Bright Young Things

Prologue

No doubt, he thought, there was a word for what he was and what he did. For a man who understood right and wrong and even subscribed to what might be called a moral code, but veered so far away from that when it suited him. And felt no regret at doing so.

Most of his acquaintances would have declared him to be a gentleman, a good sort, decent. A hero even, in certain circles. The fact was that he was capable of heroic and even selfless acts – though were they selfless? Or were they just the result of this damned restless energy that possessed him. This need to push himself so far beyond what any man would reckon normal.

He had no doubt that his father had known what he was and had even understood him on some level or other. Though his father had been a genuinely kind man, a good man and had taught his son that when you were in a position of strength you should reach back and give others a hand up. And he had absorbed that lesson and continued his father’s work because he could see the sense in that philosophy. A man well thought of could do the unthinkable and think the unspeakable and win against the odds in circumstances others could not even conceive of, in the sure and certain knowledge that he would never be suspected. Not him. He’s a good egg, a solid, cricket playing, upstanding example of English manhood.

The thought amused him.

He stood close to the fireplace and studied the letters she had written to him. This last one. He had read and re-read them so many times now, enjoying the memories, the faint scent of her that clung to the pages. Perfume and powder and girlish softness; that was what she had really been about.

He remembered them all, of course. All different, all presenting another challenge. The chase, the capture, the destruction – over time. He did not like the game to be over too fast. He liked to study his subjects, both in the wild, as it were, and then in captivity. He liked to guess how they might behave; he would have put them under the microscope had that been possible. They added to his collection of slides, of course, but not presented in a way that would give anyone a clue.

He read the letter again, enjoying the moment and the memory, the feeling of power and exultation before the inevitable flatness and ennui.

I love you. I love you for your kindness and your laughter and the way you make me feel so special and so adored. I love you for the way you look at me, the way you want to know everything about me, the way you make me laugh and even the way you make me cry when I can’t see you for days. I want always to be there with you, to laugh and to cry and to enjoy your company and dance with you and go walking as we did that day. You make me so happy.

He knew which of them had written this, of course. The last one in a long, long line, but truthfully it could have been any of them. The same words said, the same overweening and overwhelming and overblown emotion. Did they really think that he was the answer to all of their prayers?

He supposed he was. For a little time.

The only annoyance was that he had not retrieved his own letters this time, the ones sent to her. He told them always to be discreet and destroy their correspondence, but of course they never did. It was too, too precious. Too wonderful. Too sublime. Usually he managed to retrieve his letters once the game was over, but there had been no opportunity this time and he didn’t know what she might have done with them.

Of course, it was possible that she’d actually followed his instructions and cast them into the fire. Somehow he doubted that.

It wasn’t that he was in any way concerned about others finding them. The handwriting was not his own and they were signed always with a single initial – that wasn’t his either. No, it was that he must now go to the trouble of having more letters written, ready for the next time, though he supposed that he’d had his money’s worth. This batch of correspondence had done service for him on three – or was it four? – occasions now.

Should he burn the letters she had written to him?

No, not yet. There was still more enjoyment left in them. He would keep them for a little time. Perhaps until the game began again.

ONE

Sunday 5 January, 1930

December had been wet and windy along the south coast with storms blowing in off the sea and winds reaching sixty miles per hour further along the coast. January had dawned, still wet though not unseasonably cold. Even so, the early morning of Sunday, January the fifth, people kept their heads down as they headed for church and didn’t even bother to put up their umbrellas, knowing they would soon be blown inside out.

