by John Gardner
Tommy had just been introduced to the Commander of US Forces, Long Taddmarten, General Pritton, clasping him by the hand when Suzie almost bumped into him, almost sending him flying. ‘Over there, Chief. Across the room. The girls, that Queenie and probably Lavender as well,’ and she was away with Dennis, bobbing and bucking to the sound of ‘Tuxedo Junction’.
Tommy followed her gaze and it was as though his eyes had the power of a zoom lens, binoculars. He seemed to see the girls’ faces in close-up, like at the cinema, Queenie with the blonde hair falling to her shoulders and the other girl, the one they had searched for, for so long, changed, shorter now with the deep and lustrous red hair. Tommy’s brain stripped away the hair and the lipstick, the glasses and the shape, the height and carriage and there was Lavender looking angry and mouthing off at the other girl, Queenie, he thought, Queenie MacSweeney.
‘How do I arrest a couple of civilians in your hangar, General?’ he asked, calmly, no flap, hardly raising his voice but knowing that time was possibly limited because he had the feeling that Lavender had connected with him, knew what was going on.
‘You don’t arrest anyone in my hangar.’ The General was a bluff, hearty man who, one thought, would have been happier on a horse, somewhere out west, riding the range. ‘What we do is, we arrest them, then we have a parlay about if you can take ’em off the base, ’cos this is United States territory, sir. What you want ’em for anyway?’
‘Murder.’ Tommy still didn’t raise his voice. ‘They killed a nurse/warder from an institution for the criminally insane.’
‘You betchum.’ The General raised his voice. ‘Major Bragg?’
‘Sir?’ The Provost Marshal, controlled, but only just.
‘Do what this gentleman requires. He’s a police officer.’
‘Sir.’
And that’s when it stopped being low-key because the band finished playing and the dancers began to applaud just as Dennis and Suzie arrived in front of Queenie and Lavender, Suzie stepping close to Lavender and starting to say that she was arresting her: ‘…Rosemary Lattimer…I arrest you in the name…’ and Major Bragg’s whistle screamed out across the building, summoning four big snowdrops just as Lavender was screeching that her name was ‘…Daphne Strange…and I won’t…’ while Dennis was closing in on Queenie and Suzie grabbed at Lavender’s hair and it all came away in her hand and everything began to get dead dramatic as the snowdrops took over and Tommy was shouting at Suzie and Dennis to stand back.
‘Better than the pictures,’ Raleigh Ridsdale murmured.
‘Now,’ Tommy said with a huge smile, more of a grin actually, ‘what’s Lavender getting so worked up about?’
Chapter Sixteen
They took the two girls to the Guard Room, where they were shackled — the whole thing, wrists, ankles and the chain around the waist — and suffered other indignities, put in the cells, refused legal representatives and told they would be formally charged with murder.
It was in the Guard Room that Tommy had the parley with General Pritton and the Provost Marshal, Major Bragg. The parley took longer than anyone expected because Major Bragg was, to put it mildly, a shade hidebound and appeared to resent any proposition that did not follow the strict process laid down by US military law.
These two girls, women, had been arrested on what was technically United States territory; Major Bragg had no charges he would, or could, bring, and it was his view that they should be immediately set free. Tommy gave Molly and Dennis the nod and they slipped out. Tommy then said, ‘Okay, let the girls go.’
So they did, escorted them off the premises.
Molly and Dennis arrested them as soon as they stepped through the main gate where everyone had to hang around waiting for Brian and the Doc to bring the cars up while Tommy rang King’s Lynn nick to arrange cells and interrogation rooms.
So now, round midnight, with a host of telephone calls made to numbers all over the country, Tommy and Molly sat down opposite Lavender, who still maintained that her name was Daphne Strange and had a blue National Registration Identity Card — the one all civilians carried — in that name, but registered at a fictitious address in Newmarket.
‘I don’t know nobody by the name of Adam Arthur Goldfinch, never ever heard of him,’ she stated with a coarse brashness, surprising even Tommy who thought she was a more sensible type of criminal who’d see they’d got her bang to rights. ‘Should’ve known,’ he said later, ‘after all she was the one who programmed Golly to kill. Ruthless little bitch.’ He thought to himself. Why had she been the cause of Golly’s escape? Must have had a reason. Lavender wasn’t the kind of woman who did things just for the hell of it.
