The War Widow Read online

  ‘It’s not like that,’ she managed, recovering herself. She wondered if Ella had learned that move from her late husband. It was something like the judo of Tokugoro Ito’s dojo in Los Angeles. Barry had known someone who’d trained there and had taught Billie a few moves, third hand. It was all about leverage and balance. He’d obviously also handed on some of the tips to his wife.

  ‘Maybe it should be like that,’ Ella persisted.

  ‘Thank you, but I assure you that when I do decide to find a man I won’t be paying him to spend time with me,’ Billie retorted and rose, smoothing down the crepe folds of her dress.

  ‘Why not? It worked for me,’ her mother shot back. A little wicked grin was apparent in the crease of her mouth.

  ‘Just don’t keep holding on to the past,’ Ella added, and on that uncomfortable note Billie extracted herself from the flat and made her way downstairs to prepare for a second evening at The Dancers, trying her best to push aside thoughts of Jack Rake and the larger mystery that haunted her, but she had not yet come even close to solving.

  * * *

  Billie held her champagne cocktail in gloved fingers and listened to the music as she surveyed the crowd at The Dancers with sparkling eyes the colour of her mother’s sapphires, which were once again hanging around her neck and dangling from her ears. A five-piece band was playing ‘As Long as I Live’, a Benny Goodman hit she hadn’t heard since Europe, and the patrons were doing their expensive swaying. Little appeared to have changed at the club from the night before. A different and yet identical set of wealthy guests had gathered around the central tables in a different set of frocks that were also somehow the same. The same gossip and agendas and romances and social climbing and business deals were unfolding. The old–young faced barman was the same, the doormen the same. They were peddling the same champagne-soaked fantasy world, just on a different night. The second time around, one was less dazzled, less distracted from the grime under the stools, the drink spills on the carpet. In daylight, The Dancers would not be so pretty, Billie guessed. Still, they put on a good show; she had to give them that.

  ‘What can I get the lovely lady?’ the barman asked smoothly, noting she was nearing the end of her glass and no longer making the mistake of looking to her male companion to decide her drink for her.

  ‘I’m fine for now, thank you,’ she replied.

  ‘Anything for you, miss.’

  ‘I’m fine, too,’ Sam interjected, and the barman gave a subtle nod, barely looking his way. Billie continued to survey the room. ‘Are we looking for anyone in particular tonight?’ Sam asked her, sensing her focus.

  ‘Yes, in fact we are,’ she responded. His work at the library had turned up one key detail. Sam had retrieved some solid information on the auction house and its owner, including, in the back pages of a catalogue that he, unlike Billie, had not had time to examine, one small photograph of Georges Boucher himself. ‘It seems he was here in front of us,’ she explained. The rotund man at the table the night before was almost certainly Boucher, which would explain the little box he’d been brandishing. That country couple had doubtless been clients.

  ‘Boucher,’ Sam whispered. ‘The penny has dropped, as the Americans say. So, he was the reason the kid wanted to get in, do you think? Or do you still think he was mooning over a girl?’

  ‘I don’t much believe in coincidence,’ Billie replied. In her experience there was no such thing. ‘I’m going to try the doorman again; you watch the room. Look out for Boucher, okay?’

  Taking her time, she sauntered towards the powder room in her inky dress, then slipped past it and continued all the way out of the main room, down the stairs to the street entrance. She was pleased to find the doorman she wanted to speak with still out the front, as he had been on their way in. He wasn’t busy now. Billie smiled when she saw his bony countenance, but as soon as his eyes clocked her, his long face fell yet further and he turned away.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she called, moving fast on her low heels and taking him by one shoulder. She gave her best winning smile. ‘I can’t help but feel you aren’t happy to see me.’

  The smile had no discernible effect, unless the effect was fear. His dark brown eyes were large, and almost scared. ‘No offence, but I have nothing to say to you, lady,’ he told her flatly, eyes focusing on his feet.

