Chapter 19 As English as YouMe
“Good afternoon,” said Hilary to the ticket seller at Classic Cinema.
“I wonder if you can help me. I’m looking for a young lady called Mina Taylor.
Is she working today?” The girl was slouching in her chair and sucking on a sweet.
She blinked at Hilary, as though this departure from the usual demands of her job were a challenge too far. Impatient, he flashed his badge.
That did it. She dropped her insolent expression and stood up. “I’ll fetch ’er,” she muttered, and went off, glancing over her shoulder before quickening her step.
When she returned with another girl duly in tow, they were whispering and giggling. The ticket seller nudged her friend and nodded pointedly at Hilary.
“Miss Taylor?” he said. “I’m sorry to interrupt your work. I’m Detective Inspector Hilary Comyns. Might we have a quick chat? Nothing to worry about.”
She stared at him, an appraising glint in her eye. In her uniform of belted jacket, white blouse, and black collar ribbon, this slight young girl seemed oddly authoritative. Like a boarding-school headmistress, or a female SS guard.
“I’m afraid you’ve caught me in the middle of a shift,” she said in confident, slightly theatrical tones. “I can’t abandon my post, you see.”
“I’m sure the manager—” Hilary began.
“Tell you what,” she said soothingly, “I finish at five. If you’d like to come back then, perhaps?”
He glanced at his wristwatch. “Very well. Five o’clock.”
Hilary almost didn’t recognize Miss Taylor in civilian clothes, which had transformed her from spinsterish headmistress to Hollywood vamp.
Her peach-colored dress matched her coat, which had bracelet-length sleeves showing two rows of pearls on her left wrist. She wore imitation lizard-skin shoes, a white cap with a small spray of purple feathers, and freshly applied orange lip paint.
A sharp eyetooth bore a tiny orange smudge.
“So sorry to keep you waiting,” she trilled. “I hope you haven’t been too inconvenienced.” He detected elocution lessons in her clipped consonants, and remembered what Miss Mountford-Owen had said, that Miss Taylor was a social climber. He didn’t doubt it. Pure resolve radiated from her like heat.
“Not at all,” he said. “Can I buy you a cup of tea?”
“I expect you’ve been told about my visit to your residence,” said Hilary once the waitress had taken their order. “And that I’m trying to trace Mr. James Sullivan.”
“You expect right,” she said. Cheekily, he wondered, or merely plainspokenly? “I heard all about it, don’t you worry about that. It was the most exciting thing ever to happen at Tregunter Road. I was quite sorry to have missed it, I don’t mind telling you.”
“May I ask, how did you come to live there? Where did you meet Mrs. Wilson?”
“Oh, she answered my advertisement. In The Lady magazine. I didn’t want to live just anywhere. I wanted something suitable. You know, with nice people.”
“And Mrs. Wilson is nice, is she?”
The girl looked at him steadily. “Of course.”
“Is she Russian, do you know?”
“Russian?”
“Born in Russia. The Soviet Union.”
She tilted her chin down. “I’m afraid I’ve no idea what you’re implying.” She seemed affronted. “Honor Wilson is as English as you or me. I mean, really. You’ve only got to speak to her to see that.”
The waitress arrived with the tea things, and Miss Taylor smiled at her with great warmth—the solidarity of one working girl to another, thought Hilary.
“Right,” he said. “My mistake.” He stirred some sugar into his tea and offered her a cigarette. “So, I daresay you know what my next question will be.”
She nodded and leaned forward so he could light her cigarette.
She turned her head and in a slow, sultry way let a thin jet of smoke stream from the corner of her mouth.
Hilary imagined her practicing the gesture in front of a mirror.
“The whereabouts of Mr. Sullivan,” she said, “are unknown to me.”
This phrasing also seemed practiced, he thought. “Were you two friendly?”
“I prefer,” she said grandly, “to keep myself to myself. I’m terribly busy.
I certainly wouldn’t have time to befriend strange men, even if they are living under the same roof.
Not to say… I mean, I get on well with everyone.
And Saul, well, you might say he’s like an uncle to me. But that’s different, he—”
“I’m sorry,” interrupted Hilary. “What was the name you mentioned?”
“Saul Reznikov,” said Mina slowly, as if realizing she’d made an error. “He lives at Tregunter Road with us, in the basement.”
“For some reason,” he said, “I know that name.”
“Oh yes, Saul is a published poet.”
But Hilary, whose literary tastes began and ended with the Hardy Boys books of his childhood, felt the name was familiar for quite a different reason. At that moment, though, it eluded him.
