War Damage (20 page)

Nothing had been the same, ever again. He'd gone off to China, chasing that stupid young dancer … and then he'd had the gall to bring the redhead round to visit … that day he'd brought the Milner woman round … that was the day she'd realised she
hated
Freddie … she'd only agreed to go to that wretched party because Freddie nagged and nagged her … and now Regine bloody Milner had got her claws into Charles. She ground her cigarette out in the ashtray.

She climbed the ladder in her high heels, unafraid, turning her knees out and springing sure-footedly from rung to rung. Fury revived her dancer's energy, when usually these days she was so tired and lethargic.

She knocked on her son's door, but pushed it open before he'd answered. He looked up from his books.

‘I don't want you to go round to the Milners' again. She's a very unsuitable person for you to be … visiting.'

The two marble masks looked at each other, but their eyes didn't meet. ‘I wasn't going to, Mama.' Charles was at his most languid. ‘But she did help me with my French.'

Charles on the doorstep said: ‘Can we go for a walk? I need some fresh air.'

So he didn't want to come in. But she couldn't insist. She fetched her new coat. ‘We'll walk up towards Jack Straw's Castle. ‘There's a garden along here I want to show you. Freddie used to take me there.'

Now he was here he was awkward and silent. Perhaps Freddie's name would get him talking.

They turned off the main road and she briefly held his arm as they scrambled down the path, she in her high heels, to the rusty gate and the wrought-iron spiral staircase. ‘Anna Pavlova the dancer lived here once. I don't know if Freddie ever visited her here. He used to sort of imply he knew her.'

Charles still wasn't talking.

At the top of the steps he followed her under a stone pergola and out onto a long colonnade. In places the stone balustrade was broken, as were some of the trellises that supported spindly, overshot climbing roses, still blooming here and there, pink, yellow and white, their shoots reaching out into thin air over a wild, overgrown garden that spread out far below. The colonnade turned a right angle, then another, a pergola at every corner, until it ended in a cul-de-sac where the stone coping had gone altogether, replaced by some flimsy wooden palings, sagging outwards. They looked down on another part of the garden at a cracked, dried-out ornamental pond. Grass grew between flagstones.

They were alone. The place was deserted. Charles stared moodily out into the grey, distant blur, spotted with rusty red roofs, of London's northern suburbs.

‘Freddie and I used to come here,' she repeated. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with sadness.

‘They're never going to find out who killed him, are they,' said the boy.

‘I don't know. Do you mind? Is that important to you? It won't bring him back.'

‘Do you mind if I smoke?' He leaned against the wall that cut off the colonnade at the end. He looked very beautiful, and older again. ‘I think my mother is having an affair with Arthur Carnforth.'

A cold wave of astonishment hit her. ‘An affair? What makes you think—?'

Of all things, she hadn't thought
that
. There was something about Arthur that repelled her physically. When pressed, Neville would insist on Arthur's alleged former charisma. He would insist also that Arthur wasn't queer, but to Regine his bachelor status cast a subtle doubt over his amours, even his morals; perhaps he was one of those men who preferred prostitutes, or just a loner, or afraid of marriage.

‘That's very unlikely. I'm sure Vivienne wouldn't – wouldn't …' She couldn't think of a good way to put it.

‘Unlikely? Because he's such a reptile? But you see, she said she'd been to the cinema with you, but it was the afternoon – it was the Wednesday before last and you were … I was at your place – with you.'

How bereft he was, beneath the blasé surface. She longed to put her arms round him.

Charles's face twisted into a sneer. It was the first time she'd seen him look so unpleasant. ‘And he's always trying it on with this God stuff. It's sickening. I don't believe in God, do you? And he's turned her against Freddie – and they're always trying to find out if Freddie –' He didn't finish the sentence.

‘Led you astray?' she said boldly.

He looked away.

‘And did he?'

Charles inhaled, then blew out a plume of smoke. ‘I'm not sure what that means,' he said.

twenty

P
LUMER ON MONDAY MORNING
was in a good humour. He had attended some social function with his superiors at the weekend. Murray wondered if a promotion was on the way, and how he would feel not to be working with the inspector any longer. It raised the question of his own promotion.

Plumer again said, in no uncertain terms, that the whole Mosley blackshirt element in the Buckingham case was a distraction, but Murray was determined not to let it drop completely. He arranged to meet his Special Branch mate, Detective Sergeant James McGovern, in a café on the Whitechapel Road.

When Murray arrived, McGovern was seated in front of a large white mug of tea. His mousy hair, pale face and indeterminate features helped him pass unnoticed in the places he frequented as part of his job. For he was the Special Branch intellectual. His job was to know what made them tick: the BUF, the Reds, the IRA. He spent his days reading leaflets, communiqués and theoretical works and his evenings sitting in the back rows of political meetings in draughty halls and in shabby rooms above pubs. He followed noisy demonstrations and was a silent participant at party conferences. It was a lonely job. His Special Branch colleagues treated him as a slightly quaint boffin. And the more his morbid fascination with the ideas of extremists grew, the more isolated he became. So Paul Murray's interest was balm.

