The More Deceived

by David Roberts

  ‘Hmm. Wait a minute! I think Chandra’s a bit of a sportsman. Fred Cavens was talking about him. He’s a fencer. Olympic standard, I believe.’

  ‘He must be in his late fifties.’

  ‘Yes, but Cavens keeps on telling me that age is not as important in fencing as you might think. If you do it regularly, it helps you keep fit.’ Edward was silent for a moment and Ferguson did not interrupt his thought process. ‘So these men are keeping Churchill afloat financially? Why?’

  ‘I suppose they think they have something to gain.’

  ‘Ferguson, you are such a cynic. Maybe they just think he is the man to save “the old country”.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know their motives but it does mean Churchill is in their respective pockets. The press would have a field day if they could prove he was not as independent as he likes people to think.’

  ‘So you would blackmail him?’

  ‘Perish the thought.’ Ferguson’s thin lips twitched in what might have been a smile. ‘I just wanted you to be fully briefed in case you do meet him. We’re more concerned about information on how weak we are, militarily and in the air, getting to the Germans. If Churchill knows the facts, so might the Nazis. If Herr Hitler fully appreciated how little there is to stop us going under in the event of war, he would take even less notice of our protests than he does already. The Germans have an idea that there is a different way to wage war – blitzkrieg they call it, literally “lightning war” – a massive attack, speedy, overwhelming . . . tanks, aeroplanes. They are, we believe, planning to try it out in Spain courtesy of Franco. If they unleash such a thing on us in the first few days of a war . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders expressively.

  A chill went down Edward’s spine. What if Verity was a victim of this new kind of war? He shivered. He saw Ferguson looking at him shrewdly and wondered if he guessed what he was thinking. He said aggressively, ‘You seem to have muddied the waters, Ferguson. Now I don’t know what I’m looking for. Why don’t I just stay in bed? I can’t see I’m going to be any use to you.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Ferguson responded cheerfully. ‘You have a nose.’ Edward unconsciously massaged his proboscis. ‘Go and see Mrs Westmacott. Stir things up a bit. Maybe someone’ll take a pot shot at you. That would help us. Startle a few birds out of cover.’

  ‘I’m expendable?’

  Ferguson smiled. ‘Not at all. There would be a frightful stink if the Duke of Mersham’s younger brother was bumped off. There would be all sorts of things said in the gutter press about police inefficiency. It wouldn’t do my career any good, I assure you.’

  ‘I take the point,’ Edward grinned wryly.

  Ferguson noticed the épée lying on the window seat and picked it up. ‘I hope not – at least, not literally. I see this is capped. Don’t forget the weapons our enemies use have no safety caps. Goodbye, Lord Edward. I shall be in touch. Oh, by the way, if anyone questions your authority to investigate, I have included in that envelope a letter and an identity card which you can thrust under any noses you like.’

  ‘So I am a policeman now?’

  ‘I suppose you are, yes. Does that bother you?’

  Ferguson departed without giving Edward a chance to reply.

  Westmacott lived – or had lived until his disappearance – in a modest two-storey suburban villa in west London. Wanting to get the interview with Mrs Westmacott over, Edward telephoned her as soon as Ferguson had left and asked if she would see him the following morning. So it was, at ten o’clock the next day, that he drove along Western Avenue as far as Park Royal and then turned into an area of small houses and bungalows mostly built in the past five years. He parked the Lagonda in Elm Avenue. It was a pleasant place – a quiet, leafy street, respectable certainly, but who knew what secrets were hidden behind the net curtains. Two or three other cars were parked by the kerb but children still played in the street without any fear of being run down. Little gardens between street and front door reminded Edward that not so many years ago this had been countryside.

  Each villa had a name, not a street number, and Edward had to ask directions from a child playing hopscotch. The Larches proved to be one of the smartest in the avenue. It had a green front door with a pane of stained glass let into it, a well-tended garden, bright with spring flowers, and carefully cultivated window boxes. No larches to be seen, however. This was a house which was loved and, for the first time, Edward began to appreciate what Mr Westmacott’s disappearance must mean to his family.

