by John Gardner
She turned towards him, into him, looking up. ‘We’ll see,’ long, long pause, ‘sir.’ Breathy, throaty. He took a step closer and thought, Christ, those big eyes could chew you up and spit you out. He could smell her, her hair, her body. Then she lifted her face and he bent his head to her.
At school, not so long ago, there had been a boy called Barnard, bit older than him but with a reputation of knowing about women. Barnard had said to him, ‘Kissing’s important. Chaps don’t realise. Straight off they try to climb down a girl’s throat. Not the way it’s done. First time you’ve got to brush your lips on hers. Don’t ever steam in and stick your tongue into her mouth. What you do is keep altering the pressure, keep moving your lips, then, just at the last minute, touch her lips with the tip of your tongue, just the tip. You let it run along her lips. Not wet and sloppy, but dry, sort of titillate her lips. Then, if she wants that, let her lead, get really into the kisses. That way you can distract a girl, they like that, and before you know what’s what … Well, you’re all over her and she’s all over you.’ As an afterthought he’d said, ‘Don’t go after her like a battering ram. This is a gentle loving thing. ’Cept when she wants it otherwise. Don’t go crazy.’
So James did it, and Barnard was right. He let their lips touch, brush, held together by hardly a whisper, then let the tip of his tongue run outside her lips.
Her arms came up and she opened her mouth. He thought she was going to swallow him whole and suddenly he had an unusually large steel spigot between his legs. God, he thought. God, it’s going to happen, and they were on the bed and he began to fumble with the buttons on her shirt.
‘Let me.’ She gently pushed him away and the buttons came undone and so did her bra. She slid the waistband of her skirt round and undid those buttons as well.
‘They’re not pusser’s,’ he said, staring. In the Royal Navy pusser meant one hundred per cent RN; correct; naval issue.
‘Going to put me on a charge, sir? Have me up in front of the Jaunty for not wearing my blackouts?’ She had a delicious giggle, like ice cream over treacle with a dash of honey, he thought, though that didn’t make much sense. She spoke quickly, low and into his ear as she altered the position of her body. ‘When I first joined the Andrew, we had this nasty little dykey petty officer.’ The Andrew was the Royal Navy. ‘She used to say, this petty officer, “I can see you’re all wearing your pusser’s lisles – our issue stockings – and I hope you’re wearing your pusser’s drawers. I don’t want to see none of that fancy French lingeree.” Well, darling sir, that’s my fancy French lingeree.’ She slipped them off and James could hardly contain himself. His hand rested on her pusser’s lisle, just inside her thigh, then moved up. He felt her, like a soft excited bird under his cupped hand, while she took him gently with her fingers and, in one movement, put him where he should be.
‘Welcome, sir.’
‘Hall-o.’
They were off and he couldn’t get over it. Oooh Lord, I’m actually doing it, he thought, actually doing it with lovely little Emily Styles.
‘Oh, sir,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, darling sir.’
Oh heck. We’re doing it. Wondrous. Magnificent. Makes you believe in miracles and everything.
‘Oh…’ they both said. ‘Oh. Oh, and Oh.’
‘Oh, sir.’
‘Oh, Emily. Angel. Love.’
Then the repeated affirmatives, urgent, quite strident and a great rush at the end, like a factory whistle.
When it was over and they lay together, happy, all lovely and full of things, she said, ‘Sir?’
‘Cut it out.’
‘What?’
‘All this sir business. My name’s James or Jim.’
‘Darling,’ she kissed him.
‘Tell me about your first time ever,’ she asked.
There was a long pause.
‘Well, there was this Leading Wren who was driving for me…’
‘You don’t mean it.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You can’t mean…?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was your first…?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s do it again then; see if it’s better the second time.’
‘Yes. Wizard. But I’ve got to make a phone call first.’
‘Who you phoning?’ Suspicious.
‘Mummy of course.’
‘Diddums-wazzums.’
‘Mummies have to be told.’
‘You’re not going to tell her…?’
‘’Course not, but she’ll want to know where I’m staying. Terrible worrier, Mummy.’
When he came back to bed they went off into another bout of what James was now calling fun and games. If it wasn’t better than the first time it was certainly just as good.
