by Iona Whishaw
“I’ve put my address in Canada in your handbag. Please write and let me know how you’re getting on,” Lane said, but Priscilla Galloway was already facing away from her, climbing the stairs painfully to whatever future she could make for herself. Lane stayed and watched the plane take off and make a great arc, flying south and then around and away toward the northeast. She thought about Priscilla, delicate and frail, sitting in the plane with her dark glasses on, perhaps thinking of the son she’d left behind somewhere. She is the most solitary figure in the world, Lane thought. She looked at the roll of film in her hand and slipped it into her handbag. What had she meant about holding something over Galloway?
“Raúl, I don’t know how to thank you. It was such an enormous thing to ask of you.”
Raúl shrugged genially. “It is nothing, ma’am. I hate to see a woman in that position. Anyway, my sister Chela thinks the world of you. She said most of the guests treat her as if she doesn’t exist, or they talk loudly to her because they think she won’t understand them. The management likes to keep the help strictly out of sight, if you know what I mean. You made a big impression on her.”
“We have something in common, as it turns out. We both saw one of the guests meeting a man in secret, so we had something to talk about right away.”
“Listen, when you work at a swanky place like that, you see lots of stuff. She knows her job. Clean up and see nothing.” Raúl smiled. “She lives near, so I hear about most things. But she’s a good girl; she knows not to get involved. You know, she said that same guest was meeting two different men. The last time, yesterday or the day before, she got a good look at an older man who picked her up. She was pretty surprised because she thought she recognized him.”
Lane turned her eyes from the passing desert. “Did she? Had she seen him before?”
“Yeah, in the newspaper. She went and checked. A few weeks ago, a local businessman got arrested for something and his mug shot was in the paper. Funny name. Started with a G.”
“How extraordinary!” Was this important? Whatever Meg Holden was up to was very likely just a sideshow, and while deplorable or scintillating, depending on your point of view, not relevant to the death of Jack Renwick. She would be interested in what Darling would have to say about it, though—once he got over what she’d just done.
“It just goes to show you that rich people play by different rules,” Raúl commented.
Lane got out of the car in front of the Santa Cruz Inn, thanked Raúl again, and was again rebuffed when she tried to press some money on him. She turned to look at the front of the inn. It was quiet and elegant, basking in the late morning sun. In her anxiety she had half expected to find the place in an uproar, that somehow, impossibly, Galloway would have found out his wife was missing and would be striding about demanding answers, but of course, he could have no idea just yet of how his wife had disappeared, even if he was the assistant chief of police. Or perhaps he didn’t even know yet. She looked at her watch. Much to her amazement, it was just before noon. Lane was famished. She went in search of her husband. She found him by the pool reading The Grapes of Wrath.
“Good book?”
Darling looked up, unsuccessfully trying to hide his relief. “Where the bloody hell have you been?”
Lane, surprised by his vehemence, stopped and looked anxiously at him. “I can’t say. Do you mind awfully?”
Darling swung his legs around to the ground and frowned. “As a matter of fact, I do. I woke up and you were nowhere to be found, and no one at the front desk could tell me where you’d gone.”
“Aren’t you being a little overwrought? I left you a note.”
“Please don’t tell me how overwrought I can be! And you call this a note?” He pulled out the note he’d shoved between the pages of his book. Sorry, darling, I’ve just gone out to help Priscilla. Not sure when I’ll be back. Don’t worry. That ‘don’t worry’ must be the crowning understatement! It’s after noon. I woke up at six in the bloody morning and you were already gone. I was about to call the police.”
Lane stood, dismayed by his anger. It was their first real row as a married couple, and it was, she could see, really her fault. Perhaps she’d been wrong not to include him in the plans, but she’d been concerned about putting him in an awkward position with Galloway. Now she saw the outcome was much worse: she and Darling were in an awkward position with each other. She sat down next to him on the deck chair.
“I wish you wouldn’t just go off like that,” he said. “I understand you’ve been on your own and you’re used to doing whatever you want, and I even understand that it’s probably not fair, as a modern man, for me to expect you to tell me what you’re doing all the time. I just honestly don’t know if I can live like that. The thing is, now that I have more than just myself to think of, I get worried. There, I’ve said it. And you can’t deny you have form.”
“Darling, I’m so sorry to worry you. It’s not fair. I know. I wasn’t doing anything the least bit dangerous, and I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
Darling harrumphed and took her hand tentatively. “Well, now I’m sorry, too. All I had this morning was a cup of coffee, because I kept thinking you’d turn up and want to eat breakfast.”
“My poor darling. Get dressed, and we’ll eat at once,” Lane said. She linked her fingers through his and felt a jolt of wanting him as they started back to the room. How complicated it was to love someone. “You’re right. I have been so used to just going around doing things on my own without ever having to think of anyone else. I didn’t think about you being worried. I promise I won’t do things that alarm you like this anymore.”
Darling closed the door and pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Even as he succumbed, he smiled inwardly. He doubted she could ever really keep such a promise.
Feeling the relief of their first fight being behind them, they sat at their favourite table. It had a sense of privacy she particularly wanted at this moment.
