L'Aimant – Chapter 30
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.
Chapter 30: Sam makes plans for branching out. Foyle investigates the death of Messinger.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Notes:
Warning: this chapter contains plot.
...
The Government Code and CypherSchool (GC&CS) was housed at BletchleyPark in Buckinghamshire during WWII.
...
Thanks to dancesabove for her eagle eye and usual nice tweaks.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
That evening at the Howards' flat, with dinner over, Foyle planted a kiss on Alice's cheek and rose from the table.
"Lovely meal, Alice. I should telephone Samantha before turning in."
Charles stood. "It's in my study. You can talk in private. Come with me and I'll show you where." They made their way there and Charles ushered his brother-in-law in.
"Let you get on with it, old chap," he said, and made to leave, but something in Foyle's face stopped him. "What is it, Christopher?"
Foyle sighed. "Charles, you're Rosalind's brother. You're family, and I both like and respect you. But don't imagine that I don't know I've been 'managed' into this assignment."
Charles winced. "Yes. Well. Sorry, old chap. Had to be done."
Foyle stretched his shoulders. "Well, you got your wish. But you'll also be losing your driver when I finish this investigation." His twinkling eyes let fly a tiny dart. "C'est la guerre."
Chapter 30
Thursday afternoon, 11th January, 1945
It was around five when Samantha Foyle pulled into the constabulary station yard. On the drive back from London, the immediate necessity of concentrating on the road conditions and the route had relegated her worries about her husband to the back of her mind. But now, with the Wolseley safely locked inside the yard, and all the routine vehicle checks complete, the unease of leaving Christopher behind in London resurfaced, rendering her vulnerable to brooding on the outcomes of the last two days.
When she entered the station, Sam found the front desk temporarily unmanned and in semi-gloom. Sergeant Brooke had obviously been removing bulbs again to save on electricity. She pushed on through the inner door into the half-lit corridor. A crack of light shone brightly underneath Paul Milner's door.
Cheered by the prospect of a friendly face, she rapped lightly and, hearing his invitation, stepped into his office.
"Hullo. It's me. I'm back," she supplied superfluously, tugging off her gloves.
Paul was seated at his desk, the glare of a harsh lamp illuminating a sheaf of paperwork spread before him. He rose out of his chair with some slight effort, then blinked and smiled, his eyes adjusting from the brighter pool of light upon his papers. His neck craned round to peer behind his visitor. "Hello Sam. On your own?"
"Afraid I've had to leave him up in London." She tried to keep the inflection matter-of-fact. "He's been co-opted onto some investigation for the War Department."
Milner frowned. His voice was slightly breathy. "Bit sudden, isn't it? How long for?"
Sam shrugged, turning her gloves over in her hands. "Even I don't know how many days he'll be away. He says to tell you that he'll telephone you here tomorrow. Meanwhile, until he's back, I'm s'posed to drive you anywhere you need to go."
A look of slight concern crept across Milner's features. "Nothing you can tell me now, then? Are you sure?"
Sam exhaled and shook her head, "No, Paul. You know Whitehall. It's all so frightfully cloak-and-dagger. Except that"—now she tensed her lips—"on a more personal note, I shall be leaving at the end of the month."
Paul's voice now betrayed definite surprise. "I thought you meant to stay till March, last time we spoke. Is everything all right?"
Sam addressed the ceiling dolefully. "Things change, you know. I've come to realise, it doesn't do for me to be"—she flicked her hand in mock-dramatics—"flinging myself about under my husband's nose. It sort of puts him off his stride." She caught Paul's wide-eyed look, and rolled her eyes. "With worry, Paul."
Paul offered back a shy smile of apology for his rash interpretation. Then, in an effort to imagine himself in Mr Foyle's position, he transposed Edie to the role of Sam. Easy enough to understand how, in those circumstances, things might work out to be rather difficult—and on various levels. Eyebrow crooking, he concluded that his first interpretation might not have been all that rash after all.
A heavy sigh from Sam reclaimed his attention. "So… there we are, Paul. Nice while it lasted. End of an era."
Milner squinted at the sad truth of her words. "I'll miss you. We'll all miss you round the station, Sam," he told her gravely. "Any plans for when you leave?" Somehow he couldn't imagine Sam rattling round the house, as Edie seemed content to do. But Edie was another matter, he reminded himself. Edie was expecting.
