To Run a Little Faster

by John Gardner

  ‘You can keep the change,’ I said with more than a hint of sarcasm, for there was no change in sight.

  ‘You’re a gent, Mr. Darrell,’ he repeated.

  ‘I’ll be more of a gent if you can answer a few questions.’

  He looked around nervously, ‘Not about Mr. Kasher. I don’t fancy talking about him.’

  ‘Forget Mr. Kasher, I’ll have a word with him myself. No, Topher, can you cast your mind back to the Foreign Office?’

  ‘Hardly think of anything else.’ He spoke with a warmth I thought would have been long dead in him. ‘That’s the trouble with life, Mr. Darrell. You never know when you’re well oft. Question of taking the moment by the heels so to speak.’

  This was lyrical poetry from Topher Poole. ‘No,’ he continued, ‘I was well oft in the Guards and should’ve known it, but didn’t. When the war was over I couldn’t wait to get me ticket. Then I was well oft as an ex-serviceman at the Foreign Office, and I got dissatisfied with that. Should’ve known better, sir, and I kick meself every day with the knowledge of it.’

  ‘You knew a lot of the people at the Foreign Office, didn’t you, Topher? I mean, you did little jobs for the big wigs. Took an interest in them.’

  ‘You might say that. You definitely might say that.’

  ‘Yes. I know you did, you old rogue, because you were always out for the main chance.’

  ‘Well, a man’s got to look after himself.’

  ‘You knew Sir Hubert Trim?’

  ‘Sir Hubert,’ a cry of genuine pleasure. ‘Cor, Mr. Darrell, I could tell you things about Sir Hubert. He was a favourite of mine, he was. I did a lot of little things for Sir Hubert.’

  ‘Good. Now think hard, Topher, because it could be worth money. Did Sir Hubert have any regular visitors, people who came over to see him from, say, the Home Office or the War Office?’

  Topher screwed up his face in an attitude that was meant to suggest thought on a fairly high level. I could imagine him in the army — a past master at swinging the lead; coming the old soldier. He had that manner about him, now probably enhanced by his time inside, which suggested one who could slide out of trouble, or invent excuses with a certain style.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘He had a lot of people used to come and see him. Nothing that sticks in the mind.’

  ‘But you used to do special favours for him?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, plenty of jobs for him.’

  The gramophone had run down, but the girl appeared disinclined to bother with it. She was sitting hunched forward over the bar, her head close to the barman’s face as they whispered, then came apart, the two of them exploding in sudden laughter. One dared not even imagine the nature of their mirth, it was so obviously coarse.

  ‘What sort of jobs?’

  Topher was looking at me with hope glittering in the centre of his eyes: an expression which said he could remember much if the price was right, though some of what he remembered might not be wholly accurate.

  ‘I ran errands for him. Used to pick up his buttonhole every morning from that florist’s in Trafalgar Square. He’d tip me regular for that, would Sir Hubert.’

  ‘Any other regular tips?’

  ‘Not really. His papers, I got his newspapers for him.’ I reached into my pocket and placed a pound note on the table, holding it lightly with my finger tips.

  ‘Straight up, guv’nor. I don’t recall. I mean, sometimes I’d have to take stuff to other departments, or over to the War House. To Number Ten once. But that was part of me normal duties. I did that for all the gentlemen. I had to go to his house once mind you ...’ He paused, a memory becoming almost tangible in the air above his head, like a little thought bubble in a comic book. ‘Wait a minute, there was one thing. Gawd, I almost forgot that. It was the year of my trouble.’ He hesitated, the beady eyes dropping to the note on the table, then to his glass which he lifted and sipped.

  The tart and the barman were muttering again.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, there was one thing. Started about nine month before my spot of bother.’

  ‘Nineteen thirty-four?’

