L'Aimant – Chapter 45
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 45: Andrew and Georgie find their level. Foyle claws back some space, if temporarily; and Milner makes good progress.
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:
"Cocky Foyle" in this is for britishdetectives.
…
dancesabove is always there to smooth the way.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
"No role for reconciliation, Christopher?"
"W'let's see..." Foyle's chin jutted. "Hitler's handing medals and commissions out to children while we prevaricate. You reckon he gives half a toss for preservation of the species?"
"Christopher..." Sam's hand descended on her husband's forearm. She had rarely witnessed him so bullish, though in fairness she suspected that Milner had—and frequently, in cases of intransigence when interviewing criminals.
"Oh, my dear, my dear!" Aubrey's voice was kindly as he sensed his niece's consternation. "Fear not! No battles between family in your father's sitting room. I realise the Church, if she should speak against such things, will find herself at odds with members of her congregation. To speak the fundamental Christian values of reconciliation and forgiveness from the pulpit in the midst of war is tantamount to treason in the eyes of some."
He sipped his wine and sighed regretfully. "Sadly, on reflection, I must conclude that, in my advocacy of humanitarianism, I have lost humility. Lost touch, perhaps? The destructive force of this war tests our faith in ways not even dreamt of in the history of human conflict."
Aubrey leant forwards, hands clasped, his forearms on his knees.
"Christopher, I offer you my thanks for your forbearance with the conflicts of my conscience... and with me."
Foyle winced under Sam's glare. "No, eh... really no need, Aubrey."
Silence fell between them, and when Geraldine appeared in the doorway, she absorbed what she erroneously assumed to be a quiet familial concord.
"So! She clapped her hands together briskly. Are we all ready for a taste of Lyminster harmony?"
Chapter 45
Saturday, 17th February, 1945
On Saturday, Foyle and Sam's dutiful support for Iain Stewart's winter concert had halved the household at 31 Steep Lane. But the previous evening, as they stood together at the sink, Sam had slid a hand round Georgie's waist and given her a reassuring squeeze.
"You really don't need my advice," she whispered. "Any way you choose to handle things together is going to be fine. But just remember..."
"Top left bedside drawer. Tattooed inside my brain."
"Good. Because really, you know," Sam stroked her swelling middle thoughtfully, "there's enough of it about already."
"I blame Hitler." Georgie's tongue peeked out in concentration as she ground the dish-brush round the edge of an enamelled tin.
Sam savoured the inimitable Georgie logic. "Yes, well, better keep that theory entre nous, perhaps..."
...
"I suppose it had to be done." Georgie leant into Andrew as they strolled back from The Ruby on Saturday evening. "And Jerry's dropped enough bombs on us since this war began."
They'd watched the Pathé News together, sandwiched in between the double feature. Andrew had sat through the main film rather stiffly after that, in Georgie's view, and mildly irritated her by chain-smoking through it. Although in the second interval he'd risen from his seat obligingly enough and bought her a bag of Cadbury's mis-shapes from the usherette.
Andrew pinched out his cigarette and slotted it into his breast pocket, filter first. Georgie could see his teeth were clamped together tensely.
"You feel bad about it, don't you Andrew? Dresden?"
"As you say, had to be done."
They crossed the road in silence, arm-in-arm, and gazed out to sea. It was a clear crisp night, a waxing crescent moon over the water. Andrew released himself and gripped the railings of the esplanade with both hands, schooling himself to ignore the bite of the icy metal.
"I flew recce for it, Georgie," he turned his head the merest bit and glanced towards her, lowering his eyes. "Shouldn't really tell you that, but the operation's public knowledge now, to judge from what we saw tonight."
He took a breath of unforgiving winter air. "In January, before this took me out,"—he tapped his nose—"they wanted pictures, you know, spot photographs of targets, and the DeHavillands were over-stretched, so I was up. They'd had me testing Supermarine Spitfires when I came back from Malta. Then, early last month, I was already out in Belgium, running Spit replacements out to Ghent. And on the last run, I was told to take a PR Mark Nineteen..."
