Troubled Midnight (22 page)

She filled the kettle and put it on a gas hob, slipping the whistler onto the spout. She was collecting cups from the small Welsh dresser that took up almost an entire wall when Suzie saw her lean forward grasping at the edge of the dresser, her knuckles showing white.

“You okay?” Suzie beside her, ready to hold on if she seemed about to collapse.

The girl nodded, teeth clenched. “The bastard,” she muttered again, then got control of herself, straightened and continued preparing the cups, asking who wanted sugar, pouring the milk.

“It really is amazing,” she finally said as she was warming the pot with water from the almost boiling kettle. “Amazing how one man can wreak such devastation on a woman. I thought I was almost over him, but I’m not nearly in the clear yet.”

“What actually happened?” Curry asked. He was good at making questions sound casual and lacking in importance.

“More or less what I told you. We were ridiculously happy – I was anyway, and I thought he was. Making plans for the future, though he wasn’t happy about getting married before the end of the war. I wanted a quick wedding. Soon. He wanted to wait, said once we made a move into Europe it’d be over quite quickly.” She made the tea, pouring the boiling water into the pot, stirring as she did so, her hand steady as her voice. “I must say I wondered about that. Other people I knew, quite senior people, would tell me that it certainly wasn’t all over once the second front began, and I knew that. I know the Germans have a great well-trained army. They’re good and fanatical fighters. Am I right?”

Suzie looked at Curry who said that she was certainly right. “If, and it’s a pretty big if, we do open a second front in Occupied Europe it’ll be a hard battle and I wouldn’t like to put money on the outcome. If we get a toehold somewhere on the continent it could take months to fight our way through. On the other hand a lot of people believe that the round-the-clock bombing’s killing the Nazis will to go on; knocking out their armament industry, smashing their lines of supply, certainly demoralising their civilians.”

Annie had put the cups on a tray and they followed her back into the drawing room. Setting the tray down she made a little tutting noise, said she looked a fright. “I’ll just go and splash some water on my face.”

Suzie was back on her feet. “I’ll do the same if you don’t mind.”

Annie gave a gentle laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do myself an injury. You’re welcome to come with me. I’m a bit flattered.” And she strode off quite briskly.

Back downstairs again, five minutes later, Annie, now clean of the traces of tears, leaned back in one of the comfortable armchairs, looked at Curry, then Suzie and back to Curry again. “You’re the police, aren’t you?” Stating rather than asking.

Curry calmly told her no. “We’re not the law, Annie, but we are investigating Tim’s death. Was it so obvious?”

“It was Miss Mountford being so attentive. Just an idea. I said to myself, these people’re too good to be just ordinary friends.”

“It’s not desperate. Tim was a good man, a fine soldier. We’re just tying up some frayed ends.”

“May have been a fine soldier but he wasn’t a good man. Good men don’t play fast and loose with women’s emotions.”

“You were telling us what actually happened…” Curry prompted.

She eyed them both; more coldly this time. “Yes I was. Where had we got to?”

“You were very happy,” Suzie told her. “And you thought he was. But he wanted to wait until this unpleasantness was over.”

“Yes. Well, I was deeply in love with him – I expect that makes me sound like a sixteen-year-old girl instead of a woman of twenty-six…”

“Not at all,” Curry said, and Suzie shook her head.

“I saw him every weekend, and sometimes during the week if he could get up to town. In the beginning he showed incredible respect. I suppose I offered everything to him on a plate, but he refused: said he wanted to wait. But … well … we didn’t wait of course, and I felt it was terribly daring and very wonderful. Two people becoming one
is
wonderful: Christmas morning every day.” She said nothing for a few moments. Then, “Isn’t it? Or am I being a stupid inexperienced girl?”

“Love can be incredible,” said Suzie without much conviction.

“You regarded yourselves as being engaged?” Curry asked.

“Of course. I was supposed to meet his parents and have a big engagement party, but it never materialised.”

“Then?”

“Then one weekend he went back to Brize and said, ‘I’ll see you next week my darling. Love you.’ And that was it. Never saw him again. Next thing I knew he was announcing his engagement to Julia Meg Richardson. In the
Times
and the
Telegraph.
They had a little story about him in the
Daily Mail
as well. Bastard. I could have killed him. Still could actually, if he wasn’t already dead.”

