Island Madness (24 page)

Ned thought he would show up on Monday, but he did not. Tommy was sent back to patrol outside the house. Ned waited in his office. A light rain settled. Halfway through the morning Ned put on his waterproof and walked over to the construction yard. He could see where the foreigns had broken in on Friday night. The fence had been kicked in not a hundred yards from a harbour checkpoint. Ned stepped in through the little door set in the high double gates. In the middle of the yard stood a small hut raised a few feet off the ground, lengths of raw wood arranged by size to one side, bundies of iron rods on the other. On the ground around a strewn, slippery chaos; boxes with their sides smashed in, machin-ery parts in junked heaps, a dented wheelbarrow jammed with half-opened packets of nails. George Poidevin stood on an untidy stack of wooden crates, levering open their lids with a length of flattened piping. Eleven thirty in the morning and he was making hard work of it. Ned picked his way over.

“I need to see your boss,” Ned called out. “You seen him about?”

George wedged the pipe in the crack and clambered down.

“Terrible business, Mr Luscombe,” he pleaded. “Terrible business. My missus is terrible cut up.”

Ned stirred a discarded coupling with his foot and looked about him.

“This the break-in I’ve heard so much about?” George nodded. “Made a bit of a mess, didn’t they?”

“Blooming nuisance, those foreigns. Should be kept under lock and key, not allowed to come and go as they please.” He pointed in the direction of the shed. The door hung off its hinges. “When they broke in all the paperwork was blown to buggery. No idea what’s where any more. This week of all weeks. I’m having the devil’s own job.”

“So Mr van Dielen hasn’t been here today?”

“Not today. Saw him yesterday though, and Saturday.”

“Miss van Dielen was here Saturday, is that right?”

George nodded. “They came round to the house first. Elspeth told him where I was and that.”

“He wanted to see about the break-in.”

“No, he wasn’t worried about that.”

“Oh?”

George drew a deep breath.

“We get instructions every Friday, see, what we’re doing the next week. What deliveries to make, what materials need to go where. It’s my job to sort it all out.” He waved his hand over the mess. “I usually do it on the Saturday morning. Get a bit of overtime that way. Well, last Friday he gives out the instructions as per usual. Number One lorry on metal rod run up over to Fort Hommet. Number Two up over to St Peter Port to piek up the colours for some extra tunnel work.”

“I don’t understand. The colours?”

“Each construction firm has been given a different colour. Ours is red. Every container that comes in from the mainland has the firm’s colour stamped on a little square on the side. Like that one there. That way there’s no mix-up at the harbour. It’s all done through the Organisation Todt. They specify the materials, the time of arrival, where they have to be delivered, what job it’s for. Mr van Dielen sorts it out with Major Ernst every Friday morning, and by the time we knock off, he’s worked out the schedules for the next week. But that night the foreigns broke in, so instead of doing what I normally do on the Saturday I spent all morning trying to clear up the mess. Saturday afternoon I’m back at the yard writing up the roster, when in he barges, dancing up and down like he’s got a banger up his arse. Forget the old running order, he says, everything’s changed. It’s all hands to the tunnels at La Vassalerie and the gun emplacements over L’Ancresse Bay. Everything else has to stop. And if Major Ernst changes his mind and wants us to do something else, we’re not to hang about waiting for confirmation, we do it, no questions asked. Well, that’s irregular for a start. We’re not supposed to take orders direct from the Germans. It’s against the rules. I looks at him and he claps me on the back, all friendly like, first time I’ve ever known him do that, and tells me to sort it out as best I can. Said he’d come round Sunday and help me out.”

“And Isobel was here with him that Saturday?”

“She were waiting by the gates when we come out. But I knew she was there earlier ‘cause I heard them coming across the road. Hammer and tongs, they were.” He paused. “Found up by the cliff, they say; horribly mutilated, that’s the word. Breasts sliced off, things in her private parts,” he said hopefully.

“You heard wrong,” Ned told him sharply. “What was the quarrel about? Did you hear any of it?”

George shook his head.

“Same old palaver, I reckon. Wouldn’t do as she was told. ‘Once more unto the breach,’ he says, when we were done, her standing over there, looking like thunder at a picnic party. ‘What she needs is the back of your hand,’ I tells him. ‘That’s what my Elspeth gets’.”

