Eighteen years: a familiar term—and one that brought fresh enlightenment to Anne.
‘I think I know who you are,’ she said.
‘Know who I am? What the hell do you mean? Well: I hope it brings you some satisfaction. Go on, tell me: who am I?’
‘Swap!’ Anne said.
‘Swap? What do you mean, swap?’
‘Tell me about my mother’
‘Your mother? What is there to tell? Cossetted. Spoiled. Over-sexed. Over-bedded, at one period. But dear Edwin had got over that.’
‘I don’t mean the Booths. I mean the woman who brought me up: Jean.’
‘Stupid, most of the time.’
‘That tells me nothing.’
‘No—and maybe it’s less than fair. If it hadn’t been for Jean, you wouldn’t still be walking the world.’
‘She was good to me. I can’t see what she had to gain from it.’
‘Just say she was good. It’s a word some people still use.’
‘But I don’t see where she fits in,’ Anne said.
‘It was her job to clear off with you, make sure you were delivered back whole. To look after you until Edwin paid up.
‘But something went wrong with the job?’
‘I’ve told you: your father didn’t want you back.’
‘So why will he want me back now?’
‘Publicity. His image. I’ll admit it depends on how we play it—on how you play it. We might have to write up your memoirs for the press: to persuade him to offer us more than they do.’
‘When did you first meet my mother?’
‘When we were both on the loose. She was on the run, on her uppers, one last gutter-stone removed from being on the game. A chance came up—and we both took it. I was on my uppers, too—and on the game. I gave Jean her chance.’
‘Was Len the father of your baby?’
‘What baby?’
‘You were Stella Davidge, weren’t you? Of Northwood Hills? Your father was an assessor of fire insurance. You were sixteen when—’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
But Anne knew she had scored. Angela went out slamming the door.
When you are reading Who’s Who, you have to remember that
men write their own entries. That is the key to interpreting them.
Edwin Booth was born in 1916, a war baby: but he did not
seem to want his public to know anything of his parentage. Nor
about his education, which he summed up as continuing. There
was something bleak, too, about the notes on his marriages.
1) 1953, Diane, née Keightley, d.1959.
2) 1959 Alison Sarah, née Reyckaerts.
No reference to a daughter of the first marriage, presumably no
issue of the second. Most of the entry was a catalogue of his works:
author of four million words—to date. Puppets at Noon (1935)
was the first, probably undergraduate glitter. But if he had been
to university, why not name it? Four Marys, (1956). The major
works often had biblical or near-biblical titles, starting with the
big one, 1953, Son of Nimshi, which had brought him his first
substantial shekels. Then came one a year for a few years, including
his Little Wars trilogy: Up River, Up Country and Sheba’s Consul.
This was said to take the lid off a scabrous colonial slice. Booth
dissected pop history, and history was sex: epochs had been fashioned
by unfinished orgasms and stultified erections. Prime ministers and
pro-consuls lived lives of driving sexuality that perhaps owed
something to Booth’s own masturbatory daydreams. Translated
into fourteen languages—seven major films—
He was a prig, too: Recreation: writing. Clubs: none.
Kenworthy had tried to read a Booth novel, a purported lid-lifter about the General Strike, showing that the real defeat of the Unions had taken place in sundry beds—the proletariat banned from their own by hungry wives, TUC functionaries falling to seducers put up by cabinet and press. Booth’s books were not so much to a formula as to a rhythm. Every five pages the veins of a man’s face were laid bare: every four a penis rose, a vulva hung heavy, nipples crept.
Kenworthy turned to Basset’s form-sheet. He had been born in 1937, had been to prison twice: for six months in 1962 for a post-office hold-up in County Durham, and then again for a year in 1966 for uncomplicated burglary. He must have got away with a good deal of undetected activity, which argued that he was pretty efficient.
So how had he set about tracking Jean Cossey? How had he followed her to Broadstairs? The trouble with the Criminal Record Office was that it did not help with crimes a man got away with. That was where Kenworthy’s department was going to come in: provided they had fed in the right trigger-factors.
Why had Basset not traced Jean to London when she moved down from Lancashire? What new green light had prompted her to move—since Basset was still at large? Why had it been Anne’s wedding that had set off the last act? And why had they had to get Jean Cossey out of the way?
And what was the point of asking any question that did not lead them within the next few hours to Anne Lawson?
The key in the door again. Anne was afraid that Basset might come up alone. But it was Angela again, smiling with brazen insincerity and carrying a drinks tray.
‘There’s gin, Scotch, Martini.’
‘I’m quite sure I’m not supposed to—’
‘Have it your own way. How’s that side of you, by the way?’
It would not be true to say that she was better: she did not know whether she was better or not. What she did know was that she had gone for some hours without the worst of her symptoms. Angela beat about no bushes.
‘So. You’ve got on to something big. You know I used to be Stella Davidge. She was a girl who had committed no crimes—except against the statute book of Northwood Hills.’
‘It struck me when I read about you,’ Anne said. ‘You’d more than a fair share of rotten luck.’
‘Your luck is what you make of it.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘But this intrigues me, Anne. How would you like it if eighteen forgotten years of your life suddenly came back and clobbered you?’
