Chapter 21 The Dome of Discovery #4
“They hang women, Flynn. Couldn’t have that.
She’s a good girl—I love her, you know. I’d do anything to save her.
When she came home and confessed what she’d done, I knew I had to protect her.
Had to pin it on someone, thought it might as well be you.
Got Braithwaite to do some of the legwork.
He was always a willing soldier, you know.
Terrifically useful. Paying that barman to lie to the police, hiding the gun in your place, getting that silk scarf out of that dustbin—all that malarkey. Apologies, old man.”
“Braithwaite’s dead.”
“Is he? Surprised he was still alive, to be honest. Anyway, onwards and upwards.” He stood up slowly and had to steady himself by holding on to the table. “Best get going.”
“You’re going to run?”
“Won’t be the first time. Getting a bit old for it though. We need a fresh start.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Flynn spotted two policemen entering the café. He turned to monitor their progress. When he turned back to warn Archie, he had disappeared. Et voilà.
He eventually found Veronica in a sticky pink cloud of candy floss, Mrs. Betty too.
“Been looking everywhere for you,” she said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Seaside Pavilion. They had a ‘What the Butler Saw’ thing.”
“And what did he see?”
“Not a lot. Nothing as bad as Uncle Gerry’s mucky pics.
And there was a machine that made seaside rock.
Unbelievable. Who knew? Not me. Sat on a deckchair, pretended it was a beach.
Not like the real thing. Bought a Cornish pasty in the Whistle Café—you owe me for that.
And I went to Power and something or other—”
“Production.”
“Not as boring as it sounds. There was a biscuit-making machine. And then—”
“The worst thing about doodle bugs,” Maud Ogilvie had said to Flynn one idle afternoon when she was telling him about some of the things he had missed on the Home Front during his time on the Railway, was that you could hear them coming.
“You would think that would be an advantage somehow, but it’s horrifying having to listen to what may be your nemesis approaching.
I would rather be taken by surprise. Chatting away happily one minute, a smear of soot on the pavement the next. ”
And they were. Taken by surprise. A massive bang shattered the afternoon. Flynn felt the explosion move upwards through his lungs like a painful, unstoppable wave. Instinctively, he threw himself on top of Veronica.
Some Festival visitors who were Blitz-hardened Londoners dropped to the ground and covered their heads with their hands, although Flynn heard a nonchalant cockney voice say, “Not another bloody unexploded bomb.”
“A bomb?” Veronica said, crawling out from beneath Flynn and staggering to her feet. Mrs. Betty, who had found herself at the bottom of the heap, was studded with bits of Veronica’s pink candy floss, which she began to lick off with admirable sangfroid.
“We’re not at war again, are we?” Veronica asked.
—
Not a war. Not a bomb. The explosion was caused by a canister of Calor gas, being used against all advice in a Farmhouse Kitchen for the Middle Classes.
“Stay here,” Flynn said. He supposed there was a slight chance that Veronica would do as she was told while he ran off towards the Rooms. A couple of policemen were already there, and Flynn could hear the urgent clanging of a fire engine’s bell approaching.
The Kitchen was little more than a smouldering heap, and no one seemed anxious to go in.
“Too dangerous, sir, and there’s talk of another bomb,” one of the police officers said to Flynn when he volunteered to look.
Rather himself, he thought, who was hardened to any atrocity, than the two baby-faced St. John Ambulance cadets who had rushed eagerly from one of the First Aid posts, bandages and plasters at the ready.
Who had been inside the Kitchen when the canister exploded? Mitzi, presumably. Cynthia, perhaps. Leonora and her new beau? Flynn hoped not.
Luckily the crowds had been persuaded to disperse a little.
There were some hats blown off heads, but no heads blown off necks.
Laddered stockings and a few cuts. One bloody nose, hit by a flying spoon, but on the whole everyone had got off lightly.
Or perhaps it was the case that whoever knew how to make a bomb out of a Calor gas canister also knew how to contain the subsequent explosion so that only Mitzi would be blown to kingdom come.
