The Bee's Kiss (25 page)

Joe turned at last to Donovan’s alibi. Just as he had told them, the boot-boy had conveniently spent the vital hour with him in his office. Cottingham had put a note in the margin: ‘Give me ten minutes and an extra fiver on expenses and I could break this. Something tells me the rogue Donovan would have a spare alibi up his sleeve, however. Shall I pursue it?’

He went on: ‘Work pattern. Employment not as implied by D. Very much a part-time job. Manager reveals his real work is with the Marconi Company. On leaving navy, he joined this wireless firm. Many did when guns fell silent. The manager of the Marconi Co. confirms that D. works for them in their electronics research department. Does the expression “thermionic valve” mean anything to you, sir? They say this is a full-time 9–5 job but the subject insists on taking time off at irregular intervals. He has a dependent relative who needs his support. (Ho! Ho!) The firm goes along with this because he’s apparently invaluable. A whizz with the wires or air waves or whatever they use nowadays. If he’s moonlighting at the Ritz he’s a busy boy! But he probably still puts in fewer hours than us, wouldn’t you say?’

Joe looked wearily at his watch. Half past one. He could have been doing a smoochy tango with Tilly. Joe suppressed the thought and read on.

On a separate sheet were notes hastily handwritten in pencil. The heading this time was ‘At the Admiralty’. The information had, Cottingham declared, come from a fellow Old Harrovian who owed him a favour. ‘Nothing questionable about this,’ he had put in the margin and, keel-hauling his maritime metaphors, ‘all guaranteed above-board and Bristol fashion!’

‘All the info my friend was prepared to pass on is in the public domain. It’s just that the public wouldn’t have a clue where to look. He wished us luck with the case – Dame B. had many admirers in the Senior Service where they appreciate a spirited lady. Pleased to reveal all he could about D. Not popular! Seems to have jumped ship before he was made to walk the plank.’ Joe groaned and vowed to do something very naval to Cottingham if he didn’t get a move on.

‘Rose to the rank of Chief Petty Officer – that would be “staff sergeant” in our terms, I think. Talented wireless operator and very intelligent.’ It was Ralph’s next piece of naval gossip that caught Joe’s flagging attention.

Donovan had been posted to Room 40 at the Admiralty. In the war, the Royal Navy Code-Breaking Unit had employed a large number of highly qualified civilian men and women alongside naval personnel. Wireless specialists, cryptographers and linguists. It was thanks to their skills that Admiral Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet had had the edge on the German navy, presenting itself, unaccountably battle-ready, hours before the High Seas Fleet had left port on more than one occasion. If Donovan had worked for Naval Intelligence he was not a man to be underestimated. Joe was forming a further hypothesis based on this evidence and wondered if it had occurred to Ralph.

No longer ‘Room 40’, the Government Code and Cypher School, as it now was, had moved with its director Admiral Hugh Sinclair down to Broadway nearer Whitehall. Joe was aware that GC&CS used the resources of the Metropolitan Police intercept station run by Harold Ken-worthy, an employee of Marconi . . . Set up by the Directorate of Intelligence, the station operated from the attic of Scotland Yard. What had Nevil said? ‘. . . the people over our heads . . .’ Joe had assumed that he meant superior in authority but perhaps the reference had been a more literal one?

Joe looked up nervously at the ceiling. Were they up there now? And who were they listening in to? The Met intercept unit, he knew, was currently monitoring the proposed miners’ strike. They had uncovered devastating evidence of Soviet involvement and mischief-making. Two million pounds of funds were being provided by the Bolsheviks to foment industrial action and support the miners for the duration of the strike.

Joe’s head was beginning to spin. What was the thread that led from a wartime Room 40 to the interceptors in the attic and what did that have to do with a Wren bludgeoned to death? On the next sheet the writing became ever less restrained, possibly the effect of the contents of the glass whose dark brown ring decorated the page. Joe didn’t need to sniff to detect naval rum.

Three sheets in the wind – Oh Lord! The condition was catching! – Cottingham had added excitedly: ‘Wonder if you’re aware of where the Dame spent the war years
before
she joined the Wrens?’ In block capitals he had scrawled, ‘ROOM 40. My contact tells me the Dame was valued for her quick wits and perfect knowledge of German – an ideal combination for cracking codes and interpreting signals. No wonder she was much admired! She was thought to be intime with the boss – “C” no less – Rear Admiral Hugh “Quex” Sinclair, Head of NI, SIS, GC&CS and all the rest of the alphabet soup.’

