The Moonlit Murders: A historical mystery page-turner (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 3)

many in number as the first-class ones, were packed to the gills with soldiers, their language as coarse as their thick, woollen uniforms. For those brave soldiers’ sakes, Fen rather hoped that the ship, the De Grasse, wouldn’t be a floating version of the same and they’d all have the elbow room they so deserved after months, or years, away from their families.
She found a sheltered spot under a canvas canopy and sat herself down on her suitcase. From her vantage point, she could see who else came into the waiting zone and keep an eye on James’s companions in first class. Unlike her patch of quayside, James’s zone had another of the Nissen huts within it, so she could watch, with a bit of envy, as he headed into the steamed-up, and therefore nice and warm, prefab building.
She shivered as the chill wind blew right through her thin trench coat. At least the soldiers filing into the third- and steerage-class enclosure all seemed to have thick greatcoats, their collars turned up to almost touch the matching colour of their field service caps.
Fen turned her eyes from them and back to the first-class area, where the arrival of a very smart-looking older woman had caught her eye. She was dressed in a dark woollen skirt that fell smartly, if unfashionably, just below her knees, with a matching jacket, and she had a huge fur stole slung over her shoulders. She was topped off with a striking felt hat decorated with striped pheasant feathers and looked every inch the epitome of a first-class traveller.
Porters were busying themselves around her, manoeuvring her luggage into a tidy pile. She dismissed them with a wave of her gloved hand, and it was only once they’d left her side that Fen noticed she wasn’t alone but obviously travelling with another, younger woman.
She’s just as smart, thought Fen, squinting to get a better look across the hundred yards or so that separated them, but much younger.
This second woman wore a dark blue travelling suit, cut in a more fashionable style than her aged companion, and had an equally jaunty hat, this time decorated with a flash of red feather stuck into the hatband.
Fen reached up to touch her own red felt beret. Damp and decidedly flat and unfeathered, it wasn’t a patch on the stylish thing that that young woman in first class was wearing and Fen made a mental note to find a milliner when she finally got back to West Sussex. A daring little number like that would spruce up her own post-war wardrobe nicely.
She was musing on how many pheasant feathers she might be able to procure from Mrs B’s friend, the local gamekeeper, when Mr Brylcreem and Boa Lady, as Fen had dubbed them, were shuttled through to her own waiting zone. They must be second-classers like me, Fen thought, as she smiled at the young woman coming towards her. It surprised her though, as they’d seemed as glamorous as any of the first-class passengers she’d seen.
‘Now that’s a useful suitcase,’ Boa Lady said. ‘Spencer!’ she called over to the man in the pale blue suit. ‘Spencer, can I sit on your case, honeybunch?’
Her voice was neither American nor English, Fen thought, trying to place the young woman’s accent. She was pretty sure that somewhere in those vowels was the cadence of the northern counties of England, but there was a transatlantic twang obscuring it.
Her suave, if overly protective, gentleman friend made a big show of carrying both of their cases over to where Boa Lady had come to stand near to Fen. He had puffed his chest out, overcompensating for the looks that were now coming in his lady friend’s direction from the khaki-clad soldiers in the next enclosure, alerted no doubt by her call.
‘Here you go, cookie.’ He placed a case down and made a swipe across it with the handkerchief that Fen had thought was only an ornamental pocket square.
Boa Lady sat down and made an exaggerated show of rubbing her tired calves and ankles, and Fen saw a few red-blooded young soldiers suddenly seem a lot more interested in staring at her luggage tags. Mr Brylcreem was clearly torn between asking her to stop and rather enjoying the spectacle himself.
‘I’m Genie, with a G, you know, like Aladdin’s friend.’ She stopped rubbing her leg and crossed it over the other one, letting her thin white skirt ride up her thigh, showing off the top of one of her stockings. She offered her hand to Fen, who took it and gave it a quick, but friendly shake.
‘Fenella Churche, Fen.’
‘Fen Churche… how pretty. Like the station.’
‘That’s right.’ It was the second time in as many days that the connection had been made, and Fen knew it probably wouldn’t be the last. Although being compared to one of London’s more famous termini could be tiresome, she did appreciate how it always cut the ice when it came to introductions.
‘And that handsome fella there’ – Genie pointed to her companion – ‘is Spencer McNeal.’
‘Spencer McNeal,’ Fen repeated, trying out the name. It had a ring to it, but she couldn’t place it.
‘Oh, have you heard of him?’ Genie looked excitedly over at Fen, who knew the answer that her new friend wanted was a resounding ‘yes’.
‘No, I’m afraid not,’ Fen shook her head but could hardly bear the look of disappointment on Genie’s face, so countered it with, ‘but he certainly looks like a movie star.’
This seemed to please Genie, who smiled and shrugged her shoulders as if she were Betty Boop. ‘One day perhaps, one day soon. We’re off to America!’ She gave a little shoulder shimmy with jazz hands and then laughed.
Fen smiled at her. Genie’s boa had slipped off one of her shoulders and Fen was about to push it back up for her when Spencer came over and beat her to it.
‘Spencer McNeal,’ he introduced himself to Fen, and she went through the Fenchurch Street station rigmarole again. ‘I