"Super... what Spit? Mark Nineteen? What's one of those? You've lost me." Georgie closed the gap between them and detached his hand from where it gripped the metal rail before drawing his arm round her. "Put your story into English, Squadron Leader."
It was cold and still along the seafront. Along behind them on their right stood the white, imposing, porticoed façade of the Royal Victoria Hotel. Its painted crest was shadowed, but the stuccoed frontage glowed even in the small amount of light afforded by the crescent moon. As Georgie settled herself against him, Andrew's mind faltered for a moment, doubting simple pleasures such as these. His thoughts bent to the night he'd flown his solo mission out of St Denijs across the hostile map of war-torn Europe, dipping finally below the broken cloud to latch onto the shimmering path that was the River Elba. It lay below him there, a long, inexorable trail of shining silver in the better moonlight of that early January night; and marked the route that led him to his destination and his victim...
"Andrew?" Georgie nudged his side, already sensing he had left her. "Don't you dare close up on me. I've seen your father do enough of that."
His gaze migrated to her, absently at first; but soon her questing, worried eyes were hauling him back from his meditations. Her smile was sad but hopeful, and it snapped him from his introspection. Slowly his face stretched into a duck-like grin. Thank God reality was this, now. Not the screaming isolation of a pressurised cockpit seven miles up.
Andrew let out the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding, and squeezed her close. His tone became expansive.
"Thirty-seven thousand feet," he told her, "at six miles a minute. That's the speed you do."
"Gosh that must feel fast!"
He chuckled. "Point of fact... when you're up there alone, not actually fighting, no, it doesn't. It feels like slow motion. Landscape beneath you is so far away, there's an illusion of it shifting slowly."
"So what's a Mark Nineteen?" she pressed him.
Andrew leant his back against the railings, bringing Georgie round to stand between his knees, and ran his hands up and down her arms to rub away the cold.
"The PR XIXs don't have weaponry, just cameras and enormous fuel tanks." He turned his head aside.
Georgie's shocked eyes scanned his profile. "Oh, God! You mean you were a sitting duck?"
Andrew pushed his cap back and studied her in amusement. "Well, actually, a duck flies rather lower than a Spit does... Ow!"
Her finger jabbed him sharply in the ribs. "Don't take the mickey out of me, you pilot, you!"
"All right," he chuckled. "At altitudes like that, you're not that vulnerable. But you can bet I did nothing to invite attention from the Messerschmitts."
Her dark eyes were as wide as saucers now. "What if they'd spotted you, though?"
"In a Supermarine, you can manoeuvre on a sixpence and outfox 'em; the Jerries' turning circle is so poor, they overshoot, and you just leave 'em standing. And then," he let his flattened hand glide downwards in a slow arc, "you fall into a gentle nosedive and outrun 'em."
"How many miles to Dresden?" She squinted, trying to imagine.
"Five hundred, if you start from Ghent. You can't fly direct routes, though. Add another hundred for good measure."
"Golly. A twelve-hundred-mile trip there and back? Bet your legs were jolly numb. But did you get your pictures?"
Andrew smiled at her patiently. "It's only four hours' flying time. I didn't have to walk it. Yes, I got them."
"Can you tell me what of?"
"Shouldn't really, but they more or less explained it on the newsreel, so... suspected weapons factories, and the layout of the railway lines."
He regarded her gravely. "Anything else you want to know, Miss Curious?"
"Um... Don't think..." Georgie squinted afresh and considered. Four hours was still an awfully long time to be stuck inside a tiny cabin with no real room to manoeuvre. An uncomfortable memory returned of her recent sojourn on the landing of Steep Lane, a stone's throw from the loo. She reached inside his greatcoat and hooked her index finger inside his belt. "Andrew," she ventured teasingly, and tugged once with her finger, "I've always wondered: how do you... you know... 'go' while you're in the air?"
Her fiancé gaped as though the question had confounded him, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. "Georgina Rose! Do nice young ladies ask such questions?"
