Angels Dining at the Ritz

by John Gardner

  Brian was still disconsolate when they got back to the Yard, said he’d stay with the car. Wouldn’t come up to the fourth floor. ‘If the Chief needs me he can send someone down for me.’

  When Suzie got to his office Tommy was telling a filthy story to Billy Mulligan and one of the lads called Dave.

  “‘I told my husband that we had to do something special for your retirement and he said, ‘Fuck him, give him a fiver.’ The bacon and eggs was my idea.’”

  They roared with laughter, but Tommy was po-faced and just said, ‘Well, there you are, Sergeant Mountford. What news on the Rialto?’

  She told him the news she had gleaned from Somerset House: all the Ascolis claimed to be British citizens. But she had rung the Home Office, talked to a friend she’d been at school with: no mention of Ascoli in their files, the ones on granting citizenship. Liz Parsons, the friend, beautiful, radiant with a brain the size of Middlesex and striking gold hair. The chaplain used to smile at her and quote Eliot: ‘Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.’

  ‘You’re absolutely certain?’ Tommy had his gimlet eye out, boring into her head.

  ‘I can give you the dates,’ and she started to reel them off: Antonio Ascoli died in February 1920, aged 87, and his wife, Clara, two years later, aged 80: both listed as British citizens. Sammy married Cynthia Hope-Jones, April 1895. Sammy was just 26 years old and put himself down as a British citizen as, later, were his offspring, Fillipo and Maximus. Benito married Freda Harkness in 1904: he was almost 30 — bit of a late developer that one, but definitely down as a true British citizen, as was his wife and two sons.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Sadly old Benno died in that car accident, June 1937, and is buried in Menton: British as a bulldog, and only sixty-three on his last birthday.

  ‘And Fredo, barely six months old when he was brought into the United Kingdom in 1889. Married Helena in 1917 just before he left for the Western Front, to join his squadron, flying his SE5a.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Old Freddy’s a dark horse, three times mentioned in dispatches and a DSC; nearly went west, shot down twice and walked away from the wreckage both times, something that didn’t happen often in those days. Ended up an ace, toast of the town, sent back to Blighty to tour the training squadrons and show off to the civvies in the closing months of the war.’

  ‘Brave fellow.’ Tommy frowned. ‘Brave or lucky. I wonder which?’

  Bit of both, probably. She didn’t say it aloud.

  ‘Where the hell did you get all the lingo, heart? Going west and coming back to Blighty, eh?’

  ‘The Galloping Major, who d’you think?’

  ‘Yers,’ with his funny look, nose tucked to one side, like Will Hay, schoolmaster comic, sniffing, ‘Good morning, boys.’

  The Galloping Major was Suzie’s stepfather, though she could never recognize him as such, Major Ross Gordon-Lowe DSO, big hero of the Great War, he liked to think. Her mother had married him out of desperation, Suzie’s father leaving them without the money to complete her brother James’s education. Suzie couldn’t bear the idea, yet her mum, Helen, seemed to manage all right. There had been some years of uneasy truce and it still wasn’t totally worked out between them — the Galloping Major and Suzie.

  ‘So how’d you reckon the Ascolis became British?’

  ‘There’s nothing on paper.’ Suzie gave him what her mum would’ve called an old-fashioned look, with the right eyebrow taking on a life of its own.

  ‘Suzie?’ Billy Mulligan popped his head round the door. ‘Someone wants you on the blower: female, says she’s from the Home Office, name of Liz Parsons.’

  She indicated Tommy’s phone, getting both his permission to use it and giving Billy the nod to have the call transferred. After a few seconds the phone tinkled weakly and she picked it up. ‘Mountford,’ she answered.

  ‘Suzie, it’s Weavie,’ being the name they called her at school after the T. S. Eliot the chaplain used to spout at her. In retrospect they all thought the chaplain probably lusted after Weavie — in the nicest possible way of course.

  ‘Yes, Weavie. What’s going on?’

  ‘Had rather a find, Mounty.’ Mounty — what they had called her at school, Mounty Mountford. ‘One of your Ascoli chaps had himself down as British in 1895, yes?’ Ya, she pronounced it.