They drifted. Dozed. Slept.
James dreamt of a meadow with long grass and wild flowers. Emily rose from the long grass and asked him to show her the place where people went. He asked where they went for what? and she said, ‘To see the magic buns of course.’
They woke again and had another round of fun and games. ‘Let’s make it best out of five, eh?’ he asked as they both drifted away again.
Then he woke, suddenly, sitting up to find that Emily wasn’t in bed. He found her in the kitchen scavenging.
‘What are you doing here at three in the morning?’
‘Correction, sir. What are you doing in the kitchen wearing only your shirt and nothings?’
‘Nothings?’
She flashed him, flipping up her shirtfront and giving a little rumba wiggle.
‘Well, what are you doing?’
‘Making a special.’
‘What’s a special?’
‘Your sister has access to some terrific cheese. Black market, I’d say. Bloody sight better than the stuff on the ration, or even the stuff we get on the messdeck, which is like pusser’s yellow.’ Pusser’s yellow was Navy issue soap. ‘She must have about four years’ rations, and butter by the barrel.’ The ration for butter was 4 oz a week, while cheese was 3 oz.
‘I know where the cheese and butter come from. She has a friend who’s a farmer. It’s all above board. All gash.’ There was no way he was going to tell her that Suzie was living with her boss. Only a handful of police officers were well known to the general public through the newspapers, but Tommy was one – Dandy Tom Livermore they called him in the Fleet Street headlines: DANDY TOM ARRESTS WIRE KILLER, one headline had claimed; DANDY TOM SMASHES VICE RING, another said.
‘What’s a special?’
‘In those B-pictures, supporting films, people’re always going into diners and places in New York and saying,’ she rolled her shoulders and did an American accent – her version of an American accent – ‘“Gimme the special,” or “What’s today’s special?” and the waiter says, “Same as yesterday’s special,” or “One special coming up, over ’n’ easy.” Well, I make my own specials. Hey, they’ve got salad cream, none of that snobbish mayonnaise. Salad cream’s the stuff. And what’s this, Kingscote Grange Piccalilli?’
‘I expect it’s home-made piccalilli.’ James wasn’t going to give away the location of the Home Farm.
‘Great.’
‘How d’you make a special, then, Em?’
‘Em?’
‘Why not?’
‘Sounds as though I should be singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”.’
‘Just tell me how to make a special, then I can make them for you when you’re feeling peaky.’
‘Two slices of bread – I’m using our bread. Butter. Grate the cheese, mix in salad cream, chopped up piccalilli, horseradish and whatever else takes your fancy. Spread mixture on bread. Make sandwich. QED. It’s a great joke at home.’
‘Quite easily done. Yes. Let’s have a bite.’
They munched happily and Emily made some tea. Then James asked how long she could spin out keeping close to him with the jeep.
‘Possibly another twenty-four hours. If I ring the
chiefy and tell her we’ve been delayed. I’ve got some leave due. Should be OK.’
‘Good. Let’s go back to bed then.’
‘When I’ve finished my tea. I suppose commandos specialise in sex.’
‘It’s always around. We learn to strip weapons, you know.’
‘Highly charged.’
‘There’s even a part of the Bren gun that’s sexual.’
‘What part?’
‘The Maiden’s Delight.’
‘Part of the Bren gun’s called the Maiden’s Delight?’
‘Well, it’s actually called the “body locking pin” but the lewd and licentious soldiery call it the Maiden’s Delight.’
They were still in bed when Suzie returned late the following evening after a hard and taxing day, returning from Gloucestershire with the Lees-Duncans and Eric Tovey the gardener.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In the suite of offices on the fourth floor at New Scotland Yard the Reserve Squad had all mod cons, including an interview room complete with table and chairs bolted to the floor and a two-way looking glass so that people could see what was going on during an interrogation.
