No More Dying

Book 9: Lord Edward Corinth & Verity Browne

by David Roberts

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

A murder mystery featuring Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne It is February 1939 and Lord Edward Corinth embarks on his most important investigation yet. It is clear that Britain will soon be at war and will depend on Winston Churchill's leadership. But when MI5 learns that an enemy agent has been dispatched to assassinate Churchill, Edward is tasked with identifying the killer. His first port of call is the Astors' country house, Cliveden, the base of those who are prepared to go to any lengths to avert war. Verity Browne is also at Cliveden, though she despises the so-called Cliveden Set. Communist Party bosses have ordered her to get close to another guest, Joseph Kennedy, the American Ambassador, who is convinced that Britain could never win a war against militant Germany. Then the Ambassador's sons discover a man's body in Cliveden's grounds, Verity recognizes him to be a fellow journalist and as war looms, Edward and Verity enter a tense race against time to identify the assassin. Praise for David Roberts: 'A classic murder mystery [...] and a most engaging pair of amateur sleuths' Charles Osborne, author of The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie 'A really well-crafted and charming mystery story' Daily Mail 'A perfect example of golden-age mystery traditions with the cobwebs swept away' Guardian

Release date: September 1, 2011

Publisher: C & R Crime

Print pages: 273

Sample

1

In the thick fog – a ‘pea-souper’, they called it – Verity Browne nosed her way down unfamiliar streets, her handkerchief to her mouth, dodging the cars and buses which loomed, yellow-eyed and sinister, out of the Stygian gloom. She was looking for Ransom Street, which she knew to be in the maze of narrow alleys behind Warren Street underground station. She strained to see the street names, half-tempted to give it up and return home. The doctor had warned her not to go out in fog as she was not yet fully recovered from tuberculosis and her lungs were still sensitive to polluted air. She had been lucky. It had not been a serious infection but she knew it was foolish to take chances. She asked herself wryly why she had left her gas mask behind.

It was an indication of the dangerous political situation in Europe that, despite Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s every effort to appease Hitler, Sir John Anderson who was in charge of Air Raid Precautions – the ARP – had begun to issue gas masks in anticipation of poisonous gas attacks from the air. Trenches were being dug in the Royal Parks, anti-aircraft gun emplacements hurriedly constructed against the anticipated bombardment by the Luftwaffe’s supposedly invincible planes. Primitive bomb protection shelters, six feet by four, made from six curved sheets of corrugated iron, were being distributed to any house with a back or front garden into which a shelter could be buried. Londoners were resigned to their fate, only asking that the strain of waiting and imagining the unimaginable should at last be over.

Verity’s goal was a branch or ‘group’ meeting of the Communist Party and she felt nervous, like a lapsed Catholic seeking out a mass against her better judgement. She retained only a residual loyalty to the Party. It was no longer the ‘band of brothers’ she had joined in a state of almost religious fervour in 1934. Then she had anticipated becoming an unimportant foot soldier in an army of like-minded seekers after truth, attempting to hold back an inexorable wave of Fascist terror. Spain’s democratically elected government was facing an army in rebellion, supported by the Roman Catholic Church. The International Brigade had been raised to fight for the Republican cause – volunteers drawn mostly, but not exclusively, from the working classes of many countries rallying to the aid of their oppressed Spanish brothers. It had been a logical and thrilling extension of the Party’s defiance of Fascism.

They had been defeated. That was bitter enough. Only a few nights ago she had been at Victoria station to welcome back the pathetic remnants of that proud army of idealists, but the worst of it was that she had seen the Party turn on itself, gnawing at its own entrails. It had been betrayed by its leaders – the cause subverted by devious and unprincipled apparatchiks. The International Brigade, which had gone to Spain to fight for justice and liberty, had been a chaotic amalgam of Communists, socialists, Trotskyists, anarchists and trades unionists. The Communists, on the orders of their paymasters in Moscow, had rejected this communion. They had ‘purified’ the Party of ‘dissident elements’ with the grim determination of the religious extremist. Anyone who refused to accept unquestioning obedience to Moscow was ‘liquidated’.