Joe remembered that the stylish and able Admiral’s nickname was ‘Quex’ from the title of a West End play,
The Gay Lord Quex, the wickedest man in London
. He had a reputation for high living and had reputedly moved the headquarters of Naval Intelligence to the Strand so as to be near his favourite restaurant, the Savoy Grill.

‘It’s entirely possible that the Dame met Donovan here in Room 40!’ Cottingham had added. ‘Dame B. was highly regarded in naval circles for the undaunted way in which she set about reconstituting a women’s service although it was officially disbanded in 1918. She has collected about her, with the navy’s knowledge and approval – though without financial support or official recognition – a corps of girls whose aim is to carry on the traditions of the service. A sort of mob of Vestal Virgins, if you like, who tend the flame until such time as it shall be needed. They’re top drawer, apparently. Daughters of very high-placed officers, that sort of thing. Some of the chaps sympathize with Bea’s view that the navy has not fought its last engagement and next time they must be fully prepared. Not sure who they see as the enemy but the most likely candidate must surely be the Russians?

‘They considered her a pretty stylish lady. Very much ones for nicknames, sailors! They’ve called this embryonic service of busy young girls “the Hive” of which the Dame was – naturally – Queen Bea.’

It occurred to Joe that they had been so taken up with the forensic aspects of the case, he’d not done what he usually did early in an enquiry. He’d not drawn up a detailed portrait of the murder victim. He remembered that the Dame’s diary revealed a dinner date with an admiral. He’d taken time to send out a signal cancelling on her behalf and breaking the news of her death, but perhaps the engagement itself had been significant? With frustration he acknowledged that he would never discover its significance now an embargo had been placed on his interviewing.

Feeling that the time had come to get to know Beatrice more intimately he picked up his briefcase, put away Cottingham’s notes and checked the contents of a small envelope. He took out the door keys Tilly had found in the Dame’s bag.

‘Time to pay you a dawn call, Queen Bea,’ he said.

‘Not early risers.’

Tilly had dismissed the inhabitants of bohemian Bloomsbury with a disapproving sniff. Joe hoped she’d got it right. He didn’t want to be observed stealing into the Dame’s flat at five in the morning. Too embarrassing if someone noticed him and alerted the beat bobby. He’d taken the precaution of putting on protective colouring in the form of a shabby brown corduroy suit, much scorned by his sister, a shirt, tie-less and open at the neck, and a wide-brimmed black felt hat which he tugged down over one eye. He looked at himself critically in the mirror and grinned. He thought he looked rather dashing. And, with his dark features etched by lack of sleep, he’d probably pass a dozen similar on their way back from a night spent on the tiles or behind some blue door or other.

He left his car in Russell Square Gardens behind the British Museum and made his way unhurriedly past the building sites into Montague Street and turned into Fitzroy Gardens. He was not a tourist, he reminded himself; he was not here to enjoy the greenery in the central garden or the Portland stone Georgian architecture. He made his way straight to a house at one end of the graceful crescent, noting the side access and wondering if he would choose the right one of the two keys to gain entrance through the imposing front door. A passing milk float clanked by, jugs rattling, and the milkman greeted him cheerfully as he ran up the four front steps.

Tilly had mentioned the Dame’s ‘flat’ but Joe noticed there was only one doorbell. The door opened smoothly, answering to the larger of the two keys, and he walked into a wide, uncluttered hallway. He paused uncertainly, his cover story ready against a challenging occupant. No one hurried forward indignantly to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing there. Again, there were no signs of multiple occupancy. No doorways were boarded up, there were no handwritten signs with arrows pointing to the upper floors, no table spilling over with post to be collected by other inhabitants. Joe concluded that the Dame must own the whole of the house. He stood and listened. The house had the dead sound of a completely empty space.

Boldly, he called out, ‘Beatrice! Are you there?’

Receiving no response, he opened the door to the drawing room.

