Night Over Water Read online

  When people flee a country at the outbreak of war, they do not leave their valuables behind.

  It was quite simple. Peasants drove their livestock before them as they ran from invading armies. Jews fled from the Nazis with gold coins sewn inside their coats. After 1917, Russian aristocrats such as Princess Lavinia arrived in all the capitals of Europe clutching their Fabergé eggs.

  Lord Oxenford must have considered the possibility that he would never return. Moreover, the government had brought in exchange controls to prevent the British upper classes from transferring all their money abroad. The Oxenfords knew they might never again see what they left behind. It was certain they had brought whatever assets they could carry.

  It was a little risky, of course, carrying a fortune in jewelry in your luggage. But what would be less risky? Mailing it? Sending it by courier? Leaving it behind, possibly to be confiscated by a vengeful government, looted by an invading army, or even “liberated” in a postwar revolution?

  No. The Oxenfords would have their jewelry with them.

  In particular, they would be carrying the Delhi Suite.

  The very thought of it took his breath away.

  The Delhi Suite was the centerpiece of Lady Oxenford’s famous collection of antique jewelry. Made of rubies and diamonds in gold settings, it consisted of a necklace with matching earrings and a bracelet. The rubies were Burmese, the most precious kind, and absolutely huge: they had been brought to England in the eighteenth century by the general Robert Clive, known as Clive of India, and set by the Crown Jewelers.

  The Delhi Suite was said to be worth a quarter of a million pounds—more money than a man could ever spend.

  And it was almost certainly on this plane.

  No professional thief would steal on a ship or plane: the list of suspects was too short. Furthermore, Harry was impersonating an American, traveling on a false passport, jumping bail and sitting opposite a policeman. It would be madness to try to get his hands on the suite, and he felt shaky just at the thought of the risks involved.

  On the other hand, he would never have another chance like this. And suddenly he needed those jewels the way a drowning man gasps for air.

  He would not be able to sell the suite for a quarter of a million, of course. But he would get about a tenth of its value, say twenty-five thousand pounds, which was more than a hundred thousand dollars.

  In either currency it was enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.

  The thought of that much money made his mouth water—but the jewelry itself was irresistible. Harry had seen pictures of it. The graduated stones of the necklace were perfectly matched; the diamonds set off the rubies like teardrops on a baby’s cheek; and the smaller pieces, the earrings and the bracelet, were perfectly proportioned. The whole ensemble, on the neck and ears and wrist of a beautiful woman, would be utterly ravishing.

  Harry knew he would never again be this close to such a master-piece. Never.

  He had to steal it.

  The risks were appalling—but then, he had always been lucky.

  “I don’t believe you’re listening to me,” Margaret said.

  Harry realized he had not been paying attention. He grinned and said: “I’m sorry. Something you said sent me into a daydream.”

  “I know,” she said. “From the look on your face, you were dreaming about someone you love.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nancy Lenehan waited in a fever of impatience while Mervyn Lovesey’s pretty yellow airplane was readied for takeoff. He was giving last-minute instructions to the man in the tweed suit, who seemed to be the foreman of a factory he owned. Nancy gathered that he had union trouble and a strike was threatened.

  When he had finished, he turned to Nancy and said: “I employ seventeen toolmakers and every one of them’s a ruddy individualist.”

  “What do you make?” she asked.

  “Fans,” he replied. He pointed at the plane. “Aircraft propellers, screws for ships, that kind of thing. Anything that has complex curves. But the engineering is the easy part. It’s the human factor that gives me grief.” He smiled condescendingly and added: “Still, you’re not interested in the problems of industrial relations.”

  “But I am,” she said. “I run a factory too.”

  He was taken aback. “What kind?”

  “I make five thousand seven hundred pairs of shoes a day.”

  He was impressed, but he also seemed to feel he had been trumped, for he said: “Good for you,” in a tone of voice that mixed mockery with admiration. Nancy guessed that his business was much smaller than hers.

