Half a Crown (21 page)

“In Watch custody,” I said, thinking of dear old Sergeant Evans. I stood up. It seemed inevitable that we’d have to go, and arguing was only going to make it worse. “I’ll come with you, of course. I have nothing to hide.”

I wasn’t afraid at all. Betsy was, I could tell. She’d gone so pale that her freckles were standing out. Her father kept babbling about his office and my uncle, and I wondered if he was afraid too. Mrs. Maynard just looked frigid, which was one of her ordinary expressions around me, as if she could detect the faint smell of stale fish. The policemen took us out to the car. It wasn’t a Black Maria this time, just two ordinary police cars. They put Mr. Maynard into one, still full of bluster, and me into the other. The redheaded policeman from Paddington was in my car. He looked indecently triumphant.

I was expecting them to take me to the notorious Finsbury in Muswell Hill, the huge square jail built especially to receive political prisoners. Instead they drove south, to Scotland Yard. Nobody spoke as we drove. It seemed incongruous that it was light, as it sometimes does when one comes out of a matinee. Arrests were supposed to take place in the darkness, at midnight, not in the early evening.

The car drew up outside the building. We’d lost the other car, the one with Mr. Maynard, somewhere along the way. I hadn’t been paying attention. The red-haired man opened the door and as I got out took hold of my elbow. He drew me up the stairs. I found myself remembering something Sergeant Evans had said once, about taking prisoners down into the interrogation cells of the Watch building. “They never see the sky again.” I looked up, frantically, at
the patch of mackerel sky above, cut by the crenellated rooftops of London. I remembered leaning out of Sir Mortimer’s window at sunset a few days before. Then he tugged me on, and I was inside.

The desk sergeant was sitting in a glass cubicle, looking very quaint and postwar. He nodded to my escort. “Royston?” he said, to him, not to me, and made a mark on a paper. “I’ve seen the warrant. Up to the Chief first.”

“Thank you, sergeant,” the redhead said, and pulled me, unresisting, towards a lift at the back of the lobby.

The lift went up. Sergeant Evans had been talking about the Watchtower, of course, where a lot of things were underground and bombproof, if there was such a thing as bombproof anymore, after those Atomic Bombs that wiped out Moscow and Miami. I still wasn’t really afraid. Everything seemed a little dreamlike. “They never hold out on us,” Sergeant Evans had said. “Everyone talks in the end. You don’t need to torture them, torture’s counterproductive, because they get so desperate they’ll make things up to tell you if they think that’s what you want to hear. But everyone tells everything in the end.”

The lift doors opened, and I wanted to laugh at myself, because there was a huge glass window and a great expanse of sky, with all London below us. The clouds, lit from below by the setting sun, were furrowed like a plowed field. I didn’t notice the Chief or the room at all, at first, until he came forward. He was completely bald, rather plump, and had thick eyebrows like a pair of white caterpillars. “Elvira Royston,” he said, in a sorrowful tone common to all headmistresses everywhere when one is on the carpet. I put out my hand, but he didn’t take it. “I’m Chief-Inspector Penn-Barkis. I remember your father. Very sad, what happened, but line of duty, I suppose, what he would have wanted. At least he didn’t live to see this day.”

I wanted to giggle, as I had always wanted to giggle in the headmistress’s study back at Arlinghurst. It’s partly nerves and partly the
over-the-top pomposity of that kind of sentiment. But I was eighteen, not twelve, so I controlled myself. “I have done nothing,” I said.

“Belonging to a seditious organization is very far from nothing,” he said. “Being engaged to one of the leaders of that organization is very far from nothing. But perhaps you didn’t know that?”

“What?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“Come and sit down,” he said, in a much gentler voice. I walked over to the desk and sat where he indicated. The redhead sat beside me, and Penn-Barkis sat on the other side of the desk. “Perhaps you didn’t know that the British Power movement, also known as the Britain First movement, was a seditious organization?”

“Not until the riot,” I said. “But I’m not a member.”

“Are you the member of any Ironsides group?” he asked.

“No,” I confessed, as if it was a failing.

“But you went along to the rally.” Again, his voice took on that “more in sorrow than in anger” tone.

“I already went through all this at Paddington,” I said, looking at the redhead, who looked back blankly. “I went to the rally thinking it would be good clean patriotic fun.”

