by Mark Ellis
“Let’s hope you remain lucky, Detective.”
The AC leaned forward. “Now, Frank, I am not just here with Detective Goldberg to pass the time of day. An idea came to me last night. A very good idea, if I may say so.” The AC acknowledged his personal brilliance with a superior smile. “You were complaining because you are without Inspector Johnson for a few weeks. Goldberg here is keen to learn about our methods. What better way for him to do so than to step into Johnson’s shoes for the rest of his stay? The Detective is highly experienced and is of a similar seniority and standing to the Inspector. How about that for an idea?”
Merlin looked thoughtfully across at the American. Goldberg appeared at first sight to be a decent fellow and no doubt he had good policing experience. Despite this, Merlin’s immediate reaction was irritation – he would have preferred to discuss the pros and cons of his boss’s proposal privately first. He felt he was being bounced into something.
Goldberg sensed Merlin’s unease. “Hey, Chief Inspector. I understand that this has been sprung on you out of the blue and that you might have reservations. I sure as hell would if some English detective was put on me like this. I’ll get out of your hair so that the two of you can discuss this together.” Goldberg pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Let me say, however, that if you do decide to give it a go, I would be deeply honoured. During the short time I’ve been here, I’ve heard your name mentioned several times and everything I’ve heard has been good. I’m sure I can learn plenty from you and, who knows, perhaps I can pass on one or two tricks of my own?” Goldberg turned to the door.
Merlin raised a hand. “Hang on, Detective. Don’t be so hasty. I… I would be delighted to have you on our team for a few weeks.” He nodded at the AC. “It’s a good idea, sir. Thank you.”
“Jolly good, Frank.” The AC grinned happily and got to his feet. “Excellent! Well, I’d better get back to my office now. The home secretary is meant to be telephoning me shortly.”
“There’s one other thing, sir.”
“Yes, Frank?”
“What about Cole?”
Gatehouse’s grin evaporated and he grunted with annoyance. “All right, Chief Inspector. If you insist, you can have him back. But he’ll be out on his ear if I hear any, of any… Well, you know of what.” He hurried out, slamming the door behind him.
Goldberg shrugged. “A man of changeable moods, your boss.”
“He is that, Detective. He is that.”
* * *
“Darling Philip, I absolutely love this champagne. I could drink Krug all day and all night. Would you care to join me for the night part?”
Philip Arbuthnot leaned over to give Suzanne Edgar a peck on the cheek. “We’ll see, Suzanne, we’ll see.” He sat down next to his other pretty friend, Janey Lumsden, and patted her thigh.
Suzanne sat down on Arbuthnot’s other side. “Oh Philip, you tease. And don’t make eyes at Janey like that! You promised me, you know. I shall never forgive you if you break your promise.”
Suzanne was blonde and slim, and Janey buxom and brunette. Arbuthnot thought his mood favoured the plumper girl this evening. He was a lucky man. Charming, attractive to women and the son of a very wealthy man, he was in possession of a large and airy Mayfair apartment near Claridge’s, where, as on most nights, he was entertaining friends.
There was a shout from outside. “Philip! Can you tell me where we are going on to after? I told Roddy I’d let him know. He’s coming in on the train from Oxfordshire and said he’d telephone me from Paddington.” Arbuthnot’s friend, Rupert Vorster, was standing on the balcony, which overlooked Brook Street.
“Rupert, my old chap, do relax. I haven’t really decided where we should go. Why don’t you tell Roddy to come here? There are a few more bottles of bubbly to go yet and the night is young.”
Vorster, a prematurely balding South African fellow-trainee at Tomlinson’s firm, came back into the room, bottle of champagne in hand, and topped up everyone’s drinks. “Girls seem a little frisky tonight. Planning to keep them both to yourself, are you?”