Verity had never counted obedience among her virtues, preferring independence of thought and action, so she had gradually, though reluctantly, distanced herself from the movement she had joined with such high hopes. She still counted herself a Communist but was seriously thinking of turning in her Party card. However, if anything of the original Party remained, it was to be found in these local meetings where fifteen or twenty comrades gathered together to hear the word preached to them.

She had three special reasons for braving the fog and bitter chill. In the first place she liked and admired the District Secretary, George Castle, a locomotive driver, and his wife Mary. It was in their house that the meeting was being held and this was the first time Verity had visited their new home. When they had first been married, they had lodged in a stinking tenement near the railway line but, painfully slowly, they had saved enough money to rent their new respectable, rat-free abode.

In the second place she had been asked – no, ordered – to be there by David Griffiths-Jones. He was a senior Party figure and had once, briefly, years before, been her lover; in fact, she smiled apologetically to herself, he had been her first lover. He had deflowered her, as she had so much wanted, seeing virginity as one of those ‘bourgeois’ shackles she was determined to discard as she fought clear of what she saw as suffocating middle-class morality. Neither she nor David had pretended to be in love with one another but, as a lover, he had been efficient to the point of brutality. He was pragmatic in everything he did and had discarded her without a word of apology or regret as soon as it suited him.

She had not seen him for many months – not since just before the destruction of the Basque city of Guernica by German bombers in April 1937 – and she was curious to see how he had weathered the political storms which had followed that disaster. She suspected that he had been forewarned of what was to happen to the peaceful, undefended town and had deliberately refrained from alerting the authorities. There was evidence to suggest that Guernica had been sacrificed in a last desperate bid to generate international sympathy for the Republican cause. If it were true, Verity swore she would never forgive him or the Party.

And, finally, there was the reason that David had given her. The guest speaker was to be an old friend of hers – Fernando Ruffino, a young Italian Communist who had joined the International Brigade and fought in Spain against Franco and his German and Italian Fascist allies. Mussolini, desperate to ingratiate himself with Hitler and eager for a share of the spoils, had sent troops and, more importantly, Camproni bombers to Spain to help in the war against godless Communism.

She had liked and admired Fernando, and there had been a moment when they had almost become lovers, but he had been wounded on the Aragon front and hospitalized in France. He had not returned to Spain and was rumoured to be fighting Fascism in Italy. She had heard that he was now married with a child. She knew nothing of Italian Fascism – she had never even been to Italy – and she was looking forward to hearing what he had to say about it.

A policeman materialized out of the fog and, gratefully, she asked him for directions. He was kind enough to walk with her to Ransom Street and waved his bull’s-eye lamp down towards the end of the road.

‘Number nine’s on the left, miss, by the second lamp post. Was it George Castle you was looking for?’

‘Yes, it is, constable. How did you know?’

‘He’s a respected figure hereabouts. There’s folk who owe him a lot. Leastways, that’s what I hear, and that’s despite the company he keeps.’

‘The company he keeps?’ Verity felt rather insulted.

‘No offence, miss, but it’s all politics nowadays and working people has no need of politics. If I may say so, miss, you’d do better not to wander round here, lost like, in your pretty hat and that bag of yours hanging on your arm so tempting. You’d as likely as not lose it on a night like this, if you understand me. Goodnight, miss.’

He touched his helmet respectfully and disappeared into the fog. Verity felt justly rebuked but was angry with herself for not remonstrating with him on the democratic duty of everyone to stand up and be counted. Of course it was all politics nowadays because no good citizen should stand by without protest and watch his country turned into a fascist state. She sighed and then coughed as the fog filled her lungs. She feared that the British – or at least the English – were not a politically aware people.

