Angels Dining at the Ritz

by John Gardner

  ‘Who knows, or knew about this?’ Illegitimacy could still be a serious disgrace: in the Church of England an illegitimate male could not become a priest, and a girl often carried the stigma of being a bastard, or the mother of one, to the grave.

  ‘The whole family,’ Freda unsmiling, thought it should remain a secret. ‘Max did everything he could: complete gentleman.’

  ‘Practically everyone,’ Freddy explained. ‘Sammy certainly knew because Max was a straightforward young man. Didn’t hide anything. Went to his father for advice. There were other serious issues.’

  ‘Ah.’ Tommy waited for Freddy to give him the full SP — as they said in the Job.

  ‘The victim, the cleaner, Christine Betteridge, was in a violent, disastrous marriage. The husband was abusive, a difficult drunk, unstable. Murdered her of course, after a terrible fight the night before. Just came to where she was working and stabbed her to death.’

  Tommy remembered now, or partly recalled reading about the case. ‘Didn’t he try to blame someone else?’

  ‘His defence was crazy, a pile of melodramatic rubbish with just enough piquancy to make it a front-page story.’ Freddy glanced away, as though he had lost the story’s thread. ‘He accused Mrs Palmer of killing the girl. And she had no alibi. Had been on the premises all morning, alone with Christine Betteridge.’ For a second he appeared to be tongue-tied. ‘On the face of it, Paula Palmer had the opportunity, the means and the motive. In the cold light of the courtroom it looked very dodgy, enough to lure the unwary. I think Ned described it as a wrecker’s lantern.’

  ‘Motive?’ Tommy asked and got no reply.

  ‘Together Ned and young Max turned it around, called Miss Palmer as a prosecution witness, and Betteridge was found guilty, sentenced to death. A month later the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.’

  ‘Motive?’ Tommy asked again.

  Freddy contorted his face into a wry expression and gave another shrug. ‘There was motive if you believed the fantastic story told by Betteridge. It is a tedious and wild tale. Doesn’t help much.’

  ‘Try me,’ Tommy drawled.

  ‘Palmer was her maiden name, used it professionally, but she was married, still in her teens, to a wealthy man. Barnard, Eric Barnard of Barnard’s Electric Malt, a vitamin substitute which, he claimed, helped just about anyone from pregnant mothers to adolescent girls: rejuvenated the lot. Magic elixir in the twenties and thirties.’

  ‘I recall the advertisements,’ and Tommy saw in his head the big red letters Barnard’s had used, sparks coming out of a jar — She Can’t Do Without It the ad said, a little tag at the top to say who couldn’t do without it: Nursing Mother, Adolescent Schoolgirl, Convalescent Woman, Growing Boy — he can’t do without it. According to Mr Barnard few people could live without Barnard’s Electric Malt. Made a fortune from it.

  ‘Made millions,’ Helena said. ‘The girl did very well for herself.’ Gel. ‘They hadn’t lived together for some time, but they were still married then.’

  ‘And?’ Tommy asked, waiting, sitting on the arm of the sofa, so relaxed he could have gone to sleep by the look of it.

  ‘It was the old, old story,’ Freddy didn’t look him in the eye. ‘Thirty-five years difference in age. That was the real problem, she was a neglected wife, and very young. Looking back on it I think Eric had probably lost his get-up-and-go, if you follow me…’

  ‘Hard on your heels.’

  ‘The story was outrageous, pure melodrama. Betteridge claimed that he and his wife…’

  ‘…little Christine?’

  ‘…the victim. Christine had rock solid evidence that Paula Palmer was planning to skedaddle. But not until she had cut herself a large slice of her husband’s fortune. She was, Cyril said — that was his name, Cyril Betteridge, poor fellow — going off with her lover of three years, Edgar Turnivall, after she’d grabbed a ludicrous amount of cash. Part of the plan was to elope to Cap d’Antibes. I ask you.’ Huge shrug.

  Tommy gave Freddy his understanding nod: the one with a lot of comprehension in the eyes. ‘I suppose she put the bite on Paula, please excuse the terrible Americanism, I heard it in a film, “put the bite on”.’ Silly grin, what was he playing at? ‘And when she did, I presume he argued that Paula stabbed her to death in a fury.’

  In her head Suzie heard Tommy lecturing her in investigative techniques. ‘Never assume, never presume,’ he taught.