‘But, Lavender, I know who you are,’ Molly Abelard told her. ‘We’ve spoken before, when you were a tom working near Rupert Street, down the Dilly, back in 1940. We also knew you had a house in Camford, Dyers Road, where you lived under the name of Rosemary Lattimer.’
‘You’re mixing me up with someone else.’ Lavender putting up the shutters and flatly denying everything.
‘You’re saying that you’re not Rosemary Lattimer, also known on the street as Lavender, Daphne Strange, Midge Morrison and Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all?’
‘Corse I am. And who’s Tom Cobleigh when he’s at home?’
‘Man in a song, like Little Sir Echo.’ Tommy speaking without a trace of humour.
‘So you didn’t go tomming out of those rooms we finally raided off Rupert Street.’
‘Never.’
‘And you didn’t keep Golly Goldfinch as your minder?’
‘Never. Who’s Golly Goldfinch?’
‘You’re a silly girl, Lavender,’ Molly said, looking exceptionally stern.
‘Tomorrow, then.’ Tommy sighed. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll have the two other Nurse/Warders from Saxon Hall over to identify you and Queenie as the people who took Golly off in an ambulance, then promptly disappeared into the night. We’ll do a couple of line-ups, identity parades…’
‘They’re never going to…’
‘Recognize you?’ Tommy laughed.
‘Different wig, a bit of this and that?’ Molly still didn’t smile. ‘Lavender, it’s not going to be a problem for us, we’ve got you trussed up like a Christmas turkey as it is. All we need to know now is which of you stiffed Nurse/ Warder Edgehill, because if we don’t get the truth about that you’ll be going for that nine o’clock walk with Mr Pierrepoint, both of you up the dancers wearing the hemp necktie.’
Almost certainly they’d both be hanged for the murder anyway, but Molly was all for fostering a tiny ray of hope if it helped the case along. Once they’d got Lavender’s identity sorted they’d have a pile of serious charges they could bring: charges going back to the days when Lavender was setting Golly Goldfinch loose to kill her selected targets.
In the meantime, in another room in the King’s Lynn nick, Suzie Mountford and Dennis Free were questioning Queenie, using shrouded threats and claiming this was a matter of routine, that Lavender had already coughed the lot and it was simply a matter of time before they’d be brought in front of the beak, and the tumbril of justice could start rolling.
But Queenie was as obdurate as Lavender, denying everything, and remaining silent for much of the time, punctuating the questions with surly demands to see her brief, wanted her lawyer.
Then, just after quarter past midnight, DCI Tait went into the interview room being used by Tommy and indicated that he’d like a word in private.
‘We’ve had a bit of a breakthrough from Newmarket, sir.’ Very correct with Tommy, not rocking the boat, out here in the corridor.
‘What kind of breakthrough?’
‘A DI in Newmarket knows the girls, knows where they were living under the assumed names, though he didn’t know they were assumed: Midge Morrison and Queenie MacSweeney. They hauled a magistrate out of bed, got a search warrant and just tossed the place. Ashes of Goldfinch all over it. Clothes, some notes, the full moment.’
‘Then I can be
on my way while the rest of the team go about the investigation.’ He explained he had to be away on business concerning the Ascoli murders. ‘Off for a few days, I fear, DCI Tait.’ Pause. ‘Eric.’ He turned away with his tongue in his cheek, called him Eric. Then he looked back and caught the sneaky expression of triumph on Tait’s face.
‘I hear you didn’t like the way I spoke to you in front of WDS Mountford.’
‘I’ve put my concerns in writing, sir.’
‘Yes, and I’ve talked with the Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Eric. It’s all been dealt with, but I can reopen it again if you like, bring your shortcomings into the daylight.’
‘Your decision, sir.’
Right berk, Tommy thought.
‘Yes, well we’ve got to get along for the time being. Need your co-operation, Eric.’ He gave his horrible smile. ‘Faynites?’ he asked, the old grammar-school word for truce.
Tait nodded grudgingly, ‘Faynites.’