"Perhaps I'm jolly fed up of being nice!" she told him pointedly. "And I wish you'd stop, as well."
Sunday, 18th February, 1945
By ten past ten, when Andrew pulled the curtain to one side to catch a better look at Sunday morning, steady streams of local families, mostly minus men, were filing down Steep Lane towards St Clement's Church. The fire he'd just built in the grate was crackling gamely, trying to gain purchase on the mound of precious anthracite and less-desirable-but-necessary slack piled up around the kindling.
A small dishevelled figure in her dressing gown peeked in at the doorway, and blinking sleepily against the daylight, padded up behind him before feeding dainty hands round his middle. He felt a gentle pressure as a soft (and, he imagined, dimpled) cheek came to rest against his back.
"Come back to bed," Georgie coaxed against the rough wool fabric of his dressing gown, imbibing his warm scent. "I wasn't happy waking up to find you gone."
He turned and took her in his arms. "You were so sunk in sleep, I couldn't rouse you. Thought I'd make myself more useful warming up the house."
"But it was warm in bed..."
"Can't stay in bed all day," he spoke into her hair.
"We can't?"
He grinned and shook his head. The face that gazed up at him was as cherub-like as he first remembered it from Uncle Charles's party. He had seen it impish, laughing, sad, annoyed, and recently in ecstasy. His thumb moved in a stroking arc across her cheek and Georgie's lips turned in to kiss his palm.
"Not shy, today?" he raised his brows. "Don't mind me seeing you 'without a lick of make-up'?"
"Don't tease. You know none of my fictions are of any use against you now."
"Oh. Weapons, were they?"
"Well, defences, possibly. But only mild ones."
"Want to go to church?"
"No."
"Nor do I. I'm feeling spiritual enough without."
...
The bedside clock in Georgie's attic showed midday when Andrew came to and regained his passion-dulled senses for the third time in (he quickly calculated) fourteen hours. He propped himself up on one elbow and observed with tenderness the dozing woman at his side, her plump lips parted in the requiescence of a sated sleep. Smiling to himself, he slid a hand under the mattress, feeling for the papers he'd secreted there the night before. One was a small, rectangular postmarked sheet with strips of printed message glued across the page; the other an official-looking form on which his name and that of Georgie were inscribed. He laid both papers on his sleeping beauty's chest and brought his lips close to her ear.
"Wake up, Betty Boop, and have a read of these."
The sight of Georgie surfacing from slumber was a treat he was beginning to believe he'd never tire of witnessing. The merest twitch of muscle in her cheek provoked a dimple, and her heavy lashes fluttered as she fought to raise her lids.
He blew against her ear in order to provoke alertness. "Wakey-wakey. Reading time."
Georgie groaned and rolled onto her side towards him; both papers fell between them.
"Read it for me," came the not-yet-wakeful voice.
"Right-oh." Andrew deftly plucked the telegram from the rumpled eiderdown.
"Well this one says my leave has been extended until Tuesday... aaand this one,"—he dangled the longer form before the one eye Georgie had cracked open under protest—"says we're getting married in the morning. I'll appeal to Dad's better nature. He'll give you two hours off round lunch. Might even tempt him and Samantha to be witnesses."
A second dark eye opened, blinking up at him. "I suppose it doesn't matter to you that I haven't got a thing to wear?"
"Spot on," he answered levelly. "Definitely doesn't. Not a bit. I like you better like this, anyway." His hand under the covers made her giggle with a ticklish delight. "But I've seen inside these cupboards, and I know you've got more than enough to wear. We'll buy a corsage on our way to the town hall."
She yawned and rolled onto her back. "All right. I don't mind if we do. I ought to tell my parents, though..."
"Tell them, then. The phone's downstairs."
"I'll ring them in a bit. What time is it?"
"Just after twelve."
"What time do you suppose..." She glanced at him conspiratorially.
"Not before tea time. Trains from Littlehampton aren't that frequent on a Sunday."
"Nearly four hours, then..."