At eight thirty in the morning it was still not fully light. Leaden grey skies, though enlivened by a few rebelliously scudding clouds, gave the impression that full daylight was never really going to arrive and that the inhabitants of Bournemouth would have to make do with light levels more reminiscent of dusk. The handful of people hurrying along the promenade became aware of a solitary figure walking along on the shoreline, just above the reach of the mud-brown waves. He appeared to be holding a bundle in his arms and now he turned to face the promenade and stood still as though waiting for someone to notice him. Such was his stillness and the size of him – tall and broad – and the fact that the bundle he held seemed to resolve itself into a body once you had paused and looked at him properly, it was hard not to give him the attention he obviously craved. He drew level with a group of people on the promenade. They had stopped and were now pointing and staring at him. Once one of those had run off, obviously in search of a constable, he laid his burden down on the ground and walked away as unhurriedly as if he had been out for a Sunday stroll. He seemed absurdly certain that the little knot of people on the promenade would not approach him until the constable arrived, and as it happened he was right. The two men and their wives, along with three small children, did not go down on to the beach, though they watched anxiously as the waves pulled and tugged at what was now obviously a body on the beach. The man seemed to have engendered an almost superstitious awe; what normal person stood on the beach with a body until noticed and then calmly put it down and walked away? This action displayed all the signs of insanity, perhaps even murderous insanity, and overrode the concern of one of the women that whoever was lying on the sand might simply be injured and in need of help.

She was about to insist that her husband, Mr Colin Chambers, should go down and at least take a look, when her younger brother, who had run off in search of a constable, returned with the same. Constable Jones, Colin Chambers and his young brother-in-law, Brian Housman, then all went down to the shoreline and it was immediately obvious to the constable that this was no commonplace situation.

The girl lying with her body now soaked by the water was young, perhaps in her early twenties, and she was dressed in a beaded cocktail gown so heavily embellished that it sparkled even in the lowlight. Her hair was now too wet to discern the style, but a bright clip sparkled just above one ear and held in place a sparkling, feather-trimmed band. She wore only one patent leather shoe but the second was close by and had obviously fallen from her foot when the man had carried her. Incongruously a silver evening bag formed of fine maille links was tied to her wrist with a rough piece of bailing twine as though to ensure that it did not get lost.

And although no one could see any marks upon the body, she was very, very dead.

The details of the finding were so extraordinary as to excite the immediate attention of the local newspapers, though of course it was too late for them to do anything about it until the Monday edition. By then even some of the nationals, intrigued by the strange tale the witnesses had told, had picked it up. On the Tuesday afternoon, Henry Johnstone, drinking tea in his sister’s front parlour, two streets back from the promenade, read the latest report with mild interest. He read about the man standing on the shoreline with the body in his arms, making sure that he was noticed. He read about the way the woman was dressed, as though she had just left a party and he read that she had been taken to a nearby funeral directors. Like everybody else who read the reports, he pondered as to who this young woman might be and felt a mild irritation that no one had given chase when the mysterious man, tall and broad though he might have been, had dumped her body on the beach.

No, Henry thought, if the report was to be believed, that was not what happened. This mysterious man had placed the body carefully, ceremoniously and deliberately. Had he just dropped it and run, then it was likely someone would have given chase. It was the very strangeness and deliberateness of his actions that had given everyone pause; that had filled them with disquiet. He pondered on this for a moment or two and then moved on to other news items. This was not his concern. A few short weeks ago, of course, it might have been, but Henry had not yet decided whether he would go back to work, even though he had now been reinstated as a detective chief inspector working out of the Central Office in New Scotland Yard. A murder detective working with the murder squad.

Henry dropped the paper on to a side table and paced the room restlessly, wondering whether he should go out for a walk. You are getting lazy, Henry Johnstone, he told himself. The injury to his shoulder was healed now, though his shoulder was still painful and stiff and his left arm only partially useful. He had been told that it would improve and that he must move it, exercise it gently and gradually increase the strain he put upon it, but he had been less than assiduous. He had come to realize that he was not sure he wanted to recover, that fullness of recovery meant he would have to leave his sister’s house and go back into the world and face the dangers there, and Henry, in his more honest moments, was not certain he was ready for that.

He heard a car pull up outside the house but took little notice of it. It was the sound of his niece, Melissa, thirteen years old and now squealing excitedly and running down the stairs that alerted him to the fact that this car brought a visitor.

