The Mitford Trial Read online

  All the policemen had been warned and therefore already knew that they were to report directly to their superiors at a meeting place by St Martin-in-the-Fields. Some of the uniforms jumped on passing buses, others joined taxis hailed by more senior ranks and a few rounded up foursomes to take in their cars. Guy was scooped up by DCI Stiles, who, as per usual, looked more elegant than the groom, with a Savile Row suit and his silver hair slicked back, not a strand out of place.

  ‘Sorry about this, Sully,’ said Stiles as they clipped along the King’s Road together.

  ‘Not to worry, sir. Can’t be helped.’

  ‘Least you’ve got a missus now – there’ll be dinner on the table when you get home.’

  Guy gave a polite laugh. He didn’t like to point out that as he’d never left home, there had never been a night when dinner hadn’t been on the table. His mother insisted on the importance of ‘something hot’ even though he was now thirty-two and was the last of his brothers, by a long chalk, reliant on her maternal care. Tonight, though, Louisa would prepare his dinner. He didn’t even know if she could cook, but he knew he’d eat it all up, even if it was boiled tripe, and tell her it was delicious. He was determined to be a good husband. Even if he had failed at the first hurdle: absent from his own wedding party.

  Guy shook it off and concentrated on the matter in hand. ‘What’s the form, sir?’

  Stiles stopped at a black Daimler, the standard-issue motor car for senior officers, but this one had a pale pink cushion on the driver’s seat. Stiles saw Guy look at it.

  ‘I get a stiff back,’ he explained.

  They got in and two uniforms who had been walking close behind got in the rear seats.

  ‘Indicate right, would you?’ Stiles asked, and the policeman sitting behind him rolled down the window and stuck his arm through. Stiles pulled the car out and, when they were purring along, filled them in on the afternoon’s event.

  ‘As you know, we got word a few days ago that Sir O was planning this rally. It’s the first of its kind and we don’t properly know what to expect, but if we’ve all been called in, then I’d say the numbers are bigger than anyone thought.’

  ‘What sort of numbers?’ asked Guy.

  ‘Anything over five thousand, I’d say. We were prepared, but for less than that. There are uniforms out there and a few plain clothes keeping an eye out for any irregular activities on the side. This is worrying. I don’t like the idea of that many people thinking the BUF has got something to offer them.’

  ‘Sounds all right to me, if you ask, guv,’ said the man who’d pulled his arm back in again. ‘Macdonald’s a shower, isn’t he? A traitor to the Labour party. We need a real leader, someone who believes in the Brits and the working man.’

  Stiles looked at the man severely in his rear-view mirror. ‘I wasn’t asking you, Kershaw.’ He looked at the road ahead and braked in time to let a young woman holding a small child cross the road. ‘You boys in the back, report in at the church and you’ll be told where to go. Sully, I want you to get to the back of the crowd. Watch out for anything suspicious. Anyone taking advantage of the crowd situation, whether it’s pickpocketing or starting a fight.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘We need to know who these people are.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Guy automatically. Then: ‘Why, sir?’

  Stiles gave a sigh. ‘A politician might give you a different answer, but I think they’re troublemakers. Bored young men, most of them, sorry they missed out on the war.’ He gave Guy a sideways look. ‘They shouldn’t be. They were the lucky ones.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Guy coughed. The shame of not fighting had never left him, even if it had hardly been his fault. He’d been disallowed on the grounds of his extreme short-sightedness. But where he had been lucky, his brothers were each called up and one of them never came home.

  Guy looked outside as they drove along Pall Mall, in the shadow of the great cream slabs that housed gentlemen’s clubs, men snoozing in armchairs, egg stains on their ties, blissfully unaware of the vast numbers of police swarming into this corner of London. The weather was dry, bright, a little chilly – a perfect day for his wedding, he had thought that morning. Perfect, too, for anyone who had an idea of turning out to a public gathering. Rain was enough to dampen the political ardour of most, but there was none today. Yet the streets looked quiet, bar the usual Saturday shoppers and strollers walking between St James’s and the National Gallery, or even dropping down from the seedy streets of Soho. There were policemen hurrying along and Guy saw one or two civilians notice them, saw the alarm on their faces as they wondered why there were this many.

