by Alan Hardy
The other events of 1940 had disturbed her. The aerial battles over Britain, the determined effort of the Germans to crush her own country, caused her to examine her conscience and motives.
She didn’t care about Freddie. She was unmoved by the outcome of dogfights over Southern England in which no doubt he was involved. All through that long, hot summer of 1940, if she ever did picture in her mind a warrior of the skies dressed in greyish-blue, it wasn’t her plump, sweaty old husband, it was a slimmer, blue-eyed version much nearer her heart.
As the summer passed into autumn, and autumn into winter, and 1940 into 1941, with her realization that the series of wonderful letters coming her way were coming from another man, she did pause. She did wonder. She did have doubts.
But it was too late to do anything about it.
She did cut down on the messages she sent by wireless transmitter.
She waited. She waited to see what would happen.
Invasion by Germany, or surrender by Britain, no longer seemed imminent. That was true. Germany had been checked. The unending series of victories had come to an end.
But the odds were still on Germany.
She stubbornly clung to the secrets in her head. They were too much part of her. That was her life. She had to hide what was there.
Matthew, even early in 1940 when 287 Squadron were still based in Scotland, had managed to squeeze and shove himself into her head. Following Freddie’s death, and her proving that Matthew was the writer of the letters, he became the most important thing in her life.
He became an integral part of that part of her mind which dwelt in the dreamy world of love, and he also, paradoxically, became a scary intruder into that part of her mind where resided her secret life as a German agent. The young man who had liberated her from a world of fantasy into a real world where those fantasies could be realized, was the same man who, in picking over that other part of her mind, might reveal it to the world, and destroy her.
She didn’t know what to do. Should she bide her time, and say nothing? Just wait for Germany to win the war? Or Britain to win the war? Or should she speak to Matthew? How would he react? Would he be so shocked that he would turn his back on her forever? Or did he already know everything? And if he did, what did he plan to do? And why had he decided to do what he had done so far?
It was the same question as ever. What was Matthew up to?
And there was another question. Did he have the type of feeling for her which could only be expressed by one word? Love?
Or did he want her destruction? And, if he did, what was she going to do?
The Germans had provided her with two pieces of equipment smuggled into the country. A radio transmitter, kept hidden up in her loft. And a single-action revolver. Kept in her bedroom.
She shuddered to think of it, but would she ever be able to use it against Matthew, if the alternative was her own death?
13
Next morning, while she was sitting idly in the breakfast-room, sipping her coffee, James brought in the telephone, wheeling it along on its table, thanks to a long extension lead.
“Flight Lieutenant Manfred on the phone, Madam.”
“Thank you, James.”
Despite her languid air while taking the receiver from James, she had immediately tensed up.
Now what?
“Hello, Matthew.”
“Hello, Fiona.”
“How was the meeting yesterday?”
There was silence.
“How’s London bearing up?”
“Fiona, something totally unexpected has cropped up.”
The edgy tone of his voice scared her.
“What is it?”
“Freddie is back.”
“Freddie is back?” she echoed.
“He wasn’t killed.”
“What do you mean, he wasn’t killed?” she asked, half like a senseless parrot, and half like an angry wife reacting to very unpleasant news.
“I’ll explain when I’m there. An hour or so.”
He sounded breathless. Anxious. Yet there was something else in there too. She could imagine a smirk forming on his sweet lips. Yes, that was it. Something akin to amusement in his tone.
“But his plane came down over Beachy Head!” she insisted.
“No, I’ll explain when—”
“He went into the drink, Matthew. His body’s twenty fathoms below.”
“No, that was Wentworth.”
“Wentworth?”
“Flying Officer Wentworth.”
“I see…”
The penny had dropped.
“In an hour,” he reiterated.
He rang off.
That jumbled cacophony of the receiver clinking against the phone and clicks cutting the connection really had a terminal feel.
A phase had ended, and a new phase was beginning. Exactly what, time would tell.
Fiona became fixated on one idea. Or, rather, resolution.
There was no way she was going to allow that gruesome monster, back from the dead, into her bed again. Not after she’d savoured the real thing.
Maybe there was an alternative, and much more sensible use for that single-action revolver stashed away in her wardrobe upstairs.
By the time Matthew got there, she’d become much more nervous, and clung to him rather shamelessly as they stood nestled together in the centre of the drawing-room and its opulent splendour.
She had hold of both his hands, stroking them quite feverishly, arms stretched down by their sides, her body indecently pressed right up against his.
Restless and perturbed, her face one moment was held against his cheeks, the next rubbed against his neck; her lips ran along the skin of his face or neck like a wasp which couldn’t settle but which wouldn’t let go. She planted kisses on him, more like little gasps of air breathed on to him.
She happened to turn to her right, and saw herself and Matthew both reflected in the large, gilt-framed standing-mirror by that wall.