Sam outlined to him her scheme for helping Alice Howard. "And then," she went on, "I thought I might sign up for a bit of fire-watching two nights a week. I know Jerry has knocked off a bit recently, but if ever he suspects we're getting lazy, he's bound to drop one on us while we're off our guard.
"Anyway," she finished firmly, "that should be enough to keep me busy till the b—" Sam checked herself. There would be plenty of time to share that piece of happy news when Christopher returned. "...till the blessed war's over." She raised her eyes to Paul's. "Wouldn't you say?"
Paul's serious face warmed into a soft smile. Moving around his desk, he placed a friendly arm about Sam's shoulders and gave her a light squeeze. "Things will work out, Sam," he told her kindly. "And I daresay Edie will be glad of some company, if ever you find yourself at a loose end, the other side of work."
Privately Sam thought that Edie would be lovely company—on occasion. But she was not all that eager for society that involved swapping one domestic setting for another. She needed stimulation, thank you very much, outside the home, and for as long as her legs would still carry her, she intended to get out into the world.
"Thank you, Paul. It's a kind offer," she told him, looking jauntily up into her friend's face, "for when I sort out my new routine."
After Sam had left his office, Milner lowered himself into his seat and stretched his long legs out before him, weighing up the impact of his boss's absence. Effectively, this state of affairs put him in control of any investigations that arose whilst Mr Foyle was otherwise engaged. And being not-unambitious for his own advancement, Paul actually found himself enamoured of that idea.
The serious young sergeant pushed back his chair and raised a leg—his good one—bringing it to rest upon the desk. DI Milner, by this time next year? he wondered. He desperately wanted to impress his boss, in the hope that Foyle would sponsor him for a promotion. And with a baby on the way, the extra money wouldn't go amiss.
Sam cycled home on a borrowed police Raleigh, her own bike never having properly recovered from her tumble before Christmas. In spite of Brooke's best efforts at the time, the chain kept falling off, and Sam suspected that she'd bent the gear assembly. It really hadn't mattered all that much while Christopher was home, because the Wolseley always stood outside. But each time she'd mentioned having the bike looked at professionally, such gruff harrumphing noises had emerged from Christopher that she'd eventually given up on it. One day after they'd got back from Christmas at her parents', she'd noticed it was missing from its customary place in the back yard. A brief reconnoitre of the garden shed had finally revealed it hanging from the ceiling, the front wheel removed and the fixing nuts nowhere to be found.
So that, she had concluded, put paid to her career on two wheels.
Now, though, as she sped along Marine Parade in top gear and veered off into the stretch of High Street leading home, she felt a rush of liberation in the evening chill. Brookie had lowered the saddle for her, and even if the horizontal bar along the top of the frame had made the mounting of it awkward in her uniform, she'd found that with her skirt hitched up beneath her greatcoat, under cover of the winter darkness she could still preserve her modesty whilst cycling home. Tomorrow, Sam had resolved, she'd cycle to the station in her trousers, and change into her uniform skirt at the other end.
This would be her first night alone at Steep Lane without Christopher, and she could not help but feel the stark emptiness of the house as she stepped through the front door. The interior was like a vault; Sam's breath froze in the air around her. They'd been away for only two days, but in that short time, every trace of warmth had leached out of the place.
Sam shivered, and her hands crept up her arms as she made for the living room, casting a lonely glance at the hall table as she passed.
Ring soon, she told the telephone, so I don't feel so desperately alone inside this house without him.
Securing first the blackouts, next she lit a lamp, then knelt before the hearth to build a fire and put some warm back in the house.
Ring soon. She settled on her haunches as the flames began to lick around the kindling and rolled-up newsprint, stretching out a hand towards the rising warmth.
Christopher's telephone call came a little after eight. He sounded weary. Details were vague: he had been to view some 'evidence', and was being taken, on the morrow, on what he called an 'information-gathering jaunt'. He thought he 'might come home on Monday to collect some things'—Sam's heart leapt at the news that she would not be very long without him, and when they had exchanged soft words in parting, she felt ashamed at the extent of her despondency. This was but a short separation to endure, in contrast to the millions of women whom war had separated from their men for months, and even years, on end.