  The door was opened by a serious-faced girl of about ten. Neither particularly pretty nor plain, she wore wire spectacles hooked lopsidedly over her ears and wire braces on her teeth. She was holding a Rupert Bear Annual and a Mari-Lu doll dressed in a leather helmet and goggles.

  ‘Yes?’ she said belligerently.

  ‘I telephoned earlier. My name is Edward Corinth. I have an appointment with your mother.’ He paused, hoping for an invitation to come in, but the child said nothing, preferring to stare at him. ‘I like your dolly. Is she Amy Johnson?’ he inquired weakly.

  ‘No, she’s not. She’s a racing driver,’ the child said crushingly.

  ‘Ah, a racing driver,’ Edward repeated, feeling he was failing to make a good impression. ‘So, may I see your mother?’

  The little girl bent her head to one side and looked at him critically. She did not seem to approve of what she saw.

  ‘Mummy said nothing to me about seeing anyone. She is lying down with a headache. I say, are you from the newspapers?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Edward was rather insulted to be taken for a reporter but then it occurred to him that perhaps the press had been adding to the family’s troubles. ‘I’m a sort of policeman,’ he said, not a little embarrassed. ‘Might I come in? I won’t bite, don’t y’know.’

  A voice drifted down the stairs behind the girl. ‘Who is it, Alice?’

  ‘He says he’s a policeman but he doesn’t look like one to me,’ Alice added sturdily. Edward wanted to ask against what image of a man of the law he was being judged. Was he supposed to be wearing a helmet and brandishing a truncheon?

  ‘Didn’t I tell you, dear, that I was expecting a visitor? Is it Lord Edward Corinth?’

  ‘It is,’ Edward confessed.

  ‘I thought it must be. Alice, show Lord Edward into the sittingroom, will you, dear? I’ll be down in a moment.’

  Reluctantly, the child let him in and gestured for him to follow her. She took him into a room which seemed at first sight to be bursting with furniture. There was a small open grate, shiny brass fire irons resting on the fender in front of which were two armchairs, complete with lace-edged antimacassars, and an uncomfortable-looking sofa. Next to the fireplace there was a large wireless on a table protected by a chenille cloth and a Victrola gramophone beside it. China geese on the wall flew in a straight line towards a cuckoo clock. At the other end of the room stood a table and several upright chairs and the obligatory aspidistra in a glazed pot.

  The girl looked at Edward as though she knew him to be what was now being referred to as a ‘con artist’ with a record as long as her arm. ‘You don’t look like a lord.’

  ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, Alice,’ he replied mildly. ‘What should a lord look like?’

  ‘He should have a . . . have a crown . . . no, I mean a coronet.’

  ‘I left it at home,’ he said gravely. ‘You can’t wear coronets on ordinary days.’

  ‘I see . . . no. But why did you say you were a policeman?’

  ‘I said I was a sort of policeman,’ he prevaricated.

  ‘Are you going to find my daddy?’ she asked bluntly.

  ‘I shall try to. I suppose he didn’t say anything to you about having to go away?’

  He wondered if it was ethical to question the child without her mother’s permission but he soothed his conscience by telling himself that it was Alice who had mentioned her father’s disappearance.

  ‘No, not really. He did say I was to be a g
ood girl and help Mary look after mother.’

  ‘Who is Mary?’

  ‘She’s the maid but it’s her day off. She looks after me when mother’s sick.’

  ‘Is she often sick?’

  ‘She has headaches,’ Alice replied, as if everyone knew this.

  ‘When did your father tell you to look after your mother, or was that something he always said before he went to the office?’

  ‘No, he never said it to me before.’

  ‘Before?’

  ‘Before that morning . . . on the day he didn’t come home.’

  Edward saw that he had gone as far as he could. The little girl was bravely trying not to cry. It would not do if, even before he met Mrs Westmacott, he reduced her daughter to tears.

