Authors: David Roberts
Edward nodded. He had to admit that was more than likely.
‘There’s another thing . . .’ If Ferguson was capable of being embarrassed, he was now. ‘Churchill’s not sound.’
‘Politically?’
‘Politically, yes, but I was meaning financially. We know for a fact that he owes his stockbrokers, Vickers da Costa, £1800 and he has seriously contemplated putting his house on the market despite it being the great love of his life.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘It’s our job,’ Ferguson said simply.
‘I heard he earned a great deal from his books.
The World Crisis
sold millions, didn’t it?’
‘Yes, but rebuilding Chartwell cost him a fortune and he leads an expensive life. For the moment he has been saved by three millionaire businessmen of dubious reputation – a Moravian-born Jew, now South African, called Sir Henry Strakosch, Sir Abe Bailey and an Indian arms dealer called Sir Vida Chandra.’
‘Good heavens!’ Edward was taken aback. ‘I have met two of them as it happens, when I was in South Africa. Bailey owns a lot of mines in the Transvaal, doesn’t he? He may be a bit of a rogue but I liked him. Wait a minute! Didn’t his son, John, marry Churchill’s daughter? I’m not sure I wasn’t asked to the wedding but I was abroad.’
‘That’s right. They’re divorced now but Churchill and the father are still close friends.’
‘And Strakosch . . . I met him too. He’s chairman of Union Corporation. A big wheel! Didn’t he represent South Africa at the Genoa conference?’
‘That’s the man. You do know all the right people, Corinth. That’s one of the reasons you can be so useful to us.’
‘Oh well,’ Edward said, modestly, ‘South Africa’s a large country but a small place, if you take my meaning. I don’t know the Indian – what was his name – Chandra? Tell me about him.’
‘Don’t know much about him. Secretive sort of chap. Hard to get a line on him but we think he’s on the side of the angels. Of course, all millionaires are rogues. That goes without saying but he’s no worse than most. He made his money in armaments during the war. Lloyd George sold him a knighthood. He lives in London now.’
‘Hmm. Wait a minute! I think Chandra’s a bit of a sportsman. Fred Cavens was talking about him. He’s a fencer. Olympic standard, I believe.’
‘He must be in his late fifties.’
‘Yes, but Cavens keeps on telling me that age is not as important in fencing as you might think. If you do it regularly, it helps you keep fit.’ Edward was silent for a moment and Ferguson did not interrupt his thought process. ‘So these men are keeping Churchill afloat financially? Why?’
‘I suppose they think they have something to gain.’
‘Ferguson, you are such a cynic. Maybe they just think he is the man to save “the old country”.’
‘Maybe. I don’t know their motives but it does mean Churchill is in their respective pockets. The press would have a field day if they could prove he was not as independent as he likes people to think.’
‘So you would blackmail him?’
‘Perish the thought.’ Ferguson’s thin lips twitched in what might have been a smile. ‘I just wanted you to be fully briefed in case you do meet him. We’re more concerned about information on how weak we are, militarily and in the air, getting to the Germans. If Churchill knows the facts, so might the Nazis. If Herr Hitler fully appreciated how little there is to stop us going under in the event of war, he would take even less notice of our protests than he does already. The Germans have an idea that there is a different way to wage war –
blitzkrieg
they call it, literally “lightning war” – a massive attack, speedy, overwhelming . . . tanks, aeroplanes. They are, we believe, planning to try it out in Spain courtesy of Franco. If they unleash such a thing on us in the first few days of a war . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders expressively.
A chill went down Edward’s spine. What if Verity was a victim of this new kind of war? He shivered. He saw Ferguson looking at him shrewdly and wondered if he guessed what he was thinking. He said aggressively, ‘You seem to have muddied the waters, Ferguson. Now I don’t know what I’m looking for. Why don’t I just stay in bed? I can’t see I’m going to be any use to you.’
‘Rubbish!’ Ferguson responded cheerfully. ‘You have a nose.’ Edward unconsciously massaged his proboscis. ‘Go and see Mrs Westmacott. Stir things up a bit. Maybe someone’ll take a pot shot at you. That would help us. Startle a few birds out of cover.’
‘I’m expendable?’
