The Great Betrayal (14 page)

George turned to their lodger. ‘You see what I have to put up with? Bullied in my own house!’ He tutted. ‘My daughter treats me as if I am losing my mind; as if I were a difficult child!’

Embarrassed, Lydia remained silent, seeing no easy way out of the escalating ill-feeling. Poor Mr Phipps was now looking at her helplessly, and she could only roll her eyes.

George, however, was to come to their rescue. Leaning forward, he said, ‘Well now, Mr Phipps. What about that walk you promised me – down to the paper shop, wasn’t it – to settle our dinners? I’m ready if you are.’ Pushing himself up from the chair, he looked round the room. ‘Might take Adam with us.’

Lydia hid her dismay. ‘Adam is in bed, Father, and sound asleep.’ She looked at Leonard Phipps.

Recovering himself, he said, ‘I think the paper shop will be closed by now, but a quick walk round the block would do us good.’

George was already heading cheerfully for the passage, and Mr Phipps prepared to follow him out. To Lydia he whispered, ‘Twenty minutes. It’s easier than an explanation!’

‘You’re very kind, Mr Phipps.’

Keeping his voice low, he added, ‘I’m sorry I spoke out of turn. I didn’t realize . . .’

The front door clicked open, and George shouted, ‘Come along, man! It’s clouding over, and we don’t want to catch a shower!’

From the front-room window, Lydia watched them go with a heavy heart as she considered the pressures upon her which were mounting day by day. ‘Yes, Father,’ she said aloud. ‘It’s certainly clouding over, and there’ll be more than showers before long!’

That same evening, May Ellerway heard the front door open and expected to see her daughter Mavis returned from her work at the auction rooms where she was employed to dust the sale objects, sweep the floors and hand out catalogues. It was a job that required no training, little energy and very little educational success, and for these reasons it suited Mavis like a glove.

‘Ma! It’s me, Dolly!’

May turned from the kitchen sink where she was washing potatoes under the tap to rid them of the mud which clung to them. She watched her daughter come in through the kitchen door with mixed emotions. Soon the girl would present her with her first grandchild, but she had married a good-looking loser, in May’s opinion, – if, indeed, they were legally married.

She dropped the potatoes into the sink and dried her hands. ‘I suppose you want a cuppa and one of my tarts,’ she said grudgingly, moving the kettle to a hotter part of the hob.

Dolly grinned. ‘Love a cuppa,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve got something to show you. See! Read that!’ She produced a sheet of paper and handed it over. ‘My marriage lines. All present and correct, as they say. And it’s even got a seal on it!’

May sat down, peering at the writing, impressed in spite of herself. She read it through twice and then, frowning, studied the signature. ‘Can’t read this name. Whose is it, the vicar’s?’

Dolly nodded. ‘The Reverend Willis Burke. He’s retired from being a vicar, but he’s still a reverend so he can do weddings and write certificates. Honestly, Ma, I know you don’t think much of Don, but you must admit he’s done me proud – a private ceremony and handwritten marriage lines!’ She beamed expectantly at her mother. ‘Believe me, they’re not ten-a-penny, but Don wanted the best for us.’

‘Well . . . What can I say, Doll? Maybe I was wrong.’ To hide her feelings she busied herself with the tea-making, and Dolly found the cake tin and helped herself to a jam tart.

‘So,’ May asked. ‘How are you in yourself? The baby, I mean?’

‘Fair enough. It kicks a lot!’ She laughed. ‘Have you started knitting yet?’

‘Mavis says there’s not much point because we don’t know whether it’ll be a boy or a girl.’

‘Or twins!’

May stared at her. ‘Twins? You don’t mean . . . Who says it’s going to be twins?’

‘Nobody. Not exactly, but Don says one of his cousins had twins but one of them died. Twin girls. The first one born lived, but the second one died an hour later.’

‘Oh, that’s terrible, that is!’ May sat down, her face troubled. ‘So it runs in the family?’

‘We–ell, not exactly. It runs in his cousin’s family . . . We’ll, not exactly
runs
. I mean, it was only once.’

‘Unless there was more that you don’t know about. Like the cousin’s mother or grandmother, maybe.’

‘I suppose so. Maybe I should ask Don to find out for us. I wouldn’t mind one of each. That’d be fine.’

They exchanged grins at this possible outcome.

