The King is dead.
As Libby travelled across the city, the London she could see from the top deck of the bus was draped in black and when she disembarked at Victoria station, the swirl of travellers and businessmen was sombre and muted and she was glad of it. That, for these few days, until the funeral had passed, London, England, the whole damn Empire, matched the dark mood that she’d carried round with her these past few weeks. Now, no one would dare to tell her to cheer up or to will away her troubles with a smile.
She hurried across the road, breath curling in the air like puffs of dragon smoke, her destination a small hotel down a side street.
Libby paused in the doorway and looked around the lobby. The lighting was dim, the mood hushed. Even the ferns drooping in big brass pots added to the general air of despondency.
There were two men sitting in the darkest, furthest corner and as Libby squinted in their direction, one of them caught her eye and stood up.
Despite the gravitas of the days since the King had passed, Mickey Flynn hadn’t thought to adjust his swagger, his cocky grin or exchange one of his famously lurid silk neckties for a shade more fitting.
‘Libby, my darling,’ he greeted her, brushing his lips against the cheek she proffered. ‘Why the long face? Has someone died?’
‘Oh, Mickey,’ she admonished him. ‘That’s in very poor taste even for you.’
Mickey ducked his head. ‘Now why would a fellow like me be weeping over the death of an English king?’ he asked, exaggerating his brogue so he sounded as if he were fresh off the boat, when Libby knew full well that he’d been born and bred in Kilburn.
‘Because someone’s dead and that’s always sad,’ she said as Mickey took her case and guided her to a table near the window, quite some distance away from the corner where he’d been sitting. ‘It doesn’t feel right not having a king.’
‘There’s your fellow Edward, isn’t there?’ Mickey sounded as if he were already bored with the topic and though Libby had plenty to say about how nice it would be to have a young king on the throne, one who seemed simpatico to the plight of the working man (the working woman too), she simply shrugged. Mickey tilted his head. ‘You’re looking awfully peaky, my darling.’
The last time Libby had seen Mickey had been on a glorious September day. Then, he’d toasted her health and happiness and, along with the rest of their friends, waved her and Freddy off, still in their wedding clothes, as they’d boarded the Golden Arrow, the boat train to Paris. It wasn’t even six months ago, but it seemed to Libby that she’d aged a hundred years since then.
In place of the pretty, laughing girl with orange blossom threaded through her red hair who’d leaned out of the train window to shout, ‘We’ll send you a postcard. Each and every one of you! We promise!’ was a pale, thin woman whose hair had faded, the gleam gone from her green eyes. Libby hardly recognised the reflection that stared back at her in the glass each morning.
‘That’s not a very gentlemanly thing to say, Mickey.’ Libby fixed him with what Freddy had always called her basilisk stare but Mickey waved her words away with a brush of his pudgy fingers.
‘Never been a gentleman, you know that.’ He leaned forward. ‘This isn’t going to be too much for you, is it?’ He glanced back at the corner from where he’d emerged. Still seated there was an indistinct figure hidden by a copy of The Times. ‘You’ll really be helping your good pal Mickey Flynn out of a bind. Got one girl on her way to Hastings with a lord of the realm and another in Margate with the heir to a biscuit dynasty. It’s always like this after Christmas. Must be something in the bread sauce… January’s my busiest month.’
Libby had forgotten how much Mickey liked the sound of his own voice. ‘I’m much better,’ she said firmly. ‘Quite able to manage a weekend in Brighton.’ Now it was her turn to nod her head in the direction of the dark corner. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Salt of the earth,’ Mickey assured her. ‘A diamond among men.’
‘Oh, do give it a rest, Mickey, darling. We both know you’ve never so much as crossed the Irish Sea, never mind kissed the Blarney Stone. I’m going to spend two days with a man I don’t know, two nights in a hotel room. So, tell me what he’s really like. No fibbing.’
Mickey wiped the oily smile off his face as if he’d taken a damp rag to it. ‘Very stiff. Very proper. Ex-army, made his money in the motor trade. Wife’s been keeping company with the brother of his business partner. Quite a tricky situation all round, his solicitor said, but Mr Watkins has agreed to do the honourable thing and give Mrs Watkins grounds to divorce him, poor bastard that he is.’
‘Isn’t it funny that when it comes to divorce, it’s the man who always decides to do the honourable thing?’ Libby noted with a contemptuous sniff. ‘If I were Mr Watkins, I’d bury the bitch.’
‘Mind your language!’ Mickey said sharply as the principled Mr Watkins unfolded himself from the chair and stood up. ‘I told him you were a teacher. Widowed. Respectable. Now, quickly, let’s get this squared away. We agreed twenty pounds, didn’t we?’
‘Thirty,’ Libby snapped. They’d agreed twenty-five, but Mickey must be getting fifty and she was the one who’d have to spend two days with a stiff, proper man with an axe to grind. ‘Thirty or I’m catching the bus back to Hampstead.’
There wasn’t much Mickey could do when Mr Watkins was bearing down on them but nod unhappily and discreetly tuck the money into Libby’s coat pocket.
‘The Brighton train leaves in twenty minutes,’ Mr Watkins said brusquely when he reached them.
Mickey made the introductions. Libby kept her face still and slightly wistful as befitted a respectable, widowed teacher, though she wanted to smile when Mickey called her Marigold. He had flower names for all his girls.
‘And this is Hugo Watkins.’
The man nodded tersely at Libby as Mickey went on to explain the particulars. ‘From the moment you leave this hotel, you need to play the part of the besotted couple. I wouldn’t put it past the King’s Proctor to have a detective trail you. Don’t forget to sign the hotel register as Mr and Mrs Watkins and it’s not enough to have the maid come in in the morning and catch you happy as larks in bed together, you’ll need to be seen having dinner in the hotel restaurant this evening, tip well —’
‘You’ve already covered this in some detail.’ Mr Watkins spat out the words as if they were pieces of rotten apple. ‘We mustn’t miss the train.’
He set off for the door, without waiting to see if Libby was following him. She quickly stood up, though everything in her wanted to stay, to not hurry after this hard-voiced, hard-faced stranger.
Then she wished she hadn’t stood up at all, because the dull ache in her side, which was a constant these days, transformed itself into a sharp tugging sensation and she gasped.
‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ Mickey advised her, mistaking her pain for trepidation, as he walked with her to the door where the odious Mr Watkins was pointedly looking at his watch. ‘Two days of sea air will put the roses back in your cheeks, my darling.’
Mr Watkins didn’t offer to take Libby’s case though he did hold the door for her, even as he held his body rigid so there wasn’t the remotest possibility she might brush against him, and when Mickey called after them, ‘Don’t forget to take off your wedding ring, Marigold!’ he snorted derisively.