by Tessa Arlen
To say that someone is all ears is an odd expression, when attention is clearly expressed in the eyes. “The Franklins loved Edwina; they said she was like a daughter to them. Can you imagine Edwina sitting down to play cribbage in the evenings with their next-door neighbor? She sounded so different when they described her.” I heard the disbelief in my voice that someone like the Edwina I had met would be happy to sit around playing cards with three elderly people. “And the Franklins told me that Edwina was an orphan. She had no family at all. Her mother died when she was little, and her father committed suicide when he went bankrupt. Did anyone else know about Edwina’s family, or her lack of one?”
“Probably not. But it certainly explains her insecurity!”
Insecurity? I was an orphan. Was I insecure? Oh, for heaven’s sake, darling, said Ilona in her especially patient voice. Let’s admit it. You are dreadfully insecure. Just remember what the countess said and trust yourself more.
“And there were more revelations from the Franklins. Edwina was in love, really in love, with a pilot who cared for her too. And—” I tried not to gabble the rest. “And he flew out of an airfield on the south coast called something church, or church something. He was killed.”
Griff closed his eyes in concentration. “Hornchurch.”
“No, not that one.”
“Okay let’s see: Church Fenton? Eastchurch? C’mon, there are hundreds of airfields outside villages called ‘something church.’ Were they lovers, were they engaged, was she secretly married? We’re talking about Edwina, who apparently liked to play the field.”
I started to shake my head. “I had this information from an incredibly respectable old couple in their seventies. People who saw another side of Edwina. Can you imagine I would ask them such intimate questions? They called him her sweetheart.”
“Edwina had a sweetheart—why is this woman so hard to figure out?”
We stopped, out of patience with our discoveries, and I crouched to reassure an anxious Bess, who had come running up at our raised voices.
“I feel we are spinning around in circles when Zofia’s life is in danger.” I was pleased to hear that the panic I felt did not echo in my voice. Soothing Bess made me feel less fearful too.
“Where is she today?”
“Ferrying some brass hat from Castle Bromwich to somewhere.”
He laughed. “Safe as houses, then. She’ll hardly go down if she’s flying an air vice marshal, will she?” I remembered Anthea, Cheryl, and the girl with the strawberry-blond hair making risqué jokes about flying air marshals and giggled.
He reached a hand down to help me to my feet. My pulse started to race, and there was a particularly delicious sensation in the center of me that made me feel that I was made of warm wax.
And then Bessie, sensing that all tension had gone, looked to enliven the afternoon with a bit of stick work. “No, Bess,” Griff said firmly. Was he remembering her interruption in the meadow above Elton? He turned toward me with that look I have only ever seen on Robert Taylor’s face—on film. I closed my eyes.
“Miss Redfern! Coo-ee! Miss Redfern. You are wanted on the tele-phone. Trunk call from Lon-don!” Mrs. Evans appeared on her slippery terrace to wave a hefty arm. No use pretending I hadn’t seen her.
Griff turned away and picked up a stick. “Trunk call,” he said. “It must be from Buckingham Palace.”
* * *
* * *
“THAT WAS HUNTLEY.”
“Is that his real name?”
He was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, looking particularly well-groomed, not quite as faultless as Sir Basil, but he was wearing a freshly laundered shirt and a new uniform tie.
“Of course it is. Where are you off to anyway?” I asked as he turned to the hall mirror and put his cap on.
“Gotta see a man about a—”
“You always say that when you’re being cagey! You can’t go yet, because we haven’t finished sharing information!”
“Haven’t we?”
What was that supposed to mean? “Did you scout about that hangar? Did you find out why a heavily laden lorry was hauling out of there at two in the morning and going into the village and not on to Southampton?”
He took a step closer to me and smiled. “I’m sorry, did I forget to report in?”
I laughed at his poker face. “You haven’t said a word about the lorry I might have seen outside the hangar last night.”