“Come on Annie,” Suzie began. “We all say that when someone really…”

“No, I mean it. I absolutely mean it. One of my brothers also wanted to do him over. The one who came and saw me, dropped in the day I saw the announcement and had tried to ring him at Brize, got turned away.” She put on a hoity-toity voice, “‘I’m sorry, ma’am, the Colonel’s flying at the moment, won’t be in the office for some days.’”

Curry asked her for the name and address of the brother and she refused it with a shake of the head. “Any policemen been to see you yet?” he enquired.

“Are they likely to?”

“I think highly likely.” Suzie raised her eyebrows. “There should be a smooth old bugger called Livermore. How about him? Tommy Livermore? He’ll be round.”

“Anyone else you can suggest?” Curry asked. “Anyone else didn’t like him?”

“Yes, of course. Husbands of girls who’ve gone off into the haystacks with Tim. Husbands and boyfriends. I should imagine they litter the Home Counties. I also know at least one of his officers that Tim was scared of.”

“Which one?”

“Well, two actually. Major Hutt and old Bomber Puxley.”

“One more and he’ll have a full house.” Suzie said inaccurately.

“Bomber Puxley’s a bit of a card, actually. Squeezed my bum as we went into the mess.”

“Thought Tim Weaving was an officer and a gentleman,” Curry said almost to himself.

“Thought they’d follow him into the jaws of hell, such a good officer.” Suzie slid back into her chair. “What Wilson Sharp told us, anyway.”

“Nobody’s criticising his behaviour as an officer.” Annie flushed again, but no tears. “It’s the gentleman bit that doesn’t quite work.”

Curry looked at Suzie with just the trace of a smile; his face saying,
we’re on the right track it’s one of three people.
Out loud he said, “Hutt, Puxley and Sharp. Are you saying one of those officers could have…?”

“Killed him? Certainly.” Annie Tooks, perky now and assured, but with the anger still sizzling away.

“You ever met the new CO? Colonel Belcher?”

“Barney Belcher?” Annie looked surprised.

“That’s the one.”

“He had cause. Just cause. Tim pinched his wife. Couple of years ago when they were at Ringway. They had a real set-to the pair of them, outside the mess. It’s an old story and I think it was Wilson Sharp who told me.”

“Where is Mrs Belcher now?”

Annie shrugged, “Not a clue. They split up last year. Tim used to say she was a bit of a bicycle. Unfaithful to Barney only once – with the Glider Pilot Regiment. That was Tim’s kind of humour.”

“I thought you had names to give me,” Curry smiled at her, trying his charm.

“I couldn’t possibly remember all the names,” Annie smiled back. “No names no pack drill, eh?”

Later as they were driving towards Curzon Street, on the way to see Julia Richardson, Curry said he thought Annie talked a lot of tosh. “Bitter woman ruled by jealousy, that girl. Case of give a dog a bad name, I’d say. Don’t believe half of it about Colonel Weaving.”

“You’re terribly good at the interrogation, aren’t you? Tommy says that anyone who could do it and make it seem like an ordinary conversation was brilliant. That’s you alright.”

“Tell you what,” Curry’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “I really don’t give a fuck what Tommy says about anything, so be an angel and don’t quote him again.” About half a minute later he added, “Heart”. Tommy Livermore’s favourite endearment, used by Curry now to let her know he wasn’t really angry with her. Well, not much.

Chapter Fifteen

ONE CHRISTMAS, WHEN he was ten years old, an uncle took Sadler to the pantomime in London and he could still conjure up the memory, the gilt and the red plush under his hand, the taste of the chocolates. And best of all the most wonderful scene when Aladdin, the principal boy who was really a girl, said the magic words, ‘Open Sesame,’ rubbed the lamp, so that the stone rolled away allowing him entrance to Abanazar’s cave. The scene seemed to dissolve there and then, before Sadler’s very eyes, revealing a vast treasure chamber.