Suzie didn’t want to use the room because Tommy rarely went near it: didn’t hold with it. For important interviews Tommy preferred his own office. He even had a special chair, his ‘awkward chair’, he called it: a round cracked plywood seat on four unsteady legs and a curved, wobbly bamboo back. Once you sat on that chair you lost a whole wedge of confidence. ‘Give ’em a nice room and an uncomfortable chair and they’re yours for life,’ Tommy would say. ‘After ten minutes they’ll start making things up, hoping they’ll be able to leave. Rarely fails. Once they start making up stuff … well, you’re halfway there.’
The chair was savagely uncomfortable: it numbed the buttocks, gave considerable pain to the lower back, put a crick in your neck and, after five minutes, started to produce symptoms of vertigo. People had been known to fall off Tommy’s ‘awkward chair’ after a quarter of an hour because the legs felt dangerously unsteady.
Suzie had seen John Lees-Duncan’s look when he came out of the hospital, having identified his son’s body. The fiery Lees-Duncan now had a face the colour of powdered ash and appeared to be walking on eggs for’ard of the mainsail on an ancient man-o’-war. As she had previously predicted, it was time to put him to the question. Often the sight of the body of a loved one was enough to tip the scales, even if the loved one was not loved any longer.
Willow Lees-Duncan and Eric Tovey could wait. Dennis Free had organised rooms for them in a nearby hotel, overnight, but if push came to shove she’d stay in Dandy Tom’s office for as long as it took. One of Suzie Mountford’s strong points was patience.
She had cleaned out the other chairs and sat behind the big military desk, comfortable in Tommy’s captain’s chair, when Shirley Cox brought John Lees-Duncan into the room. He was followed, somewhat unwillingly, by the solicitor, Howard Baldwin, looking sheepish and uncomfortable.
Suzie simply pointed to the ‘awkward chair’, and Lees-Duncan sat down, leaving Baldwin standing disenchanted and fidgety. Suzie began to talk before Lees-Duncan even attempted to make himself comfortable.
‘You’ll appreciate that your son’s death, and the manner of his dying, requires me to get a full statement from you, sir?’
‘Depends what you mean by full.’ The last traces of his arrogance still protruded above the surface, just willing to put up a fight.
‘We’ll require a full explanation of your relationship with your son – both your sons, come to that. We know you’re supplying information to Sir Robert Vansittart at the Foreign Office, so I suppose we’ll require some details of that side of your life as well, plus, of course, your links with the British Union of Fascists.’
Since ’39 he’s apparently disappeared a couple of times, gone off without warning, she’d said to Tommy speaking of John Reginald Palmer Lees-Duncan, informer to Robert Vansittart, Diplomatic Adviser to the Foreign Office. 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. He (Lees-Duncan) didn’t deny he’d had contacts within the Nazi Diplomatic Corps, their Army and the Luftwaffe.
‘If you want all that I’ll have to make a telephone call.’ A shade softer, not quite velvet, but the steel curtain was being dismantled. He turned towards the lawyer and smiled, almost benignly. ‘Don’t think I’ll need you any longer, Baldwin.’
The solicitor suddenly looked happy, so Suzie asked Shirley to take him down to the canteen. ‘I don’t suppose Mr Baldwin’s averse to a cup of tea, Shirley.’
Baldwin muttered something about being partial to tannin stimulant, ha-ha-ha, and Shirley led him out.
‘Go ahead.’ Suzie rose, indicating the telephone on her desk. ‘Make your call, switchboard’ll get any number you want. I’ll wait outside. Take your time.’ She left the office, closed the door and picked up the phone in the ante-room, heard him give the number, listened to the brrp-brrp ring tone and heard the pick-up announcing a nonsensical acronym. Lees-Duncan asked for ‘B2.’
‘Putting you through, caller.’ A bright chirpy upper-class accent.
‘B2.’ Eton and Oxford, probably military.
‘Moonlight,’ said Lees-Duncan.
‘Right. Yeah?’
‘I’m at Scotland Yard. My son, Michael, has been killed. Done away with. Murdered. They’re going to ask a lot of questions.’
‘Who’re they, Moonlight?’
‘Call themselves the Reserve Squad.’
‘Yeah, well, some people incorrectly call them the Murder Squad. Tommy Livermore’s lot. Tommy there?’
‘Not at the moment. Chit of a girl’s going to ask me the far end of nowhere.’
‘Uh-huh. Right.’