Tommy flashed his horrible smile. ‘Okay, let me put you in the picture. I have to be away for a couple or three days. I’m leaving WDS Abelard in charge — very responsible woman, knows what’s what. I’d be grateful if you could uncle her along. She’ll need to have a couple of identity parades, establish the two little totties in your cells are in fact the women who got Golly Goldfinch out of Saxon Hall — and killed a Nurse/Warder to boot. At the same time she’ll be looking for Goldfinch, and dealing with the murder investigation in Long Taddmarten. Lot on her plate while I’m off attending to other matters.’
There was a longish pause while Eric Tait appeared to be making up his mind whether to co-operate or not. Finally he acquiesced. ‘I’ll do all I can to assist, sir.’ Knew which side his bread was buttered, though still couldn’t meet Tommy Livermore’s eye.
‘Good man. Thank you.’ Magnanimous in victory, just like he’d been taught on the playing fields. ‘Keep an eye out for Goldfinch as well. He’s a scary type. Very scary. You don’t want to bump into him alone on a dark night. I know. I’ve done it.’
Having settled the current problems, Tommy now sought out Molly, who was all for going on and interrogating Lavender yet again, yearning for what she regarded as the good old days, waking Lavender just as she’d got off to sleep, get her disoriented then put her on the rack, thumbscrews, or pieces of rubber hose to inflict pain.
‘No can do, Molly,’ Tommy told her, then went through what he wanted her to deal with while he was away — a daunting amount on her shoulders.
‘Nothing else I can do for you, Chief? Would you like me to go out on a bombing raid with the Yanks perhaps, or mount some kind of commando operation along the French coast? I could always do it in the evening when we’ve finished interrogating the girls, doing the house-to-house in the village and looking for the Ascoli killer, and Golly Goldfinch of course. I mean, you know us, Chief. No problem. Work round the clock.’
‘Glad to hear it. Just share the load with the rest of the team, and keep Billy Mulligan informed at the Yard.’
‘You’ll be calling in though, won’t you, Chief?’
‘’Fraid not, Molly. I’m going to be out of touch. Essential. Good idea if you telephoned Suzie from time to time…’
‘She’s not going with you?’
‘No.’ Clipped and final.
‘Can’t you give me a hint…?’
‘No. Out of the question. In the fullness of time, Molly. And for heaven’s sake keep an eye out for Goldfinch. Good idea to alert the aerodrome, Yanks and the Raff.’ A flash of concern flicked over his face. ‘The girls are here, so maybe Goldfinch’s here as well.’
*
Golly’s nerves jangled, fizzed and trembled through him as he lurked in the shadow of one of the Quonset huts across from the hangar where the music had come from, and where Queenie had gone.
He had been away, skulking and scouting in the dark, came back in around twenty minutes to a spot close to where they’d parked the car: lots of ideas for devilment, some for theft, a lot concerning illegal entry. Then came the commotion and he was like a man suddenly rolled over by an attack on the nervous system, confidence and amusement sucked from his soul, control removed from his body.
He could feel the strings under his skin, deep in his flesh, strands being stretched to breaking point, pains in his head and the sense that he was going to explode. He was being wrenched apart and the madness seethed in his bones, through his arteries and veins, his whole body hostage to howls of agony. He hadn’t taken his medicine for almost three whole days now, so the calmness had left him: waiting for the voices to return telling him what to do, who to attack.
He had heard the hubbub from inside the hangar, wondered if it was real, the loud music stopping, petering out, ragged, the shouting and the doors opening and, in the sudden shaft of light from inside, he’d heard and seen Lavender and Queenie, heard the yelling, and for a brief second, saw the lady policeman caught with them in the quick streak of light. More screaming and the shuffling sound of feet as they were all marched off. He began to be concerned and anxious because all this puzzled him, not being certain sure whether this was fantasy inside his head, or reality taking place, here and now.
They’d been hustled off by the police and the soldiers, Lavender and Queenie: his friends, his saviours. What to do? Oh, what to do now? He wanted to weep. It was like his mother dying all over again.
