No Human Enemy (Suzie Mountford Mysteries) (11 page)

Ken Craig shifted uncomfortably and wouldn’t meet Tommy’s eye. ‘Come on, Kenneth, you can tell me. In the long summer evenings you’d creep up there and hide. And you’d watch through the trees.’ He didn’t say anything else then, but he thought a lot. Couldn’t prove a bloody thing, but … then Craig broke off, raised his eyes and finally gave Tommy a cold, blue, hard look.

‘She used to leave the windows open sometimes, and she’d undress in front of them.’ He gave a low rumble of childish giggle, his hands going to his waist as though recalling her taking her undies off, mimicking it. Thumbs running around her waist under the elastic.

Tommy nodded. ‘And you let yourself in through the kitchen door, right?’

‘Bloody ’ell, no. No, I never been inside there, not ever in her house. No.’ Much too quick.

‘You sure, Ken?’

‘Sure as eggs, Mr … Livermore?’

Tommy nodded. So.

‘I never did,’ Craig said, his voice moving up the scale. ‘I never went in, not even when I took up stuff from the council, saying her rent was overdue. Knocked at the door always, see if she were in and have a word with her, but I never put a foot over the doorstep.’

‘All right,’ Tommy nodded, speaking quietly. ‘All right, Ken, but you saw other people inside with her.’

‘Oh yeah. ’Course. Saw a lot of them and she used to take off her clothes with them. Go Humpty Dumpty with them.’

‘You saw that?’

‘Yes. Not half.’

‘You’re telling me the truth, Kenneth? Not telling porkies? You just watched her from that little den? Didn’t leave it: didn’t go into the house? Didn’t go higgledy-piggledy with her?’

‘Never, sir. No. Never did.’ Long pause as though thinking about it. ‘No. I did not.’

Tommy wondered again, inclined to believe the man, smelt right, sounded right. But … No. No, of course not.

‘You recognise any of them? Any of them you saw with her?’

‘I know all of ’em.’

‘Really?’

‘There’s two I seen here today. Here in the station. In the nick.’

‘Tell me, Kenneth.’

‘Well, there’s the other bloke you been seeing. Old Pete Hill.’

‘You saw Pete with her?’

‘Clear as day, doing the business.’

‘And who else, Ken?’

‘That sergeant. Sergeant Dave Mungo. Seen him there with her in the buff, going at it hammer and tongs: going like a steam engine and she went off like a train whistle at the end. “Whooooo, oooooh Dave, David, ooooooh!” Saw and heard the whole thing. “Wheeeeooowww,” she went, like the Flying Scotsman.’

DS Dave Mungo, to whom Tommy had been introduced on the previous evening. ‘My right hand: my fighting arm, even though he’s only here on attachment,’ DCS Berry had said, and Tommy had shaken the man’s hand. Now, he unconsciously wiped that same hand on the back of his trousers.

Mungo had what journalists called rugged good looks, bit craggy, bright and tall, bronzed, outdoor lifeish, hey ho, the wind and the rain, bit of sun thrown in. Mungo had moved, stepped forward, a smidgeon too close to Tommy. ‘We should speak, sir.’ The smile a touch too ingratiating. ‘Sometime. Yes,’ Tommy had said, knowing of old the CID coppers who tried to butter him up, get close and transferred to the Reserve Squad, thought it was glamorous, full of action, place to be.

‘Stop there, I think,’ flashing his eyes at Kenneth Craig, then at Ron. ‘Almost lunchtime. You’ve been a good lad, Ken.’ Craig nodding, grinning, bouncing up and down, like a bloody monkey on a stick. As he reached the door Craig said, ‘Oh, and there was little Roddy Holbrooke. Surprised at that. I was really surprised, cos I always thought little Roddy was a poof. Minced a lot, you know, poofy walk, like he was swaying along on wheels, arm out from his side an’ the hand poofed out like a bloody manichean.’

For manichean read mannequin, Tommy thought. The Manichean heresy, he smiled to himself. That’s what Roddy Holbrooke had got: bloody Manichean Heresy.

One of the DCs was just outside the door. ‘There’s a WDI Mountford on the blower, sir, wanting to talk to you urgently.’

*   *   *

‘Tommy, darling,’ she said, breathy, the words used to signal she was alone, sitting in the Novice Mistress’s office.

‘Suzie, heart,’ he said, matter-of-fact, to signal Lord knew what.

‘How’s it going, Tom?’

‘Just got another taker, heart. Bloody copper in this nick. I could scream. Really upset.’ Calm as a summer pond.

