by Amy Myers
‘Yes. The two who’ve since died.’
There was a peremptory knock at the door, and Georgia went to answer it since Margaret had left for the day. She fully expected yet another smiling would-be persuader from a gas or electricity company, but she had a pleasant surprise.
‘Charlie!’ she cried in delight.
‘Hi.’ Her cousin gave his familiar grin, the mop of black hair as untidy as ever, as he stepped inside, presenting her ceremoniously with a sticky paper bag.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘I brought you some buns for tea.’
‘Excellent.’ By buns Charlie usually meant éclairs, for which he had a sweet tooth – particularly the soggy ones at which his mother Gwen excelled. He had solved countless problems, he claimed, while her particular mix of mushy choux pastry, chocolate and cream melted in his mouth.
‘Tea in the garden?’ he suggested hopefully as she led him into Peter’s office. ‘Got something to tell you.’
‘By all means,’ Peter roared belligerently. ‘After you’ve checked out Suspects Anonymous. This monster has gone to sleep.’
‘Eclairs first.’ Charlie marched past Peter towards the conservatory and garden.
‘Done,’ said Georgia thankfully. It was ages since they had seen Charlie, since he was London-based, living in a flat in Clapham. Gwen’s longing for grandchildren looked doomed to despair so far as Charlie was concerned. Ladies appeared and disappeared, chiefly because he was wedded happily to a single life and his work on computer software. He surveyed the garden before them, and threw himself down happily on to an old-fashioned deckchair that Peter insisted on keeping as a souvenir. Georgia was never sure of what.
‘Eclairs ahoy!’ Peter made his appearance, shooting his wheelchair skilfully down the ramp from the conservatory to the lawn.
‘Not so excellent for waistlines.’ Georgia departed inside to make tea and Charlie ambled after her.
‘Luke’s a man to appreciate a fine body on a woman,’ Charlie teased her.
‘What,’ she asked to distract him from this subject, ‘are you doing down here? You didn’t come all this way to deliver buns.’
‘I was in Canterbury on a job. Wanted to tell you about my neighbour’s aunt.’
‘Don’t tell me she has a wonderful story for a book.’
‘Just you wait.’ He grinned and waited till they were outside again with the tea. Then his attention was distracted by an old Victorian chimney pot. ‘What do you keep in there?’
‘Slugs. Now tell us me about this aunt of yours, Charlie.’
‘In my young day,’ Peter observed, ‘Charley’s Aunt was a much loved farce.’
‘Today she could be the answer to your dreams.’
‘Convince us,’ Georgia said. This sounded good but things often did with Charlie.
‘She’s a widow who lives in Essex,’ he proclaimed.
‘So far so good,’ Peter retorted caustically.
‘Her husband was one Thomas Armstrong.’
‘Not Thomas Armstrong of 362 Squadron?’ Georgia cried with mixed feelings. Back to 1940 again.
‘The very same.’
‘He’s a Burglar Bill suspect, Charlie.’
‘Well, Burglar Bill’s missus came to visit her nephew, my nerdish neighbour. I met her, made the same deduction as you, when she mentioned the RAF, and told her about Suspects Anonymous and your current case.’
‘Charlie,’ Georgia said warningly.
‘Not much.’ He flashed her a grin. ‘Anyway, she never knew the Woodring gang well, because she only married her Tom in the 1950s.’
‘Is “gang” her husband’s name for them or hers? Did he go to the reunions regularly?’ Peter demanded.
‘Yes, he did, but she said he didn’t seem to enjoy the Woodring Manor ones; he preferred the general reunions.’
‘Why was that? Because of Patrick’s death?’ Georgia asked, curious despite herself.
‘No idea. She did say he was a Fairfax fan and was stunned at the death. Couldn’t believe it. She remembered the news coming through. Tom had apparently left the hotel in the late afternoon, and the next thing was a phone call from Bill Dane in the middle of the night followed by the entire Essex and Kent police forces the next day.’
‘Did she remember anything her husband had told her that was unusual about the day? They must have hashed it over time and time again. Any idea who did it?’ Her questions bubbled out.