‘Uncle Henry, Uncle Henry, it’s Mickey,’ Melissa shouted excitedly as she passed the maid in the hall and opened the door herself. Henry went out into the hall and was greeted by the sight of Mickey hugging Melissa enthusiastically, a rather embarrassed-looking police driver standing behind him. A second later he noticed that Mickey had a suitcase at his feet but still clasped in his right hand was another bag, one Henry knew well: the murder bag, equipped with all they would need to search a crime scene and to investigate a crime.

Mickey turned to the driver and gave him instructions to come back first thing in the morning, checking that he had organized accommodation for the night. He looked up at Cynthia, Henry’s sister, who, attracted by the noise, now stood on the stairs with a broad smile on her face.

‘Mickey, my love, come along in. Never a more welcome sight.’ She came down the stairs, took his free hand and he kissed her on the cheek. Henry was struck for a moment by the difference between these three people he loved. Melissa, young, her red hair bright and her pretty features so much like her mother’s. Cynthia poised, beautifully coiffed and expensively dressed. Sergeant Mickey Hitchens, neat and scrubbed, his hair a steely grey and his face lined and a little crumpled; his heavy overcoat of dog-tooth check was new to Henry but he guessed that Mickey or his wife Belle would have found it at the second-hand market, Belle having an eye for good cloth and for a good bargain. His heavy boots were well polished but also well worn. A man come prepared to work and, Henry realized with a jolt, a man come to fetch his boss out of his temporary retirement.

The police driver obviously did not know Cynthia, or Henry’s relationship to this obviously wealthy woman, hence his look of disquiet when he had dropped Mickey off and his further look of uncertainty, cast back before he got into the car.

‘For goodness’ sake, close the front door before we all catch a chill. Biddy, bring tea, please.’

‘Yes ma’am.’ The maid grinned at Henry, and then at Mickey, as though Mickey Hitchens’ arrival was excellent news even below stairs. Not that there was a hell of a lot of differentiation in this house, Henry thought.

Then Cynthia’s eye was caught by the bag Mickey held and she took a step back. ‘You’re here on business,’ she said. ‘You’re here to get Henry.’

‘And I’m here to impose on your hospitality if you’ll have me,’ Mickey told her.

‘You are welcome as spring,’ Cynthia told him but Henry could see the anxious look in her eye now. They had both known that this day would come, when Henry could not put off his decision any longer. Would he go back to his role as detective, would he decide to turn away? Here, in Cynthia’s hallway, decision time had arrived and Henry knew, just looking at his sergeant’s face, that it had been made for him. Mickey was here; his oldest and dearest friend was here asking for help. Mickey had never let Henry down and Henry was not about to do so either.

‘Is it about that woman on the beach?’ Melissa wanted to know. ‘Do they know who she is yet?’

‘Melissa, you are supposed to be attending to your lessons,’ Cynthia told her gently. ‘You can pester Mickey all you like later.’

Melissa knew the tone of her mother’s voice and that it was pointless to argue. They watched as she went back upstairs and then adjourned to the front parlour. Mickey stood warming his hands in front of the fire, the murder bag dumped somewhat incongruously beside the fire irons. Henry said, ‘It’s good to see you. Whatever the circumstances, it’s good to see you.’

He had met with Mickey briefly over the Christmas holiday, visiting Mickey and Belle at their home, but that had been the last time. The longest they had ever been apart in years had been these past weeks, since Henry had been injured and had moved to his sister’s house in Bournemouth to recuperate. Cynthia and her family had recently moved there permanently after selling their London house. Mickey had, in the meantime, been assigned as bagman to one detective or another, settling nowhere.

‘You’re looking well,’ Mickey said, sounding satisfied. ‘And Melissa, how is she? Looking better too, I thought.’

Late the year before Melissa had been kidnapped and held by a man who wanted revenge against Henry and who had been quite prepared to kill the child. This had also led to Henry’s injury.

‘She’s recovering,’ Cynthia told him. ‘We still have bad nights from time to time and there are some days when she just wants to cry, and so I let her, but she will recover, Mickey. We all will.’

