Dutch Courage (14 page)

Planning to have an early dinner, then bed with the biography of Sir Edmund Hillary he was reading, he vowed to resist the impulse to attempt to contact Livya again. Reviewing the Colliers' relationship with the team, he had silently disparaged the man's apparent willingness to allow his wife to dominate him. Beautiful, classy and seductive she might be – she certainly
was
, he had seen for himself last night – but she was the only child of a wealthy prominent widower who had most probably doted on her to the same extent.

Oh no, Max Rydal was not going to emulate them over Livya Cordwell. If she wanted to end an affair that had seemed to be heading into seriously long-term territory, then so be it. Plenty of years ahead to enjoy close encounters with a succession of women.

Parking at the rear of the long building, Max walked round to the main entrance and headed upstairs to the bedrooms. Every week he resolved to seek living quarters outside the base, but they were not easily come by. The surrounding area offered houses like Tom and his family occupied, which were too large for one person, or smaller apartments. Max had viewed a few, but his former experience of a rented flat made him cautious. He had lived next to a swinging couple who played loud music, had noisy sex, and hosted riotous parties. They had driven him to the German widow's house, where he had found peace and motherly consideration from Frau Hahn. He needed to find another elderly widow with a large bed-sitter to rent, but they were thin on the ground so he was still a cuckoo in this nest of regimental men who were never entirely relaxed with someone they rated a policeman, not a real fighting soldier like themselves.

Nodding briefly at a couple of fellow residents as he walked the corridor, Max entered his room to look immediately at the telephone. The red light was winking evidence of a message, and the jolt of anticipation came despite his resolution a few minutes ago. Pushing the door shut with his foot he walked to the desk and pressed the replay button.

‘It's eighteen hundred hours on Tuesday. I know you have a heavy case on the go, but call me when you can. I'll be here for the rest of this evening. As the Yanks say, missing you already, Steve.'

Max gazed at the telephone still hearing her voice saying the words that had turned his mood around. He smiled at the answer machine and played her message again. On the night of their first real date, when wine had flowed and her every gesture, every look had told him the coming night together would be all he hoped for, he had been bewitched into confessing he was a devotee of classic World War Two films. Further encouraged, he had revealed an ongoing student desire to emulate Steve McQueen's famous motorcycle dash to reach neutral territory and freedom. At Christmas, he had taken UK leave and arrived unannounced at the Cordwell family home on a rented Harley Davidson, to Livya's delight. When she used the name to tease him, he knew all was right between them.

Pausing only to remove his jacket, tie and shoes, he swiftly punched out the number he knew so well.

‘Livya Cordwell.'

‘This is another of those times when I wish I could slide on to the saddle, rev up and jump a few hedges to reach you.'

‘Believe me, I wished for a fast means of transport yesterday, even a motorbike.'

Not quite the response he hoped for, but she sounded warm and friendly. ‘You'd better explain that statement, madam,' he said in SIB manner, then added gently, ‘I've been concerned. What happened?'

‘Are you sitting comfortably? Remember saying to me that diverting to Southampton was better than to Birmingham? There was a suspected terrorist incident at Southampton, so we were sent on to Bournemouth where we had to wait on the tarmac while two of their regular incoming flights went through the system. On finally reaching the terminal we were told our baggage would be held until the coaches waiting at Southampton had been driven to Bournemouth. I ask you!' she said, yesterday's exasperation still evident.

‘Could only happen in the UK.'

‘There's more. My bag was missing. They were prepared to hold one of the coaches while I completed all the paperwork, but I told them I'd catch the train. Should have known better. All the taxis had been taken by the earlier arrivals. I waited forty-five minutes for one. Just missed a London-bound train. Next fast one in an hour. Spent half a week's salary on a Continental breakfast while we sat on the line for fifty minutes due to an “incident” at Basingstoke station. Hoodies had thrown bottles on the line. I rang the office on my mobile to say I'd be late. Queue for taxis at Waterloo was a mile long, so I took the Tube. Only a limited service due to industrial action.'