‘Arthur Carnforth,' he began, ‘used to be known as Peter Janeway. He wrote for fringe magazines before the war, he was one of their intellectuals. He was interned in the war and went a bit bonkers. He went all religious and became involved with a group who believed Hitler was a manifestation of the divine spirit. Hitler – the divine spirit! Can you beat it! They tried to link Christianity to their movement. It became an obsession with Carnforth and caused a lot of problems with other internees. He became depressed, tried to commit suicide and spent the rest of the war in a mental hospital.'

Murray swilled his tea round in its thick, white mug. ‘Just how significant are these people now?'

‘It all blew up again last year. The Jewish terrorists in Palestine, the Stern Gang, Irgun, the King David's Hotel affair, our boys getting killed, that stoked-up support for Mosley. It's fizzling out again now, though.'

Murray found it hard to believe that after the war and Hitler anyone would want to be a fascist.

‘Well, they're completely irrelevant,' said McGovern, ‘but the hard core – I suppose it's
because
they've been defeated – they cling more desperately to what they believe. Some people can never admit they were wrong. And then again, in a way they haven't been defeated. Not really. The poison goes underground, but it never disappears completely. Since I started this job I read this drivel all the time, you know. I can tell you, in this job – these crackpot little groups, they're unimportant, they're ludicrous, and you become completely cynical, you think, what are we doing, chasing around after a few lunatics. But at the same time it's your life, you live it and breathe it and it begins to get a hold, these people are ruthless, they want to take over the world, some of them still think they will come to power in the end and so you begin to think so too. You know what they say: “
Wir kommen wieder
”, we shall return. And sometimes I think they will – in a different form, possibly.'

‘What about Ken Barker?'

‘They're always falling out, splintering, they feud all the time. Still – it doesn't usually come to murder. Your boss could be right. It could have more to do with the underworld.'

‘Would he have known Carnforth?'

McGovern shrugged again. ‘Might have. Hard to say. Probably not. I told you, Carnforth fancied himself as one of the brains of the movement. Those at the top pretend they don't know what's going on further down, they wash their hands of the violence. But there aren't many of them, so, yes, they could have met.'

‘The same weapon was used in both murders,' persisted Murray. ‘It must have something to do with these people. But the guv'nor doesn't want to know. He's adamant. We're not to follow it up. He doesn't know I'm talking to you.'

McGovern raised an eyebrow. ‘That's interesting. Why not?'

‘Search me. The top brass isn't keen.'

‘Really? I wonder why not. Well, I shan't mention it. And I don't mind you picking my brains. Oh, and by the way, the other one you asked about, Neville Milner, there's nothing on him. There's no record of him ever being a paid-up Mosleyite. He did visit Carnforth from time to time in the asylum. And it occurred to me, I wonder if he helped him get a job afterwards. I'm surprised at St Christopher's employing Carnforth. It's a top school, how did he get a job there with his record? Someone must have recommended him, given him a reference. Of course, schools were desperately short-staffed just after the war, but all the same …'

‘You mean Milner might have lied to the school, to help an old friend.'

McGovern shrugged. ‘Possibly. And he might still be a secret sympathiser for all I know. But there's nothing to suggest that.'

Murray had hoped for something damning, but after all what difference did it make? Regine Milner, comfortably married to a man who was obviously well off, what did she care about her husband's politics?

‘There's a Mosley meeting up in Hampstead this evening,' said McGovern, hopefully. ‘Want to come with me?'

‘Okay. I'm going to pay Carnforth a visit this afternoon. I'll go round there about five – or six – and meet you afterwards.'

Arthur Carnforth lived in a small mansion block in Handel Street, near Coram's Fields. This part of Bloomsbury was sunk in seedy decay. A few yards to the south was a large bomb site. Beyond it, mean shops crouched alongside rotting Georgian terraces now doing service as rooming houses and dingy hotels, or worse.

The sooty block must have been built to house the deserving poor at the end of the last century. Murray thought it an odd place for one of the Milners' friends to live; if, that is, Carnforth could count as a friend of the Milners. He stepped inside the hallway and faced concrete stairs rising into the gloom. As he climbed he heard dim cries and muffled voices from behind the doors he passed; families in overcrowded flats, but lucky at least to have a flat. Number fifteen was on the top floor.

Arriving at the top landing, he paused to catch his breath before pressing the bell. Almost at once the door opened and a tall, fleshy man dressed in black stared at the detective.

Murray identified himself and Carnforth stood aside reluctantly. The hallway of the flat was the size of a cupboard, but led into a largish, low-ceilinged room lit by two table lamps. It was dark outside, the two windows were uncurtained and Murray watched his own reflection and Carnforth's in the panes, apparitions against the night sky.

Murray looked round at the Spartan furnishings: a modern-looking recliner covered in cracked black leatherette, a bentwood dining chair and an ancient, overstuffed armchair, a desk against the window and some open bookshelves. There were no pictures on the walls, apart from a photograph of Vivienne Hallam, seemingly torn from a magazine, pinned to one wall. A door led to a kitchenette. Murray glimpsed a sink and a Vantona water heater.