Lane leaned toward him. “Look, I saw Raúl this morning, as it happens, and he told me something that might be important.”
“Who the devil is Raúl?”
“Don’t be silly. You remember, the cab driver, Chela’s brother.”
“So you went somewhere in a cab.”
“Sort of. Yes. Look. I’ll just say I asked Raúl to help me get poor Priscilla out of danger. It was perfectly safe. We drove her to the airport in Phoenix.”
“You what?”
“It was really nothing. A quick drive there, onto a plane, and off to friends.”
“Oh my God,” Darling said, shaking his head.
“And here’s what’s important,” Lane pressed on, “he told me Chela realized she recognized the man Meg Holden keeps meeting. Well, one of them. The older one. His mug shot was in the newspaper when he was arrested a couple of weeks ago. He couldn’t remember the name she told him, but it started with a G.”
Darling looked up sharply. “Griffin, I wonder? When I was at the police station that first day, I met Sergeant Martinez, and Galloway was giving him a bit of a dressing down over losing some notes on the case. He told me later it would be big for his career if he brought Griffin down. He implied that Jimmy Griffin was a local mobster. I must say, having seen Martinez at work here on the Renwick case, I can’t fully subscribe to Galloway’s comments on his incompetence. But of course, I’ve learned quite enough about Galloway now to dislike his views on practically everything.”
Lane drank her iced tea. “By the way, when I saw Priscilla, she handed me a roll of film. She said our honeymoon photo was on it, but she also said there was something she was going to use against Paul.”
Darling frowned. “Against Galloway? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But I feel like Priscilla entrusted me with it, wanted to make sure we got it developed.”
Darling was silent. �
��My hope of a carefree remainder to our honeymoon is fading fast. What do you propose to do?”
“I propose to take it to the front desk.”
“And if there are compromising pictures of Galloway?”
“Priscilla won’t have been taking pictures of him in the altogether or with other women. I’m going to go out on a limb . . .”
“Your favourite perch,” he commented.
“Haha. I bet these are pictures taken in social situations. But I do take your point. I could contact Raúl. He’ll be discreet and get them done by someone he knows. Now then, about Meg: I wonder if Griffin is the man we saw her with on the street. The one who was pulling her about. You do agree with me that the plot thickens.”
“What plot would that be?” asked Darling cautiously.
“The Meg Holden plot. If she’s out there meeting a gangster, and she’s standing next to poor Renwick when he’s felled, it seems to me two and two do add up.”
“The trouble is, they add up to five,” Darling pointed out. “Or some odder number, if we count your behaviour today. You need a connection between the gangster and Renwick. And you have two people in the slammer who are the most likely to be involved: his nearest and dearest.”
Lane sank back. “Of course. You’re right, as usual. But it is still singular, if you ask me.”
“Well, no one is asking you. But it’s certainly worth mentioning to Martinez or, under normal circumstances, I would say Galloway.”
Lunch concluded, and with Darling in a palpably better frame of mind, Lane thought it might be time to get serious about finding a present to take back to Angela. She ought to look again at the earrings she had on hold at the hotel gift shop and then find other shops in town to see what else was on offer. She had left Darling with the business of phoning Martinez. She tried not to think about Paul Galloway and what would happen when he found out his wife was gone, which he most assuredly would, sooner or later. As she was leaving the gift shop, she found Chela waiting for her, looking worried.
“Hello, is anything the matter?” Lane asked, following Chela down the hall to the cleaning area.
“I saw him again. The young one, I mean. He came to the back gate, but he didn’t come in, he just waited. Then Mrs. Holden turned up, and they were talking so I could hear everything.” Chela glanced at the door, as if fearful that someone would come out.
“Was something said that worried you?”
“They were kind of fighting, at least I thought so at first, but then he was trying to comfort her and tell her everything would be all right. But she kept saying she was frightened, that she didn’t trust him. She said he would stop at nothing if he found out. Then the man said she should run away with him.”
“Do you think she meant her husband?” Lane asked.
“I don’t know, but she did sound really frightened. Honestly, Mr. Holden wouldn’t scare a puppy. I mean, I know he’s rich, and who knows how he got that rich, but he seems really nice to her. She spends whatever she wants, and she comes and goes however she wants.” Chela managed to infuse a large measure of disapproval into the last sentence.
Lane stood thoughtfully looking at the row of oleander outside the wall. Really, this was gossip, but Chela seemed genuinely worried about it. Why?
“Chela, can you tell me what it is that worries you?”
“I don’t know. I just think it is sort of out of control, do you know what I mean? I feel like something bad could happen again. I don’t think I can really tell anyone. I’d be fired right away. After all, it’s none of my business, but after that other shooting, I’m scared. And besides, they come in and out of this service gate all the time, and they’ve seen me working here.”
It hit Lane how vulnerable Chela was. She had to protect her job and even her undocumented brother. How different their circumstances were! “I understand. Will you let me think about it? I honestly don’t know how concerned we should be. I’ll talk to my husband, but I promise not to talk to anyone else without letting you know. Can you do something for me? Can you get hold of your brother right away?” Lane wanted to give him the roll of film to develop.
