In Spite of All Terror

by V M Knox

  Clement swallowed before glancing at Peter. ‘Higher up the hillside,’ he said feeling like a small boy who had taken sweets from the counter.

  ‘Thank you. And you moved him because?’

  ‘I was afraid there may have been a grenade under him.’

  Morris pursed his lips. ‘Clement, I said I didn’t want to know what you were involved in, but I think the time has come for me to speak to your Commanding Officer.’

  ‘Perhaps its best. I will telephone him and ask if you can see him.’

  ‘His name is?’

  ‘Commander Winthorpe.’

  ‘And I am assuming Mr Kempton also knows about this?’

  Peter nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ Morris said and walked up the hillside. He squatted down where George had lain, the Chief Inspector’s hand smoothing away some leaves and exposing the moist, soft soil. He then took a tool, like a hand trowel, from his coat pocket and dug the ground. Within minutes Clement saw Morris put something into a white handkerchief.

  ‘Must have found the bullet,’ Peter said.

  Clement nodded but his gaze was on Morris. Finding the bullet would help, although, if it was nine millimetre calibre, it would not be good for Stanley. Morris stood and looked towards the tree stump over the entrance to the Operational Base before walking towards it. A minute later the Chief Inspector joined them on the path.

  ‘You think George was killed elsewhere and brought here?’ Clement asked as Morris joined them.

  ‘I don’t anymore.’

  Morris took his handkerchief from his coat pocket and opened it. Two bullets lay in the Chief Inspector’s palm. ‘Did you and Mr Kempton drive a car here this morning?’

  ‘No,’ Clement answered, his eyes staring at the two bullets.

  Peter shook his head.

  ‘And you did not notice the recent tyre tracks where I parked the police car?’ Morris said.

  ‘No,’ Clement replied.

  ‘Sorry,’ Peter added.

  ‘And there are several sets of footprints at the entrance to the woodland and around the ruins. Too many, perhaps?’ Morris paused. ‘It is my opinion that whoever killed George Evans didn’t want his body found by just anyone.’ Morris turned again to look back up the hill. ‘But did our killer bring Mr Evans here, then shoot him, or did he happen upon Mr Evans? Or did Mr Evans happen unexpectedly upon him? Or her? Or was it a rendezvous?’

  Clement felt himself nodding. That would explain the close proximity. And if it was “her”, why George had been so close to his killer. But why had the killer fired twice? Had there been a struggle of some kind and the weapon had fired prematurely before the second bullet found its mark?

  ‘Moreover,’ Morris continued, ‘would it not seem logical to bury the body? A forest, surely, is the ideal place to bury a corpse, especially when there is little likelihood of being disturbed while doing it. Most murderers do not want their victim’s body discovered. So I must ask myself, why does the murderer want Mr Evans to be found?’

  Clement knew Morris was speaking rhetorically. There were no answers. At least, not yet. They walked back along the track to the parked car in silence but until Clement could speak with Johnny there was nothing he could tell Morris. At the stile, Clement saw the profusion of footprints on the pathway in the friable soil. They were all large; not the size or shape of a woman’s shoe.

  He and Peter waited beside the police car while Morris lingered over the recent tyre tracks.

  Morris re-joined them. ‘I will arrange for the police from Lewes to remove Mr Evans’s body.’

  They drove away from the forest and pulled onto the road heading for Fearnley Maughton.

  ‘Do you think it was a car or a van?’ Clement asked.

  Morris glanced at him. ‘The tracks are more likely to be those of a car.’

  ‘Can you be so decided?’

  ‘I believe the killer wanted George Evans found, Clement. However, he or she does not want to be caught. A van with a name emblazoned on the side is far too memorable. Even if that van had been stolen. I have been a detective for over twenty years, and in almost every case of murder that I have ever been associated with, there is always a witness. Someone will have seen something. Unfortunately, usually that something is so routine that no-one questions it.’

  Ten minutes later they were back at Fearnley Maughton police station. While Morris arranged for Lewes Police to collect George’s body, Clement telephoned Johnny from Morris’s office.

