Frankie's Letter (16 page)

‘Let me show you the range of the Sherston Press, Colonel,' said Sherston, walking to the desk to where the newspapers and magazines were. ‘I have all our papers delivered here, of course.'

He picked up the pile and handed it to Anthony. ‘These are today's, together with the current issues of our weekly and monthly magazines. Why don't you look through them? You might be able to see an angle for your story that I've overlooked.'

This seemed monumentally unlikely, but Anthony was anxious to get away. ‘Can I take them outside?' he asked, scenting a way of escape.

Sherston opened the French windows onto the terrace. ‘By all means, my dear fellow. Be my guest. And may I say how very grateful I am for your cooperation.' He beamed at Anthony happily. ‘My word, this'll cause a sensation.'

Anthony, complete with his pile of unwanted reading matter, went into the garden. He made for the circular seat that encompassed the cedar tree. Here, in the middle of the lawn, under the rustling branches and sun-dappled shade, he was in full view of the house. He was hoping, he realized, to see Josette. His heart leapt as a girl came onto the terrace, but it was Tara O'Bryan. He hid his disappointment as she waved a friendly hand and came across the lawn to join him.

‘It's nice to see someone,' she said cheerfully, sitting down beside him. ‘The house is like a morgue. I don't know where everyone's got to.' She looked at the pile of magazines and grinned. ‘You've seen Uncle Patrick, I take it.'

She picked up
Woodwork And Practical Carpentry.
It was illustrated with a picture of a brightly-smiling man in a khaki apron sawing a piece of wood big enough to be the keel of Nelson's
Victory.
‘I don't know what he looks so happy about,' she commented. ‘He looks like he's got his work cut out, to me.'

She laughed. ‘Uncle Patrick better not hear me ragging about his magazines. He's terribly proud of them. To be honest, I am too.' She looked at him with a mixture of pride and awkward modesty. She suddenly seemed touchingly young. ‘I write, you know. I've always written. That's what I'd like to do, but properly, I mean. I really want to get involved with the war but my mother nearly had a fit when I suggested it.'

‘Doesn't she approve of young ladies working?' asked Anthony guilelessly. ‘There's plenty of ladies who do work, especially nowadays.'

Tara's face fell. ‘It's not so much working, as working for the English that she objects to. She feels Ireland's wrongs very strongly, and, naturally, blames the English for them all. She . . .'

Tara hesitated. ‘I know she's my mother, and you probably don't think I should criticize her, but she's a very black-and-white person, if you know what I mean. She takes everything personally. She thought the world of my father and he thought of Ireland and Ireland's past in very romantic, poetic terms, but it's not like that, is it? Real life's a lot more complicated than she ever allows. She was bitterly disappointed when Uncle Patrick nailed his colours to the mast and came out in favour of the war. I'll get involved somehow or other, but the war won't last forever, will it? And in the meantime, I can write.'

‘Have you got an article in one of these?' asked Anthony, laying his hand on the stack of magazines. Tara nodded.

Her earnestness was so beguiling Anthony couldn't help teasing. ‘It must help having an uncle who owns a string of papers.'

‘It doesn't!' she said indignantly. ‘Well, I suppose it might, a bit, but Uncle Patrick won't publish anything that isn't up to scratch.'

‘Come on,' he said, enjoying her sparky defence. ‘I bet your uncle ropes you all in to help out.'

‘It's not like that, Colonel Brooke. Journalism is a proper business, you know. Josette used to be a writer but she hasn't written anything since she got married. She said it was far too much like hard work and she's right.'

‘Does your mother write?'

Tara laughed scornfully. ‘No. Not proper writing, anyway.' Her eyes became abstracted. ‘It really isn't as simple as you think, to make something interesting. My mother enjoys cards, you know, and tried to write about it, but it was very wooden. She sets bridge problems, but she can't make the game itself sound enjoyable. I can do it, but I like people, you see.'

Anthony noticed the implied criticism of Veronica O'Bryan. Tara, it seemed, had few illusions about her mother's social expertise. Ordinarily, he'd attribute Tara's attitude to youthful cynicism, but, on this occasion, he thought it was a clear-eyed assessment of things as they really were. It was probably nothing more than sentimentality, but he felt distaste at discussing Mrs O'Bryan's character with her daughter.