Sam knew that she should count herself amongst the lucky ones. For the duration of the war, she had been rather spoiled. Cocooned with Christopher inside his car, and now inside his house—their home. Barely separate from each other in the working week for nearly five years, then this new degree of intimacy between them making the wrench more difficult. She missed him terribly already, burdened with the knowledge that his work would take him where she couldn't be, and felt quite babyish about it. It was entirely at odds with her streak of independence, and desire to make a difference on her own. Try as she might, Sam couldn't reconcile the two, and started to get angry with herself.
This, then, was the nub, the bone, of striking out alone. There would be no indulgent boss to treat her with the respect and kindness she had come to expect in her everyday work. No Christopher to trust and encourage her, bolstering her confidence (all right, so impending fatherhood had made him over-protective in recent weeks, but generally speaking). No Brookie to exchange friendly banter with. No Paul to share her flask of tea on trips. No Wolseley.
No police bike, even.
Golly. She would have to see to it that her bicycle was properly repaired before the month was out.
And so she sat down at the kitchen table to make A List of Things to Do and Dates to Do Them By, something to impress Christopher with on Monday. And perhaps even tease him with, a little. Sam smiled to herself, licked her pencil, stuck her tongue into her cheek and began:
ITEM 1: Locate two wheel nuts removed (and hidden) by over-protective absent husband.—by 15/01
ITEM 2: Find reputable cycle repair shop to mend gear assembly (Sturmey-Archer specialist?).—by 19/01
ITEM 3: ...
Monday, 15th January, 1945
Foyle gazed neutrally at the back of John Anselm's head. A steely-eyed young bruiser assigned as his driver-cum-minder for the Messinger investigation, Anselm was polite, alert, but largely monosyllabic. For as long as the young man was carrying a Webley Four-Five-Five in his shoulder-holster, that suited Foyle immensely well.
"Billet sorted for the night, John?"
"Sir." Anselm's eyes squinted briefly to the rear-view mirror, then reverted to the road.
"Right. Soon as you've dropped me off this evening, your time's your own."
"Sir." The nod was short, but not uncivil.
Foyle turned to the paperwork spread over the back seat of the Lanchester: results of the post mortem on a green form; forensics report—prepared at the new Hendon police laboratory under tight supervision—on pink; photographs from the hotel where Messinger's body had been found.
He scratched his head. The blood reports were clear—no toxic substances in evidence. Oxygen depletion. Surely this was normal in a heart attack? No abrasions on the body. In fact, no evidence of foul play whatsoever. His first thought had been, why had Pierce assumed murder? Man died of cardiac arrest. He wasn't young.
He'd pored over the reports again, then sought out the Department's MO, file in hand.
The older, white-haired man had regarded him patiently over the tops of his spectacles. "Asphyxial arrest, Mr Foyle, differs from a simple myocardial infarction in that the primary cause is lack of oxygen to the tissues. Which, in turn, precipitates a cardiac arrest, Mr Foyle. The man was, in my professional opinion, poisoned. No trace of cyanide's been found, but something took his breath away. And then, in due course, his heart stopped. Cause and effect, Mr Foyle. Cause and effect."
A conversation had ensued about the possible nature and origin of the suspected poison, and the manner of administration. "Almost certainly ingested, though in some cases, cutaneous application would suffice."
There'd followed trips over the weekend to the GC&CS at Bletchley and thence to the hotel where Sir Giles had been found dead by his aide.
The Pack Horse, Staines, was a rambling, mainly 19th-century gabled building with tall spiral-bricked chimney-stacks, sitting on the banks of the River Thames. The hotel still boasted its own moorings, a tradition harking back to the days when it served as a stopping place for barges being hauled up the river by horse. Messinger had presumably chosen it as a half-way house en route south from Bletchley to his home near Hastings.
As was his habit, Sir Giles had been travelling with false papers under the name of Captain Ridley. He had been discovered dead in bed by his aide on Sunday morning. One frantic phone call to Whitehall from the aide, and within two hours, the hostelry acquired four new guests. All businessmen with meetings in the area starting Monday: two of them rather burly gentleman in their thirties; one other older chap, encumbered with a number of heavy cases of equipment; and the last, a white-haired gentleman of fifty-odd, who informed the desk that he travelled in medical supplies. Which probably explained the peculiar chemical whiff he left in his wake.
That night, and under cover of darkness, the body had been surreptitiously removed to London by boat, completing the chain of events that caused Hilda Pierce to disturb Charles Howard's slumber in the wee small hours of Monday morning.