“You never spoke to her.”

“No. Never have, as a matter of fact. Never will now.”

“And where were you on Saturday night, George?”

“Saturday. Me and the missus went out, first to the Britannia, then on to the Albion. Very nearly missed the curfew.”

“That would never do. And Sunday…”

“He was waiting for me when I arrived! Would you believe it? Went through it all calm as anything. You wouldn’t think that…I mean, he never let on.” He coughed. “Do you think he might, you know, have done her in himself? It’s a thought, isn’t it, considering he’s gone AWOL.”

“Very helpful, George. Anything else?”

George looked round, making sure they were alone.

“About the break-in.”

“George, we’ve been through this.”

“No, no, Mr Luscombe. I wasn’t criticizing. I know how stretched you are. I was thinking, well, of deputies.”

“Deputies, George. How do you mean?”

“Well, seeing as you’re so busy with this murder and the Feldkommandantur not really interested, I was thinking, if you were to deputize me I could go looking for the crates myself -search houses, question folk. Like a proper policeman.”

“Forgive me for mentioning it, but didn’t you have some difficulty a couple of years back with receiving stolen goods?”

“That were a long time ago, Mr Luscombe. I had bills of lading, receipts. It was what you call a mistreatment of justice.”

“Sorry, George.”

“But the break-in! No one’s doing anything about it.” He looked around at the confusion. “What about the foreigns?” he persisted. “Has anyone searched their billets, noticed anything odd going on? Stains on their clothing, like?”

“George, what are you talking about?”

George pointed to one of the empty containers.

“Paint,” he said. “The bastards nicked a load of yellow paint.”

“What would the foreigns want a load of paint for?”

“There’s no knowing what they get up to, is there? They’re parts of this town it’s not safe to walk through of a night. Slant-eyes roaming the streets in little better than nightshirts.”

Ned couldn’t help himself. “So you think they’ve been painting the town yellow, do you?”

He walked back along the promenade. A light mist hung over the sea about a mile out. The tide was on the turn. A group of Todt workers came trotting round the corner, the rasp of their breath louder than the fall their feet, the smell of them lingering as they passed; a company of cycle infantry approached in the opposite direction, their heavy bicycles hissing on the wet road. Across the way a line of lorries were loading up on the quay and by the little sentry hut a motorcycle patrol was starting off on its hourly circular inspection, the outrider waving a rueful farewell to his mate retreating back into his warm wooden shell. Over by the harbour an anti-aircraft gun, its muzzle protected by a thick tarpaulin, was being hoisted up from one of the barges heaving on the oil-spilled water. Ned stood still and gripped the railing, the only islander in sight.

When he got back to the station he found his outside door swinging in the wind. He kicked a loose stone in temper. One of the amateur dramatics had forgotten to close it again. As he starled up the stairs he heard a rattling noise directly above him. Someone was trying his door handle. He moved quietly, trying to remember which boards creaked and which didn’t. Coming up level with the landing he saw Veronica pushing an envelope under his door. He rested his chin on the floor and spoke to her ankles.

“So it’s you is it, writing all these anonymous letters?”

Veronica straightened up, unable at first to see him. She wore a pale blue patterned dress and a blue hat and her coat was unbuttoned, held together only by the belt. He blew up her legs. She stepped back.

“There you are. Gave me a proper fright.”

“Not like you, V, telling tales out of school.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The little white envelope lay on the floor.

“You’d better come in and tell me what this is all about,” he said. Veronica stayed put.

“It’s not about anything,” she said. “Just a ticket for the show next month. Thought you might like to come along. For old times’ sake.”

Ned put his finger under the flap. Inside was a pink slip, smudged and badly printed.
April Frolics
, it read.
Sparkling Wit, Excellent Vocalism, Vivacious Dancing, Mysterious Conjuring, and those Irresistible Coons, the Nigger Minstrels
.

“What are you?” he said. “Vivacious Dancing?”

“And Excellent Vocalism,” she said. Ned nodded.

“Come in anyway. I wanted to talk to you about the party on Saturday. I didn’t know you mixed in such high-flown circles.”