  “Maybe I ought to say I used to make shoes,” she said, and the taste of bile was in her mouth as she admitted it. “My brother is trying to sell the business out from under my feet. That,” she added with an anxious look at the plane, “is why I have to catch the Clipper.”

  “You will,” he said confidently. “My Tiger Moth will get us there with an hour to spare.”

  She hoped with all her heart that he was right.

  The mechanic jumped down from the plane and said: “All set, Mr. Lovesey.”

  Lovesey looked at Nancy. “Fetch her a helmet,” he said to the mechanic. “She can’t fly in that bloody silly little hat.”

  Nancy was taken aback by the sudden reversion to his previous offhand manner. Clearly, he was happy enough to talk to her while there was nothing else to do, but as soon as something important cropped up he lost interest in her. She was not used to such a casual attitude from men. Although not the seductive type, she was attractive enough to catch a man’s eye, and she carried a certain authority. Men patronized her often enough, but they rarely treated her with Lovesey’s insouciance. However, she was not going to protest. She would put up with a lot worse than rudeness for the chance of catching up with her treacherous brother.

  She was mightily curious about his marriage. “I’m chasing my wife,” he had said, a surprisingly candid admission. She could see why a woman would run away from him. He was terribly good-looking, but he was also self-absorbed and insensitive. That was why it was so odd that he was running after his wife. He seemed the type who would be too proud. Nancy would have guessed he would say: “Let her go to hell.” Perhaps she had misjudged him.

  She wondered what the wife was like. Would she be pretty? Sexy? Selfish and spoiled? A frightened mouse? Nancy would find out soon—if they could catch up with the Clipper.

  The mechanic brought her a helmet and she put it on. Lovesey climbed aboard, shouting over his shoulder: “Give her a leg up, will you?” The mechanic, more courteous than his master, helped her put on her coat, saying: “It’s chilly up there, even when the sun shines.” Then he hoisted her up and she clambered into the backseat. He passed her overnight case to her and she stowed it under her feet.

  As the engine turned over, she realized, with a shiver of nervousness, that she was about to take to the air with a total stranger.

  For all she knew, Mervyn Lovesey might be a completely incompetent pilot, inadequately trained, with a poorly maintained plane. He could even be a white slaver, intent on selling her into a Turkish brothel. No, she was too old for that. But she had no reason to trust Lovesey. All she knew was that he was an Englishman with an airplane.

  Nancy had flown three times before, but always in larger planes with enclosed cabins. She had never experienced an old-fashioned biplane. It was like taking off in an open-top car. They sped down the runway with the roar of the engine in their ears and the wind buffeting their helmets.

  The passenger aircraft Nancy had flown in seemed to ease gently into the air, but this went up with a jump, like a racehorse taking a fence. Then Lovesey banked so steeply that Nancy held on tight, terrified she would fall out despite her safety belt. Did he even have a pilot’s license?

  He straightened up and the little plane climbed rapidly. Its flight seemed more comprehensible, less miraculous, than that of a big passenger aircraft. She could see the wings and breath
e the wind and hear the howl of the little engine, and she could feel how it stayed aloft, feel the propeller pumping air and the wind lifting the broad fabric wings, the way you could feel a kite riding the wind when you held its string. There was no such sensation in an enclosed plane.

  However, being in touch with the little plane’s struggle to fly also gave her an uneasy sensation in the pit of her stomach. The wings were only flimsy things of wood and canvas; the propeller could get stuck, or break, or fall off; the helpful wind might change faithlessly and turn against them; there might be fog, or lightning, or hailstorms.

  But all these seemed unlikely as the plane rose into the sunshine and turned its nose bravely toward Ireland. Nancy felt as if she were riding on the back of a big yellow dragonfly. It was scary but exhilarating, like a fairground ride.