Chapter Seventeen
July 10, 1944
Priscilla Barr squatted down on the station platform to button her son’s coat, noting how much nicer it was than the one she’d sent him off in the last time. An anxious woman pulling her child along to find the right carriage jostled her, but she scarcely noticed that or the noise of the crowd or the explosive little exhalations of the waiting train. She only had eyes for him.
“Am I going back to the same place, Mummy? To Dave and Paula and Trixie?” Robbie was seven now and was happy to be going back to the village. Being back with his mother had meant being alone in the flat while she went to work because the schools were closed, and he had spent his days fighting back fear and loneliness until she got home every night.
“Yes, darling. You were happy there, weren’t you?” She had to lean in to talk to him because the platform at the station was crowded with children and servicemen. Many of the children were crying and begging not to go, but some were silent, trying to be brave for their parents. A few lucky ones were going with their own mothers back to the places in the country where they had been billeted. The threat of a new wave of bombing had engendered a kind of panic that was palpable in the crowd. The stationmaster was shouting out the boarding call and the clamour intensified as parents said all the last-minute things to their children. She reached up tentatively and smoothed down his brown hair.
“Yes, Mummy. Trixie misses me. She has no one to play with.”
“I’ll see you soon, darling, I promise.” She tried to imagine that this was true so that she would not cry or think about her life without him. “Paula and Dave love you very much. They were so happy to learn that you are coming back to them.”
Her son smiled. “I love them too. Look. We have to get on. It’s important. I will miss the train.” He tugged at his little suitcase with one hand and leaned back to pull his mother to her feet. “Come on. You walk me to the stairs.”
There was a crowd at the door, but she somehow got Robbie into the train. She watched his back among all the others crowding into the vestibule, and then he seemed to disappear. She couldn’t tell one back from the other. She waited, watching the windows for a wave, but the train pulled out, and he was not among the children at the windows waving at their parents.
Priscilla watched till the smoke had cleared. So like him to use the big word “important.” He had learned that grown-up way of speaking in Hampshire. She turned, putting her hand on her chest to hold her cardigan against a sudden wind. She pressed hard as if to push her whole hand in to fill the void where her heart had been.
“Last orders!”
Sergeant Paul Galloway looked up at the publican ringing the bell and, on impulse, took the barmaid’s hand. “Just two things. Another pint, and what’s your name?” He had leaned at the corner of the bar all night, just to keep her in his sights. He hadn’t even planned on this pub, but a couple of the boys from his unit had said the barmaid was pretty, and he’d been bowled over by just how pretty she was. Blue eyes and black hair, petite and curvy. A body like a goddess. But more than that, in spite of her smiles and good-natured chatter, there was something forlorn about her that seized him with an overwhelming urge to protect her.
The barmaid slipped her hand away deftly and pulled his pint. “Drink up,” she said. “Your ten minutes is running out.”
When the publican began to push them out, he held back. “Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Keep your hair on. Look, miss. I’ll be outside. I’ll wait all night if I have to,” he called.
When she came out, pulling on her jacket and calling goodnight to the publican, the street was empty except for Sergeant Galloway.
“I still don’t know your name,” he said, tipping his cap and walking along beside
her.
“I’m not in the habit of giving it or anything else to pushy men in Yank uniforms.”
“Aha! I’m not a pushy Yank, at least I wasn’t. I started out as a pushy Londoner. Does that make it better?”
“Not much. Why are you in an American uniform?”
“If I answer that question you have to answer mine. I moved stateside and became an American. What’s your name?”
“Look, I don’t have to tell you my name. I’d like to go home now and enjoy some peace and quiet. I don’t want to be badgered.” She’d stopped and looked at him for a moment, appealing, she hoped, to his better nature.
He took her arm gently. “I have two days, miss, and you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Ever. I won’t sleep tonight or any night if I don’t know who you are, if I can’t get you to come out with me just once, so you can see I mean it.”
“How do you know I’m not married or have a bloke?”
“No ring, and you’re not a bloke sort of girl. You need a man who can look after you and give you beautiful things. If you were anyone’s girlfriend, he’d be here right now wanting to give me a hiding.”
Priscilla Barr felt something in her yield to her own longing for security, for protection, for beautiful things. The sheer struggle of her entire life came on her like a wave of exhaustion and she took in a great draught of the muggy night air.
“How do I know you’re not married?”
“I’m not married, my luv, but I sure as hell hope to be.”
Galloway didn’t sleep much that night anyway. Priscilla Barr. Priscilla Barr had agreed to go with him to a club after work the next night, and he was going to go to Selfridges and buy her the most expensive perfume in the house.
Meg Holden got out of the taxi in front of the Fox Theatre. Looking right and left, she got into the line-up for the afternoon showing of The Vigilante’s Return. She sat at the back of the house, put her purse down on the seat beside her, and pulled off her gloves. She was feeling relief. Rex had given her the money she had asked for, and it had been safely delivered. He was probably napping right now back at the villa in the inn. She’d sneaked off to see Art, who had seemed distracted and had shooed her away with a peck on the cheek. “You’re doing a good job, sweetie,” he’d called after her as she was going out the back door. But he’d stood and watched her leave. She tried not to think that meant anything.