  They stayed silent for a full minute, eyeing each other, and then they heard the sound of Mrs Westmacott coming downstairs. She must, he thought, have been a beautiful young woman. Even now, under severe strain, she was striking. She was aged about forty, he guessed. She was tall and moved with a certain grace, as though she had been a good dancer, and maybe still was. She had glossy hair, almost blond, and her eyes were large but at this moment uncertain, scared.

  ‘Alice, go and finish your reading, will you, dear?’

  When the girl had departed, she said, ‘She ought to be at school but since her father . . . perhaps it was wrong of me but I wanted her at home.’

  ‘That’s quite understandable,’ Edward assured her. He wanted to put out a hand to calm her trembling but reminded himself that he was a policeman not a vicar.

  ‘Please sit down, Lord Edward. It’s very kind of you to come. I am afraid the police – I mean the local police – don’t take Charles’s disappearance seriously. I believe they think we must have quarrelled, but we didn’t, you know.’

  ‘I quite believe you, Mrs Westmacott. We think his disappearance may have something to do with his work. Did he ever talk to you about his work?’

  ‘Never! I mean, I would say “Did you have a good day at the office?” or something and he would say “I’m a bit tired.” Or he might say “There’s a job I have to finish. I’ll be late again tomorrow, I’m afraid.”’

  ‘Did he often work late?’

  ‘Not until quite recently. He was usually home by six thirty or seven.’

  ‘Then what would you do?’ he pressed her gently.

  ‘He would wash and then he would have a drink and read the evening paper and then we would have supper. Then we would listen to the wireless or he might have some reading to do. We were normally in bed by half-past ten.’

  ‘The reading he had to do sometimes – was that work?’

  ‘Yes, he would bring work home, but not often.’

  ‘You never saw what the papers were he was reading?’

  ‘No, they were nothing to do with me,’ she said, sounding slightly shocked at the question.

  ‘But you never saw any papers or files lying around and just glanced at them? It would be quite natural if you did.’

  ‘No, he was very careful like that. He used to replace what he had read in his briefcase and lock it. It was so he did not forget anything when he went to the office in the morning.’

  ‘I understand. So you never saw any of those papers?’ he repeated.

  ‘No. . . Well, as a matter of fact, last week . . . he seemed so tired and worried. He had to go upstairs to take an aspirin while he was reading . . . after supper, you know.’

  ‘And while he was upstairs, did you happen to see . . . ?’

  ‘I meant no harm,’ she said, alarmed, ‘but Charles seemed so unlike himself that I did get up and go round to his chair.’

  ‘You were in here . . . in this room?’

  ‘Yes. He sat where you are sitting.’

  ‘And what did you see?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know – nothing . . . nothing I understood, anyway.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But I did see some of the papers were marked Secret and one was a file and it had Most Secret stamped on the outside in red.’

  ‘So your husband was coming home late and tired and worried?’

  ‘Yes, for about a month before . . . before he disappeared.’

  ‘Did you ask him about it?’

  ‘Yes, but he just said it was work and that things had piled up and it would be better soon and I wasn’t to worry. We even talked about going to the seaside when the weather improved.’

  ‘I see. Mrs Westmacott, how did your husband get to work and come home in the evening?’

  ‘He went on the Underground – the Piccadilly Tube.’

  ‘To Park Royal station?’

  ‘Yes, it’s only a fifteen-minute walk from here. He used to say that little walk saved his life.’

  ‘What did he mean by that?’

  ‘The walk . . . it did him good. He was always complaining about not having enough fresh air and exercise. So this little walk . . .’ she hesitated and then repeated, ‘saved his life.’

  There was nothing else he could glean from Mrs Westmacott for the moment so Edward left, promising to be in touch before long. When he got back to his rooms, he once again read through the papers Major Ferguson had given him. Detectives had questioned staff on the Underground and regular passengers without finding anyone who could say for sure that Charles Westmacott had been on the train the evening he disappeared. The likelihood was, therefore, that he had never caught the train. He had left his office at about five thirty – he was not senior enough to have his own secretary but several colleagues had seen him leave the building. Then, who knows? Had he gone to meet someone? Had that person abducted or killed him? Or had he fled the country for fear of being exposed as some sort of spy? It was futile to guess. Edward threw Ferguson’s papers on the floor in disgust and called to Fenton to bring him a gin and tonic before he walked to his club for a bite of lunch.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said to Fenton when he appeared with the restorative, ‘if you wanted to disappear and you had reason to think the ports were being watched, what would you do? Go to some remote part of the British Isles and hunker down?’

