by Jo Walton
“The trouble is,” she said, pulling out another cigarette, “that we hardly know each other. I didn’t realize until I saw you. I thought, well, I suppose I thought, ‘She’s my sister, who is closer than your sister,’ but the truth is that almost anyone is closer when there’s been such a gap. I should have thought. You haven’t really known me since I’ve grown up. I’ve seen you act, but I don’t really know who you are, now. The last time we really talked I was in my nonsensical ‘in love with Comrade Stalin, what can we do to help the Dear Workers’ phase. How can you even take me seriously?”
“Are you in trouble?” I asked.
“I’m in trouble, you’re in trouble, the whole country is in trouble or haven’t you noticed?” Her match flared briefly, then she shook it out and dropped it into the ashtray.
“You’re right that we don’t really know each other beyond a shared past that seems a long time ago to me, but if you’re in trouble I’ll try to help,” I said.
She drew deeply on the cigarette, and put her head back, exhaling, showing her long throat like a sacrificial animal. Then she leaned forward and put her hand on mine. “Promise you won’t tell anyone what I asked, whether you agree to help or not?”
I nodded. “Nope to die,” I said, in our childhood formula.
Siddy smiled. “Good old Fatso, Viola I mean.” She looked at me for a moment. “Where do you stand politically?”
“Oh come on, Siddy!” I said, drawing back.
“By which you mean you’re an actress, politics is boring, let the Bolshies and the Nazis bash the hell out of each other, it’s what they both deserve, thank God for the Farthing Peace?”
I tried my coffee. It was dishwater, which was what I’d expected. “Something not very different from that,” I said, noncomittally.
“And this latest nasty business, with that bloody worm Mark Normanby rewriting the unwritten constitution and sliding us close to outright fascism here, that doesn’t alarm you at all?” She tapped ash off her cigarette impatiently and drew on it again at once.
“Actually I think it’s a lot of silly hysteria, but if there are Jewish and communist terrorists going around blowing people up, then I suppose the innocent Jews and communists must expect a certain amount of trouble. Is that what this is? Are they after you for being a communist? Don’t they know who Pappa is?”
“Don’t you see how terrible it is that it makes a difference who Pappa is?” she asked, passionately. “Everyone should be equal before the law.”
“Well if you want to be equally going off to some camp,” I said. “But surely they can’t imagine you’d blow people up?”
She leaned forward to me across the table. “Oh yes I would. I’ve visited Pip in Prague. I know what really goes on in those camps. They aren’t prisons. They work people to death, on starvation rations. They are slaves, and when they get too weak to work they kill them with poison gas. They keep records, endless efficient relentless Germanic records.”
“You can’t really believe all that guff,” I said. “Isn’t it all like the stories about the Germans spitting Belgian babies on their bayonets in Pappa’s war? Just propaganda? They make them work in the camps, yes, but all those stories about the showers with stone soap and poison gas are just to make you shudder.”
“They’re not.” Siddy drew hard on her cigarette, and her face was set. “I don’t suppose there’s any way of making you believe, but I’ve seen them filing through the streets from the camp to the factory, like walking skeletons, and the guards . . .” She trailed off. “I’m a communist, but that doesn’t matter anything like as much as being opposed to all of that. The worst of it is that the Left don’t understand people like Pa any more than Pa understands what it’s like to be a miner. I don’t care about the economic side of things, except that it obviously isn’t fair that Rosie should spend on one dress what would keep a family of eight in Bolton for a year.”
“It wouldn’t matter if they all had enough,” I said. “If the family in Bolton had enough to keep them as well as Rosie having the dress.”
“Maybe in theory, but it never works out that way,” Siddy said. “In reality there are always more needy people than spare money for Dior dresses.”
“Why did you call me?” I asked.
She blew out smoke. “I saw you on stage,” she said.
“What was it?” I asked.
“I think it was called Creatures of the Summer Heat.”
“Oh, that silly thing.” I was embarrassed. “I don’t know why you hit on that one. It hardly ran.”