  ‘That’s how he told it in his defence. Paula must’ve flown into a rage and stabbed her. Big kitchen knife, used it for carving the Sunday joint.’

  ‘One could get a decent Sunday joint back then, 1924.’ Tommy sounded wistful and Suzie thought of the joints they still had from the Home Farm at Kingscote Grange, the family seat. ‘What was the solid evidence?’

  Freddy gave another of his shrugs. He was good at shrugs, Freddy, got them down to a fine art, angle of the shoulder just right. ‘There was a letter, supposedly written by Paula to her lover, to Edgar Turnivall Esq. The salutation was simply, “Darling”, no date, then a lot of stuff about how wonderful it would be when they went off together, mass of purple prose, bodies mingling, joined for eternity, waited for each other since the dawn of time and some sexual heavy stuff, that kind of thing. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Of course. Parlourmaid’s fiction kind of thing.’ Tommy appeared to wince, and Suzie thought ‘you old cheat’, knowing he wrote the most wonderful lovey-dovey purple prose.

  Just before the final showdown with Golly Goldfinch she recalled the note he had left under her pillow:

  For the Chinese this year may be the Year of the Snake,

  But for me it will always be the

  Year of the Small of Your Back.

  Then only last week she had found a fragment, again under her pillow:

  I bury myself in the long-limbed looseness of your body,

  And dream of time past and a glorious time future with you.

  Then Tommy asked, ‘What was the real clincher, Freddy? The fact that convinced the jury?’

  ‘No fellow called Edgar Turnivall. Nobody knew him, nobody’d heard of him, least of all Paula Palmer. Denied all knowledge. No such bloke. Couldn’t be found, figment of Cyril’s imagination.’

  ‘Paula Palmer the painter, eh. The beautiful girl Max fell for? Max had the affair and Miss Palmer — professional name — had the child. Max didn’t marry her?’

  ‘She told Max about the child the day he drove up to break it to her that they were finished.’

  ‘But he fell for her?’ Tommy asked, a shade heavily, Suzie thought.

  ‘Load of bricks. Hook, line and sinker, yes.’

  ‘You’re sure of this?’

  ‘Absolutely. Young Max was totally smitten. Went around in a daze. Talked to me about it. Talked to Sammy as well. I remembered it clearly yesterday, when we got news of his death. I thought of him, how he was at that time. It was so refreshing, he looked like a cartoon character KOed by love, or sex or whatever it was. I mean he was forever smiling and I thought I could detect a ring, like the one around Saturn, round his head with blue birds flying in it.’

  The two Ascoli women nodded, thinking their memories of the time when Max was dashing up to Norfolk at every possible chance. ‘Talk of marriage,’ Helena said.

  ‘Bought the ring,’ Freda added.

  ‘And she told him she was pregnant when he went up to tell her it was all off? Why was that, Freddy? Why did Max call it off if he cared for her so much? Hook, line and sinker, you said.’

  Freddy sighed, shook his head, looked at his shoes and said, ‘Like two peas in a pod they were: thought we could hear wedding bells. Then Max called it off. Called it off when he found there actually was an Edgar Turnivall. That would be around March, April, 1925.’

  A lot more to it than that — Tommy could feel it — a longer tale, more twists and turns. ‘Exciting,’ he said under his breath. ‘Exciting and dead dangerous, lawyer and client, bloody hell, almost like doctor and patient
.’

  ‘Where did Jenny fit into all this?’ Tommy realized he had not yet brought Jenny under the microscope.

  ‘My dear man, Jenny was about half a decade into the future: well, three, four years or so.’

  ‘Ah.’ Tommy began to do the sums in his head. A picture of all those Americans on their bicycles crossed his mind, then the aircraft lifting off from Long Taddmarten. ‘How did Max and his family take to the sudden influx of our American Allies?’

  ‘Well, Jenny of course loved it.’ Freda sounding surprised as she spoke.

  ‘Why was that?’ Suzie chipped in.

  ‘Jenny’s American of course.’ Helena in high dudgeon, as if to say these people’re from Scotland Yard. How dare they not know the basics.

  ‘One of you will be down before the inquest, I hope?’ spoken as a question.

  ‘When will that be?’ Helena still up there.

