag, she was ready. She looked out of the window. What had she expected – moonlight and stars? Bloody raining of course!
He was in the foyer when she arrived, and contrary to earlier fears she recognised him immediately. His hair had receded and there were slight pouches under his eyes, but otherwise he was much as she remembered: tallish, ungainly and mercifully sober-suited.
He greeted her affably and said she was looking well (by which she assumed she must be looking quite nice. It was something men said, she had noticed, when they were too diffident to pay a compliment.) She deposited her coat in the cloakroom and joined him in the cocktail lounge. The hotel had received a direct hit in the war and had since been resurrected into a palace of aggressive modernity. The bar, however, still retained an air of amiable chic, and the shaded lights and discreetly upholstered sofas looked inviting. To her surprise she saw he had ordered Manhattans. In the old days she had chosen them fairly often, but not recently.
‘Still happy with these?’ he asked.
She said she certainly was, flattered that he should remember.
‘Good, good!’ he replied vaguely, smiling but looking awkward. He flicked open a cigarette case and offered her one. ‘So, uhm, how’s life treating you these days – things going all right, are they?’
She said that they were, and told him a little of her job at the museum and Dr Stanley’s vagaries, and he in turn told her of his new publishing venture in New York. The cocktails helped, as did the piano tinkling softly in a corner, but the first ten minutes were sticky and it was with mutual relief that they fell to the subject of Marcia.
‘You see,’ he explained, ‘she telephoned out of the blue about a month ago and said she had something she wanted to send me – some document, apparently – and would I mind keeping it for her. I was pretty surprised because we had virtually lost contact and weren’t exactly on hobnobbing terms. When I asked why she couldn’t keep it herself, she said, “Like hell, it’s dynamite.” I was rather busy at the time and didn’t see why I should get involved in Marcia’s business affairs – I’d had enough of that when we were married. So I suggested that if it was really that important she should deposit it with her bank; to which she replied she had no intention of giving fawning Foxley (presumably the bank manager) the excuse to get his hands on any more of her funds, and in any case she would prefer it to be out of the country.’
‘Out of the country? So whatever was it?’ asked Rosy.
Donald shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, she never said. And as it turned out I never got it. Changed her mind, I suppose. As you know, she was full of whims.’ He paused and lit another
cigarette. ‘But … well
now
, I rather wonder if perhaps …’
‘You mean it may have some connection with her murder?’
He shrugged again. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. But it seems a bit of a coincidence: to suddenly ring up saying she has something vital she wants to get rid of – too hot to handle as it were – and then only weeks later she’s found battered to death.’
‘She wasn’t battered,’ Rosy reminded him quietly, ‘she was shot wearing a coal scuttle.’
‘Yes,’ he said reflectively, ‘funny that.’
‘Hilarious,’ replied Rosy dryly.
He said nothing, staring at the revolving door; and then, as if shaking himself from a reverie, signalled the waiter to bring two more Manhattans.
Rosy sipped hers with pleasure. It was not often she basked in a plush hotel drinking cocktails at another’s expense. Whisky in Soho’s French pub was a more familiar experience, and while she enjoyed its raffish camaraderie a little elegance now and again made a welcome change … Then with a pang of guilt she reminded herself of why she was there at all – to discuss the circumstances of her aunt’s murder with her erstwhile uncle, not to have a gay night out! She glanced at Donald scanning the restaurant menu with indifferent eye. He was tapping his forefinger on the ashtray, and she wondered uneasily if he was perhaps bored with her company. But the next moment he cleared his throat, and bending towards her said abruptly, ‘Do you know what Marcia was doing during the war?’
‘In the war? Well … some sort of admin I think. Organising refugees – or was it evacuees? Something like that …’ She stopped, guilty again at her own vagueness.
Why hadn’t she known exactly what her aunt had been doing or indeed bothered to ask? Too busy with her own life, that’s what! She was about to mutter a defensive excuse but he pre-empted her.