  ‘Yes, it would be. Nineteen thirty-four. He took to being picked up in a big car of a Friday night. I had to watch out for it to save the chauffeur coming in to the desk. Big black job it was. Every Friday night, and earlier than he’d usually leave the building. Soon as I spotted it I had to ring up to his office and tell his secretary. “Sir Hubert’s car is here”, I had to say, only it wasn’t his car, it belonged to a chap at the Home Office. Now what was his name? I can see him now: got a big wart on the side of his nose. Like a big brown dewdrop it was.’

  ‘Mr. Nettlefold.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Mr. William Nettlefold.’

  ‘Could’ve been, I suppose. Could well have been.’

  ‘Every Friday?’

  ‘Regular as clockwork, Friday evening.’ He gazed into his glass as though trying to spot a poachable salmon in its depths. ‘Mind you, I know where they was

  oft to.’

  ‘Where?’

  I didn’t know if this was really getting me closer to whatever mystery surrounded the missing Hensman, or Oscar Miller’s talk of the notebook and the amounts of money paid into the numbered accounts, but it was better than nothing.

  ‘They was going back to his place. To Sir Hubert’s drum. Used to be a swish house somewhere up near Rutland Gate.’

  ‘It still is. How do you know they went back there?’

  ‘Well, I don’t really; I mean I know that’s where they went a couple of times, so I assume they went there every Friday.’

  I pushed the pound note over the table and he gave me a little nod, one finger coming up to his temple in a sort of sly salute.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you.’

  ‘You know they went there a couple of times?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Happened on two consecutive Fridays.’ He pronounced it ‘consecatif. ‘That is, two Fridays running. Quite late in the year it was, August, September, like. You’ll recall I had my trouble in the December, quite spoiled Christmas in some ways. Yes, it was around the time they had those demonstrations in Hyde Park. You remember? The Fascists?’

  I remembered the clashes in Hyde Park. It must have been early September. Not long after Herr Hitler had been made Führer following Hindenburg’s death.

  ‘Well, we had a lot of important stuff coming over from other departments. In fact it was a busy time; and I told you that Sir Hubert had taken to leaving early on a Friday. Well, on two consecutive Fridays there was urgent papers had to be taken over to him. In Rutland Gate. I drew the lucky number both times. Not that I minded. Not for Sir Hubert. You say he’s still living in the same place?’ The germ of an idea was beginning to fulminate in his head. Sir Hubert would doubtless get a visitor within a day or so, but the staff would see him off. Or a letter perhaps, reminding the impeccable baronet of past services rendered.

  ‘Don’t do it, Topher.’

  ‘Do what, Mr. Darrell?’ His innocence looked badly injured.

  ‘Don’t try and touch Sir Hubert.’

  ‘Never crossed me mind. You want to hear what happened?’

  ‘Yes.’ I put my hand in my pocket again.

  ‘Funny I should’ve forgotten about that, ‘cos it struck me at the time. Funny all the servants being off of a Friday. The big houses usually stagger the evenings off, you know. Both times, Sir Hubert answered the door himself. “Staff’s night off”, he said. Both times.’

  ‘And he was there with Mr. Nettlefold?’

  ‘If that was his name, yes. At least he was the second time, ‘cos I saw him. Saw all of them.’

  ‘All?’

  ‘Yes. The second time he had to sign something and I had to take it back to the office. I waited in the hall. Lovely place he’s got. You should see the pictures.’

  ‘Who did you see?’

  ‘Well, he left th
e door open. Study or something, and they was all sitting round this table. The bloke with the wart and two other blokes.’

  ‘You didn’t know them?’

  ‘I know who one of them was. You remember that Member of Parliament who went on the fade a few weeks back. Jewish name, Hendleman or something? You must’ve seen it in the papers.’

  ‘Hensman. He wasn’t Jewish.’

  ‘No? Hensman. Yes, well, he was there.’

  ‘You’ve got a good memory, Topher.’

  ‘I got an eye for faces. You’d be surprised. I walked up to a bloke in the nick when I first went in, give him the fright of his life, walked straight up to him and called him by his first name. He didn’t know me from Adam and the last time I saw him was in a field dressing station in nineteen sixteen.’