Mickey nodded. Biddy arrived with tea and cake and small sandwiches. ‘Cook says she knows it’s a while until dinner, ma’am, so she thought Sergeant Hitchens might be hungry.’

‘Tell Cook thank you. That was a good thought,’ Cynthia said.

Henry watched as Biddy nodded happily and went out, closing the door softly behind her. ‘It seems my entire household has missed you, Mickey Hitchens,’ Cynthia said. ‘And I for one am glad you’re here. I’m only sorry that it is because some young woman has lost her life. Henry has to get back on the wagon at some time and even though he feels he’s not ready, I know that he is.’

‘Henry can speak for himself, you know,’ Henry said. ‘And it is good to see you.’

He watched as Mickey filled his plate with sandwiches and cake and Cynthia set his tea on the small occasional table beside the wingback chair. The big overcoat had been taken away and Henry could now see that Mickey was sporting a rather snazzy waistcoat. This had definitely not been bought second-hand and was a deep red. He wondered if it had been a Christmas present from Belle. A watch chain hung from a buttonhole and Henry could just glimpse the top of Mickey’s old brass watch peeking out of the waistcoat pocket. It was about time it had a better home, Henry thought, battered though it was and rubbed smooth by years of handling and a life in Mickey’s jacket. It had belonged to Mickey’s father and had travelled all the way through the First World War, been loved all the years after.

‘Do we know who she is?’ Henry asked.

Mickey finished a sandwich before replying and then said, ‘Ah now, that is where the strangeness lies.’ He reached for the murder bag, opened it and took a Manila envelope from inside, handed it to Henry. Then he turned to Cynthia and said, ‘I suspect you might know the young woman found on the beach. You and she probably moved in the same circles from time to time. I would not want to upset you, my dear.’

As Henry knew she would, Cynthia came over to sit by him on the small sofa, so she could see the photographs. They had presumably been taken at the funeral directors, the dark panelling and heavy furniture an odd contrast to the woman’s body laid out on a table, plain white sheets or perhaps even a tablecloth beneath her.

‘There was no chance to take photographs on the beach because of the tide, but fortunately Mr Jamieson, the undertaker, had the presence of mind to take some pictures before she was taken away to the mortuary. He also had the presence of mind to record certain features of the body which seemed peculiar, such as the bag tied to her hand.’

Henry was suddenly aware that Mickey was regarding Cynthia closely and that Cynthia had gasped and was now holding a hand over her mouth as though in shock. ‘You do know her?’ he asked.

‘I do, but it isn’t possible – I went to her memorial service last year. Her name, is, was … Mickey, it’s the same girl but surely that isn’t possible. This looks like Faun Moran. But she was killed in a car crash. I saw where she had been interred.’

Mickey shook his head. ‘You saw someone buried; it certainly wasn’t the unfortunate Miss Moran. Identification in her evening bag indicated that this was indeed Faun Moran and of course the initial reaction was simply that this girl had that young lady’s possessions. But the photographs were sent to Central Office, and we compared the face with those images we had on record and the faces certainly matched. We had fingerprints taken and sent to us and they too matched.’

‘Why would her fingerprints be on file?’ Henry asked.

‘Faun was something of a wild child.’ It was Cynthia who replied. ‘I believe she was arrested for shoplifting. It was a stupid, wilful thing to do. She had money to pay but it seems she saw stealing as something of an adventure.’

‘One of the bright young things who see themselves above the law,’ Mickey said, ‘or so I’ve been told.’ He looked at Cynthia for confirmation or denial and she nodded.

‘Faun was not wicked but she was thoughtless and restless and always chafing against what she saw as restrictions. But Mickey, how could she have been found on the beach? Who did I see buried?’

‘That, my dear, is our mystery to solve.’

Henry flicked through the photographs. He could see no obvious marks on the body but the head was at a curious angle, the neck hidden by a scarf. ‘Was her neck broken?’

‘It was; death would have been instantaneous. There were no other injuries on the body.’

Henry paused at a photograph which showed her hand and arm and the bag tied