‘Twins! That’d be a turn-up.’ May poured the tea and handed it over and helped herself to a tart.

‘Bit different,’ said Dolly, referring to the tarts. ‘What jam is it?’

‘Marmalade instead of jam. Mrs Next-Door gave me a jar last Christmas, and I forgot about it. You know what her jams are like.’

‘Like glue!’

They both laughed. Mrs Next-Door, otherwise known as Old Ma Nortley, imagined herself as a cook, but her neighbours thought otherwise.

May said, ‘I stirred a couple of spoonfuls of hot water into the marmalade before I filled the cases, to thin it down a bit. Seems to have done the trick.’ Idly, she picked up the marriage lines and reread them, reluctantly admitting to herself that she was impressed – especially by the seal. Peering at it closely she saw that it bore an imprint of something, and closer inspection revealed two capital letters, slightly intertwined. ‘Are these his initials? Looks like SM. Must have been one of those signet rings posh people wear.’

‘Let me see.’ Surprised, Dolly peered closely at the centre of the seal. ‘It
is
SM . . . but his name’s Reverend Willis Burke.’

May shrugged. ‘Funny . . . Unless it was given to him by his father on his death bed.’

‘Must be something like that.’

May said, ‘Is his father dead then?’

‘Lord knows, I don’t, but if it was his father’s ring, his father’s name must have been Burke too. Perhaps it was his grandfather’s. I’ll ask Don. He might know.’ Carefully, she rolled up the paper and immediately forgot about the seal.

May did the same. Through a mouthful of pastry crumbs she said, ‘So, have you thought of any names yet for these famous twins?’

The next day Dolly went down to breakfast and found Sidney enjoying a bloater.

‘I could smell that bloater right upstairs in the bedroom,’ she informed him. ‘It smelled so good it got me out of bed.’ She glanced round. ‘Where’s mine?’

‘Don’t ask me. Ask your husband – if you can find him. He’s supposed to provide for you now, not me.’

Dolly stared at him. ‘You only bought one? You’re a bit of a skinflint. All that family money you boast about and you only bought one bloater! You’re a miser, Sidney Wickham!’

‘I bought two, if you must know, but I’ve already eaten one.’ He grinned.

‘That makes you greedy as well as mean.’ She stared out into the backyard, then said, ‘Well, don’t expect me to do your washing. Two can play at that game.’

Dolly’s policy had always been to give as much as she got, but this morning her heart wasn’t really in it. She had expected Don to be home by bedtime the previous day, and now it was nearly nine o’clock and he was still absent. She said, ‘Does he always stay away this long? I mean, now that he’s married . . .’ Her voice trailed off disconsolately.

Sidney shrugged, then wiped the grease from his plate with a chunk of bread. ‘Sometimes.’ He gave her an odd look. ‘You’ll have to get used to him being away. Lucky you’ve got me!’

‘Lucky?’ She tossed her head and began to rummage in the pantry for something to eat.

‘At least I’m a bit of company for you,’ he went on, ‘to fill in the long lonely hours!’

‘I’d rather have a goldfish!’ Dolly had just abandoned all hope of finding anything interesting to eat and was spreading beef dripping on a thick slice of bread when someone rang the front doorbell.

Sidney sprang to his feet, startled. ‘If it’s anyone for me, I’m not here,’ he told her, ‘and don’t ask them in!’

‘Them?’

But Sidney was already letting himself out of the door which led into the backyard.

Dolly hurried to the front door to discover the identity of the caller and came face-to-face with a stocky young man who might, she thought, be in his mid twenties.

He held out a letter. ‘I’m sorry to come unannounced. I’m Leonard Phipps. This letter from a Mrs Wickham came to my landlady, and she’s a bit puzzled by it. This is number sixteen, so this should be the offices of the PSD, but someone has suggested that they are no longer to be found here.’

Wonderingly, Dolly took the letter and saw that she had written it. ‘That was me,’ she explained. ‘I’m Dolly Wickham. I thought the poor woman should know that her husband now works somewhere else. There’s no office here. There may have been one upstairs in the attic, but by the time I moved in here a few days ago, the firm had gone. All that’s left is an empty room, lots of dust. Oh yes! And a small chest with no key.’

‘So an office of some sort
was
here until recently.’

‘Must have been, I suppose.’