“At Paddington you said that Elizabeth Maynard was engaged to Sir Alan Bellingham,” the redhead said. “Now we know you are engaged to him yourself. Can you explain this?”

I must have looked horribly guilty, because of course I couldn’t explain it sensibly. “I’m not engaged to him,” I said. “He did propose to me, but I haven’t given him an answer. For one thing I wanted to talk to Miss Maynard.”

“Sir Alan certainly seems to think you’re engaged. He hasn’t put an announcement in the papers, but he’s been telling everyone at his club,” Penn-Barkis said.

“I don’t intend to marry him,” I said, which is what I should have said in the first place. I decided to be honest. If everyone talks in the
end, why wait? “The fact is that Betsy, Miss Maynard, didn’t want to marry him either, and she asked me to lead him on so that he would stop bothering her. I was doing that. Neither of us want to marry him.”

Both men looked extremely skeptical. “And why would that be?” the redhead asked.

“Because we don’t like him,” I said.

“Could you expand on that a little?” Penn-Barkis asked, leaning forward and folding his fingers together. “Why don’t you like him?”

“He has that beard,” I said. “And besides, there’s something I just don’t like about him.”

“Would that be his connection with British Power?” the redhead asked.

“I don’t like that either, but I meant something more subjective.”

“You’re very anxious to distance yourself from him,” Penn-Barkis put in.

Clearly, I thought, Sir Alan was right when he said he might have got in too deep with the British Power thing and need protection, but any protection Uncle Carmichael might have offered would have come too late. “I’m telling the truth,” I said.

“So how did you and Miss Maynard come to be associated with him, if neither of you like him?” the redhead asked.

I looked at him incredulously. “Her parents like him. They pretty much insisted she spend time with him. We didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“And why do her parents like him? Would that be for his political connections, or for his financial ones?” Penn-Barkis asked.

“I think Lady Bellingham is a friend of Mrs. Maynard’s,” I said. “And Sir Alan does something with Mr. Maynard, probably financial. I don’t know. I expect Mr. Maynard is explaining it all to someone even now.”

“No doubt,” Penn-Barkis said, steepling his fingers again. “Well,
and what is Commander Carmichael’s connection with British Power?”

“None,” I said. “He was asking me about it after the riot.”

“What did he ask you?”

“What you asked me. Why I went, how the riot happened, that kind of thing.”

“When the riot began, you were right in front of the rostrum. Why were you there, exactly, rather than somewhere else?” Penn-Barkis asked.

“Sir Alan said that the best music would be there. And he was right, the singer was awfully good, before he started inciting the riot.” I thought that might have been the wrong thing to say, because they exchanged significant looks.

“Had you heard him sing before?” the redhead asked.

“No, never.” I was sure of that.

“Not in a nightclub? He used to sing in the Blue Nile from time to time,” he persisted.

“I’ve never been to the Blue Nile,” I admitted, and I really did feel guilty, because I hated to sound so unsophisticated. “Sir Alan had offered to take us there after the rally, but that never happened.”

The two men exchanged a glance. “To return to your so-called uncle, your guardian, Commander Carmichael,” Penn-Barkis said. “Do you know of any seditious or criminal activity of his?”

I immediately thought of Mrs. Talbot and the words I’d overheard. “No,” I said, quickly, hoping he couldn’t read my face.

“And how long have you been aware of his homosexuality?”

“What?” I asked, absolutely flabbergasted. “Uncle Carmichael? Homosexuality?” But in all the years I’d known him I’d never seen him with a woman, or heard so much as a hint of one, I thought. I’d always assumed he was married to his job. I thought of his embarrassment at Aunt Katherine’s question, and how absolutely wrong it had felt.

“He and his servant have an intimate relationship,” Penn-Barkis sneered. “You didn’t know?”

“No,” I agreed. “I had no idea.” Jack. It made sense of all kinds of things. I was revolted. I screwed my face up, feeling as if I had a bad taste in my mouth.

“So what criminal or seditious activities were you in fact aware of?” Penn-Barkis asked, while my lip was still curling.

“Drink, Carmichael?” Tibs said, as they wiped the makeup off. The Duke of Windsor had been whisked away, and General Nakajima swallowed up by a group of other Japanese. He sounded quite different speaking Japanese; no longer relaxed and American but vehement and Oriental. “I could certainly do with one.”

“Yes, a quick one,” Carmichael said. “Somewhere round here? Or I’ve got a car waiting.”

