Stratton's War (51 page)

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Authors: Laura Wilson

BOOK: Stratton's War
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Watching her weep Stratton felt only pity, and disgust with Cecil Duke for having aimed at so low and easy a mark. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, grimly. ‘You can be sure of that.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There’s one more thing I have to ask you, Mrs Symmonds, and I’m afraid it’s rather . . . well, indelicate.’
Mrs Symmonds peered at him over the coat, looking alarmed. ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Stratton. ‘But did you and Mr Symmonds - Mr Twyford, that is - enjoy a full married life?’
She looked bewildered, then flushed scarlet as she realised the implication of his words. ‘But that’s not . . . not against the law, is it?’
‘No.’ Stratton grinned. ‘If it was, we’d have to arrest half the people in London.’
‘Oh . . .’ Mrs Symmonds put her hand up to her mouth. ‘Oh, dear . . .’
‘So the answer to my question . . . ?’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Symmonds, coyly, ‘as a matter of fact, the answer is yes.’ Interesting, thought Stratton. A husband to women and a wife to men: if Duke was Symmonds, then his marriage to Mabel Morgan obviously hadn’t been as ‘blanc’ as Chadwick had thought.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And now, I suggest you go down to the shelter and get yourself settled for the night.’
As they were leaving the flat, Mrs Symmonds put a tentative hand on Stratton’s arm. ‘What will happen to me, sir?’ she asked.
‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t go on collecting Mr Symmonds’s pension, but apart from that, I think we’ll call it a lesson learnt, shall we?’
Even in the dark corridor, Stratton could see the relief on her face. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll write to them about the pension tomorrow morning, I promise.’
‘Make sure you do,’ said Stratton.
‘Oh, I will. And will you let me know if you find Arthur? Even though I’m not . . .’ she lowered her voice, ‘not really his wife?’
‘Yes. But it might not be good news.’
‘Whatever it is,’ she said, firmly, ‘I’d like to know. It’s not knowing makes it so hard.’
Stratton, hearing an echo of Jenny - it’s horrible, waiting and not knowing - put his hand over hers. ‘I understand,’ he said.
At the street door, she turned to him and said, ‘You know, it’s been a relief to get it off my chest. I’m not . . . not a wicked person, and I’ve been ever so worried, going against the regulations. Still,’ she brightened, ‘you know what they say, One door opens, another closes.’
‘Shouldn’t that be the other way round?’ asked Stratton.
Mrs Symmonds looked puzzled for a moment, and then her face cleared. ‘Oh! I see what you mean.’ After a moment’s thought, she added, ‘No, I don’t think so. Not in my life.’ With that, she disappeared into the blackout.
FIFTY-SEVEN
The sirens sounded as Stratton trudged back to the car. ‘Everything all right, sir?’ asked Miss Legge-Brock. Rosemary, thought Stratton. Nice name. It suited her.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘No, don’t get out. I can manage.’
‘Yes, sir. Where to now?’
‘Great Marlborough Street, please. The police station. It’s only round the corner.’
‘Of course, sir.’ Starting the car, she added, ‘Colonel Forbes-James says I’m to take you wherever you want to go.’
‘Does he indeed?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m at your disposal.’
I could get used to this, Stratton thought, as he settled back for the short journey.
Arliss was in the lobby, slurping tea and chatting to the desk sergeant. Seeing Stratton, he stood up and saluted. ‘Just stopping off, sir.’
‘It’s fine, Arliss.’
Stratton leant on the desk and wrote a note to Ballard, requesting a check on Cecil Duke. He wrote down the birthdate, and then, remembering that Dr Byrne had given the dead man’s age as around fifty, put,
Try same date back to 1885
. To be on the safe side, he asked Ballard to do the same for Henry Twyford. People in pictures sometimes changed their names, he knew, so that might have been the one he was born with. Stratton wrote this down, then added,
Also need to establish date of death for Duke/Twyford, August 1935 in house fire at Balcombe, Surrey. Obtain details from local station
. He signed it, adding, at the bottom,
This is most urgent. Request help from Policewoman Gaines if necessary
. He’ll like that, he thought, handing it over to the desk sergeant. Arliss, who had been hovering at his elbow throughout, said slyly, ‘DCI Machin’s not happy, sir.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Stratton, as affably as he could manage.
‘Not happy at all,’ repeated Arliss, with some satisfaction. ‘Doesn’t understand, sir, why they didn’t get someone from Special Branch. Doesn’t like officers here being taken off essential work. Says it upsets the routine of the station, sir.’
Stratton, who was certain that Arliss hadn’t heard Machin say anything of the sort, and equally certain that the desk sergeant was lapping this up, said mildly, ‘Hadn’t you better be going?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Arliss put down his mug and straightened his tunic. ‘Right away, sir.’
‘Off you go, then,’ said Stratton. Arliss left, casting a resentful glance back from the doorway when he spotted the Bentley waiting at the kerb. Stratton, hearing him mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, ‘All right for some,’ spent a brief moment weighing his desire to give Arliss a boot up the arse against the fuss it would undoubtedly cause, and decided with regret that it wasn’t worth it. ‘I need to make a telephone call,’ he told the gaping desk sergeant. ‘Right away. Tate 3289.’
The telephone was answered not by the dulcet tones of Miss Mentmore, but by a male voice - younger than Forbes-James, Stratton thought, but of similar background. ‘One moment, please.’
A second later, Forbes-James spoke. ‘Yes?’
‘Something to report, sir.’
‘You’d better come over. Still got the car?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then I hope to see you shortly. Tell Miss Legge-Brock to come up as well, will you?’
 
