by Peter Hey
The second and final hymn was Amazing Grace. This time the South African care assistant sang with such power and passion that everyone else soon quietened and simply listened. A cynic might call it a party piece, but it was genuinely moving and Jane found tears welling in her eyes. She reached into her pocket for the boiled sweets she’d purchased as insurance the day before. From a time of stiff upper lips and backbones, it had been her grandmother’s tip to avoid losing one’s composure and crying at funerals. They’d shared a similar bag when her grandfather was laid to rest. Jane had not really expected to need it today but was caught off-guard. She was still sucking as Reverend Carter read the committal and curtains drew themselves around the coffin and it slipped from view.
The service ended with a few final words of prayer, and Dean immediately nudged his friend to stand up and leave. As Dean turned he saw Jane for the first time. His expression was of surprise more than anger. He walked down the aisle with his eyes fixed on her face, and she did her best to look calm and unflustered. The boiled sweet, now flat and sharp-edged against her tongue, was a fortuitous accomplice in the deception. Dean paused when he reached her and seemed about to speak, but something changed his mind and he continued on and out of the door. Jane watched him leave, and when she turned back, the South African care assistant was standing in front of her, smiling warmly.
‘I’m so glad you could come!’ she said, shaking Jane’s hand vigorously.
‘I was happy to. I liked Mary and was very sad when you told me of her… passing.’ Jane normally preferred the directness of the word death, but the euphemism seemed more appropriate in the company and surroundings. ‘And you have a most wonderful voice. Amazing Grace was heart-stopping. Can I book you in advance for my funeral?’
They exchanged a few more pleasantries, during which Jane declined the invitation to attend the buffet that was being laid on in the nursing home. She had done her duty by Mary Smith and wanted to get home. Jane thought about lingering so she would have an escort back to the car park, but people seemed to be dawdling and impatience took hold.
She wondered if Dean might be waiting outside the door, but there was no sign of him. She crossed a wide patio area and turned to descend the stone steps she had climbed on her arrival. Halfway down, out sight of the chapel and leaning against the wall smoking, were Dean and Steve. Like the first time she saw them, she was struck by their similarity and remembered how she thought they might be brothers. She considered turning back, but it would have been an obvious retreat so she kept going.
Dean threw his cigarette on the floor as she reached him. He wasn’t sure who might be in earshot above, so he kept his voice low. ‘You’ve got a fucking nerve coming here.’
‘I came for your grandmother. I really wasn’t sure you’d bother,’ replied Jane, evenly.
‘I ought to give you a fucking slap. Right now.’
‘Last time you laid a hand on me it was you that got the kicking.’ Jane turned her face towards Steve. ‘Did he tell you that? Your mate here, rolling on the floor, gasping for breath, begging me not to hurt him.’
‘Fuck off!’ spat Dean, his involuntary increase in volume causing him to look nervously up the staircase to see if anyone else appeared.
Jane was still talking to Steve. ‘He got so scared he started telling me about a girl ending up face down in a river. It was like being in a confessional.’
‘I was spinning you a line just to get you to…’ Dean hesitated, not wishing to confirm Jane’s accusation of physical submission. ‘What matters is that I told you that I had a cast iron, solid gold alibi.’
Jane shrugged. ‘It took me a while, but I worked that out. You were caught on CCTV doing a bit of thievery at the time that girl was killed. Only it wasn’t you, was it Dean? It was someone who looked very like you, certainly when wearing a hoodie and under infrared light. You were panicking, and that someone gave you the stolen goods and called the police to say where to find them. It turned out to be very convenient.’ Jane turned back to Steve. ‘Don’t you think?’
Steve looked nervously at Dean who quickly replied on his behalf. ‘He doesn’t think nothing. ‘You’re fishing. You can’t prove anything.’
‘As it happens, you’re right. And the police don’t seem interested without something more concrete. But maybe they’ll come knocking on your door – I wouldn’t sleep too easily. In the meantime, what do you suggest I do?’
