A Willing Victim (14 page)

‘Steady on,’ he spluttered, eyes bulging. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘You’ve gone puce. Here, have a cigarette.’ Pete lit it, took one for himself and stood surveying him for a moment before resuming his seat. ‘Serious, is it?’ He eyed his father speculatively.

‘Not a girlfriend,’ said Stratton, between gasps. ‘Who told you, anyway?’

‘Monica. She said she’s called Diana Carleton and she works at the studio and you’ve been there to collect her.’

Stratton, who thought they’d been very discreet on the few occasions he’d done this, meeting Diana down the road in a place where they couldn’t be seen from the gates, was impressed by his daughter’s powers of observation but wondered why she hadn’t mentioned it to him herself. He wondered if Monica, taking it as a sign of disloyalty to her mother, was upset by it. Both she and Pete had found Doris and Lilian’s attempts – pretty much given up now, thank God – to push local widows in his direction more risible than anything, so he didn’t think it could be that … Monica knew Diana, of course, but his memories of their few conversations on the subject suggested that she rather liked her. It was Pete, he thought, who’d be more of a problem, given his feelings – made all too obvious in the past, although, it had to
be said, not recently – about the manner of Jenny’s death and Stratton’s failure to prevent it.

Pete, however, was smiling. ‘Well, well, well … You are a dark horse, aren’t you?’

‘I told you,’ said Stratton, ‘she’s not a girlfriend. More a … a …’

‘A
what
, exactly?’

‘We go out together sometimes, that’s all. For meals and things. We met on a case during the war, and—’

‘Oh, yes?’ Pete’s eyes narrowed.

‘Oh,
no
,’ said Stratton firmly. ‘Nothing like that, so don’t get ideas. We were colleagues, and then, a couple of years ago, we met again, and now … Now we’re friends. We just meet up sometimes, and … And that’s all.’

‘So you always had an eye for her,’ said Pete. ‘Monica says she’s beautiful. And,’ he added in clipped, upper-class tones, ‘terribly posh.’

‘Yes, she is,’ said Stratton. ‘Both those things. But I never … I loved your mother.’ Stratton ducked his head. Why was he being so defensive? Yes, he had fancied Diana – fancied her like mad – any red-blooded male would have felt the same. But there really hadn’t been anything
like that
, not when Jenny was alive and not for a number of years afterwards, either. The idea was ridiculous.

He was just about to say something to this effect when he saw that Pete was grinning. ‘I know that, Dad. I’m teasing. Still …’ he leant over to grind his cigarette out, ‘it’s nice to know you’re human like the rest of us.’

The trouble was, thought Stratton, that he never knew if Pete
was
teasing or not, and Monica, he suspected, felt much the same way. Still, if Monica had mentioned Diana to him, the two of them were obviously getting on all right, which was a good thing.

‘You want to be careful,’ said Pete. ‘She sounds strictly officer class to me.’

Stratton sighed. ‘I’ve told you, there’s nothing—’

‘It’s all right, Dad.’ Pete stood up and stretched. ‘I’d better turn in. Early start, I’m afraid. I’ll be gone before you’re up.’

Stratton got up too, and drained his glass, and they stood awkwardly on the rug in front of the fireplace, facing each other, close enough to embrace. Pete took a step back. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll leave everything tidy.’

‘Thanks …’ There was another pause, before Stratton, feeling the need to touch his son, extended his arm, aware that he must look stiff and absurd, and gave him a clumsy pat on the elbow. ‘Keep safe, won’t you?’ he said.

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Pete, looking down at Stratton’s hand, which was still on his sleeve. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll probably end up guarding some rotten munitions dump.’

‘Yes, well … Be careful,’ said Stratton, gruffly. ‘You watch out for those camels. Nasty things, camels. They spit.’

‘I’ll keep out of their way, then.’

‘Good.’ Stratton gave Pete’s elbow another pat before disengaging himself. ‘Because I’m really quite fond of you, you know.’

Pete’s mouth crinkled into a smile. ‘You’re not so bad yourself. Night, Dad.’

‘Night.’

‘Your lucky day, sir,’ said Feather when Stratton arrived at West End Central the following morning, ‘There’s a pretty girl waiting to see you. Says she’s got something for you and she won’t give it to anyone else.’

Stratton introduced himself and escorted his visitor to an interview room. She was indeed pretty, with a mop of dark hair and enormous limpid brown eyes, but too young for her face paint and dressed in what looked like a party frock, so that he took her, until she began to speak, for one of the passive, sullen types you saw about with the Teddy boy gangs.