  ‘It depends, my lord. I might do that if I wished to absent myself for a short period of time but, if I wished to vanish for a prolonged period, I would lose myself in London or some other great city. In the country, a stranger stands out like a sore thumb and his presence would soon come to the attention of the authorities. In a London boarding house fewer people would ask questions. Everyone is a stranger and people guard their privacy.’

  ‘Very true. But what if you had to leave the country quickly and without attracting attention?’

  ‘Then I would take the Golden Arrow from Victoria station and reach France within the day.’

  ‘Yes, you wouldn’t go by aeroplane. Apart from the cost, you would be noticed. Damn! Needles in haystacks!’

  ‘Indeed, my lord.’

  At that moment, the telephone rang and Fenton went to answer it.

  ‘It is Miss Browne, my lord.’

  Fenton’s disapproval of his master’s choice of female companionship was evident in his tone of voice though it was never expressed in words. It was not his place to comment on his master’s romantic attachments. Fenton was in many ways an unconventional valet. Edward would trust him with his life and, on at least one occasion, had done so. He could be daring and decisive and Edward had no secrets from him save those entrusted to him by Major Ferguson. It was true they never discussed Verity but that was because neither man would contemplate bandying about a woman’s name. That was not done . . . ‘bad form’, as Edward would have put it. Fenton might be happy to break the rules when necessary but he liked the forms to be observed. He had old-fashioned views on what constituted respectability in a female. He admired Verity for her courage and enterprise but he was firmly of the view that it was not a lady’s place to gallivant round the world reporting on wars. If his master loved her, as he reluctantly admitted to himself that he did, then she should tear up her p
assport, marry him and settle down to darn socks and have children. He suspected that Lord Edward and she were lovers though Edward, considerate of his feelings, had never thrust the evidence in front of him. He accepted that gentlemen had to be allowed their ‘little adventures’, as he put it to himself, but this was not a ‘little adventure’. It was a strange courtship of which he thoroughly disapproved.

  ‘Miss Browne’s off to Spain in a day or two,’ Edward said brightly. ‘I was expecting her to ring.’

  It was a subdued Verity on the end of the line. ‘Did I behave atrociously the other night? I woke up with the most awful hangover so I think I must have.’

  ‘We all got rather fried, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You didn’t like my friends,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘I liked Gerda,’ he offered.

  ‘Huh. You keep your hands off Gerda. She’s dynamite. Way out of your league.’

  Edward thought of several witty things he could say but wisely rejected all of them. ‘Guy Baron’s interesting.’

  ‘Yes, I don’t know what to make of Guy. He’s not serious, or is he? It’s so hard to know.’

  ‘Le style c’est l’homme?’

  ‘There’s more to him than he would have you believe.’

  ‘Is he a member of the Party?’

  ‘Gosh, yes. David wouldn’t be so thick with him if he weren’t.’

  There was a silence and then Verity continued, ‘Anyway, the reason I rang you is to remind you that you are due in Hoxton in an hour.’

  ‘Agh!’ Edward hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘I’d quite forgotten. Do I really have to?’

  ‘I thought you might try that line. Of course you have to go. Anyway, it’ll be a laugh.’

  ‘For you, maybe,’ Edward said bitterly.

  ‘Buck up! You can’t let Tommie down. Gerda and I will worship from the side lines or administer first aid.’

  Edward groaned as he put down the receiver. ‘Fenton, you’ll never guess – I met Mr Fox at that party the night before last and he persuaded me to play football for the Old Etonians against Hoxton’s bravest and brightest. It’s the last thing in the world I want to do but Miss Browne says I can’t let him down.’