“I thought you were jolly good.” She stubbed out her cigarette and reached for the packet.
“No, have one of mine,” I said, and offered my case.
She took one and turned it in her fingers a moment. “Players. I have the theater cigarettes and you have the workers.”
“Siddy, will you for God’s sake tell me what this is about, or I swear I’ll walk out of here and never see you again.”
She looked at me a moment. “I can’t. I can’t trust you that much, and I can’t trust myself to explain it to you so it makes sense. I thought I’d be able to talk to you but I can’t. It ought to be Uncle Phil.”
“Uncle Phil?” I echoed, idiotically. Uncle Phil, better known to the wider world as crazy old Scotty, was my godfather. He’d been in Parliament, in Government even, in the Churchill period, and now he sat sulking in the House of Lords, or at home in Coltham Court, pontificating loudly about how terribly the current generation were messing things up. “What does this have to do with him?”
Siddy shrugged, and lit the cigarette. “Everything. Nothing. Look, I don’t think I can possibly explain. Come down to Coltham for lunch tomorrow.”
“I have to learn a part,” I said, automatically. “I have to know it by Monday.” Then it hit me. “You have inviting privileges at Coltham?”
“Not usually.” Siddy smiled. “But just at the moment I do.”
“You’re seeing Boo?” It was the only explanation. Siddy had been married twice, to Tommy Bailey and then to Geoff Russell, and was presently divorced. It was no secret that Uncle Phil’s son Benjamin had once been in love with our oldest sister, Olivia, and devastated when she’d married James Thirkie. He had cried at her wedding. Mamma had thought it terribly bad form. Siddy looked quite a bit like Olivia, though without her poise. Olivia always had poise, whereas Siddy replaced it with intensity. I wasn’t sure where Boo was in the marriage stakes at the moment, and while he was quite a lot older than Siddy it would actually have been a better match than most of her romances.
Siddy shook her head, laid down her cigarette, and took a forkful of her pie. “Horrid,” she said, setting the fork down again. “Will you come to Coltham for lunch?”
“I can’t possibly, not tomorrow. In any case, how would I get there? I don’t have a car.” I don’t know why I relented even that much.
“There’s a good train, from Charing Cross. Someone could meet you at the station. There are frequent trains. You could be back in London for dinner. Uncle Phil will explain everything, or if he can’t, I promise I will.”
“Then why not explain now?”
“I can’t here,” she said, gesturing around the restaurant. “I don’t know how to start. Take the eleven-eighteen train, and someone will meet you at the station.” She stood up, leaving her pie almost untouched. “Please, Fats, Viola I mean.”
She had never been my favorite sister. It wasn’t because I liked her. I didn’t like her or even trust her. It was true what she said, I hardly knew her. But she looked desperate and weary and she was my sister and I believed she was in trouble. Or maybe she just infuriated me so much that she drove me crazy with curiosity. Anyway, I must have been absolutely mad to agree.
6
On Sunday morning, Hampstead looked asleep in the sun at nine o’clock. Curtains were drawn and milk bottles stood neglected on doorsteps. The policeman at the gate of 35 Bedford Drive seemed by contrast almost unnatur
ally alert.
“Even the press are still in bed,” Carmichael said, as he shut the door of the Bentley and surveyed the street, empty but for a scattering of parked cars.
“Not their work, though,” Royston said, indicating the papers sticking from the letterboxes of many of the doors around them. “They keep late hours. I expect we’ll have them shouting round again later.”
“No doubt,” Carmichael said, then turned to the bobby at the gate. “Good morning. Has the house been secured?”
“May I see your identification, sir?” the bobby asked.
Carmichael and Royston both fished out their papers and handed them over. The bobby scrutinized them carefully and handed them back. “Well?” Carmichael asked impatiently.
“Only following orders, sir,” the bobby said. “And yes, the house is secured, least, that’s what the man I was replacing told me.”
“We’ll go in then,” Carmichael said. “If Inspector Jacobson arrives, please ask him to join us.”
“That bloody yid,” the bobby muttered.