  One of Billie’s arched eyebrows rose. ‘I’m sure that isn’t so,’ she said, whispering now. ‘The boy I’m looking for, Adin Brown, wanted something from Georges Boucher, didn’t he? Boucher uses this place as a kind of office for his better clients? He’s here every weekend wining and dining them and trying to interest them in auction items, or private sales. The kid wanted to speak with him, is that right? Trying to pawn something, perhaps? He was getting nowhere at the auction house so he tried to catch Boucher here? Stop me when I tell you something you don’t already know.’

  The man looked positively stricken. ‘I don’t know anything and I don’t want anything to do with it.’ He looked this way and that, to see if anyone was watching, or perhaps to find an escape point. ‘I don’t know anything about anything,’ he reiterated, palms up.

  Billie was not convinced. ‘Oh, but you do. And I can make it worth your while,’ she explained. ‘And Boucher isn’t here yet to see you talk with me this time.’

  The man hesitated, closed his fingers around the coins she dropped in his hand, and shut his eyes. ‘You’re going to get me into trouble, lady,’ he said, defeated.

  A couple emerged from the main doors and he turned his back and pretended to busy himself while another doorman assisted them. When they were gone, she continued in low, soothing tones. ‘Just tell me what the conversation was that you had, then I’ll be out of here and this will all be over—’

  ‘Not here,’ he replied, cutting her off and darting his eyes from side to side again. ‘I can’t be seen talking to you. I’m at the People’s Palace,’ he said. The lodging house was named rather ironically, but Billie knew it. ‘I’ll be there at one-thirty, after I get off. Room 305.’ He paused. ‘Maybe I’ll meet you in the lobby. I might have to let you in. I know that’s late, but—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she agreed. The death house could wait another night. ‘People’s Palace, 305. Your name?’

  ‘Con Zervos,’ he muttered.

  Another patron walked out of the ballroom and Billie turned away, pretending to adjust her gloves. When she turned around again, Zervos had already ducked away, as nervous as a greyhound. Billie noticed the staff entrance to the kitchen swing shut. He wanted distance from her, at least while he was here. Fair enough. She turned on her heel and walked back up the stairs. The doors were opened for her and she stole a look across the main ballroom at Sam, who was doing a fine impression of the kind of man who liked it there. She crossed the dance floor feeling quietly triumphant and slid into the stool beside him without a sound.

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’ she queried, and his gaze, which had been fixed on a woman dancing in a low-backed gown, went to her immediately.

  ‘Crikey, how do you do that?’ he asked, looking startled by her sudden presence.

  Billie just smiled. ‘Lovely sequin detail on that dress,’ she said, thinking of her mother’s comment. ‘Really draws the eye.’

  He appeared to blush.

  ‘I’ve got a date at one-thirty at the Palace. The People’s Palace, not the theatre.’ She leaned back and planted her elbows on the edge of the long bar, sliding one leg over the other.

  ‘The doorman?’ her assistant queried.

  She nodded. ‘One and the same.’

  ‘At one-thirty in the morning?’ He frowned. ‘Obviously I’m coming.’

  ‘No, you aren’t. I don’t need any safety net.’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘And I have a hunch he doesn’t want extra company,’ Billie said in a low voice.

  ‘Do you think? I’m coming,’ Sam said, insistent.

  Billie sighed. ‘I don’t want a babysitter
, Sam. That’s not what I’m paying you for.’

  ‘Since when am I a babysitter? I’m coming.’

  Now it was her turn to frown. ‘Okay, but you’ll have to wait outside.’ It might be a good idea to have back-up, though Con seemed a nice enough fellow, and more nervous by a country mile than she was. She could handle the likes of him, she was sure of that. Sam nodded in agreement and slowly finished his planter’s punch while she watched the room. No sign of Boucher, yet.

  ‘You think you can last here another hour or so?’ she asked him quietly.

  ‘Is that a real question?’

  ‘I see,’ she said, smiling. Sam was clearly liking this more than the usual dosshouse or back alley he had to frequent in their line of work. ‘Well, we can’t hold up the bar forever. I think we’ll have to dance,’ she suggested.