It was Handsome who answered the door. When he greeted Rosemary Legge-Brock, Stratton (who had received only a curt nod) recognised the voice he’d heard on the line. ‘I’m just off,’ he told the FANY, ‘F-J says to make yourself some supper.’
You cunt, thought Stratton, seeing her beam as he patted her on the bottom. He was disturbed by the vehemence of his dislike for the man - who might, after all, be perfectly all right - and told himself that it was only because Handsome had undoubtedly bedded Diana, but that didn’t help. The plain fact was that Diana, like all the other women that Handsome had unquestionably seduced, wouldn’t be available to Stratton, even if he wasn’t married. He watched as Handsome donned his coat and hat, kissed Miss Legge-Brock on the cheek (if she’d had a tail she’d have wagged it) and left the flat.
Forbes-James appeared at the door of his office. ‘Come in, come in. Would you like something to eat? I’m sure Miss Legge-Brock can rustle up some food for you.’
‘No thank you,’ said Stratton. ‘My wife will have something for me at home.’
‘Well then, I mustn’t keep you too long. Help yourself to a drink.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Stratton went to the tray and poured himself a modest shot of whisky.
‘Excellent. Sit down. What news?’
‘Well, sir, we thought that Cecil Duke was killed in a fire at the house he shared with Mabel Morgan in 1935, but that isn’t the case. There was a body - unknown, but presumably male - which Mabel falsely identified as Duke. Duke was in America at the time, and didn’t know anything about it until quite recently.’ Stratton produced the letter and waited while Forbes-James read it. ‘It seems, sir, that Duke returned to England using the name Henry Twyford. When he met Mrs Symmonds, who was fraudulently collecting her late husband’s pension and rations, he simply took over Mr Symmonds’s identity. I think he meant to confront Mabel with what he knew, with a view to obtaining money. It would certainly explain why he didn’t involve the police.’
‘As I see it,’ said Forbes-James, ‘all this raises three questions.’
‘Only three, sir?’
‘Only three that need concern us. Who killed Cecil Duke?’ Forbes-James held up the photograph, ‘assuming, of course, that your body is Duke. Why was he killed, and what does it have to do with the rest of this business?’
‘Quite a lot, I’d say, sir.’
‘I’m afraid you’re probably right. As you know, I rather wished to avoid all this, but it seems that Mr Chadwick has landed us in the middle of it.’
‘You can say that again, sir.’ Stratton leant forward, elbows on knees, and stared at the carpet, thinking. He knew he’d have to come clean about Johnny, but not now. He must tell Jenny first, and another few hours could make no difference . . . The thought of it made his stomach lurch, and he set down his drink, feeling a sudden rush of nausea.
‘Do you think,’ said Forbes-James, ‘that Miss Morgan could have been blackmailing Apse over the film?’
Stratton forced his attention back to the matter in hand. ‘As well as Montague, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘No,’ said Stratton, ‘I don’t. According to her friend Joe Vincent, she didn’t have any money.’
‘Fair enough. But, assuming that Duke is the body in the church, she may have had something to do with his death. The position, as I understand it, is this: Mabel and Duke have become estranged - not surprising if he’s been behaving like a nancy - and he’s gone, and as far as she’s concerned he’s never coming back. When the house catches fire - presumably by accident - she takes advantage of the situation to identify the dead man as her husband and claim the insurance. She thinks she’s quite safe, and she is - until Duke returns and threatens to expose the fraud.’ Forbes-James tapped the solicitor’s letter that Stratton had given him, ‘So: she has him killed before he can say anything.’
‘I suppose that’s possible, sir, but I don’t see how she could have done it on her own.’
‘Someone could have helped her.’
‘One of Marks’s lot, you mean? That doesn’t make sense, sir. They don’t do favours, and she had nothing to give them.’
‘She had the film and the letters.’
‘But then why not hand them over? Why hide them? She’d hidden them pretty well because Joe Vincent told me they’d pulled the place apart, looking. And she was frightened, sir. Joe told me. If she knew that Apse was going to send someone to fetch them . . .’
‘I see what you mean. I was thinking that if Apse hadn’t been willing to pay her, she might have put the handkerchief on the body in order to incriminate him.’
‘If she ever had the handkerchief in the first place. As far as we know, sir, Mabel and Apse never met. I don’t think there’s any connection between her and Marks, either. I think that the key to this is Duke, not Mabel. If Duke had been to see Sir Neville on his own account, he might have got the handkerchief that way - or had it given to him. That seems far more likely.’
‘Perhaps. What a muddle.’ Forbes-James sipped his drink thoughtfully. ‘Now, I don’t think there’s anything more we can usefully do this evening, so I suggest you cut off home. Will your man Ballard have come up with some answers by tomorrow afternoon, do you think?’
‘I hope so, sir. I told him it was urgent. There’s also the matter of who did perish in the house fire, sir, if it wasn’t Mr Duke.’
‘I think we can leave that to the local constabulary - if they wish to investigate. Why not meet me here at, say, one o’clock. I’ll see if Miss Mentmore can’t rustle up a spot of lunch.’
 