She stood in the doorway, defiant.

“Don’t you start getting at me again! You can question me all you like, but I’m not having you looking down your nose like that.”

Ned sighed. “Sorry. Just tell me. I won’t jump down your throat, promise.”

“Scout’s honour?”

“Scout’s honour.”

“Go on then, make the sign.”

“V, I’m a policeman.”

“Not to me you’re not.”

“That’s the trouble with this place. I’m not a policeman to anyone. Albert thinks of me as his brother’s son, Mrs Hallivand thinks of me as her gardener’s nephew, Mum thinks I still wear short trousers and you…”

“I think you put on long trousers too soon.”

“Thanks!”

Veronica relented. “It’s not easy for either of us, Ned, seeing what we were. But what we were is what we were. Not what we are.”

She sat down. It was strange the two of them sitting opposite each other, him with his notebook, her with her hands folded in the lap of her buttoned dress. Time was when he had held her and kissed her, when they had leant back and whispered private things to each other that made thetn laugh. All right, he thought, be what you are, but whether you like it or not you’re also what you were. He leant back. He wanted to see her body relax and assume that volupruous familiarity his mother had found so disturbing. He spoke softly.

“Teil me about the party, then.”

“Nothing much to tell. Molly invited me. Said it would be fun. It was all right at first, down at the Casino, but as the evening wore on and Isobel didn’t turn up things went from bad to worse. By the end it was more like a wake than a party. Molly was all for sending the car over again, but the Major wouldn’t allow it.”

“Again?” Ned asked quickly. “He sent the car over before?”

“No. We drove past there on the way back to the Villa. Dr Mueller, one of the nurses in the front with the driver, and me and the Major in the back.”

“When was this?”

“Ten thirty, eleven, I don’t know.”

“And?”

“The house was in total darkness. I was all for banging on the door but he wouldn’t let me. Said she’d be up at the Villa. She wasn’t, of course.” She paused. “How’s he taking it?”

“Badly.”

“Do you think I should go round later, to offer my sympathies?”

Ned couldn’t help himself. “You’ve only just met him, V.”

Veronica rose to her own defence. “It’s not like that. We’ve a lot in common, that’s all. Singing. Music. Fritz Kreisler.”

“Who?”

“Fritz Kreisler. He’s a violinist. Jazz. Quite the rage on the Continent. The Major’s got all his records. He was going to lend me some for my routine. I’m getting quite popular these days.”

“On the stage, you mean.”

“Yes, Ned, on the stage. I got three encores the last time I sang Nanki Poo.”

Ned felt his displeasure rising. He’d always distrusted the exhi-bitionist in her.

“Don’t get me wrong, but it’s a very captive audience you’re playing to.”

“Ha ha very funny I don’t think.”

“Teil me about Bohde. He left the Casino early, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t keeping an eye on him, the little creep. But he was at the Villa when we arrived.”

“And how did he seem?”

Veronica shuddered. “Horrible. He doesn’t like us English girls. He was giving me filthy looks all evening.”

“Lots of men give you filthy looks, V.”

“I don’t mean like that. I can handle those. No, this was like I shouldn’t be there, like I shouldn’t be alive. I put it to the back of my mind, but thinking about it now, and what happened…” She started to cry. Ned made no attempt to comfort her. It was his way of punishing her.

“And then this Captain Zepernick took you home.”

The cold formality of his question shocked her. She blew her nose and stood up.

“As well you know.”

“And how was the handsome devil?” He’d lost it now. He laid down his pencil and closed the notebook.

“He drives too fast.”

“You should have walked home with me.”

“I didn’t have a pass, remember.” She looked out of the window. “But I didn’t need one then, did I?”

Ned riffled a penny over the back of his fingers. It was a trick he’d learnt lying on his bunk in the section house. He looked up at her, swinging her bag back and forth. It hardly seemed possible that she was the same Veronica he had known before. She held herself differently, wore a different expression on her face. There was no peace to her.

“You’d better go,” he said.

The penny slipped from his fingers and rolled onto the floor. Her voice came cold and scornful.

“Can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, V, that’s all,” he said, bending underneath his desk. “They’re not what they seem.”