Vorster did not share Arbuthnot’s degree of success with the opposite sex. A blond, strapping, athletic young man two years older than Arbuthnot, he would have been attractive had he not looked for most of the time as if he’d just been sucking a particularly sour lemon in his small, thin-lipped mouth. Like Arbuthnot, he had a wealthy father, in his case the owner of a mining company in Africa. Unlike Arbuthnot, he had no large allowance and could only afford a tiny flat in Battersea. For reasons unknown to Arbuthnot, Vorster had fallen out with his father in a big way. Vorster’s father had also told him to get a job but, unlike Simon Arbuthnot, had provided no assistance. Vorster had ended up at Titmus, Travers and Tomlinson very much under his own steam. Arbuthnot had befriended him there and had appreciated Vorster showing him the ropes.
“Who knows, Rupert? We’ll have to see, won’t we, girls?”
There was a noise outside and Arbuthnot went to the balcony to watch with amusement as a policeman tried to arrest two drunken soldiers on the street below. When the drunks eventually broke away and scarpered down the street, he was on the point of returning to the drawing room when there was a buzz at the door. He stayed where he was as Janey answered and took delivery of something, which she brought straight out to him. It was a telegram. He took it from the girl and stared at it foolishly for a moment.
“Perhaps you’ve won the football pools or something, Philip? Not that you need to. I wonder, do they have the football pools now that there’s hardly any football? My father…”
Arbuthnot tuned out Janey’s prattle as he tore open the telegram. His heart lurched as he saw the first four words. ‘The War Office regrets…’ His hand began to shake. ‘The War Office regrets to inform you of the death in action of Captain Simon Arbuthnot. Our deepest condolences, sincerely.”
“What’s wrong, darling?” Janey reached out to him but he brushed her away. “Nothing. I’ll tell you later. Please, go back in. I’ll be with you in a second.”
Janey pouted but did as she was asked. He read the telegram again. Father and son had not been so close in the past couple of years. He wished they’d got on better but they hadn’t. Of course, as a boy he’d loved his father dearly and they’d enjoyed many happy times. His father had seemed like a god to him then. An indestructible god.
Arbuthnot looked down on the street as he finished his glass of champagne. He was shocked, sorry and saddened at the news, but he was also becoming increasingly conscious of another feeling he was reluctant to acknowledge. That feeling was relief. Relief that he would no longer have to live up to his father’s high expectations or find excuses for his failings. Relief that he would no longer have to justify his heavy expenses or apologise for his overactive nightlife. Relief that, at last, he was an independent man and, indeed, as his father’s sole heir, a very wealthy independent man. For the first time he could do exactly what he wanted. His hand steadied. He composed himself and went back into the drawing room. He managed to conjure a smile. “So, everyone, where shall we go tonight?”
* * *
The Red Lion pub was filled with the usual raucous Friday-night crowd. On their hemmed-in little table sat a pint of bitter for Merlin and a large whisky and water for his new colleague.
“Seems a pretty popular place, Chief Inspector?”
“Please, call me Frank.”
“Sure, Frank. And I’m Bernie.”
Merlin recognised a couple of MPs fighting their way through the crowd. The Houses of Parliament were only a stone’s throw away and this was a regular watering hole for politicians.
“I don’t like to repeat myself, Frank, but I’ll say again – it was very good of you to take me on board. I could see that the AC was throwing you something of a fastball there.”
“Fastball?”
“Sorry, baseball terminology. Guess there’s a cricket equivalent but I don’t know it.”
“‘Bouncer’, I
think, if I get your meaning correctly. Thanks.” Merlin was parched and fell on his beer enthusiastically. It had been a tense day but, he reflected, when were his days ever without tension? The alcohol hit home and he relaxed a little. “That’s better. So it’s Bernie rather than Bernard?”
“I notice over here you say ‘Bernard’ with a short ‘a’. In the States, it has a long ‘a’ as in ‘Bernaaaard’. Either way, I’m not so fond of it. Bernie suits me better. I’m a Jew, as I said. From the Lower East Side. Father’s a tailor. He’s getting on now but he’s still working away in his own little business. He still can’t believe I’m a policeman. I love him dearly but he’s a very meek and mild fellow. All those pogroms he lived through in Russia, I guess. Anyway, you could say I don’t come from natural police stock. How about you?”