The room where Sir Giles's body had been discovered lay largely undisturbed, apart from items removed to Hendon for forensic testing—and the relative positions of those were clearly shown on the photographs in Foyle's possession. Keeping the room thus, and in a manner that would not attract attention from the hotel management, had been an escapade of some aplomb, and worthy of an organisation versed in obfuscation and distraction-tactics. Fortunately, on Sundays, the chambermaid's duties did not involve a change of sheets unless the guest was signing out. It was a small matter for Captain Ridley's aide to extend his boss's stay by one more night, then reassure the maid, across the bedroom threshold, to simply leave the 'nice clean towels for Sir' with him.
Monday had been a different story. When the chambermaid set about to 'do the room' abandoned by its occupant, she could have sworn the towels looked clean and the sheets did not look slept in. Small wonder, since the actual sheets and other linens had been bundled into bags the previous night and borne away to London with the body.
By midday on Monday, the room was re-occupied—by one of the two burly businessmen. He had perplexed the lady on reception by complaining that his east-facing bedroom was exacerbating his neuralgia, and could he possibly move across the corridor for the remainder of his stay? The receptionist had been about to offer her regrets that the room had already been earmarked for a gentleman expected later in the day, when a crisp pound note, pinned in place by a hairy forefinger, was deposited before her on the register.
Whilst in London, Foyle had cursorily inspected the retrieved linens, and the suitcase containing Sir Giles's personal effects, removed the same time as the victim's mortal remains. Seeing nothing of immediate remark, he had nevertheless instructed the lot to be loaded into the Lanchester, to accompany him on his visit to Staines.
Now, arriving in the reception of The Pack Horse in the middle of the following Sunday morning, Foyle simply identified himself as a police detective and questioned staff on the pretext of a criminal fraud investigation. Did Captain Ridley associate with other guests, or receive any visitors, apart from his aide? No? Might he see the room where Captain Ridley had been staying? Very kind. He'd show himself upstairs, and pass along the management's apologies to the current occupant.
Foyle had climbed the stairs up to the hotel room, having bidden Anselm— on the off-chance that seeing things in context might elicit some ideas—to convey Sir Giles's suitcase and the linens-bag behind him. If this sight puzzled the receptionist, she kept her lip buttoned. On hearing the phrase "criminal fraud", the backs of her ears had already begun pricking with the guilty memory of having taken a bribe from a guest. In any case, the forbidding aspect of the tall and taciturn young man who formed this policeman's retinue was not the sort that invited challenge.
Foyle had scanned the landing. Clearly no access to the room, other than via the main stairs past reception. Inside the bedroom with Anselm and with Newton—owner of the hairy forefinger—and the bags, Foyle chewed the inside of his cheek and cocked an eyebrow at the burly chap.
"You've been using this room, Newton?"
"No, Sir. Been doubling up with Burke in Number 8, keeping the maid out as much as possible."
"Right. So, no surface-cleaning done in here this week?"
"No, Sir."
"Very well." He nodded backwards towards the door. "Thank you. You two can disappear for a spell, while I think this through."
With the younger men gone, Foyle drew out the photographs from their manila folder. From these, he saw that the bedside table had been covered with a linen cloth, which Foyle noted had since been replaced. He delved into the bag of linen, took out the carefully-bagged cloth originally on the table, and held it up to the light. There was a faint brownish ring marking one part of it, as if left by the bottom of a cup—no—glass. He quirked his mouth. And? Well, perhaps it meant that Messinger had eaten in his room?
He rifled through the suitcase and the linens-bag for more ideas. Amongst the laundry there were two sheets, four pillow cases (all bagged separately), various towels, and what looked like a linen napkin.
The napkin. What had Sir Giles eaten on his last night? After half an hour or so of contemplating what passed for evidence, Foyle sighed, repacked the suitcase and the bag of linens, and stuck his head out into the corridor. Anselm was poised at the end of the corridor, squinting as he dragged on a cigarette held between thumb and forefinger.
"John? Soon as you're ready. Bags please. One or two more questions to ask downstairs."
"Sir." Anselm had put his fag out in a nearby aspidistra, and strode towards the room.
"You, um, keep records of food served to guests in their rooms at all? Quite like to know what Captain Ridley ate last... Saturday evening?"
