The Ghosts of Paris, page 11
She took a moment to allow Vera to gather herself. Her eyes had dried, but there was high color in her cheeks.
“Am I to understand that you don’t have access to any bank accounts, or an account of your own?”
Vera shook her head. “Heavens, no. Nothing like that. Only the allowance I mentioned.”
It was as Billie suspected. She came across this often in her work but found these kinds of arrangements infuriating. These adult women were kept on a leash whether they realized it at first or not. Their material security was conditional, and in time it became perfectly clear that they needed to make nice with the husbands who kept them. Financial institutions encouraged this inequality, not even letting women open accounts of their own without the explicit permission of their husbands. Would Vera have felt differently about her husband’s “little adventures” with other women had they been on more equal footing? By the time wives in these situations walked into Billie’s office, their financial situation was frequently desperate. One woman had been rationing at half the usual foodstuffs for months before summoning the courage to see Billie about her absent husband. She’d been skin and bones when she arrived, all to save up enough to get out of her situation.
“I have no choice but to ask this, Vera. How are you intending to fund our investigation?”
Her client didn’t appreciate the question; that was clear. “I have my ways,” she replied.
Billie waited for more, but Vera was not forthcoming. “Please understand, you have my confidence, in all matters, but I must know. We’ll be taking some risk, business-wise, traveling overseas. Your second deposit will keep us going for a while, that is true, but should the funds run out, particularly while we’re in Europe, it would spell disaster for my agency.”
Billie had worked too hard to roll the dice like that.
“I signed the contract and you have my word,” Vera said, seeming embarrassed at Billie’s inquiries into her financial situation.
“Times have been hard for many of us, Vera. I know that as well as anyone. I don’t mind saying that we had to sell some family heirlooms over the years, furniture, jewelry . . .” she prompted, watching the woman’s face closely. “Needs must. There is no shame in it. But I need you to help me to understand how you can afford this.”
Vera’s face had dropped. She found this conversation deeply uncomfortable. Now that the carefully constructed glamour had fallen away, she seemed smaller somehow.
“Woman to woman here,” Billie said. “We, too, must find ways to eat, to live, to pay for the things we need.”
Vera sighed. “Yes. I have been . . . Well, I had to sell some of our things, here and there, particularly in the past year. It’s not a crime, is it?”
Billie shook her head. “No, it isn’t. Your husband may have been in charge of the finances at one time, but he didn’t provide for these circumstances. It has been two years now, and no one would blame you, Vera. Please understand, your secrets are safe with me and our agency.”
The maid returned to offer more aperitifs, and the women fell silent. Billie shook her head. “No. Thank you kindly. I should be going soon.”
When the maid left, a sober-looking Vera stood up and walked off without a word, leaving her cigarette to smolder in its tray. She was gone for several minutes, and when she returned, she was holding a piece of folded dark velvet cloth in both hands. She sat down on the lounge and without a word laid it across the table and gently unfolded it. Sparkling gems were wrapped within—earrings in ruby and garnet, and an awe-inspiring three-tiered diamond necklace and matching earrings. The setting sun hit the jewels, sending rainbow prisms around the room. Even the cat turned its head to gape at the shimmering array.
“I have sold off a few pieces of furniture, as I think you guessed,” Vera said, looking around at the room. “That and some of the jewelry I don’t much wear these days. These pieces that I have left were gifts from Richard over the years. They’re precious to me but more precious now is my freedom to move on. I think these should be more than enough to find out what happened to him.”
Billie had to agree. Even with diamond values being diminished, with all the desperate people trying to sell off jewels to survive, these would fetch Vera Montgomery plenty of pounds.
“You’ll have your money, Ms. Walker,” she said. “You just find out what happened to my Richard. And I beg you, do it fast.”
Nine
The wealthy pregnant widow . . .
On Sunday afternoon, Billie knocked at the front door and then walked into the flat at Cliffside almost in a single motion, having arrived straight from her second visit that weekend to Vera’s place in Potts Point. As the details came together, she was excited at the prospect of the challenging and lucrative puzzle ahead of her—her favorite type of puzzle. It wasn’t her own flat she burst into. It was one upstairs from hers, one that she knew almost as well.