  ‘I should imagine sometime next week. We’ll need one of you to identify the bodies. Need an independent identification, even though there’s —’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Freddy trying to smooth things over. ‘We’ll be down, but I’ll do it.’

  ‘It’ll be in King’s Lynn.’

  Freddy nodded, the others were not looking at him.

  ‘Ask a silly question…’ Tommy remarked as they were walking back to the car. Now why did they suddenly get all antsy?

  *

  ‘The isle is full of noises,’ Captain Ricky LeClare said, looking up at the ceiling of the Officers’ Club, on his seventh bourbon, salting his beer first, then drinking the bourbon chaser.

  ‘The what is full of what, Skipper?’ First Lieutenant Will Truebond had knocked back his sixth bourbon and he looked at Captain LeClare as though his pilot had set him a difficult puzzle.

  ‘The isle is full of noises,’ Ricky repeated, a little louder this time.

  ‘Sure is,’ Bob Crawfoot agreed.

  ‘You know what I’m saying, Bob?’ Ricky was having a tiny difficulty with focusing, one eyelid drooping. ‘Good old Bob Crawfoot, Half man, half tepee. The isle is full of noises.’

  ‘What isle?’ Truebond finding it exceptionally difficult.

  ‘We had a teacher at school,’ LeClare spoke with care, as though his speech was negotiating a line of stepping-stones over a fast river. ‘Name of Cohen. We called him “Chunks”, don’ ask me why. Chunks Cohen, real smart guy. Shakespeare. Very good on Shakespeare. Said that Shakespeare wrote for all men and for all ages and he was right. “The isle is full of noises”, that’s Shakespeare. The Tempest.’

  ‘Shakespeare’s damned boring,’ from Bob Crawfoot. ‘Had to study a Shakespeare play in high school. Did a thing about a guy killed a king. Wife helped him. Witches, battles, killing, blood, lot of blood, all that stuff but all those words. Mac…MacFuck it was called, something.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Will Truebond grinned.

  ‘He didn’t say.’ Bob Crawfoot began to giggle.

  ‘No, s’right. Listen, this isle is full of noises with us and the RAF taking to the skies all the time, and the fucking Luftwaffe coming over dropping bombs when they feel like it. Now the isle is jumpin’: thousands of soldiers ridin’ around in their tanks, cluttering up the roads in their Brenda gun carriers, whatever they’re called — weren’t meant for it these roads — and they’re practising shooting all over the place, rehearsing bombing, throwing hand grenades, shootin’ all kinds of shit. The isle is full of fuckin’ noises and Shakespeare wrote that.’

  Lieutenant Will Truebond took a long drag on his Camel cigarette, blew out the smoke, ‘You’re talking outa your ass,’ being philosophical.

  There hadn’t been an operation today but they’d had to fly, up there training, flying in the right formation for attack, the one where you could cover every possible approach by cones of fire from the guns. That was damned dangerous as well because if you flew into cloud you couldn’t see the other guys. People had been killed practising the formation flying: left the pilot’s arms aching and his eyes red and sore searching the skies and the gunners got twitchy thinking they’d seen other airplanes when it was only a darker area of cloud, or a reflection. When people were killed on these training flights, which they often were in those days, the USAAF did not always issue a bulletin — not good for morale — kept quiet; only people on the base knew. Next of kin were told they had died serving their country. Died bravely.

  ‘If they stand us down at the weekend,’ Ricky LeClare said dreamily, ‘I think we should all go up to London, see the sights. Go as a team.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Truebond nodded, sipped his drink again. ‘Family outing. Everyone?’

  ‘The toot ensemble.’ Ricky grinned. ‘May have to live with the others soon, the word is we’re gonna have to live together, each crew and the ground crew in a Quonset. Get to know one another. Become a family.’

  ‘You mean live with enlisted men, NCOs?’ Crawfoot sounding shocked. ‘Never heard the like.’

  ‘Talking outa his ass,’ Truebond repeated, once more with feeling. ‘Anyway, we got a hop here this weekend. With the RAF guys, lot of their WAAFs.’

  ‘Well, next weekend, then.’

  *

  As they came out of Freddy Ascoli’s Knightsbridge house, walking to the car, Tommy said it all gave them something to think about.

  ‘I’d like to read the case file, Cyril Betteridge,’ Suzie said, sounding a shade cheeky.