Jane waited but neither Dean nor Steve answered
‘Well, one thing I could do is tell the girl’s father. What was his name again? Oh yes, Michael. I could tell him my suspicions and he could, shall we say, ask you about it. I imagine he can be quite persuasive.’
‘Deano?’ Steve voice had become high-pitched and tremulous.
‘He’s an animal.’ Dean’s response was minimal and seemingly emotionless but its implication was clear.
Jane’s eyes flicked from one man to the other. ‘Fortunately for you, I can’t be 100% sure what really happened, and assuming you don’t push me, I don’t believe in vigilante justice. Also, I don’t think you killed that girl deliberately. You’re scum but you haven’t the balls for murder. I’ve heard this Michael’s reputation. I’ve met the man. I know what he’d do to you.’ She paused while she considered her words. ‘So I’ve had to find some other way of getting back at you. It’s not enough, but it’s all I’ve got.’
Jane turned away and continued down the steps.
Dean called after her. ‘Maybe you need to watch your back, you smug bitch!’
Jane kept her eyes straight ahead, her reply drifting over her shoulder. ‘Don’t think so, Dean.’
The two men watched her walk off towards her car and kept their silence until they saw it start and drive away.
‘What do you think she meant about getting back at you?’ asked Steve.
‘I don’t know. It was probably a load of bollocks. One of them empty threats.’
‘Who the fuck is she anyway, Deano?’
Dean thought for a moment. ‘Ex-copper turned jeanie… I don’t know, jeanie something. Oh, I remember. She said she was one of them heir hunters, like on the telly. She was working for an American businessman. It sounded like he was minted.’
Film star looks
As on Jane’s last visit, there was another vehicle in front of Margaret Stothard’s bungalow. Once more it was a smart Mercedes, this time in metallic grey. It wasn’t as considerately parked as before, and Jane had to squeeze the little Mazda perilously close to fit into the remaining space.
She twisted her rear-view mirror and checked her appearance. She’d spent ages on her hair and changed outfits at least three times. ‘This is as good as it gets,’ she said out loud before climbing out of the car and walking up the steps. As she’d hoped, the door was answered by Julian. He was looking tanned and even more blond, and she hoped for a moment he might kiss her on one or both cheeks like an old or, perhaps, intimate friend. Instead, he just smiled and shook her hand.
‘Jane, lovely to see you again. You’re looking well. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say. My mother’s very excited, and I confess, so am I. Please come through.’
Jane followed into the sitting room and was surprised to find another woman sitting alongside Margaret Stothard. It wasn’t Caroline, the live-in helper, but someone much younger and considerably more glamorous. Jane thought for a moment it might be Julian’s sister, up from nearby Derby, but there was something about the sheen of her immaculate hair, the perfect makeup, the personally trained figure, the clothes that screamed expensive through cut and quality rather than designer labels. She was breathtaking and Jane flashed a look at Julian that he would have read as ‘How could you do this to me?’ had she not caught herself in time.
The introduction, when it came, was superfluous. ‘Jane, I’d like you to meet my wife, Shelley.’
Jane waited, albeit momentarily, for a few words of explanation. They were not forthcoming. Julian was reconciled with
his wife and it was a story he was not going to relate. Jane felt foolish for thinking it was owed to her and then ridiculous for thinking she could ever be in the running in a competition where the standard was so high.
Jane forced a smile. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.
Shelley seemed to look through Jane and see everything. She was pigeonholed like Tommy had once been by Dave.
‘So you’re the lady my husband’s paying to dig through the Stothard family tree. I do hope you’ve got some good answers for us. I was expecting to be in Paris by now, wasn’t I Julian?’ Shelley looked at her husband proprietarily. Her accent was part southern drawl, part Katharine Hepburn at her most condescending.
