Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (50 page)

She smiled at Poppy without any warmth, putting one hand on Eugene's forearm.

‘So what I am going to do now – because I have to whisk dear Henry here off to meet an old friend,' she continued, ‘is to leave you in the charming company of gorgeous Eugene here – who will tell you everything you want to know about anything and not one word of it will be true.'

‘I've never been to Ireland,' Poppy said, still trying to steady herself from the shock of seeing Basil, while carefully turning her back on him.

‘It hasn't missed you,' Eugene replied. ‘The grass still grows, the rain still falls and the tide still comes in and out.'

‘I hear some of it is quite pretty.'

‘None of it is quite pretty. Most of it is extraordinarily beautiful.'

‘What fun,' Poppy sighed, eyeing him. ‘Must give it a shot sometime.'

‘Don't hurry,' Eugene said, preparing to move off. ‘She can wait.'

For a second Poppy felt lost, as well she might since she had no instructions as to what the plan for the night might be. She looked around, and seeing Scott she tossed her hair slightly to one side, pinning it behind her ear, a previously arranged signal that they had used before, and which meant ‘follow me'. She slipped from the room into the main hall where she knew the placement would be laid out, every guest's name carefully written in beautiful Italianate writing on tiny crested cards.

‘You're sure Basil Tetherington didn't recognise you?' Scott asked, smiling quite falsely while trying not to sound anxious, as he joined her. ‘Oh dear, I'm sitting next to that boring old cod from Denbighshire yet again. Is our hostess trying to make a match of it, do you think?' He paused. ‘Do you think he recognised you?'

‘No, at least I don't think so. Oh, how marvellous, I'm placed next to the Duke of Bruton. Adorable.' Poppy smiled back, trying, like Scott, to pass their conversation off as party small talk. ‘No,
I can't be sure,' she went on. ‘But then as far as Basil is concerned there is no such thing as sure.'

‘I won't be far away from you at any point,' Scott said, giving a loud party laugh. ‘So just make sure to indicate to me if anyone we know goes too far!'

Poppy shrugged in the way Diona would in such a pretend situation, relieved to see from the table plan that she could not have been sitting further away from her supposedly dead husband. The problem therefore was clearly not going to be the dinner, but the rest of the weekend.

For once she was grateful for the little revolver that lay at the bottom of her gas mask case, well wrapped up in two silk handkerchiefs. As they all began to move into the dining room, she wondered idly whether she might at last have occasion to use it. If so she only hoped she would not, as Cissie would say, ‘make a bish'.

‘Is there no other way we can get a message to her, sir?' Marjorie asked Jack when she and Major Folkestone were called into conference the following morning to learn of the accident that had befallen Miss Plum.

‘Miss Plum was carrying the information that the Flower Girl's husband was far from dead. Always so reliable, our Miss Plum. It was my fault that she didn't collect at the usual time. I felt it was such a vital piece of information I should delay it to the last minute, to protect it from leaking.'

‘You can't legislate for these things, sir. If I may say so.'

‘Hmm,' Jack grunted, lighting his pipe. ‘You may say so, Marjorie. But it's not going to get us out of
this dilemma. If Tetherington spots our ringer, we're cooked.'

‘The Flower Girl has the advantage, sir,' Marjorie continued. ‘She can recognise him, but he won't necessarily recognise her. That gives her the edge, sir. If she can just keep one step ahead—'

‘Which I'm sure she will,' Jack grunted. ‘She's a first class operative. A natural for the job. So let's just keep our fingers crossed – we only need – what?' He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘We've got eight hours almost precisely. So I had better trundle on and get myself ready.'

‘Anything I can do to help, sir?'

Jack turned back and stared at Marjorie.

‘Depends how good you are at dressing up,' he replied. ‘Or rather at dressing other people up.'

‘I'm not bad, sir. I used to turn young Billy into a most convincing wood nymph.'

‘Hmm,' Jack pondered. ‘I should say that took a bit of doing. In that case, come along. And hurry. We haven't got all day.'