“Me? I’m from our East End. Something similar to your Lower East Side, I think. I am the son of an immigrant as well.”
“Glad to hear we have something in common. Apart from being policemen that is.” Goldberg took a sip of his whisky and made a face.
“Whisky all right?”
“Sure. Just takes a little getting used to. I’m a bourbon drinker. Never really drunk Scotch. Bourbon is what we common people drink, back home.”
“Sorry, Bernie. I didn’t really think when you said whisky. I’ll get you another. I’m sure they have bourbon here.” Merlin started to rise but Goldberg reached out a restraining arm. “No. No. Please, Frank. This is fine. It’s a good one, I’m sure.” He took another sip, this time without making a face. “I like it but I’ll take it slowly, if you don’t mind. So, son of an immigrant, you say?”
“I was born Francisco Merino. My father was a merchant seaman from Northern Spain, who wound up marrying an English girl here in London. My mother’s father owned a chandlery in Limehouse, near the Port of London. My dad ended up running it with her. His name was Javier Merino but he got fed up with people getting his name wrong and changed it to Harry Merlin – he loved the stories of King Arthur and the Round Table. So we all – my mother, brother, sisters and me – became Merlins.”
“It has a nice ring to it, Frank Merlin. Sounds rather heroic.”
Merlin laughed. “You know, I think I’m going to like you, Bernie. You might be good for my ego. But how about you and your trip here? I know there were occasional exchanges of senior officers before the war. I was once offered a trip to Washington but had too much on my plate to take it up. However, I must say that it seems a little odd, if not downright mad, to send an officer to us in the middle of the Blitz.”
“Luckily for me, the Blitz seems to have taken a holiday.”
“Don’t count on it. The planes could be back any day.”
“Of course they could, I know.’ He paused as a very drunk man squeezed awkwardly past their table. “To be honest, I think my colleagues in the NYPD came up with this idea so they could get shot of me for a while.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Let’s just say that I didn’t see eye to eye with them on some of their policing methods – policing methods and their habit of turning a blind eye to certain criminal activities.”
Merlin finished his pint and wiped the froth from his mouth. “I’m sorry to hear that, Bernie. We see a lot of Hollywood pictures where the police are portrayed as violent and corrupt. No doubt some are in real life. I won’t pretend that we over here are whiter than white – there are British policemen like that too, though thankfully not in my section of Scotland Yard. It’s not easy being the person who has to call out the rotten apples.”
The two politicians Merlin had seen in the crowd earlier had now managed to find a nearby table, and were complaining to each other about Churchill and the leadership of the campaign in Crete. They were speaking very loudly and the two policemen couldn’t help but listen in.
“Complete cock-up from start to finish,” said the younger of the two men. “Churchill’s losing his way. Picking the wrong generals. They are going to cock up north Africa as well.”
“But what can we do, my friend? We can’t replace him.” The second man was a dour-looking fellow with a northern accent.
“Why the hell not? I knew the man would be a disaster when he came in last year. Halifax would have been the right choice.”
“But Halifax was an appeaser.”
“And what’s so wrong with that? Since Churchill came in, half of London has been bombed to smithereens, our merchant shipping is being destroyed and we are making no meaningful progress anywhere. Perhaps appeasement would have been the right way forward.”
The northerner shook his head mournfully. “What about Ethiopia? We did all right there.”
“Against Mussolini’s lot – I should think so!” They broke off their conversation as the younger man went off to get another round.
Merlin raised his eyes to the ceiling. The American looked confused. “I thought that Churchill was a hero to people in this country.”
“Not to everyone, as you can see. To many, like myself, he is a man with acknowledged faults but who was right about Hitler throughout the 30s and is the best leader we have by a long way. To others, he was – and remains – an untrustworthy maverick who should never have been entrusted with the levers of power.”
Goldberg drained the last of his whisky. “I guess it’s the same in the States. Roosevelt has been a brilliant president but the man still has many enemies.”