Sensing an air of friction to which her son was oblivious, Margaret Stothard interceded. ‘Jane’s very clever, Shelley dear. Don’t you worry about that. Make yourself comfortable, Jane, then spill the beans. What juicy dirt did you manage to unearth?’
Jane proffered a file of documents but said she would summarise the tale as concisely as she could. She started with a brief recap, mainly for Shelley’s benefit.
Jane reminded them of the main players in the family mystery: Margaret’s previously unknown aunt, Mary; Mary’s two husbands, Woody Jensen and James Smith; her two children, Lois and Ernald; and her grandchildren, Chris Aimson and Dean Smith. Mary’s existence had been hidden by Margaret’s family, but what had she done to merit such exclusion? That was the question that Jane had been trying to answer since last she met the Stothards.
‘I have a confession to make,’ she said, cautiously. ‘We hadn’t been able to find any actual record of Mary’s death. We thought it was because Mary Smith is such a common name—'
Margaret interrupted with near-accurate intuition. ‘She’d be well into her nineties. Are you saying she’s still alive?’
‘No, but she was until very recently. I attended her funeral a few days ago,’ said Jane, feeling a guilty glow on her face.
‘But why didn’t you tell us, dear? Julian, we could have flown back from America earlier – couldn’t we?’ Margaret turned her unseeing eyes to where she knew her son was sitting.
Jane responded first. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you because it was her express wish that no-one from her estranged family attend. She felt a great deal of shame and didn’t want to be judged. She also made me promise not to tell you where she was living and then... She died soon after. It was sudden but she knew she was very ill.’
‘So you actually met her?’ It was Julian’s turn to sound shocked.
Jane nodded in confirmation before remembering Margaret’s disability. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. I tracked down her grandsons and Dean Smith told me where to find her. She was in a nursing home. She was somewhat confused and I couldn’t believe half of what she told me at first. It made me doubt the other half. But we’ve been able to substantiate a lot of what she said. It’s a sad story, certainly sad for Mary.’
Julian was about to speak again when Shelley put a discouraging hand on his knee. ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ she said. ‘Why don’t we just let Jane tell us what she’s found out and we can express our approval or otherwise at the end.’
Shelley’s authority established, Julian kept his peace and Jane continued her revelations. She told of Chris Aimson, his situation and his potential salvation in the form of Herb Jensen. Margaret said she was also keen to get in touch with her cousin’s son and Jane was suitably encouraging. When they discussed Dean Smith, however, she guardedly painted a darker picture and countenanced against any form of contact.
Dean had at least fulfilled his purpose in leading Jane to his grandmother, in her Chesterfield nursing home. Jane tried to compress her long interviews into a few minutes.
‘Despite her frailty, she talked and talked. It was difficult to know what was fantasy and what was fact. At first, she told me her second husband, James Smith, had been a film star. I knew that wasn’t true, and it turned out people just used to say he looked a film star. Mary certainly idolised him like one. But he was poisonous, with poisonous ideas. We’re pretty certain this is him at a fascist rally in the East End of London before the war.’
Jane opened her laptop and showed them the image of a handsome boy, arm thrusting in a fascist salute, whilst a man in a black uniform marched by.
‘It’s a photograph of Oswald Mosley and a bunch of Blackshirts, Mum,’ said Julian. Then, remembering their conversation by the river, he turned his focus back towards Jane. ‘Didn’t Smith call his son Ernald after Mosley’s middle name?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘He never lost his ultra right-wing sympathies. Passed them onto poor Ernald and then the inheritance continued down another generation to Dean. Dean still thinks of his grandfather as a role model of political far-sightedness. Which leads us to Margaret’s parent’s wedding in 1948...’
Jane reminded them that Churchill had made his Iron Curtain speech as early as 1946, signalling the start of the Cold War. Russia was the new enemy, and James must have felt vindicated in what he saw as his anti-communist activities during World War II. In a fit of drunken envy and insecurity, he blurted out his pro-Nazi allegiance and bragged of an Iron Cross. No-one believed the full story, but the sentiments were damning enough. He was given a beating by Margaret’s father, and Mary was told to choose between her husband and her family. She chose the film star and banishment.