‘Let's see this famous article then,' he said, steering the conversation into easier waters.

Tara clasped her hands round her knees. ‘I'm going to make you guess. At the very least, you can guess which magazine it's in.'

‘Do I have to?' asked Anthony with a groan. ‘I'm feeling very lazy. I've been hard at work this morning.'

‘That's not the spirit,' she said. ‘Being interviewed by Uncle Patrick isn't work. Writing the article's the hard bit. What are you doing with all these papers, anyway? Just general interest or have you got a purpose?'

‘Mr Sherston asked me to look through them to see if I could find an angle, as he called it, for my interview,' said Anthony with a rueful smile. ‘You know, how inferior German carpentry is to British carpentry and so on.'

She laughed and returned the magazine to the pile. Her face grew thoughtful. ‘Why on earth are you doing this, Colonel? You don't seem like the sort of person who courts publicity.'

Her eyes were, as Anthony had noticed last night, uncomfortably intelligent. He chose his words carefully. ‘It came about by chance. I ran into your uncle in town. He realized what I'd been up to and asked if he could put a piece in the paper about it. He was so insistent, I asked my senior officers if it was all right and they told me to go ahead. Apparently there's a lot of wild stories circulating about how efficient the German spy network is and they thought some genuine information about what we're doing might provide a useful balance. Your uncle's an interesting man,' he added, hoping she'd take the bait. ‘I wouldn't mind getting to know him better.'

‘Uncle Patrick's an absolute dear,' she said affectionately. She waved an expansive hand at the house and grounds. ‘He built all this, you know. The house was a ruin when he bought it. He was a penniless boy, you know. He didn't have any advantages, and neither did my mother. He's never forgotten his origins,' she added, growing serious, ‘or tried to pretend to be anything he's not. My mother does. She resents their early life in a way that Uncle Patrick never does. She'll never talk about it. Mind you, my father was well off, or so she thought. After he died, she found all the money was gone, and she was left very hard up. It was just as well Uncle Patrick came to the rescue, or I don't know what would have happened.'

She sat back and looked at Anthony appraisingly. ‘Uncle Patrick,' she said with odd deliberation, ‘is a generous man, but it doesn't do to cross him. He doesn't like it.'

Anthony dropped his gaze. That was a warning, if he'd ever heard one. ‘Did Terence Cavanaugh cross him?' he asked after a pause. ‘He obviously dropped a brick somehow.'

She drew her breath in. ‘You could say that. Yes, that's one way to put it. Let's just say that my mother discovered he wasn't everything he appeared to be and Uncle Patrick agreed.'

Anthony tensed.
He wasn't everything he appeared to be?
That didn't sound like an attempted love affair with Tara. That sounded as if Veronica O'Bryan had discovered Cavanaugh was a spy. Surely Tara – Tara who appeared so honest and straightforward – didn't know the truth? Veronica O'Bryan, yes. He could imagine her being a ruthless enemy. Sherston? Perhaps. He was a tough man, despite his geniality, and Anthony could well imagine he didn't relish being crossed. But Tara? ‘Do you know what Cavanaugh did?' he demanded.

She flinched away from him. ‘Not the details, no. I don't want to know.' Again, that didn't sound as if a love affair was the root of the problem. She stood up abruptly. ‘Terry's dead. That's all that really matters.' Her voice wavered. ‘Look, can we talk about something else?' She shook herself and when she spoke, her voice was consciously cheerful. ‘After all, you haven't even tried to guess which magazine I write for.'

He could have insisted; he knew that. He could have demanded that she tell him the truth about Terence Cavanaugh. But where would that get him? For one thing she'd probably walk away and, for another, he couldn't ask the right questions without giving away the answer.
She didn't know the details
. . .

So what the dickens did she know? Nothing, probably, he thought in disgust. No; force was useless, whereas if she simply chatted to him, he might find something useful.

