L'Aimant – Chapter 34
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 34: Anselm fetches the grocery. Foyle keeps forensics busy.
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:
Hercule Poirot, as played by the great David Suchet, is, alas, no more. The final episode was aired this week in the UK.
But we still have Foyle!
…
Thanks to dancesabove for her valued beta-work, and contribution of ideas to this chapter.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
"[Fielding] saw that I was married—from the ring,"—[Dale] waved her left hand—"and asked me where my husband was. I told him, 'best guess, France, Sir'. And that seemed to break the ice. He never called me 'girl' again."
"How did he like you crying at a murder scene?" Milner ventured gently.
Dale gave him an even look. "Oh don't mistake me—when I say I cried, I didn't mean I broke down, bawling. But then, that was the strangest thing with Fielding. All he said was: 'Congratulations on the waterworks, Dale. I haven't got it in me any more.' Suppose that should have set alarm bells ringing."
They turned to contemplate the grave together.
So what had been the final straw for Fielding? Milner was no stranger to the stark depths of depression. One thing was certain though: his sanity had been saved from its destructive force by the timely offer of a hand to help him climb out of the pit of self-absorption. A hand that helped him feel he made a difference. A hand that had belonged to Mr Foyle.
Chapter 34
Thursday, 18th January 1945
Foyle had spent some time, as he waited for the results to come back from the forensics lab, typing up a report that gave form and shape to his suspicions. Frustratingly, whilst method now seemed clear, motive eluded him, as did the all-important culprit.
Circumstances supported his instinct that Messinger's driver was off the hook. If the jar of horseradish did turn out to contain aconite, as he suspected, then it would have been logical for Mitchell to dispose of that important evidence, either from Sir Giles's room, or, if he failed to find it there, from the car boot, where he would have reasoned it to finish up. Mitchell had ample opportunity to cover his tracks, but had neglected to do so—which didn't smack of guilty behaviour to Foyle. It followed, then, that Mitchell hadn't put the poison in Sir Giles's sauce.
When the forensics came in from Hendon on Thursday morning, the presence of aconite was duly confirmed, and in concentrations which, according to Pearson, the MO, would easily have floored an elephant. Foyle could only greet the news with a mixture of vindication and irritation.
This left him with a possibility he didn't wish to entertain, but which, if he cared toentertain it, would involve a further visit to the Messingers' home in Sedlescombe. He brooded in his office, chewing on his lip for upwards of an hour, at the end of which another question had taken shape in his brain.
Wandering down the corridor in search of an opinion from Pearson, Foyle learned that the MO had gone out on a call, and so he strode purposefully back to his office, jammed his hat down on his head, and swept out of the building, heading for the public library for the second time that week.
By mid-afternoon he was sitting back at his desk, mellow from an on-spec—and, as it turned out, whisky-sweetened—meeting with Miss Pierce. And Anselm now sat opposite him.
"I'm sending you back to Sedlescombe, John."
"Alone, Sir? Would that be a back-door visit I'd be making, then?"
"Yep." Foyle reached into a manila file and withdrew a typed list. "You, um, spent a fair while in the kitchen, last time you were there? Get the lie of the land, did you?"
"Pretty much, Sir." The answer was immediate and confident. Anselm had not only drunk tea at the Messingers' kitchen table but also indulged his predilection for observing his surroundings and the wildlife.
"So, you'd—ah—know where the provisions would be stored?"
"I would, Sir." An hour or two of watching Mrs Andrews bustling about her help-cum-cook domestic duties had taught him all the nooks and crannies of her neatly organised below-stairs realm.
"And if I needed you to... liberate certain of those?"
"Not a problem, Sir. Just tell me what you need, and it's done."
Foyle handed him the document he'd taken from the folder.
Anselm cast his eyes down the list once, then handed it back.
On the receiving end of a sceptical look from Foyle, he recited the items back to him verbatim, complete with any abbreviations Foyle had used.
"I see," said Foyle, with the merest flick of an eyebrow.
Anselm shrugged. "Sorry, Sir. Smart aleck. Used to get me into trouble with the teachers all the time."
Foyle's lip twitched as he placed the list back in his folder. "Smart enough to make it... ah... look like an opportunist's strike?"
"I'll just smash a small pane in the kitchen door. Not to make Lady Messinger too much mess. Leave a half-eaten sandwich on the kitchen table, shall I...?"
