Sisters Three Page 17

  ‘Then it was he who lied to you, lied to Edgar – and to me.’

  ‘Don’t try to put the blame—’

  She placed a forefinger on his chest and brought her mouth close to his, close enough to kiss. ‘There is no blame,’ she said. ‘Do we not have the paper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it the right paper? Is it good paper for our purposes?’

  ‘I don’t know. Giffard will have to take a look at it.’

  ‘If it is good paper, the right paper,’ Penny said, ‘does it matter that it does not come from your uncle in Verona?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Dominic said. ‘I just don’t like being lied to.’

  She spread her hand, laid it very lightly against his chest. ‘I am sorry that your uncle is dead. Truly.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘He was like a father to you, no?’

  ‘He looked after me, he and Aunt Teresa,’ Dominic said.

  ‘Cared for you?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I am sorry you have lost someone who was dear to you. I am sincere.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dominic said, softening. ‘I know you are.’

  She was tempted to kiss him, to taste the perspiration that anger had brought out on his lips. She resisted, though, did not play on her advantage.

  Dominic said, ‘I still want to know where the damned paper came from.’

  ‘There are docks in Hull, no?’

  ‘Of course there are docks in Hull. But where did the package come from, where did it originate?’ Dominic said. ‘There were no packing notes, no customs stamps, nothing to give me a clue. Obviously this is only the first batch and there will be more on the way if we approve this stuff. So where’s it coming from, that’s what I want to know, Penny?’

  ‘Perhaps Eddie sent it.’

  ‘And where did Eddie get it from?’

  Penny shook her head.

  Dominic said, ‘Italy? Maybe even Germany?’

  ‘Why do you worry so much where it comes from?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to be caught trading with Germany,’ Dominic said. ‘God knows, I’m having trouble enough keeping my warehouse stocked with goods from Italy right now, legitimate goods. My manufacturers are being squeezed by government regulations and import restrictions.’

  ‘It is not against the law to import from Italy,’ Penny said.

  ‘No, not officially,’ Dominic said. ‘But I already have the coppers breathing down my neck.’

  ‘What is it you say?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Dominic said. ‘I’d just like to be sure that your friend Harker has the route covered.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Penny said, ‘it’s all here already, stored in a warehouse in Hull.’

  ‘Is that what Harker told you?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Eddie in weeks. I do not even know where he is.’

  ‘Well, this damned paper didn’t come from Woolworth’s,’ Dominic said. ‘It was manufactured especially for us and I’d like to find out where.’

  ‘Maybe it is not the right paper,’ Penny suggested.

  ‘Well,’ Dominic said, just as Tony emerged from the farmhouse, ‘there’s only one sure way to find out. We’ll lug the packages into the stables and have Giffard examine the contents sheet by sheet. Go get the little beggar, please, Penny. We’ll need his help to lift that box out of the back seat.’

  ‘Which is,’ said Tony, ‘what exactly?’

  ‘Giffard’s routing machine.’

  ‘Yeah, he will be pleased,’ said Tony.

  Dominic opened the passenger door and reached into the car. He backed out again, three square cardboard boxes suspended from each hand by thick cord slings. ‘And these,’ he said. ‘I brought these for you.’

  ‘What are they?’ Tony said.

  ‘Gas-masks.’

  ‘Gas-masks!’ Penny exclaimed.

  ‘You’re supposed to report to a local centre to be fitted but I brought six so you can find one that more or less fits you. Giffard too.’

  ‘How did you get six of them?’ said Penny.

  ‘He bought them from people who don’t believe there’s going to be a war,’ Tony said. ‘Right, Dominic?’

  ‘Quite right,’ Dominic answered and leaving Penny by the car took Tony by the arm and led him off a little way to break the bad news about Guido.

  * * *

  The Ramshorn had quite a history to it, a history that seemed to adhere to the wood-panelled walls and to hang in the air like ectoplasm. To Polly though history smelled of grilled chops, strong ale and tobacco smoke, for the restaurant in Ingram Street had been, and still was, a haunt of city traders.