Ferguson smiled. ‘Not at all. There would be a frightful stink if the Duke of Mersham’s younger brother was bumped off. There would be all sorts of things said in the gutter press about police inefficiency. It wouldn’t do my career any good, I assure you.’
‘I take the point,’ Edward grinned wryly.
Ferguson noticed the épée lying on the window seat and picked it up. ‘I hope not – at least, not literally. I see this is capped. Don’t forget the weapons our enemies use have no safety caps. Goodbye, Lord Edward. I shall be in touch. Oh, by the way, if anyone questions your authority to investigate, I have included in that envelope a letter and an identity card which you can thrust under any noses you like.’
‘So I am a policeman now?’
‘I suppose you are, yes. Does that bother you?’
Ferguson departed without giving Edward a chance to reply.
Westmacott lived – or had lived until his disappearance – in a modest two-storey suburban villa in west London. Wanting to get the interview with Mrs Westmacott over, Edward telephoned her as soon as Ferguson had left and asked if she would see him the following morning. So it was, at ten o’clock the next day, that he drove along Western Avenue as far as Park Royal and then turned into an area of small houses and bungalows mostly built in the past five years. He parked the Lagonda in Elm Avenue. It was a pleasant place – a quiet, leafy street, respectable certainly, but who knew what secrets were hidden behind the net curtains. Two or three other cars were parked by the kerb but children still played in the street without any fear of being run down. Little gardens between street and front door reminded Edward that not so many years ago this had been countryside.
Each villa had a name, not a street number, and Edward had to ask directions from a child playing hopscotch. The Larches proved to be one of the smartest in the avenue. It had a green front door with a pane of stained glass let into it, a well-tended garden, bright with spring flowers, and carefully cultivated window boxes. No larches to be seen, however. This was a house which was loved and, for the first time, Edward began to appreciate what Mr Westmacott’s disappearance must mean to his family.
The door was opened by a serious-faced girl of about ten. Neither particularly pretty nor plain, she wore wire spectacles hooked lopsidedly over her ears and wire braces on her teeth. She was holding a
Rupert Bear Annual
and a Mari-Lu doll dressed in a leather helmet and goggles.
‘Yes?’ she said belligerently.
‘I telephoned earlier. My name is Edward Corinth. I have an appointment with your mother.’ He paused, hoping for an invitation to come in, but the child said nothing, preferring to stare at him. ‘I like your dolly. Is she Amy Johnson?’ he inquired weakly.
‘No, she’s not. She’s a racing driver,’ the child said crushingly.
‘Ah, a racing driver,’ Edward repeated, feeling he was failing to make a good impression. ‘So, may I see your mother?’
The little girl bent her head to one side and looked at him critically. She did not seem to approve of what she saw.
‘Mummy said nothing to me about seeing anyone. She is lying down with a headache. I say, are you from the newspapers?’
‘Certainly not!’ Edward was rather insulted to be taken for a reporter but then it occurred to him that perhaps the press had been adding to the family’s troubles. ‘I’m a sort of policeman,’ he said, not a little embarrassed. ‘Might I come in? I won’t bite, don’t y’know.’
A voice drifted down the stairs behind the girl. ‘Who is it, Alice?’
‘He says he’s a policeman but he doesn’t look like one to me,’ Alice added sturdily. Edward wanted to ask against what image of a man of the law he was being judged. Was he supposed to be wearing a helmet and brandishing a truncheon?
‘Didn’t I tell you, dear, that I was expecting a visitor? Is it Lord Edward Corinth?’
‘It is,’ Edward confessed.
‘I thought it must be. Alice, show Lord Edward into the sittingroom, will you, dear? I’ll be down in a moment.’
Reluctantly, the child let him in and gestured for him to follow her. She took him into a room which seemed at first sight to be bursting with furniture. There was a small open grate, shiny brass fire irons resting on the fender in front of which were two armchairs, complete with lace-edged antimacassars, and an uncomfortable-looking sofa. Next to the fireplace there was a large wireless on a table protected by a chenille cloth and a Victrola gramophone beside it. China geese on the wall flew in a straight line towards a cuckoo clock. At the other end of the room stood a table and several upright chairs and the obligatory aspidistra in a glazed pot.
The girl looked at Edward as though she knew him to be what was now being referred to as a ‘con artist’ with a record as long as her arm. ‘You don’t look like a lord.’