‘Isn’t that roughly what’s happening to me too?’
‘If you like. But nobody’s got the sort of file on you that evidently exists about me.’
‘I’ll trade you—I’ll trade you any information you like for what you can tell me about Jean Cossey.’
Angela looked at her with that conviction of superior, hard-case worldliness that had characterized their first meeting in Jean Cossey’s flat.
‘And who’s to guarantee that either of us is telling the truth?’
‘That’s a chance we’ve both got to take, isn’t it? After all, we each know something—and the other doesn’t know what.’
‘All right. I’ll tell you. Jean and I met when we were about as far down in London as you can get—and still stay alive. When you hit that low, there are a few places left that you can still go to, a few rounds you can still make. Sally Army. Some soup-kitchens: but you have to stay out of the claws of the do-gooders. And you keep seeing the same people’s faces all over the place: railway refreshment rooms—till they move you on. It stands to sense, the dirtier you begin to look, the less chance you have. But some kind sod will always leave a bit of pie-crust on a plate, half a dozen cold chips.’
Outside, a high-perched bird was issuing his last territorial challenge of the day.
‘Jean was slick at grabbing from tables that hadn’t been cleared. She was different from me—more practical—in some ways, not in others. I wasn’t keen on saddling myself with her at first. Even when we were slithering about on the crappiest of bottoms, she couldn’t think higher than still wanting to be a groupie. She lived and slept for pop music. I
kept promising myself I’d cut loose from her. But my God, she was quick at nicking morsels of food! And she was good with the kid—my kid—don’t forget I was still lumbered.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Her. She had to go when I teamed up with Len. And I’d no sense of loss by that time, I can tell you. It was Jean who felt that pinch. She’d been seeing more of the kid than I had.’
‘But you’d stuck out so fiercely against having her adopted.’
‘There are two ways of learning sense, and one of them’s harder than the other. Besides, it all depended on who was trying to do the insisting. Jean was besotted with the child. She got besotted over all kinds of things. I was living in a grotty bed-sit in Notting Hill—and it’s a wonder I got that. But nothing’s impossible down-town—if you can find a way of paying for it. I managed to make a few quid in the only way that was open to me—but even for that, you have to have what amounts to a union card. I had to keep off the regulars’ beats, and there were some uncompromising types watching the corners where it was all happening.’
A certain amusement had come into her eyes.
‘My God, was I green! I had to learn things that I’d never dreamed of. Like doing all you can to make a man shed his load before he gets at you. It saves wear and tear.’
Her momentary wish was to disgust Anne, and Anne was determined not to be disgusted. It was the first time she had come up one to one against someone who had actually lived the life. She looked as neutral as she could.
‘Shaking you, am I? It shook Jean. Once she tried to sermonize me out of it. But when she’d finished saying what she had to say, I quietly passed her her babysitting whack. And I’ve got to say she was a brick. Anyone would have thought the kid was hers. People did think the kid was hers. Sometimes I didn’t see the pair of them for a week at a time. That was after Len came into the picture. I’d had to face up to the fact that I needed my own strong man, or my own corner. But Len said the kid had to go—and Jean cried her idiotic eyes out.’
‘You mean, you had her officially adopted?’
‘Official adoption’s not easy. People ask questions. I left that side of things to Len. He knew people who could cut corners. Of course, it was given out to be Jean’s kid.’
‘But that must have meant papers, surely?’
‘I don’t know quite what they did about that—but papers were no problem. Len knew where to go. And he had to get on with it: he was putting the big job together at this time. It needed a lot of thinking out. Things were at what they call a sensitive stage. For one thing, I had to be got on the inside: nursemaid. That was where a spot of Northwood Hills double-talk didn’t come amiss. More papers, references this time. And answers to them, when they were taken up. But Len had friends who could manage that. And things took on a different colour, when Edwin Booth set eyes on me. Mind you, there still had to be a bit of play-acting to get me past Diane. God, what a time it was when I moved in up Father Thames: having to keep my end up with Edwin and Len both. It was a good job I’d had a few weeks training. And Jean was waiting on the outside, to do the minding while Edwin was raking up the ransom. But you, damn you, were the one who nearly blew it. There was nothing you liked so much as to swing on a swing. Then you had to go and slip off the seat in mid-air. You came down on a snag, gashed yourself under a shoulder-blade. I wasn’t looking—Diane nearly gave me the push over it. And that’s the scar Len was trying to photograph—only there isn’t enough of it. We shall have to think up something better than that. Edwin Booth’s going to ask you some smart questions. Now it’s your turn. What do you know about me?’
‘There’s a file on you.’
‘Obviously. And how come you’ve seen it?’
‘That’s my job—updating old records.’
‘And how come you were working on this one? What’s so special about my file that it’s had to be dug out?’
‘They’ve been looking up children who went missing at the same time as I was kidnapped.’
‘Who’s they? Who’s doing the looking?’
‘Mainly a man called Kenworthy.’
‘I dare say Len will have heard of him. What line is he taking?’
‘How should I know? I’m a junior clerk.’
