In Spite of All Terror

by V M Knox

  ‘A moment, Arthur. Shine your torch there,’ Clement said pointing behind the doctor’s desk. Phillip’s medical bag sat on a shelf. Its presence reinforced Clement’s worst fears.

  Morris left the room and Clement could hear the measured tread in the hallway. He joined the Chief Inspector in the room opposite. It had once been a sitting room, but it was now used as the waiting room. Chairs lined the walls. Near the fireplace was a desk. A chair was placed under the desk as would be done when the occupant had gone for the day. He saw Morris staring at him, the familiar enquiring tilt to the head.

  ‘Nothing looks any different to how is always does,’ Clement whispered.

  Morris opened the next door; a store room with patient records. Again, nothing appeared disturbed or unusual and there was no sign of any dust or debris from the damaged rear wall. Opposite the storeroom was the staircase. Sweeping the torch from side to side they went upstairs. Off the landing were four bedrooms.

  Clement had never been upstairs but he could see there were two rooms at the front on either side of the landing and another two smaller rooms at the side and rear of the building. All the doors were open. Morris stood in the doorway to the bedroom that overlooked the front of the house. Clement joined him. Arthur directed the torch beam onto the bed.

  Clement stared at the empty bed as Morris walked across the room and opened the wardrobe. Phillip’s clothes hung on hangers. Clement felt his anxiety rising. He knew Phillip was unlikely to travel without his Doctor’s bag, but no-one would travel, even for a short time, without clothing. Clement glanced at Morris then strode towards a chest of drawers and opened each. In every drawer were underclothes and vests and other assorted gentleman’s intimate dressing requirements. He turned and saw the shoes lined up under a washstand.

  A pain was developing in Clement's chest. He forced himself to breathe. Leaving Morris in Phillip’s bedroom, he went into the room on the opposite side that also overlooked the front. Like Peter Kempton’s house, it was filled with old patient records. Clement stepped back into the hallway and went to the smaller bedroom adjacent to the stairwell. He stared at the bed there, the walls, the cupboards and drawers. He opened the wardrobe. Nothing hung here. He went to the room at the rear. It contained a couch, a few old wooden chairs and a radiator. He could smell the brick dust. Returning to the small bedroom, he stared inside. No-one, it seemed, routinely occupied this room, but there was something about it that appeared familiar. Clement walked back to Phillip’s bedroom and stood in the doorway.

  Morris joined him. ‘What is it, Clement?’

  ‘The bed in the next room. Something about it. I just wanted to compare it to Phillip’s.’

  Morris flicked the torch onto Phillip's bed again. Two pillows with white and pink ribboned covers sat side by side on the double bed. For one moment Clement felt ashamed for trespassing on Phillip’s tangible memories of his departed wife. What would he say to justify such an intrusion if Phillip returned at that very moment? But the bed, although made, was not well made. And Clement knew from Mary, that if one went away even for a short period of time, beds had to be stripped, blankets and quilts folded and mattresses rolled. Phillip’s bed looked exactly as though he expected to return. The blanket was roughly tucked in on all sides and a pink quilt lay folded over the end.

  ‘What is concerning you, Clement?’

  ‘Come and have a look at this.’

  They went back to the small bedroom. Against one wall was a single bed. It was an iron framed hospital bed, utilitarian and austere.

  ‘Look at the corners,’ he pointed. The bed in room number six at The Crown flashing into his mind. ‘Neat, without a wrinkle anywhere there shouldn’t be one.’

  Morris turned to face him. ‘Hospital corners. Well spotted, Clement. I will make a detective out of you yet.’

  ‘Is that your intention, Arthur?’

  Morris’ head tilted. ‘Nothing in this wardrobe, I suppose.’

  ‘No. I checked,’ Clement said. He looked at Morris’s face and knew what the Chief Inspector was thinking. ‘But why would she be here?’

  ‘Do you know if Doctor Haswell had anyone to do for him?’

  Leaving the room, they stood in the upper hall. ‘I don’t know,’ Clement muttered. It was possible, but Phillip had never told Clement of any domestic help. In fact, he recalled that Phillip often complained about housework. That always amused Mary.