  Stiles pulled his car into a dead end after the corner at Haymarket and all four got out quickly, but Guy could feel straightaway that there was no hum of a crowd in the air. There was nothing in the air at all beyond a cold breeze that made his neck feel stiff.

  The uniforms ran off ahead, while he and Stiles marched in step, both with their long strides. They said nothing as they walked, their ears pricked for warning signals. But none came. Only as they turned into Trafalgar Square did the scene present itself – and not as they had expected. There were far too many policemen; anyone would have thought it was a gathering of constables and sergeants. They slowed their pace as they approached what was a peaceful crowd. Flummoxed by the quiet, truncheons were stealthily replaced in their holsters and the uniforms stood around the edges of the people who were collected in the square. Their faces were turned in one direction: a man in a dark suit and white shirt, standing on a plinth beneath Nelson’s column, coal-black hair combed back and a full moustache, talking with great animation.

  Stiles stopped and put his hands in his pockets, raising his eyebrows. ‘We’ve been had,’ he said.

  ‘Sir?’

  But Stiles said no more, gesturing that Guy should follow him, and they ducked into the crowd, making their way closer to the man on the plinth. It was only when they were near that Guy realised it was Sir Oswald Mosley. He knew who he was, but not for the usual reasons – Guy was not interested in the minor machinations of politicians – but because Louisa had told him about the man that Nancy called ‘Sir Ogre’. He was Diana’s lover, though the pale woman standing close to him now, with two boys of around ten and twelve years old, was definitely not Mrs Guinness. Eight men in black shirts and dark grey trousers flanked them on either side, arms folded while their darting eyes belied their confident stance at the sight of all the police pouring into the square. Of the people watching, there were a few women here and there, like rogue poppies in a wheat field, but for the most part they were young men, in grey shirts and flannels, and only a few wore jackets. Guy wondered if they left their houses that morning in shirts and trousers? It seemed a strange decision, especially with the threat of a change in the weather at this time of year. Unless it was a collective choice, a uniform of sorts. That thought put Guy on edge, somehow. Uniforms on police and soldiers, even for firemen and nurses, were reassuring. On civilians, he wondered what they were trying to say and suspected it was more defence than protection.

  There was a movement between some people on the right of Sir Oswald, and Guy saw him register it with a brief flicker of his black eyes: Unity Mitford, her thick fair hair sticking out stiffly beneath her hat, her face expressionless but for parted lips as she gulped in big breaths. Behind her, standing awkwardly, shielding herself behind her statuesque sister, was Diana, her expression clear for all to see: total, unadulterated admiration.

  Sir Oswald’s voice rose in volume; his jabs with pointed fingers were even more forceful. Guy tried to listen to what he was saying but couldn’t latch onto anything that made sense. Each sentence seemed disparate from the previous one, a series of instructions or exhortations to his followers, acknowledged by raised voices and the occasional clapping of hands. One thing was clear: Sir Ogre saw himself as a leader, the only one who could take the people out of the chaos and disorder that surrounded them. This made Guy laugh �
� everyone was standing quietly and listening, and they were surrounded by the well-organised ranks of the London Metropolitan Police. He quickly shut up when one or two of the folded-arm brigade turned their fierce gaze upon him.

  Guy whispered to Stiles, ‘What do you think happened?’

  Stiles gave a small shrug. ‘Who knows? My guess is that either someone from the BUF tipped off the police because they were expecting bigger numbers and didn’t want any fights, it being the first gathering outside, or one of their objectors wanted to rattle them and sent a false message to Scotland Yard.’

  ‘We must fight for the freedom of our speech,’ Mosley was saying. ‘We will resist the Communists who would inflict their vile oppression upon us. We will not give an inch. If they fight, then yes, my friends, we will fight back.’

  At this, as if it were a signal, the guards unfolded their arms and Guy felt the crowd move, though whether it was forward or backwards he couldn’t say. The flankers were agitated, their elbows jutting, their heads flicking to the side at the merest prompt. They looked ready for a fight. A cry went up near the front of the crowd, close to Mosley, followed swiftly by three or four voices shouting indistinctly. Hecklers, presumably, and only to be expected.

