Tim Binding - Island Madness

“Might as well have a look in this bag of yours, since you’ve brought it with you. See if there’s anything else of interest.”

He tipped out the contents. A bar of German chocolate, a packet of German tobacco, a little purse with two scrunched-up ten-mark notes, a bank book, a packet of hairpins, a powder compact, a mirror, and a three sticks of different coloured lipsticks. All brand new.

“Now these pictures,” he said, taking them out and shuffling them like a deck of cards. Elspeth tried to snatch them out of his hand.

“Do you mind! Them’s private. You’ve no right to oggle at them like that.”

“I’m investigating a crime,” Ned said. “These could be evidence.”

“Of what? They’re just photos, that’s all. Who I let take pictures of me is my own affair. Nothing wrong with it.”

“Actually I’m not sure if you’re right, Elspeth. First, there’s the question of what you were doing.”

Elspeth looked at him indignantly. “Figure studies, that’s all they were.”

“I think the Lord Chamberlain might disagree. Leaving that aside there’s the question of what went on before or after and whether any remuneration took place.” He held her protestations at bay. “And lastly there’s the question of where all this took place. Strictly out of bounds, those bunkers. Do you have any idea of the dangers you were putting yourself in if the military thought you were spying?”

She looked up. “We was just having a bit of fun, that’s all.”

“You and this Schade?”

“Yes.”

“How did you meet him?”

“Conrad? I don’t know. At the bandstand, I think. Or it might have been the cinema. They have these mixed evenings most Tuesdays.”

“Well, it looks like they were a great success. When did you last see him?”

“Couple of weeks ago. He’s on leave now.”

“And he’d take you down there?”

“Yes. We’d have a bit of a party.”

“We?”

She looked annoyed with herself.

“Me and couple of girls from Boots, if you must know.”

“What about the girls at the bank?”

Elspeth shook her head.

“Happen often, did they, these parties?”

“Once a week, maybe. Whenever they were on duty.”

“And you’d go there when? At night?”

“They’d piek us up after curfew, up by St Saviour’s Church, drop us off at the top and walk through the security gates, change shifts. Then one would pop up to give us the all-clear and we’d climb down.”

“And you’d spend the night there?”

“We’d leave early morning, when the coast was clear.”

“Bit risky for them, wasn’t it?”

Elspeth brushed her sleeve. “Perhaps they thought we were worth it.”

“And that’s all that happened there—these parties.”

“It’s enough, isn’t it?”

“What about your parents?”

“Said I was staying with a friend. We didn’t do anything bad, Mr Luscombe.” Her nose started to quiver. “You’re not going to tell my dad, are you? He’ll beat me black and blue.”

“That depends on what else you tell me, Elspeth. The trouble is, that bunker, that gun emplacement, also happens to be the place where Miss van Dielen’s body was found.”

“But that can’t be! Conrad would have told me.”

“Conrad’s dead,” he told her.

Now she faltered. Her hands began to shake. Ned felt sorry for her. She was just a silly girl, that was all. She reached out and touched the back of one of the photographs. He felt tempted to give them back to her and tell her to go home. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Nothing to with this. An accident.”

“I had nothing to do with it, Mr Luscombe, honest. Never even spoken to her.”

“What about the men there? Did any of them know her, do you think? What were their names, Rupp? Bauer?”

“Rudi and Co.? No, she was too posh for them.”

He nodded. He picked up the bank book and flipped through the pages. To date Elspeth Poidevin had £3,175 in her bank account. Three thousand pounds! Ten years of his pay!

“Bloody heil, Elspeth, how did you come by all this?”

Elspeth looked at the bank book as if she had never seen it before.

“Savings.”

“Savings! From what?”

“Conrad was very genereus.”

“I’ll say he was.” He looked back through the entries. She’d opened the account October 1940, four months after the Occupation. The entries came in regular weekly instalments, ten, twenty, thirty pounds.

“You telling me all this came from a lieutenant?”

“Well, not all, obviously.”

“Well, who, then?”

Elspeth started to fidget. “Can’t say for sure.”

“Forgive me for suggesting this, Elspeth, but you haven’t been taking a leaf out of the French ladies’ books, have you? The sight of them trooping in the bank with all their hard-earned money didn’t set you thinking, ‘If they can do it, so can I’?”

She stood up, a flush of crimson racing down her neck.

“How dare you say that! How dare you!”

“Well, what else am I supposed to think? Here’s the lieutenant with pictures of you that would make a nawy blush, and here’s you with a bank balance that would be the envy of your bank manager.”

Monty Freeman. That was a point. He leafed through the book again. Two years, five months, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943. At the close of December 1942 the interest gained that year had been worked out, with Monty Freeman’s signature at the bottom. Monty Freeman knew of this, knew that Elspeth Poidevin was salting away more money in five months than he could earn in a year? Upright Monty Freeman? Then he remembered the swivel chair, and how Elspeth had reached down for the lever, as if she knew exactly how to use it, as if she’d sat in it many times before. Not in office hours, he’d be bound. When the bank was closed, then, and the other girls were on their way home. Elspeth Poidevin and Monty Freeman, together at last.

Calling for Tommy, he jumped the stairs and starled to run down the hill. The girls were standing outside on the corner, talking to one another. Monty Freeman was shoving his hat on as he hurried down the steps. A minute later and Ned was hugging the left-hand side of the Lower Pollet following Monty’s bobbing hat as he trotted past the chemist and the goldsmith, past R. J. Collins the purveyor of home-made cakes, past all those shops and shop owners to whom he maintained such an unforgiving rectitude, his hand pushing against wall and window, his coat flapping, blind to the ripples his unscheduled progress was causing.

Down near the roundabout Ned spun on his heel. Poor Monty had stopped up by the Savoy Hotel, out of breath. Ned waited a minute before turning again. Not that there was any danger of being discovered. Monty had crossed the road and was flagging a Pullman as it came up the Esplanade. He tipped his hat to the driver and settled down on the front bench.

Ned kept a good fifty yards back, walking on the same side as the bus, hanging over the railings or the sea wall whenever necessary. He didn’t need to run any more. The horse buses weren’t built for speed. Women passed him with shopping bags and children. Men whistled carrying tooi kits and empty lunch bags. A window cleaner cycled by, one hand on the handlebars, one hand holding his ladder. Then a doctor’s car. If he shut his eyes to the harbour, the seafront looked normal. Towards Spur Point the crowd began to thin out, so he crossed back to the shore side again and hung back while the old horse pulled its load round the bend and into the South Quay of St Sampson’s harbour. He could see the horse’s bones working under the dull skin, see the age and suffering of the beast in each weary plod. It was easier for Ned to hide himself here, for the harbour was awash with activity: swinging cranes, shouting longshoremen, guards, soldiers, ordinary civilians, all mixed together. They looked happy enough. They were working, earning a decent wage, eating decent food. The bus pulled up. A woman clambered down, her pram handed down by two others who jumped down after it. A boy with a barrel hoop. His mother. Then, from the dark of the canvas, a pair of hands carrying a hat. Monty Freeman.