  They soon left the coast of England behind. She allowed herself a small moment of triumph as they headed west over the water. Peter would be boarding the Clipper soon, and as he did so would congratulate himself on having outwitted his clever older sister. But his jubilation would be premature, she thought with angry satisfaction. He had not got the best of her yet. He would get a dreadful shock when he saw her arrive in Foynes. She could hardly wait to see the look on his face.

  She still had a fight ahead, of course, even after she had caught up with Peter. She would not defeat him just by appearing at the board meeting. She would have to convince Aunt Tilly and Danny Riley that they would do better to hold on to their shares and stick with her.

  She wanted to expose Peter’s vicious behavior to them all, so that they would know how he had lied to his sister and plotted against her; she wanted to crush him and mortify him by showing them what a snake he was; but a moment’s reflection told her that was not the smart thing to do. If she let her fury and resentment show, they would think she was opposing the merger for purely emotional reasons. She had to talk coolly and calmly about the prospects for the future, and act as if her disagreement with Peter were merely a business matter. They all knew she was a better businessman than her brother.

  Anyway, her argument made simple sense. The price they were being offered for their shares was based on Black’s profits, which were low because of Peter’s bad management. Nancy guessed they could make more just by closing down the company and selling off all the shops. But best of all would be to restructure the company according to her plan and make it profitable again.

  There was another reason for waiting: the war. War was good for business in general and especially for companies such as Black’s, which supplied to the military. The U.S. might not get into the war, but there was sure to be a precautionary buildup. So profits were set to rise anyway. No doubt that was why Nat Ridgeway wanted to buy the company.

  She brooded over the situation as they crossed the Irish Sea, blocking out her speech in her head. She rehearsed key lines and phrases, speaking them out loud, confident that the wind would whip the words away before they could reach the helmeted ears of Mervyn Lovesey a yard in front of her.

  She became so absorbed in her speech that she hardly noticed the first time the engine faltered.

  “The war in Europe will double this company’s value in twelve months,” she was saying. “If the U.S. gets into the war, the price will double again—”

  The second time it happened, she snapped out of her reverie. The continuous high roar altered momentarily, like the sound of a tap with air trapped in the pipe. It recovered to normal, then changed again, and settled into a different note, a ragged, altogether feebler sound that made Nancy feel totally unnerved.

  The plane began to lose height.

  “What’s going on?” Nancy yelled at the top of her voice, but there was no response. Either he could not hear her or he was too busy to reply.

  The engine note changed again, mounting higher, as if he had stepped on the gas; and the plane leveled out.

  Nancy was agitated. What was happening? Was the problem serious or not? She wished she could just see his face, but it remained resolutely turned forward.

  The engine sound was no longer constant. Sometimes it seemed to recover to its previous full-throated roar; then it would quaver again and become uneven. Scared, Nancy peered forward, trying to discern some change in the spin of the propeller, but she could see none. However, each time the engine stuttered the plane lost a little height.

  She could not stand the tension any longer. She unbuckled her safety belt, leaned forward and tapped Lovesey’s shoulder. He turned his head to one side and she shouted in his ear: “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t know!” he yelled back.

  She was too frightened to accept that. “What’s happening?” she persisted.

  “Engine’s missing on one cylinder, I think.”

  “Well, how many cylinders has it got?”

  “Four.”

  The plane suddenly lurched lower. Nancy hastily sat back and buckled up. She was a car driver, and she had a notion that a car could keep going with one cylinder missing. However, her Cadillac had twelve of them. Could a plane fly on three out of four cylinders? The uncertainty was torture.

  They were losing height steadily now. Nancy guessed the plane could fly on three cylinders, but not for long. How soon would they fall into the sea? She gazed into the distance and, to her relief, saw land ahead. Unable to restrain herself, she undid her belt and spoke to Lovesey again. “Can we reach the land?”

  “Don’t know!” he shouted.

  “You don’t know anything!” she yelled. Fear turned her shout into a scream. She forced herself to be calm again. “What’s your best estimate?”

  “Shut your mouth and let me concentrate!”