‘Something about a spat over Fairfax writing memoirs, that’s all. Some were against it, like Tom, and some like Patrick were for it, even though he was a bit lukewarm. He told them it was being pushed upon him and he wasn’t really that keen.’
‘That’s not what Jean Fairfax said. She said the spat was about an affair that Patrick had with Alice Dane.’
‘Maybe. Can’t help. Poor old Georgia. You can’t get the staff nowadays. Have to make do with amateurs like me. This sainted aunt did natter on about some aviation club.’
‘Charlie, you’ve been holding out on us. Speak!’ she said. This was more like it.
‘Nothing very juicy. Patrick made all the 362 pilots honorary members of it. Good for prestige he said, but her Tom felt he was being trotted out as an exhibit, although it quite amused him to go. You can ring Madeleine – that’s her name – if you like. When she heard about your book, she sent me copies of a couple of photos. Arrived this morning.’
He whipped them out of his jeans pocket like rabbits from a hat, only rather more creased. One was a formal squadron photograph taken in 1940 and fully captioned; the other was of Woodring Manor. No doubt about that. It was captioned – presumably this too was copied by Madeleine from the original – ‘May 10th 1975’. Now that was something. A group picture taken outside with Patrick in the middle with the seven other pilots, probably when they first arrived or during the lunch period before they repaired to the bar. Of the pilots she could just about make out the five she had met and Patrick himself was laughing at the camera. A few hours later he was dead. A standard reunion picture, but with a difference, she thought wryly. Why didn’t Armstrong like attending it, she wondered.
‘Any help?’ Charlie asked curiously.
‘About as much as Suspects Anonymous,’ Peter informed him tartly.
‘Excellent.’ Charlie bit into his second éclair. Irony was always lost on him.
Chapter Five
It was hard to imagine this tucked-away place as an active wartime station, despite the fact that today Tangmere was hardly deserted. The car park was nearly full already, as people gathered for the reunion. The old airfield lying beyond the aviation museum’s boundary was overgrown with rough grass; in the far distance, as in West Malling, the control tower stood as a lonely sentinel to its past and to the aircraft that once roared past it. Several veteran aircraft were lined up outside the museum and Georgia supposed there would probably be others inside, but their flying days were over – as were those of most of the pilots from 362 Squadron who would be here today. Although it was only ten thirty, there were already plenty of people about, but so far no one she had recognized. No surprise there, since the squadron had had a post-war life as well as its wartime role, and wives, perhaps children too, would be part of this reunion.
‘Shall we go round the museum together to hunt down quarry, or shall we separate?’
Peter was abnormally quiet, and she had to ask this mundane question twice. Even then it took him several moments to reply.
‘Play it by ear. Let’s go.’ He turned the chair round to return to the museum entrance. ‘At least I’ll be in good company.’
For a moment she didn’t understand. Then she followed the direction of his eyes. Two wheelchair-bound visitors were making their way from car to entrance, one independent, the other being pushed by a companion. That made it easy to follow Peter’s thinking. Father in the RAF, Peter in wheelchair. Career over. That’s how he was, at least momentarily, viewing the situation. Fortunate
ly she’d dealt with these rare lapses before.
‘CID only stands for Clock In Daily.’ She trotted out his own grumble when he’d be a DCI in Stour Area police. ‘Today you’re clocking.’
He cast her a scathing glance and shot past her towards the entrance. ‘And DCI stands for Drink Coffee Instantly,’ he threw back at her.
They’d left Haden Shaw at eight that morning, as soon as Peter could be ready, and whipped easily through an assortment of Kentish and Sussex lanes to avoid the worst of the rush hour. Coffee indeed was on the priority list, and they made straight for the cafeteria. Others had the same idea, for it was already full, but she secured two cups and perched on the arm of the wheelchair.
‘Sit here, Georgia.’
A now familiar voice boomed at her as Jack Hardcastle rose to his feet. She hadn’t recognized his back view. There was no sign of Susan, so this was obviously a working day, not a pleasure trip for him.
‘Jack!’ Georgia was glad to see him and introduced him to Peter. ‘Tell us about what happens today, when we’ll be welcome to join in the highlights and when we won’t.’