It had been wonderful for a few minutes, hearing the music and jigging away on the grass, in the black shadows: jumping around to the blare of the music: dancing. Then the clamour, the cries and yelps, the girls being led away. Didn’t like that, no.
‘Shit,’ Golly said softly. Then again, ‘Shit.’
Slowly, the calm started to flow over him and he knew what to do. He smiled in the darkness, chuckled, took a deep breath and remembered other times when he had been alone and survived: in the dark.
His back against the outer wall of the hut, Golly began to edge towards the rear, glancing up at the windows to make certain this was the one. Inside there was no blackout, no beds or signs of life like there were in the other huts. Across the hardstanding being used as a car park the music started again from within the hangar: ‘St James’ Infirmary Blues’. Golly knew that, knew the words, whispered them as he moved-
‘Went down to St James’ Infirmary,
To see my baby there,
Stretched out on a long white table,
So cold, so stark and so bare.’
Giggle, hold back, move. Someone’s baby would be laid out on a long white table before he was done with them. Lavender had told him she wanted the lady policeman and the honourable copper, the Thomas Livermore, out of it, ‘dropped down a well and left,’ she’d said. That was okay. He’d do that, do it for Lavender and he’d begin by having a little sleep in the empty hut.
He tried the door and it opened, creaking a bit. Creaked and opened wide. Golly went in. No light, no blackout and nothing but bare boards on the floor, bit of newspaper spread over it. Didn’t mind the smell of damp wood and the scent of emptiness.
He was in a small room that led through another door into the long room that was the larger interior of the hut. He’d stay here, in the little room, curl up in a corner and think about what he would do. He’d be okay because he’d always been okay, ’cept when they’d caught him, but he’d pay them back for that.
Golly curled up in the corner: used to sleeping rough. Before, when they hunted him they’d followed him with soldiers and police, the freezing earth hard as iron, water like a stone, Christmas time and they’d even followed him with aeroplanes. He recalled sleeping in a bitter ditch, and then, when the aeroplanes came, in a hunter’s hide. He’d still escaped, walked out, got to London and holed up. He’d do it again, but not so far. He’d get off the aerodrome, find the murder house that Queenie had shown him. He’d get in there somehow and wait. The lady policeman was bound to end up coming there because that’s where they were doing their detecting. That’s what Queenie had said
, so that had to be right.
He didn’t remember all of before when he had so cheekily survived, dodging, ducking, diving out of sight. For instance he didn’t think about all the people who’d helped him, driven him to London, lodged him safely in an unknown flat, fed him, looked after him. In memory he’d done it all by himself.
He rolled up his jacket, used it as a pillow, slid off into sleep and to the good dreams of when he’d had the power, when he’d crushed the necks, killed with the wire.
*
It was almost four in the morning when Brian pulled up in front of the Edwardian apartment block in Upper St Martin’s Lane and Suzie and Tommy were able to climb out, stretch their legs.
They even invited Brian up to Suzie’s flat, have a cup of coffee. Brian was silent as the proverbial, could be trusted but didn’t like going too far, never took advantage of knowing things that were secret. ‘I’ll kip down here, Chief. If it’s all the same to you.’ Chose to sleep in the car.
‘I’ll bring coffee down for you, Brian,’ Suzie said, voice brighter than she felt.
‘No,’ Tommy said as he walked her to the door. ‘No, Suzie. Once inside you’re not moving out again unless it’s with me when I’m back. Remember that walking disaster, bloody Goldfinch, and heaven knows what else there is out there. When you get in your flat, you aren’t moving until I return, not even for Hitler, right?’
‘Right, Chief.’ Imitating Molly who she always thought was his biggest fan, nearest to her of course; but then she wasn’t really sure about herself any more — where she stood; what she wanted.
In the flat, Tommy, tired and weary, checked every room, looked under the beds and behind curtains, flushing out bogeymen, making sure the windows were still locked, especially the one leading out to the fire escape at the back of the building, their undoing at another time.
Suzie had boiled the kettle by the time he’d finished his sweep, boiled the kettle and found they were almost out of milk. Eventually he carried a cup of cocoa, not coffee, down to Brian, going through all their old safety routines, locking the front door behind him, pausing at each landing, checking out the dark corners in the main lobby.