‘All right,' he said, tapping the space on the bench beside him where she'd happily been sitting before he started asking awkward questions. ‘Come and sit down again and I'll play Guess the Magazine.' He picked up
Woodwork And Practical Carpentry.
‘Somehow I don't think it's this.'

‘Correct,' she said with a returning smile.

‘And then there's the
Sentinel
.'

‘Uncle Patrick's pride and joy? The
Sentinel
's a bit above my reach at the moment.'

Anthony looked at the heap of magazines. ‘I can see this is going to be more difficult than I thought.
The Grocers' and Licensed Victuallers' Intelligencer
?'

‘I haven't any intelligence a licensed victualler would be remotely interested in.'

‘
Pig-Breeders' Monthly
?'

‘I've never bred a pig.'

‘
Stamp Collecting For Boys,
then.'

‘I was never a boy, either. And, before you ask, it's not
Market Garden and Allotment Times.
'

‘
Schoolgirl Chums
?' suggested Anthony.

‘That's not a bad guess,' said Tara. ‘I've written stories for them in the past but, no, that's not the one.'

Her smile grew as he flicked through a pile of women's magazines. She disclaimed
Pip's Paper
,
Our Lives
,
Hearth and Home
and
Elsie's Own.
‘I've got it,' he said, holding up the next magazine to hand. ‘
Motoring and Practical Car Mechanic
.' He opened the cover and looked down the contents. ‘There's a piece on fettling something I haven't got a clue about. That's surely yours.'

‘No,' she said with a giggle, ‘but that's the magazine, all right.'

‘Is it?' asked Anthony in astonishment.

‘Yes, I do the maintenance section.' She pointed to the article entitled, “Everyday care. This month; cleaning your contact breaker
.
” She laughed at his expression. ‘I like mechanical things and I get all the real information from Carey, the chauffeur.'

‘That's cheating,' said Anthony with a broad grin.

‘No, it isn't. It's research.'

‘I still think it's cheating,' he said. He picked up the next magazine on the diminishing pile, a superior and shiny publication, entitled the
Beau Monde.
‘I would have thought this was much more your style,' he added, flicking though the pages. ‘Fashion and dresses and . . . and . . .'

Anthony froze in his seat. There it was.

Frankie's Letter.

Wedged between an article on hats and a poem about flowers, was ‘Frankie's Letter'. He couldn't miss it. The letterhead was in brilliant red type an inch high.

Frankie's Letter: A Look At London and beyond
.

This month Frankie sees Lady Cy . . .
ia M . . . s in the Park, tries to find a simple blouse and
encounters a family of Sealyhams at the dog show everyone's talking about.

He scarcely took it in. This is what Cavanaugh had meant. He remembered the look on his face, the look just before he'd died.

‘Frankie's letter. Read Frankie's letter.'

‘Have you got the letter?'

‘It's not that sort of letter . . .'

The scene faded.
That's
what he meant. Not an ordinary letter but this, a piece in a magazine.

‘Colonel Brooke?' asked Tara. ‘What is it?'

‘Nothing,' he said as lightly as he possibly could. He had to keep her from guessing anything was wrong. It was damned hard. After all, concealed in the seemingly trivial gossip of ‘Frankie's Letter', was a coded message to the enemy. It couldn't be anything else. He'd come to Starhanger hoping to find a spy and here, from the Sherston Press –
Sherston's
press – was the very document Cavanaugh had told him to read.

T
ara twisted her head to look at the page open on his knee. ‘Oh, “Frankie's Letter”
.
That's one of Uncle Patrick's best stunts. Frankie goes everywhere and sees everyone. It's a real coup to be mentioned in the “Letter”
.
It's such a simple idea and yet it's pushed the circulation past
Vogue
a few times.'

‘Who writes it?' asked Anthony. ‘You don't, I suppose?' It looked innocent, so innocent. There was no reason why she should deny it . . .

She laughed. ‘I wish I did.' Anthony let his breath out quietly. She looked at him enquiringly. ‘Haven't you ever heard of it? It's very well-known. Mind you, I suppose men wouldn't be interested but most women are. I thought everyone knew about “Frankie's Letter”
.
'