Foyle had widened his eyes at the receptionist.
"We should do. I'll check for you." She'd bustled away. The sooner she gave him what he needed, the sooner this busybody'd be gone. It was all beginning to give her the chills, and no mistake.
A short while later, Foyle held a slip of paper in his hand. It read: "Room Service order for Number 10: Beef and Horsraddish Sanwitch + Pot of Tea for One". Foyle looked again. 'Horsraddish' was crossed out in faint pencil, and there was a note: 'Run Out of Horsraddish. Told Guest Sorry.'
Foyle's lip had quirked up at the side, in spite of himself. Hardly a tragedy, of course; Messinger was feisty enough without hot sauce on his sandwich. Still, bit of a shame, considering it was the old sod's last meal.
Anselm passed him in reception, on the way out to the Lanchester with the bags.
"Thanks," he told the receptionist. "I'll need to keep this. And, um, speak to the member of staff who prepared and delivered Captain Ridley's meal?"
"Certainly, Sir. Anything we can do to help, I'm sure."
One hour later, it was with a look of pure relief that she watched Foyle tip his hat, then sweep out of the hotel foyer. For that entire time, John Anselm had stood outside the hotel entrance like a monolith. She wondered, was the man impervious to cold?
In the rear of the Lanchester once more, on the way back to London that Sunday evening, Foyle stared blankly at the passing scenery. He had to admit that so far, he'd drawn a blank in his investigations. He resolved, however, to have the napkin tested once again. The forensics report had simply said, in technical terms, that it was free of blood. Unsurprising, he reflected, given that Sir Giles was likewise. There had been vomit on his pillow, but nothing in the contents of his stomach from the post mortem was identifiable as the cause. Perhaps the beef had just been past its best. But there was no trace of food in his airways. Messinger had not choked to death, in spite of the asphyxia.
Anselm had deposited Foyle outside the Whitehall building where Foyle had been allocated a temporary office, and pulled away to park the car.
Now, late the following morning, after a brief meeting with Hilda Pierce, Foyle was heading south towards Sedlescombe, a village just a few miles north of Hastings, and the home of Lady Messinger, widow of the late Sir Giles.
As the Lanchester scrunched its way along the gravel drive and came to a noisy halt in front of the white-pillared Georgian brick mansion, Foyle recalled his first visit to the house in 1941. The mysterious death of the Messingers' son, William, had brought him there with Milner on an investigation that had proved more complex than it had first appeared.
Sir Giles's manner had been gruff, verging on the belligerent when faced with the news of his son's apparent suicide. Anne Messinger, on the other hand, as Foyle recalled, had regarded her visitors with a sort of stunned, appalled silence, occasionally punctuated by a pleading and expectant look. The concern for her husband in her grey-blue eyes had been quite painfully evident, even as she struggled to absorb the awful fact of her only son's death.
A gently spoken, very contained woman, with soft, greying blonde hair, she had been dressed in an unassuming mushroom-coloured ensemble at the time of their first meeting, and gave the overall appearance of a spouse well versed in deference to her husband. In spite of Lady Messinger's generally submissive manner towards Sir Giles, however, there had been fleeting moments of quiet exasperation in her glances at him, and something of a stubborn cast in her worried eyes when her husband withheld his co-operation on the grounds of national security. In the event, she had proved more than ready to defy Messinger's embargo on sharing information about her son's movements and the location of his work. Foyle had admired her greatly for that. Nor had she participated in the dressing-down of Foyle delivered by her husband on their last, excruciating encounter outside Hill House in Leavenham—the one where Messinger had, in no uncertain terms, informed Foyle that his hopes of a career-change were in tatters.
It was with deep sadness and regret, therefore, that Foyle now stood on Lady Messinger's doorstep, and rapped the large brass knocker, standing back then with his hands inside his pockets and his head bent as he waited for an answer.
Even as he lingered on the deep-set, white-panelled threshold, between the imposing white pillars of the front porch, a small female figure clad in black emerged with a determined gait through the brick archway to the right of the front entrance to the house.
"Hello? Is someone there? I heard a motor-vehi—" Anne paused, raised her chin and regarded first the Lanchester with the tall figure of a young man at its side, then the dapper, trilbied gentleman at her door. "I know you, don't I? You're a police detective. Why, it's Mr... Mr Foyle, I think? My memory, excuse me, is not quite what it was..."