She turned to knock on the door of number nine. The constable was right about one thing, she admitted to herself. It had been stupid to put on that silly hat – the one she had bought in Bond Street the day before – to pay a visit in this neighbourhood. She saw how it might appear a challenge to the local youths, asking to be knocked off her head. Furthermore, it was not suitable for a Party meeting. Even now, she still had time to tear it off her head and throw it in the gutter, but she did not. Instead, she stuck out her chin in a way her friends would have recognized. Why should she pretend to be what she was not? It was a beautiful hat. ‘Très jolie,’ the assistant had said as she had packed it in its box. But who had made it – a girl sewing herself blind in some dingy sweatshop for a starvation wage? At least she had work. Verity was unable to deal with the contradictions in her life. Perhaps she was unsuitable company for George Castle, as the constable had hinted, but, take it or leave it, she could not, would not, change.

She was late and the tiny parlour was already tightly packed. Castle welcomed her warmly and introduced her. There was David, of course, so tall and good-looking that he seemed to fill the room all by himself. He did not kiss her – that would not have been suitable in a gathering of comrades – but shook her by the hand and seemed genuinely pleased she had come. He had his arm round a girl who hardly took her eyes off him. He, in turn was defensive, even rather awkward as he introduced her to Verity.

‘Lucinda Arbuthnot-Grey,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve told you about Verity Browne, haven’t I, Lulu?’

Lulu! Verity repressed a giggle. She seemed utterly uninterested in Verity and without so much as a ‘hello’ dragged him away. ‘I’m dying for a ciggie, dahling. Whatever that stuff was we were drinking last night, it’s given me the most ghastly headache.’

‘Shall I put you in a taxi? There’s no need for you to stay.’ To Verity’s astonishment, David was positively oozing concern.

‘Are there taxis in this place?’ she replied in a voice which made even David wince.

‘There’s usually taxis in Charlotte Street,’ George Castle interjected politely, ‘though in this fog . . .’

‘Oh, I know I’m being a bore but would you be a dahling . . .?’

‘Of course,’ Castle said, seeming unmoved at being so addressed. ‘I tell you what, young Leonard Baskin will take you.’

An underfed, spotty youth of about nineteen who was making sheep’s eyes at a pretty girl in her twenties called Alice Paling, who had recently joined the Party, turned at the sound of his name and blushed scarlet. He was clearly not used to escorting girls like Lucinda Arbuthnot-Grey, but an order from George Castle was not to be questioned and he got his donkey jacket and donned his cloth cap while David helped Lucinda into her expensive-looking fur coat.

‘Tomorrow then, dahling? Kiss, kiss.’ She pursed her lips to David, appearing to demand that he acknowledge their relationship. As George Castle held open the front door, allowing a cold, dank swirl of fog to chill the atmosphere, David, as nearly embarrassed as Verity had ever seen him, kissed the girl and put something in her coat pocket – perhaps something with which to pay the taxi, she thought uncharitably.

Lulu – Lucinda Arbuthnot-Grey – was so obviously out of place in this gathering that Verity was puzzled. Why had David brought her and why was he now so happy to be rid of her? He had friends – or at least acquaintances – among the aristocracy and would, without a second thought, have brought one of them to a local party meeting if it suited him but he never did anything without a reason. On the face of it, Lulu was straight out of Mayfair – but that was it! She had finally put her finger on what had been worrying her – Lulu wasn’t real. There was something about the way she pronounced her vowels which made Verity suspect she had been born within the sound of Bow Bells. And her make-up – her lipstick, in particular, had been applied too thickly and her scent was cheap and nasty. And then it came to her. Of course! Lucinda Arbuthnot-Grey was a whore and her real name was probably something without a hyphen. Verity grimaced. She was a snob, she upbraided herself, but, truly, it wasn’t Lulu’s class she objected to – far from it. It wasn’t even her trade. It was her affectation. It always made her grit her teeth when someone pretended to be something they weren’t.