‘No kidding? A principal in the action? This Kenworthy character has turned your insides out, hasn’t he? Don’t try to be clever. OK. So the Stella Davidge file has come up. So how many others have? So why should Stella Davidge stick in your mind? That’s what I’m asking.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe something caught Kenworthy’s eye. He’s a man who doesn’t tell you what’s really on his mind. He simply had me in to see what I could remember.’
‘And how much did you tell him?’
‘How much could I tell him? How much could I remember? Those trees in front of this house. All the rest is blank.’
‘It had better not stay blank much longer. You’ve got to remember a lot of things when you talk to your father.’
‘The only thing that’s come back is a blue-bird swinging from the ceiling.’
‘Yes. You never did care for that bird. I used to threaten you with it. But we’ve got to have you doing better than a bird.’
Chapter Eighteen
Swannee Foster was one of the acknowledged aristocrats. It was generally understood that he would need to do something uncharacteristically lax before he’d have to surrender to his bail for it.
Like Lionel Friedman, Swannee had done one spell inside. The establishment is notorious for coming down heavily on those who counterfeit its national bank’s promises to pay. That had been just before the war. Eighteen months later, Swannee was released to do some creative work for MI14, that sub-compartment of Military Intelligence which concerns itself with supporting escapes from prisoner-of-war compounds. Suitably guided and grubstaked, Swannee became adept at producing Wehrmacht passes, travel warrants on German trains, Besatzung chits authorizing circulation after curfew, and labour permits for foreign workers within Hitler’s fortress.
Even in his ultimate civilian freedom, Foster had occasionally been called in to produce misleading printed papers. When an undercover trio from the Sweeney had had to be shoe-horned into labouring jobs on construction sites, it had been Swannee who had provided their stamped-up insurance cards. The Yard could have got them direct from the DHSS, but Swannee’s deliveries were quicker, his questions were fewer—and there was decidedly less likelihood of leakage.
The order did not exist in writing to leave Swannee alone—but Swannee was left alone. It was one of the uncharted traditions of the Yard. His sources of livelihood were not documented. And indeed, as the years passed, his infringements of the law became fewer as they became more lucrative—except, perhaps, for the odd personal favour.
Like most of the upper few, Swannee was conscious of the blue nuances in his bloodstream that distinguished him from those who might have liked to pass themselves off as his peers. It offended Swannee when some claimant to his class of nobility failed to live up to his feudal obligations. Swannee had a comprehensive knowledge of the heraldry and alliances of the lesser breeds—and a supreme contempt for all of them. There were some offences for which he had undisguised scorn. Time had proved him not beyond dropping scalding hints when he felt that someone had earned a spell in Coventry.
Dialogues with Swannee were apt to be cryptic and elliptical. Kenworthy went to see him at his home in Royal Berkshire: the sort of establishment that looked from the road like an exclusive stud. And, in fact, he did keep a trainer and a small string, though he had never made turf history. It would, indeed, have embarrassed Swannee to have received any kind of public acclaim. Swannee was not a horsey man, and his life had none of the complications of a horsey man’s. But his stabling and paddocks gave him a raison d’être. They also gave him buildings that could house other things besides horses, as well as space and an envelope.
He received Kenworthy in his library. He spent a good deal of his time r
eading—mostly very specialized matter. Swannee did not care to think that any man knew more than he did about some of the finer aspects of printing. He greeted Kenworthy cordially.
‘I’ve been expecting you, Chief Superintendent.’
‘Yes. I hope you were not too hard on Lionel. I did lean on him rather heavily.’
‘You did him a good turn. That son of his was making a mistake. He’s pulled out of the video trade, Lionel promised me. He ought to have known better.’
‘I’ll not waltz about the point, Swannee. I’m going back some years, and I need to know how Jean Cossey got hold of birth certificates. You’ll know all about Jean Cossey. She’s been in the news. I’m not quite sure what name she used when she came to see you.’
Swannee did not try to dissimulate.
‘The goodness of my heart,’ he said. ‘I should have listened to my old mother. Time and again she told me never to do favours. The only trouble I’ve ever been in my life was through trying to be a boy scout.’
Kenworthy waited, glancing up at Swannee’s shelves. There were in-folio editions here such as university libraries receive from royal bequests.
‘Some chit of a girl messes up her life. She needs a bit of paper to square things up for her. It filled an interesting hour for me. So has society really suffered over that?’
Swannee knew that his standing was good with higher ranks than Kenworthy’s. No one was going to pull him in for Jean Cossey’s certificates.
‘You should have forged the blanks as well as the calligraphy.’ Kenworthy said. ‘And why the hell didn’t you make them certified copies? Why do it the hard way, with fake originals?’
‘Don’t know. Made the job more interesting, I suppose. More of a challenge.’
‘And now Jean Cossey’s dead. What can you tell me about that?’
Swannee gave it some thought. He was a little man, who kept his white hair close-cropped. He gave the impression of a weathered life, though except for an occasional horsey-looking walk across the downs, he spent most of his hours indoors, peering closely at detail.
‘Somebody’s building up to something,’ he said at last.
The Hobbema Prospect Page 11