  Suzie told her yes, Sammy was married that year. British subject. Mounty Mountford the moss-brained minge someone had written in one of Suzie’s exercise books from the fifth form, Va, though she doubted that the person concerned knew what ‘minge’ really meant. The nuns wouldn’t have had a clue. Everyone was convinced that the nuns didn’t go to the lavatory and they certainly didn’t know about sex. Bridget Herring, the scamp of the Upper 5th, tried to explain it to Sister Mary Anna one day and was given double detention for having a filthy mind.

  ‘Well, he wasn’t British.’ You could almost see Weavie’s grin of triumph, talking about Sammy Ascoli. ‘Though he was British by 1902. They all were.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I had another run through the files, I mean it’s a proper glory hole down in our Registry, bags and bags of filing cabinets, you can walk miles around them and I’m not exaggerating. I quickly ran through the As again — thousands of them — and there’s a letter from HM the King. 1902, King Edward VII — Bertie as we call him down here.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I can’t give you sight of it until my boss has cleared it with the Minister, but he will tomorrow. Can you drop in?’

  ‘What’s it say?’

  ‘Basically, HM wrote asking for the entire Ascoli family to be made British citizens without bothering with formalities.’

  ‘Crikey!’

  Suzie put her hand over the mouthpiece, asked Tommy when they were going back to East Anglia and he told her tomorrow afternoon.

  ‘About lunch time, Weavie, so for heaven’s sake stay in and wait for us. I’ll be bringing my boss. Detective Chief Superintendent the Honourable Tommy Livermore.’

  ‘Not Dandy Tom?’ Weavie was a dreadful snob, read all the crime stories in the Express and Mail.

  ‘Himself, Weavie. Stay in and you’ll get to touch the hem of his raiment.’

  ‘Don’t think I’ll wear a raiment tomorrow,’ Tommy said, then asked what was going on.

  ‘King Edward VII asked for the Ascolis to be made British. No formalities. It’s in a letter.’

  ‘As you would say, Suzie, crikey!’

  Of course it wasn’t as straight-forward as that, but they didn’t find out the details until the following afternoon. Had a lot to get through before then.

  ‘The King himself, eh? Wonder what the Ascolis did for him?’

  ‘Perhaps he liked ice cream.’

  ‘Probably did, but he liked the ladies better than anything.’

  ‘Maybe an Ascoli lady tickled his fancy.’

  ‘In 1902 there were a limited number of ladies in the Ascoli family.’

  Brian drove them back to Upper St Martin’s Lane and Suzie felt uncomfortable because he was morose and monosyllabic, all the way. She was concerned that he’d start talking about Tommy and herself, then dismissed the idea: whatever his moans, however chocker he became, Brian would always remain loyal to Tommy, if not to her.

  Tommy told Brian to pick them up around eight forty-five in the morning, well, didn’t tell him but sort of asked him if he minded — Tommy always terribly nice when giving an order.

  ‘Here, ’bout eight forty-five, quarter to nine, please, Brian, if that’s okay.’

  ‘Not much of an option, sir.’ He drove off without even saying goodnight. Not like Brian.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ Tommy asked as they climbed the stairs, hand in hand like a pair of sixteen-year-olds obsessed with each other.

  ‘He’s a man, Tommy. Having a sulk.’

  ‘What’s he got to sulk about?’

  ‘Path of true love and all that.’

  ‘Had a spat with Molly?’

  ‘No, you fo
ol. He’s not with Molly. Stuck down here.’

  ‘Not my fault, heart.’

  ‘He doesn’t know that.’

  ‘You mean he blames me.’

  ‘Course he blames you.’

  ‘Thinking like a bloody woman.’

  ‘No, Molly’s probably thinking like a woman. He’s probably rung her and she’s blamed him.’

  ‘I can’t help that can I? Shouldn’t have bloody joined.’

  ‘Tommy, I wouldn’t know. We’ve got precious little food in by the way.’ Afterthought.

  ‘Going out to dinner, heart. My treat.’

  So Suzie put on some glad rags: the swish dress she had bought at Swan and Edgar’s, the blue one that cost £2.18s in their sale just after Christmas, when they came back from spending that amazing time at Kingscote Grange, when his parents had actually approved of her. The blue one with the bow on the shoulder, the plunging neckline and the pencil-slim skirt: Tommy liked it, said she looked dead classy in it.