A slow petitioning kiss from Andrew refocussed Georgie on the practical. "I only brought three out of the drawer..."
"I'll nip down to their room in that case, shall I?"
"Better had."
"Unless..." He vaulted from the bed and delved into the pocket of his grey-blue serge blouse.
Appreciative eyes settled on him from the comfort of a rumpled pillow. Andrew's limbs were slender but well-muscled; lithe but with a film of fine dark hair that shaded and accentuated every plane and contour. He had his father's well-built shoulders, she observed, but Andrew Foyle was longer in the limb, and more conventionally handsome. Even so, it was a beauty she imagined to be unselfconscious. Oh, he wasn't above using charm on girls—he'd used it on her readily—but Georgie hadn't ever sensed an arrogance about his looks. He wore them boyishly, and easily. His grooming was less studied than his father's, and his personal aroma rather of carbolic mixed with Brylcreem than of fancy aftershave.
She wondered sadly just how often he'd been told that he was beautiful.
"Andrew, why d'you want to marry me? Me, of all girls?"
He turned and froze, affording her an even better view of the good fortune she was questioning.
"You ask me now?" His look spelt sudden diffidence, and not a little hurt. "I haven't made it obvious enough?"
"I, um." She blushed and looked away, tears pricking at her eyes. "I know I'm not your first..."
He perched beside her on the bed. "I didn't lie to you about that, Georgie. But the others didn't mean a thing. Well... temporary comfort. That was all."
"And I'm... I'm different?"
"Georgie," he raised her ring finger to his lips and waved the special licence underneath her nose. "Read the signs."
She sniffed and swallowed. "Am I different?" she insisted.
Andrew placed her hand flat on his chest so she could feel his racing heart. "Read. the. signs. You're different. And... you're scaring me. For Lord's sake, stop."
"Give me a reason, then. A reason why I'm different." Her lips were pouting—not in petulance, he thought, but puzzlement. He felt a doom-fraught sense of panic rising in his chest. Whatever he said next could make or break things, but for all the poetry that milled around his soul in quieter, spiritual moments, now when he grasped for a sufficient reason, only one, prosaic explanation seemed remotely valid.
"Georgie," he pleaded, pressing her be-ringed hand in between his own. "Your face... is a picture; your body... makes mine sing; but the reason why I want to marry you is this: that time you kicked me out at Uncle Charles's... it didn't simply bruise my shin."
"Oh." Georgie's voice was small, but Andrew noted, with considerable relief, the beginnings of a smile. She found her full voice in the next sentence, pointing at the small square paper packet that had fallen from his fingers when he'd grasped her hand.
"So, I'm curious. How come you're carrying... one of those in your pocket? And a rather dog-eared one, at that?"
"Ah." He picked the prophylactic up and turned it in his fingers, frowning. "Present from a well-wisher. Given me, I think, more as a wry dig at his own expense than as a comment on my own behaviour."
Georgie's mercurial attention veered as she plucked it from his fingers. "How many miles d'you suppose it's done since it was given to you?"
"Dunno." He scratched his head and tried to calculate how far he'd travelled since his father had slapped the thing into his hand just after New Year's Day. "About... five thousand?"
There was mischief in Georgie's eyes now, as she removed it from its packet. "Another mile won't make much difference, in that case."
Monday evening, 19th February, 1945
"Seems churlish of me to say it, but I'm glad it's over."
Foyle pulled his wife against him on the settee in an otherwise deserted house.
"At least we've got the place to ourselves for the night."
"How much did that cost you?" Sam raised a brow.
"I slipped Andrew two fivers to book a suite and dinner. With them being newlyweds, the Royal Vic's manager was happy to oblige, and his son is also in the RAF. Apparently, he had to bump a businessman from Birmingham along the seafront to The Crescent."
"Ouch. Sounds nasty."
