Her words brought a muttered but inaudible remark from Aunt Betty, who was still labouring over her stuffing.
‘The trouble is,’ she said, speaking aloud now, ‘oily little reptiles is the only kind of men you’re going to meet, my girl, if you stay at that job of yours.’
‘Now that’s not true, love.’ Fred put an arm around his wife’s waist, winking at Lily as he did so. ‘’s a nice strapping young copper somewhere just waiting for our Lil to come along.’
His sally brought a snort of disbelief from Aunt Betty which was echoed by her niece.
‘That’s enough out of you, Fred Poole,’ she declared. ‘Your supper’s been warming in the oven all evening and if you want it you’d better look lively.’ To Lily she said, ‘I’m almost done here. Why not go up to your room and get into your pyjamas? Then we can all sit by the fire for a spell before you go to bed.’
It was two years since Lily had moved out. Reckoning it was time she left the nest, she had found a place to rent in St Pancras which was nearer to Bow Street, her new place of work. But Aunt Betty had never accepted the move and kept Lily’s room as it was, believing that her niece was bound to return one of these days.
Lily took off her apron. But her curiosity wasn’t satisfied yet.
‘So they don’t know why he was murdered?’ she asked Fred, who had fetched his plate from the oven while they were talking and was sitting at the kitchen table, eating.
‘Horace, you mean?’ Fred shrugged. He was making short work of the sausage and mash Aunt Betty had left for him, chewing steadily. ‘Like I said, could be any of a number of things. They’ve been asking around, trying to find out what he’s been up to lately. What he’s been doing that might make someone want to kill him.’
‘Have they asked Molly?’
‘His tart?’ Fred shrugged a second time. ‘Dunno. All I can tell you is what I hear round the station. They’re trying to find out if he had a client call on him yesterday. Late. He was topped around eight o’clock. That’s what we were doing door-to-door.’ He peered shrewdly at Lily. ‘Why you asking?’
She hesitated. Then shrugged. ‘I was thinking about that business he used to have. False cards. This bloke we’re looking for, Ash, they reckon he might have changed his name already. Got himself a new identity.’
‘And you think it could have been Quill who got it for him?’ Fred chuckled. He popped the last piece of sausage into his mouth. ‘I know you want to make your mark at the Yard, love, but you’re stretching a little, aren’t you?’
‘Probably,’ Lily agreed with a grin. ‘But I’ll tell you one thing: if he had got himself a new ID card and there was only one person in the world who knew it — I mean the feller he’d got it from — then it’s odds on he’d top him. He’s that sort of bloke.’
She saw Fred’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the bluntness of her words.
‘If I was them, I’d talk to Molly,’ she went on as Fred rose from the table and took his plate to the sink. ‘ CID blokes. I’d squeeze her. Find out what she knows. She was living with Quill the last I heard. He’s bound to have dropped a few hints as to what he was up to.’
‘I’ll pass that along,’ Fred said as he rose from the table and took his plate to the sink. ‘I’m sure Roy Cooper will be glad of the advice,’ he added with yet another wink, referring to a detective-sergeant Lily knew who was stationed at Paddington. ‘He’s handling the investigation.’
About to go up to her room, Lily paused at the door.
‘Tell me, Uncle Fred, do the tarts still meet at the Astor Cafe?’ she asked him.
‘So far as I know.’ Fred eyed her suspiciously. ‘Why you asking?’
‘No special reason.’ Lily grinned at him from the door. ‘But I might look in there tomorrow and wish the girls a merry Christmas.’
23
‘To look at them you wouldn’t think they were convalescent,’ Lord Stratton remarked as the dancers circled one another to the ‘Here-we-go-gathering-nuts-in-May’ jingle of a Paul Jones, then stopped as the music did and formed pairs again. ‘I distinctly remember seeing that young man on crutches only a week ago,’ he added as a couple spun by in a brisk foxtrot. ‘He seems to have made a remarkable recovery.’
Though confined to a wheelchair after twisting his ankle in a fall the day before, his lordship was in good spirits. The Highfield Christmas party was an annual event he never failed to attend, and he and Madden were watching the dancers from a corner of the church hall decked for the occasion with holly boughs and strung with coloured lights. Not far from where they were was a table supporting two large punch bowls and rows of still empty glasses, but neither man had sampled the concoction on offer, knowing as they did from past years that it took some stomaching. Instead they were refreshing themselves from a bottle of whisky which Madden had smuggled into the hall beneath the blanket covering his charge’s knees.
The party had been enlivened by the presence of a batch of young officers still officially recovering from their wounds, but, as Lord Stratton had just noted, remarkably spry when it came to cutting a figure on the dance floor. They had been accompanied by a dozen or so nurses from Stratton Hall, who had shed their uniforms and joined the local girls in providing partners for the unusually large number of unaccompanied males, a patriotic gesture to which the village wives had also lent their support.
‘How wonderful Helen looks. She never seems to age.’
Lord Stratton had just caught a glimpse of Madden’s wife among the circling couples.
‘You ought to be dancing with her yourself, John.’ He nudged his companion.
‘What? And spoil her pleasure?’ Madden grinned. ‘I’ve been told for years I dance like a bear. It’s a family joke.’
Lord Stratton chuckled. His gaze continued to wander over the thronged dance floor.
‘I can’t believe how Lucy’s grown up so suddenly. What a beauty she’s become. How do you cope with that?’
‘I don’t. She runs rings around me.’
Madden’s smile widened as he watched his lovely daughter sail by — the music, supplied by a gramophone, had changed to a waltz — while the young army officer in whose arms she rested gazed into her eyes with open adoration.
‘She arrived from London today in a staff car with an elderly admiral who was on his way to Portsmouth. Somehow she’d persuaded him to offer her a lift. I should have thought it was against naval regulations, but she doesn’t seem to pay much attention to those. I just pray the war ends before she’s court-martialled.’
The question of their daughter’s behaviour in London had provided the subject matter for a spirited family debate at lunch earlier, but though Helen had questioned Lucy closely, she had had to confess to Madden afterwards that she was still no closer to discovering how she spent her evenings in London.
‘Late duty. Double shifts. Double talk, if you ask me. But I’ve got her here for a few days now and I’ll get to the bottom of it.’
A portly figure in military garb approached and Lord Stratton hailed him.
‘Good evening, Colonel. Or should I call you Doctor? I’m never certain.’
‘I’m not sure myself, sir. Some are born great, some achieve greatness and others have it thrust on them. I fall into the latter category. However, as soon as the war’s over I expect to return to my humble station.’
Brian Chadwick’s moon face glowed with good fellowship.
‘Hello, John,’ he said. ‘What’s that you fellows are drinking?’
He peered into Madden’s glass.
‘We smuggled in something less lethal than what they put in those punch bowls,’ Lord Stratton replied to the question. ‘Would you like some?’
Chadwick reflected for a moment. He studied the dregs in his own glass, then shook his head reluctantly.
‘Thank you, sir, but I’d better not. If I mix the two I’ll be done for.’