What had he expected? Emerald green walls, disordered divans piled high with purple cushions, post-Impressionist daubs, an attempt to recreate the Bakst decor for Scheherazade? Yes, he silently admitted that he had expected something of the sort. He had thought that the Dame, having chosen to live in Bloomsbury, would be playing up to the artistic, insouciant style its inhabitants were renowned for. The room surprised him. Modern but restrained, it was obviously decorated by an amateur with a strong personal style.

The walls were a pale string-colour, the wood floor covered in Persian rugs in browns and amber, the large sofa was of black leather. He ran his hands covetously over a piece that might once have been called a chaise longue but this was a sleek, steel-framed extended chair of German design. There was a good supply of small tables, set beside matching chairs of a blond wood inlaid with a pleasing pattern. Joe was interested enough to turn one over to see the manufacturer’s name. Austrian, but available from Heal’s in the nearby Tottenham Court Road. Over the fireplace hung a large and lovely seascape, the other walls carried pictures in a medley of styles: a French landscape, a study of horses that might – but surely couldn’t? – have been by Stubbs, two golden watercolours of an Eastern scene by Chinery and a small Augustus John portrait. They had nothing in common except the owner’s taste, he decided, and again wished that he had met Beatrice in the living flesh. Unusually, there were no family portraits or photographs, nothing of a personal nature.

He counted the seating places and reckoned that the Dame could entertain eight or ten people if she wished. And entertain in some style. She could have invited the First Sea Lord, his lady wife and his lady wife’s maiden aunt for cocktails and they would have been charmed. All was correct and elegant, apart from one object he’d spotted on the mantelpiece – a modern bronze of Europa riding half naked and garlanded on the back of her bull. But it was a work of art and only erotic if you had eyes to see, he thought, and were nosy enough to pick it up and view it from an unusual angle. He paused to handle respectfully a chrome and white table lighter and its matching cigarette box. Removing the lid he sniffed the contents. Turkish at one end and Virginian at the other. Nothing more sinister was going to be on offer in this proper setting.

Shrugging off his fascination for the decorative contents of the room, Joe left to survey the rest of the house. He would return to carry out the correct procedure for checking the contents minutely when he’d got his bearings. The rest of the ground floor was less interesting. The dining room was furnished but looked as though it had never been used, the kitchen and pantry were soulless and bare of contents. A refrigerator, he noticed, held bottles of champagne and hock but that was all. Upstairs was a bathroom, simply appointed but with the luxury of a shower, and two furnished bedrooms. The larger of the two, at the front of the house overlooking the public garden, was level with the tops of the plane trees and decorated in green and white. Obviously the Dame’s bedroom: the wardrobes were full of her clothes, the dressing table held cosmetic items and a flacon of her perfume which seemed to be Tabac Blond. He admired the square bottle with its pale gold disc and exuberant gold fringe tied carelessly around the neck and lifted the glass stopper. A dark, challenging scent of forest, fern and leather intrigued him. The woman who would wear this he could imagine taking the wheel of an open-topped sports car, perhaps pausing to pull on, but not fasten, a leather flying helmet before she put her foot to the floor. For a moment he pictured himself in the passenger seat with the Petit Littoral zipping past in the background. He put the genie of imagination back in the bottle with the stopper and made for what he took to be the guest bedroom at the rear of the house.

At last he had found a jarring note. The disordered divan – it was here! Large, low, plump and covered in a silk of a rich exotic colour which he thought might be mulberry, it was all he understood to be bohemian. Cushions, tasselled, striped, silken, spilled over on to the floor. There was no other furniture apart from a black and gold lacquer screen which cut off one corner of the room. Joe automatically checked behind it, finding nothing but an embroidered Chinese robe and a discarded silk stocking. On the wall behind the bed was a striking painting. He recognized the style. Modigliani. A stick-like girl who ought to have been deeply unattractive managed somehow with swooning eyes and horizontal abandoned pose to convey a feeling of eroticism. He found the decor stagey, the theatricality underlined by two oversized fan-shaped wall lights. The atmosphere was oppressive, the room airless and scented with something which, worryingly, he could not identify.

He walked to the single window and pulled apart the heavy gold draperies. The fresh green of the wild garden below accentuated the tawdriness of the scene behind him and he opened the window to let in some spring-scented air. Leaning out, he saw that the back garden was bounded by a mews building and a high wall with a door in it. Very adequate rear access, his professional self told him. Comings and goings not effected through the front door could be kept a secret from the neighbours.