Foyle canted his head and weighed up the assertion. "Yep. Prob'ly did sound nasty. Brummy accent's ugly at the best of times. Annoyed and Brummy's got to sound considerably worse." He savoured his own witticism with a slug of whisky. "Anyway, they're married; happy with it; I don't have to listen to the wedding night symphonics. And we..." he stretched his eyes in self-congratulation, "are, for one night only, ladies and gentlemen... blissfully. alone."
Sam sent him an amused, indulgent look. He'd been under some strain since Georgie joined them, and who was she to deny him this small, temporary catharsis. "Christopher! You're a frustrated showman!"
"Myeah." He looked inordinately cocky in that moment. It was a Foyle demeanour heretofore unprecedented in Sam's long experience of her former boss and present cherished husband. Certainly he possessed unapologetic tendencies when backed into a corner, but this was bordering on self-satisfied.
"But if I might be so bold as to remind you," she reminded him evenly, "you're not exactly quiet yourself at such times."
He grunted. "Mmmy house."
"What would you like for dinner, Darling?" Sam patted his knee, mastering her amusement.
Foyle took another sip, and passed the glass of amber fire across to Sam. "Let's have a sandwich. Upstairs in our room."
Tuesday morning, 20th February, 1945
Foyle left the house on foot, whistling. Samantha, still a little bleary-eyed and in her dressing gown, could see the vigour in his step as he turned downhill, hands sunk in his trouser pockets. She lifted up the net and caught his eye mid-whistle—she fancied he looked just a little guilty in his pleasure.
"Fasten. Your. Overcoat," she mouthed at him through the window, and was rewarded with a warm inverted smile. He raised a hand and disappeared around the corner.
"Our two are unusually civilised," she'd mused to Georgie as she'd helped her change late Monday morning for the ceremony. "If we left them unattended, they would not revert to eating from a tin. In many ways they're more domesticated than we are. But I can't help thinking sometimes that I 'crowd' Christopher a little."
"Don't be silly!" Georgie had consoled her. "He'd be lost without you, Sam. You should've seen him last Friday morning, waiting for you to come home. He was like a cat on hot bricks till you walked in through that door."
"Everyone needs some time alone, though..." Sam opined. "I know I do."
"Oh. Well, your husband might want some of that from me," Georgie had offered sagely, then applied a liberal coat of Jungle Red to her lips. "How do I look?"
Sam winced. "Like a small child in her mother's lipstick. 'Less is more'." Sam handed her a square of toilet tissue and made her blot. "That's better. Just the merest touch of femme fatale for the ceremony, I think. You can vamp him later, over dinner."
...
"We pored over the photographs from scene of crime, Sir, and came to the conclusion from the awkward footprints that he walked with a splayed gait. On some of them it was quite clear, but others... less so."
Milner spread the photographs before his boss, and watched Foyle's face as he began to rub his chin.
"Not much to go on, is it? Awkward-footed murderer. That narrows it down to a raw few hundred thousand candidates."
"Quite, Sir. But if we accept that all the cases are connected, there'll be a common reason putting him in each area at the time the murders were committed. It's just a question of some inspiration as to what that circumstance might be."
Foyle swept a hand over the photographs. "The commonalities of all the murders? Run through them again for me?" Foyle recalled the details well enough, but was a firm believer in the merits of reiteration.
"All were strangulation," began Milner dutifully, "bar the one that happened here in 1940. With that one, cause of death was stabbing. But when Dr Grindley took a closer look at the photographs, he said he thought there might have been a ligature around her neck to start with. Presumably she struggled too much for the murderer's liking, so he slipped a knife under her ribs to finish her off quickly. Every murder, other than that one, was a night-time kill. Pauline's time of death was morning, though."
"So you're telling me that Pauline Sansom appears to be the victim of a different murderer?"
"Wouldn't like to rule it out, Sir. Equally though, Pauline Sansom was the spit of all the other victims. Young, blonde, similar build. Too much of a coincidence. Natural blonde, not 'bottle' either. Every one of them was blonde right to the roots."
His boss scanned the array of photographic evidence, selecting one or two prints to examine closely.
"This one," he remarked to Milner, "shows a deep tread in the footprint, like a heavy boot, wouldn't you say?"