Her eyes were swollen (Foyle reasoned) from a recent bout of tears. But the irises still shone with the intensity he remembered from their first encounter, and they gazed now at him in the same anticipative and entreating way.
"It is. Memory serves you well, Lady Messinger." Foyle's brows puckered over a concerned smile.
Anne pulled off her gardening gloves and offered him her hand. "Mr Foyle. I had not thought our paths would cross again."
Foyle tilted his head. "Rather wish it weren't necessary to trouble you, in current circumstances, but..." He grimaced. "May we talk?"
Anne Messinger regarded him now with uplifted chin and unwavering eyes, drinking in his features. "Yes, you know, I do believe we must. I have often regretted the manner of our last parting. My husband could be very... harsh, Mr Foyle. And you always struck me as a very... honest man. Please come inside. And then would you at least be kind enough to tell me when at last, I shall be permitted to bury my husband? Since"—she gave him an ineffably sad look—"I see no other reason for your visit."
Foyle blinked, humbled by her fortitude. In the space of four short years, this woman had lost all her close family. First her son, and now her husband. Abrasive, domineering and combative though Sir Giles had been in his professional life, there had been an underlying tenderness in his treatment of his wife that had registered clearly with Foyle at their first meeting. To all evidence, the Messingers had been a devoted couple.
Lady Messinger turned now to the tall young man standing to attention beside the car. "Mister… ?"
"Anselm, Madam." Apart from the movement of his jaw, there was not a flicker of expression on the young man's face.
"I see. Would you care to wait inside, in the kitchen? You may have tea, if you so wish."
A quick exchange of glances with Foyle confirmed the acceptability of the suggestion, and Anselm's face relaxed the merest bit. "Thank you, Madam. Don't mind if I do." Then he locked the doors of the Lanchester and followed them inside.
Foyle sat now, opposite Lady Messinger in her sitting room. Before him was an enormous landscape painting, which he took to show a view of the Messinger's garden and its herbaceous borders in the height of summer. To his left was a large mirror covered with an embroidered tablecloth.
In fact, every mirror he had passed on his way into the room had been veiled in some way, and he tried to recall precisely when he had last seen the practice of covering mirrors after a death. It must have been in his grandmother's house, he thought. But this was not Victorian England, and the old-fashioned habit puzzled him.
Anne caught the direction of his gaze. "A tradition in my husband's family, Mr Foyle, in case you're wondering."
"Ah." Foyle squinted for a moment. Messinger. Foyle's dormant German skills sprang to the fore and served him in good stead. Not, as he had originally assumed, a corruption of 'Messenger', which had explained the postman connotation to Sir Giles' son's French codename Facteur, but actually a German Jewish surname meaning 'one who works in brass'—or 'Messing'.
The implication also went some way towards explaining Sir Giles' inordinate prickliness, and his tough, uncompromising stance on anything and everything he touched professionally. He had two—by the standards of the times—difficult strands of background to countervail.
The burden of his widow's isolation struck Foyle all the harder, then. She had lived her life with a difficult man, who had, by his own admission to Foyle, a strained relationship with his son, and who had very likely alienated friends and other family over the years. It made the detective's next question doubly difficult to ask.
"Lady Messinger, did you have any reason to be concerned for your husband's safety from those he worked or otherwise associated with?"
Anne gave a sad, soft smile. "He would not discuss his work, Mr Foyle. And as for members of his family, they were more apt to ignore him than seek to harm him. I wish I had information to offer you, but I do not."
Foyle bit his lip and nodded gravely. Was this to be yet another dead end to his investigation?
As if hearing his thoughts, Lady Messinger continued, "My husband, Mr Foyle, was not an easy man, but by his own lights, he was an honourable one. I hope that you will let me know the truth when you have found it."
Foyle nodded his careful assent, but his eyes crept sideways as he considered the likelihood of a swift end to the investigation. In his own mind, it was a case of 'if' he found the truth, not 'when'.
There was one truth, though, that he could give this woman, and he had taken special care to gain permission from Miss Pierce so to do.
He shifted in his seat, and leaned forward, fingers locked together, resting on his knees. "There's something I can share with you now, Lady Messinger. Something which I was not at liberty to divulge at our last meeting."