Foyle looked up in ill-disguised alarm. "Um. I shouldn't under any circumstances actually eat the booty. Given the, er, cause of death."
Anselm grinned at that. His boss had clearly thought him serious, and missed his little joke. Not for the first time.
"When d'you think you can be back by?" Foyle had plans for a trip the following day.
Anselm consulted his watch and did a rapid calculation. "Early morning, Sir. Say, three a.m.?"
His boss seemed satisfied with that. "Good. Please lock any items you retrieve inside this office. I'll deal with them when I get in tomorrow."
Anselm accepted the instruction with a brief nod.
"I'll need you back on duty, rested, by... let's say midday?"
...
When Anselm had gone, Foyle leant back in his chair and dragged his hands down his face. That it should come to this: his war career reduced to analysing home-made sauce, and sending clever men to burgle larders. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Messinger's revenge was subtle and persistent—the old man was harassing him even from beyond the grave.
He rose and parked his hands inside his trouser pockets, turning to survey the river through his office window. The Thames flowed grey and sluggish underneath WestminsterBridge, but its surface languor hid a powerful undertow. A river of the dark metropolis—so far-removed in character from the chattering waters where he fished.
Tuesday and Samantha seemed a time and place apart, and suddenly Foyle didn't like the feeling in the slightest.
He turned and lifted the receiver, placing a call to Hastings station. Brooke answered.
"Sergeant, please tell Mrs Foyle that I'll be coming home tomorrow evening."
Brooke was in a cheery, chatty mood. When wasn't he? "She won't 'alf be pleased, Sir. Only said to me this morning how she misses you around the house and that."
Foyle winced and screwed one eye tight shut. ...and that?
"Yesss, ALL right, thank you, Brooke." His tone was testy. The thought of his domestic arrangements being casually debated in the station foyer, even in the mildest terms, riled him. "Just pass the message on, would you? Preferably without commentary."
Brooke was unaffected. "Yes, Sir! 'Ope to 'ave you back soon, proper!" The chirpy loyalty made Foyle rue his churlishness.
"Working on it, Sergeant, I assure you. Appreciate the thought. Put me through to Milner?"
...
Friday, 19th January, 1945
Foyle opened his Whitehall office door next day to meet a sight that made him push his hat back from his forehead. Anselm had taken him at his word; his desk was laden like a grocer's counter. To all appearances, every last tin, jar and dry good from Lady Messinger's pantry had been conveyed to Whitehall for inspection. He marvelled at the volume, in view of rationing, but a quick inspection of the loot revealed a large amount of bottled fruit which had obviously come from the Messingers' own garden.
His first act was to place a quick call through to Filing and request that they send up half-a-dozen archive boxes. Then he scrutinised the haul.
Four jars of identically labelled 'horseradish' sauce were pointedly arranged in a neat line in his in-tray. He cleared himself a space and filled out the job-request form that would accompany the jars to Hendon lab. Then he called in one of the secretaries and had the items despatched forthwith.
The other goods interested him less, but he set about to catalogue them anyway, examining and storing everything in labelled cartons as he went.
...
Midday on the dot, and Anselm was at his office door, looking as he always did: cool, unruffled, and inscrutable.
"I see you had no trouble, John."
"Didn't expect any, Sir. Lady Messinger hasn't got a dog. I had to do a couple of journeys between the kitchen and the car, mind."
Foyle smirked as he surveyed the stack of boxes up against the wall. "I can imagine." He began to tidy away his paperwork. "Fortunate you weren't stopped on the way back. You might have been taken for a Black Marketeer."
"Oh, I was stopped, Sir. Two Home Guards on a road-block this side of Tonbridge. Didn't have any trouble, though."
Foyle looked up at him sharply. "How did you talk your way out of that one?"
"Didn't talk my way out, Sir. Just knocked 'em out and carried on."
Foyle blinked slowly. "They, um... they get your number?"
"Might've done, Sir," Anselm supplied cheerfully. "Wouldn't have much joy with it, though. False plates."
"Rrright..." Foyle scratched his cheek. In all honesty, what had he expected? The man was SOE. Quite possibly even regarded this assignment as a form of slumming.
"Fine," he grated out, and rose to don his hat and coat. "I need you to drive me back to Sedlescombe."
Anselm stood aside to let him pass. "Ready when you are, Sir. P'raps not via the Tonbridge road today, though, eh?"