Milner peered more closely at the picture. "Yes, Sir. I'd agree with you. Army?"
"Nnnot likely, with a gait like that. Perhaps an engineer of sorts?"
"As you say, Sir. Might be a lead. And if we're going to allow the Pauline Sansom case to stand with all the others, the different timing of the murder could simply mean he works in shifts, or on a callout basis."
"...iiin which case he'd be likely to have his own transport. Van or something? Vehicle sightings in the vicinity?"
Milner nodded. "I'll re-read the reports, Sir. Don't recall specific mentions, but I'll have another look."
Foyle leant back in his chair, forming a steeple with his fingers. "List some engineers."
"Well, there's rail..." Milner stared into the middle distance. "Or there's utilities. Water, gas, electric..."
His boss tilted his chin, eyes stretching in concordance.
"Wireless and communications, Sir... coastal defence masts?"
"Under military control, though," Foyle reminded him.
"Fine, Sir. Those are, yes. But all the other stuff's civilian control, and subject to out-of-hours callout schedules."
"Right." Foyle slapped his hands onto his knees, and rose to signal he was satisfied with progress. "Need to pull together information from emergency repair logs for those services. See how far you get today, and report back."
Milner nodded, gathering the photographs spread on his boss's desk. "I'll get right on it, Sir."
As Foyle left his office, his ears caught a familiar voice in the station foyer. He spotted Grindley's grizzled figure signing documents at the front desk, his Homburg pushed back on his head.
"Guy? Brings you here?"
"Tramp found dead out on the groyne on Saturday. These are the post-mortem findings. Alcohol-related hypothermia, and exposure. And I was passing, on my way to see a patient, so..."
Foyle turned a petulant, inquiring look on Milner. "Another death?"
"Didn't think you'd want to hear, Sir, what with Andrew yesterday. Not till the post-mortem was in, anyway." Milner's manner was both confident and calm under his boss's scrutinising gaze.
Foyle rubbed a hand across his mouth suppressing irritation, while Guy Grindley addressed his next remark to Milner.
"Caught your fellow with the dropped arches yet, Sergeant?" Grindley's eyes met Milner's over Foyle's shoulder.
Milner shook his head. "No luck yet, Doctor. But thanks for your help identifying the condition."
Foyle's glance wandered between the pair of them. Both men stood inches taller than himself. A wave of superfluity washed over him, leaving him cleanly philosophical.
"Wull, since things are ticking over nicely here without me, I'll be off to make my own tea, given that my daughter-in-law's not in yet." He turned to Guy and shed perfunctory light on Milner's earlier remark. "Andrew got married yesterday. To my driver."
Grindley snorted and clapped him on the shoulder. "Married your driver? Thought that was your line, old man. They're living with you, are they?"
"Daughter-in-law is, yep. Andrew's back on duty. He'll be gone a while."
"You, and Sam, and...?"
"Georgina."
Grindley's face evinced a knowing beam that seemed to irritate his friend. He turned, addressing Milner.
"Excuse us, Sergeant, would you? Christopher, I think I'd like a cup of tea as well."
The two men bent their steps towards the kitchen. "Feeling under siege on all sides, are we, old man?" inquired Grindley in muted but arch tones.
"Guy," growled Foyle, "you're nowhere near as funny as you think you are."
...
It was well past five when Sergeant Milner knocked on Foyle's door with his findings. His expression was as animated as a face on Milner got, genuine excitement livening his serious features.
"Some luck, Sir. I spoke to the Defence Telephone Network office at Southend, and they found telephone emergencies logged within a ten-mile radius of every murder on the relevant dates. Then I got onto Kent and East Sussex country councils, and they had records of gas emergencies on three of the murder dates. The gas leak incidents were handled by two different teams of engineers, because the incidents came under different councils, but the GPO engineer for the telephone jobs turns out to be the same man. What's more, in all those cases except one, the engineer was working on his own."
Foyle looked up expectantly. "Got a name?"