‘You poor love,' murmured Max in sympathy.

‘Here's the crunch line. Hurrying from the tube station to my flat, I was calling the office again when a kid on roller blades came up behind me and snatched the phone from my hand. He was off round the corner before I registered what had happened.'

‘Did he hurt you at all?'

‘No, but I'd have hurt him if I could have caught him. Couldn't have been more than twelve.'

Sorry that she had had such a bad time, Max was nevertheless glad her silence had not been because of their tiff at the airport. ‘Has your bag turned up yet?'

‘Five minutes ago. Delivered to the door by a Lufthansa lackey with Germanic apologies. It had been to New York and back.'

‘Everything intact?'

‘Except my temper, yes.'

About to say something along the lines of ‘all's well that ends well' Max thought she might consider it one of his pat responses and changed direction. ‘I've been calling your mobile. The yob didn't answer.'

There was a smile in her voice now. ‘His antennae must have warned him the old bill was on the line. I've a new mobile. Here's the number.'

Max wrote it down, then asked as neutrally as he could, ‘I hope you've not been put off coming over here.'

‘I'm a soldier, Max, not easily discouraged by failures in the system. But I won't again risk an early morning departure, however great the temptation to stay for an extra night.'

‘You'd like me to ease up on temptation?'

A moment's silence. ‘Don't you dare!'

They talked for almost an hour on the easy, intimate terms of lovers, and Max felt the tension drain from him. To hell with early bed and a book. He would instead listen to his CDs of balalaikas and remember the three days he had just spent with this wonderful woman. Remember them without a cloud of uncertainty hovering. Only as they were saying goodbye did Max recall the message she had left on his answer machine.

‘You said you knew I was on a heavy case. How come?'

‘Your fame is widespread,' she teased.

‘As a lover?'

‘You wish! General Sir Preston Phipps is a member of our select committee. His daughter has caused him serious concern because her hero husband was attacked and badly hurt. I'm afraid you're liable to feel the weight of our noble general's influence if you don't get to the bottom of it swiftly.'

The Black house was buzzing with activity when Tom arrived there. The usual squeals and laughter could be heard from the girls' bedrooms, which left their father unprepared for the shock of discovering in the understairs alcove his eldest locked in the arms of Hans Graumann as they kissed in adult fashion.

‘What the hell do you think you're doing?' he shouted.

The pair sprang apart, presenting a picture of guilt. Maggie's youthful cheeks burned scarlet. The German boy's face grew pale. Neither spoke as they gazed at this very large, very hostile man.

‘Go!
Now
,' he told the blond, blue-eyed boy, striving to keep his hands from cuffing him around the ear. ‘Go on, take yourself home!'

Maggie found her voice. ‘
Dad!
'

Tom rounded on her. ‘I'll talk to you in a minute.'

The sounds from two girls upstairs had ceased. Tom felt rather than saw them peeping over the banisters. Then Maggie began shouting. ‘We weren't doing anything
wrong
. Hans was saying goodbye, that's all. They're going to spend Easter with his grandmother, leaving tomorrow.
We were just saying goodbye.
There's nothing wrong in that.
Everyone
kisses goodbye.'

‘Not the way you were,' snapped Tom, shutting the front door very forcibly as Hans stepped outside. ‘And
everyone
doesn't hide under the stairs to do it.'

‘How could we hide?' came the emotional challenge. ‘It's all open. There's no door. We weren't in a cupboard. Anyone could see us. He was just saying goodbye,' she cried again, more defiantly.

‘Then why go under the stairs? Why not at the front door, where it's usual to say goodbye? You're getting far too friendly with that boy,' Tom continued fiercely. ‘Yesterday you were both in your bedroom when I came home.'

‘We were
not
,' his daughter contradicted, turning even redder. ‘We were all in Gina and Beth's room rehearsing for the school play about the origin of Easter eggs. We were hearing each other's lines.'

‘Don't raise your voice at me,' roared Tom. ‘Does that boy go to your school? Is he in the play?
No!
So what was he doing upstairs in the bedroom with you and your sisters?'