She stepped back slightly, detaching her body from its exaggerated closeness to him. She still clung on to his hands, but the increased distance between them, forming triangles between their arms, meant their clasped hands became a means of keeping her away from him, rather than pressed close.
After all, she thought, she didn’t want to be seen as a hussy. Neither by Matthew, nor by herself. There were certain standards of decency and reputation she would always adhere to.
“What’s going on, Matthew?” she asked, looking quite tearful, and backing off more and more.
“Freddie was shot down over Northern France, and hid out as well as he could. He was helped by the locals, I think. They gave him shelter, and slowly he was moved to the Spanish border, shifting from farmhouse to farmhouse. Then he was taken over to Spain by a guide. He was picked up there by the Spanish authorities. They have a standard rigmarole to go through there, and eventually he was returned to Blighty.”
“When did he get back, Matthew?” she asked, her face paler and paler.
She was backing off more and more, and their hands released their grip of each other, like lips disentangling after a kiss.
She took a step or two backwards to an armchair, and sank on to it.
Matthew plonked himself down on a sofa, and they sat facing one another, both made to feel awkward by the space created between them.
“A day or two ago,” he answered vaguely.
“Is that why you went to London yesterday?” she asked, shooting him a suspicious glance.
“Maybe.”
She glowered at him, rubbing and rubbing her wrist.
He stared back at her: a distressed, even manic figure dressed in a demure, long-sleeved, white blouse and grey skirt. He swallowed.
“Secrets again, Matthew?”
He smiled.
“Why should you go to see him?” she asked, a look of churlish frustration etched on her weary face.
Even the movement of her lips—plaintively throbbing
—seemed accusatory.
“Who said I went to see him?”
“Matthew,” she called out, looking desperate, “how come everybody told me he’d been shot down over Beachy Head?”
“Mistaken identity, Fiona. As simple as that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s true it was his Spitfire which crashed on the cliffs at Beachy Head. It was just about identifiable. The pilot had come down in the sea. We assumed it was Freddie. But it was John. John Wentworth. They’d switched planes at the last moment before taking off. In all the confusion, I don’t suppose anybody noticed, remembered, or thought it of any consequence.”
“So, Wentworth went in the drink, and into the hands of his Maker, and Freddie ended up being shot down over Occupied France?”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” said Matthew, looking blankly back at her. “Is this another interrogation?”
“Is he coming here soon?”
She looked worried, grimacing, and wiping away a tear or two, or only imagined ones, from her left eye.
“Not for the moment.”
“Why not?”
“He’s being debriefed in London.”
“Debriefed?”
“Yes. At a safe house.”
“A safe house? What’s going on, Matthew?”
“We need to get his full story. You know, he was probably helped by members of the Resistance. He might be able to relay some useful information to us.”
“To us?” she echoed, pointedly
“Why, yes. Us. The British.”
“But you still haven’t said why you’re so involved,” continued Fiona. “You weren’t even in his squadron at the time. If anything, Squadron Leader Jackson should be the one checking out everything. And, come to think of it, shouldn’t I have been informed before you? I am his wife, after all.”
“And I’m just his wife’s lover?” he stated, with a wry smile. “Why, would you like to see him?”
“No, thanks.”
“You won’t need to for quite a while, I think.”
Her eyes sparkled instinctively. She brought her hands together on her lap, looking so prim and proper in her attire and deportment, but near hysterical in the twitching of her face, the distraught abandon of her eyes, and the trembling of her lips.
“Why not, Matthew?”
“I…”
He seemed lost for words, and shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.
“Just believe me, Fiona.”
“And you and me, Matthew? What does it mean for us?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
It was like cold steel had stabbed her through the heart.
She looked down, feeling the need to hide from him for a while.
“What about the telegram he sent me?” she asked, raising her pale face. “What was that all about?”
“From what he told me…I mean, us… It seems John Wentworth had been talking to him a lot those last days. He would often ask Freddie to swap planes with him. He seemed nervous. Jumpy, you know. Freddie got the idea he was fearful for his life. You remember, in the telegram it said strange things were going on, and—”
“It didn’t say strange, Matthew, it just said things were going on.”
“What’s the difference? Obviously, Freddie was thinking of John Wentworth when he sent the telegram. He was worried, he said. Fearful. You remember? Fearful something was going to happen. He was confused. Probably Wentworth being so scared affected him… That fear got transferred to Freddie. They were quite close, and both of them, I remember, were always a couple of old women when it came to combat… I’m no hero myself, but those two…”
“He told you all this?”
“Initially he just thought Wentworth had become fixated about his aeroplane. You know, it can happen, you lose your mind after a while… In the last show, they called it shell-shock. He maybe thought if he flew that plane he would buy it, you know, that plane had his name written on it, he was doomed if he flew it… But eventually, and looking back now, Freddie thought it was something else.”
“What?”
“That Wentworth was convinced he was going to be deliberately killed.”
“You mean, murdered?”
“Maybe. But that was just nerves, the sort of ideas you get from combat fatigue.”