Even before she began to help put the final touches to his appearance, Marjorie saw that her mentor was an ideal build to be passed off as the PM, being of stocky stature and with a heavily jowled face. Of course Jack Ward was considerably younger than Churchill, but once the make-up artists and the costume people had finished with him Marjorie was astonished how close the resemblance was between the two men. Once he was seated behind the bullet-proof windows of the official car wearing the hallmark hat, and smoking the even more
famous cigar, everyone concerned felt justifiably proud.

‘You'd never know it wasn't the great man himself,' Marjorie told him.

‘They will as soon as I have to say anything,' Jack grunted, positioning himself beside the loaded Tommy gun that had been placed on the back seat.

‘I don't think so, sir,' Marjorie assured him. ‘Every time you growl at me I could swear it's the PM.'

‘Never in the field of human conflict—' Jack practised.

‘No, sir, I don't think so.' Major Folkestone smiled. ‘I don't think you'll be called on to make any speeches. At least we hope not.'

‘Hear, hear,' Jack agreed. ‘If forced, I shall just grunt. That should do it.'

One of the War Office boffins came up to give Jack a final briefing.

‘Doors and windows – all triple reinforced. They'll stand any calibre of small arms fire – in fact they'll take most damage up to a tank if you ask me. All the upholstery and fittings are fireproofed, and what we've done – in the time allowed – is put another skin on the floor and the roof, just in case things go wrong.'

‘I'm sure you did splendidly,' Jack replied, extending a hand. ‘Thank you.'

‘Good luck, sir,' the captain said, standing back. ‘God speed.'

‘Thank you, Captain.'

‘Take care,' Marjorie added, giving him a shy smile. ‘We'll be thinking of you.'

Major Folkestone added his good wishes, and a
moment later the driver fired the engine of the large black car and prepared to drive off. As it eased out of the underground garage, Jack raised his left hand and rewarded his small crowd of well-wishers by giving them Churchill's famous V for Victory sign.

It was now five o'clock in the afternoon of 9 November. Poppy sat in a window seat of the ladies' drawing room in the great house where she was still a guest, playing Patience. Several other female guests were in the room, either reading magazines or dozing in front of a well-stocked log fire, while most of their menfolk were having an early drink, having just returned from an afternoon's shooting.

Fortunately, Poppy had neither seen nor heard anything more of her supposedly late husband. She knew that he had not gone on the shoot, as she had watched those who had decided on a bit of sport climb into the trucks that were to carry them off into some distant part of the estate. She had also noted that another absentee was the tall, handsome Irishman who had so enjoyed insulting her before dinner. She had fully expected him to be one of the party. She therefore concluded that he had to be part of whatever it was that was going on – and if her so-called late husband was implicated then what better accomplice? Hearing her name called from the door, she looked round and saw Henry beckoning to her. Putting her cards down in obvious irritation Poppy wandered as slowly as she could over to the door.

‘Thought you might like to know everything's
going to plan,' Henry murmured as he strolled her down the corridor, one hand on one of her elbows as always, as if she was never going to escape him.

‘If one knew what everything was,' she grumbled in return, ‘and what the plan was, I suppose one might just be jumping for joy?'

‘Success is expected at any time,' Henry grinned, managing to look even more skeletal than ever. ‘The big banger is due to go off any moment.'

Poppy turned her face to him and raised her eyebrows in a deliberately childish manner.

‘Jolly good,' she said. ‘But let's just wait until it does actually go off, shall we? Before we start patting ourselves on the back.'

The car and its outriders were now less than five miles from their destination. So far the journey had passed without incident, the driver having followed a long and complicated series of diversions that were designed to bring him and his passenger to their destination via a set of very different routes. But now that they were close to their final goal, the choice of roads quickly dwindled down to the usual now unmarked lanes that meandered apparently aimlessly around the landscape.

Jack had studied the map very closely before leaving on the journey, noting that as a vehicle approached the old estate access became reduced to only two roads, a minor road that ran around the village and halfway up the hill behind the house and its grounds to drop down to the trade entrance at the rear, and a better surfaced but still minor highway that led in almost a straight line to
the front gates. He had guessed the plan might be to try to block off access to the front road under some pretext or other, forcing the car to make its approach to the house via the more obscure route, a way that would take the car all but unobserved right up to the back walls of the estate, a course that would be easier to booby trap and perfect for such an ambush.