...
It was a sunny but crisp afternoon in Sedlescombe when the Lanchester scrunched to a halt outside the Messinger house. Foyle crossed the driveway to the front door, and Anselm strode over to join him.
"Good afternoon, Gentlemen." Lady Messinger's clear, insistent tones reached them through the brick archway to the right of the house.
She emerged from behind the arbour that concealed her, a slight, compact figure in an austere black two-piece, supplemented by a padded waistcoat, and approached them, the worry in her doleful eyes familiar from their last encounter.
"You find me... in the garden... once again. And I might add... that you are not... the first policemen to call here today. We have had... a burglary."
Foyle tucked in his chin. Her fractured phrasing puzzled him, as did her laboured gait. "Regret to hear that, Lady Messinger," he offered tentatively. "Much taken?"
"All our food... gone, Mr Foyle. Tinned food... preserves and so forth. For pity's sake. I can only imagine... it was travellers. Nothing else... was stolen from the house, fortunately."
It was apparent now to Foyle that she was moving very stiffly, and in considerable discomfort.
"Are you unwell?" he asked.
"Martyr... to my rheumatism." Her eyes were dull with pain as she cast up at him a look of soft entreaty. "Do come inside, won't you? The back way, if you don't mind. We can... get in through the French windows."
She was about to turn and lead the way, when Foyle felt impelled to offer Anne Messinger his arm, and duly did so. For her part, she made to take it gratefully, only to hesitate at the realisation that her hands were still encased in gardening gloves.
"I wonder..." she inquired of Anselm, unbuttoning the wrists with effort, "if you would be... so kind as to place these... in the orangery for me? They are far too... grubby to rest on Mr Foyle's coat-sleeve..."
"Pleasure, Madam." Anselm took the gloves and made off up the side path toward a white-framed glass conservatory attached to the east wing of the house.
"Thank you... so much," she called after him, then turned to Foyle to offer explanation. "Some plants, you see... can be severe irritants... Mr Foyle. It doesn't do... to handle them with bare hands."
"A sensible precaution, Lady Anne."
Given Anne Messinger's impairment, they followed Anselm's route at a much slower pace, then turned to cross the terrace, coming to a natural halt before the French windows. There, Lady Anne looked up at Foyle in open appeal.
"What brings you here today, Mr Foyle? Am I finally... to be permitted... to lay my husband to rest?"
Again, that pleading and expectant look that handed him responsibility.
Foyle twisted the knob to open one glazed door into the sitting room, then stood aside to allow Lady Messinger to precede him into the house. He didn't meet her eyes. "I... am sorry to say that it may be a few days, yet," he told her with genuine regret.
"Ah... Then I presume... that you are being... very thorough?" her face wore a birdlike, quizzical expression.
"Aaas you say, yes. Thorough and... cautious." This time Foyle met her gaze directly.
She dipped her head, natural fortitude vying with her obvious disappointment. "Giles... would have berated you for this delay." She gestured to an armchair. "But I shall not. Please make yourself... comfortable."
"Thank you, Lady Anne." Foyle hovered by the armchair, watching from under concerned brows as his hostess lowered herself painfully onto the settee opposite. Noting the relief upon her face once she had done so, he took his seat, and allowed his gaze to stray to the wall where hung the landscape painting of the Messingers' herbaceous borders. Vivid and imposing still, the blaze of colour overwhelmed him.
"I see that you admire this image of our garden, Mr Foyle." Lady Messinger turned in her seat to join him in appreciation of the work. Her speech, he noted, had reverted to its normal fluency now that she was seated.
"I like it very much indeed, Lady Anne." That sentiment was truthful enough, but Foyle's next remark was disingenuous. "The tall blue and white flowers particularly."
"Splendid, are they not?" supplied his hostess. "But poisonous, alas. The irritants I spoke of. Monkshood, Mr Foyle. Known otherwise as wolfsbane. Our borders are awash with them—attractive though they are, the flowers and roots should not be handled with one's bare hands. The sap can numb the fingers. Also, the yellow winter blooms you see outside, scattered across the grass?"—Foyle nodded, recalling that he had noticed them on his last visit. Lady Messinger continued. "Of the same family."
"Then—excuse me for asking—why do you cultivate them?"
"Oh, these plants are not fortuitous, Mr Foyle. We use—I use them for a purpose."
