War Damage (4 page)

Regine laughed. ‘
Ça se voit
. But I hardly know her.'

‘You could get to know her, darling. Your translating isn't exactly full time.'

‘I wish translating was better paid.'

‘Neville doesn't keep you short, does he? We all know he's a bit of a Scrooge, but …'

Regine wondered if Freddie had asked her husband for money. He certainly wouldn't get much change out of Neville. There was a little silence. Freddie heaved himself out of the sofa. From the front path, he turned. ‘Tomorrow,' he said, ‘it's really quite important.'

‘Can't you tell me now?'

But Freddie shook his head. ‘No, I haven't time, I have to – look, just meet me at – at – oh, I know, that little place behind Harrods, you remember – we won't see anyone we know there – at one.'

Neville was still in the library, half-cut by now. Regine wandered into the kitchen. Phil was at the sink. Cato was frisking around them, mad for attention.

‘Don't wash up now. We can leave it for Mrs Havelock in the morning.'

But Phil insisted on doing it there and then. ‘You dry the glasses,' he said, a job Regine hated, but he was right, really, it was a waste of the char's time to wash up, when there was so much else to clean and dust and tidy. The house wasn't huge, but there was always so much housework. It never ceased to surprise her. Partly it was due to Neville's Chinese porcelain collection, which the char wasn't supposed to touch, but Regine told her to dust them anyway; for God's sake don't break anything, but if you do, I'll say it was me.

‘Freddie was a bit … I dunno, tense, didn't you think? Perhaps it was because the star guest was a bit on edge too. The ballerina.'

‘Was she? What d'you mean – on edge?' Regine frowned.

‘I don't know … just not very much at home.'

‘Oh dear, I was a bad hostess, I neglected her. I think she's shy.'

‘Perhaps it's just she looks rather haggard. Not really beautiful, is she. Not what I'd expected. Features too large. Face too pale. But that probably looks good on stage, I suppose. Everything exaggerated.' He paused. ‘And then she got stuck with Muriel Jordan. Enough to make anyone depressed. Don't know why you let them keep on coming.'

‘How can I stop them? I've known Hilary for ages, before he married her.'

‘Neville should put his foot down. She's very right wing – I mean really right wing.'

His vehemence surprised Regine. She laughed. ‘Neville and I are not exactly socialists.'

Phil grinned. ‘Oh, you, you're beyond politics, Reggie.' He rinsed out the bowl and dried his hands. ‘I'm meeting a friend for a drink, but I'll walk Cato first.'

When Neville emerged from the library he called: ‘I'm just going out for some cigarettes.'

‘Where will you get any at this time of night?'

‘It's not ten yet – I'll just make it to the pub before closing.'

He seemed to be gone a long time. When he returned he stood in the hall and said: ‘I think it's time we went to bed.'

She knew from the way he said it what to expect. It was always the same. She followed him upstairs.

‘You were flirting with Alan Wentworth, weren't you.'

‘No I wasn't!' She was genuinely annoyed, although she knew it was only part of the ritual.

‘Don't tell lies. The more you lie, the harder the punishment will be.'

Always the same mixture of disbelief, humiliation and the worm of self-abasement.

‘You've been disobedient again. Why can't you do as you're told. I'm going to have to teach you a lesson. Bend over the bed.'

‘Please – can I take off my skirt first? I don't want to—'

‘Bend over the bed. Don't argue with me.'

She knelt. He pushed up her skirt and slowly pulled down her knickers. It was always the same. There was a silence as he looked; at the pink suspenders that held the flesh-coloured stockings, delineating the obscene space between waist and thigh. She waited meekly, wincing inwardly, for the first stroke of the belt across her buttocks, and then gasped and grunted like an animal in the way he liked at the slow, rhythmic thrashing. The musty smell of the eiderdown removed her to some other distant, but familiar place as he talked about punishing her arse.

She heard the belt drop to the floor. He was undoing his flies. And as the bed creaked rhythmically and she surreptitiously moved her hand between her legs, an image of Charles Hallam brought a groan and with it the engulfing, humiliating, shameful waves of orgasmic pleasure.

She thought of the cold stone floor of the convent. You knelt in self-abasement: confession, penitence, expiation.

four

R
EGINE WAS BRUSHING HER HAIR
. She could hear Phil moving his bike in the hall, leaving for work. Someone knocked at the front door. Cato barked and barked as he hurtled out of the kitchen, his claws clattering on the tiled floor. Regine stared at herself in the bedroom mirror, her brush suspended in mid-air as she heard male voices, then resumed, but more slowly, the strokes that tried to tame the stiff, tangled furze. It must be the postman, perhaps with that book William Drownes had promised to send her, except that the promise had been made only yesterday and—

‘Regine!' came Phil's voice, quiet but urgent, as though he'd found a deadly snake in the hall. ‘Can you come down?'