Milner shook his head. "Not yet, Sir. Apparently we've caught the DTN at an awkward time. Its HQ has had a water leak, and some of their files have been moved to a temporary location while they dry the office out."
Foyle frowned. "Don't see how that matters, if they've already found the entries in the incident log, and quoted them to you."
"Well, Sir, they don't put engineers' names on the log. They enter an identity number instead—the one shown on the engineer's GPO card. And unfortunately, it's the card index that cross-references the numbers to the names that's actually in transit..."
An incredulous eye-roll from his boss provoked a sympathetic smile from Milner. "Yes, Sir. That's exactly what I thought. I imagine they're trying to be 'modern'. But when I stressed the urgency, they said they'd chase the card file up, and call back later with a name."
Foyle sighed. "Let's have it, then. What did the logs say?"
Milner sat, and spread the contents of a buff manila file on Foyle's desk. "The day before Pauline Sansom's murder, the exchange just north of Hastings developed a fault, preventing calls from getting through. A month later, out at Hythe, bomb damage to a junction box was scheduled for repair the day that Sharon Clark was strangled. There was a three-year gap before the next death—Anna Fletcher. Two days before she died, the trunk road leading northwest out of Hythe was struck by a bomb ditched by a Dornier. It took out the cable linking Hythe to London. Massive hole. A two-day job to splice the cable back together."
As his sergeant spoke, Foyle's eyes focussed on the inkwell on his desk. He nodded slowly. "And... more recently?"
"There was a nine-month gap between that girl and Helen Richards, Sir. But the day she died, in June last year, a tree branch brought an overhead line down at Manston, just northwest of Ramsgate."
"And that leaves...?" Foyle's eyes rose to meet his sergeant's.
"It leaves the girl we lifted off the beach in January. Eileen Vernon. The day before we found her, calls from Crowhurst weren't reaching the main exchange. An engineer was sent to diagnose the problem, and the log says it was fixed the same day."
"Which... brings us up to date," acknowledged Foyle. "Good work."
"Thank you, Sir. Once I've got his name, I'll pull him in for questioning."
"If we do that," Foyle cautioned him, "there'd better be more evidence than circumstantial. You've got his blood type from the victim's nails?"
"From two of 'em, Sir. It's the same in both cases, yes."
"Then I want to know if this chap ever submitted himself for a medical fitness test... for army service. He might not have done so, but if he did, the GPO would know. They would've had to agree, in principle, to release him from reserved occupation status..."
Milner rose. "...which would give us his blood type. Quite, Sir. I'll get onto that next. Well, in the morning, anyway. There'll be no one there now."
"And when we've got his name, I also want him tailed."
Milner's brows contracted. Suddenly his boss was talking like a spy. "Sir?"
"Never mind. Just... when we've got his name... I'm calling in a favour." In advance, he added to himself. This one would cost him yet another promise to Miss Pierce.
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
"I flew recce for it, Georgie,"...
Many courageous pilots were sent on long-range, single-handed photo-reconnaissance flights over hostile territory in World War II. One of them was Ray Holmes of 541 Squadron, who flew such ops in PR XIX Spitfires. From what I gather from a bit of research on the InterWeb, there were two different types of 'recce' mission in war: large-area map-making, which involved a lot of to-and-fro flying in long swathes at high altitude; and tactical "spot" photography, which could be executed from very high up, or at low level. The latter type tended to be "quick-in-and-out" missions, to garner specific information that Bomber Command could act upon soon afterwards. This was the type of mission I've imagined undertaken by Andrew, and the sort in which a converted Spitfire would excel. PR XIX Spitfires had pressurised cockpits to allow for extended high-altitude flying.
DeHavilland Mosquitos were also used for photo recce missions.
…
"Guy," growled Foyle, "you're nowhere near as funny as you think you are."
It's becoming a trope in my fiction that Grindley turns up and gets under Foyle's skin. Grindley might be a good friend of Foyle's, but he does tend to rile the man, bless him.
…
More soon.
GiuC