  Walking back along the hallway to the rear bedroom, he stared at the blanket that had been nailed up covering the damaged rear wall that was awaiting repair. It still had the dust of damaged brickwork on the window sills and furniture. Only the rooms with public access and the two bedrooms upstairs had been cleaned. ‘Why didn’t Phillip know?’

  ‘Clement?’

  ‘The day the fighter strafed the village, Phillip told me he didn’t know Elsie, that is Jane, had left the village. Why wouldn’t she be at work on a Tuesday?’

  ‘Another good question.’

  They went downstairs and walked through the old kitchen. Clement’s apprehension was rapidly changing to doubt. Also suspicion. Even betrayal. Of friendship certainly. The cold of the morning seeped into his bones.

  The rear wall of the kitchen and scullery had been boarded up, but again no repairs had been carried out. Why, when the rest of the village was almost fully repaired, had no work been done here? Was it because Phillip Haswell knew he wasn’t going to be in Fearnley Maughton for much longer? Clement felt ill.

  ‘Clement, the day of the strafing raid, you said you came to find Doctor Haswell. Where exactly did you find him?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘In the garden. His front door was open as usual.’ Clement paused, reliving the day he had ran into the doctor’s house. He stared at Morris. ‘Why was the destruction here so much less than the bomb that demolished Peter’s office?’

  ‘More good questions,’ Morris said, and stepped outside.

  The first tinges of dawn were lighting the heavens. Morris flicked off the torch and they stood gazing down into the crater that had been Phillip Haswell’s Anderson Shelter.

  Clement drew his collar up around his neck to ward off the cold air.

  ‘Did you hear this bomb hit, Clement?’

  ‘Yes, it was a moment after the other one.’

  Both men stood staring at the hole in the ground as the daylight increased around them.

  ‘Would you, with your knowledge of explosives, say that it was possible for a fighter to drop two bombs of different tonnage in rapid succession?’

  ‘I am not an aeronautical expert, Arthur, but I do know that a fighter plane can carry bombs. Not really heavy ones and not many. But I do know that light aeroplanes, like fighters, need to be balanced to take off. If it was carrying two bombs, I suppose they would be the same weight.’

  ‘I have visited the site of Mr Kempton’s office. It was a two-storey building, I understand?’

  Clement nodded.

  ‘Have you been there since the bomb landed?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘Yes. I offered to help Peter carry anything that survived the blast, but there was nothing left. The whole building vanished, and everything in it.’

  ‘How deep was the crater?’

  ‘Deep. About twice as deep as this. The hole is wide. And of course, filled with rubble.’

  Clement and Morris stared at the crater that had once been the Anderson shelter. The hole contained the metal sheeting, and a quantity of earth and grass, which had once formed the bomb shelter’s roof, now covered the crater’s floor. Clement turned around and saw the fragmented brick and timber walls of the garden shed lying on the ground where they had fallen.

  ‘It is fortunate that Phillip was not in the shelter at the time,’ he said. ‘Nor still in the shed.’

  ‘Where was he exactly?’ Morris asked.

  Clement’s gaze went to where he had found Phillip standing in the garden. In the muted morning light, Clement saw the beans. Beans and carrots… Phillip had to
ld Clement that he had been pulling up carrots when the bomb hit. Clement told Morris.

  Leaving Morris staring at the crater, Clement wandered along the path and walked the rows of beans and potatoes. He stood in the middle of the patch and stared around at all the vegetables growing in the garden, the first streaks of sunlight hitting the tree tops.

  ‘Have you found something?’ Morris called.

  ‘It’s what I haven’t found, Arthur,’ Clement called. ‘There are no carrots.’

  Chapter 26

  Dawn was breaking and the rising sun had turned black night to pale day. Clement closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Even the familiar click of his door could not deliver its usual soothing response.

  It had been just after first light when Arthur jumped into the crater that had once been the Anderson Shelter in Phillip Haswell’s garden. Clement still could not believe it. He visualized the twisted, burnt wires and valves of what had once been a transmitter radio buried deep in the soil and rubble of the Anderson Shelter.