‘I am sorry to disappoint you, Alice,’ he replied mildly. ‘What should a lord look like?’
‘He should have a . . . have a crown . . . no, I mean a coronet.’
‘I left it at home,’ he said gravely. ‘You can’t wear coronets on ordinary days.’
‘I see . . . no. But why did you say you were a policeman?’
‘I said I was a sort of policeman,’ he prevaricated.
‘Are you going to find my daddy?’ she asked bluntly.
‘I shall try to. I suppose he didn’t say anything to you about having to go away?’
He wondered if it was ethical to question the child without her mother’s permission but he soothed his conscience by telling himself that it was Alice who had mentioned her father’s disappearance.
‘No, not really. He did say I was to be a good girl and help Mary look after mother.’
‘Who is Mary?’
‘She’s the maid but it’s her day off. She looks after me when mother’s sick.’
‘Is she often sick?’
‘She has headaches,’ Alice replied, as if everyone knew this.
‘When did your father tell you to look after your mother, or was that something he always said before he went to the office?’
‘No, he never said it to me before.’
‘Before?’
‘Before that morning . . . on the day he didn’t come home.’
Edward saw that he had gone as far as he could. The little girl was bravely trying not to cry. It would not do if, even before he met Mrs Westmacott, he reduced her daughter to tears.
They stayed silent for a full minute, eyeing each other, and then they heard the sound of Mrs Westmacott coming downstairs. She must, he thought, have been a beautiful young woman. Even now, under severe strain, she was striking. She was aged about forty, he guessed. She was tall and moved with a certain grace, as though she had been a good dancer, and maybe still was. She had glossy hair, almost blond, and her eyes were large but at this moment uncertain, scared.
‘Alice, go and finish your reading, will you, dear?’
When the girl had departed, she said, ‘She ought to be at school but since her father . . . perhaps it was wrong of me but I wanted her at home.’
‘That’s quite understandable,’ Edward assured her. He wanted to put out a hand to calm her trembling but reminded himself that he was a policeman not a vicar.
‘Please sit down, Lord Edward. It’s very kind of you to come. I am afraid the police – I mean the local police – don’t take Charles’s disappearance seriously. I believe they think we must have quarrelled, but we didn’t, you know.’
‘I quite believe you, Mrs Westmacott. We think his disappearance may have something to do with his work. Did he ever talk to you about his work?’
‘Never! I mean, I would say “Did you have a good day at the office?” or something and he would say “I’m a bit tired.” Or he might say “There’s a job I have to finish. I’ll be late again tomorrow, I’m afraid.”’
‘Did he often work late?’
‘Not until quite recently. He was usually home by six thirty or seven.’
‘Then what would you do?’ he pressed her gently.
‘He would wash and then he would have a drink and read the evening paper and then we would have supper. Then we would listen to the wireless or he might have some reading to do. We were normally in bed by half-past ten.’
‘The reading he had to do sometimes – was that work?’
‘Yes, he would bring work home, but not often.’
‘You never saw what the papers were he was reading?’
‘No, they were nothing to do with me,’ she said, sounding slightly shocked at the question.
‘But you never saw any papers or files lying around and just glanced at them? It would be quite natural if you did.’
‘No, he was very careful like that. He used to replace what he had read in his briefcase and lock it. It was so he did not forget anything when he went to the office in the morning.’
‘I understand. So you never saw any of those papers?’ he repeated.
‘No. . . Well, as a matter of fact, last week . . . he seemed so tired and worried. He had to go upstairs to take an aspirin while he was reading . . . after supper, you know.’
‘And while he was upstairs, did you happen to see . . . ?’
‘I meant no harm,’ she said, alarmed, ‘but Charles seemed so unlike himself that I did get up and go round to his chair.’
‘You were in here . . . in this room?’
‘Yes. He sat where you are sitting.’
‘And what did you see?’
‘Oh, I don’t know – nothing . . . nothing I understood, anyway.’
‘But?’
‘But I did see some of the papers were marked Secret and one was a file and it had Most Secret stamped on the outside in red.’
‘So your husband was coming home late and tired and worried?’
‘Yes, for about a month before . . . before he disappeared.’
‘Did you ask him about it?’
‘Yes, but he just said it was work and that things had piled up and it would be better soon and I wasn’t to worry. We even talked about going to the seaside when the weather improved.’