Jane explained that, contrary to all her expectations, James did have an Iron Cross, but it was a fake made by British intelligence. James had died always believing it was genuine. When he’d shown it to Mary she’d not gone straight to the authorities, and he’d convinced her that made her an accomplice who would hang alongside him if it ever came out.
Jane laid out the evidence, including the medal itself and the forged note from William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw.
It had taken 30 minutes for Jane to recount all the details and she paused to let them sink in.
Eventually, Julian spoke. ‘You sound convinced, Jane.’
‘When you look through the documents, the dates and the places, everything seems to fit. It corroborates what Mary told me, though she and her husband never found out he was working for MI5, not the Germans. In her defence, she didn’t actually know he was a spy, or thought he was a spy, until after the war had ended.
So that’s the family scandal. I’m glad it was all 70 years ago – it’s shocking even now.’ Julian looked at his wife, Shelley. He was hoping to see a look of empathy and understanding. It wasn’t there.
‘I’m afraid it gets worse.’ Jane felt like she was twisting a knife in the Stothards’ emotions. ‘Mary told me something else. It was about the death of her first husband, Woody Jensen.’
‘He was the American airman. Didn’t he die in the war, dear?’ Margaret’s facial expression was less pained than Julian’s had become.
‘Yes and no. He wasn’t killed on a bombing mission. He was killed in Norfolk, in a town now called Dereham. The conclusion at the time was that he was shot by another US serviceman who then turned the gun on himself. The evidence suggested it was an argument between lovers.’
‘Mary wasn’t exactly good at choosing men,’ chipped in Shelley, who’d been avoiding comment up to this point.
‘Maybe she wasn’t that bad,’ countered Jane. ‘She married Woody and he seems to have been fine and decent. He didn’t have James Smith’s looks, but he was the better man in every other way. If Woody hadn’t been killed, her life would have been totally different.’
‘Forgive me, dear.’ Margaret’s eyes were pointing towards Jane. ‘When you can’t see you have to listen intently. You said “the conclusion at the time”?’
‘Mary told me a different story. She said it was something James revealed much later. He was drunk, but also confident of his hold on her. Like everything else, we didn’t know whether to believe it at first, but having substantiated the other things she said, we’ve now no reason to doubt it.’
‘Go on, dear,�
�� prompted Margaret.
‘James Smith was bisexual. He seduced an American air force clerk, Henry Abrams. We’ve seen a photograph of them in a bar together. Abrams worked in the office dealing with the deployments of US bomber squadrons. He was the source of the information Smith thought he was feeding back to his spymaster. Somehow Woody Jensen found out. Mary had already had a relationship with Smith, so Woody was probably wary of him. Woody goes round to Abrams’ flat and finds him in bed with Smith—'
‘And like James Bond, Smith pulls a semi-automatic and blasts away,’ said Shelley, with a certain relish.
‘He was a little cleverer than that,’ said Jane. ‘He grabbed Abrams’ service pistol and forced Woody to get undressed. Smith then shot Woody followed by Abrams. The gun is found in Abrams’ hand. He has a reputation as a homosexual and when the US Military Police see the bodies they jump to the conclusion they’re supposed to. It’s 1944 and their prejudices probably tell them that’s the sort of thing homosexuals do.’
Jane had reached the end of her story and felt an emotional ambivalence. She was confident in her conclusions and the thoroughness of her methodology, but worried she’d lost the sense of humanity in the story she was telling. These had been real people and their lives reached through into the present day. Mary Smith had, of course, died only recently. Dean Smith was still arguably the victim of his antecedent’s crimes. Margaret and Julian Stothard were having to confront uncomfortable truths from a past perhaps too close to be dismissed as colourful rather than shameful.