  So they went down to Bertorelli’s with its oak panelling and Italian ambience, still there even though they were at war with Italy; had minestrone, then veal on a pile of spaghetti in a rich tomato-based sauce, onions in there as well and loads of garlic — didn’t matter because they both had it.

  Tommy didn’t settle, worrying about the case.

  ‘What’re we actually doing tomorrow?’ she finally asked, bringing it to him because he wouldn’t talk about work unless she led him into it: Tommy was a gent about things like that. She just wished he would stop the coarseness, the old Scottish warming pan, and the language.

  ‘Nine fifteen at Lincoln’s Inn, Willoughby’s chambers. Rang him tonight.’

  ‘You’re going to ask him more questions?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be going if I wasn’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t you ask him on the phone?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Have to see the whites of his eyes.’

  ‘Oh, Tom, Willoughby’s not in the frame.’

  ‘Why not? Close to the family, probably guardian of some of their secrets. Course he’s in the frame. Got to talk to him about Jenny Ascoli, and the girl Thetis. Funny name for a girl, Thetis.’

  ‘Why not? Greek myth. Thetis was a sea nymph, mother of Achilles, I think.’

  In her mind she heard a phrase from some poem she’d once learned or heard — Thetis wrote a treatise… What was it? She heard music: Oh I do like to be beside the seaside. Didn’t have a clue why.

  ‘Probably why Max felt a bit of a heel.’ Tommy chuckled. ‘Achilles heel.’

  She had to tell him he shouldn’t laugh at his own jokes.

  ‘I think we’ve also got to find out about the invisible Edgar Turnivall.’

  Max called it off when he found there actually was an Edgar Turnivall.

  The waiter bent over their table and asked what they’d have for pudding. ‘There’s not really much of a choice, I’m afraid,’ shaking his head in a gesture of regret.

  ‘I’ll have the baked apple and ice cream.’ Tommy looked up at him. ‘As long as the ice cream’s Ascoli’s.’

  ‘Of course it is, sir. And for madame?’

  She’d have the same.

  ‘Won’t be able to have it after the 31st August.’ Tommy sounded like a soothsayer telling her to beware the ides of August, but they’d already gone, Suzie thought. Ides of August was the 13th, she remembered, though could never have said what the ides were. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of our mingy government. No more ice cream’s going to be allowed after the end of the month.’

  ‘Spoilsports.’ She was shocked at this news.

  ‘DCI Tait,’ Tommy said and it took a moment for Suzie to realize that his naming the head of King’s Lynn CID had nothing to do with the forthcoming ban on ice cream.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘We decided his theory didn’t wash. That it didn’t feel like killings done by vagrants on a sort of whim: unplanned.’

  ‘Right. Strikes me that it was very well planned. No spontaneity about it.’

  ‘Absolutely, so what do you think it was, Suzie? What did it feel like to you, heart?’

  She didn’t think about it, just came out with it. ‘An execution.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ Agreeing. ‘Exactly. As though old Pierrepoint had come in and taken each of them, stood ’em over the trap, then worked the lever — in this case a pair of triggers.’ Tommy nodded. ‘Wiped the smiles off their faces, eh?’

  She thought that Tommy could be freezingly cold-blooded at times, thinking of Max Ascoli lying on his back on the grey stone slabs, the floor of the hall at Knights Cottage, his face wiped clean of everything, pitted with 12-bore shot.

  ‘So why,’ he went on, ‘would an experienced police officer hazard a guess at it being a sudden passing fancy: murder on the spur of the moment, when it so obviously isn’t?’

  When they finally left, going out into the street — the waiter pleased with the tip Tommy had given him — darkness was just starting to creep across London, nights beginning to draw in even with double British Summertime. Ten o’clock. A couple of weeks ago it wasn’t even dusk until around 10.45 p.m.

  Tonight the bombs started to fall around eleven thirty. A shock because there hadn’t been any raids for a while.

  ‘Damn.’ Tommy put down his book: they were like an old married couple now, sitting up reading their books until one or the other wanted the lights out: he was reading Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, while Suzie had just started chapter one of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca: Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

  ‘Shit!’ whispered Suzie, the girl who wanted Tommy to tone down his language.

