‘No. He came last Wednesday. But he rang me up on Friday night to say he was spending the night with a friend.’
‘Locally, would that be?’ inquired Pascoe casually.
‘He didn’t say, but in Leeds I presumed. The silly boy ran out of change and had to reverse the charge, and the operator said Leeds.’
Pascoe digested this as he opened the old case.
‘Why did you put Mr Lomas in this room, Miss Keech?’ he wondered.
‘Why? Well, simply because it was the only bedroom in the house which has been kept cleaned and aired and fit for instant occupation. He arrived unexpectedly and I saw no reason not to use it.’
‘Surely Mrs Huby’s old room …’ murmured Pascoe.
‘I have moved in there myself, Mr Pascoe,’ she said briskly. ‘My own bedroom I now use as a dressing-room. I am not a sentimentalist, nor do I believe in ghosts. The old clothes belonging to both Mrs Huby and her son I have cleared out and donated to the WVS for charitable distribution. Some photographs and other memorabilia which were kept in this room I put into that case.’
It was a collection pathetic in every sense. Christening mug, baby bootees, school reports, a school cap, examination certificates - all the mileposts of childhood were here. Also there were photographs, framed, loose and in an album, plus several cardboard cylinders containing yards of schoolboys in tiers outside a grey castellated building. Here it was then, a record for all who cared to view it, of the progress of Alexander Lomas Huby from the comfort of the cradle to the edge of the grave.
Such was Pascoe’s grim thought as he looked at the last of the photographs which showed a young man in a subaltern’s dress uniform, smiling, half-embarrassed, at the camera.
There was an echo of someone there.
Suddenly he caught it clear. The little girl in Thackeray’s office; something about the eyes and the shape of the head; but above all the same quality of uncertain reserve.
But there was no way of translating these young features into that waxen mask lying in the mortuary.
‘I’ll hang on to this photograph if I may,’ said Pascoe. ‘Shall we go down?’
Seymour had finished his dusting and had found a couple of good prints on the cabinet where a man might rest his left hand while sliding a knife into the gap with his right.
‘Miss Keech, would you mind letting my constable take your prints just for elimination purposes?’ inquired Pascoe.
‘My fingerprints? How exciting. I’ve seen them do it on the television. Would you like to come through to the drawing-room, young man? We’ll be more comfortable there.’
She looked sternly at the animals who had clearly decided the newcomers were harmless and continued to sleep soundly in their chairs.
‘And Seymour,’ Pascoe added softly as Miss Keech left the room, ‘pop upstairs afterwards, second bedroom on the left, dust around in there. Don’t leave any traces, though.’
‘Right on,’ said Seymour ethnically.
Alone, Pascoe started to examine the contents of the filing cabinet. There were a number of cardboard wallets each marked with a year starting at 1959, and three older-looking undated wallets. Pascoe started with these and found, as he had guessed, the record of Alexander Huby’s death, starting with the telegram which regretted that he was reported missing in action.
Slowly he pieced the story together. Early in 1944 Huby had joined his unit in Palermo, Sicily. The Allies were making slow progress north against heavy German resistance on the mainland, but by May, the enemy were falling back from the Gustav Line, south of Rome, to the Gothic Line from Pisa to Rimini. Huby was put in charge of a four-man team whose job it was to land on the Tuscan coast north of Leghorn, make contact with local partisans, send back surveillance reports on German troop movement, and be picked up five days later. A corvette dropped them in heavy seas at the appointed time and that was the last that was seen of them.
There was no radio contact, they failed to make their pick-up rendezvous, and a leaking and capsized dinghy of the type used in the operation was spotted floating in the sea some thirty miles away.
Lack of any report of contact from the partisans, or of prisoners being taken from the Red Cross, made it almost certain that the five men had died before reaching the shore. Huby’s CO wrote consolingly if conventionally, and as far as the army was concerned, that was that.
Pascoe looked at the silver-framed photograph he had placed before him. The young soldier smiled uncertainly back. Anything less like the deadly commando of Pascoe’s boyhood comics was hard to imagine. Perhaps - in fact, certainly - appearances deceived. He must have volunteered for the job, met the selection criteria, and passed the doubtless extremely rugged training course.
‘Here’s looking at you, kid,’ said Pascoe.