  She pulled Sam towards the dance floor, and they inserted themselves among the throng of swaying patrons, standing close to each other and then swaying in time, measuring the moment. This would provide a different, less obvious vantage point for a while. She placed one gloved hand on Sam’s right shoulder, which was practically at her eye line; he took her other hand lightly in his leather-gloved one, his thumb pressing gently against her curled fingers, and slid his strong right hand around her waist. She could just make out the feel of the false fingers and the real ones as their hands touched. There was electricity there in the touch between them, taking her off guard. Billie winced, then fought off the feeling with a bite of her lip. Memories. Just memories of Jack. Of intimacy. Had that been the last time she’d danced? Now it was Sam’s turn to lead, and she felt his unspoken hesitation. ‘She is my boss,’ that hesitation seemed to say, and perhaps he’d felt her inner jolt. Side, side, rock step, side, side . . . He was younger and stronger than a lot of the other men on the dance floor, but more tentative. They looked at each other, her head tilted up to meet him, his aquamarine eyes searching her face for the right moves, the right approach. Just then the tempo changed and their gaze broke.

  The band was back to its Benny Goodman set list, a new song, a touch faster. Would he be okay with this faster tempo? And could she really dance in this dress? Well, yes. She could run in it, too. She turned back to her dance partner just in time to see his face break into a wide grin as the rhythm quickened. As if in answer to her unspoken question, Sam swung her out from him, guiding her lightly with his gloved hand before pulling her close with his right, his body coming confidently to life. Billie laughed softly as he swung her out again and their clasped hands rose up like a steeple. She spun beneath their raised hands, whirling and feeling weightless, the peplum of her dark dress fanning out around her. For a blissful moment her body took over – and that was the beauty of dance, wasn’t it? – her body moving to his lead, and her mind for just a little while taking its focus off the purpose of their visit to this place, off the case, off the mystery and the violence in the world. His injured left hand taking her right with surprising ease, Sam spun her out again and she came back, curling into his broad chest. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to dance.

  Eyes . . .

  There was the feeling again. Billie felt eyes drilling into her, not observing the dance, but watching her, just like she’d felt at the arcade. She was pulled from the moment and scanned the dance floor, then the tables beyond, her face dropping as she concentrated.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Sam whispered, and Billie saw the question more than heard it. The music had not slowed, and they transitioned into an open hold and moved towards each other then away in sugar push as Billie nodded that she was fine, but broke again from his gaze to watch the crowd, trying to identify whose stare she felt. Was she being paranoid? Now side by side, Billie followed Sam’s backward lock steps, almost in time, and it brought her back to their dance. She had to watch him to anticipate their next move, and that made other preoccupations impossible for the moment. He sent her out in a lindy whip and she kept her eyes on him, her focus returned, turning, swapping hands and doing a Texas Tommy. She’d had no idea her assistant could dance like this. He was tall and fluid, yet retained his raw charm; he was naturally elegant but unpolished, never too smooth, never too practised.

  Time flew, and the music’s tempo slowed again; the patrons returned to their swaying. Had it been a different crowd, they might have pushed things up a notch to a jitterbug, but not with this set. Billie looked once more for Boucher, for the country couple, the woman in violet, the pale man. None was to be found. She’d spent more time looking at Sam than she’d expected, but the dance had required that.

  ‘I’m impressed. You didn’t step on my feet once,’ Billie quipped.

  ‘And you didn’t fall over,’ he countered, not missing a beat.

  She laughed. ‘Touché.’ They made their way back to the bar, which was beginning to clear. ‘My lolly kicks aren’t what they ought to be.’

  ‘Is that what they call those?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Barman, can I have some water please?’

  ‘Whatever you want, lovely lady. You dance well,’ he replied.

  Billie smiled at the compliment, though she doubted it was true.

  ‘I haven’t danced like that for years,’ Sam confided, and Billie wondered why. His injury was no real hindrance, she’d noticed. She’d never seen her assistant with his glove off, but he clearly had enough comfort with his thumb and his pinky to guide his partner and keep that hand in play. Surely Eunice would like to dance with him? He was a young man and dancing is what young people did when they weren’t on the front lines, wasn’t it? But while other couples had done the lindy in dance halls, she’d been crawling through bombed-out buildings with Jack, sleeping off long, dangerous nights in strange beds with Jack. Their courtship had involved dancing, but much else as well, not all of it traditional. A photographer and a reporter driven by the same things, the war had brought them together – and ultimately torn them apart, it seemed.