“It was just sheer coincidence that he did end up being shot down by another Spitfire, you think?”
Fiona stared ahead for a full minute, now calm, restrained, pensive. Even some colour returned to her cheeks. A youthful, rosy glow.
“Is that what it was, then?” she asked, turning her face full on to Matthew. “It’s not what I said before, then? It’s not that somebody deliberately shot down Freddie’s plane? The truth is that it was John Wentworth who was always the intended victim?”
“But it was Freddie’s plane which was targeted,” countered Matthew. “That would suggest—if one accepts your suspicions about the incident—that Freddie was the intended victim, and the perpetrators of the murder didn’t know about the last-minute switch, and so they killed poor Wentworth. And, by sheer chance, Freddie himself was shot down over France.”
“That’s still possible, of course. Or it could be the perpetrators of the murder—as you call them—knew of the switch, and targeted Freddie’s plane because they knew Wentworth was piloting it.”
“And how would they know that?” he snapped back, looking closely at her.
“It might have been common knowledge that they swapped planes. After all, you said it wasn’t the first time. It would mean poor Wentworth thought if someone was targeting his plane, it was far better for poor Freddie to be blown out of the sky than himself… But he’d been tumbled, and they planned for that…”
“What nonsense! Even if they knew the switch had happened before, how would they know it had happened this time?”
Fiona’s eyes lit up.
“That explains everything now,” she said. “I did think it a bit strange that Paula Wentworth was in the vicinity, working in the ops-room, but now it’s as clear as the make-up on her shameless face… She would know from the intercom which pilot was where, and in what plane. She heard them chatting together in the air. She could speak directly to them. She didn’t even have to speak to her husband to find out where he was, and in what plane. A word or two with Freddie, a listen-in on the pilots’ chatter, and a constant check on the planes’ positions on the radar, and…”
“And?”
“All she had to do was tell the killer, by some pre-arranged code or signal—pre-arranged words or phrases—where Wentworth was, and that was it. They waited for that moment when they could catch him alone in the sky, separated from his squadron…”
“And who was this killer?” asked Matthew, giving a chuckle.
“Why, it could have been George Turnbill, who was conveniently nearby at Biggin Hill. George could have managed to be in the air at that time. Maybe he was involved in the same mission.”
“So, a plot between Paula Wentworth, conveniently in the ops-room, and her lover, George Turnbill, to do away with her husband? Is that the latest twist in your Hollywood drama?”
“Sounds quite logical to me. Much more sense than George doing away with a rival for Paula’s affections, as I thought before… Or…”
“Or?”
“It was you, Matthew. You deliberately shot down Freddie’s plane, because you knew Wentworth was piloting it.”
She cast her narrow-eyed stare upon him, straightening her back, and giving a circumspect cough.
Matthew smiled.
“And my motive?” he asked. “At least when you accused me of targeting Freddie, I had a decent motive. What was it now? I wanted to eliminate the husband of the woman I loved? That was it, wasn’t it?”
“I have no idea what your motive could have been, Matthew,” she said. “You tell me.”
“Perhaps I was in cahoots with Paula?” he suggested, with a cruel sneer. “Maybe I was her lover, too? M
aybe I wanted to eliminate her husband?”
Fiona looked angry. She gave him a nasty glance. She started fiddling with her hands again.
“You certainly seem to be involved in a very curious way with all the proceedings, Matthew… Maybe you should come clean.”
“Come clean?” he echoed incredulously. “Maybe we should both do that.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, maybe we should both tell the truth. You know, one of us goes first, and then the other one… A sort of parlour game…”
He gave a silly laugh.
Fiona said nothing. She stared stonily ahead. He was ridiculing her. Toying with her. Hinting of other women, and what he did with them.
“Did you sleep with her?” she asked, her face worn and tired.
“Who?”
“That slut, Paula.”
“Well, maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” he answered tritely. “Most people did. And do.”
She scowled back at him.
He deserved a smack across the face.
“Did you kill her husband?”
He didn’t answer.
“Did you have an affair with her?”
He didn’t answer.
“What’s going to happen to us, now that Freddie’s back?” she asked.
She was becoming agitated, fiddling with her wrist one moment, wiping tears away the next.
She stood up. Her world was falling apart. She felt her head would explode. The dirty things Matthew might have done with Paula filled her head. She couldn’t stand it.
Matthew was standing in front of her.
She approached him.
She spat at him.
He flinched, but stood his ground.
She spat at him again.
She couldn’t bear what he was doing to her. He wasn’t treating her with the respect he should.
She went for him. Otherwise, her head would have erupted.
She flailed at him with her arms and hands, smashing against his arms which he held in front of his face. She bit at his protecting hands, once or twice grating against bone, but he moved away always, or pushed her back, or held her so she couldn’t move.
She became exhausted. The frenzy passed. Her arms fell limp by her sides. Her breath came in fits and starts. Her hair was all over the place, falling over her face and eyes.