‘Oh yes, those things of course – but there was something else too, something quite important.’ He paused, and then said, ‘As it happens, Marcia was in SOE.’
Rosy gaped. ‘Aunt Marcia was in Special Ops! Surely not! You’re pulling my leg.’
‘Yes, seems unlikely doesn’t it? But it’s true enough: she was what you might call a spare-time agent. And much of that spare time was spent flat on her back wheedling information out of fifth columnists. An activity at which, I gather, she was extremely adept.’ He gave a sardonic smile.
Rosy absorbed the news with wonder: wonder at why anyone should have judged Marcia sufficiently reliable to be recruited by such an elite group, and additional wonder as to how she had remained discreet about her involvement. Reticence was not part of Marcia’s reputation. As to the exact nature of her fact-finding contribution, that was perhaps less surprising.
‘But it’s better if you don’t mention it to anybody,’ he continued, ‘they tend to be sensitive about this sort of thing, it’s still pretty hush-hush. Keep it under your hat, there’s a good girl.’
The good girl nodded. ‘Yes, of course … but if it’s so hush-hush, why are you telling me? Against the rules, presumably.’
‘Yes, well, you are an intelligent woman – or so it always struck me – and according to the grapevine did a pretty good job with the Anti-Aircraft Command down at Dover. A person needs discipline for that, control. So I guess you will
be discreet … And now that this fearful thing has happened it seems only fair to redress the balance a bit, i.e. acknowledge her strengths. Admittedly she drove me mad, and I wasn’t the only one: she had what might be called a knack for havoc. Fun all right but increasingly impossible – what my mother once called “a loose woman and a loose cannon”. A description not entirely unfair, you might agree. To put it politely she could be bloody awful! But the thing
is
she had grit, independence and a sort of dogged indifference to danger; and underneath all the absurdity and exhibitionism there was a shrewd intelligence. Used to be at any rate; and that’s obviously what the SOE scouts recognised in 1940 … Just thought you ought to know, that’s all.’ He fell silent and fiddled awkwardly with the stem of his glass.
‘Thanks,’ murmured Rosy, also feeling awkward. She wasn’t sure what to say – or indeed think. Her own impressions of Marcia had never been particularly favourable – aloof, self-orientated and certainly not one to amuse or endear a young niece. But evidently there had been more than met the eye – and more which on the face of it had been valuable. She said diffidently, ‘Do you think we should raise her a glass?’
Donald gave a lopsided smile. ‘I expect we could manage that but we’ll do it in the restaurant over dinner.’ He passed her the menu. ‘I hope you can find something here, it’s no great shakes. The dining room vaunts itself as rivalling the Savoy Grill. I can assure you it doesn’t.’ They settled for the consommé and turbot, and her host ordered a bottle of Meursault.
As predicted the food was moderate, but the wine was good and Rosy sipped it with pleasure. In his rather clumsy way Donald made a companionable escort – better than
she remembered – and with the strains of ‘How High the Moon’ wafting in from the bar, and despite the reason for their meeting, she began to enjoy herself. And even when the pianist switched to ‘Stardust’ with its melancholy beauty and languid sweetness (Johnnie’s favourite and thus her own), she could almost listen without the usual pangs of loss.
But over coffee and cigarettes things grew serious again. ‘Listen,’ he said, dropping his voice, ‘this coal bucket business, I have been giving it a lot of thought—’
‘Not surprised,’ said Rosy. ‘Who wouldn’t? It’s ghastly!’
‘Yes, of course. But you see it rather strikes a note.’
‘Really? What sort of note?’
‘It may be of no significance at all, just one of those odd coincidences … but when we were together and sharing the marital bed things didn’t go too well.’
Oh Christ, thought Rosy, what’s that got to do with it? Do I really need to hear about these matters? Perhaps I can make an excuse and go to powder my nose …
‘Yes, rather disturbed nights which made us both crotchety. In fact, in the end we used separate rooms.’