“Billie!” Alma McGuire emerged from the kitchen with open arms, her eyes crinkling kindly in the corners. Her strawberry-and-silver hair was curled tightly, apron flour-splattered. “You look wonderful.”
“Thank you, dear Alma.” Billie grinned and paused to enjoy Alma’s affectionate embrace—a hug from Alma was a comfort like few others, a Rock of Gibraltar in a changing world—and she glanced around the flat to see where her mother was. She didn’t need to look far. As usual, Baroness Ella von Hooft was reclining on her lounge in the front room overlooking the waters of Double Bay far below, sherry in hand, her hair set in perfect, black-dyed marcel waves. It was Sunday, which meant sequins. The baroness was a creature of habit. Her daughter knew she was most relaxed at this time of day, and the sherry might help the conversation go more successfully. Billie’s timing was quite intentional.
“You’re going, aren’t you?” Alma whispered, knowing something of the possibility of Billie’s travel.
Billie nodded and smiled.
Being a widowed only child, with no children, her mother and Alma were all the family Billie had, or was likely to have, and though this would not be the first time she was leaving them for foreign shores, it would be the first time since the shocking passing of her father, Barry Walker. Alma—officially Ella’s lady’s maid but better described as her constant companion—was something like a wise auntie to Billie. She’d been employed initially to help raise baby Billie, back when they lived in their grand terrace in Potts Point and had the kind of staff appropriate to a house of its kind and to Ella’s title, and even after everyone else was let go, Alma remained. Since the death of Billie’s father in ’44, Ella and Alma had been inseparable, but there was a loneliness—a deep sense of loss—there that Billie was reluctant to leave untended. She’d arrived back from Europe to it three years earlier and wondered if it would ever shift.
“No whispering, you two. Now, what would you like, darling?” Ella asked Billie loudly from her position on the lounge, raising a manicured hand in something like the young Queen Elizabeth’s imperious wave. Billie’s mother was, after all, the queen of her domain.
As the third of five children of the late Baron von Hooft, a former mayor of Arnhem, Holland, Ella had aristocratic blood, though she now led a somewhat less upper-class lifestyle, after two marriages, two world wars, a child, and the ravages of the Depression. She was not quite maternal but no less loving than Alma, in her way. She would do anything for her only child, Billie knew, but Ella was her own woman and did not bow to ideas of how a mother ought to behave.
“A drop of sherry will be fine,” Billie told Alma softly, putting a hand on one of her soft, sturdy shoulders. “Thank you. Only a drop.” She indicated the requested amount with her fingers. “But Ella may require another,” she added with a sly grin, and both women laughed.
Billie walked over and settled near her mother, arranging the luxurious cushions to best suit her. “It’s good to see you, Mum . . . Ella,” she said, and turned to take in her mother’s pale, porcelain face.
“And you also, my girl. I must say, you look radiant, though you know I do dislike it when you call me ‘Mum.’ You know it makes me feel old. Now, what’s happening? I can see you have news. What were you two whispering about?”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to join you for lunch today. I do have some news, actually,” Billie began. Sunday lunch was their usual routine, and Billie tried her best to carve out time for it each week, but today she’d been to Vera’s house again, working through what papers she could find in Richard’s den, and earlier she had been busy packing. “Good goddess, the sunset is lovely this evening . . .” she remarked, stalling until Alma brought her a glass from which she could take a medicinal swig.
Ella watched her, shrewd eyes narrowed, until Alma came over, dainty crystal glass of sherry in hand, and passed it to Billie.
“Are you having one as well?” Billie asked her, and Alma shook her head, retreating with a gentle smile, likely knowing there would be fireworks.
“Out with it, darling,” Ella urged impatiently from Billie’s side.
