Chapter Seven
SEVEN
Gwen was waiting for Iris as she turned the corner.
‘Were you able to get a good view of his face?’ asked Iris.
Gwen held up a pair of opera glasses, which she folded up and placed in her bag.
‘I’ve never tried to read someone from a distance before,’ she said. ‘Good thing you had him under the street light. But you planned that, didn’t you?’
‘I did. How much could you hear?’
‘Not everything, but enough.’
‘And?’
‘And I believe he was telling the truth about not being behind the attempt on Mr Danforth’s life.’
‘So do I,’ said Iris, starting to walk.
‘You almost sound disappointed,’ commented Gwen, joining her.
‘It would have simplified things,’ said Iris. ‘God, I want a drink right now. Several, to be precise. I need complete obliteration.’
‘Come back to my place,’ said Gwen. ‘I have the means necessary.’
‘So does the nearest pub, and I can get there sooner.’
‘You shouldn’t be drinking alone, and you shouldn’t be going to a pub to get soused right now,’ said Gwen. ‘You’ll either end up in a brawl or going to bed with a complete stranger.’
‘What if I get to know him first?’
‘Come with me, Iris,’ said Gwen firmly. ‘You’ve been off your stride ever since this mission was shoved into our lives. We will delve into my personal supplies, and if you pass out, it will be in my guest room, not a public house.’
‘What if I get into a brawl with you?’
‘I’ve been training,’ said Gwen. ‘I might be a match for you if you’re drunk.’
‘Doubt it.’
‘So do I. But it’s a better idea for you to be drinking with me, so come on. We’ll pick up some dinner on the way home.’
‘I have no appetite.’
‘You will by the time we get there.’
They stopped by an Indian restaurant to pick up a couple of curries, then caught a cab to Maida Vale. It was past eight o’clock when they walked through Gwen’s front door. Millie, her housekeeper, appeared from the upper landing.
‘Good evening, Mrs Bainbridge, Miss Sparks,’ she called. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘We’re fine, Millie,’ replied Gwen.
‘But she may need help carrying me up the stairs later,’ added Iris.
‘I’ll check back before I turn in,’ said Millie.
‘You don’t mind eating in the kitchen, do you?’ asked Gwen as they hung up their coats. ‘It’s more convenient and our conversation is less likely to travel upstairs.’
‘Fine with me.’
Iris followed Gwen to the rear of the house, then sat at the small kitchen table while her partner busied herself fetching plates, bowls and spoons.
‘I prefer G&Ts with my curry,’ said Gwen, pulling a bottle of Gordon’s from the refrigerator. ‘Especially during the summer months. Will that do the trick?’
‘As long as the ratio favours the gin,’ said Iris.
‘And look!’ said Gwen holding up a precious lime. ‘We will ward off malaria and scurvy simultaneously.’
She fetched a chunk of ice from the freezer, put it in a steel bucket, then handed it to Iris along with an ice pick.
‘Take out your frustrations on this,’ suggested Gwen.
Within seconds, Iris reduced the chunk to fragments, her face glistening from the spatter.
Gwen scooped several pieces into a pair of tumblers, added a sliver of lime to each, poured the gin well past the halfway level, then added the tonic, pouring it over a bar spoon.
She gave each drink a single stir, then placed one at each end of the table.
‘To Tony Danforth,’ she said, raising hers. ‘May he live through the night, and long after.’
‘To Tony,’ echoed Iris, clinking her tumbler against Gwen’s.
She downed most of it on the first swallow.
‘Pace yourself, darling,’ said Gwen as she took a small sip from hers. ‘We need your brain intact for this conversation.’
‘The gin won’t kick in for a few minutes,’ said Iris.
‘Have some curry,’ said Gwen, ladling it into the bowls with some rice. ‘I find that the burning sensation stimulates thinking.’
‘I don’t want to think right now.’
‘Do you want to find who did this to Mr Danforth or not?’ asked Gwen.
‘Why is that our responsibility?’ asked Iris as she spooned some curry into her mouth.
Then she made a muffled grunt and grabbed for her gin.
‘I told you to pace yourself,’ said Gwen, calmly swallowing one spoonful, then another. ‘As to responsibility – Parham is hampered by having to work alone and in the dark. The Brigadier isn’t going to lift a finger to help him. Which leaves us.’
‘But we’re working for the Brigadier and we can’t tell Parham anything.’
‘We can’t tell Parham anything about the operation, or the Brigadier’s suspicions about Mr Danforth. But what if the attack had nothing to do with the operation?’
‘What else could it be?’ asked Iris.
‘You’re empty,’ said Gwen.
She took Iris’s tumbler and mixed another, the gin nearing the three-quarter mark this time.
‘Chin-chin,’ she said.
‘You can’t toast Indian food with Chinese toasts,’ protested Iris.
‘I don’t know any Indian toasts. Do you?’
‘No, come to think of it. Cheers.’