‘Easy. The Big Bunfight is over lunch. At midday coaches whisk them away to a local hostelry for speeches and formalities.’
‘That’s it?’ she asked blankly. ‘We only have till twelve o’clock and then we’re turned into pumpkins?’
‘No. They’ll all be back for chit-chat and tea. Then comes a short service in the memorial garden to end the day. Only the service and lunch are closed. Otherwise you can barge in. They’re expecting you.’
‘Good.’
To Georgia’s relief, Peter was beaming. He was over his doom-laden moment. These were natural enough, but there was always the risk that if they continued they would lead to one of his periodic ‘turns’, when the nightmare of Rick’s disappearance would consume him, leaving him feverish and distraught, trapped in a black hole from which he had to claw his own way out.
‘I’d like to meet that film man – Martin Heywood,’ Georgia said. ‘It will be interesting to see what line he proposes to take about Fairfax’s death.’
‘I’ll look out for him,’ Jack promised. ‘The others you’ll recognize, won’t you? They all live in the south, so they hire a minibus to pick them all up.’
‘Oh, and Paul Stock,’ Georgia dropped in, apparently casually. ‘Will he be here?’
Jack’s face changed. ‘That bastard? He’ll be here, but I won’t be looking out for him.’
Taken aback by the vehemence of his reply, she began to apologize but he shrugged it off. ‘He and I go back a long way,’ he added grimly.
‘So that’s why you didn’t mention him when we met.’ Georgia was intrigued. What was this all about?
‘No need to. I knew you’d find out soon enough. I’d be only too pleased if you could pin Fairfax’s murder on him, but I doubt if you will.’
‘Mrs Fairfax seems to share your views.’
Jack gave a harrumph of laughter. ‘I can guess what she said. Maybe she’s right, but she would have had that straight from Patrick. No one could ever prove it now, so I doubt if Stock will shiver in his shoes if you start work on him.’
‘Money seems a possible motive at least, if Fairfax was threatening to expose him, and presumably sack him for theft. If,’ she added, ‘that was the case.’
Jack hesitated, then moved to one side to let people through, and used it as an obvious excuse to leave. ‘See what you make of him – and enjoy the show.’
Georgia watched his burly figure strolling back along the passageway towards the two large halls of the museum where the aircraft were kept. So the jury was out on Paul Stock. Did he fiddle the books, or didn’t he? It was little enough to go on, but if one didn’t pull the corks out of bottles one never got to the wine beneath.
There was plenty to see in the museum with one hall devoted to the Battle of Britain, another to D-Day, another to Tangmere’s secret wartime activities, which involved dropping agents into France by Westland Lysanders at night. In the Battle of Britain room there was an enormous collection of memorabilia, centred on the lives of representative pilots. She couldn’t see one devoted to Patrick Fairfax, though. Was that odd? No, she realized, because his battle had been spent not at Tangmere but at West Malling. He came here to command his next squadron, 348.
‘James Nicolson,’ Peter remarked as they reached the section devoted to him. ‘Didn’t you say he was the only Fighter Command VC of the war?’
‘You should have heard Jean on the subject of Patrick Fairfax and his missed VC,’ Georgia said wryly.
An elderly man standing at the next exhibit case shot a look at them. His face was wrinkled, his hair thinned, but his eyes, she saw, were sharp as buttons. ‘These gongs were all a lottery in wartime,’ he chirped. ‘The lady’s probably right. Story goes that Nicolson could never quite believe he was any more worthy of it than his mates, so he spent the rest of his war trying to deserve it. Killed in Burma flying mission after mission against the Japs.’
‘I’ve heard a similar story about Charles Lightoller,’ Peter commented.
‘Who?’ Georgia asked.
Their companion moved closer and answered for Peter. ‘Second officer on the Titanic. The most senior officer to survive. Won a DSC in the First War. Lived in Dover, and when the Admiralty wanted to requisition his boat for Dunkirk in the Second War, he insisted on taking it to Ramsgate to take over himself. I grew up nearby, and met him. He lived on till the 1950s, see? A great old sea salt, he was. I nearly volunteered for the Navy, but he said to me, “Eddie,” he said, “your head’s in the clouds, not in the waves.” So the Air Force got me.’