Billie smiled and took a moment to take a swig of the sherry—the dry taste and the slightly sweet, nutty flavor moving over her tongue and stinging her throat on the way down. She took a breath, now suitably braced for the conversation, and looked out over the treetops. “Indeed, I do have news, and good news at that. I’m leaving for London, on the case I mentioned to you briefly on the phone. We’re securing tickets on the Qantas Lancastrian service for Tuesday. It’s quite a coup, actually. I thought it might take weeks to get a takeoff, if at all.”
“Tuesday? So soon? And on a war plane?” Her mother sat up and frowned. “Honestly, darling, how ghastly,” she said. “If this client is so well-heeled, as you claim, why on earth isn’t she sending you over first-class, by ship, like other civilized people?”
Billie groaned and closed her eyes.
She had been rather hoping her mother would wish her luck, or perhaps even say something about the prospect of missing her daughter terribly while she was away. She might even congratulate her on her employment, something they were all increasingly reliant on these days, truth be told. Most people felt damn lucky to be employed at the moment, and Billie was no exception.
“My client is paying us by the day,” she explained to Ella as patiently as she could. “Six weeks’ passage with pay for every day I luxuriate in the first-class cabin of a ship, enjoying the sights, isn’t what most clients have in mind when they engage me, you’ll be surprised to hear.” Particularly at the day rate she agreed to, Billie thought. “Besides, the Lancaster bombers have been converted for the service.”
Somewhat. She had heard they were terrifically cramped and noisy planes, but it was the fastest way to London. In this case it really would be all about the destination and not the journey.
“Good goddess, you are serious, aren’t you? Couldn’t she stretch for the Hythe flying-boat service, at the very least?” Ella continued, evidently aghast.
Billie laughed to herself. The Hythe flying boats took longer than travel on the converted Lancastrian planes, with the next departure being weeks away, and there was only one class of travel available on the Hythe—first. Her little agency was moving up in the world, perhaps even rising faster than it had under her father when he’d first opened its doors years before, but you wouldn’t know it to speak with Ella. The Lancastrian would be just fine, and Billie was rather pleased with her negotiations, actually. At only three days, travel on the Qantas service was blessedly fast and quite safe now that the Axis powers were no longer shooting these planes out of the skies. Billie and Sam would get to the other side of the world in one piece, if a touch rattled. She’d factored in a couple of days of rest on their arrival in London, which seemed sensible given the conditions and their travel through several time zones.
Ella was still shaking her head, evidently set on being difficult. It was as if she had entirely forgotten their financial circumstances. This wasn’t 1925.
“We won’t be dropping any bombs along the way, I assure you. If you must know, I’m quite pleased with the arrangements,” Billie said. “I’ve made up a copy of the itinerary for you both, so you shall know where we are.” She offered the papers and Ella snatched them up, reading aloud. Alma reappeared in the doorway of the kitchen to listen, curious, but wisely keeping her distance.
“Tuesday, nine p.m., depart Sydney,” Ella began. “Wednesday, five a.m., arrive Darwin; seven a.m., depart Darwin; two thirty p.m., arrive Singapore; four thirty p.m., depart Singapore; eleven p.m., arrive Calcutta.”
“Yes, I know it’s—”
“Thursday, one a.m., depart Calcutta. One in the morning!” Ella cried. “Seven forty-five a.m., arrive Karachi; one thirty p.m., depart Karachi; eight p.m., arrive Lydda; ten p.m., depart Lydda. Friday, two a.m., arrive Castel Benito; four twenty a.m., depart Castel Benito; and, thank the heavens, eleven twenty p.m., arrive London.” Ella put the papers down again, indignant that a daughter of hers would sign up for such a trip.
Billie took a breath. “Granted, by all accounts we’ll be mostly deaf by the time we arrive in London,” she remarked, only half joking. “But we’ll get there.”
“And did I hear you say ‘we’?”
Billie took a sip from the dainty glass, now wishing she’d asked for more sherry, anticipating what was to come. “You did indeed hear a ‘we.’ Naturally I will be working, and traveling, with my assistant, Mr. Baker,” she said evenly, making it sound like it was never a question of whether or not he would join her.