‘I'll be down in a minute,' she called. Damn – she couldn't go down without her make-up. Whatever it was would just have to wait. Seated in front of her looking glass, she smoothed on a mask of foundation. The ritual of adornment momentarily stilled her seething thoughts. She dusted powder and rouge over her pale skin, drew green eye shadow along her lids with a finger, scrubbed the brush across the little palette of mascara to darken her pale lashes, and painted her lips with her favourite dark lipstick, Elizabeth Arden's Redwood. Lastly, a dab of Chypre on her wrists, and she pushed her feet into the shabby black court shoes and ran downstairs.

She knew at once the two dark-clad men who crowded the narrow space were plain-clothes policemen. Thin, gangling Phil wilted alongside the pair.

‘Stop it, Cato.
Down
,' she shouted, as Cato attempted oppressively to embrace them, but Cato was not an obedient dog. ‘I'm sorry – he's rather excitable.'

‘I'm Detective Chief Inspector Plumer and this is Detective Sergeant Murray.'

Something must have happened.

‘Mrs Neville Milner? Perhaps we could—' He gestured with the hand that held his hat towards the drawing room.

‘Is it my husband? Has there been an accident?'

‘There's been an incident on the Heath. We're making enquiries.'

He would be thinking she meant a road accident or a heart attack, but she was wondering if Neville had done something silly. From time to time when unusual luxuries had appeared, especially when rationing was at its height, she'd wondered whether the black market … Ivor Novello had gone to prison over the petrol ration after all … and then there was his Chinese collection … or could he, after all, have been drinking this early in the day and had an accident in the car on the way to work … why had he taken the car to work anyway, using up all the petrol; he normally took the tube …

‘We've no reason to suppose … Is Mr Milner about?'

What on earth had Neville done? She showed the two policemen into the drawing room. They sat down. Phil hovered in the doorway. ‘D'you need me? I'll be late for work.'

‘Just for a few moments, sir. If you wouldn't mind. You are—? You're not Mr Milner, I take it?' The inspector stared at Phil as if his presence required explanation.

‘Philip Jones. I'm the lodger.'

‘Ah.' The policeman nodded. He sat hunkered forward, twirling his hat between his hands.

‘Would you like some coffee?' Regine, still standing, because sitting down was rather painful this morning, felt ridiculous pretending to be a hostess, but anything to ward off what was coming. It must be something serious. Neville must have … perhaps they'd come to arrest him.

‘No thank you; please don't trouble yourself. I apologise for disturbing you like this. Please do sit down, Mrs Milner.'

She eased herself carefully onto the chaise longue.

‘We're making enquiries about a body that was found late last night. On the Heath.'

‘A
body
?'

He pulled a card from an inner jacket pocket. ‘We found this in his coat. No wallet – there was nothing else to identify him by.'

Phil had sat down beside her on the chaise and they looked at it together. She'd had the postcards printed with her name, address and telephone number only the other day. A luxury; such things were still hard to come by and she'd had to wait for weeks. She never sent invitations for her Sundays – people just knew about them and came along if they wanted, it was open house – but she'd dashed off a card … she stared at her own hastily scrawled words: ‘Do persuade Vivienne H. to come on Sunday, won't you. It would be lovely to see her again.' She'd put the card in an envelope, so there was no address on the other side.

‘What on earth was this note I sent Freddie doing in someone else's coat pocket?'

Phil pushed his glasses up his nose. His hand was shaking. He said in that same deadly tone of voice, the voice of someone backing away from a cobra: ‘Reggie – they think – that is – it must be Freddie. Isn't that right?' He glanced at the men who sat there, out of place, invaders who had turned this ordinary domestic day into a nightmare.

‘That was the assumption – that the deceased is the person addressed on the card,' said the older detective ponderously.

She stared in front of her. ‘Freddie – what on earth do you mean? How could … He was here – just last night.'

‘He was here? What time did he leave?' The chief inspector pounced.

The sergeant was watching her too. ‘He was a friend – a relative?'

‘You don't mean – what are you saying?' Her soft voice was suddenly hoarse.

Phil came to her rescue. ‘Mr and Mrs Milner usually have friends round on a Sunday; Mr Buckingham was one of the guests yesterday afternoon.'

‘Buckingham's the name, is it?'

‘You mean Freddie …' She stared at them. ‘Freddie – on the Heath? What was he doing on the Heath?'

‘A close friend, was he, Mrs Milner?'

‘Yes, but …'

‘Perhaps you know his next of kin? They'll need to identify him.'

‘Identify him? What d'you mean?'

‘They mean he's dead, Reggie,' said Phil.

‘Freddie –
dead
? That's
impossible
. He can't be! It can't be him!'

The sergeant said: ‘We do realise this must be a shock, Mrs Milner.'

‘Oh no – that's impossible,' she cried and then, ‘was it a heart attack?'

Phil put his hand on her arm, but spoke to the detectives. ‘You say his wallet's gone? What happened, was he attacked?'

Attacked! Her heart turned to lead.

‘We don't know exactly what happened. It would be most helpful if you could give us a few details about the gentleman, an address, for instance. Or next of kin? Was he married?'

She said slowly: ‘He wasn't married.'

‘It is important we establish the next of kin.'

‘He really had no family. Well …' Freddie had been at loggerheads with his family ever since she'd known him. His brother had been killed in North Africa … his mother was dead, she knew that. Anger welled up. ‘There's a sister, I think, but they're barely on speaking terms. His friends were much more important. We can – I don't know – do whatever has to be done.'