  Mosley continued talking, but his gestures were edgy, his stance retreating into himself. The woman beside him pulled her boys in closer; her nervous smile had disappeared altogether. From various points in the crowds, a chant formed until the few objectors were singing loudly and in unison:

  Hitler and Mosley, what are they for?

  Thuggery, buggery, hunger and war!

  Things descended into mayhem at speed then, as the fascists turned on the chanting men and women, fists flying and yells of indeterminate curses roaring above. Mosley stopped talking and Guy observed him gather his family around, before they were marched through the crowd and out to, presumably, a car that waited for them. Guy tried to find the Mitfords, but they, too, had vanished.

  Stiles pulled at Guy’s arm. ‘Leave this to the uniforms,’ he shouted. ‘Follow me.’

  As they pulled out of the serried ranks, Guy realised that most of the men were leaving with them. Only a few had chosen to stay behind and fight. He guessed that that was what they’d been after all along. Was that what Mosley had wanted, too? Guy hoped not, but it was an obvious tactic: create disorder and then be the one to create the order out of it.

  Back at the car, Guy felt the oppressive tension fall away, and in spite of the chill air, he was sweating beneath his shirt. As if he had forgotten the fact and only now remembered it, Guy turned to Stiles.

  ‘It’s my wedding day, sir. I’d like to get back to my wife.’

  Stiles smacked his hand on Guy’s back. ‘My lad, I’m sorry about what happened. But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of those bastards. It’s just as well we know what we’re up against.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Stiles gave a wry smile. ‘Now’s not the time for lectures. Off you go. Good luck. I’ll see you on Monday morning.’

  Guy looked at his watch. Only ninety minutes had passed since they’d left the party. Fingers crossed Louisa would still be at the pub. He would fetch her and, hang the expense, they’d take a taxi to the station and catch the train to Brighton. He knew she had a small suitcase packed and ready, and he didn’t need much beyond a toothbrush and razor. In a matter of hours, he would hold her close to him beneath the hotel bed sheets and the rest of the world could disappear. He would get back to rescuing it next week.

  CHAPTER THREE

  23 May 1933

  Louisa knocked on the side door of 26 Rutland Gate. The day before, a letter had arrived from Nancy asking Louisa to call in on a ‘matter of urgency’, without specifying what the matter was. Guy had teased that it was probably no more than a request for a seamstress, and Louisa had agreed. Even so, she could not help but answer the summons. Standing now, by the side door, she told herself that she was only there because she wanted to say hello to Nanny Blor first, not because she was avoiding the front entrance. She was no longer a servant but a married woman and almost-trained court stenographer, perfectly entitled to walk up the steps and knock the brass ring firmly. But she didn’t do it.

  The door was opened by a young kitchen maid Louisa didn’t recognise, who admitted her readily. On asking, it turned out Nanny Blor was out with Debo, the youngest sister, and wouldn’t be back for an hour. Instead, after a few minutes Louisa was summoned up the stairs to the library. As she came in, she saw that Nancy was sitting on a comfortably stuffed sofa, a tray of tea things before her already. The room was generously named: only one wall was lined with books, as Lord Redesdale was known in the family to have no interest in them. The story was that he had read one book before the war and thought it perfect, giving him no reason to make the attempt again.

  It was warm, even for the month of May, yet Louisa knew the windows would have remained open by six inches even if a storm were blowing outside. It was the Mitford way. She had been connected to this family for such a long time now in one fashion or another, since 1920, and had known Nancy since she was a young girl of seventeen, barely emerging out of the nursery. Louisa herself had been but three years older, escaping a rogue uncle and a life in London that she had no longer wanted. Working as a nursery maid for Lord and Lady Redesdale had been more than a refuge: it had been her salvation. Through them, and their seven children, she had been witness to a world beyond the one her parents had decreed she should remain in. She knew now she had ambition, education and a social standing that while still firmly working class, allowed her and Guy to imagine a future that was different to that of their parents. Their children, should they be lucky enough to have any, would probably have a life even brighter and better.