‘Just wondered how far I can go. What I can tell ’em.’
‘Tell ’em the lot. They obviously have need-to-know, wouldn’t ask you otherwise. Probably know most of it already. Tell them you’re tied in with us. They’ll be in touch if they need anything painting in. Good luck, Moonlight.’
Suzie waited until Lees-Duncan closed the line, returned her handset to the rests, counted up to fifty, went to the adjoining door, tapped on it, poked her head round, as though she thought he may still be on the phone.
‘All done?’ she asked brightly.
He nodded so she went back to the chair behind Tommy’s desk and started, dead official – ‘You are John Reginald Palmer Lees-Duncan of The Manor, Churchbridge, Gloucestershire?’
‘I am.’
‘And this morning (she gave the date) you identified the body of your son, Michael Edward Palmer Lees-Duncan?’
‘I did.’
‘You had not seen the deceased for some time?’
‘Not since 5th May, 1939.’
‘You recall the date exactly?’
‘Date that split up the family. Me sons left us on that date. Haven’t seen either of them since.’
(And they haven’t seen you, she thought – more to the point.)
‘And the reason they left?’
‘Difference of opinion.’
‘What kind of difference of opinion?’
‘It was a political matter.’ Still not quite letting go.
‘Because you were a fascist?’
‘Possibly. Possibly because I was the wrong kind of fascist and because I wasn’t a Nazi.’
So, Suzie thought. So, Lees-Duncan was a fascist but not a Nazi. ‘Does that mean your sons were followers of Adolf Hitler?’
‘Michael and Gerald, my sons, were Nazis. Members of the Nazi Party for all I know … They were certainly National Socialists in the Hitler mould, believed every turgid word he wrote in Mein Kampf. Thought the sun shone out of his bottom … if you’ll pardon the expression.’
‘But you’re not one? Not a Nazi?’
‘I admit to believing that a fo
rm of fascism was the only way to pull this country together, but I could never follow that little Charlie Chaplin moustache into history. Hitler’s methods of National Socialism were not for me. All that play-acting, Ruritanian uniforms, banging of drums, beating up Jews, and other kinds of brutality. This pure race business, his Aryan nation idea, all a lot of humbug, far as I’m concerned. Wouldn’t work for an Englishman – except with reference to the colonials of course.’ He stroked an imaginary moustache.
‘You can be strong and tough without descending to Hitlerite tactics. Went to take a look in ’37 and was disgusted: first the ghastly uniforms, terrible colours, then the people who were wearing them. Oiks, yobbos, louts, hooligans,’ spitting out the words. ‘Yahoos to a man, uncouth Philistines. First thing I noticed at the railway stations: way they strutted around, bully-boy tactics everywhere.’ He paused, smiling like the grim reaper on an early closing day. ‘Then I got a glimpse of the four horsemen themselves: the fat oaf Goering with his fancy uniforms, chest full of medals he’d given himself; the little crippled Goebbels; the sadistic chicken farmer Himmler with his dreams and rituals; and, at the top, this funny little driven madman, Adolf Hitler. They were like a comedy quartet. One look and you knew it was all wrong. God knows why anyone ever took them seriously but they did.’ Long pause. ‘Eventually they did. Why we weren’t ready for them I suppose. But over there people got carried away, the bright pigtailed fräuleins were all google-eyed, the diplomats bowed and scraped. You could see that the lunatics had taken over the asylum, but you couldn’t quite believe it. But my God what a mess they’ve made: the slaughter, the deaths, the murders, the treachery. The Nazi ethic.’ He made a terrible hawking sound in the back of his throat. Every word had been laced with disgust.
‘And you fell out with your sons over it? Over Hitler’s concept of racial purity? His general policy?’
Lees-Duncan gave a mirthless laugh. ‘That and a few other things. Didn’t hold with the way he was prepared to use brute force and ignorance. Didn’t hold with his arrogance and idiocy. My sons said they wanted to throw in their lot with Hitler’s Germany. I said should they do so I’d never speak to them again. Didn’t for a minute think they’d fall for it. Didn’t see how they could. But they left. Simple. Gone away. Mad as a pair of hatters.’