‘What do you want? Why are you here?' Carnforth reminded Murray of a cleric in some dimly remembered film, played perhaps by Alastair Sim, but behind Carnforth's agitation, Murray sensed a kind of ruthless obstinacy.

‘I think you know why. As part of the investigation into the murder of Frederick Buckingham. You knew him, didn't you.'

Carnforth stared suspiciously. ‘I used to know him. Our paths haven't crossed for many years.'

‘I'm surprised to hear that, sir, because we've been told you met him on the night he was killed.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘You were seen.' It was a lie. He would have to find out the name of the pub where they were supposed to have met and try to find someone who remembered seeing the two men – and it was weeks ago now. Until he had a witness it was only gossip and hearsay, and he had to be careful. Plumer knew nothing about this visit. If Carnforth made a complaint …

‘You deny meeting Buckingham that night, then?'

‘I don't even know what night you're talking about. But it doesn't matter, because I haven't seen him for years.'

‘It was the first Sunday in October.'

‘Ah … I spent that evening with friends, Mr and Mrs Jordan. They'd been to the Milners'.'

‘So you remember that very clearly. Is there some reason that evening sticks in your mind? Something out of the ordinary happened? You ran into Buckingham perhaps.'

‘I didn't. I never saw him.'

‘Do you mind if we sit down for a moment?'

Carnforth didn't move.

‘I shan't keep you long. I just have a few questions.'

Slowly Carnforth lowered himself onto the recliner. Murray swung the bentwood chair round and straddled it, American-style. There was something about Carnforth that he found alarming and at the same time you wanted to bully him. He somehow invited persecution.

‘You're not denying you knew Kenneth Barker?'

Carnforth shook his head. ‘I don't know what you're talking about. Who is Kenneth Barker?'

‘He's a member of your organisation. Or was. He's been murdered – like Freddie Buckingham. I'm surprised you didn't know that. It made quite a splash in the papers.'

‘I don't read newspapers.'

‘But you are a member of Oswald Mosley's Union Movement. All the blackshirts must have been talking about it.'

Carnforth said nothing.

‘You're not denying that?'

‘Denying what?'

‘That you're a member of Mosley's Movement.' Murray's patience was already wearing thin. The man's silent obstinacy provoked him, as perhaps it was meant to.

‘What business is it of yours?'

‘In a murder inquiry, you understand we have to follow up all sorts of different bits of information. In this case, your former friend's murder is linked with Barker's. Barker was a blackshirt. Therefore—'

‘False logic, my good man,' said Carnforth, as if on surer ground.

‘You admit you used to know Mr Buckingham. You quarrelled with him, then? You fell out? You parted company.'

‘Buckingham was an objectionable character, an immoral man.'

‘More immoral than the fascists? Worse than Hitler? Did he murder Jews?'

Carnforth stood up and Murray sensed that he'd got under his skin.

‘If you read some of what I've written you'd see how woefully misinformed you are. All the propaganda about death camps came from Churchill and his henchmen.'

‘That's very interesting, Mr Carnforth.'

‘One day the truth will come out.'

‘I'm more interested in why you accuse the late Mr Buckingham of immorality.'

Carnforth had sat down again. He ignored the question.

‘It wasn't only Jews in the concentration camps, was it,' continued Murray. ‘There were gypsies, queers, the mentally retarded. Perhaps someone murdered Buckingham as a kind of rough justice for his sexual tendencies.'

‘That's preposterous.' Carnforth seemed genuinely indignant. ‘What happened on the Heath … Freddie Buckingham had a penchant for picking up rough characters. He liked to flirt with danger.'

‘You knew that, did you? Although you say you've had nothing to do with him for years? How do you know he hasn't changed, that he's not a reformed character?'

‘Everyone knew,' said Carnforth stonily.

‘Who is everyone, sir? Everyone in the homosexual underworld? Perhaps you were familiar with that world? Perhaps you had more in common with him than you like to admit?'

‘How dare you!' Carnforth stood up again. A tongue of straight, greasy hair had come loose. He swept it back with the rest. ‘Get out!'

Murray cursed himself for going too far. He stepped away from the chair – getting up from his straddled posture was clumsy – and put up a hand in a placating gesture. ‘I'm sorry if I've offended you, sir. But we have to explore every avenue. So what you're saying is one of these rough characters killed Buckingham. Someone like Kenneth Barker, for example.'

‘I want you to leave. You've insulted me. I know nothing about any of this. I'm an artist and a writer. It's the thinkers of this world that change things, not grubby little detectives. I've had enough of being hounded by the secret police – that's what this country is becoming, a socialist police state.'

That was rich, thought Murray, coming from a bleeding blackshirt. He'd messed up the interview, but he wasn't quite ready to leave yet.

‘A writer and artist, sir; that's interesting. And I see you have a photo of Vivienne Evanskaya. You're fond of the ballet?'

Carnforth was still staring at his tormentor, threatening and at the same time indecisive. He turned to look at the image pinned to the wall. ‘I'm interested in beauty,' he said, ‘we live in such ugly times. There was a time when life was beautiful. Ballet is about perfection, symmetry, order, discipline – she was a dedicated dancer.'