“I beg your pardon, constable?” Carmichael asked, silkily.
“Jacobson, sir. He’s a Jewboy. Didn’t you know?”
“I didn’t,” Carmichael said.
“Shouldn’t allow them in the police,” the bobby said.
“I’m surprised they do,” Royston put in.
“Oh, they allow it,” Carmichael said, weary of the whole conversation. “They think if they can stand the constant pinpricks of dealing with people who hate them, they’ll make good police officers. Not Scotland Yard, of course, but in the Met and the provincial forces. Come on, Royston, let’s see the house before it falls down.”
The bobby at the back had seen them the day before. He saluted. “The sappers said to say, sir, that fortunately there isn’t any gas, and the water main was secured right away, so the damage is mostly to the kitchen and the back of the house.”
“Thank you, constable,” Royston said. Carmichael nodded at the bobby and they made their way carefully in.
The house had been shored up with timber and tarpaulins. The dining room, the site of the explosion, was a shattered ruin. The kitchen, next to it, was also badly damaged and showed signs of water damage. “Not much point looking around in here, sir,” Royston said. “This is probably a job for the forensic boys.”
“They’ll be around,” Carmichael said, stepping over the remains of a table. “Let’s look at the rest of the house.”
There was a little sitting room at the front. The windows had been boarded up. Royston took out his torch and played it around. It was a conventional enough room, with sprigged wallpaper and a three-piece suite. A large looking glass hung cracked and crooked over the mantelpiece, reflecting the torchlight and the room crazily.
“Blast,” Royston said, using the word accurately. “Reminds me of the Blitz. Not much to see in here, sir.”
The room across the passage from it was more informative, and lighter, as the windows had survived intact. It was a small study, almost filled by a large untidy desk. The walls were covered with photographs, posters, and framed press cuttings, some faded and others quite new.
“Some of these go right back to the twenties,” Royston said, examining one of the posters.
“Even before that, sergeant,” Carmichael said, looking at a cutting. “This review of Mary Rose is dated 1917. She was a great hit in it, apparently.”
“Strange, in a way, isn’t it, sir?”
“What’s strange?” Carmichael turned to look at Royston, who was examining a photograph of a young Lauria Gilmore as Desdemona, looking as if she was about to dance the Charleston, complete with feathers and shingled hair.
“There’s nothing more dead than an old play.” Royston gestured to the picture. “There must be people alive who saw that thing, and other people who acted in it, and at the time it must have seemed exciting and important, maybe people queued for seats, but now it looks silly and dated and it’s gone completely leaving nothing behind, except for what people remember. Strange, and a bit sad, when you come to think of it.”
Carmichael sighed. “That isn’t getting us anywhere, sergeant. Let’s search the desk.”
“Yes, sir,” Royston said, immediately, but before he moved to the desk he straightened the Desdemona picture.
Carmichael hit pay dirt almost at once. Under a note from someone signing himself Antony inviting her to lunch at the Venezia in Covent Garden on the previous Friday, he found a small floral appointment diary. He turned to June and found each page bordered in climbing roses.
Her handwriting was small and precise, not at all like the extravagant signature on the photograph Inspector Jacobson had given him. Carmichael read it aloud to Royston. “Friday June sixteenth, AB, Venezia 1 P.M. Dinner, 7 P.M. Dinner is underlined. Saturday June seventeenth, PM 10 A.M., GM 8 P.M.”
“PM,” Royston repeated. “Someone must have reported a PM as missing.”
Carmichael flipped through the book. He looked ahead first, at the appointments she had made and would not keep. The rehearsals and first night of Hamlet were marked off decisively, on pages bordered with sunflowers. The first night, Friday, July 1, was underlined twice, as was the time, 8:30 P.M. Apart from that she had one more meeting with PM, on June 30, again at 10 A.M., the day of the final dress rehearsal. There were other dinner appointments, and a few lunch appointments, decisively crossed out. The Hamlet dates, the crossings out, the emphatic dinner, and the PM appointment were in blue ink. The others were in black.
