She finished and handed it to Upjohn, who raised his eyebrows. ‘Sorry,’ she said, awkwardly. ‘It isn’t very nice, I know. There’s more, but I can’t remember it.’
‘It’ll do for the moment,’ said Upjohn. Beside him, Matthews stared into space, and Ingersoll carried on scribbling.
F-J and Diana left them to it and went to sit in the Mess. ‘If it is from somewhere else,’ said Diana, slowly, ‘I mean, if it’s from a foreign embassy, and it’s been stolen, the original could be anything, couldn’t it? Any language at all?’
‘Yes,’ said F-J. ‘That’s the problem. One makes codes by adding on letters - so A becomes D and so on - or substituting them. Adding is comparatively simple, but with substitutions, the possibilities are endless. They’ll start by looking for letter frequencies, common words ... obviously that would be too straightforward for a military application - if that’s what this is, of course - but that’s the basic principle of the thing. But if anyone can crack it, this lot will. We’ll just have to wait and see.’
After lunch - dreadful food, including an extraordinarily bright pink sponge pudding, but surprisingly good coffee - F-J and Diana strolled across the lawn to the pond. They watched the ducks for a while, then F-J said, ‘A penny for your thoughts.’
Diana laughed. ‘I doubt they’re worth it. I was just thinking of something Jock Anderson said to me, about the hidden self - that’s what he called it. He said that it’s the part we don’t reveal, sometimes because we don’t dare to, and that the safest thing was to be exactly what one appeared to be.’
‘“To thine own self be true,”’ quoted F-J, ‘“and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”’
‘Hamlet?’
F-J nodded. ‘Polonius.’
‘It didn’t do Ophelia much good, did it?’
‘Laertes. Ophelia got all the stuff about how Hamlet was only after one thing and not to believe a word he said.’
‘Oh.’ Diana, whose mind had leapt immediately to Claude, hoped she wasn’t looking as uncomfortable as she felt.
‘I’ve always thought that “to thine own self be true” was a singularly useless piece of advice,’ said F-J. ‘What do you think Jock meant?’
‘I suppose,’ said Diana, thoughtfully, ‘that certain areas of one’s life - inner life - have to be kept in separate compartments. Like clothes in a chest of drawers.’
‘Very feminine. I forgot to ask, how was Hampshire?’
Diana sighed. It had to come sooner or later. ‘Difficult. Evie - my mother-in-law - seems to have found out about my seeing Claude.’
She’d thought F-J might be angry, or at least allude to the fact that he’d warned her to be careful, but he merely said, ‘Oh, dear.’
‘She made me promise not to see him again, sir.’
‘I know it must be hard for you,’ said F-J, gently, ‘but it’s probably for the best.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you been keeping your promise?’
‘Yes,’ said Diana. After all, she thought, she
had
been keeping her promise - except after her disastrous visit to Apse’s flat, and she couldn’t tell F-J about that.
She felt as if she might be sick. She concentrated on breathing slowly, waiting for it to pass, horribly aware of F-J’s scrutiny.
‘I hope that’s true,’ he said. ‘It’s often tempting to think one is too sophisticated for these things to matter much, especially at times like this, but they do matter in the long run. The complications and their consequences can be disastrous, even fatal. One can live to regret a very great deal.’ He paused to light a cigarette. ‘You’re probably thinking I sound like Polonius,’ he said. ‘Pompous platitudes. I don’t mean to, but I am very fond of you, my dear, and I would hate to see you come to harm. It is always a possibility, now more than ever, but it would be a mistake to turn a possibility into a probability. In that event, I would be unable to help you.’ He took her hand. ‘Trust is important, my dear, and if you lie to me I cannot trust you ...’
As Diana stared down at their linked fingers, the image of F-J staring down at his fly buttons came into her mind again, and with it, a desperate urge to snatch her hand away. Instead, she forced herself to look into his eyes as she said, ‘I understand, sir.’ Although F-J’s words had been delivered in the kindest of tones, she had heard the unmistakable suggestion of a threat, without - she thought - fully understanding how it was directed. At her behaviour with Claude, yes, but there was something greater - more personal - that she couldn’t comprehend. And when F-J talked about ‘living to regret’, did he mean his own past behaviour? What had he said? The consequences can be disastrous, even fatal ...