“There’s quite a nice pub just down by the river, one with a garden where we could sit outside and watch the boats,” Tibs said. “It’s one of Guy’s haunts, I’ve been there with him. Poor Guy. His wife’s having an affair, you know, and he’s dreadfully cut up about it.”

“Poor Guy,” Carmichael agreed.

“At least we’ll never have that kind of problem!” Tibs said, with a conspiratorial smile.

“I suppose not,” Carmichael said, wincing inwardly, and wishing he hadn’t agreed to a drink.

Tibs led the way out of Broadcasting House and down along the Embankment. “On the whole, I think that went quite well,” he said. “Lots of surprises, but we more than held our end up.”

“I’m convinced the Duke of Windsor is in with the British Power lot. He made my skin crawl to listen to him,” Carmichael said.

“Women and weaklings,” Tibs said, as they reached the pub, the Moon Under Water. “That won’t go down well with Mark. I hope you’re keeping a close eye on him.”

Carmichael stopped just outside the door of the pub. “I thought we were,” he said. “But I don’t know who authorized him to appear on that program. Oh, I don’t doubt Bannon asked him in all innocence, I know Bannon, but it would have needed approval from the Ministry of Information, and they should have asked us. The problem is that he has a lot of friends and we don’t know how long he’s been planning this.”

“He’s a bit prominent to arrest on the off chance,” Tibs said. “Hold on a minute while I get them in.”

The interior of the pub was dark after the evening sunlight outside, and Carmichael blinked for a moment as Tibs made for the bar. “Just a half for me,” he called. It seemed a nice enough place, quiet on a Sunday evening, some old men playing dominoes in one corner and a few younger men standing by the bar.

“Guy!” Tibs said, delighted. “I half wondered if you’d be here.”

“Tibs!” Sir Guy replied, with equal enthusiasm. He sounded drunk.

“Sir Guy,” Carmichael said, warily, coming up to the bar and putting out his hand. Sir Guy Braithwaite was the Foreign Secretary, a position he had held for the last two years, since the death of the previous Foreign Secretary, Richard Francis, in a hunting accident. He had been knighted the year before in the Birthday Honours, and was widely seen as a rising star. The Farthing Set tended to be close-knit and didn’t give many opportunities to rise. Sir Guy was fast on his feet and made himself useful. Carmichael had done his background checks and knew he had the right background, Eton and Cambridge, but not much money or influence. His father had been no more than a diplomat, not even rising to ambassador.

“Commander Carmichael,” Sir Guy said, shaking his hand.
“How nice to see you off duty. I assume you’re off duty, as you’re in a pub.”

“I’ve been in pubs often enough in the line of duty, but I am off duty tonight,” Carmichael said. “Tibs and I have just been on the telly.”

“And we need a drink!” Tibs said. “I’ll get them, and let’s sit outside.”

“Is it warm enough?” Sir Guy asked, draining his glass. “I don’t normally sit out until June.”

“It’s a mild night,” Carmichael said.

Sir Guy got up and led the way out to the little garden, which was deserted. “Nobody else thinks it’s warm enough,” he said, sitting down on a chair with his back to the water. “Leave room for Tibs where he can see the boats, that’s why he wants to be outside. If he can’t look at a horse, he wants to look at a boat. He’s always been the same.”

“Have you known him a long time?” Carmichael asked, taking another chair. The Thames was very low, and nothing was visible on it at the moment except a little lighter moored on the south bank.

“I was his fag at Eton,” Sir Guy said. “I didn’t know him much after that, until we were both in politics. He was older than me, and it seems to matter so much more at that age. At Cambridge—well, at Cambridge we were all ready to make a new world. This isn’t quite the world I signed on for, if you want to know, but you have to make the best of what you’ve got.” He stared vacantly at nothing. “My tutor at Cambridge was a wonderful chap,” he confided.

Tibs reappeared, carrying three large whiskies, which he put down on the table.

“I said a half,” Carmichael said, and sighed ruefully.

“You deserve a proper drink after all that,” Tibs said.

“Did Bannon put you through it?” Sir Guy asked, sympathetically. “He really grilled me the last time he had me on. It’s worse than taking questions in the House!”

“The Duke of Windsor was on with us, and I’m not sure he wasn’t talking sedition,” Tibs said, sipping his whisky.