Foyle's tongue crept tentatively up his lip. "What, um, purpose might that be, Lady Messinger?"
That was the instant Anselm chose to enter through the French windows. Foyle glanced up irritably, even as Lady Anne turned to acknowledge her second visitor. "Thank you, Mr..."—she took a moment to recall his name—"Mr Anselm? Very kind."
"No trouble, Lady Messinger."
"Please have a seat, won't you?"
Foyle stole a sidelong hooded glance at Anselm as his driver settled in the chair beside him; then he resumed the subject. "You were about to explain these flowers' practical use, Lady Anne?"
"Ointment for rheumatism, Mr Foyle. I have sworn by it for years. The root of these plants forms the main ingredient of the balm, which I prepare myself—I have an interest in herbal medicine, you see."
"But, presumably the ointment isn't poisonous, though the plant is?"
"Poisonous when ingested only." She pointed to herself to demonstrate her next point. "Clearly not so when applied as a cutaneous preparation."
Foyle sat forward in his chair. "And you prepared this ointment for your husband?"
"Nonono. Only for myself. My husband is... was not so afflicted."
She paused.
"I fear, though, that the balm has reached the limit of its efficacy for me. In recent weeks—in fact, since my husband's death—I have derived less benefit from it. It no longer gives me the relief it used to... as my gait bears witness."
She reached behind her and retrieved a small pot from beneath a lamp, placing it on the low table between herself and Foyle. "This, Mr Foyle, is the preparation I am speaking of."
Foyle's brain was racing to draw the threads together. "Do you also have a kitchen garden, Lady Messinger?"
"Oh, yes, indeed I do. But naturally, it is located well apart from the less forgiving plants." She looked between her visitors. "Would you gentlemen care for tea?"
It was Foyle's call, and he was very anxious to stay longer. "That would be kind of you," he told her.
Anne Messinger rose painfully to her feet. "Mrs Andrews is out at the shops, replenishing our provisions... so I shall go downstairs and make you some."
Foyle gave Anselm a pointed look, and the young man stood up from his seat. "Let me, Lady Messinger. I think I can find things."
That earned him a grateful smile. "Thank you, Mr Anselm. I should warn you that you'll find the cupboard literally bare. All we have left is tea, some milk, and whatever sugar was already in the sugar bowl up here." She limped over to the sideboard and retrieved the bowl. "Let me check. Ah, yes," she added with relief. "There's plenty. I remember now. I filled this only yesterday."
Ten minutes later Anselm reappeared with a tea tray, which he placed on the low table between them, next to the pot of ointment and the sugar bowl. Lady Messinger poured their tea, and the men helped themselves to sugar. Foyle noted with a smirk that Anselm added four heaped spoonfuls to his, and his mouth curled as he watched his driver's large fingers first struggle to grip the handle of the delicate bone china cup, then eschew the handle altogether in favour of a firm grasp round the rim.
While Lady Messinger leant forward to sweeten her own cup, Foyle sat back, waiting for his drink to cool a little. Next to him, Anselm took a hefty swig of tea. Foyle was just musing that his driver must be thirsty, when suddenly the young man's expression took a steep dive from dispassion into deep disgust, and Anselm jerked forward sharply from the waist, spraying a copious jet of tea out from between his lips, across the coffee table and all over his hostess's rose-chintz-covered sofa.
Lady Messinger was in the process of taking her first sip, and jolted back in astonishment. "My dear young man, whatever is the m—" She stopped mid-sentence as the flavour hit her tastebuds, and her face contorted in a grimace of similar revulsion. "Oh, good Lord!" she exclaimed in horror. "I am so awfully sorry. Salt. I must have filled the sugar bowl from the wrong container yesterday."
Anselm, still choking from his misadventure, rose from his seat to clear his throat behind a now discreetly shielding palm.
Foyle's gimlet gaze shifted from his driver to an obviously distressed Anne Messinger, and back again.
Once Anselm's coughing had abated, the older man deposited his untouched cup of tea back on the tray and captured his driver's eye, gesturing silently with his head towards the door.
Anselm dabbed at his watering eyes with the knuckles of his forefingers. "Well, I'd better fetch a dishcloth," he supplied, impassively. "And make another pot." As Anselm bent to collect the tea tray, Foyle's eye caught his again, and dragged the younger man's gaze pointedly down to the pot of ointment on the table.