She grinned and David asked her sharply what she was smiling about.

‘Nothing – nothing at all. Or rather, tell me, David, would I be right in thinking you wanted me to meet your girlfriend for a reason?’

He smiled but wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘Well yes, but I’ll tell you about it later.’

Of the fifteen people at the meeting, she knew half a dozen. Danny O’Rourke, a fiery public speaker committed to the class struggle, was one. She did not like or trust him and she knew the dislike was mutual. There seemed to be a threat behind everything he said. To disguise her true feelings, she was effusive and he looked unconvinced and embarrassed. The treasurer, Harold Knight, a solid, loyal party man, asked after her health. She brushed aside his concern too hastily, saying – which was true – that it had been a very light bout of TB, and, less truthfully, that she was now fully recovered.

Everyone, except David, looked at her with, if not sympathy, then at least interest tinged with disapproval. She was quite beyond their day-to-day experience – an exotic bird, a celebrity, a woman with a ‘past’. They had read her reports from Spain and Vienna in the New Gazette. She also wrote a monthly column on foreign affairs – of which, Danny often joked, she had had many – for the Daily Worker, the official publication of the Communist Party. It was almost unheard of for a woman to be a foreign correspondent for a national newspaper and, since most working-class men and women had never been abroad, she was admired and envied. Castle considered it a distinct feather in his cap to have her as a member of the group. True, she had not attended many meetings – that was hardly surprising given her other commitments – but she was here now. Furthermore, the presence of David Griffiths-Jones, a party high-up, signified that this was by no means a routine gathering.

Fernando Ruffino appeared from the kitchen with Mary Castle bearing sandwiches – meat paste and sardine – and a large brown teapot. As soon as he saw Verity, he put down the tray he was carrying and came over to kiss her. He drew back to look at her properly and told her she was too thin but more beautiful than ever. ‘If mamma saw you, cara, she would say you needed feeding. Is it true that you have been ill? Merda! But you are better now, Bella? Tell me you are better.’

His eyes were moist and she remembered his infectious sympathy for whomever he was addressing and the delightful ragù he made of English and Italian. She tapped him on the wrist and told him he was being silly but her sparkling eyes told another story. He was not handsome in a conventional way – he was rather plump and no taller than she – but he had that indefinable ‘something’ which made him attractive to women.

‘Did I hear you were getting married to that man of yours, Lord Edward Corinth?’ David spoke his name with barely concealed contempt.

‘You are fidanzata – betrothed, cara? I am stravolto – how do you say? – distraught. You ought to have asked my permission and I would not have given it.’ Fernando clutched her hand and, for a moment, she thought he was going down on one knee. ‘Tristezza, tristezza,’ he intoned. ‘My heart breaks.’

‘Please, Fernando! You’re embarrassing me,’ Verity protested, trying to disengage herself. ‘Did I not hear that you were married with a child?’

‘Si, Basilio. Two years old and the apple of his mother’s eye.’ He looked at her from underneath long eyelashes and whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, a few words of Dante, ‘“Amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare”’ – ‘As love has willed, so have I spoken.’

George Castle hurriedly brought the meeting to order. He had a way of referring to members of the group as brothers rather than comrades that Verity liked but of which she was sure David disapproved. He spoke warmly of Fernando and then, with head bowed, recalled the fall of Barcelona in January and dramatically held up an enlarged photograph which had recently appeared in Our Fight, the International Brigade’s weekly paper, of refugees laden with belongings heading towards the French border and the refugee camps in the Pyrénées Orientales. It was a portrait of abject misery – innocent civilians driven from their homes by a terror they did not begin to understand. Although this was a scene with which she was all too familiar, it still made Verity choke with emotion.

A phrase from a song the men used to chant before going up to the line came to her. It compared love of the Republic with the love of a woman – ‘Mi corazón estaba helado, y ardía’ – ‘My heart was frozen and it burned.’