‘It’s about Mr Lloyd,’ she said briskly, as they sat down. ‘I’ve just seen it in the paper and I thought I should come straight here. I knew him, you see, and—’

‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ said Stratton. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Albertine Russell. I know,’ the girl rolled her eyes. ‘I ask you! People usually call me Bertie.’

‘Well,’ said Stratton, ‘if you don’t mind, I shall call you Albertine. I think it’s a nice name.’

‘It’s not, it’s
dreadful
. My dad’s name was Albert. I don’t really remember him,’ she added matter-of-factly, ‘because he was killed in the war, but Mum told me he chose it. I suppose he thought
it was funny or something, but honestly …’ She gave a gusty sigh.

She was so bright, so expressive, and – compared to just about everyone else he’d interviewed on this case so far – so resoundingly
normal
that Stratton found he was thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘How did you meet Mr Lloyd?’ he asked.

‘Well, I’m a waitress in the Irani. That’s the new café in Old Compton Street,’ she added proudly.

‘I know it.’ Stratton frowned, thinking of the hard, bright café opposite the bomb site. It was full of plastic and Formica, with rubber plants, an enormous, steaming Italian coffee-making machine and a huge American jukebox that played music with a crude, stupefying beat to which the absurdly young customers bounced and gyrated. How Albertine managed to negotiate her way around them without spilling the dishwater coffee they served, he couldn’t imagine. He much preferred the Italian cafés with their rough, whitewashed walls, wooden furniture and gingham tablecloths, but he supposed that to people of Albertine’s age they must seem dull and old-fashioned. He couldn’t think, offhand, of a place that more accurately symbolised the modern world from which the Foundation’s members were hiding than the Irani Café. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it was Lloyd’s sort of place at all,’ he said.

The girl laughed. ‘Oh, it wasn’t. He was
far
too old.’ Suddenly fearing she’d given offence, her eyes widened and she put her hand up to her mouth. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

‘That’s all right.’ Stratton grinned at her. ‘Carry on, young Albertine.’

‘Ohhh …’ She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘He came in one day a few months back. Said he’d seen me through the window and he knew me. I said I didn’t know him, because I’d never seen him before in my life, and he said – you’re going to think I’m off my rocker, but he really did say it – not in this life, but the
one before. Said I’d been his sister but I’d died when I was little.’ She laughed. ‘I didn’t know what to say to that.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Stratton.

‘He was very strange,’ said Albertine. ‘We started talking, and he was smiling at me, and I thought it was just, you know, being friendly, so I smiled back, but then he just carried on smiling like that … I had to go and serve some customers, and when I turned back to him again he was still smiling right at me in just the same way. He always did that – every time I saw him. I know that sounds silly,’ she added quickly, ‘and I’m not saying he was
mad
or anything – well, perhaps a little bit – but …’ She shook her head, bewildered by the memory.

Stratton, remembering Miss Kirkland, said, ‘It doesn’t sound silly at all. You became friends, did you?’

Albertine screwed up her face. ‘Sort of, I suppose …’

‘Did you, for instance, ever visit him at home?’

‘Hardly.’ She stared at him as if he’d just grown a second head. ‘He just used to drop by and say hello from time to time – he never stayed long or talked much – or sometimes he just stood outside and waved at me. Sometimes he gave me things – chocolate or a banana or something. He didn’t, you know …’ Albertine looked uncomfortable, ‘want anything in return. The manager didn’t like it because he never bought anything, but it didn’t bother me. I mean, you could see he didn’t mean any harm. And I felt sorry for him, because he obviously didn’t have many friends.’ The kind sincerity with which this was uttered reminded Stratton of Monica. ‘So he was just, you know,
there
. But last week he came in and gave me this.’ She held up a string bag.

Seeing an orange and a packet of sandwiches, Stratton said, ‘His lunch?’

‘
No
…’ Albertine gave a half-groan, half-giggle that reminded him of Monica again. Reaching in and pulling out a large brown envelope with staples across the top, she said, ‘
This
. He said it
was important and I was to keep it safe in case anything happened to him. He told me not to look at it or show it to anyone, but when I saw the newspaper, I thought I ought to tell the police.’

‘You were quite right.’ Stratton took the envelope. ‘Did you look at it?’