  ‘Something else has happened,’ Clement said. There was silence at the other end of the line for a few seconds. ‘You may remember I mentioned a man from Lewes. He would like to speak with you.’

  ‘Usual place, Clement. Tomorrow. Bring your new friend. As for all your other friends, they are expected at the holiday camp this weekend.’ Johnny rang off.

  Clement replaced the receiver. He had never felt so wretched in his life. First Stanley, now George and to make matters worse, Clement believed that Johnny was regretting involving him with the Auxiliary Units. Clement glanced at his friend of many years. Did death await Peter and the others of his team at Coleshill? His head was pounding.

  Morris came in and sat in the chair behind the desk.

  ‘I was wondering, Arthur, if you’ve had any news of Stanley or the girl?’

  ‘They have not been sighted.’

  Clement closed his eyes. With Stanley the prime suspect for the murder of his own father and now with George dead, Clement could only imagine the effect it would have on the others, especially Reg. The man was already a loner and since joining the Auxiliary Unit, Clement believed he had become distant, almost reclusive. The lone-wolf type was always unpredictable. If Coleshill was really for a refresher, Clement was glad of it. The team needed it, especially Reg. But if Coleshill was for another purpose; Clement screwed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to think about it.

  While Morris took Peter’s statement about the morning’s events, Clement stood up and stared out the window at David Russell’s black car still parked in its usual place. On the other side of the lane Phillip Haswell was getting into his. Clement waved, trying to catch the Doctor’s attention. He wanted to ask about the injured in hospital. Phillip’s car backed up and drove away. The Doctor had not seen him. Clement turned around and watched as Peter read over the statement he had given to Arthur, but Clement’s mind was still on Phillip Haswell. The odd thing about a view from a window is that there is, potentially, one hundred and eighty degree visibility. But it is not the same from the outside. Seeing in is like looking down a tunnel; restricted and dark. He felt the frown cross his forehead.

  Arthur was staring at him. ‘Clement?’

  ‘David Russell had to have been expecting the person who murdered him.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Morris said.

  Clement pointed to the window at his back. ‘I can see out clearly, especially in daylight. But seeing in, especially from a distance, is well-nigh impossible. Whoever entered through the window knew that Inspector Russell was in his office. Russell probably let them in, which means David Russell knew his attacker.’

  Clement glanced again at the window. He felt what he had just realised was important, but something still evaded him, and he couldn’t make any sense out of it. Peter was staring at him. His friend’s raised eyebrows expressing the bewilderment that Clement could see on both men’s faces. ‘It was just a thought,’ he said, sitting down again.

  Arthur nodded and smiled.

  But seeing Phillip again had also reminded Clement of the villagers in Lewes Hospital. He should have visited them before now and he felt guilty that he hadn’t.

  ‘If you are finished with me, I’ll get back to the debris that was my office,’ Peter said, standing.

  Morris accompanied them both to the front door of the police station.

  ‘You are redecorating, Arthur?’ Clement said, his eye on the newly-painted front door.

  ‘Someone smashed a bottle o
n the front step and it damaged the paintwork. It seems rather odd to me, in light of the damage to other buildings in the village, but Constable Matthews has found a renewed sense of pride in the place recently and insisted on doing it.’

  Clement remembered seeing John Knowles stagger past the police station on his way home the previous Sunday night. Despite the man’s inebriation, it would be a night John was unlikely to forget. ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘Monday morning. But it could have been Sunday night.’

  ‘No, Sir,’ Constable Mathews said behind them. He approached holding a piece of board. ‘It was not there when I arrived at the station first thing Monday. Someone did it during morning. I heard them and came running to catch the culprit, but they had vanished. Kids, probably. No respect.’

  Constable Matthews hung the “wet paint” sign on the door and returned to his desk.

  Clement said goodbye to Peter and watched his friend walk away. There was a droop in his shoulders and Clement wasn’t surprised. Everything was complicated. Arthur Morris stood beside him. ‘You are to come with me tomorrow, Arthur, to London.’

  ‘Very good. I can drive us into Lewes tomorrow. What time do you suggest?'