‘I hope you do,’ F-J let go of her hand. ‘Why don’t you stay down here for a while? I shan’t need you for a couple of hours - got a few people to speak to.’ He patted her on the shoulder and, turning, strolled back to the house.
It wasn’t a game, and she’d always known that, but ... For all his puggish charm, and apparent fondness for her, Diana knew that F-J would not, ultimately, put her first. His loyalties would - must - lie elsewhere. And he hadn’t, she was sure, only been talking about loyalties within MI5. Dr Pyke, for instance. And Claude himself, who obviously knew a great deal more than he was letting on. Knowledge might be dangerous, but ignorance was dangerous, too. There’s something happening here, thought Diana. Something I can’t see. No-one will speak about it, but it’s there all right.
She turned round and, watching F-J walk through the door of the great house, felt very frightened indeed.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Stratton arrived home, on time for once but feeling thoroughly out of sorts, and was not best pleased to find Jenny and Doris sitting in the kitchen, with the unmistakable look of two women who had got together to sort out a man: him. Must be about talking to Johnny, Stratton thought. He
had
promised to speak to Johnny, he knew. It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t had time. It had been at the back of his mind, but what with everything at work and going to visit the kids ... Bloody hell, he thought, that’s all I need.
He went upstairs to tidy himself before tea, trying to spin out his ablutions for as long as possible. When he came down about ten minutes later, he stood on the stairs for a moment, trying to pick up what Jenny and Doris were saying, but they spoke too softly. They must have heard him coming, because by the time he entered the kitchen, an animated discussion about Princess Elizabeth’s broadcast to the children was underway. It sounded, to Stratton’s ears, curiously unspontaneous, as if they’d already had that particular conversation and were repeating it now for his benefit. It’s the etiquette of the thing, he thought. They’re just trying to lull me into a false sense of security before they join forces and pounce. Accepting a cup of tea from Jenny, he thought, balls to that. He didn’t have the patience to do it their way - what with the bishop’s son and Sir Neville, he’d had quite enough pussy-footing around. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
Jenny and Doris looked disconcerted, and Stratton felt an altogether childish, but none the less enjoyable, pleasure at having thrown a spanner into the works. Then realising from their genuinely serious expressions that this was more than the usual feminine hokum, he softened. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I’ve had a hell of a day. Let’s not go round the mulberry bush - just tell me. It’s Johnny again, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Jenny. ‘Lilian was here this afternoon. She’s out of her mind with worry.’
‘Has she found out about the petrol coupons?’
‘Yes, but it’s worse than that, Ted. She thinks he’s killed someone. ’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Stratton. ‘Why?’
‘She overheard him,’ said Doris. ‘He was talking to one of his friends. They were larking around, boasting - you know the sort of thing.’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton, ‘but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. ’
‘Lilian thinks it does. She said she heard Johnny say to this young chap that he’d better be careful, because he’d killed someone - bumped off, he said - and then the other one said it was just some old woman, and—’
‘An old woman?’
‘Yes. “Some old girl up west,” was what he said.’
‘When did she hear this?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Has she told Reg?’
‘He thinks it’s a joke,’ said Jenny. ‘Funny sort of joke, if you ask me, but all the same ... We tried to tell Lilian it wasn’t very likely,’ she looked at Doris, who nodded in confirmation, ‘but she’s convinced it’s true.’
‘Why?’ asked Stratton. ‘She’s usually the one who defends him.’
‘That’s what’s so odd about it,’ said Doris. ‘Lilian said it was the
way
Johnny said it. His face. It seems she’s known about the coupons for a while, and him losing his job, and she said she didn’t tell Reg because she thought he’d be angry, and Johnny told her he’d got another job lined up. He kept saying she was worrying over nothing, and the business at the garage was all a mistake and nothing to do with him, and of course she believed him.’