  Clement wrapped his hands around the warm tea cup. He felt numb. He felt betrayed and foolish. He remembered a verse from Ecclesiastes about anger being in the lap of fools. But Phillip was not an angry man. Neither was he foolish. At least the Phillip Haswell Clement had known wasn’t. Perhaps, as the Good Book taught, it was only the foolish who expressed anger. The truly wicked never displayed rage. Theirs was the smiling faced, festering hatred of the psychopathic mind that contrived and manipulated while maintaining a detached, even charming, cool head. How could he have so misjudged the man?

  Elsie Wainwright. The real one had met a man in Eastbourne and had conceived his child. Had that man been Phillip? Had he lured the real Elsie to Westminster Bridge then pushed the girl to her death? Clement thought of the pink and white pillow cases. The depth of the man’s deception astounded.

  Clement now knew how Elsie had left Fearnley Maughton without being seen. If Phillip’s car held the body of a man, it would hold a woman. A woman who had returned to London to hide. But where was she now? Morris had said she had been spotted on a train, but he had not said in which direction that train had been travelling. Jane, was being followed. And if Jane was to rendezvous with Phillip, they would be caught.

  Morris had said that finding the nurse was the turning point. Clement believed Jane had taken the opportunity to flee the village during the strafing raid, having made arrangements for Phillip to follow at a time and opportunity that would not raise suspicion. Clement took in a deep breath. What they had done between them was staggering in its heartlessness and complexity.

  Together, they had ordered the raid to disguise the detonation of the shelter which destroyed the wireless. And Peter’s building, because of its distinctive colour and architecture, had identified the village for the pilot and acted as a diversion. Jane, having killed Constable Newson, then freed Stanley and took him to Peter’s office via the rear lane, knowing a bomb would fall on the house where Stanley and anyone else in the building - including Clement’s friend, Peter - would be killed, their remains beyond recognition. And the bombing of Peter’s office building would be the signal to blow up the Anderson Shelter.

  Such cruelty and wickedness confounded reason.

  The doorbell sounded.

  Clement opened his eyes, feeling utterly drained. The clock in the hallway chimed nine. Standing, he went to open his front door. ‘Arthur?’

  ‘Could I have a word?’

  ‘Of course, come in.’ Clement closed the door.

  ‘Given what we have learned about Doctor Haswell, I wondered if you have also realised that the raid might not have been accidental?’

  Clement nodded.

  ‘It is possible Mr Kempton’s office building could have been used for more than identifying Fearnley Maughton to the pilot.’

  ‘I thought the same thing, Arthur.’

  ‘I have arranged a team of men to do some digging on the site of Mr Kempton’s former office. Do you know when Mr Kempton is due back?’

  ‘Not specifically. But it won't be before Monday afternoon at the earliest,’ Clement said. With all that had happened he had not thought about his men. They were safe, and for now that was enough.

  ‘Would you know if Mr Kempton was in his office on the morning of the raid, before the bomb actually landed?’

  Clement thought back. ‘Thankfully no. He was with the team at the base.’

  Morris nodded. ‘Do you think he would have any concerns about us digging on the site?’

  Clement shook his head. ‘If Stanley was killed there, Peter would be the first person to assist with the digging.’

  ‘It’s Sunday. Will you be taking the church service today?’

  ‘No. Reverend Battersby will be here soon. He is taking matins for me.’

  ‘There is no need for you to come to the site. However, if I find anything of an unfortunate nature, I will come and find you.’

  Through his open study window, Clement heard the footsteps before the doorbell rang. He rose from his desk and went to the door. Arthur Morris stood on the doorstep. The man’s face was downcast and Clement feared the worst.

  ‘Come in, Arthur.’

  Morris stepped inside and Clement closed the door.

  ‘It would appear that only Mr Kempton’s secretary was in the office the day of the raid. However, Miss Forster has told me that now she has had time to reflect on that day’s events, she remembers hearing noises upstairs. Before she could investigate the source, she heard the aeroplane and left the building to run to the assembly point at The Crown. Clement, fragments of bone have been unearthed,’ Morris paused. ‘And a blood-stained shoe.’