  ‘You didn’t recognize the other fellow?’

  ‘I didn’t know him. I’d recognize him again though.’

  ‘Military man? Moustache? Pipe?’

  ‘There’s lots of military men with ‘taches and pipes, Mr. Darrell, but now you come to mention it, he was such a bloke.’

  I gave him another pound, and at that moment Kasher came in, very loud and accompanied by three men with uneasy eyes. There was no chance to continue the talk with Topher Poole because the youth on the door drew Kasher’s attention to me straight away. He was delighted to talk to a reporter, and I finally emerged at around. four in the afternoon, with enough local colour to write three features, and a distinct list to starboard.

  Much later in the evening I had a chance to reflect on Poole’s information. It would seem from the bare facts that the three men whose names appeared in the notebook were in the habit of meeting regularly with Michael Hensman — at least they were a few years ago: in 1934, two years, according to the late lamented Oscar Miller, before the payments began.

  ‘Are you still meddling with criminals in Soho?’ Poppy broke my train of thought. We were in our room at the Strand Palace — which was starting to cost me a fortune — and she had been reading while I fiddled with papers and let my mind dwell on the day’s events. Sandy Macpherson embellished ‘Summertime’ on the wireless. ‘That and other things.’ Once she decided to get interested in my daily work, nothing would stop her.

  ‘I’d like to come with you one day.’ She tilted her nose. ‘I’ve an idea to put a gangster into my new novel. Are they as unpleasant as they sound?’

  ‘They’re like the ones we met in the tube,’ I said, without smiling. ‘Only their vocabulary and grammar are worse.’

  She thought for a moment and then decided that she could do without personal contact with London’s underworld. The conversation swung, naturally, on to the flat, which was taking shape by leaps and bounds with the help of two stalwart decorators discovered by George. From that we went on to the question of when we should cease our cohabitation before being launched into married bliss.

  ‘I feel,’ said Poppy somewhat primly, ‘that it is only right and proper for us to have a period of abstinence before the wedding. A kind of lenten fast from each other’s company.’ She gave me a smile which, if I had not come to know her so well, could have passed as coy innocence. ‘Perhaps I could move in with Tessa for a couple of weeks while you stay here.’

  I suggested that it would save money if I moved back into the flat once it was completed, but she didn’t take to the idea.

  ‘After all, it’s going to be our new home.’

  ‘It was my home before; with Sarah; and after.’

  ‘It’ll be quite different this time.’

  I sometimes found it impossible to detect whether Poppy was engaged in a grand leg pull at my expense, or if she was in dead earnest. On this occasion she appeared to be quite serious, and the conversation regarding a break before the wedding ranged on through the evening, waxing and waning with her mood, which was mainly one of boredom now that plans were made and the refurbishing of the flat almost completed. At one point she declared that she would like to go off and get married there and then, with no fuss; though I had not noticed her putting up any kind of fight against her mother’s wishes for the soup, fish, and champagne affair that was being planned.

  She had her way, as was usual. At the end of July she would move in with Tessa in Bloomsbury, and I would stay on at the hotel in a smaller room.

  It was on this night that I managed to have a look at Evans’ articles on the Nazi infiltration of European government. Poppy was asleep, and I lay propped up on one elbow, going through the thin sheaf of typescript pages by the light of the bedside lamp.

  It was dull stuff which really needed an injection of sensationalism to make any public impact, though I could see why we had not published. The kernel of his argument was that practically every European government had its Nazi sympathizers, or, if not within the governments themselves, certainly among those close to the various seats of power. He pointed rather dramatically to France, Norway and Holland as prime examples (mentioning people like Vidkun Quisling and Mussert, neither of whom I had heard of before), claiming that whatever the policy of present governments, whole countries could be made to toe the Nazi line if the time ever came.

  Evans himself approached me again the next day and I more or less told him that he was being alarmist, which neither pleased him nor went any way towards strengthening our already shaky professional bond.

