The Wayward Wife (7 page)

‘Your daddy!' the doorman snarled. ‘Your daddy's as good as dead when Harry gets his hands on him.'

‘Who's Harry?' Breda said.

At that moment two men came running up the staircase. She recognised the first one immediately by the ugly white scar that ran from his eye to the corner of his jaw.

‘You,' she hissed. ‘I knew you wasn't no bleedin' copper, you bastard.'

‘Have you found him?' Vince said.

‘Have I 'ell.'

He took her by the shoulders, pushed her against the wall and might have struck her if someone hadn't taken
him
by the shoulder and yanked him away. Something akin to a scuffle broke out – all Breda could see were flailing hands and arms – then she was staring up into a familiar, though not particularly friendly face.

‘Breda,' Steve Millar said. ‘What are you doin' here?'

‘Come to talk to me daddy.'

‘Stupid bitch,' Vince said. ‘Ha'n't she got no sense?'

‘Okay, okay,' Steve said. ‘It's obvious she don't know nothing or she wouldn't be here. Jackie, get that bloody door open. We're losing custom.' Then, with an arm about Breda's waist, he escorted her downstairs.

The leaden cloud that had covered London for what seemed like months had broken up at last. It was still cold but pale mid-February sunlight caught the tops of the buildings around Portland Place and spirits within Broadcasting House had been high for most of the day.

Susan had seen precious little daylight, though, and the buoyant mood in which she and Mr Willets had started voice-testing candidates to take part in
Speaking Up for Britain
had gradually changed to one of gloom.

‘Nothing abstract, Professor Schmautz. Every story must conjure up a picture. Imagine you're talking to an audience of blind persons. Mental vision is required. Imagery. Do you think you can manage that for me?'

The professor had nodded but had gone droning on in an impenetrable accent that, no matter how interesting his material, was an absolute stinker for radio. Susan had crossed the gentleman's name off the list even before Mr Willets drew a hand across his throat.

Eamon Riley, a ‘People's Poet' from Liverpool, fared no better: ‘Quieter, please, Mr Riley. You're booming.' But it was fiery old Sir Claude Endicott who really tested Mr Willets's patience to the limit.

‘Thumping the table is not the same as thumping a tub, Sir Claude. I would be awfully obliged if you'd desist.' Sir Claude was unable to control his fist or his temper, however, and ranted on about how he had seen it all coming and how Roosevelt should be shot for not leaping to offer aid to Britain. Eventually Mr Willets slipped into the studio and, to the old boy's chagrin, wrested the microphone away from him.

It wasn't a live microphone, of course. It relayed the speaker's voice no further into the ether than the listening booth adjacent to the studio where only Basil Willets, Susan and Larry, the long-suffering sound controller, could hear it.

‘A woman next,' Larry said apprehensively, for sound controllers were less than happy coping with female voices. ‘It's not me doesn't like women, Mr Willets. It's the microphone, you understand.'

‘Of course, Larry, of course. Just do the best you can.'

The ‘Oxford' accent still dominated the airwaves but flattened vowels and clipped consonants had, of late, given ground to plain King's English with, now and then, traces of cosy regional accents that hinted if not at fish and chips at least at cocoa and carpet slippers.

In spite of intensive coaching, oiled by several gins, Susan was unsure which voice Vivian would bring to the studio, or, indeed, what she would choose to read.

She was more nervous than Vivian when she picked her friend up from the guest lounge.

‘At least,' Susan said, ‘you
look
very smart.'

‘Oh, thank you,' Vivian said. ‘Aren't you supposed to smarm all over me? Isn't that what assistants are for?'

‘Now, remember, don't go all affected and, for heaven's sake, don't sound like a woman with a mission. My neck is on the block, Vivian, for recommending you.'

In fact, she'd encountered no resistance from Mr Willets when, with some trepidation, she'd put forward Vivian's name as a possible contributor.

They hastened along the corridor, Susan, trotting to keep up with Vivian's mannish stride, issuing all sorts of last-minute instructions. ‘You must, absolutely must, lower the pitch of your voice to keep vibration to a minimum and do, please do, try to sound sympathetic.'