‘Oh yes?’ she said vaguely, wondering if she had brought her flapjack and if there would be a good light in the Ladies.
‘You see, I snored and she shouted.’
Why on earth was the man telling her this? ‘You mean she shouted at you for snoring? Well I suppose people do get a bit ratty …’
‘No. I mean she sometimes talked, shouted in her sleep. It was really very trying. Anyway, one night we had been drinking heavily and had had a row, and that seemed to set her off. She was tossing and turning and mumbling into the pillow, when she suddenly sat bolt upright and yelled, “Oh, fuck the bloody coal bucket!”’
‘
Fuck the—?
’ Rosy cried. She clapped her hand to her mouth and glanced around, fearful that her voice had carried to neighbouring tables. But the only diners within earshot were a group of elderlies bellowing their heads off with (presumably) defective deaf aids. ‘Are you sure?’ she whispered.
‘Oh yes, her voice was clear as a bell – as is yours.’ He grinned.
‘So did you ask her about it in the morning?’
‘No. Typically we got sidetracked by another spat and I never thought of it again.’
‘Until recently.’
He nodded. ‘Until recently.’
There was a silence. And then Rosy said, ‘It’s a pretty strange coincidence if you ask me – unless she was psychic or something. Perhaps she had a premonition, a sort of mystic intimation.’
‘Nothing mystic about Marcia,’ he replied dryly.
‘No … no, I don’t suppose there was. In which case it would rather suggest a connection, though I can’t think what.’
‘Well, presumably she had been thinking about the coal thing so much that it figured in her subconscious – hence the nocturnal drama.’
‘But whoever bothers to think about coal scuttles? I certainly don’t!’
He frowned and poured her the last dregs from the coffee pot. ‘It must have had a significance which we obviously don’t grasp but which the assailant did.’
‘So something from the past, you think. The past catching up with the present?’
‘Could be … but to be frank I don’t really want to know. Whatever it was happened a long time ago; it’s like another
age. I am no longer her husband, not even technically her widower, and I’ve got a completely fresh life in New York … Besides, it would embarrass Priscilla.’ He flushed slightly and bent to pick up his fallen napkin.
‘Who is Priscilla? Your wife?’
‘No, but with luck and patience she may be. Things are at a delicate stage and I don’t want anything to rock the boat. Her family are Boston Brahmin – they wouldn’t take kindly to a Limey in-law whose ex-wife was found murdered in bizarre circumstances. It wouldn’t look good.’
‘So you don’t think we should mention this to the police?’
‘Absolutely not! I just wanted to set the record straight, as the Americans say, not to start opening things up. Get on with your own life, Rosy. Look forward not back. It’s the only way. I can assure you – life’s too short!’ He lit another cigarette, forgot to offer her one and cleared his throat.
She regarded him soberly, noting the greying hair, coarsening cheeks and heavy lids. Must be pushing sixty … He was right: it didn’t last long, not the best part anyway. And she wondered briefly what she herself would be like at sixty … assuming she reached that far and wasn’t snuffed out prematurely like Marcia! ‘No, I agree,’ she said, ‘best not. Let them make their own conjectures.’
He looked relieved. ‘Sensible … Now tell me, have the executors got in touch with you?’
‘Only to say that currently everything is under probate and that in any case the whole estate is destined for a donkey sanctuary.’
‘Yes, the donkeys get the bulk – cash, house and major furniture – but apparently she inserted a clause about the minor things: ornaments and stuff. They were to be sold too, but if you or I wanted first pick we were welcome to
select a couple of items prior to the auction. Personally I have no desire. I don’t fancy traipsing around in that ghost of a house, and besides I’ve got quite enough of my own paraphernalia. And I doubt whether Priscilla’s taste would be the same as Marcia’s – assuming of course we get that far.’ He grimaced. ‘Still, I suppose there may be something there that appeals to you.’