‘Tommy, I need help.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Well, not help exactly. More advice.’

‘About what?’

‘Our friend Lees-Duncan. John Reginald Palmer Lees-Duncan.’

‘I told you, talk to Woolly.’

‘I talked to Woolly. He sent me a little billet-doux.’

‘You want to watch that, heart. Billets-doux from a Special Branch super. Dodgy. Marked S
WALK
was it, or N
ORWICH
?’

‘Norwich?’

‘Heart, Knickers Off Ready When I Come Home. Norwich.’

‘Tommy,’ mock exasperation, slap-on-the-wrist. ‘It was a précis of information on Lees-Duncan, the billet-doux. I just need one or two things clarified.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘BUF?’ She gave the initials slowly.

‘What about them?’

‘Well, British Union of Fascists? That’s right, isn’t it?’

‘Mosley’s lot, yes. Finally closed down in ’40.’

Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Fascist movement, the man who saw himself as the future Führer of Great Britain, mocked by some, cheered by others and feared by quite a few. With his serious, self-interested mien, his small army of quasi-military ‘blackshirts’ and his ranting, tub-thumping, Hitler-like speeches he had been arrested under an amendment to the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act in May 1940, locked up in Brixton but later moved to be with his wife – one of the eccentric society Mitfords – in Holloway.

‘They let him out last year,’ Tommy muttered. ‘Mosley. Illness. Lees-Duncan part of his lot?’

‘Woolly’s little dossier says that in the Thirties they had Lees-Duncan under what they called “loose surveillance”, and he seemed to turn up at a lot of house parties where Mosley was a guest.’

‘Why does that not surprise me?’ Tommy asked of nobody in particular. ‘I’ve told you before. Study German for your School Certificate and the Branch immediately has you tagged as a spy. Old Mosly appealed to some of the upper classes. Went to lots of country houses, told them what a good fella Hitler was.’ He trailed off and there was silence on the line. Then, ‘Bloody spy mania, that’s what the Branch has.’

‘Well, Lees-Duncan apparently was one – a spy; only they called him an informer.’

‘Mmmm.’

‘He was a spy for someone whose name I know, but I can’t place…’

‘Tell me…’

‘Vansittart.’

‘Robert Vansittart?’

‘Who
is
he?’

‘He’s
Sir
Robert Vansittart, Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the Foreign Office.’

‘Ah. Knew I’d heard the name. He would have agents then?’

‘Don’t know about that.’

‘Well, they refer to them as informers.’

‘Probably, yes.’

‘Friend Lees-Duncan claimed to be one.’

‘Did he now?’

‘Early in 1940 the Branch pulled him, Lees-Duncan, felt his collar, gave him a rough interrogation. Had a member of the security service there as well.’

‘Thumbscrews?’

‘Oh, the lot I should imagine, and when they got to asking about Germany and his many friends in the enemy camp, John Reginald Palmer Lees-Duncan said he was one of Vansittart’s informants. Didn’t deny he’d had contacts within the Nazi Diplomatic Corps, their Army and the Luftwaffe. He said it was all in a day’s work, clean as soap powder, Lux, Rinso, whatever you want.’

‘And?’

‘And they checked with – I suppose – the Foreign Office. The notes said they followed it up and Vansittart was a bit cagey. Didn’t want to say anything. Faffed around then finally said that Lees-Duncan
had
been one of their informants.’

‘
Had
been?’

‘Yes. Close as they’d come to it. There’s a long note saying that Lees-Duncan possibly still had channels open to the Nazi military. Not in so many words but they were saying they suspected him of being a double. A double agent.

‘Since ’39 he’s apparently disappeared a couple of times, gone off without warning. They’re unhappy about his sons as well – Michael and Gerald. Michael in Mexico, and Gerald living almost silently on the east coast of Scotland: very handy for the Firth of Forth, watching the naval traffic in and out.’

‘So what d’you think, heart? Bearing in mind the fact that you couldn’t stand the man?’

‘I think there’s something to be suspicious about, Tommy, but what do I know? I’ve no real experience of these things. Woolly Bear must know his job, surely, and he’s obviously dubious about the man. I mean…’

‘Woolly’s dubious about everyone, except possibly Old Etonians, and he can be cagey about them.’ Tommy Livermore chuckled. ‘Yes, it’s obvious Lees-Duncan isn’t one hundred per cent clean,’ he laughed again, ‘and the swine speaks German. You’re the fella at the sharp end, heart. You’re the one who’ll have to take a good long look at him. By the way he’s been given a white-hot poker astern; been told not to play the squire with you. They’ve as good as told him he’ll be shot at dawn if he doesn’t cooperate. On the Tower of London rifle range, quarter to dawn, on a particularly cold morning.’