  As the siren wailed so they heard the first two whumps, bombs falling, not far away, somewhere the other side of Charing Cross, down towards the river, she thought, not far away at all. Windows rattled and they felt the bed tremble, sound of fire engines and in the sudden comparative silence the odd drone of aircraft: German aircraft with the engines unsynchronized, a strange throbbing, double-throbbing sound, once heard never forgotten.

  ‘You want to go down?’ Tommy asked, meaning to the shelter in the building’s basement, or further afield to the Underground, the Tube.

  ‘Not really. I’m comfy here. Don’t want to get out. You?’

  ‘Not fussed.’

  Suzie couldn’t recall the last time they went down to the shelter. If he had asked, she wouldn’t have minded going up on the roof, see the bombs as they burst, wonderful splodges of crimson, lighting up the place for miles, for a minute perhaps, then the glow as buildings started to burn. Suzie liked the bombs: found them exciting.

  ‘Know what your father told me, Tommy? The belted earl?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Said he’d been down to the village shop. Bought a big packet of oatmeal, for the porridge. When cook opened it up there was a special competition thing inside.’

  ‘They’re always having competitions: the oatmeal people.’

  ‘Yes, but this one had a finishing date of July 1937.’

  ‘He tells that to all the girls.’

  ‘Do the windows, Tom.’

  He grumbled but got out of bed as three more bombs came down, again off by the river, then another two. He slipped behind the curtains and raised the sash windows, three of them, lifting them about ten inches. You always opened the windows slightly, guard against the glass shattering if they had a near miss.

  Back in bed he switched off the bedside lights. ‘Let’s have a bit of a cuddle, heart.’

  ‘Thought you’d never ask.’

  So they had a bit of a cuddle while bombs came down over the next hour, fire engines and ambulances drove through the night, the ack-ack thudding away hardly hitting anything, and above them the Heinkels’, Junkers’ and Dormers’ engines throbbed, two beats to the bar. Unsynchronized.

  Well, eventually one thing led to another.

  ‘I love that little thing you do when we both know we’re on the right wavelengt
h.’

  ‘What? This?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Sukey. Yes. Oh, that’s so nice. Oh.’

  ‘Oh! Oh!’

  ‘Herrrooooooooooh!’

  ‘Ouf!’

  *

  Golly Goldfinch was called Two-Faced Golly Goldfinch because, looking at him head on, he seemed to have two faces. Birth defect: a cleft running at a slight angle from his receding hairline to the bridge of his nose, then down his nose so that it kinked; put one nostril higher than the other, right higher than the left in a sort of lightning mark, like a rune. Then the cleft ran down through his lips and his chin, splitting the face in half. It was fairly hideous and made it very difficult not to be recognized. Instantly identifiable. He wondered how Lavender would keep him hidden if she got him out of Saxon Hall. He used to manage it in the old days, before they arrested him. It was down to that lady policeman, the bitch. Spoiled everything now the world had seen his picture.

  Tonight he lay in bed in the Ward: had only taken half his medicine. These screws — not screws, nurses — were lazy, didn’t stand over you and watch you take your pills, two yellow and two blue. Tonight he’d only taken one of each. Aunt Harriet — Lavender really good at dressing up — had told him to begin tonight so he’d have some in reserve; he could expect the postcard any day, she’d said. When he got the postcard it was a signal.

  The only good thing about the medicine was that the creatures didn’t come any more, the huge spider-like things that would creep across the floor towards his bed. The woman didn’t come either, the one who told him where to go and who to kill, whispered it in his ear. Dr Cornish had told him he wouldn’t hear the voice in his ear any more once he began taking the medicine. Wait, he started to think, something wrong: very wrong. He had known who it was, who told him where to go and who to kill. Just out of reach in his head. Maybe taking less of the medicine would bring it back to him. The name, who the lady was.

  The important thing was to get away — got to get that right. Golly had it all straight in his mind, knew exactly what to do. Bit of soap and a bit of baccy, make himself sick. Get them all worked up about his health. That’s the way to do it, what Mr Punch said, Judy going Oh-dear-dear-dear, using the swizzle.