‘No. Honest. He’d done it up like that, you see,’ she indicated the staples, ‘and I thought if he came and asked for it back, he’d know if I had looked, so …’ She wriggled. ‘I was curious, though. I tried holding it up to the light, but I couldn’t see anything, so I just put it in a drawer in my bedroom.’

‘And when he said “in case anything happened to him”, did he say what he thought might happen?’

Albertine shook her head. ‘I should have asked, shouldn’t I? Only we were very busy, and … But it did happen, didn’t it? The paper said he was killed. I wish I had asked him,’ she said, sadly. ‘I mean, I might have been able to do something, or … I don’t know. But I didn’t. I just said I’d look after the envelope if he wanted. I didn’t take it seriously.’ She looked overwhelmed and tearful. ‘That was wrong.’

‘Listen,’ said Stratton, passing her his handkerchief. ‘No one could blame you for it. Mr Lloyd was a strange man, wasn’t he? He said strange things. And I suppose he must have given this to you because he thought you were a reincarnation of his dead sister. I’d say that’s fairly odd, wouldn’t you?’

Albertine, who’d been blowing her nose vigorously, nodded. ‘He said he knew I wouldn’t let him down because I was family.’

‘There you are, then. And – strictly between ourselves – he seems to have said strange things to quite a lot of people.’ Stratton gave her an encouraging smile. ‘
Old
people. And they didn’t take him seriously either – or if they did, they didn’t know what to do about it.’

‘Really?’ Albertine looked, if not comforted, then less distraught.
After a moment, curiosity getting the better of her, she said, ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

‘I think we’d better, don’t you?’ Holding the envelope close to his chest, he ripped open the top and carefully – making sure it was facing him – slid out a small photograph. Taken outdoors, with part of what might have been a horse chestnut tree in the background, it showed a boy from the knees up, hands on hips, grinning triumphantly as if he’d just won a game of something. The grin, and the two crescent shapes of his smiling eyes, were partly obscured by a frenzy of scratches, but Stratton recognised Michael Milburn all right.

‘What is it?’ Albertine was leaning forward eagerly.

Stratton put the photograph on the table. ‘Do you know him?’

‘No. I’ve never seen him before. At least, I don’t think I have, because you can’t see his face properly. It looks as if someone did that on purpose.’

‘Yes, it does.’

Albertine frowned. ‘If Mr Lloyd hated him that much, you’d think he’d just rip up the picture and throw it away. Do you know who it is?’ A sudden thought made her stare at him, round-eyed. ‘It wasn’t this boy who killed him, was it?’

‘I very much doubt it.’ It wasn’t impossible, of course – but he couldn’t imagine that the kid would ever be let loose in London (or anywhere else, come to that) by himself. ‘We don’t know
who
killed him, yet.’

‘But it is a clue, isn’t it?’ Albertine turned the photograph over. ‘His name’s Michael. It says so here. And something else …
Art
…
Ant
… I can’t read it.’

Stratton picked it up. The word Michael was written in neat block capitals, with 14.9.55 beside it. Underneath, in large, hysterical scrawl and with a full-stop stabbed into the paper after it, was a word that Stratton had to peer at for several seconds before he made it out.

‘What does it say?’

‘I think,’ said Stratton slowly, ‘that it says Anti-Christ.’

‘That’s terrible,’ said Albertine, goggling at him. ‘Do you think Mr Lloyd wrote it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Stratton, thinking that if he had, it certainly answered the question of what he’d thought of Michael. ‘We’ll have to compare it to a sample of his handwriting.’

‘He must have been completely mad,’ said Albertine, ‘not just a bit. I thought,’ she added, more slowly, ‘that he was … you know … a bit touched, but all right really. But he wasn’t, was he?’

‘Not really,’ said Stratton. ‘But I’m sure he wouldn’t have done you any harm. And,’ he added, patting her hand, ‘you’ve done the right thing, coming here.’

Stratton stared down at the scratched black-and-white face with its ruined eyes. If Lloyd had defaced the photograph himself, then it was presumably Michael, and not Mary/Ananda or anyone else at the Foundation, who was the principal target of his anger. But if he had hated Michael so much, why had he not only kept the photograph but given it to Albertine for safe keeping? Judging from what everyone had said about him, Stratton thought that he probably was potty enough to believe she really was his dead sister, but all the same … It would, however, make more sense – at least to someone possessed of what might be termed ordinary logic – if someone else had done it and Lloyd had kept it as a form of insurance because he, too, had cause to fear them. After all, he had said to Albertine that he was giving her the envelope in case anything happened to him …