‘Am I ever anything else?' said Vivian, then, when the door of the listening booth came in sight, quickened her pace and opened her arms wide.

‘Basil,' she hooted. ‘Dear old Basil, after all these years. You haven't changed a bit.'

And Mr Willets, waiting by the open door, said, ‘No more have you, my dear. No more have you,' and, to Susan's utter astonishment, went up on tiptoe and kissed Vivian Proudfoot on the lips.

The band had an amplifying mike on stage and Tannoy speakers relayed the music to every corner of the room. The bar which had once been the Statue of Liberty had been renamed the Britannia but nobody seemed to care what it was called provided the beer taps worked which, in the glimpse Breda had of them, they seemed to be doing most effectively.

Steve steered her round the edge of the dance floor and shoved her into a room at the rear of the bandstand where, to her alarm, he left her to stew.

She seated herself on one of the chairs and looked nervously around. There was nothing much to see except a row of filing cabinets and a desk; nothing much on the desk save a telephone, a glass ashtray and something that looked like a black snake but that closer inspection revealed to be a torn silk stocking. She started when the door swung open and the raucous sound of jazz music swept over her. Steve put a glass into her hand and kicked the door shut to keep out the noise.

‘Brandy,' he said. ‘You look like you could use it.'

‘Too bloody true,' said Breda.

She drank the contents of the glass in a swallow and accepted the cigarette that Steve offered with a nod of thanks. Steve hoisted himself on to the desk and, balanced there, looked down at her.

‘What the hell possessed you to come here, Breda?'

‘I really thought the guy was a copper.'

‘What guy?'

‘The geezer what broke into our 'ouse when Ron was on night shift. Scared the daylights out of me. Said 'e was some sort of copper. I believed 'im. Didn't you know Vince 'ad come to my place?'

‘No,' Steve said, ‘but it doesn't surprise me.'

‘Where is 'e? Where's my daddy? What's 'e done?'

‘He's scarpered,' Steve Millar said.

‘Where's 'e gone?'

‘My best guess, he's on a boat to Nova Scotia or some other place in Canada. I reckon that's why he wanted you an' Billy over there. On the other hand,' Steve went on, ‘he might be holed up waitin' for new papers. If he is hid, he better be hid good. Harry's got the word out.'

‘Harry?' Breda said.

‘Harry King.'

‘Oh, God!' said Breda. ‘Is that who's after 'im? No wonder 'e scarpered.'

‘Unfortunately,' Steve said, ‘a bag full of Mr King's money scarpered with 'im.'

‘He stole from Harry King?' said Breda. ‘Geeze!'

‘He's probably been skimmin' off the top for years.'

‘Your wife did the books for my dad, right?'

‘Yeah, but Rita finally shopped 'im to Harry.'

‘I thought you was Dad's friend.'

‘I was,' Steve said, ‘but I got a kid now. I can't afford to get on the wrong side of Harry King. I don't know who tipped Leo off but it wasn't me. Harry told me an' Vince to make sure Leo didn't do a runner until Harry got here with the boys. We were too late. Leo went out the back window of the girls' lavatory. Broke it down with a fire axe, blackout shutters an' all. He cleaned out two grand's worth of savings in cash from his bank plus whatever he had stashed in the office safe.'

‘You was lucky Mr King didn't 'ave your neck.'

‘Harry made Rita go through the books with an accountant an' the accountant gave her the benefit of the doubt.' Steve paused, then said wistfully, ‘Used to be just jam on Harry King's bread, the old Brooklyn, but these past six months – a goldmine. You tell Ron about Vince's visit?'

‘Nah, Ron's got enough on 'is plate without frettin' about my old man.' She reached across the desk, stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and let her hand rest on Steve's knee. ‘What you gonna do to me?'

‘Nothin',' Steve told her. ‘You ha'n't seen Leo and, my guess, you're not gonna. Fact is, if Harry lays his hands on Leo you might never see your old man again.'

‘Harry wouldn't kill 'im, would he?'

‘Maybe not,' Steve said, ‘not if he gets his money back.'

Breda said, ‘How much went over the wall exactly?'

Steve shrugged. ‘Three grand, probably more.'