Satisfied that his meaning had been conveyed, Foyle politely offered consolation to Lady Messinger. "Mr Anselm will live, won't you, John?"
"Working at it, Sir."
Anselm straightened up, and Foyle deftly steered his hostess' attention back to the herbaceous border landscape on the wall behind her.
"Tell me, Lady Anne, what are the... er... long-stemmed, open cup-shaped flowers, with daisy-like middles? You appear to have many different varieties in the picture...?"
Lady Messinger turned and squinted. "Let me see. I imagine you must be referring to my cosmos..."
When Anselm bore the tray out of the room, the surface of the coffee table was completely clear of objects.
...
Later, Foyle tipped his hat in parting as the two men took their leave.
Lady Messinger fixed him with an unflinching look of confidence, meant unequivocally for him to carry as a burden. "You will not forget your promise to be frank with me about your findings?"
Foyle dutifully gave the reassurance she sought. "I shall not forget my promise, Lady Anne."
His answer didn't exactly qualify as a lie, but neither was it given entirely in the spirit of honesty. Unlike the first occasion upon which Foyle had kept the facts from Anne Messinger about a tragic death in her family, this time he would have no compunction whatsoever about editing the truth.
Christopher Foyle would not forget his promise.
But he might choose to ignore it.
...
As they pulled out of the gravel driveway, Foyle reclined into the rear corner of the Lanchester, and slid his right arm along the backrest of the seat. His trilby canted slowly forwards, obscuring his eyes.
"So. What did you make of that?" Foyle inquired drily.
"Getting a bit forgetful, Sir, I imagine." Anselm turned onto a straight stretch of road, and delved into his coat pocket, handing his boss the pot of ointment he had secreted away earlier.
"Seen it before in old people," the young man went on. "Watched my granddad once. He was trying to stick two halves of a broken saucer back together with lubricating oil. In his case he was just too bloody-minded to admit he needed glasses, but you see how it could happen, don't you?"
"Yep. I do see." Foyle indeed meant his response to indicate that he, particularly, had seen.
He held the pot up to the window, making a lazy examination of its contents in the fading daylight. Then he sighed, straightened himself up, and readjusted his hat to its normal angle.
Reaching inside his briefcase, he took out a sheet of paper and scribbled a brief covering note to Pearson, then completed a job-request for forensics, to accompany the note.
When he'd finished, he addressed his driver. "John. After you've dropped me at my house, I want you to deliver this note"—he sealed it in an envelope with the job -request—"to the MO in person, today, along with this." He fingered the pot of ointment. "After that, I shan't be needing you until Monday. Come and get me around lunchtime."
"Right, Sir. Have to say, though, I wonder anybody ever leaves that house alive." He gestured with his head back in the direction they had driven from.
"Yeah. Well," his boss intoned, and in a manner that did not admit debate. "You had to say it, and you've said it. And, um, now forget you ever thought it. Clear?"
Anselm checked for traffic and turned left towards Hastings. "Crystal, Sir."
...
"Coming in for a moment?" Foyle expected that his independent-minded driver would want to make his own comfort arrangements, and that he would decline. He wasn't wrong.
"Rather get going, Sir, thanks. I've got a sandwich and a flask of tea—no salt in that," he quipped. Foyle gave him an old-fashioned look, which Anselm felt he'd earned sufficient approbation to ignore.
"If I leave now, I should be back in Town by seven, and I'll catch the MO still at his desk."
"Appreciate it, John. I know it's been a very long day for you." Foyle reached back inside the cabin to shake his hand.
"Goes with the territory, Sir. Don't plan on getting up till Sunday, after this."
Smiling goodheartedly, Foyle took a step back from the Lanchester, and gave a sharp rap on the roof to send it on its way.
He checked his pocket watch as best he could. It was quarter past four. The house was dark. Samantha wouldn't be home yet.
Once he had let himself into the house, Foyle took off his hat and coat, and carried his bag straight upstairs to the bedroom. Then he lay back on the bed and kicked his shoes off. Just a quick snooze, he reasoned. Twenty minutes...
...
Something was tickling the tip of his nose. He scrunched his face and turned his head away, but the tickle followed. Grunting, he turned onto his left side, and slid a hand underneath the pillow to settle himself more comfortably. But the tickle started up again. He batted at it sleepily with the pillow hand, and this time there was a giggle and a small voice in his ear.
"Haven't got the faintest idea what time it is, have you, sleepy Darling? Hmm?"