Next followed correspondence between Mrs Huby and the War Office, the Red Cross, the War Graves Commission, the American Occupation Authority in western Italy, her local Member of Parliament, and a host of other individuals and bodies whom the desperate woman saw as straws to grab at. It was repetitiously pathetic on her side, politely formal on theirs.
Pascoe skipped on through the files, came across a reference to ‘the enclosed photograph’, tracked back a couple of bundles and came across the original.
It was from a 1945 Picture Post and showed Allied troops driving through the city of Florence to the ecstatic greeting of its citizens. Among the crowd lining the pavement, someone (Mrs Huby presumably) had ringed a single face. It was ill-defined and slightly out of focus; a man, pensive and watchful rather than joyously enthusiastic, though this might have been an effect of light, shadow and distance rather than a reflection of his feelings; a face which in shape and proportions bore some resemblance to the face in the silver frame and in which love and loss could very easily trace the exact lineaments of Alexander Lomas Huby.
There were letters to the editor of Picture Post and, once discovered, to the photographer who supplied the picture. There were letters to the authorities, military and civil, in Florence. And finally, in 1946 there were letters to the main newspapers in Italy instructing them to place the enclosed advertisement in their personal columns in both Italian and English. It was a simple appeal for Alexander Huby or anyone knowing his whereabouts to get in touch with his mother at Troy House, Greendale, mid-Yorkshire, UK. There was a reward.
Here the early files ended. Pascoe could have guessed what had happened even without Eden Thackeray’s confirming testimony. By 1946 Sam Huby’s little store of hope was utterly depleted. His son was dead. His wife’s desperate belief he tolerated till she placed these advertisements. Doubtless the promise of reward had brought replies, most of them blatantly fraudulent - probably all of them, in his eyes. Enough was enough. He had said No more! And his will had been strong enough to hold sway, or at least drive her underground, for the next thirteen years till his death.
Once Sam Huby was safely interred, the old obsession so long repressed burst out with renewed vigour. This was where the regular yearly files began. The spate of letters recommenced, coupled now with personal visits both to the relevant offices in London and to Italy. Investigation agencies, both English and Italian were employed. Pascoe read a selection of their reports which appeared scrupulous in their detailed nil-returns and ultimately in their blunt assertion that they doubted if they could hope to achieve anything in this matter.
The woman’s dogged refusal to accept the obvious was both heroic and lunatic. The Picture Post photograph apart, there was not in forty years a single scrap of anything resembling evidence that her son had survived, unless you counted (as she did) reports from assorted ‘sensitives’ that they could find no trace of him ‘on the other side’ but that they had strong visions of someone very like him working in an olive grove, or that their divining pendulums always swung violently across the map of Europe towards Tuscany.
There was a tapping at the door. Pascoe put the papers he was studying back in the file and called, ‘Come
in!’
Miss Keech appeared with a tray newly replenished with tea and toasted muffins. Pascoe wanted neither but, guessing that Seymour had devised the task as a means of keeping the woman out of his hair while he worked upstairs, he thanked her kindly and did not demur when she offered to pour his tea and butter his muffin.
As he chewed at the luscious dough, he said butterily, ‘Did you assist Mrs Huby in her investigations, Miss Keech?’
‘Directly, only by typing and ordering her correspondence,’ she replied. ‘Indirectly, by remaining here and taking care of the animals while she was pursuing her researches elsewhere.’
‘She seems to have spent a lot of time and presumably money on this.’
‘I assumed so. The money, I mean. I have never had, or desired to have anything to do with Mrs Huby’s accounts,’ she said rather tartly. ‘Time I know about. She spent a regular period in London and abroad each year until she had her first stroke. This was immediately after returning from a visit to Italy and thereafter she no longer went abroad. She did not trust foreign medicine. She was obsessed by the fear of finding herself in a hospital run by Catholic nuns with black doctors.’
Pascoe smiled and said, ‘Yes, Mr Thackeray told me about this fear of black men. Something about black devils masquerading as Alexander. It must have been hard for you to cope with. You nursed her, I believe.’
Her face went still and pale as if at an unpleasant memory and suddenly she looked very old indeed.
‘It was not always easy,’ she said with little inflection.
‘Will you give me a receipt for whatever you take, Inspector?’
‘Of course,’ he said, a little surprised.
‘You see, I am after all only a custodian and in the end accountable,’ she said.