There were chests brimming over with silver and gold ingots, open caskets full of jewels, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, carbuncles; crates out of which spilled golden goblets and boxes of silver inlaid with precious stones; gold doubloons, pieces of eight, Napoleons. The sight dazzled his eyes and sent his brain reeling. And that was how he felt now as General Frederick Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander, went over the outline plans for Operation
Overlord:
the programme that he and his staff, together with Colonel John Bevan’s staff from the Central War Rooms at the War Office, had carefully assembled over the previous eight months, a job made twice as difficult because they were forced to work on the scheme for the greatest single operation in history without benefit of a Supreme Allied Commander.

Sadler felt his stomach churn, fluttering with excitement. He had found the Holy Grail, the lost chord and the secret of the universe, a totally enthralling prospect for it would lead inexorably to the rout and defeat of the Allied armies. At its best it was the greatest secret of World War II; the most arcane knowledge concerning the actual landing area for the invasion; the fact that it was not the assumed territory between Calais and Dieppe, the Pas de Calais – the short and easy route into Occupied Europe – but the stretch of coast containing the beaches of Normandy and Brittany: the place least well-defended by the German armies under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. To the west was the Contentin peninsula with the important port of Cherbourg on its most westerly side, yet the bulk of the peninsula was an unsuitable battlefield for heavy armour. The marshy, waterlogged stretches of the Contentin was not only inappropriate for the tanks and other armoured vehicles, but also the locale gave advantages to the enemy who, it was reckoned, might easily bottle up the invasion forces within the confines of the peninsula for a considerable time.

Sadler immediately recognised that this information alone – that the landings were planned for Brittany and Normandy – would be stunning news when he got it to France. This was the crux, the very hinge of fate. The future governance of Europe, maybe the entire world, depended upon this knowledge alone.

“Sir, has anyone addressed the fact that our major spearhead may well require a wider front than the one we’re going to use in this scenario?” A redheaded US Army Colonel asked, and General Morgan said he understood this was a point that General Eisenhower had already queried. “We’re looking at the possibility of adding another beach landing further west,” Morgan told them. “But, as you can see, this would bring certain dangers upon us,” tapping the large map set up on a blackboard easel, referring to the difficulties presented by the Contentin. “The priority of the invading force must be surprise, then the capture of Caen, Bayeux and the road to Saint Lô.” Tap, tap, tap, with his pointer on the map. “Before that the two major problems will be the size of the front when we get off the beaches. Much depends on
Fortitude.
”

There was a grave nodding of heads and muttered agreement. For the fraction of a second Sadler paused wondering about the code reference,
Fortitude.
Most likely this was some deception operation but, if it did not come out naturally in the General’s briefing, there would be difficulties in filching the details of
Fortitude.
He thought about it for less than fifteen seconds now, coming to the conclusion that it was a side issue. He had the most vital intelligence: that sometime in the late spring or early summer, at a time when the tides were right for it, the Allies would fling huge numbers of troops onto the long beaches of Brittany and Normandy. With support from their large and heavily armed navy these troops would spring from the sea and fight their way off the beaches. At the same time other troops would leap forward inland, large numbers of men arriving by air, by parachute and glider.

This was the essential information he had been sent to steal and, by his own account, he had done so brilliantly. It was, he considered, enough for any man. To get this back to his masters in France and Germany would surely be enough. This information – the battle order of the Allied Armies and the exact location of the landing areas in Normandy – would checkmate the Allies on the battlefield and bring a decisive victory to the Führer’s glorious armies.

The conference went on for three more hours and while
Fortitude
was mentioned several times nobody went into details.

As they were leaving, late in the afternoon, Sadler, bumping against an American infantry Colonel, muttered his apologies and then said, “I missed some of the earlier briefings, tell me about
Fortitude.
”

The American shrugged and chuckled, “Better get your own people to talk about that,” he growled. “
Fortitude
’s supposed to be our ace in the hole, but we don’t set much store by it.”
1
Sadler’s own people, however, seemed desperate to get away on leave. “Talk about it after Christmas,” one of his comrades told him gruffly. “I want to get the six-fifteen to Reading, where there should be a little golden-haired popsie waiting for me.” The sentence ended with a lecherous wink.