‘It isn't that simple. I am truly sorry, Mrs Milner, but the fact is, he was murdered.'

‘Murdered! You didn't say he'd been murdered!' Freddie had kissed her goodbye. ‘He was – I was supposed to have lunch with him today.' She shook her head; she was trying to get rid of the thoughts that buzzed furiously inside her skull like bees in a hive. ‘What was he doing on the Heath?'

‘That's what we'd like to know, Mrs Milner.'

It wasn't one of the places he went to … but she mustn't let on about that. She had to protect Freddie. There mustn't be a scandal.

There were so many questions. ‘When did it happen?' she said, trying to picture it, trying to imagine …

‘We'll know more about that after the post mortem.'

Phil patted her arm and stood up again. ‘I'll phone work and tell them I'm delayed.'

‘Just one or two questions and then you can be on your way, sir.'

Phil looked down at her. ‘I'll stay, shan't I, Reg?'

She stared at him blankly. ‘What? Oh … no … I'll ring Neville. And Mrs Havelock will be here any minute.'

The inspector said: ‘We needn't take long. The main thing at present is identification. We may need you or your husband to identify him, I'm afraid. If we can't trace his family, that is.'

She stared in front of her. She sat still as a stone.

‘You're upset. He was a close friend?' The younger policeman leaned towards her.

But she felt no emotion at all. She stared at him blankly as he said: ‘We'll probably need to talk to you at greater length later. But there are a few things you could help us with now – what time he left here last night, how he seemed, whether he was alone or accompanied, if he was going home or planned to meet someone.'

Phil pushed his spectacles up his nose and his hair fell over his forehead. ‘Freddie left on his own. He was the last to leave. That's right, isn't it, Regine? About eight, I'd say.'

‘Was it? Yes, I suppose …' His bulky figure visible in the beam of light from the front door as he waved from the path, brushing against the overgrown shrubs.

‘What about your other visitors? It will assist us if you can tell us who else was here.'

‘Other visitors?' Now she was alert. This was a disaster. The police going round to interview all her guests! No one would ever come again! ‘Why do you need to know? What have they got to do with it? Anyway, as Phil says, they'd all left before Freddie.'

The two men in their dark, worn suits were impassive. Then the sergeant glanced at his superior and said: ‘Perhaps you could give us a list later.'

‘I can't even remember exactly who – I mean it's all very informal, people come and go. Isn't that right, Phil.'

‘Absolutely.'

The policemen were silent.

Phil blinked at them. ‘Whereabouts on the Heath …?'

‘At this stage we can't divulge details.'

‘Near here? Hampstead Heath's a big place.'

Why was Phil asking all these questions?

‘Indeed it is,' said the inspector. ‘You say you know his address. That's the most important thing at the moment.'

‘His address? 66 Markham Square, Chelsea.' As soon as she'd said it, she wished she hadn't. But she could hardly have pretended she didn't know.

‘Is there anything either of you can recall, anything unusual about your friend's manner, anything he said?'

The inspector's neutrality unnerved her. He was opaque. She glanced at Phil. Eugene used to say, if ever the police call round, say as little as possible. Why had she remembered that? ‘We were reminiscing about Shanghai.'

‘Shanghai?'

‘Freddie and I were there before the war. We were just chatting about old times.'

And then he'd said, I need to talk to you … What had he wanted to talk to her about? She'd never know now.

‘Perhaps, sir, now we have an identification and an address … perhaps we can leave it for now – Mrs Milner will need some time to gather her thoughts.' The sergeant looked across at her. He had a kind face, Regine thought.

Phil was frowning. ‘Why should there have been anything unusual? Surely it's pretty obvious what happened. You say his wallet was missing, it must have been stolen, mustn't it? I don't suppose whoever it was meant to kill him, but if Freddie tried to fight him off—'

‘At this stage that's pure speculation, sir.' The inspector stood up and the sergeant followed suit. ‘And as it happens, he was shot. I apologise for having to bring you bad news, Mrs Milner. But you've been most helpful. At least we have an identification now. We may need to talk to you again later, but finding his next of kin is our first priority and you say you can't help us there.'

‘He was
shot
– on the Heath?' It was incredible. She swallowed. ‘Well, at least it would have been instantaneous.'

The two policemen glanced at each other. They were not going to enlighten her about that. Then: ‘You're sure you can't give us an address for any family?'

She hated the way they were going on about the family, the next of kin. Of course he had a family, somewhere, people like Freddie always had hordes of relations, and however hard Freddie had tried to wrench free of their tentacles there were sure to be some waiting to get their hands on … what? He never had any money. But his things, his
bibelots
, his knick-knacks, his baubles; and the house, of course. She already felt immense hostility towards the sister she'd never met.

In the hall the inspector paused once more. ‘In the next few days – if we need to telephone you, this is the number on the card I presume.'

She could not bear the fact that they had the right to keep the card –
her
card – the card she'd written to Freddie. She watched them walk away down the path, their dark clothes shabby in the sunlight.