“So, this Mr. Reznikov, he’s a chum of yours? A good chap, is he?”
“The very best of chaps. Now, he is foreign. He’s from somewhere…
” She made a vague swirly shape with her cigarette.
“One of those places where the Germans did terrible things. He lost his wife and daughter. Can you imagine?” Her little nostrils flared.
“So yes, you might say I’m proud to know him.
George and I are fairly pally, too. But I barely exchanged two sentences with Mr. Sullivan, I—”
“George?” he said. “Who do you—”
“Sorry, Miss Mountford-Owen. She’s been…”
Momentarily Hilary stopped listening. How stupid of him. George. Georgina. Of course.
“Forgive my interrupting,” he said, “but I don’t want to take up your entire evening. If I could ask one more question. Were you aware that Miss Mountford-Owen and Mr. Sullivan were romantically involved?”
Miss Taylor replaced her teacup in its saucer and looked at him with an expression he could only describe as nonplussed.
She drew on her cigarette, wincing as though she’d inhaled too hard.
Then she opened her mouth to speak. Finally she fixed him with her shrewd green eyes and said, “I know it’s your job, Detective Inspector, to ask questions, even if those questions might be impolite.
I don’t know who’s been saying such things.
I don’t want to know, I’m sure. But I’ll thank you to tell them they’re mistaken.
George is the daughter of a baron. Her portrait’s been painted by famous artists. The very idea that—”
Hilary held up a placating hand. “It isn’t my intention to besmirch anyone’s reputation.
But I’m afraid this isn’t idle gossip. I have the information on good authority.
Naturally, it’s none of my business. Except Miss Mountford-Owen lied to me about it.
Why do you imagine she might have done that? ”
Miss Taylor widened her eyes and pressed her lips together. For a horrible moment he thought she might burst into tears. But she just sat up straighter, ground out her cigarette, and said, “If you don’t mind, I must be going now.”
He hadn’t the heart to detain her. Still, he insisted on seeing her home.
It was a lovely evening, light and mild, the sky’s pink-white tint reflecting the blossom petals scattered like confetti over the pavement.
As they walked, Miss Taylor reassumed her forceful, jaunty demeanor.
In an offhand sort of way, he was able to bring up Mr. Trafford, whom she seemed to like.
“He’s married, you know,” she said. “Some people are surprised about that. They think he’s not the marrying kind.
He’s just bookish, though. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? ”
“No,” said Hilary, smiling to himself. “Nothing.”
Christ on a cracker, thought Mina as she let herself in with her latchkey.
George and Jimmy. Who else knew, she wondered, and who on earth had told the policeman?
It was a bit much for George to have kept it a secret.
Under the circumstances, as it were. Mina had properly been put on the spot.
Unless it wasn’t true? Maybe the detective was fishing for information.
That was what detectives did, after all.
Was he looking for a murder motive? Cherchez la femme?
Mina knocked on George’s bedroom door and said, “It’s only me.”
“Perfect timing,” said George when Mina entered. “Zip me up, could you, darling?” She was half in a sleeveless rose-print dress. “I’ll breathe in.”
The straps of her shell-pink brassiere were gray with dirt, Mina noticed with a grimace, and her underarms wanted shaving. After some manipulation and frantic tugging, Mina managed to force the dress’s zip up, and they both sighed with relief.
George stood in front of the dressing table mirror and, leaning forward, stuck a hand down her front to arrange her breasts. “Did you need something, Mina?” she said, straightening up and considering her reflection. “Rory’s picking me up in twenty minutes.”
Mina sat down on the little settee. “Continue with your primping, don’t mind me. I just had an encounter with DI Comyns, that’s all. He came to find me at the cinema. George, I’m worried.”
“You mustn’t worry!” She picked up a can of hairspray and spritzed her new short fringe. “There’s nothing he can pin on us. I think he’s rather a pet, don’t you? Now, which earrings, the paste or the enamel?”
“The paste. George, why didn’t you tell me you and Jimmy were having an affair? He knows, you know. Comyns.”
In the mirror, Mina saw George’s face fall. It’s true, then, she thought.
George sat down next to her. “Tell me exactly what he said.”
“He asked did I know that Miss Mountford-Owen and Mr. Sullivan were romantically involved. Because he had it on good authority that you were.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said it was completely out of the question, that he’d got his wires crossed.”
“Well, precisely so. Thank you, darling.” She stood up. “Have you told Honor?”
“No, I’ve only just—”
“I must have a word with her about it.” She reached down and touched Mina’s shoulder. “Really, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”