  ‘I’d forgotten what it was like, too,’ Billie replied. Sam’s personal business was his own, and she would do well to forget her personal business in that moment, too. She had to be on the job, not thinking of her husband missing across the seas.

  The barman returned with two tumblers of water. Billie took hers, lifted it to her lips and downed it quickly. Dancing made her thirsty. Sam watched her for a moment, gave her another of his grins and excused himself to the men’s room. Billie watched him go, the white dinner jacket sitting just so on his broad shoulders. She scanned the slowly dissipating crowd. Boucher had been entertaining his guests by this hour the night before. He was unlikely to show now. Perhaps the previous night had been a fluke, or maybe Fridays were his usual routine. His was not a late-night trade. Perhaps it was for the best that he didn’t see her again tonight. She wondered what the auction would be like the next day, and if he would be a strong presence there, or would prefer to hover out of sight. The real question was why the boy was trying to reach Boucher, if that really was his reason for trying to get into The Dancers.

  ‘Miss . . .’ a voice said.

  It was the barman. He smoothly delivered a glass of champagne in a delicate coupe, placing it at her gloved fingertips. ‘Why thank you, but I didn’t order this,’ Billie protested. She didn’t protest too hard.

  ‘This one is on the house,’ the barman said. ‘You seem thirsty.’ His lips curled a bit at the corners, his eyes crinkling. ‘And it’s nearing closing time. It’d be a shame to waste the rest of the bottle, particularly when there’s someone like you at the bar.’

  ‘You devil,’ she replied, thinking this wasn’t his first time flirting with a customer, and she smiled mischievously in response. ‘Thank you kindly.’ She took a sip. The champagne was good. ‘I was meaning to ask if you knew anything about some boys who came round last weekend, trying to get in. Adin Brown, five foot nine, curly hair? Did you hear anything about that?’

  The barman leaned towards her, perhaps closer than was professional. ‘Like I
told your boyfriend, I don’t know anything about him. He sounds too young to be coming to this place.’ It was an honest enough answer, she decided.

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ Billie corrected him, sipping the champagne. It went down beautifully. ‘And regardless of what you might have to say to anyone else, I was wondering what you thought about it, on the QT. Did those boys cause a bit of a scene? An embarrassment of some sort?’

  The barman flicked his eyes to something or someone behind Billie, and he stiffened, his demeanour switching in an instant. ‘Look lovely lady, I wish I could talk to you,’ he said, ‘but I have my job to consider. Sorry.’ He moved away to polish the far end of the bar.

  Blast, Billie thought. She turned and scanned the room. She’d thought she had him. Who was it who’d caught his eye?

  Sam arrived a beat later, looking cut up about something.

  ‘You didn’t give the bartender a cross look, did you?’ Billie asked, a touch accusingly.

  ‘No. But guess who I saw in the corridor?’ he seethed, clearly focused on something else entirely. ‘That bloody eye-tie.’

  Billie sighed. This was just what she needed. Sam had what might delicately be called ‘impatience’ with Italians since Tobruk and that AR-4. ‘You aren’t still holding a grudge against the entire population of Italians, are you, Sam?’ she responded darkly, and sipped her bubbles.

  ‘Pardon? You don’t hold anything against them?’ Sam snapped angrily. ‘Against the Japs? The Germans?’

  ‘Look, let’s not argue about this. It’s late.’ Of course she had some raw feelings about the Axis Powers. Of course she did.

  ‘It takes a nation to support a leader like—’

  Billie closed her eyes. ‘Nazis are a different matter, Sam. Or Mussolini himself. But millions of civilians can’t be blamed for wars waged by their leaders. What about those German students, the White Rose resistance, who were hung, even though they were kids? There were civilians who protested against what their governments were doing, and plenty more who wanted to protest but feared for their lives. Hell, I heard a story today about a Jewish German family . . .’ She trailed off, deciding it wasn’t important for Sam to know the Browns were a German-born family, not while he was in this state. ‘How’s that for a betrayal by your own leaders – you aren’t worthy of living in your own country because you were born a Jew.’ After the lead with Con, and some dancing that had unexpectedly made her feel more herself again, the evening was turning to hell, and fast.