  ‘I’ll get my hat and coat.’

  Following Morris into the village, Clement stood on the edge of the crater. A crowd had formed around the site. Lumps of stone and splintered timber lay in crude stacks along the ground. In several boxes beside the crater were hundreds of torn leather strips of book bindings, while twisted pieces of office equipment lay stacked nearby. Arthur went to one side of the vast hole and lifted an object from one of the boxes. It was a blood-stained shoe without laces. Clement recognised it immediately; Stanley had such large feet.

  Clement felt the lump in his throat. When so many young men were dying in the skies above them, defending the nation, Stanley’s death was so needless. And so wicked. A trusting lad had fallen in love with a girl; the most natural thing in the world. Clement glanced at Arthur and nodded.

  ‘What was upstairs in Mr Kempton’s office?’ Morris asked.

  ‘Storage rooms filled with old files. They would once have been bedrooms long ago. Peter has been the solicitor in Fearnley Maughton for at least twenty years. I think he purchased the building at the same time as he purchased the practice and it has operated out of the same location for generations. There must have been thousands of files up there. No wonder there was so much destruction. It was a fire waiting to happen.’

  ‘But enough room for someone to hide?’

  ‘Peter doesn’t live on the site, so yes, there would have been enough room. And, of course, there was an external staircase to the upper floor. It had once been the servant’s entrance. No doubt Phillip and the girl wanted Peter dead too. Like George and Stanley and the rest of my men. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that Peter wasn’t here at the time. We have lost too many from the village. Is that what it is all about, Arthur? Eliminating the men of my team? I didn’t realise the Germans saw us as such a threat. I am so pleased my men are safely away from here at present. How did Jane get out of the building, do you think?’

  ‘She would most likely have known when the strafing raid was to happen and would have made some excuse to leave Stanley here alone.’

  Clement felt such revulsion toward the girl. He abhorred Jane more than Phillip who, it now appeared had orchestrated the whole thing, for Jane had crushed Stanley’s heart, not just his body.

  ‘When did she leave the village?’ Clement asked.<
br />
  ‘I don’t know, but probably the next day when Haswell left Fearnley Maughton on one of his routine trips to Lewes to see the strafing victims. Given the bed in the second bedroom, it would appear that Jane hid at Doctor Haswell’s until she could leave the village in the Doctor’s car.’ Morris paused. ‘There is something else, Clement. But perhaps we should return to the vicarage.’

  Clement picked his way over the rubble and they walked away from the destruction, back to his home. As he closed the door to his study he heard the click. Its pacifying effect was returning. He gestured towards the armchair in his study and Morris sat down.

  Clement saw Morris’s procrastination; the lips being sucked in, first the top then the other. The room was quiet and cold.

  ‘Where is Mary?’ Morris asked.

  A cold dread coursed through Clement’s body from scalp to toes. He heard himself answer. ‘In Windsor, with her sister, Gwen.’ But his heart was thumping. And panic was rising. His head spun. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I thought in view of the current situation, you may appreciate your wife being with you. I telephoned the police in Windsor this morning and asked them to send a police vehicle around to her sister’s place and drive your wife home.’ Morris paused, his face contorted with painful duty. ‘She is not there, Clement.’ Morris paused. ‘The neighbours confirm she hasn’t been there for some time.’

  Chapter 27

  ‘Drink the brandy, Clement.’

  Clement stared at the glass in Morris’s hand. His mouth was dry and he felt like he had been flattened in the rubble of Peter’s house.

  ‘I think it is time we spoke again to Commander Winthorpe,’ Morris said. ‘I’ll call from here, if that is alright with you?’

  ‘Johnny? Why would you call Johnny?’

  ‘Rest here, Clement. I am sorry to have shocked you but there was no other way.’ Morris paused. ‘Try not to get ahead of yourself. It could all be completely innocent. I’m sure she will be found safe and sound.’