She swallowed. Gwen sipped, watching her.
‘What else could it be?’ repeated Iris.
‘It struck me that a Molotov cocktail is a particularly vicious method of attacking someone,’ said Gwen. ‘It’s designed to cause a great deal of pain and not necessarily a quick death. It also has to be planned. One doesn’t just happen to have a bottle of petrol concealed in one’s coat pocket.’
‘All that is true enough,’ said Iris. ‘What’s your point?’
‘That this was personal rather than political,’ said Gwen. ‘The attacker wanted him to suffer before he died. What if vengeance was the motive?’
‘Vengeance for what?’
‘What about that woman in Cambridge? Nancy something. Sauce, I believe people called her.’
‘What about her?’
‘Mr Danforth comes back in town for the first time in ages and this happens,’ said Gwen. ‘Someone could have been waiting for this opportunity.’
‘After all these years?’ scoffed Iris. ‘That’s a very lazy avenging angel. They should have hunted him down overseas.’
‘They might not have had the means,’ suggested Gwen. ‘Or they might have thought that the wars would take their toll. As they did for the others – what were their names? Kevin something was one, Sally said.’
‘Pickard,’ said Iris. ‘Kevin Pickard and Bruce Cater. Both were at Pembroke with Tony. The Unholy Trinity, they used to call themselves.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, just some stupid nickname Pickard thought up. They had an act at parties, singing dirty satirical songs in three-part harmony, often bringing in the names of faculty members or fellow students. They thought they were amusing.’
‘Were they?’
‘More cruel than funny, in my opinion, but Pickard was hugely rich and very well-connected, so people would laugh to stay on his good side. Either I’ve burned away my taste buds or I’m getting used to the curry now.’
‘I told you you’d be hungry. Was Nancy ever featured in one of these songs?’
‘I never heard first hand, but there was gossip of a particularly vicious reference in one dedicated to the girls of Newnham sung at some secret club gathering. There was a fair amount of sniggering among the stupider sex afterwards.’
‘Were you included in that one?’
‘Maybe,’ said Iris, shrugging. ‘Probably. Who cares?’
‘How long after that song was Nancy’s death?’
Iris finished her glass.
‘Not long,’ she said, holding it out for another refill. ‘I know what you’re doing, by the way.’
‘What’s that?’ Gwen asked as she mixed another and handed it to her.
‘You’re trying to get me drunk so I will reveal what you suspect is some dark secret I’m concealing from those times,’ said Iris. ‘Well, it won’t work. I have been trained for just such an approach. My ability to keep mum is directly proportionate to my capacity for alcohol.’
‘Iris, whoever tried to kill Tony may try again,’ said Gwen. ‘Surely that’s crossed your mind by now.’
‘Of course, it has,’ said Iris. ‘And I’m sure it crossed Parham’s as well. He’ll be having a constable guarding Tony’s room.’
‘That only covers the near future,’ said Gwen.
‘Yes, well, Tony ought to be on the alert now, don’t you think?’ snapped Iris. ‘If this stems from … from anything in the past, then it’s his responsibility to–to—’
‘To do what? Defend himself from more petrol bombs?’ finished Gwen.
‘How does one do that exactly? And what if the next attack turns out to be more thorough and less defensible? Parham will either find this attacker soon, or he won’t and will have to move on to the next priority, but Tony will be in a long, slow recovery, and no one is going to be guarding him full-time. But if his attacker is caught—’
‘If we catch him, you’re saying.’
‘Yes. If we catch him, then Tony will be safe. I think that’s worth doing.’
‘How do we go about doing that?’
‘I don’t know enough about what happened to answer that – yet,’ said Gwen. ‘I need you to enlighten me.’
‘The thing is, I don’t know for certain,’ said Iris.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I was sound asleep in bed with Tony when the screaming started,’ she said. ‘By the time we got to that part of the house, everything was over.’
Gwen looked across the table at her for a long time.
‘I thought you said you weren’t lovers,’ she said finally.
‘I said I didn’t think that word applied to us,’ said Iris. ‘Not as it is generally defined.’
‘But you went to bed with him. You said things never got that far.’
‘I said— oh, hell, I am not going to provide you with details,’ said Iris.
‘No, I don’t want any, thank you,’ said Gwen. ‘But I think you had better start at the beginning.’
‘What was the beginning?’ Iris mused aloud.
‘It was the last weekend of April, Easter Term, 1936. A Friday afternoon. Bruce was driving. He had a Morris Twenty-Five, and five of us were crammed into it, plus too many valises and bags of food and booze for one weekend. Tony and I were in the rear seat, smashed together with some of the bags, and Kevin was up front.’
‘And Nancy?’ asked Gwen.
‘She was on Kevin’s lap.’
Cambridgeshire, 1936
‘Stop!’ Sauce cried, laughing as she playfully slapped Kevin’s hands away. ‘People will see.’