‘We tried to tell her, Ted,’ said Jenny. ‘I told her what Mr Hartree said, that Johnny had been fiddling the coupons, but she wouldn’t listen. But this afternoon, well ...’
‘I’ve never seen her like it,’ said Doris. ‘She said things had never been right between Johnny and Reg and then she said she didn’t know what she’d done wrong but it must be her fault for being a bad mother, and Reg had always thought she was stupid. When we asked her why she’d never said any of this to us before, she said it was because she didn’t want to turn the rest of the family against Reg and Johnny more than they were already, but she couldn’t bear the strain of keeping it to herself any longer. It was awful, wasn’t it, Jen?’
Jenny nodded. ‘We didn’t know what to say, Ted.’
‘What do you think?’ asked Stratton.
Jenny and Doris looked at each other. ‘We really don’t know,’ said Jenny. ‘But it’s like Doris said, we’ve never seen her like that before, so het up ... She was crying.’
‘She never does that,’ said Doris. ‘Jen and me were trying to remember if we’d ever seen her cry before, and we couldn’t, even when we were little. Not over anything.’
‘Really?’ said Stratton, surprised. He’d always considered that Lilian’s lack of emotional response must come either from being too cowardly to face up to the true horror of being married to Reg, or too dim to see that there was anything to be faced up to. It had never entered his head that her phlegmatic manner might be a sign of fortitude.
‘Never,’ repeated Jenny. ‘That’s what made us think there must be something in it. I know it sounds far-fetched, but ...’
The unspoken end of the sentence seemed to buzz in the air between the three of them like an angry wasp. Stratton imagined that Jenny and Doris, like himself, were trying to swat it away. Was it so far-fetched, he wondered. He’d been worried about Johnny for some time - the whole family had, apart from his idiot of a father - but he’d assumed it was theft, looting from bombed premises, that sort of caper, not murder. Remembering Johnny shadow-boxing in the alley, Stratton thought, but he’s still a child. Except he wasn’t, not any more. Johnny was old enough to fight, and to kill, legally, for his country. And gangsters had to start somewhere ... He thought of Joe Vincent’s description of Wallace’s boy companion: sixteen or seventeen, brown hair, pale, freckled face. Rogers had said he was medium height with dark brown hair. Johnny was eighteen, but otherwise both those descriptions, vague as they were, fitted him. Bumped off some old girl up west. Mabel Morgan had been forty-seven when she died, middle-aged but not old, though her scarred face, her wig, and the crimped, toothless mouth might have made her appear so ...
But he
wouldn’t
. Not his own nephew ... Maybe Reg was right, for once - being a copper made you suspicious of everybody.
‘On the other hand,’ Jenny was saying, ‘it’s like you said, Ted. That sort of boasting doesn’t really mean anything, and I know Johnny’s always been a bit wayward, but I’m sure he’d never do anything really bad. Not like that, anyway,’ she added, in an unfamiliar wheedling tone that suggested she was trying to convince herself as much as him and Doris.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘And I won’t know until I ask him. I’ll go over there now.’
‘Would you?’ said Jenny. ‘I know Lilian would be grateful.’
Walking down the road, Stratton wondered what he was going to say to Reg, failed to think of anything, and fervently hoped that he’d be off on patrol somewhere with the Home Guard. By the time he’d turned the corner of their road, he found himself hoping that Johnny wouldn’t be at home, either. After all, it was one thing to question a person you’d only just met, quite another when the suspect was your own nephew, for God’s sake.
When Lilian answered the door and let him in, Stratton inspected her face for signs of tears. Her eyes did look slightly red, but if he hadn’t been alerted by Jenny and Doris, he honestly didn’t think he would have noticed. She accepted his suggestion that he might go and have a word with Johnny, sent him upstairs and went back to the kitchen. Stratton knocked on the door of Johnny’s room, got a grunted ‘What?’ and entered.