Castle was repeating like a mantra, ‘Bombs on Barcelona today, bombs on London tomorrow.’ Verity’s eyes pricked as she recognized the photograph he held up like a religious icon as being by her friend, André Kavan. They had been together at the bombing of Guernica when his girlfriend Gerda Meyer had been killed at her side.

Then Fernando stood up. He threw off any hint of the comic Italian and spoke with impressive authority of Fascist Italy – its brutality and venality. He could not deny that Mussolini was popular with the majority and that the opposition was fragmented, riven by political rivalry and infiltrated by the OVRA, the secret police. He turned to the plight of the Jews. In 1932, Mussolini had publicly spoken out against German anti-Semitism and many Jews had sought refuge in Italy from Nazi persecution. However, in July 1938, Mussolini had published his Manifesto on Race which prohibited Italians from marrying Jews, forbade Jews from entering the country and ordered the expulsion of those already in Italy.

As Verity watched Fernando tell of the desperate struggle to fight back against an authoritarian government which had been in power since 1922, she was reminded – no doubt blasphemously – of Christ preaching to the disciples. There were not enough chairs to go round so the younger comrades lay or squatted on the floor. Every face was concentrated on the Italian.

He had fought the good fight. He had been jailed in Milan, shot at in Turin, beaten up in Rome. He had started and distributed an anti-Fascist newspaper which had survived for three issues. He spoke modestly and with humour, but the ever-present danger in which he lived and worked was apparent to all his listeners. Verity could almost hear everyone in the room ask themselves if they would have the courage to do the same should England ever become a Fascist state.

He poured scorn on Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax who had visited Mussolini in January believing, wrongly, that the Italian dictator could influence Hitler, seeming not to realize that Hitler despised and ignored his partner in crime. As Mussolini complained, ‘Every time Hitler occupies a country he sends me a message.’

The meeting broke up soon after Fernando had finished speaking, as though discussion of mundane party matters was inappropriate. Castle thanked him for providing ‘leadership in our great fight’ and went on to say that membership of the Communist Party in London had risen from 4,562 in April 1938 to 7,084, and the Young Communist League had more than trebled its membership to 8,000. He added that London sales of the Daily Worker had increased from an average of 27,000 to 51,000 on weekdays, and to 72,000 on Saturdays. He hoped they would reach 100,000 before the end of the year.

Fernando was spending the night with the Castles before going on a tour of cities in England and Scotland to address meetings and ask for financial and moral support. Unwilling to let Verity go, he suggested walking round to the Kardomah in the Tottenham Court Road for coffee.

‘I have so much to say to you, cara mia. I want to hear how you are. You must tell me about your English lord. He must be a good man if you love him but has not David told you that you are betraying your class and the Party? But when the heart speaks, we must answer, non è vero?’

He had said what she knew everyone was thinking but so teasingly that she could not be angry. She blushed, however, and replied – hoping to annoy him – ‘Yes, let’s all go round to the Kardomah.’

Fernando scowled, as she had guessed he would.

‘You youngsters go,’ Castle said. ‘Harold and I have some business to sort out and we need a bit of peace and quiet. David will shepherd you.’

The fog was very bad and they struggled to find their way across Fitzroy Street and into the Tottenham Court Road. ‘Nacht und Nebel, as the Germans say,’ David coughed, wrapping his scarf round his mouth as they narrowly avoided being run down by a bus.

The glow through the Kardomah’s art deco windows guided them to a haven of warmth and steam-cleaned air. A man brushed past her, a woollen scarf wrapped about his neck and a hat pulled down over his face. He was clutching a little girl dressed in a thin-looking blue coat with a tam-o’-shanter on her head and Verity thought how wrong it was that the child should be out in such weather. Then she remembered the hundreds – possibly thousands – of children who, in this prosperous country, lived on the streets or in cellars – mere holes in the ground – cold and hungry, and once again she felt the fire of indignation which had led her to join the Communist Party. They breathed in the head. . .