The Blue Last

men, Goring and Hitler; they had no patience; they expected to win quickly. I wonder if it’s the earmark of a megalomaniac that he thinks what he wants will happen quickly and painlessly. That it should happen that way and if it doesn’t, and he doesn’t get immediate results, he pulls out. I can tell you one thing, though: it’s a mistake Churchill never made. That man was tenacious; he believed in hanging on like a pit bull.”

Jury turned the book around so that Neame could read Simon Croft’s notations.

Which he did, after adjusting the monocle in his eye.

“Is that the place you mentioned, Chicksands? It’s abbreviated here.”

“Indeed. Yes. It’s in Bedfordshire.” Neame’s eye fell on the other abbreviated words in the list. “Cov. Coventry. Ah, yes. You know about Coventry. No, you wouldn’t have been born then.”

“I was born, believe me. But I have only a foggy notion.”

“Of Coventry. Terrible destruction. Bloody awful. We got word there was to be an attack, but not that Coventry was the target. London, Manchester, maybe Reading. Industrial cities. Never Coventry. Remember, one thing about breaking a code is, you obviously have to go to some pains not to let it be known you’ve broken it. Because of that, Churchill came in for a horrendous attack, being accused of having known ahead of time that Coventry was the mark and not doing anything about it because he didn’t want the Germans to know we’d broken the code. That’s rubbish. It’s vile. Churchill might have had his dirty little secrets, but Coventry wasn’t one of them. We didn’t get the right decrypt, that’s all. The Chicksands unit didn’t have as much experience, and all you have to do-”

“The decrypt came from Chicksands?”

“Far as I know, yes.”

“You said Ralph Herrick was assigned there.”

Furrowing his brow, Neame took another drink of whiskey. “Yes, but you know, I think Ralph had clearance for just about everywhere. He was able to go between the huts at Bletchley Park, one of the few who had that kind of clearance.” Still holding the book, Neame looked back down at the rest of Croft’s list. “What is this, then? Whose is it?”

Jury told him about Croft’s relationship to Herrick and about the account of the war Croft was writing.

Colonel Neame handed the book back to Jury; the monocle fell from his eye. “Hmm.” Neame studied his nearly empty glass. “What you need is someone who was in GC and CS-”

“Is that ‘Code and Cypher’?”

“Government Code and Cypher School, right. I’m trying to think who’s left who still-Ah! There’s Maples. At least he was alive a couple of years ago. His picture was in the paper. Got an OBE and also the George Cross for the work he did at Bletchley. Sir Oswald Maples. I expect he’d be easy enough to find.”

Jury smiled. “You were certainly a much-decorated bunch.” He rose and when Colonel Neame started up, Jury waved him back down. “Please don’t get up. You’ve been an enormous help, Colonel.”

“Seem to have left you with questions instead of answers.”

Jury smiled. “That might be what’s helpful.”

“What happened to Polly?” asked Jury, returning to Melrose’s chair. “Isn’t she having dinner?”

“Gone. We’re having breakfast tomorrow. She’s staying in Bloomsbury. I think she hopes the literary swank will rub off on her.” Melrose polished off his whiskey. “How about you? Ready for some more oxblood soup?”

“Any time.”

Having brought the wine, Young Higgins floated off like milkweed. The wine was a Batard-Montrachet, “the finest white wine,” Melrose had said, “in the world.” They raised their glasses and drank.

“What on earth were you into with Colonel Neame?”

“Bletchley Park. The Enigma code. Codes.” Jury smiled. “Neame isn’t just taking up space in Boring’s.”

“Did I say he was? He’s a nice old codger.”

“I expect that’s it; we tend to condescend to old guys like that.”

“What about Bletchley Park?”

Jury pulled Croft’s book from his pocket. “The book Croft was writing about the war. Since there was no manuscript, no laptop, no notes I could find, I had a look at a few of his books, presumably ones he used to research his subject. He wrote stuff in the margins-” Jury turned to the list on the last page, held it up for Melrose to see.

Melrose frowned.

“This is what I was talking to Colonel Neame about.” He told Melrose what Neame had said.

Melrose stared. “What are you making of this?”

“I’m not sure.” Jury picked up his wineglass, swirled the contents. “This might just be the best in the world.”

“It is.”

“How about Kitty Riordin, then?”

Melrose told him what he’d found in Keeper’s Cottage. “I think he’s right, your friend Haggerty.”

“I take your point about the bracelet. It’s unlikely she’d find it in the rubble.”

“She could have had another one engraved afterward. The only difference is the initial in the little heart. Links has them. I checked.”

“Links wasn’t around in 1940.”

“No. I simply mean such silver jewelry for babies is not hard to come by. She could easily have had the M engraved on the bracelet you saw, making it appear that’s what little Maisie had worn. I mean, she could’ve simply purchased a new bracelet. She didn’t have to dig it out of the rubble.”

“She didn’t really have to have it at all.”

“Well, its absence wouldn’t prove anything; its presence, though, suggests the baby really was Maisie.”

Jury nodded. “I see Mickey Haggerty’s point. All Kitty had to do was smash Erin’s hand. She thinks very quickly on her feet. I’d say she immediately sussed out the situation and in the noise and fright and confusion took little Erin somewhere and wham!-” Jury’s fist smashed down on the table, making the dishes and the remaining diners jump. His mind went back to that smile on Kitty Riordin’s face. “She’s cold-blooded enough.”

“There’s no way of proving any of this, though, short of finding the jeweler who engraved the bracelet and hope he’s still alive and has an elephantine memory. Pretty impossible.”

In silence, they finished off their dinners, bet on the dessert. Melrose said trifle, Jury said pudding. Young Higgins eventually produced Queen of Puddings, and Jury collected his fiver from Melrose.

“You always win.”

“I deserve it.”

They were silent, eating, until Jury looked up and said, “Why was she there?”

Melrose frowned. “Who? The Riordin woman?”

“No, Alexandra. Why was she at the Blue Last?”

Melrose shrugged. “Didn’t you tell me she and the baby visited there often?”

Jury folded his hands and rested his chin on his thumbs. Only his eyes were visible above the fingers. “Look, though: Why would she leave Tynedale Lodge to go sleep over in a pub, and haul the baby with her to boot? The blitz wasn’t a stroll through Green Park.”

“Those two families are addicted to each other. At least they were then.”

“I know. Which means Alexandra Tynedale Herrick and Francis Croft, they were too.”

Melrose set down his wineglass, dropped his spoon on his plate. “Are you suggesting-”

Jury nodded.

“Wait. You’re not saying little Maisie was Croft’s?”

“No, I’m not. Alexandra had an illegitimate child when she was- nineteen, I think. She took herself off somewhere. It was hushed up, not surprisingly; that sort of thing wasn’t all the fashion in the forties.”

“Money is, though. Money is always in fashion and Oliver Tynedale has enough to make anything go away. He could have taken care of a scandal in a dozen different ways. ”