Along with every last crumb of the cake.
No one seemed particularly resentful, apart from the man hit by the flying spoon. Some even seemed to think it was part of the entertainment—one of Badger’s “Stunts” perhaps.
Flynn spotted Maud Ogilvie on the outskirts of the crowd. She gave a curt little nod that at first he thought was directed at him, until he realized it had been intended for Lydia, who was standing behind him.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Flynn said to Lydia. “Any idea what happened?”
“None,” she said. She took his arm. If he didn’t know her better (not that he knew her at all) he would have said that she seemed rather shaken. When he looked again, Maud Ogilvie had disappeared.
How easy, Flynn wondered, would it be to rig a gas canister to explode?
It was probably something a woman could do just as well as a man.
The kind of woman who kept a small, useful toolkit in her large handbag.
Nail scissors, a screwdriver, a small hammer, lavender balm to grease any screws and washers.
Even the brandy might come in handy to feed the flames that had consumed the Kitchen.
And afterwards you could wipe away any trace of yourself with a handkerchief embroidered with forget-me-nots.
“You really have to stop being so suspicious, Flynn. It borders on insanity. You’ll end up being carted away by the men in white coats. Next thing, you’ll be claiming that the Archbishop of Canterbury killed Delphine.”
“Did he?”
—
The fire brigade had finished hosing the Farmhouse Kitchen down, and it wasn’t long before they were stretchering out a body draped in a blanket.
“Just the one fatality,” a senior-looking fire officer said to Lydia after she showed him some kind of warrant card. Flynn thought that it probably didn’t say No Job Too Small. Quite the opposite, probably.
He could see the top of a head poking out from beneath the blanket. The charred ginger hair looked oddly askew, as a wig would do if it had been dislodged by a blast. A pink ribbon besmirched by smoke left no room for doubt. Mitzi.
“Gas can be so dangerous,” Lydia murmured as the stretcher passed them.
“You know, do you, that Mitzi killed Delphine Dubois?” Flynn said to her.
“Did she? Why? Jealousy? Such a pointless emotion.”
“It would have been very inconvenient for you if Mitzi, not Dangerfield, was found to have committed Delphine’s murder, wouldn’t it?
” Flynn said. “Just as inconvenient as if Gammage had stood up in court and said he knew that Braithwaite was in the drunk tank at the time. And it was very helpful of Braithwaite to have a heart attack. I wonder if the ‘Powers That Be’ are aware of how your scheme to disgrace Dangerfield unravelled and turned into such a shambles. And now anyone who might have let the cat out of that bag has been mysteriously eliminated.”
“Braithwaite was sick and Gammage fell, he was drunk. And as for Mitzi, what do you expect if you mess about with something dangerous? I wish I had as much power as you credit me with.”
Flynn gestured at the ruins of the Kitchen. “It’s going to take more than a D-Notice to keep this under wraps, Lydia.”
“Well, there are no major injuries today, apart from one—obviously—and there have been other distractions. The excitement of seeing the Royals—they’re always good for misdirection—and apparently a cow’s running amok amongst the crowds at the moment.
Causing quite a commotion, apparently. I’m sure the Press can be persuaded that’s a better story. ”
“A cow? Orange Blossom? The Festival Cow?”
“The what? Look, do you fancy a drink, Flynn? I could certainly do with one.”
Before he could answer, the senior fire officer reappeared. He took his helmet off and wiped his brow, and then said something quietly to Lydia.
“What?” Flynn asked her.
“They found another body.”
“Who?”
“Male. They can’t identify him yet.”
“Archie, perhaps,” Flynn said. “He was going to run, but he might have gone to say goodbye to Mitzi. I think he really loved her. Perhaps he would have preferred it this way. Dying along with Mitzi.”
“Being blown to kingdom come? You old romantic, you.”
“Lydia—was Mitzi the loose end you were tying up? Are there any others still?”
“Sorry, Flynn, I have to go.”
—
“Well, that was quite an exciting day,” Veronica said as they walked back to Romilly Street.
“It’s not over yet.”