  'If we catch the nine o'clock train we will be in London at about the right time.'

  'I'll meet you here then just after eight?'

  Clement shook hands with Morris. Walking away, he looked down the High Street towards the village green. Most of the shops were in the process of being repaired; all except Peter’s lovely Georgian building that was gone forever. Nothing of it remained, except rubble. Clement could see Peter standing amongst the broken stone and shattered timber. Gazing along the row of familiar buildings, Clement watched as the people he knew went about their business. People stopped and chatted, life was slow and somehow, in the midst of German bomb damage, ordered. But perhaps life was never really as it seemed. He thought of John and Margaret Knowles; people he thought he knew, and realized you never really knew anyone that well.

  He turned to walk back to the vicarage, but his gaze fell on the bus shelter. It was the dead letter drop where George secreted the reports. Clement stared at it, a frown forming. Walking towards it, he sat on the seat. Beside him was the advertisement poster display cupboard. It was a narrow, glass fronted, locked cupboard that contained posters advertising everything from Defence Bonds to Pears Soap. Now shards of broken glass stuck out at odd angles from the shattered frame.

  He thought of George, a young man who through inclusion in the Auxiliary Unit had found a way to prove his bravery. Changing the poster every week had been part of George’s duties as postman. The lad collected Clement’s report from the vicarage while delivering the post, then visited the bus shelter to change the poster. While doing this, he wedged the report between the timber frame of the advertising cupboard and the wall of the shelter for an unknown person to retrieve.

  Clement stood and checked behind the broken frame but the missing report wasn’t there. He lowered his head. George’s murder saddened and bewildered him, but the missing report was, in its way, more worrying. Sitting on the seat again, he stared out across the village green. Directly in front of him was The Crown. He looked at the old Elizabethan building. Upstairs he could see the tiny windows of the guest bedrooms under the overhanging thatch. His eye fell on one in particular. Number six.

  Chapter 21

  It was late and Clement was tired, but he had to see them. A few minutes before eight o’clock he knocked on the door of Peter’s house.

  ‘The men are here,’ Peter said.

  Clement heard the sorrow in his friend’s voice, but Peter’s tone and expression held more than sadness. There was an element of resignation. The acceptance of death during war was inevitable, but George had not died on the battlefield. He had been murdered and until it was proved otherwise, his murderer was English.

  Three faces looked up at Clement as he entered the sitting room. In that instant he saw, and felt, the disunity: Reg stood to one side, his right arm resting on the mantelpiece. Clive and Ned were seated but there was no ease between them. The camaraderie Clement had felt at Coleshill had vanished. He hoped it was only temporary. They all stared at him as he sat in one of the chairs.

  ‘I suppose you have heard about George?’ he asked.

  Heads nodded.

  ‘What’s going on, Clement?’ Reg asked. ‘Was George’s death connected to our activities?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope not. However, that is not why I asked you here tonight. I wanted to bring you up-to-date about the invasion.’ Clement told them about Gubbins’s theories concerning the Germans waiting until they held air supremacy before invasion.

  ‘Well, I wish they would just hurry up and get on with it, if they are going to,’ Reg said.

  The room was silent. No-one really believed Reg wanted an invasion, yet they all understood.

  ‘And George?’ Clive asked, voicing what Clement knew was on everyone’s mind.

  ‘Unless Stanley is hiding in the forests, it cannot be him this time,’ Ned Cooper said.

  ‘You are right, Ned. If Stanley and the girl are still together, Fearnley Maughton and its environs would be the last place he would be.’

  ‘Unless that is his thinking,’ Ned added.

  ‘Stanley doesn’t have the brains for that kind of deception,’ Reg said.

  Clement flicked a glance at Reg. Even though harsh, Clement knew Reg’s assessment was correct.

  ‘Unless it was about the girl. George was keen on her too,’ Clive added.