Looking backwards, he saw evidence of a busy social life, with many friends, all initialized. PM cropped up irregularly, generally for lunch or dinner. Carmichael flipped back further. May was daisies, and April daffodils. The only appointments she had other than for lunch and dinner were theatrical. This early morning appointment had been unusual. He read back. February was snowdrops and January winter jasmine. The ink colors changed regularly, between blue and black. It probably didn’t mean much. He turned back to June. “Lunch AB” was in black. He picked up the letter from Antony and noted the address. He would have to find out who this Antony B. was, as well as PM. Judging by the infrequent appearances of “MK,” Kinnerson had probably been telling the truth about how often he saw his mother.
“Bingo,” Royston said suddenly. Carmichael looked up. Royston had been going through the other things on the desk. “Address book.” The cover showed a languishing Pre-Raphaelite maiden with too much hair. Royston flicked through it. “Sadie Moorhead, Peter Marshall, Mary Marsden, Daniel Miniver, Pat McKnight, Frank Moston, C. Mitchell, Margaret MacDonald.”
“Pat McKnight or Peter Marshall,” Carmichael said. “Good work, sergeant.”
“Unless one of the others is nicknamed P,” Royston warned. “Margaret MacDonald could be Peggy.”
“Even so, it’ll be much faster to contact them all than to check every missing person in the country,” Carmichael said, taking the book from Royston. He picked up the phone on the desk and listened for a moment. He had half-expected it to be dead, but it hummed happily, so he began to dial. There were two numbers for Peter Marshall, one a London exchange and the other Portsmouth, both neatly inked in black. The London number rang for a long time without response. Carmichael tried the other, waiting while the operator put him through.
That phone was answered quickly and breezily. “HMS Valiant.”
Carmichael was made wary by his experience with Kinnerson. “Is Peter Marshall there?”
“I’m afraid he’s not.” The breezy voice at the other end made nothing of it.
“Can you tell me when he will be?”
There was a slight pause. The line crackled. “Well, to tell you the truth he should be here by now,” the voice went on, a little less cheerfully. “Lieutenant Marshall was due back from leave this morning, which means by eight, but he had a forty-eight in London and he’s late reporting in. Can I take a message, old boy?”
Carmichael looked at his watch. It was
nearly ten. “Can I speak to Lieutenant Marshall’s commanding officer?” he asked.
“Who is this?” The voice sounded wary.
“This is Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard,” Carmichael said, with a great deal of satisfaction.
“Oh don’t tell me Peter’s busted up his car again?”
“I certainly shan’t tell you anything of the sort,” Carmichael said, silkily. Royston, who was still sorting through the piles on the desk, looked up and grinned at his tone. “Could you please let me speak to Lieutenant Marshall’s commanding officer?”
“Yes, sir.”
The line crackled again, as Carmichael was transferred. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Seems like Marshall is a possibility,” he said. “Naval man. Due back from leave today and not shown up.”
The phone sputtered back to life. “Captain Beddow speaking,” it barked.
“Good morning, sir. I’m inquiring about one of your officers, a Lieutenant Peter Marshall.”
“Seems the fellow’s late back from leave, hey?”
“Yes, sir. I—”
Captain Beddow clearly wasn’t prepared to wait for Carmichael’s explanation. “What’s your problem, Inspector?”
“Did Marshall say anything to you about an intention to see Lauria Gilmore while he was in London, sir?”
“Didn’t say anything to me that I recall,” Beddow said. “Lauria—what, that actress woman who was blown up?”
“Marshall knew her,” Carmichael said.
“He might be intimately acquainted with the whole chorus line of the Gaiety for all I care,” Beddow said. “I’m a busy man, Inspector.”
“There’s a possibility that Marshall was the man killed with Miss Gilmore yesterday. The body is very difficult to identify. Is Marshall habitually late back from leave, sir?”
“I—what? No, no he isn’t. Some of the others—well. I was expecting you to tell me he’d piled up his silly car.”
“No, sir. What kind of car did Marshall drive?” Carmichael wondered what Captain Beddow regarded as silly.