Merlin raised his glass. “Another?”
“My call.” Goldberg picked up the empty glasses and ploughed his way through to the bar.
* * *
Sonia was opening the front door of the flat when Merlin got back at 11 o’clock. After their drink at the Red Lion, Merlin had taken Goldberg to a little Italian restaurant he knew in Soho. Then he’d hailed a taxi, dropped Goldberg off at his hotel near Regent’s Park and headed home. “Had a good time, darling? Where’d you go?”
Sonia was clearly a little tipsy and she half-fell into the flat. Merlin reached his arm around her and led her to an armchair, into which she slumped with a giggle. “To the Ritz. The upstairs and the downstairs bars. Very nice. Very lively.”
“What do you mean by lively?”
“Good-looking men and women, bad-looking men and women. Men hunting women, women hunting men, men hunting men, women hunting women.”
“Goodness, Sonia, I don’t know if I approve.”
Sonia punched Merlin’s leg feebly before reaching up to pull his face down to hers and kissing him passionately on the mouth. When he eventually managed to disengage himself, he walked over to the drinks cabinet. He peeked through the blackout curtains and saw the familiar sweep of the searchlights, moving back and forth over the city and river. He poured out a glass of brandy. “Nightcap, darling?”
“Sorry, Frank, but I’m too drunk.” She looked up at him with an endearing, sloppy grin as he sat on the arm of her chair and stroked her cheek. Then a look of anxiety came over her face. “Frank, I have an admission to make. I accepted a drink from a man.”
Merlin put on a stern look.
“No, Frank. It’s not that bad. I went out with Ethel and Laura. There were some French officers in the upstairs bar. A couple of them came over to us and the other girls were very keen. They are single, as you know. Anyway, the Frenchmen offered us drinks and I do not like to be a – what’s the word, I think it was used in some film we saw the other day? – a… a ‘sourpuss’, that’s it. So they bought us all a drink.”
Merlin laughed. “I’ll bet these Frenchmen were keener on you than on your friends.”
Sonia blushed. “Well, I must say, one of them was particularly dashing and keen but I made it quite clear that I was spoken for and he turned his attention to Laura. It was all very pleasant and civilised, but you know how champagne goes to my head.”
“We are all entitled to let our hair down once in a while, darling. I’ve had a few drinks too. I think I’ll give this brandy a miss. Come on, let’s turn in.”
>
“There seem to be quite a lot of Frenchmen around these days, Frank.”
“Yes, there are, my dear. And Czechs, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. Not forgetting the Poles, of course.” He winked as he lifted her to her feet.
CHAPTER 3
Saturday 7 June
London
The man’s eyes opened slowly. Someone was knocking at the front door. Not loudly but there was definitely someone there. Running a hand over his beard, he turned on the bedside lamp. He looked at the clock. “Merde!” It was four in the morning. Through a gap in the curtains, he could see it was still pitch-black outside. Rain rattled hard against the window panes. His head pounded like the drums in the Soho jazz club where he’d spent most of the previous evening. He looked around the bedroom with bleary eyes. Thank God the girl had gone. There was little as tedious as stilted conversation with a prostitute the morning after.
A sudden panic struck him and he hurried from the bed to check his jacket, which was lying on the floor in a pile with the rest of his clothes. He reached inside and his heartbeat returned to normal. His wallet hadn’t been removed and his money was still there. Then came another jolt of panic and he turned to check that his watch, the classic Jaeger-LeCoultre a happy client had given him many years ago – and that he’d managed somehow to keep from the pawnbroker’s clutches – was still on his bedside table. It was, and he calmed down again. The knocking at the door continued. “All right, all right. Attendez! I’m getting dressed. Wait a moment.”
He grabbed his dressing gown, put it on and tied the cord with some difficulty around his ample frame. For some reason, his fingers felt thick and unwieldy. Fingers that had once been the envy of his profession. He shuffled to the table where his wig lay. He set it in its place and headed to the hallway. “Who is it?”