  It was crowded, loud and bustling. Kenny and she were lucky to find a table away from the door, tucked under the beams at the rear of the long, low ground-floor room. She doubted if any of Dominic’s cronies would be here but if they were, if they recognised her and snitched to her husband then she would tell him the truth, or the most obvious and undeniable part of it, that she had asked Kenny MacGregor to lunch simply to discover more about him. It was, after all, the least a sister could do.

  The sergeant was more at ease than she had expected him to be. In the first quarter hour of casual conversation she even detected a faint trace of condescension towards her, not patronage so much as dislike, as if he had already sized her up and, in comparison to her little sister, had found her wanting.

  Imagination! Polly told herself: he’s merely being guarded because he doesn’t know what I want from him and what he might receive in return.

  She hadn’t forgotten how Kenny had knocked her husband off balance at Christmas, and Dominic was a more astute and experienced negotiator than she would ever be. She found herself putting on an air of almost girlish eagerness, as if to convince the sergeant that Rosie and she were not so very different after all.

  ‘Rosie tells me your father was killed in the war.’

  ‘He walked out on us in nineteen-seventeen and vanished into thin air,’ Polly said.

  ‘And you assume he died in the trenches?’

  ‘That’s what we’ve always been led to believe.’

  ‘By whom?’ said Kenny.

  ‘The family, my mother and her sister.’

  ‘Her sister?’

  ‘My aunt Janet.’

  ‘And where is she?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Polly said. ‘She can’t help you.’

  ‘Help me do what?’ said Kenny.

  ‘Build a case against my husband.’

  ‘Is that what you think I’m doing?’ said Kenny.

  ‘You said as much yourself.’

  ‘Your father worked for Carlo Manone, didn’t he?’

  ‘He was a runner. He ran a book, and did other things too.’

  ‘The bad old days,’ said Kenny, smiling.

  ‘In some ways not so bad as they are now,’ said Polly.

  ‘Do you remember him?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  She was disconcerted by his line of questioning. Much of what she had learned about her family history, her father’s disappearance in particular, had come from biased sources. Until she’d met and married Bernard Peabody, Mammy had clung to the notion that one day Frank Conway might turn up on her doorstep again: Aunt Janet too had kept a torch alight and, as far as Polly knew, still did.

  ‘Have you seen the sandbags?’ Kenny asked.

  ‘Sandbags? Where?’

  ‘In George Square,’ Kenny said.

  ‘No,’ said Polly. ‘Really? Why are we sand-bagging the Square. I thought we’d appeased Herr Hitler and the threat of invasion had gone away.’

  ‘Gas-masks, air-raid precautions, Civil Defence exercises,’ Kenny said. ‘It’s a mad panic in the regional stations, I can tell you. The man in the street might choose to believe Hitler’s gone soft but those in the know – well, they know better. What does your husband think will happen?’

  ‘Do you mean whose side is he on?’ Polly said. ‘I can�
��t give you an answer, I’m afraid. In spite of the fact that I’m his wife I’ve no idea where Dominic’s sympathies lie. I imagine he regards himself as much more Scottish than Italian, however, and will do what he can for the country.’

  Kenny nodded. ‘That’s good. We’ll need all the patriots we can get when the balloon goes up.’ He paused, reached into his jacket pocket. ‘Speaking of patriots, have you ever seen either of these two before?’

  She took the photographs, tilted them to the light. Even in the gloom of the restaurant she recognised them at once: the blonde girl, younger, fresher, more innocent, but the blonde girl none the less: the other – the squat, bull-like little man with the huge moustache.

  She handed back the photographs.

  ‘Who are they?’ Polly said. ‘Are they suspected of a crime?’

  ‘We’re anxious to trace their whereabouts, that’s all.’

  ‘I can’t help you, sorry,’ Polly said.

  She wondered what he would do now: bully her, threaten her, or cajole? Would he be too frightened of putting himself out of favour with Rosie, perhaps, to do anything at all?