He laughed his lighthearted laugh, which I sometimes find entrancing and at other times just plain irritating. “What an exhausting woman you are.” He held up his hands to ward off more questions and pretended to cringe behind them. “Two things to remember: I offer to help you investigate a possible murder and you send me off to London like an errand boy in your usual commanding way on a completely fruitless mission, while you have all the fun partying with Sir Basil and the Attagirls.”
In my usual commanding way? “I . . .”
“Nope, I said two things. I was the one that found that there was something definitely suspicious going on with the schedule when Letty crashed her plane. No word of thanks, by the way.” He waved his right hand for silence. “The other is that I have an appointment in Southampton this afternoon—very hush-hush, so please don’t ask. And there is a third thing: until I get back, please stay away from the hangar and Mac Wilson. And by the way, are we leaving tonight or tomorrow morning?”
He’s off doing his secret service thing, said Ilona. Whatever you do, do not give him the satisfaction of asking him what. He will only shut you up.
I felt a little shiver of excitement that there might be more revelations to come.
“Are you coming back this evening?”
“Yes. Are we leaving for London tonight or tomorrow?”
“That was Huntley on the phone—yes, it is his real name. Huntley and Keith will be returning to film a Spitfire in flight as soon as Vera gives them the go-ahead.”
“Really, and who’s going to fly it?” His eyes were wide in a question he knew the answer to.
“Oh, dear God!” I said as truth dawned. “You know perfectly well who’s going to fly it!”
TWENTY
THE LIGHT WAS CLOSING IN ON THE RIVER AS IT WOVE ITS WAY down to the Solent and then onward into the English Channel as I took a glass of what Mr. Evans referred to as a light beer into the empty lounge to sit in its window and ponder. As I sipped I realized that I had had nothing to eat since the abysmal pie for lunch.
It wasn’t long before Mrs. Evans made her way across the lounge. “Do you mind if I join you?” she asked as she took a seat next to me, and we both gazed appreciatively at the gleaming river.
“Beautiful sight, isn’t it? You should see it in summer; it has to be one of the most beautiful rivers in England.
“During Operation Dynamo it was a mass of boats. Stem to stern they were; you could hardly see the water. All those boats setting off to pick up our boys stranded on the beach in Dunkirk.” She sighed. “Our Percy”—she referred to her son—“is still over in the African desert with Monty”—she meant Field Marshal Montgomery, the latest of Britain’s heroes—“giving those Jerries what for!” She raised her glass and drank. I cautiously sipped my beer; it might taste delicious, but it had a kick to it.
A little pause as Mrs. Evans cast about for how to introduce the subject that had brought her over to me. In the end she just came out with it. “Nice man, that Sir Basil. Such a gentleman and so well turned out. Really youthful-looking considering his age. You would never believe he was in his late fifties, would you?”
Aha, said Ilona, here comes the warning.
“He’s responsible for making sure that all our boys in the RAF have planes to fly. Factories can’t turn the wretched things out fast enough.” I blinked at this insight into how the war was run. “Oh yes, all the airfields ha
ve to count on Sir Basil.” She waved a vague arm that encompassed her leaf-strewn garden and the drive. “In and out of here a lot he was at one time, always with one of those pretty girls from the ATA.”
I smiled.
“Nice enough man”—she laughed—“but he never seems to be able to stick. You know, with one girl. It must be because he’s so ’andsome.”
Since she had brought the subject up, there was no harm in asking. “Likes the ladies, does he?” I said in a cheeky voice, flinching at the expression and remembering the other evening at the cottage and Sir Basil’s gift of expensive burgundy.
“Bit of a naughty boy.” She opened her eyes wide as she nodded. “Stick with that nice American chap, I would.” She saw that I completely understood her and decided to give me further advice. “We are hoping that he will settle down with Commander Abercrombie. It doesn’t do to be playing the field as you get on in years.”
As if on cue, I saw Sir Basil’s latest flame put her head around the doorway of the lounge. She saw me and raised her hand in greeting.