So it was with some surprise that Jack found the car and its outriders being flagged down by the police while still on the main road and some four miles or so from its destination. There was very little traffic due to petrol rationing, the time of day and the remoteness of the location, but the one or two cars that were out and about Jack could see were being turned back by an officer who was standing on duty in the middle of the road. Behind him, parked across the highway, was a police car with another policeman sitting in it apparently communicating on his two-way radio.

‘Well, sir?' Jack's driver enquired, looking at his passenger in the mirror.

‘Must obey the law of the land, my dear fellow,' Jack growled, practising his Churchillian tones. ‘Let us see what they have to say for themselves.'

Jack sat watching as ahead his own two police outriders stopped their bikes to listen to what the traffic policeman had to say to them.

A moment later one of them, having parked his bike, tapped on Jack's driver's window. Jack nodded for him to wind the reinforced window down and leaned forward to hear the news.

‘Road's flooded ahead, sir,' the outrider told them. ‘Hence the diversion.'

‘Sure of that, are you? Has there been that much rain?' Jack wondered in return.

‘There's been a fair bit, sir, when you think of it. Heavy down here in fact, so we've just been told. There's some tributary or other over the hill ahead down in the valley that's burst its banks and the road's impassable.'

Jack nodded. The weather had been foul.

‘Go up and turn about,' he instructed the driver. ‘And take whatever diversion they recommend.'

The driver did as he was told, with Jack sitting as far back as he could in the car so as not to draw undue attention to himself. As the driver began to manoeuvre the car across the road, Jack took out his pocket torch to examine the map that was lying ready by his side, folded it open at the exact area where they were at the moment. Spotting the road they were on Jack traced a line ahead, through the copse on the top of the hill and down the other side.

As far as he could see there was no river within miles, let alone any tributary. The land ahead was all farmland and large estates, the nearest river being actually one mile behind them, to the north.

‘Call that policeman over,' Jack ordered his driver. ‘I want him to run an errand for me.'

‘Sir.' The driver wound down his window and called to the policeman, who after a moment's consideration walked over to the driver's open window.

‘I want you to run an important errand for me, Constable,' a deep voice growled from the shadows of the back seat.

The constable peered into the car and then promptly stood to attention.

‘Sir. I had no idea. Sorry, sir.'

‘Why should you?' Jack growled. ‘Now I need you to take a message to your station. It's urgent, man, so look sharp. That understood?'

‘Sir.'

‘You're Kent Constabulary, and we're near Little Folding, yes? A neck of the woods very familiar to me. So at a guess I'd say your station's Goodhurst, yes?'

‘Yes sir.'

‘Should know it, dammit. I opened it meself – after it had been burned down and rebuilt. Before your time, probably.'

‘No, sir. Not at all. I remember the fire very well, sir. What message do you want me to take, sir?'

‘I want you to tell them the game's up,' Jack replied, picking up his loaded Tommy gun. ‘Because it is. There is no police station at Goodhurst. Now call your accomplice over here – don't try to be smart – then get in the car, both of you. If you don't, I'll shoot you both.'

The policeman looked at him slowly, one hand slipping behind his back.

‘I don't advise that either,' Jack said quickly. ‘If you look down you'll see my driver has a revolver pointed straight at your throat. Now do as you're told and call your friend over. Now. Voice only.'

The policeman looked down and saw the glint of the driver's small arms pointed straight up at his face. After a moment he called to his companion to come over. As he did, Jack's driver pushed his door open, keeping his gun trained on the nearest
policeman, and waited. As soon as the second bogus policeman arrived alongside he moved quickly behind him, put a gun in his back, frisked him efficiently and swiftly, found his Luger revolver and disarmed him, chucking the weapon to Jack who still had the first policeman covered with his Tommy gun. The driver then disarmed the first policeman, pulling his revolver from under his belt at the back of his trousers, opened the back door of the car and pushed first one man then the next in and on to the floor with a large heavily booted foot so that they lay on top of one another.