Nora came from the dining room holding a pair of dressmaker's shears. ‘What's going on?'

‘He sent Hans away; made me look like a naughty
child
.'

‘Don't point at your father, and don't refer to him as
he
.' She walked through to the hall. ‘Can we discuss this in normal voices?'

‘I'll never forgive him.
Never!
' Maggie ran for the stairs and thundered up the flight as only an overwrought adolescent girl can, sobbing as if the world was about to end. A bedroom door slammed and the one sound from the otherwise silent first floor was muffled weeping. Gina and Beth had become uncannily quiet.

Nora waited for Tom to speak, but he was too shaken to embark on an explanation. Instead, he walked in to the kitchen, saying, ‘I need a drink.'

He was unscrewing the whisky bottle when Nora came up to take it from his hand. ‘Let's talk first, Tom. Before I go up to Maggie I need to know why you sent that boy home.'

He took the bottle back, but made no attempt to pour a drink from it. ‘If you weren't so all-fired determined to do those bloody fairy frocks you'd see what's going on here between those two. Your daughter, who's barely thirteen, was being mauled by that youth old enough to know what sex is all about.'

‘
Mauled?
'

‘Pressing himself against her as they kissed. Under the stairs, where they wouldn't be seen. They were too far gone to hear me come in.'

‘
Too far gone?
' she quoted incredulously. ‘Whatever does that mean? Were they on the floor, half-undressed?'

Her sarcastic attitude fanned the flames. ‘Would you know if they were? Would you care?'

There was a stunned silence because neither of them could believe he had just said that. Tom made a helpless gesture with his hands in lieu of a withdrawal of such wounding words. ‘She's too young to be alone with him. He's
sixteen
. I know what lads of that age get up to, if you don't.'

‘And
I
know what girls who're just discovering the joys and misery of adolescent passion go through. I don't expect you to understand that, but I
do
expect you to respect my superior knowledge on the subject.' Her eyes flashed with rare anger. ‘Why is it that when you consider the girls have done something wrong you refer to them as
my
daughters? They're
our
daughters, Tom, ever and always, even though the greater burden of their upbringing is borne by me. Because it is, I trust and respect them. I believe they feel the same way about me. If you humiliated Maggie in front of someone she feels great affection for, you're in danger of losing her trust and respect for
you
.'

Shocked at how swiftly the harmony of his family had shattered, and dismayed by this sudden discord between them, he said from the depth of his hurt, ‘Whose side are you on?'

‘D'you know, Tom, I often wonder that myself. I have to keep the peace between three lively, talented girls without showing any favouritism, and I have to keep things sweet between them and a father whose work frequently sends him home in an unreasonable frame of mind. I sometimes get sick of mediating between you all, so I keep my sanity by sewing bloody fairy dresses. If that means you have to make your own lunchtime sandwich, and Maggie experiences her first real kiss, too bad. Right now, chum, I'm on
my
side.' She indicated the whisky bottle. ‘Drink the bloody lot. Once you're dead to the world, the evening will be a hell of a lot pleasanter.'

Phil Piercey was deeply disgruntled. Gerda had sent a text message cancelling their meeting at the Red Goblin Club and offering no alternative date. For once, he was in no mood to go on the prowl and chat up the local talent in town. Gerda's dismissive message somehow highlighted the reported adoration of Sam Collier by his gorgeous, sexy wife – a woman who could have anyone, but who apparently could not wait to tear the pants off her fly-boy husband.

Phil's grandfather had flown a Spitfire in the 1940s. Brylcreem Boys they were dubbed, and women threw themselves at them. From the first days of flight, aviators had worn the gloss of glamour whether they were tall and handsome, or short and ugly. It was the daredevil element of what they did that had the women goo-goo-eyed, and young lads envious. Phil had considered joining the AAC or the Royal Military Police on signing up for military service, but chose the RMP. When people asked why, he told them investigating made greater use of his intelligence. He had once been in an off-duty fist fight with an airman who had overheard his remark in a pub. Actually, more than once. Fliers were a very sensitive breed.