Chapter 18 Hors de Combat #2
An ambulance rounded the corner of the street, its bell ringing a tocsin that brought several residents out from the surrounding buildings to discover the source of the excitement.
The ambulancemen clambered quickly out of their vehicle and hurried towards the two police constables.
All sense of emergency dissipated, however, as they joined in the contemplation of whatever it was on the pavement that was exercising so much fascination.
They, too, looked up at the windows of the building, as if they were calculating the drop.
Before he could stop her, Veronica went darting up Rose Street to investigate. She was quick to return, saucer-eyed. Tugging Flynn by the hand, she said quietly, “Come on, let’s go home.”
“Is it Gammage?” he hazarded.
“Yeah. Splatted on the pavement. Like strawberry jam.”
“Jesus Christ.”
—
“Do you think he was murdered?” Veronica asked once they were back in Romilly Street. “He spilt the beans to us and so someone pushed him out of the window.”
“Defenestrated.”
“Big word.”
“From fenestra—Latin for window.”
“The plot thickens.”
Was there an innocent explanation? Or was Veronica right and Gammage had been killed for “spilling the beans”?
Or perhaps in case there were more beans for him to spill.
Or was it a punishment for Gammage or a warning to Flynn?
Or both? Were dark arts at work? Flynn wondered.
He must have voiced his doubts aloud because Veronica said, “Dark arts? Don’t like the sound of them. ”
Could he keep Veronica safe here? Was there anyone who could?
“You want me to babysit?” Lydia raised a cool eyebrow—freezing, even.
It was nearly nine o’clock in the morning, but Flynn had got her out of bed and she wasn’t happy about it.
She was rigged in a fancy silk negligée over matching pyjamas—an outfit that would have felt insulted if it had been asked to make an appearance in his bedroom in Romilly Street.
There was no invitation for him to come inside, he noticed.
“I have to go to the office,” Flynn said.
“The entire complicated machinery of the Festival can’t manage without your one little cog?”
He should probably feel insulted, but she was right. He was a cog.
“How old is she anyway, this child? She’s not small, is she?” Lydia gave a little shiver. “I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do with a small child.”
“She’s thirteen.”
“Well then, she’s quite old enough to take care of herself. Why do you need me?”
“Because she’ll do something reckless if no one’s keeping an eye on her.
” And someone might push her out of a window, he thought, but refrained from saying so.
Of course, there were other ways to kill someone apart from defenestration.
A spear-point bladed knife. A US Army–issue Colt.
A silk scarf printed with little Eiffel Towers.
Knew a woman once who killed a man with the heel of her shoe.
(And let’s not forget ennui, Flynn thought.) Was Delphine dead?
Archie had certainly implied that she was, but nothing that came out of his mouth could be trusted.
Lydia sighed the sigh of a put-upon woman—not a role she took on often. “Where is she?”
“Waiting downstairs.”
Lydia led him into her drawing room, where three large, almost floor-length windows, swagged with plush velvet, looked down on the street.
The rugs had a deep pile, the furniture was expensive and gleamed with polish.
Flynn doubted that it was Lydia’s fair hand that held the duster.
The whole room spoke of money. The last time Flynn was in Lydia’s flat they had by-passed this room.
No prelude had taken place in here—no drinks or cigarettes or polite chit-chat—Lydia’s path had led them swiftly to her bed.
“I suppose you’d better bring her up, then. I’ll get dressed.”
—
Impressed by her surroundings, Veronica gave a little bob when she was introduced as if she’d suddenly found herself in front of royalty. “Fenestra,” she announced. “Fenestra Shears. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” (Said in a ridiculous attempt at an upper-class accent.)
“Named for one of the martyrs of the early church, presumably,” Lydia said, the eyebrow now sardonic.
“Yes, she was thrown out of a window.”
“It’s Veronica actually,” Flynn intervened.
“And a dog, too,” Lydia said. “How lovely.” (Irony, Flynn thought of explaining to Veronica, but didn’t.)
Lydia disappeared into the kitchen to make coffee. The coffee pot, when it came, was silver, engraved with a family crest. Flynn wondered what kind of people put their crest on a coffee pot. Norfolk kind of people, he supposed. Like the Festival’s ubiquitous emblem, it was a badge of ownership.
Lydia poured the coffee into little cups that were as fragile as eggshells. Veronica was handed one, too. Coffee was on Ivy’s list of banned substances, but Flynn had been found wanting on so many fronts in his role in loco parentis that coffee seemed the least of his failures.
“You don’t seem the sort to have a child, Flynn,” Lydia said.
He shrugged. “Takes all sorts.”
“Cigarette?” Lydia offered, opening a rather grand ebony and ivory box that sat in the middle of the coffee table. Veronica started to raise her hand but then thought better of it. Flynn lit their cigarettes with an onyx table lighter that was so heavy he nearly dropped it.
Lydia inhaled deeply on her cigarette and blew one of her perfect smoke rings. Veronica was transfixed at the sight. She had the makings of an acolyte.
“So,” Lydia said, looking speculatively at Veronica, “why am I required to be a jailer today?”
“Just keep her out of trouble.”
“I thought it was you that was in trouble. Don’t the police still suspect you of doing something dastardly to your Frenchwoman?”
“He didn’t do anything,” Veronica bridled indignantly. “He’s too soft to kill anyone.” (A criticism, apparently.) “He’s being framed.”
“By whom?” This addressed to Flynn, ignoring Veronica, who was jumping up and down in eagerness to tell the story.
“Archie Blinkhorn, I think,” Flynn said.
“Ah—that’s why you were asking me about him.”
“I think Delphine Dubois was his mistress—ex-mistress—and she was blackmailing him with obscene photographs of his wife, so he paid a man called Braithwaite to kill her. And then made it look as if I’d done it.
Archie would have known Braithwaite from before the war—he was one of Mosley’s henchmen from the old BUF days—”
“But Gammage!” Veronica interrupted, unable to contain herself any longer.
“Tell her about Gammage—wait, I’ll tell her—the barman, the barman at the Lamb and Flag—that’s a pub—he lied to the police—said he saw my dad fighting with the flooz—whatshername—Delphine—and we went to see him, and he admitted he’d been paid to say that by this Billy Braithwaite bloke, but only when I pointed a gun at him.
And then Tommy Gammage was pushed out of the window above the pub. On to the pavement. Splat.”
“She has a gun?” Lydia said, raising the cool eyebrow at Flynn.
Perhaps it was the only part of this tale she was able to make sense of.
“And now you’re worried the same thing might happen to little Fenestra here?
Splat?” She sighed again. “Very well, you can leave her here. But don’t ask for any more favours. What are you going to do now, Flynn?”
“Find some evidence that I’m innocent.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t do anything stupid. I’m sure this will all sort itself out in the fullness of time without you sticking your oar in.”
“What makes you think that? Do you know something about it? You do, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t, actually. I just think that if you’re as innocent as you say—”
“He is!”
“If you’re as innocent as you say, then everything’s bound to right itself in the end if you just leave it alone. Most things do, you know. And for heaven’s sake, get rid of that gun.”
Was Veronica safe with Lydia? Was anyone safe with Lydia? He certainly wasn’t. He sensed she was playing a game, and he had no idea what the rules might be. Or was he just a pawn in a larger game? A game where it felt like there were no rules at all.