‘Why’s that, then?’
‘Because she died two months ago. Diphtheria. Very sad, terrible shame. Lovely young woman. Beautiful.’
Lysander thanked her and walked away. So, a recent widower – that explained the vacant, indifferent stare. Did that rule him out? Or did the meaningless death of a beautiful young wife provoke feelings of nihilism and rage against the world? He would have to find out more about Major Keogh. In the meantime he would turn his attention to Captain Christian Vandenbrook.
Vandenbrook was rich enough to take a taxi home from work. Lysander sat in the back of a cab at the end of the afternoon outside the Annexe, watched Vandenbrook flag down a passing taxi and followed it to his club in St James’s. Two hours later he emerged, hailed another cab and was driven home to Knightsbridge to a large white stucco house in an elegant sweep of terrace off the Brompton Road. Vandenbrook was doing very well for a captain in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
Lysander dismissed his taxi and walked up and down the smart crescent of large houses. Through a window he caught a glimpse of Vandenbrook accepting a cut-crystal tumbler from a silver tray held by a butler. Staff, as well. Twenty minutes later another taxi pulled up and a couple – dressed for dinner – descended and rang the doorbell. Lysander returned to his small hotel in Pimlico, conscious that someone with Vandenbrook’s manifest privileges had no real need to turn traitor. Osborne-Way was next.
At the hotel he found he had a postcard, sent from St Austell, Cornwall. It read, ‘Arriving Friday evening. Have booked room at White Palace, Pimlico. Vanora.’
Tremlett fetched him the ledger of ‘Travelling claims by land’ and stood there waiting for further instructions as Lysander flicked through the pages.
‘Colonel Osborne-Way hasn’t filed any expenses claims.’
‘No, sir. He sends his direct to the War Office. He was on the General Staff – seconded here, like.’
‘Seems odd. Can we get them?’
Tremlett sucked his teeth.
‘We can try but it might take a while. We may need you to go yourself with your magic letter.’
‘Thanks, Tremlett, that’ll be all for the moment.’
He looked through Keogh’s claims and noted the dates he’d been to Dover over the past months; then he turned to Vandenbrook and collated their respective journeys – some days they tallied, some days they didn’t. However, he noticed that Vandenbrook very rarely stayed in Folkestone – his accommodation claims were for hotels in Deal, Hastings, Sandwich, Hythe and once in Rye. Probably keen to get some golf in, Lysander thought, leafing through the dockets, or else wanted to be away from the Directorate organization – sensible man.
There was a knock on his door. Lysander put the bottle of champagne back in the ice-bucket and crossed the room, trying to stay calm, and opened the door. Hettie stood there, smiling, as if this encounter were the most natural and normal in the world.
‘What a funny little hotel you chose,’ she said, stepping in. ‘My room’s minute.’ Lysander closed the door behind her, feeling as if his chest were stuffed with hot, rough wool – an ill, constrained breathlessness stopping him speaking. He sensed a weakness flow through him, as though his knees might buckle and he’d fall to the floor.
‘Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?’ Hettie said, unpinning her hat and throwing it on to a chair. ‘Let’s take our clothes off now – then we can drink our champagne.’
‘Hettie, for heaven’s sake –’
‘Come on, Lysander. Race you.’
They kissed. He felt his lips on hers and then her tongue in his mouth. They undressed and Lysander opened the champagne and poured it. He noticed Hettie had kept her hosiery on and her high-heeled shoes and her jewellery. Jet beads at the neck, a cluster of ivory bracelets.
‘Why are we doing this?’ he asked, faintly. ‘This way.’
‘Because I know you, Lysander. Remember?’ she said, almost scoldingly. ‘Because I know what you like.’ She strode around the room, unselfconsciously, checked that the curtains were properly drawn. ‘It’s exciting, isn’t it? To be naked in a hotel room in Pimlico drinking champagne . . .’ She glanced down at him. ‘My – you seem to agree.’
She came over to him and he touched her breasts and drew her close. Again, oddly, he felt like weeping – as if some form of destiny were being fulfilled, here in this unassuming room; that he was here with Hettie in his arms, once more. This was the problem with her, he acknowledged – or, rather, this was his problem with Hettie – it was like being with no other woman. He had never felt this need, this strongly, with anyone else.
She kissed his chest and he put his arms around her. She hugged her small body against his.
She raised her face and whispered, ‘I’ve missed you.’ Then she took him in her hand and led him compliantly to the bed.
7. The Dene Hotel, Hythe
The Directorate of Movements had opened and maintained branch offices in Dover and Folkestone since the end of 1914, the easier to supervise the loading and despatch of the millions of tons of stores that were sent out to France each week. They were staffed mainly with former port authority officials and clerical workers but, every few days, Keogh and Vandenbrook would make a routine journey to oversee the office work or, more likely, sort out problems.
Looking through the departmental memoranda on Monday Lysander saw that two cargo vessels had collided in the Channel, one of them sinking with the loss of ‘600 black labour drowned (approx.)’. Osborne-Way had added a note in the margin in his small crabbed schoolboy’s hand, ‘Attn. Capt. VdenB.’ Lysander asked Tremlett where Vandenbrook was and he came back with the information that he had not come into the Annexe that morning but had gone straight to Folkestone to ‘sort out the steaming mess’.
Lysander told Tremlett to have a railway pass made out for him and he caught a train to the coast from Victoria before noon. At Folkestone he negotiated with a taxi-driver who grudgingly agreed to stay with him until midnight for £5 cash. Lysander thought of the soldiers in the trenches earning their eighteen pennies a day for their unique version of the diurnal grind. Still, the mobility might be essential – he had a feeling Vandenbrook wouldn’t be spending the night in Folkestone.
He had the taxi park a little way up the street from the Directorate offices in Marine Parade and settled down to wait. It turned out to be a long one, Vandenbrook not emerging until seven o’clock that evening. A motor car drew up and he climbed in. They headed out of town, going west along the main coast road towards Hythe. Vandenbrook was dropped off at the front door of the Dene Hotel – a neat brick and hung-tile, two-storey building with a garage at the rear and a modern extension, just off the high street on the lower slopes of the hill that led up to Hythe’s principal church, St Leonards. The car drove away, returning to Folkestone. After five minutes, Lysander followed him in.
The reception lobby was a low, beamed area with doors off to a saloon bar and a dining room and a fine curved oak staircase that led to the bedrooms on the first floor. Far more comfortable than the Commercial Hotel, Folkestone, he was sure, and where Directorate staff usually stayed, so Tremlett had informed him. Lysander saw fresh flowers in a bowl on the reception desk and read the posted menu outside the dining room where he noted a simple but classic choice of English dishes – a roast, a saddle of lamb, devilled kidneys, Dover sole. He felt suddenly hungry – no wonder Vandenbrook preferred to find his own lodgings.
He went into the bar and chose a seat where he had a view of the lobby through the glass-paned door. He ordered a whisky and soda and thought he’d wait until Vandenbrook came down for dinner and surprise him. They would have a laugh about it and at least he’d eat a decent meal before he caught the last train back to London.