Dead of Winter

merry Christmas.’

23

‘To look at them you wouldn’t think they were convalescent,’ Lord Stratton remarked as the dancers circled one another to the ‘Here-we-go-gathering-nuts-in-May’ jingle of a Paul Jones, then stopped as the music did and formed pairs again. ‘I distinctly remember seeing that young man on crutches only a week ago,’ he added as a couple spun by in a brisk foxtrot. ‘He seems to have made a remarkable recovery.’

Though confined to a wheelchair after twisting his ankle in a fall the day before, his lordship was in good spirits. The Highfield Christmas party was an annual event he never failed to attend, and he and Madden were watching the dancers from a corner of the church hall decked for the occasion with holly boughs and strung with coloured lights. Not far from where they were was a table supporting two large punch bowls and rows of still empty glasses, but neither man had sampled the concoction on offer, knowing as they did from past years that it took some stomaching. Instead they were refreshing themselves from a bottle of whisky which Madden had smuggled into the hall beneath the blanket covering his charge’s knees.

The party had been enlivened by the presence of a batch of young officers still officially recovering from their wounds, but, as Lord Stratton had just noted, remarkably spry when it came to cutting a figure on the dance floor. They had been accompanied by a dozen or so nurses from Stratton Hall, who had shed their uniforms and joined the local girls in providing partners for the unusually large number of unaccompanied males, a patriotic gesture to which the village wives had also lent their support.

‘How wonderful Helen looks. She never seems to age.’

Lord Stratton had just caught a glimpse of Madden’s wife among the circling couples.

‘You ought to be dancing with her yourself, John.’ He nudged his companion.

‘What? And spoil her pleasure?’ Madden grinned. ‘I’ve been told for years I dance like a bear. It’s a family joke.’

Lord Stratton chuckled. His gaze continued to wander over the thronged dance floor.

‘I can’t believe how Lucy’s grown up so suddenly. What a beauty she’s become. How do you cope with that?’

‘I don’t. She runs rings around me.’

Madden’s smile widened as he watched his lovely daughter sail by — the music, supplied by a gramophone, had changed to a waltz — while the young army officer in whose arms she rested gazed into her eyes with open adoration.

‘She arrived from London today in a staff car with an elderly admiral who was on his way to Portsmouth. Somehow she’d persuaded him to offer her a lift. I should have thought it was against naval regulations, but she doesn’t seem to pay much attention to those. I just pray the war ends before she’s court-martialled.’

The question of their daughter’s behaviour in London had provided the subject matter for a spirited family debate at lunch earlier, but though Helen had questioned Lucy closely, she had had to confess to Madden afterwards that she was still no closer to discovering how she spent her evenings in London.

‘Late duty. Double shifts. Double talk, if you ask me. But I’ve got her here for a few days now and I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

A portly figure in military garb approached and Lord Stratton hailed him.

‘Good evening, Colonel. Or should I call you Doctor? I’m never certain.’

‘I’m not sure myself, sir. Some are born great, some achieve greatness and others have it thrust on them. I fall into the latter category. However, as soon as the war’s over I expect to return to my humble station.’

Brian Chadwick’s moon face glowed with good fellowship.

‘Hello, John,’ he said. ‘What’s that you fellows are drinking?’

He peered into Madden’s glass.

‘We smuggled in something less lethal than what they put in those punch bowls,’ Lord Stratton replied to the question. ‘Would you like some?’

Chadwick reflected for a moment. He studied the dregs in his own glass, then shook his head reluctantly.

‘Thank you, sir, but I’d better not. If I mix the two I’ll be done for.’

A frown had settled like a cloud on Madden’s brow. The appearance of the Stratton Hall medico had stirred a memory in him, and as luck would have it, just at that moment his distracted gaze fell on his wife and the young RAF officer she was dancing with.

‘Brian,’ he said, ‘that fellow dancing with Helen — is he by any chance the pilot you were telling me about not long ago? The one whose face was burned and who had to go off somewhere to have it fixed?’

‘That’s right,’ Chadwick replied after he had peered for several seconds in the direction Madden indicated. ‘Tyson’s his name. We sent him to Oxford. There’s a special unit there. They do plastic surgery. He returned a week ago for further convalescence. Poor fellow, he still looks a bit raw, doesn’t he?’

Madden grunted. It was the angry red stripes on the young man’s face that had caught his eye. He waited until the gramophone fell silent and the dance ended, then made his way through the milling couples to where his wife was chatting to her partner.

‘Have you come to beg for a dance at last?’ Helen teased him. Elegant in a simple dark frock set off by a pearl necklace, she had hardly been allowed to leave the floor, and even as they spoke another young officer was positioning himself at a discreet distance away ready to claim her as a partner.

‘Not yet. I’m still plucking up my courage.’

Laughing, she turned to her companion. ‘Paul, this is my husband, John Madden. John, this is Paul Tyson. His family’s from Winchester. They know Luke and Marigold.’

The young pilot had flushed on hearing his name mentioned, and with a gesture that was probably automatic by now had raised a hand to his cheek as he bobbed his head to Madden and muttered ‘Good evening, sir.’ He was in his early twenties with flaxen hair and pale skin which showed the marks of his ordeal all too plainly. Two livid stripes curving from eye to mouth gave his face an unbalanced appearance, while a further mark the size of a half- crown marred his otherwise smooth forehead.

‘Paul’s a wonderful dancer.’

Helen slipped her arm through the young man’s and Madden saw that she was trying to ease his self- consciousness.

‘Can we have another dance later?’ She smiled encouragement at him.

While Tyson mumbled an assurance, flushing once more as he spoke, Madden caught Helen’s eye and nodded slightly. Then he touched the young pilot on the shoulder.

‘Actually, I was wondering if we could have a word, you and I. There’s something I want to ask you.’

‘Ask me, sir?’

Caught off guard, Tyson forgot his disfigurement for a moment. He stared at Madden in open surprise; face to face.

‘Yes, it won’t take a moment.’

As Helen released the young man’s arm, Madden took him by the elbow.

‘Why don’t we go somewhere where it’s quiet.’

‘Oh Lord, yes. I remember that afternoon well. I thought about it a lot afterwards — after I’d heard what had happened to the poor girl. It reminded me of the squadron.’

‘The squadron?’ Madden was puzzled by the remark.

‘I mean, how you could be talking to someone one day, just chatting, and the next day they were dead. It happened all the time.’

Tyson flushed. He drew on the cigarette he had a lit a moment earlier.

‘The police are curious about that train journey, Paul.’ Madden had led the young officer out of the hall into a small ante-room. They could still hear the music and see the dancers through the open doorway, but the noise was deadened to some extent, perhaps by the coats that were hanging on rails all around them. ‘They have reason to