‘My landlady, a Mrs Daye, has sent letters to this address for some years without any problem. Her husband works for the PSD.’

Dolly frowned. ‘Then why doesn’t he tell her the new address?’

‘She forgot to ask him because he was in such a hurry to be off again. He works for the government – rather secret work.’

‘Secret?’ Her eyes widened. ‘For the government?’ She stared at him. ‘Is it dangerous?’

‘I doubt it, but government business is frequently conducted without much of a fanfare!’

‘On the q.t., you mean?’ she said, tapping the side of her nose. She thought about it. ‘But it
might
be dangerous. You hear things about people . . . foreign agents and such.’ She was warming to her theme, excited by the mystery and the possibility of skulduggery. ‘There are lots of foreigners in London these days. Chinese and suchlike . . . You hear all sorts of dreadful things. He might have come to some harm.’

‘I really think not, Mrs Wickham, but thank you for your time.’

He smiled, and she wished that she could invite him in and make a pot of tea and talk some more, but Sidney was probably lurking around in the backyard and he’d told her
not
to do so. It was a pity because it all sounded very interesting. It would certainly be something to tell Mavis when they next met. To delay his departure she said, ‘I’m married to one of two brothers, and we all live here together. Sorry I . . .’

‘Do you think your brother-in-law might know something about the office? Where they’ve moved to, perhaps.’

‘Sidney, you mean? Er, I’m afraid he’s not here at the moment. Just popped out.’ She felt she was rather good at lying – and of course he
had
just ‘popped out’, but only into the yard. ‘My husband is away a lot. He’s a salesman and travels all over the country getting orders. Shirts, ties, things like that. And not cheap stuff. High-quality clothing. He’s away as well, as it happens.’

‘Did either your husband or his brother work for the PSD at any time?’

‘Not as far as I know. They’ve never said they did. I really can’t help you.’

She watched him go with regret and went back into the house. Sidney had vanished – no doubt making an escape through the alley that ran along the back of the houses. Returning to her bread and dripping she felt a moment’s sympathy for the young man’s landlady. Smiling, she finished her breakfast and thought smugly how lucky she was to have Don.

Later she went upstairs to the attic, to reassure herself that the information she had given the man was correct, and found, to her surprise, that the chest with no key had gone, too.

As Leonard turned towards his brother’s house he was aware of a feeling of unease about his recent encounter. Mrs Wickham seemed pleasant enough, but either she knew very little about her husband and his brother or she knew more than she was saying.

He liked to pride himself on recognizing a lie when he heard one, but Mrs Wickham had been rather pretty and he’d allowed himself to be distracted by the bouncing curls and bright eyes.

‘Shame on you, Leonard Phipps!’ he murmured. ‘A victim of your passionate nature!’ Laughing, he passed a pet shop with a window full of sprawling puppies and a parrot in a cage, came to a small ironmongers offering regular deliveries of paraffin oil, and a barber’s shop, then crossed the road and turned right again, still trying to quell his doubts.

Was it a coincidence that both brothers were out and unable to speak to him? And there was something odd about the firm PSD. What, realistically, could those letters stand for, he wondered as he turned the corner and strode on towards Bidmoor Road. The old man, George Meecham, obviously thought there was something fishy about John Daye, and he might be right . . . and even Mrs Daye might have her suspicions although she was too loyal to share them. Leonard felt a strong urge to help her if he could, but would she thank him if he revealed an unpalatable truth about her husband?

On the other hand, if John Daye worked for a branch of MI5 he might prove to be a man of high integrity doing valuable work for his country and no one would thank a humble constable for interfering. He sighed. He would have to proceed carefully, he warned himself. A few words with the local postman might shed some light on the puzzle. And perhaps he would make a surprise call on the Wickham brothers on his way home.

That night around midnight, in a warehouse full of sacks of meal, bales of hay and bays full of grain, Willis Burke found it more difficult than usual to force himself from the safety of his shabby little nightwatchman’s office and out into the warehouse itself for the first of his three ‘security rounds’. Stuffing a ring of keys into the pocket of his shapeless overalls, he sniffed the dank air and took a deep breath to settle his nerves. Even with the miserable interior lights, the vast storage area was decidedly gloomy in the light of his torch and, to Willis’s fearful eyes, vaguely eerie. Sinister even, he told himself as he stepped out into the silence of the area to be patrolled.