  All this, nonetheless, did not stop Louisa from feeling a certain habitual servitude around any of the Mitfords and she caught herself hesitating a fraction when Nancy asked her to sit down. Of all the sisters, Nancy was the one Louisa knew best. The eldest of the seven siblings was an astute observer of those around her – as Louisa had realised after reading her first novel, Christmas Pudding – but less inclined to give away her own intimate feelings. She was perhaps the most fun of them all, the most daring and the most gregarious, but she could be spiky, and Louisa had developed a thick skin against Nancy’s infamous teases. Yet there was an ease between the two of them, too. After all, she and Nancy practically found their way into adulthood together and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about her, even if Nancy knew less about Louisa. They hadn’t seen much of each other since Louisa’s wedding more than six months before, and she had no idea what this summons was about.

  ‘Lady Mosley has died,’ said Nancy, after she had poured out the tea and given Louisa a slice of fruitcake.

  ‘Oh,’ was all Louisa could think to reply. She wasn’t sure what response Nancy was hoping for.

  ‘Naturally, Diana is devastated.’

  Louisa tried to work this one out. Lady Mosley was either Sir Oswald’s mother or his wife. Would either one’s death devastate Diana?

  She must have shown her bewilderment on her face because Nancy put her cup and saucer down and said, with some impatience: ‘Diana’s divorce is about to go through. The last thing she wants is anyone thinking she is pleased about this.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ said Louisa. She wasn’t sure she did.

  ‘And between you, me and the doorpost, I expect she worries about Sir O’s attention wandering. Now she’s no longer his mistress, he may find her less of a thrilling conquest.’

  How repulsive, thought Louisa. ‘Mmm,’ was all she could manage, taking a bite of the cake to distract from her inability to say anything to this.

  ‘Anyway, the point is, Sir Ogre will have to be the grieving widower for a while, even if I admit he does seem genuinely upset. He and Diana have to be kept apart while her divorce goes through, so Lady Redesdale has suggested taking her away on a cruise for a few weeks.’

  ‘That’ll
be lovely for them.’

  Nancy gave a mock shudder. ‘Beastly things, being on a ship all day, no land in sight, unable to get away from ghastly Mr and Mrs Frightful-Bores as you walk around and around the deck. No, thank you. But it seems a good solution to the current predicament. Lady R wants to take Unity too. Unity is begging to go to a finishing school in Munich and they can deposit Decca in Paris on the way, as she’ll be there for a year. In short, the old Heart-of-Stone is having an about-turn and giving them a fond farewell.’ She picked up her cup again. ‘Not that the thought ever occurred to her about me. I was practically pushed out of the door at the first chance.’

  It hadn’t been like that, but Louisa gave her a sympathetic look. Louisa had lost her closeness with her own mother after she left home. She knew her ma had been happy to see her daughter moving on in the world, yet it had separated them, too: Mrs Cannon felt unable to ask her daughter about the new things that preoccupied her, and Louisa worried that her decision to do things differently had been hurtful towards her parents’ own choices. It meant that they spoke about little beyond the weather and some shared memories.

  ‘I can’t go on the cruise because someone has to stay behind to keep an eye on things. Lord Redesdale spends almost no time at Swinebrook any more but is here in London, snoozing in a leather armchair in his club the whole day long.’

  Swinebrook was Nancy’s name for the house that Lord Redesdale had built. They had all loved Asthall Manor, the place where Louisa had first gone to work for them, and she couldn’t blame them for missing it. The new place was, by all accounts, as aesthetically pleasing as a dog kennel, and as hospitable. Nanny Blor had told Louisa that her jug of water for washing in the bedroom often froze overnight in the winter.

  ‘Which means someone had better go down there now and then to check Nanny Blor and Debo aren’t languishing alone,’ continued Nancy. ‘Besides, I can’t go swanning off, I have to earn my living these days. I’m still writing dross for The Lady, but they do pay and allow one to have more than two evening dresses in the wardrobe. And I can’t leave Hamish behind.’