Miss Fay le Mont attended her first spieler a week later, having persuaded Ramsay to take her and introduce her. It was a modest affair, just people enjoying losing their money, and Freda only cheated when she was in a corner, which wasn’t often. The pair of them tried to spread themselves across as many different venues as they could, in case people grew wary of the little card sharp who had infiltrated their evenings. Freda was generous with Ramsay, sharing her winnings with him at the beginning, but eventually she started to go to games on her own.
Ramsay wasn’t bothered, his book had been accepted by a London publisher and that was all he could talk about. My novel this, my novel that. It was called The Age of Glitter and had created a bit of interest amongst the “literary crowd,” as he referred to them to Freda, because it was supposed to be a “romanaclay,” which meant there were real people in it, disguised by different names—so, much like real life, then, as far as Freda was concerned. She read a few pages but it was hard going and she soon gave up. Other people did, too, and interest in the novel didn’t last long and it didn’t sell as many copies as expected. Ramsay wrote two more novels, but they failed to get a publisher. The Age of Glitter had gone “out of print” within a couple of years, he told her indignantly. That was the last time she saw him—it was during the phoney war and she was running a little bar in Mayfair that she’d bought with the proceeds of her spieler winnings. It was quite a classy place and Vanda, it turned out, scrubbed up well to work behind the bar, where she was very popular. When the real war got going, though, despite her age, Vanda reverted to her old trade, too profitable to be ignored. Those boys in uniform needed mothering, she said. “Well, that’s one word for it,” Duncan would have said.
Freda lived a long life away from the stage and ended her days running a pub in Suffolk that she bought after the war. By then she was married and had a daughter, whom she had insisted on naming Florence after her lost friend, an old-fashioned name that the new Florence resented for the rest of her life. As the Sixties swung in, Florence became a fashion model and rechristened herself Jenny.
At the end of the war, when she was still living in London, Freda’s eye had been caught by the name “Ramsay Coker” in a newspaper. It was the report of an inquest, followed by a short obituary. Mr. Ramsay Coker had been found on the pavement below his third-floor flat in Hans Crescent, and although there was some question of him having taken his own life, an open verdict was recorded after evidence was heard about his chronic alcoholism and drug addiction. The newspaper article failed to mention The Age of Glitter, only reporting that Ramsay was “the son of the notorious nightclub owner Nellie Coker.”
* * *
—
After Frobisher’s death, Lottie was institutionalized in a large house in the country. It was an expensive place, an asylum for the wealthy, blessed with extensive grounds, good food, plenty of pastimes to occupy the unbalanced minds within. Lottie’s fees were paid for the rest of her surprisingly long life by a benefactor, a Miss Kelling, who never visited.
* * *
—
Nellie lost nearly all of her money in the 1929 crash and died a few years later. According to her daughters, standing vigil at her deathbed, her last words were “Oh, look, here’s Maud,” words which made no sense to any of them. She had lived long enough to see both Betty and Shirley married to minor aristocrats. She treated herself to a new fur for each of their weddings. Luckily, she didn’t live long enough to witness their divorces. Edith continued to run the remnants of Nellie’s clubs, less and less profitable as time went on. The Amethyst, along with Edith herself, was destroyed by a direct hit during the Blitz. Kitty ended her days as a fixture at the bar in the Colony Room Club, where she slowly drank herself to death.
* * *
—
William Cobb retired in 1951 as a Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, which just goes to show how far a dull man can rise if he simply turns up for work every day.
* * *
—
The spate of mysterious killings in London came to an equally mysterious end. The murder of Vivian Quinn was considered to be the final flourish of whatever “deranged maniac” (the Daily Mail) had walked the streets of London choosing his victims at random. One of the many, many theories suggested over the subsequent years was that the killings were not in fact random, but misdirections to disguise the fact that Quinn was the intended target all along. No motive was proposed for Quinn’s murder, although several rumours took life and then died. One was that he was writing an investigative piece about London criminals, who decided that he knew too much. Another suggested he had been involved in a “homosexual liaison” with one of the more promiscuous members of the Royal Family. Eventually, Quinn’s death faded to become no more than the occasional small footnote in the histories written about this period.
Arrangement
“You’ve got a dog?” Niven said, glancing at the little terrier that was standing in the hallway behind Gwendolen, regarding him expectantly.
“I do.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
“I suppose I should.”
They sat down at opposite ends of the pink velvet, rather formal. She had no memory of the kiss, although that didn’t prevent her from imagining it now.
“Does he have a name?” Niven asked, making a fuss of the dog. Niven’s own dog held himself aloof from sentiment.
“Pierrot,” she said.
“Pierrot?”
“He’s Frobisher’s dog.”
“Ah.”
“His wife’s really, I suppose, but she didn’t want him.”
“I didn’t know he had a wife.”
“No, well, he kept her very quiet,” Gwendolen said. “She’s rather a sad case.”
“Poor Frobisher. I think you were close to him.”
“I was at his funeral this morning. I accompanied his wife.”
“Ah.”
“It was a fancy affair—dress uniform, sword salute, that kind of thing. He would have hated it. Did you want something? I’m rather tired, I’m afraid.”
“Yes. I came to ask you if you would come away with me.”
“Away? Where?” She imagined he meant Brighton or Eastbourne. Her last day trip hadn’t ended well.
“Anywhere you like,” he said. “France, Italy, America, even. We could buy a ranch. Ride horses.”
“Horses?” She laughed. “I barely know you! I was thinking of returning to York. London’s charms have rather faded for me.”
“Don’t go. I don’t want to live without you.”
“Goodness, how dramatic you are, all of a sudden!” Gwendolen said. “We’ve barely exchanged a word and now you want to ride horses with me on a ranch in America. You sound like a romantic novelist.”
“I didn’t say I can’t live without you—I expect I can live without you very well, I’ve managed for thirty-odd years, after all. I said I don’t want to live without you.”
“Is this really your idea of a proposal? To harangue me?”
“It’s not a proposal. Not a marriage one, anyway,” he said.
“Well, thank goodness for that. Does love come into this arrangement?”
“Love?” The word startled both of them into silence.
Gwendolen surprised herself even more by saying, “Can I think about it?”
“No,” Niven said. “If you think about it you won’t come with me.” He stood up abruptly and held out his hand to her. And there they must remain, suspended between coming and going for ever.
The Laughing Policeman
“Is it a hanging?” the boy asked his neighbour, standing in the crowd outside Pentonville prison. Yes, the very same newspaper delivery boy that we met outside Holloway many chapters ago. Always eager for an execution, his wishes were being fulfilled on a miserably wet morning in early December.