His hostess raised weary eyes to meet his own in doleful supplication. "About William, Mr Foyle?" Her son's suicide had been an enduring sadness in her life, and in her husband's, too. True, they had endured, but the zest had gone from their existence after hearing that William had ended his own life over a girl they had not even met.
"Yes, Lady Messinger. I have to tell you now: your son did not take his own life. He was killed in action on a covert mission into enemy territory. His death was an heroic one, in the service of his country. I am sorry that these facts have been kept from you all these years. There was no possibility of telling you, until now."
Anne lowered her lids, and spoke a soft, "Thank God." Foyle saw the tears well up and fall in silence into her lap.
She nodded very slowly, fixing him with a gentle insistence in her eyes. "But there's more, isn't there, Mr Foyle? The reason for the lie that we were told. I rather think I'd like to hear the full truth in the garden. These days, these walls oppress me. In my garden, I can think." She raised her chin and brought the same expectant, pleading look to bear. "Walk with me in my garden, Mr Foyle?"
Foyle crossed the space between them to offer his assistance as she rose. "It will be my pleasure, Lady Messinger."
When they returned from their walk, Anne's face had assumed a pensive, somewhat stubborn cast. "My husband would not have forgiven those errors, Mr Foyle. He would have thrown himself body and soul into the destruction of the man who caused William's death. And of the organisation he controlled."
"You're right, of course," Foyle nodded. "Precisely why it was so crucially important for the secret to be kept. Your husband was a formidable force, Lady Messinger." I felt that force myself, he added silently.
"But it would not have brought my son back to life."
"If it's any consolation, the man responsible is no longer in a position to do more damage."
"Something, then, at least." Anne gazed across the lawn, a great expanse of green, broken up now and then by buttercup-yellow flowers fringed with green ruffs. "Now may I plead with you, Mr Foyle?"
Foyle raise an eyebrow in query.
"Whatever you find out this time, I would like the truth from you directly."
Foyle examined his shoes. "You have my word of honour, Lady Messinger."
"Thank you. Do you like my garden?"
"Very much. What are these yellow flowers?"
"Eranthis hyemalis, Mr Foyle. A brilliant midwinter contrast to the modest snowdrop. They open out in winter sunshine, give back the light that they consume, then close again at dusk. People's lives would do well to emulate them, don't you think?"
"Indeed I do, Lady Anne."
"May I offer you refreshment before you go? Tea? A sandwich, perhaps? I feel sure your driver has been well-fed while we've talked and walked."
"I, um, very kind… but I haven't much of an appetite at the moment." Foyle gazed into the distance, thinking there were days when his job was almost unbearably painful.
"Quite so. Nor I." She offered him a faint, sad smile, and then her hand. "I thank you for your visit, Mr Foyle. You are always welcome here."
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
"Barely separate from each other in the working week for nearly five years..."
"Sometimes it is just the right degree of separation that makes the most lasting bond."
— Robert Brault, aphorist
…
"…the hotel where Sir Giles had been found dead in bed by his aide..."
The Pack Horse Hotel (formerly "Inn") in Staines-upon-Thames is now known as The Thames Lodge and is part of the Hotel Mercure chain. I've stayed there on a couple of occasions. It attracts all sorts. Once had a conversation with a chap in the bar about plate tectonics. Think I must've had a bit too much wine, because the subject struck me as totally fascinating at the time. Next morning, when I'd sobered up, I recalled that he'd been wearing an anorak, Jesus sandals and yellow socks. Alcohol is a dangerous thing.
…
"…travelling with false papers under the name of 'Captain Ridley'..."
Direct quotation from the BletchleyPark website:
"The arrival of 'Captain Ridley's Shooting Party' at a mansion house in the Buckinghamshire countryside in late August 1938 was to set the scene for one of the most remarkable stories of World War Two. They had an air of friends enjoying a relaxed weekend together at a country house. They even brought with them one of the best chefs at the Savoy Hotel to cook their food. But the small group of people who turned up at BletchleyPark were far from relaxed. They were members of MI6, and the Government Code and CypherSchool (GC&CS), a secret team of individuals including a number of scholars turned Codebreakers. Their job: to see whether BletchleyPark would work as a wartime location, well away from London, for intelligence activity by GC&CS as well as elements of MI6."
To anyone ever within striking distance, I can't recommend a visit to Bletchley Park enough. It is a truly fascinating place.
...
More soon.
GiuC