  As July came to a close, Poppy and I began to regret the pact we had made. Things appeared to be hotting up on the European political front. For once, Chamberlain’s government seemed to be standing firm against Hitler’s threats concerning Czechoslovakia.

  Walking down Whitehall on the day before Poppy was to get herself to the nunnery of Tessa’s cluttered flat, we noticed for the first time that sandbags were being stacked, and so came truly alive to the fact that we could be at war within weeks. It seemed that nothing would stop it this time, and even the urbane Guy was reorganizing the paper on a war basis. If and when it came, I was to be their first war correspondent with my base headquarters in Paris. Poppy clamoured for me to arrange matters so that she could come along, stating categorically that as a brand new bride she was not going to be parted this soon from her husband. But we came to no final conclusion and stood dithering on the brink of indecision. At that period I recall being vaguely worried the whole time, as though aware of a painful tooth that needed pulling, but loath to book a dentist’s appointment. It was an uncertainty which seemed to affect most people around us. The sun shone, even though the weather report told of imminent thunderstorms, and we continued to plan holidays and organize for a future which might never come.

  At the end of July, Poppy left the hotel and to make things a shade easier, I went on to night duty with the paper. Then, during the first week of August, they found the body in Cornwall.

  Chapter Nine

  It was washed up on a beach near Port Isaac and discovered by a family of holiday makers, out for an early evening stroll. We heard about it shortly after I got to the office that night, around ten. A male body; unidentifiable and partially clothed. It had obviously been in the water for some time.

  ‘Nasty shock for someone,’ MacIvor said, as dour as ever. Somebody had once suggested that his hair was permanently wet with the fine Scotch mist which always hovered about him.

  I had a vivid picture of the family — set for some reason in my brain as firmly middle-class: father, mother, two children and a dog — seeing what they took to be driftwood on the shore. Then the horror as they approached the bloated eaten thing rolling in the surf. The dog whining, mother hurrying the children away, and father looking sick and lost, running up the road to a telephone.

  Everyone asked the obvious question. Could it be Hensman? In fact I telephoned the police in Cornwall, and a tired inspector, who must have already given the official statement several times, told me that it could well be, but as yet nobody could be certain.

  ‘He’s not the only missing person in the area.’ His voice sounded a long way off,
with a slight crackle on the line. ‘Only last week we had a report that one of our favourite recluses had not been seen for some time. When our people went to his usual hideout it looked as though he had left in a hurry.’

  I was, naturally, forbidden to take any active part in covering the story. Fox had issued his ban in February and that still stood. I faced the situation with my familiar stoicism — which meant that I swore a lot. My private investigations into the lives and times of Hensman, Ramsey, Trim and Nettlefold had gone no further, yet I remained uneasy. In the past weeks, the Alvis had twice appeared in my driving mirror, and one night as I was going into the hotel, a voice wished me goodnight. Turning, I caught sight of the bowler-hatted man disappearing through the main doors. Whoever they were, there was no giving up. I was to be kept at arm’s length.

  On the night the body was found, we did all the usual things. One man and a photographer were sent off to the Hood house where they got a picture of Beryl Hensman being hurried away in a car. Yes, they were told,, Mrs. Hensman was travelling overnight to Cornwall. It was the moment they had all been dreading. We also heard that Fox had been called back from leave and was heading in the same direction.

  Before the paper went to bed, I wrote a piece without a by-line on the beginning of the Hensman story in February, together with yet another résumé of the MP’s life. This was added to the latest events and splashed on the front page, heavily biased and suggesting that the body was almost certainly that of Michael Hensman.

  Poppy telephoned as I was going off in the morning. ‘They’ve found Hensman’s body,’ she said in a blurt.

  ‘They’ve found a body. Nobody knows if it’s him or not.’

  ‘But I’ve just read the paper.’

  ‘I know, darling, I wrote most of it.’

  ‘You’re all confidence tricksters. Oh, it’s so frustrating, I can never surprise you with any news.’ There was silence on the line, as though she was on the brink of saying something.