"Wha?" Christopher cracked open an eyelid, and there was Sam, leaning over him and dangling the silk tassel from the end of his dressing gown belt so that the fronds were dancing just above his nostril.
"Pest," he slurred, batting it away.
"It's seven-thirty, and your wife has positively slaved to make your dinner while you've lazed in bed like some sort of pasha. Wakey-wakey, Christopher. Your luck is in. It's cottage pie with real corned beef, and carrot surprise."
Foyle turned onto his back, squinting at her in the dim light from the landing. "What's surprising about a carrot?" he managed, through a yawn.
Sam's grinning face hovered inches above his. "Nothing, as a rule... but if the carrot is for pudding...?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Now I'm surprised. Come here, kitchen slave."
There was a squeal, and Sam found herself seized and rolled across him, finishing up pinioned by the wrists beneath him.
"Torture me with my own tassel, would you?"
"Ow!"
He pulled back from her anxiously. "What's the matter, Love?"
"Your pocket watch is sticking in my ribs."
He pushed himself up on his knees and carefully unhooked the silver half-hunter, pouring the chain and watch into a trinket tray on the bedside cabinet. Then he resumed his earlier position, with Sam obligingly presenting both her wrists for pinioning again.
"Better?" he asked,
"Mmm. Better. I missed you."
"So I understand, from Brooke. You missed me 'round the house and that.'"
"He said, 'and that'?" Sam fiddled with her hair, her eyebrows twitching in a manner that threatened to rival her husband's favourite mannerism.
"He did." Christopher's lips pouted briefly before pulling up into a smirk. "Now, what d'you suppose he meant?" his eyes danced. "Or what did you mean when you said, 'and that'?"
"Can't honestly recall." Sam pinned her lips between her teeth and refused to meet his gaze, although his head was bobbing round hers now, chasing her eyes to look at him.
"Oh, well, of course..." he told her earnestly, after he had tired of mutual teasing, "if you really can't recall, then I shall have to do the decent thing..."
Sam met his eyes, her slight frown betraying curiosity. "And that decent thing would be...?"
Christopher had her dangling on the line now. "To help you to remember what you meant... by process of elimination." He gave her his best devilish look, and was rewarded with a shiver from Samantha underneath him. "Where d'you suppose a chap should start?" He smiled askance, playing slyly to the imaginary gallery.
"You know?" she breathed, impatient with the foreplay now, "I don't actually mind, but once you do start, please, oh please, don't stop."
"Yours to command." He bent and planted a lingering kiss below her jawline.
"So, then, in that case," he continued slowly, "I was thinking that perhaps you might enjoy a nice, long..."
Sam stretched herself in rapt anticipation, like a house-cat coaxing its besotted owner into giving it a stroking.
"...conversation over dinner. You've been rattling around the house and that, without a soul to talk to."
"Oh. You!" she batted at him. He was laughing at her now. That silent Christopher-variety of laughter where his eyes would sparkle and his shoulders shook, but no sound issued from his downturned lips. She loved him for it, and she felt entirely blessed to have him home. This round could wait for later. He was hers for the entire weekend!
"All right, you poor old thing," she said in mock concession. "I'll feed you downstairs at the table first. You played yourself into a corner with your 'hard-to-get'. The cottage pie and conversation are precisely what you're getting,"—Sam's chin jutted now in playful indignation—"and the chat had better be jolly well scintillating!"
...
Christopher yawned repeatedly through dinner. After the main course he undid his waistcoat and leant back in his seat, replete, declaring that he couldn't eat another thing.
Sam had wanted to discuss the murder, but it hardly seemed an 'over-dinner' subject, with its vile, perverted overtones. In any case, she learned from Christopher that Milner had already shared the details with him when he'd rung the station just the previous day. Therefore Sam rationed herself to remarking that the girl was her age, and the incident had really quite upset her for a while. She omitted to mention how she'd lost her breakfast on the beach.
"Glad it's the last one that you'll have to be involved with, my love," Christopher reached across the table to squeeze her hand.
Next, Sam spun an account of Fielding's funeral, and included edited highlights of her conversation with AC Parkins, adding how envious she was of Sergeant Dale. Parkins' question to Samantha as to why she was leaving her job caught Foyle's interest. "He actually pressed you for an explanation? What did you say?"