  ‘Stanley and George have known each other for too long for that. I am concerned about the girl,’ Clement added. In his mind he could see Elsie sitting on the bar, her shoe dangling from her toes. ‘I do not mean to sound unkind but why would a girl like Elsie be smitten with a lad like Stanley? What could she possibly hope to gain from the liaison? What’s more, we don’t really know if the girl and Stanley are still together.’

  ‘Well, if not Stanley then who? Does this Chief Inspector Morris have any ideas?’ Reg asked.

  ‘He is a thorough man. And an intelligent one. I’m sure he will find the killer soon.’

  ‘Do you think David Russell and George were killed by the same person?’ Clive asked.

  ‘Where’s the connection, Clive? There isn’t one, so that can’t be right,’ Reg said.

  ‘And what about Constable Newson?’ Ned asked.

  ‘Wrong place, wrong time,’ Reg added.

  Clement glanced around the faces present. He could feel and see the tension. He hoped Coleshill would sort it out. ‘I don’t know. It is possible someone stumbled on the Operational Base and killed George thinking him an enemy spy. But if the killer of both men was the one person, Reg is correct; what is the link between George and David Russell, and Constable Newson who, it seems, just got in the way?'

  ‘So what happens now, Clement? Are we to be disbanded?’ Reg asked.

  He looked at Reg. He could see the scepticism - or was it disappointment? - on the man’s face. Was Reg too eager to prove his loyalty? Clement chastised himself; with all that had happened, he was beginning to question everything and everyone. Reg was one of the best marksmen Clement had ever seen. The man could score a direct hit from fifty yards without a telescopic sight. He thought of Reg’s solo patrol. The man had to be managed. Clement visualized the hole in George’s head and Constable Newson’s blank visage. He thought of the skirting board in Russell’s office. But no matter how accurate Reg’s shooting, Clement did not really believe Reg Naylor to be a cold-blooded murderer.

  ‘No. In fact, Gubbins wants you all to go to Coleshill for a few days to hone your skills. If the Germans are waiting to gain air supremacy before invading, the invasion could be on hold for a while. It gives us some much-needed breathing space. Given this and where George’s body was found, it is best we stay away from the Operational Base for now. It could all be coincidental, I just don’t know. Go to Coleshill but remain vigilant. And
watch each other’s backs.’

  ‘You not joining us?’ Reg asked.

  Clement shook his head, feeling increasingly like an outsider. ‘There is something important I must do and about which I can tell you nothing,’ he said, hoping it sounded convincing.

  The room fell silent again.

  ‘I thought we were a team, Clement?’ Peter said.

  ‘Doesn’t seem like one to me,’ Reg remarked.

  ‘I’m sorry but it has to do with Stanley,’ Clement said. ‘He must be found. And the girl. And Johnny can get Scotland Yard involved.’

  ‘Stanley’s dead, isn’t he?’ Reg said, staring at Clement. ‘If not already, then he will be. He knows too much. You doing it, Clement?’

  Clive and Ned were staring at him. Clement could see their incredulity. He believed he mirrored their reaction. ‘I don’t know where Stanley is and that is God’s honest truth.’

  But Reg’s face was resolute. ‘Right! Well, if that’s it?’

  Reg’s reaction annoyed Clement but there was little else he could say. ‘Be at Lewes Station at six o’clock tomorrow morning with full packs. That is all for now.’

  Reg walked towards the front door and they heard it slam shut.

  Clive Wade stood, Ned beside him. ‘What Reg said, is it true, Clement?’ Clive asked.

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Clement said, aghast. ‘I do not kill innocent men!’ But he could feel the stares.

  ‘That is good enough for me. Sorry, but I had to ask,’ Ned said.

  ‘I understand. And thank you, Ned.’

  ‘Do you think Stanley is still alive?’ Clive asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I hope so. But he must be found. Soon.’

  Peter showed Clive and Ned to the door.

  The room was empty now except for Boadicea who had not moved from her mat in front of the fireplace. It alarmed Clement that Reg thought him capable of tracking and killing Stanley. Especially as he was endeavouring to find some proof that would exonerate the man. Clement had, at times, removed his cleric’s collar since the national Cromwell alert, but he hadn’t abandoned his Christian faith.