Eddie? Georgia made a stab in the dark. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be Eddie Stubbs of 362, would you?’
‘I am the pilot of that name.’ He gave her a mock bow.
‘You’re on this photograph.’ She produced the squadron photograph that Charlie had given them, and he peered at it.
‘That’s me. Taken the day we flew in to Malling, that was. Standing between Pilot Officer Molkar and Sergeant Tanner.’ He stared at the picture before handing it back to her.
‘We met Mr Molkar at the Woodring Hotel reunion. Do you ever go to them?’ It was worth asking even though she got the answer she expected.
‘Not me. I was only a sergeant. We had our shindigs at the Rose and Crown in Town Malling instead. Didn’t miss much, if you ask me. In fact we reckoned we had the best of it. Did our bit by day and escaped the spotlight by night.’
Time to hone in, she decided. ‘We’re interested in Patrick Fairfax’s death.’
He nodded. ‘I heard. Writing some kind of book, aren’t you? You and that film chappie who’s around here somewhere. All of a sudden, it’s nothing but Fairfax again. Like the old days.’ He chuckled.
‘We’re approaching the story from a different angle,’ Peter said mildly. ‘We’re looking into his unsolved death.’
‘Can’t help you over that. Shocking thing.’ Eddie shook his head. ‘Missed him at squadron reunions after he’d gone.’
‘You did know him, though. You flew with him,’ Georgia put in.
‘Nah. The Spits were single-seater,’ Eddie said with a straight face.
Georgia laughed, determined not to be put off. ‘I meant you saw a lot of him during the battle.’
‘Probably. Can’t really say. Vic Parr was my mate. At dispersal you were too hyped up over what lay ahead to think about the others. There was a station dance once – amazing really when you think what was going on – and someone organized that for all pilot ranks. Good for morale, I suppose. Anyway, there was Fairfax, dancing with the prettiest girl in the room.’
‘Was that Sylvia Lee?’ A leap in the dark.
Eddie took his time. ‘That’s right. Perhaps she was nothing so special, but she seemed so then. A sort of angel come down to see us through. Or perhaps it’s just the passing years have polished up her wings a bit.’
‘Didn’t you resen
t being in a different mess to the officers?’ Peter asked.
‘Nah. We were used to it. We were so chuffed when they put us up to sergeants and warrant officers, all because it didn’t look good in the papers to have us erks flying their aeroplanes. Human nature never changes, does it?’
Peter agreed. ‘Did you get on with Fairfax?’
Eddie shrugged. ‘He came across as a decent enough chap. Always bought you a drink no matter your rank, if he met you in a pub. Not done, of course, but there you go. Anyway, we needed figureheads like him. Never forgot seeing him dance with that girl. Like they’d been specially picked out by God to show us the best He could do. Better than Astaire and that Ginger Rogers.’
‘Did you stay in touch with Fairfax after the war?’
‘Yeah. Used to go to that aviation club of his. He’d trot us out like trophies, free booze, free grub. “Call me Pat,” he used to say. All pals together, only somehow you never forgot who was top dog, for all we were pals. Nice people you met there, though.’
‘Did you know Paul Stock, the manager?’
‘Certainly did. He’s around here somewhere. Saw a lot of him at the club – going through a bad time, he was, so I had quite a few chats with him.’
‘The finances?’ Georgia ventured.
Eddie regarded her steadily and chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t know.’
‘Are any other sergeant pilots from this photograph likely to be here today?’ she asked, realizing they would get no further with this line of questioning.
He took the photo back and squinted at it again. ‘There were only the four of us. Look at us, grinning our heads off. We didn’t know what we were in for then. I’m the only one of us left. Vic Parr passed away a year or two back. Still miss him. Lived in Margate, he did. Not a gong between the four of us. Tanner and Smith, being LMFs, didn’t contribute to the war effort. They were mates – well, they would be. Smith’s not in this photo. He joined us a day or two later. Vic and I reckoned we shot down a Messie or two each, but only one was ever confirmed. It went like that. Good job the beautiful game don’t work on that principle.’