  ‘Not yet,’ Tommy told her.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m going straight back to the Yard to ferret it out and read it. You, Susannah, are en route to Somerset House.’

  Somerset House: the Public Records Office where they kept all England’s register of those who were hatched, matched, dispatched and more besides.

  ‘To look into the Ascolis’ background?’

  ‘You’ve got it, heart. Every bit of paper they have in there with the Ascoli name on it, I want it all copied and put in a new file. And you look very carefully to see on the birth, marriage and death certificates what nationality they officially owned to, all the subsidiary forms. Then we can look elsewhere to find the legality of their cause. I want to know when they got travel documents, passports and the like, I want to know everything.’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ Suzie agreed.

  Brian would bring the car back at five. Tommy said, ‘We want no slacking, heart.’

  Suzie went in and set about the work with half her mind on what Freddy, Helena and Freda had said about Max.

  He didn’t follow anything up regarding Turnivall. As far as they were concerned this was the first time a policeman had been told that an Edgar Turnivall existed, Freddy had said: scared them rigid.

  As for Thetis, Max behaved in an exemplary fashion: owned to the child, negotiated through a solicitor for visiting rights, and provided for her. The child regularly spent time with him. When he married Jenny, she was told that there was one non-negotiable factor — Thetis Palmer. He paid for her schooling, her clothes, pocket money, took her on holiday: was a father to her.

  Jesus, Suzie thought, somewhere in these terrible, faceless killings the fact of Thetis Palmer’s existence had to fit in.

  Chapter Six

  Suzie came out of Somerset House just before five o’clock feeling well pleased with herself: a good two hours’ work done including a couple of telephone conversations above and beyond the call of duty.

  Brian was waiting for her in the Wolseley: looked unhappy and bad tempered, kept fidgeting with things, asked if she minded him smoking — as if she ever had — offered her a cigarette and lit up for both of them, Suzie sitting next to him as he pulled out into the moderate traffic.

  ‘What’s the matter, Brian?’

  ‘Nothing,’ bristling. ‘Nothing. It’s okay, Skip.’

  Which it wasn’t. You could see irritation under the surface, and she knew already. At least she could guess.

  ‘Come on, Brian. It’s me you’re talking to.’


  ‘Bloody Dandy Tom,’ grunted in an angry voice. ‘Sorry, Skip. Shouldn’t go on.’

  ‘What’s up then?’ Knew it. Brian was in the midst of a fling-a-ding, run round the park, with Molly. Nobody supposed to know, but of course they all did. Back at the Falcon, Suzie had noticed that they’d chosen rooms next to one another: they’d be creeping in and out all night; felt guilty because she’d be doing the same thing herself with Tommy. Not for the first time she asked herself why she was so much in Tommy’s thrall: bound to him with iron; steel padlocks on the iron. Well, when she thought about it in any depth, he had made a woman of her, and she supposed that she loved him: wasn’t quite certain.

  ‘Tommy dealing from the bottom again?’

  ‘Not getting on with it,’ Brian still disgruntled.

  ‘Getting on with what?’

  ‘This bloody case. Now he says he’ll have to talk to bloody Willoughby Sands again. Tomorrow.’

  ‘So we’re not going back to Norfolk tonight then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you’re missing Molly?’

  ‘What d’you think?’

  When she had first spotted what was going on, Suzie had told Tommy, who already knew. Nothing slipped past Tommy: he was a walking, talking repository of facts, true, false and too difficult. She had also said that she didn’t think Molly was that kind of girl, to which Tommy, in his infuriatingly laconic manner, said, ‘You’re all that kind of girl, heart. Give or take the dykey few.’

  Which was saying a lot for Tommy’s perception because Suzie had, since first meeting, thought of Molly Abelard as belonging to the Dykey Few (Scotland Yard Branch) and it came as a surprise to discover that she was sexually as hetero as apple blossom, if that’s what it was.

  I’ll be with you in apple blossom time, she sang in her head.

  Molly, who had suffered in her life, was the Reserve’s expert in unarmed combat and small arms, permanently cleared to carry a pistol. Recently she’d done a refresher course up in Scotland at the Commando Training Unit, where they didn’t really hold with women, except in bed or in the kitchen, no shoes on. The rumour was that the big hairy commandos had been shaken stupid by Molly, while Tommy had spread the story that she hadn’t gone to do a course at all, she had gone as an instructor.