With her back to the door Mrs. Evans didn’t see her. “Though why Commander Abercrombie would put up with an old boy like Sir Basil I have no idea.” She heaved herself to her feet and, half turning, saw Vera Abercrombie walking toward us. “Anything I can do for you, Miss Redfern? Sandwich?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Evans, I’m fine. Lovely lunch.”
A deep sigh as she remembered better days. “Used to have a full-time chef here; that was before the war, of course. The yacht club was packed with tall masts, and the weekend trade had us run off our feet. Ah well.” Out of habit she produced a damp cloth and gave the table a quick wipe down. “I’ll leave you to your little chat. Anything I can get you, Commander?” she said as Vera sat down across from me.
“Nothing, thank you, Mrs. Evans.”
Vera waited for Mrs. Evans to painstakingly wipe every tabletop throughout her lounge. Her honest doggy-brown eyes were red-rimmed and her skin looked more lined than ever. A tired woman with far too many responsibilities, whose day never ended and whose lover was unfaithful. I decided that the very least I could do was be respectful and wait for her to speak first.
She sighed. It wasn’t a sigh of self-pity. It was more of an exhalation that she had cleared the last docket, the last chit, and the last bureaucratic infraction from her mind before she concentrated on me.
“Miss Redfern,” she began, and her smile was not quite as broad or welcoming as it had been when the Crown Film Unit had first breezed through her door. “I have, today”—I almost expected her to look at her watch to log in the exact time—“received a telephone call from Crown Films.”
I kept the respectful look. A little surprise about the eyebrows but nothing more.
“They are coming here tomorrow morning to make more film. Did you know about this?”
Did I know about this? Only since my lunch with Sir Basil when I had blithely informed him of the possibility. “Yes,” I said truthfully, “I expect they want—”
“They want more Spitfire footage, as they call it.”
I cleared my throat and summoned all my tact—and nerve. I wasn’t talking to soppy Basil Stowe; I was talking to Didcote ATA’s commanding officer: a woman who was in the doghouse for losing two pilots and very expensive equipment. “The footage they took of Edwina’s Spitfire is mostly her accident,” I explained. “They only have a couple of minutes of usable film.”
“You don’t have to convince me that we can’t use all the film, Miss Redfern. But what you must understand is that we are at war. Our ATA pilots are hard-pressed for time as it is, and soon it will be dark by half past four. Not to mention that autumn and winter weather interfere with the most well-planned schedule and we are always behindhand.” Her voice, so matter-of-fact and pleasant on the ear when she greeted our arrival just four days ago, had risen in pitch. The lines of tension around her tight mouth almost quivered with maintaining a stiff upper lip. I wanted to reach out and smooth them away. “Is there any way they can use some other film of Spitfires? Or just cut the Spitfire part out completely?”
It didn’t matter what Crown Films could do with archive footage. It didn’t matter how inconvenient Griff and I were with our protracted stay. I wanted to finish the investigation I had started because the situation at Didcote ATA was clearly not on the up-and-up.
“Mr. Fanshaw’s decision is that we shoot more film.” Mr. Fanshaw felt the same way as Vera Abercrombie: he wanted to get the wretched ATA film ticked off his list. Only Huntley’s firm insistence that the film would be a “whopper” had convinced Fanny to continue, but if Vera called him and made a stink, then he might agree to use what we had.
Our eyes met across the table and held their gaze. Hers was intense, almost confrontational. I would not let myself look away. “Crown Films want to make a compelling piece about how exciting it is to do this type of work. We cannot possibly have the British public watching the film we have of Edwina’s Spitfire. They will go home and tell their daughters, ‘Sign up for the St. John’s ambulance, Kitty, you are not going up in a plane that looks like it can’t stay in the sky.’ We have to shoot more footage.”
And then I gazed pacifically into her frowning eyes and held my breath.
I have to hand it to her; she was a cool one.
