“Well, that decides it. It’s Rebecca not Gone With The Wind. Do you agree, Claire?”
Detective Constable Tommy Cole adjusted his salmon-pink tie nervously. This was his third date with Claire Robinson. The first one had been as long ago as February, but he had been sent in March on a training course in connection with his move to CID and had only returned to duty at the Yard in July. Fortunately, no one else had taken the opportunity to move in on her and a second date a week ago when Claire had returned from leave had gone very well. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help feeling that his aspirations were far above his station. He came from a very ordinary working-class background. His father was a fitter in a factory in Wembley. Tommy had gone into the police straight from school and somehow or other landed on his feet at the Yard. WPC Robinson was Assistant Commissioner Gatehouse’s niece. Before graduating from Hendon Police College she had been to public school and her family owned a large country manor in Hampshire as well as a large house in the suburbs. She was also extremely attractive with strawberry blonde hair cut short, twinkling brown eyes, a sweet button nose beneath which lay a charming little beauty spot, and a full and welcoming mouth. She was a jolly girl, who almost always seemed to be smiling. She was also quite tall and leggy. Cole liked tall and leggy girls. All in all, she was perfect, he thought, but he couldn’t quite see what she saw in him. Cole was also tall, 6’2” to be precise. His mother said he was lean and trim – he thought he was too skinny. He would like to be at least a stone heavier and to that end he had recently purchased a muscle-building book by Charles Atlas, and had got hold of some Indian clubs and dumbbells on the cheap from a friend of his dad. To match his body he had a long, thin face. He had broken his nose when he had fallen in a cross-country race a year before and when he looked at his face in the mirror he missed his old nose. His large, blue eyes were alright, he supposed, although one seemed to be a little lower than the other and his mouth seemed to have shrunk a little since he was a teenager. Well, whatever the deficiencies of his face, Claire Robinson seemed to find it acceptable. She had even kissed it on their last outing, on the cheek not the lips, but nevertheless…
“I love Laurence Olivier, Tommy. You know that. I always wanted to see this film tonight.”
“Righto.”
They joined the end of the queue. An old, peg-legged man was singing ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ and shuffling along the line. Claire Robinson put tuppence in the hat he held out and put her hand on Cole’s arm. “Mr Merlin seemed rather cheerful in the office today, Tommy. Didn’t you think so?”
“I didn’t see him today. Sergeant Bridges sent me to Earl’s Court to check out some suspicious goings on.”
“Suspicious goings on. That sounds exciting!”
“Well, it wasn’t. Some old biddy said that she was sure her next-door neighbours were German spies. Said she could hear them speaking German and operating a radio transmitter.”
“And were they?”
“Well, they were speaking something like German and they had a radio, but that’s about it. They were a nice, old, Jewish couple speaking Yiddish to each other – Yiddish sounds like German, you know. They were in their seventies and had escaped here from Hungary. I told the old biddy there was nothing to worry about, but she kept on ranting at me and I had to threaten her with arrest if she didn’t pipe down.”
“So did that take all day?”
“No, after I finished sorting that one out, the sergeant asked me to go and investigate a supposed sabotage attempt at Chelsea power station.”
“And?”
“Nothing. Just a quarrel between two engineers that had got out of hand.”
Claire smiled sympathetically. “Oh, well. Anyway, Mr Merlin asked me into the office to ask me to research something for him.”