Sitting in the car on the way home, Stratton stared through the window into the darkness. Here and there he could make out the edge of a building, but not much else. What a muddle, indeed. Just thinking about it made his head spin. And he was going to have to tell Jenny about Johnny. There was no getting round it - Wallace had named him, and Rogers might well be able to identify him, if called upon. He felt guilty about the boy - not spotting the danger signals earlier and acting before - but angry as well. If it weren’t for Johnny, at least he’d be going back to a peaceful home and a half-decent night’s sleep. Now it was ruined, and Jenny was bound to think he didn’t trust her because he hadn’t told her before, when in fact he’d been trying to spare her the worry of it - she had enough of that with Monica and Pete. If only they were at home, Stratton thought. He longed to go up to their bedrooms, to watch them as they slept, to kiss their foreheads, to be able to talk to them and hug them and keep them safe from harm. Not just bombs, but all the harm in the world. He put his hand in his pocket and took out the little knitted scarf he’d taken from Monica’s doll. Holding it in his palm and stroking the nubbly pink wool with his thumb, he thought of his daughter, black haired and blue eyed like himself, but with her mother’s pretty face, and felt utterly helpless. Like Jenny said - waiting and not knowing. And she’d be waiting now: he could picture her dozing in an armchair, cheek resting against the anti-macassar, a piece of mending or the
Picture Post
lying unattended on her lap.
‘Sir? Are you all right?’

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