“Very well, then,” she said, her eyes still fixed on mine. “We will be ready with a Spitfire and a pilot at oh nine hundred hours tomorrow morning for one hour. I hope your film crew can get everything they need in that time.”
“We will do our very best not to get in the way,” I said in my most compliant voice. “Who will be the pilot?”
I knew her answer before she opened her mouth, and mine went as dry as chalk.
“Zofia Lukasiewicz is the only one of our pilots who is available. I would far prefer not to ask her to fly, but I suppose I have to.”
I felt in that awful moment as if it were me who was pushing this ugly situation to the edge of another possible murder. All my fears about what might happen closed in on me in a stifling blanket of guilt. If Griff and I were right, then the number of accidental deaths at Didcote might rise from two to three.
TWENTY-ONE
WHERE WAS GRIFF? I HAVE NEVER FELT SUCH ANXIETY AS I waited through the last hours of the afternoon. Bessie and I paced up and down the drive in front of the inn. My hands were dug deeply into the pockets of my trench coat so I couldn’t bite my nails.
Bess heard the Alvis’s engine long before I did. Her ears pricked forward, and her bobtail started to agitate. She gazed intently into the dusk with joyful anticipation in her eyes for the arrival of her favorite male.
“For heaven’s sake, it’s just Griff.” I picked her up as the car came into the drive, because she would have thrown herself under his wheels to get to him.
* * *
* * *
“I CAN SEE you’re bursting at the seams with information.” He drank half a glass of beer in one long swallow and put it down. “How many varieties of beer do they make in England?” He was looking particularly pleased with himself.
“I don’t know. Mr. Evans comes from Kent and makes masses of the stuff.” I did my best to contain my impatience. “Zofia is going to fly a Spitfire tomorrow for Crown Films!” I blurted, desperate to share what I saw as bad news.
“Yes, I thought she might.” He held his glass up to the light. “This beer is excellent, by the way.”
It was as much as I could do not to take a whack at him. He caught my eye and made a sympathetic face. “Please don’t worry,” he said.
“It’s a worrying thing. If Zofia was intended to have been the murderer’s second victim, then here we are requiring a reshoot of a Spitfire in flight, and surprise, surprise, the only pilot available is Zofia. Of course I am worried.”
He put his empty glass down. “Then we must do everything w
e can to prevent Zofia from going up,” he said. “What time will the boys start filming?”
“At nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“We’ll have to hold them off. What time are they getting here?”
“I haven’t heard—sometime this evening.”
“Damn.” But he didn’t look in the slightest concerned. Not even when Mrs. Evans came into the bar and gave him an envelope.
“Your two chaps from Crown Films will be here later this evening, Miss Redfern. Probably get here at about eleven, she announced. “And this came for you in the second post, sir.” I could tell she was fascinated by him; Americans are rare in Didcote. She handed him his letter with reverence bordering on worship; I was surprised she hadn’t brought it to him on a silver tray.
Griff frowned. “Thank you, Mrs. Evans,” he said, and as she reluctantly left he turned the envelope over in his hands. “Who would write to me here?” he said wonderingly.
“Why don’t you open it and read it?” I asked. “Then you’ll know.”
“You are on edge,” he said and opened the letter.
I watched his face as he scanned through the lines on the page. In his other hand was a second page. I squinted so I could see it more clearly. It was written in different handwriting from the first: small and neat, it covered the page from top to bottom in close lines. The page he was reading was written in a hasty scrawl that looped across the page in black ink. Griff looked down at the page in his left hand. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said reverently. “It seems that Uncle Ambrose’s pal Cadogan has surpassed all expectations!”
Griff started to read the second page and I laced the fingers of both hands together in my lap, knuckles white, and prayed for patience.
“Aha.” Griff read on. “Fascinating!” He waved the second page at me. “Absolutely fascinating. Want to know what it says?”
“No,” I said. “I want you to be enthralled all by yourself. Please, whatever you do, don’t share anything!”