"Well, obviously not that I was expecting. I said—and it's entirely true—you were concerned for your wife, and that it was an old-school chivalry type of thing. You and Parkins being of an age, and all."
Christopher sat up in his chair. "Thangyouverymuch!" His brows rose. "Putting me in the same age-bracket as that old prune! He has at least a dozen years on me. And he's an operator, when he needs to be. Where did you get the idea I was his age?"
Sam was unabashed, so her apology was no more than a form of words. "Well, I'm sorry. It just so happens that I think he's courteous and, er, distinguished. And you have those things in common. I know he's a bit older than you..."
"A bit? Sam!"
"Oh, well, anyway. What a fuss. He was very nice to me. And clearly thinks a lot of you." Foyle snorted at that, but Sam went on, "I told him he should definitely have more women on the Force."
"You told him...?" Christopher's eyes stretched open, and his voice took on a note of admonition. "Sam..."
"He said he hoped we'd have a daughter."
"You told him?"
"No. I said that if we had a daughter, I would want her to have… opportunities."
Christopher exhaled, then pushed his chair back from the table and held out his hand to Sam. "Know what? My brain is tired. Let's go to bed."
Sam brightened. "Mmm. Yes, let's."
They undressed and crawled between the cool, crisp sheets, both turning on their sides to face each other.
"Mr Foyle, it's nice to have you back again." Sam closed her eyes and moved to meld against him, stroking at his stubbly cheek and down his arm, to where his elbow rested on his hip. Her hand then took a pleasure-detour down to claim her customary prize.
But she was disappointed. One eye shot open, and her lips pushed forwards in a puzzled moue.
Sam tried a little gentle finger-pressure.
No avail.
She eased a knee between his legs, and wriggled.
Nothing stirred.
He yawned, and his warm hand glid across her waist. "I think," he managed, with a sleepy smile, "you're flogging a dead horse, there. Maybe in the morning."
Panic struck Samantha! This had never happened. Never once. A desperate sort of bloody-mindedness suffused her. 'No' was not an answer she was used to hearing. Not in any form. She eased his hand away and disappeared under the sheets on an exploratory mission.
A drowsy voice above her head opined, "Wasting your time, Love. Unless you're on a mushroom hunt down there."
It was a full five active minutes later that Sam's startled eyes re-emerged above the bedclothes.
An eye cracked open opposite her. "Told you," he said. "Got a mind of its own. Come here." He drew her close and kissed her.
Sam relaxed and sighed.
"See?" he teased her sleepily. "That's what happens when you feed me up on cottage pie, and bracket me in Parkins' age-group."
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
Veteran actress Angela Thorne's doe-like-but-determined portrayal of Anne Messinger in 'The French Drop' (S3E1) stuck with me. The character had a pretty raw deal, I thought, and though Ms Thorne had relatively little screen-time, I felt she was a splendid antidote to Ronald Pickup's abrasive bully of a Sir Giles. Felicitous casting.
...
Foyle noted with a smirk that Anselm added four heaped spoonfuls to his [tea]
dancesabove picked me up on this: "A little concerned over whether he'd do this in wartime? Not very considerate," she scolded. Well, I'm unrepentant. I reckon Anselm gets fed rotten in his job, part time Terminator that he is. He probably thinks nothing of 4 spoonfuls. Anyway, he's seen the contents of Lady Messinger's pantry. Like most rich people, she would've stocked up on sugar before rationing started. So he probably thinks it's poetic justice. Plus he needs the energy. He's been up and down the A21 burgling larders and bashing the Home Guard. But by dances' lights, he still gets his come-uppance for being greedy.
...
"Come here, kitchen slave." There was a squeal, and Sam found herself seized and rolled across him...
Something—can't think what—made me want to capitalise the 'K' in 'kitchen'.
...
Commercial Break
dancesabove wishes you to know that the mechanic has now found that hard-to-obtain engine component, and that her story 'The Crash' is back on the road after a long hiatus. 21 chapters of Foyle/Sam-centric romance to enjoy.
I would love to have you all on board with my other Foyle-fic "Victory Roll". The main story is T-rated with an M option on 3 out of 6 chapters.
If you are prepared to change your filter to allow M-rated stories, I recommend a detour into nocturnefauré's "Where to, Sir?", a fun-angst-romance that hits the ground running the very same day that Sam wields a bin lid on the beach.
...
More soon on L'Aimant.
GiuC