Breda whistled and removed her hand from Steve's knee. ‘That
is
a lotta dough,' she said. ‘Make quite an 'ole in anybody's pocket.'

‘What's on your mind, Breda?' said Steve suspiciously. ‘Come on, out with it.'

‘Well, I'm thinkin', if someone got Mr King all 'is money back …'

‘What?'

‘Would there be a reward?'

‘A reward?'

‘Hmm,' Breda said. ‘Ten per cent would do nicely.'

The restaurant below ground, shared by both staff and guest broadcasters, was a good deal less colourful now the entertainers had moved out. It maintained a certain modest elegance, however, and, thank heaven, continued to serve a decent afternoon tea. After her voice test Mr Willets had carried Miss Proudfoot off to the restaurant, an invitation that, rather pointedly, did not include Susan.

Squeezed behind her little desk Susan was typing up her notes when the producer, looking rather smug, returned.

‘That went well, don't you think?' he said.

Susan was tempted to ask if he meant the test or the tiffin but prudently kept her mouth shut. She typed rapidly, noisily, taking out her irritation on the keys.

Mr Willets eased himself into the chair behind the desk and lit a cigarette. He folded an arm behind his head and blew a series of reflective, if imperfect, smoke rings.

Susan typed furiously.

‘Now,' Mr Willets said, ‘which of us is going to give in before that poor old Underwood catches fire?'

Susan ripped the paper from the platen.

‘It's really none of my business, sir,' she said stiffly, ‘but I do feel as if I've been used.'

‘Used? Hardly, Miss Hooper, though there's nothing wrong with a bit of nepotism, is there? The BBC's not alone in favouring those who are in the know.'

‘I didn't even know I
was
in the know,' said Susan. ‘Was it Vivian's recommendation got me this job?'

‘On the contrary,' Mr Willets said. ‘Indeed, if we, the BBC, hadn't been in the midst of a frantic recruiting drive I question if your application would have been considered.'

‘But
you
knew, didn't you?'

‘Let's just say, I found out. Quite by chance I received your file from Personnel and found Vivian's letter of character.'

He attempted another smoke ring, gave up and dropped the cigarette into the ashtray.

‘I'd kept track in a vague sort of way of Vivian's progress. Read a couple of her books and her articles in
The Times
and did, I confess, consider calling her. When you put her name forward for
Speaking
Up
, it provided me with a perfect excuse for seeing her again. By the bye, that piece she read …'

‘It's from her new book.'

‘I thought it might be. Quite powerful, if somewhat …'

‘Opinionated,' Susan suggested.

‘She was always opinionated. I'm rather inclined to be opinionated myself which is why, I suspect, we hit it off so well.' He paused again. ‘I'm surprised she never married. She does actually
like
men, I suppose?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Susan. ‘There's nothing ambiguous about Vivian.'

Susan had never really thought of Viv as young or of Mr Willets in the days when he had hair. She could not for the life of her imagine them together.

‘I was at school with her brother, David,' Mr Willets went on. ‘When war came I enlisted in the East Kent Regiment, the Buffs. Wounded in Salonika, not too seriously. But I fell so ill afterwards that I was sent back to Blighty. David invited me to convalesce on his farm. That's where I met Vivian.'

‘Who nursed you back to health and strength.'

‘No, Vivian isn't the nursing type. But it
was
summer and the apple orchards were heavy with fruit – and the rest, I fear, is a terrible cliché. Alas, after the war ended we went our separate ways. I joined the fledgling BBC – it was a company in those days, not a corporation – and broadcasting became my life.'

‘And Vivian?'

‘You would know more about that than I do.'

‘I don't, really,' Susan said. ‘Were you never tempted to take up with her again?'

‘No. You see, by that time I had a wife.'

‘I didn't know you had a wife.'

‘I don't. We hadn't been married long when cancer took her away,' Mr Willets said. ‘After that experience, shall we say, I had little inclination to try again.' He glanced up at Susan. ‘Well, Miss Hooper, now you know more about me than anyone in this building. I'm depending on you not to gossip. I prefer my private life, such as it is, to remain a closed book to my colleagues.'

‘Of course,' Susan said. ‘I do have one question I'd like you to answer, though.'