‘That’s a bit strong.’

‘’Tis isn’t it?’ She could hear the laughter in his voice.

‘Before you go, heart,’ he began.

‘Yes…?’

‘Tell you something, heart. Just the two of us, right?’

She waited because Tommy had his serious voice on.

‘Fella I know in MI5, in the security service. Guy Liddell actually. Told me once that the German informers run by the Foreign Office’s Diplomatic Adviser were pretty unreliable. Porous actually.’

He meant porous piss which was a saying of the time. Suzie thought people said it about her, ‘That Suzie Mountford’s porous.’ They didn’t, but she sometimes put herself down with fantasies like that.

‘Not very good then?’ she said.

‘Duff, heart. Old Guy Liddell said he wouldn’t use any of them, not even for practice.’

There was a silence, as though neither of them had anything more to say. Eventually Suzie told him that Woolly Bear didn’t seem too happy about him dealing with the Butler case in Sheffield. ‘I mentioned it, and he kind of withdrew,’ she said. ‘Almost disappeared on the telephone.’

‘Like the Cheshire cat?’

‘More or less. Just left a great big question mark.’

‘That’s what Woolly is.’

‘A Cheshire cat?’

‘No, a big question mark.’

Another strangled silence.

‘Right, how’s the hotel?’ she asked.

‘Wizard,’ Tommy said with his smiling voice. ‘You were right, that girl
is
here, that Chrissie.’

‘Really. Watch how you go then, Tommy.’ She dropped an icicle into the words, just rubbed it along to let him know. ‘All of you’d better watch out.’

‘All of us?’

‘Yes, you and Peter Rabbit, and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Jeremy Fisher.’

‘Needn’t bother yourself about Chrissie, heart. Tries too hard. Not for me. Like Guy with those informants, not even for practice.’

At last Suzie put down the telephone and went in search of Sister Eunice and the photo of Novice Theresa when she was still Winifred Audrey Lees-Duncan, or at least was supposed to be Winifred Audrey.

CHAPTER TEN

A few weeks before the Reserve Squad got the call to the Convent of St Catherine of Siena in Silverhurst Road, there had been momentous news from Germany: a serious attempt on Hitler’s life at his headquarters near Rastenburg, in East Prussia. It had been in all the papers and on every radio news bulletin.

People were agog.

Now, far away in the Baltic, on the same day that Suzie came to collect the photograph from Sister Eunice, an unexpected visitor arrived on Usedom Island to take a look at what progress was being made by the men working on the Army rocket; the A-4; the Vengeance Weapon Two; the V-2.

SS-Gruppenführer Max Voltsenvogel arrived by motor launch. He came over the Peene River through the muddy narrows and marshes up to the artificial docks dredged out and constructed on the island near what had once been the village of Peenemünde.

Colonel Voltsenvogel was known even to his friends in the SS as ‘Death’s Head’ Voltsenvogel; it was something of a joke – but only occasionally when things were relaxed. For most of the time the ‘Death’s Head’ appellation was far from funny. Indeed, there was something deeply scary about Voltsenvogel, whose reputation was guaranteed to send a shiver down the spines of even the most innocent men; for it was said that Max Voltsenvogel could obtain a guilty confession of original sin from a newborn child – extracting it by simply looking at the victim.

Gruppenführer Max Voltsenvogel was head of Intelligence Projects, a department mainly of his own devising, on Adolf Hitler’s personal staff. A highly trusted officer, he could plan and execute operations of his own, for, as well as other attributes, he was possessed of a silver tongue.

Voltsenvogel was short and stocky with a bullet head and memorable face: flat ears against the large cranium, deep-seated eyes, big cavernous nostrils and large teeth, square, like small tombstones. His skin was unnaturally tight across his face so that the thin lips were pulled back displaying the teeth in two uneven rows. Indeed as some said he could easily have played the part of Yorick in Shakespeare’s
Hamlet.
Yorick appears only as a skull dug from a grave by an amusing gravedigger in that play so this was, they said, typecasting for the colonel – except for the amusing part.

In spite of his physical appearance, Voltsenvogel was a dandy, liked wearing riding breeches and highly polished boots with lifts in the heels giving him an extra inch of height. In his mind, however, the lifts gave him an extra five inches. Like many small men he was sensitive about his height and overcompensated, a blusterer and a vicious bully. Short men are often given extreme power at times of change and crisis. Those who promote them should have care.