  He broke bread into his soup and ate.

  The photographs lay on the tablecloth by his left hand.

  At length Polly said, ‘The girl, is she connected with my husband in some way? I mean, Kenneth, are you easing yourself into blackmailing me?’

  He glanced up in alarm. ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Where are they, these people?’

  ‘I wish we knew.’

  ‘Have you been – what’s the word – have you been tailing my husband?’

  ‘This isn’t America, Mrs Manone. We’re not G-men.’

  ‘Or Tony: tailing Tony?’

  ‘Tony Lombard? No.’

  ‘Could you really put Jackie Hallop in prison if you wished to?’

  ‘I think we probably could.’

  ‘What department do you work for, Kenneth?’

  ‘Criminal Investigation.’

  ‘Isn’t my brother-in-law, isn’t Jackie a criminal?’

  ‘We’re not concerned with the Hallops right now.’

  ‘Ah!’ Polly said quietly. ‘So you’re after bigger fish.’

  ‘That’s it in a nutshell, Mrs Manone.’

  ‘I do wish you’d call me Polly,’ Polly said. ‘If we’re going to do business together at least we should try to pretend that we’re on friendly terms.’

  ‘Are we going to do business together?’ Kenny said.

  ‘Exchange information,’ Polly said.

  ‘Information about what exactly?’

  ‘About the blonde girl in the photograph.’

  ‘You do know her then?’

  ‘Not her name, not who she is. I’ve seen her, though. Once.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the races at Ravenspark last November.’

  ‘Did you speak with her?’ Kenny asked.

  Polly gave a scornful little ‘huh’ at his naïvety. ‘My husband did.’

  ‘Not you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the man, the chap with the moustache?’

  ‘He was with her. They were together.’

  ‘Have you seen them since?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you any idea where either of them might be right now?’

  ‘I think,’ Polly said, evasively, ‘that they’re friends of John Flint.’

  ‘Can you find out where either of them is right now?’

  ‘Find out,’ said Polly. ‘How?’

  ‘By asking your husband maybe.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Polly said. ‘My husband tells me next to nothing. If he does have this young blonde girl put away somewhere, do you suppose for one moment that he’s going to tell me, tell his wife?’

  Kenny nodded and tried, without success, to look understanding.

  Polly went on, ‘I’m not turning informer, you know.’

  ‘I realise that.’

  ‘And I’m not giving away information for free.’

  ‘Surely you don’t want paid?’

  ‘Money is the last thing I need,’ Polly said. ‘Answer me a question: you do care for my sister, don’t you?’

  ‘I thought that was pretty obvious.’

  ‘Don’t be glib with me, Kenneth. Tell me honestly that you care for my sister and that you aren’t just using her to worm your way in our family?’

  ‘I’m in love with Rosie.’

  ‘Will you marry her?’

  ‘It’s not the right time to think about marriage.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The war – that sort of thing.’

  ‘Rosie knows nothing,’ Polly said. ‘Nothing about anything except books. She’s very good on the printed word. Besides, deafness is not a sterling attribute in an eavesdropper, is it? What I mean is this – I don’t want to see Rosie suffer. If you must ask questions, ask them of me not her. If we settle that point right here and now I’ll give you what little help I can.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Polly, you’re not being very consistent,’ Kenny said. ‘In one breath you’re telling me you’re not an informer and in the next you’re promising to help me.’

  ‘This is very difficult for me, you understand,’ Polly said. ‘I owe a great deal to my husband, everything in fact. And I’ve my children to consider. What you’re asking me to do is help bring him down.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to do anything, Polly; you volunteered.’

  She was about to argue, to let her tension show, then thought better of it. He was right, of course. She had given him the lead and she couldn’t blame him for pressing her now. They had reached the nub of the conversation. One more step, one more word and she would be committed to betrayal. She might pretend that she was doing it for Rosie, for Mammy, to keep them safe but she wasn’t. She was doing it for herself – and for Tony.