  She sat back again. I may die now, she thought; and once again she fought down the panic and made herself think calmly. It’s lucky I raised my boys before this happened, she told herself. It will be hard for them, especially after losing their father in a car crash. But they’re men, big and strong, and they’ll never lack for money. They’ll be okay.

  I wish I’d had another lover. It’s been ... how long? Ten years! No wonder I’m getting used to it. I might as well be a nun. I should have gone to bed with Nat Ridgeway: he would have been nice.

  She had had a couple of dates with a new man, just before leaving for Europe, an unmarried accountant of about her own age; but she did not wish she had gone to bed with him. He was kind but weak, like too many of the men she met. They saw her as strong and they wanted her to take care of them. But I want someone to take care of me! she thought.

  If I survive this, I’m going to make damn sure I have one more lover before I die.

  Peter would win now, she realized. That was a damn shame. The business was all that was left of their father, and now it would be absorbed and disappear into the amorphous mass of General Textiles. Pa had worked hard all his life to build that company and Peter had destroyed it in five idle, selfish years.

  Sometimes she still missed her father. He had been such a clever man. When there was a problem, whether it was a major business crisis such as the Depression or a little family matter like one of the boys doing poorly at school, Pa would come up with a positive, hopeful way of dealing with it. He had been very good with mechanical things, and the people who manufactured the big machines used in shoemaking would often consult him before finalizing a design. Nancy understood the production process perfectly well, but her expertise was in predicting what styles the market wanted, and since she took over the factory Black’s had made more profits from women’s shoes than from men’s. She never felt overshadowed by her father, the way Peter did; she just missed him.

  Suddenly the thought that she would die seemed ridiculous and unreal. It would be like the curtain coming down before the play ended, when the leading actor was in the middle of a speech: that was simply not how things happened. For a while she felt irrationally cheerful, confident that she would live.

  The plane continued to lose height, as the coast of Ireland came rapid
ly nearer. Soon she could see emerald fields and brown bogs. This is where the Black family originated, she thought with a little thrill.

  Immediately in front of her, Mervyn Lovesey’s head and shoulders began to move, as if he was struggling with the controls; and Nancy’s mood switched again, and she started to pray. She had been raised Catholic, but she had not gone to Mass since Sean was killed; in fact the last time she had been inside a church had been for his funeral. She did not really know whether she was a believer or not, but now she prayed hard, figuring that she had nothing to lose, anyway. She said the Our Father; then she asked God to save her so that she could be around at least until Hugh got married and settled down; and so that she might see her grandchildren; and because she wanted to turn the business around and continue to employ all those men and women and make good shoes for ordinary people; and because she wanted a little happiness for herself. Her life, she felt suddenly, had been all work for too long.

  She could see the white tops of the waves now. The blur of the approaching coastline resolved into surf, beach, cliff and green field. She wondered, with a shiver of fear, whether she would be able to swim to shore if the plane came down in the water. She thought of herself as a strong swimmer, but stroking happily up and down a pool was very different from surviving in the turbulent sea. The water would be bonechillingly cold. What was the word used when people died of cold? Exposure. Mrs. Lenehan’s plane came down in the Irish Sea and she died of exposure, The Boston Globe would say. She shivered inside her cashmere coat.

  If the plane crashed she probably would not live to feel the temperature of the water. She wondered how fast it was traveling. It cruised at about ninety miles per hour, Lovesey had told her; but it was losing speed now. Say it was down to fifty. Sean had crashed at fifty and he had died. No, there was no point in speculating how far she could swim.

  The shore came nearer. Perhaps her prayers had been answered, she thought; perhaps the plane would make landfall after all. There had been no further deterioration in the engine sound: it went on at the same high, ragged roar, with an angry tone, like the vengeful buzzing of a wounded wasp. Now she began to worry about where they would land if they did make it. Could a plane come down on a sandy beach? What about a pebble beach? A plane could land in a field, if it were not too rough; but what about a peat bog?