“Oh, now, that is good news.” Ella grabbed Billie’s wrist so suddenly Billie nearly spilled her drink. “He is one young man worth spending time with,” she told her daughter, rather too forcefully making her usual point.
Billie looked down at the hand that gripped her. It was adorned with the remaining glittering von Hooft family gems, fingernails immaculately polished a deep cherry red. “We’ve been through this. Samuel is my employee,” she said, gently pulling her arm away.
Ella and her judo moves.
“As I’ve told you, darling, there isn’t a thing wrong with the man, including being your employee. It worked just fine for me.”
“My dear father was not your employee, exactly,” Billie pointed out.
“Well, I hired him,” Ella shot back. In her periphery, Billie saw Alma slide back into the kitchen.
This was a well-worn track for mother and daughter, and an unhelpful one. It was true that Ella had rather cleverly managed to get out of one marriage and into another by hiring Barry Walker, private inquiry agent, who had successfully proved her husband’s infidelity and won Ella’s heart with impressive speed. But that little slice of family history was hardly the same thing as the working relationship between Billie and Sam. He was her assistant. Her secretary.
“Perhaps you will come back with a new husband,” Ella remarked.
Billie narrowed her eyes, refusing to dignify the comment with a response.
“Haven’t you seen the way that boy looks at you, Billie my dear? No wonder he will follow you on a rattling old bomber over the Indian Ocean. He’d follow you to perdition if you asked him.”
Billie suppressed a laugh. Her mother did have a flair for the dramatic. “London isn’t much described as hell these days, though they did have an awfully tough winter,” she shot back.
It had been the coldest on record. Coal and petrol were terrifically scarce and families had frozen in their own homes, from the reports Billie had seen. The Victory Gardens planted during the war had been snow covered; animals had frozen or starved to death; and roofs had collapsed under feet of heavy snow. Were there to be no fruits of victory? had been the lament. The toll of war would likely be felt for years, for victor and vanquished alike, and Billie knew that London wouldn’t have recovered, not by half, nor Paris for that matter, but going back was still an exciting, if daunting, prospect for her.
Billie had been pulled into her mother’s baiting quite enough for one evening, thank you very much. “I did want to ask you if you have any contacts in London that might assist with my case. Do you know the Caversham-Smithe family by chance?” she said, steering the conversation away from her lack of a love life.
Ella’s eyes flashed with interest. “Why, yes, I know of the Caversham-Smithes, of course, but I haven’t had reason to meet them, darling. Didn’t they send their daughter down here some years back? The usual learning experience down under. She spent a while in Sydney, I understand.”
Blast. No direct connection there. “Yes, I had heard that about the daughter,” Billie said, and thought again of Richard and his tendency to photograph young women. Perhaps it was just the bias of Billie’s profession—seeing as she did the worst of human behavior, including predatory men—but it made her question if his motives had been strictly professional.
“What will you do with your flat? Alma can look after it while you’re away, can’t you, Alma?” Ella suggested.
“Oh no, I don’t need you to do that, Alma,” Billie responded. “Thank you, but no. I am perfectly happy to brush away the cobwebs myself when I return.”
“I won’t hear of it. Alma, you must—”
Billie cut her mother off. “No, Ella. I mean it.”
Billie didn’t want anyone in her flat, and she certainly didn’t need the very lovely Alma dusting her bookshelves or drinks cabinet. For what purpose? Had she a more normal life, she might possess houseplants for someone to look after, or a pet, or even a husband or child, but alas, strange fates and the demands of Billie’s unusual profession did not encourage domestic routine or responsibilities.
“My colleague Shyla—you remember Shyla—she’ll be picking up the mail at the office, and so on. There shouldn’t be anything else to do. You have my contact details here,” she said, again indicating the itinerary she had prepared. “Sam and I will be at the Strand Palace, London, and then at the Ritz Paris, if all goes well. If we stray elsewhere for the case, or for anything else, I will inform you by telegram at my earliest opportunity.”