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘is true.’

  ‘Do you know where they are, the girl and the man?’

  ‘No,’ Polly said. ‘But I’ll make every effort to find out.’

  ‘By asking Dominic?’

  ‘By asking someone else,’ Polly said. ‘I do want something in exchange, however. I want to know what you have on this girl, and who she is?’

  ‘Can’t tell you that,’ said Kenny.

  ‘Because it’s top secret. Because the Home Office is barking at your heels?’

  ‘Because we don’t really know,’ Kenny said. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘In that case there’s nothing I can…’

  ‘All right,’ Kenny said. ‘I’ll tell you who she is, at least who we think she is.’ He pushed his plate to one side and lifted the photographs again, one in each hand. He held them towards her, faces uppermost.

  ‘The man is Edgar Harker,’ Kenny said. ‘The girl is his wife.’

  ‘His wife, not his daughter?’

  ‘Man and wife on the passport that brought them into Britain.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as we can be at this stage.’

  ‘Well, well!’ said Polly. ‘Well, well, well!’

  ‘Doesn’t Dominic know that Harker’s her husband?’

  ‘I’ll bet he doesn’t,’ Polly said.

  And laughed.

  * * *

  They were gathered on the platform above the stalls. Tony had knocked up eight or ten planks, padded with several bales of straw purchased from the Breslin riding academy. He had told the owner, a woman, that he needed straw to fill camp mattresses for a Civil Defence training weekend, and she had swallowed his tale and taken his cash without a qualm.

  The bales gave Dougie a little protection from chill draughts and screened the machinery from plain sight, though any competent constable or air raid warden could find it just by climbing the stairs. The fact that the machinery wasn’t hidden meant that its presence in the stables could be plausibly explained. As an added precaution Dougie would run off a batch of cheap-paper pamphlets cribbed f
rom government handouts and leave them bundled on the floor as any small jobbing printer might do. So far no one had come near the farmhouse. The local ARP wardens were not well organised and the threat of bombs falling from the skies had receded since the signing of the Munich agreement.

  Tony leaned against the bales and watched Dougie slit open a package with a penknife, peel away the waterproof outer layer and expose the dense weight of paper that the package contained.

  Kneeling, Dougie slipped the knife blade under the top sheet and separated it cleanly from the ream. He got to his feet again and, holding the sheet high, let it unfurl down the length of his body. He peered at the sheet for half a minute then, frowning, carried it to the guillotine, attached it to a roller and just like a washerwife with a mangle, cranked a handle that fed the paper under the blade. He tugged another handle and the blade dropped, making a single clean cut along the top edge of the sheet. He extracted the cutting, removed the original sheet, adjusted the scale on the side of the guillotine precisely, fed the cutting through the roller and brought the blade down again – once, twice, three times – slicing the cut sheet into four banknote-sized pieces.

  The girl leaned against Dominic, their shoulders touching.

  Tony had the impression that she would have liked him to hold her hand.

  From under his pullover Dougie produced a genuine Bank of England fiver. He snapped it several times, rubbed it flat between his palms and compared it with one of the blanks fresh from the guillotine.

  ‘Uh!’ he grunted. ‘Uh-huh!’

  ‘Is there something wrong, Douglas?’ the girl asked.

  Her breath hung in the cold air of the stables, the question contained in a white cloud, like something inside a glass paperweight.

  Dougie did not answer. He fingered the genuine note, then the blank. Then he picked up the three remaining blanks from the tray, slipped the genuine note between them and fanned them out like a hand of cards.

  ‘Feels like money,’ Dougie said. ‘Feels like real money.’

  ‘So it’s okay, is it?’ Dominic said.

  ‘I’ll need t’ examine it under an ultra-violet light,’ Dougie said, ‘but so far it looks damn-near perfect.’

  ‘You’ll have to check the whole consignment,’ Dominic said.

  ‘You bet I will,’ said Dougie. ‘Every bloody sheet.’

  ‘And then what will happen?’ Tony asked.