Seymour entered as Pascoe was writing the receipt. His eyes lit up at the sight of the muffins and he seized one avidly.
As they left the house, Pascoe glanced at his watch and said, ‘We should get to the Old Mill Inn just at opening time, Seymour. Shall I ring ahead and tell them to start buttering the teacakes?’
‘No, this’ll do me till supper,’ grinned Seymour, licking his fingers.
‘I hope you haven’t got your prints all over the car,’ said Pascoe. ‘And talking of prints, any luck?’
‘A bit,’ said Seymour. ‘There were a few of Miss Keech’s prints on the cabinet, but a lot that weren’t. And at a casual glance, these look to me just the same as the ones all over that room upstairs.’
‘You reckon so? I wonder. Do ghosts leave prints, Seymour?’
‘Why not?’ said the redhead cheerfully. ‘All them chilly fingers running up and down your spine!’
Pascoe groaned quietly and said, ‘Just drive me to the Old Mill Inn.’
Chapter 6
‘Shall we go up to my room, Superintendent?’ asked Andrew Goodenough.
Dalziel looked at him in mild surprise.
‘Got some etchings up there you want to show me?’ he inquired.
‘No. I just thought it would be more private.’
Dalziel glanced round the bar of the Howard Arms Hotel, taking in the plush carpet, the plusher upholstery, the rows of gleaming bottles.
He sank into one of the chairs. It was as comfortable as it looked.
‘Nay, this’ll do me, Mr Goodenough,’ he said. ‘If you feel an urge to confess to anything a bit embarrassing, I’ll ask them to turn the muzak up. We’ll just look like a couple of businessmen having a chat.’
Goodenough said, ‘In that case, perhaps you’ll join me in a drink? For the sake of verisimilitude, I mean.’
‘Whisky,’ said Dalziel. ‘Thanks.’
He noted with approval that the Scot brought doubles.
‘Now, how can I help you?’ said Goodenough.
‘You can tell me what you’re doing here, Mr Goodenough,’ said Dalziel.
‘You must know that or you wouldn’t be wanting to talk to me,’ said Goodenough.
‘No. I know why you came up here in the first place. Eden Thackeray’s explained all that. But he also thought you’d have gone back south by now, and at reception they told me that in fact you were due to check out on Saturday, then you extended your stay. Why was that?’
‘My business proved more complicated than I foresaw,’ said Goodenough evenly.
‘Oh aye?’
‘I’m sure Mr Thackeray has filled you in on the details. I had people to see about pursuing my organization’s claim to a share in Mrs Huby’s estate.’
‘These people being …?’
‘Mr Thackeray himself, naturally. Mr John Huby of the Old Mill Inn …’
‘Why’d you want to see him?’ asked Dalziel.
‘To obtain a waiver to any claims he might possibly make against the will.’
‘Did he have a claim?’
‘He might imagine so. The point is, he along with Mrs Stephanie Windibanks, that’s the other nearest relative, could cause considerable delay if they pressed their case either separately or in unison. Also it strengthens our hand if we can say in court that no other challenges to the will are likely to be forthcoming.’
‘So they’ve got nuisance value?’
‘That’s about the strength of it.’
‘This Windibanks, you’ll have seen her as well as Huby.’
‘Yes. I saw her first in London, then again when I came up here. She’s staying at this hotel, in fact.’
‘Is that so?’ said Dalziel, who knew very well it was so, and also that Mrs Windibanks too had extended her stay. ‘Did they both agree to this waiver, then?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, they did.’
‘How much?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘How much did it cost you?’
‘Superintendent, I shouldn’t like you to think …’
Dalziel interrupted him by lifting his now empty glass into the air and shouting at the barman. ‘Two more of the same, sunshine!’
The barman thought of ignoring him, thought better of it, and turned to his optic.
It seemed a good example to follow.
‘Five hundred,’ Goodenough said. ‘They each get five hundred now.’
‘That sounds cheap,’ said Dalziel. ‘For a merry London widow and a Yorkshire publican. You said now?’
‘That’s up front. If we break the will and get immediate payment they each get five per cent of the estate’s current value.’
‘Which is?’
‘Million and a quarter to a million and a half.’
Dalziel computed.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of nuisance!’
‘It’ll be worth it if we get the money. And if we don’t, they don’t,’ said Goodenough.
‘What’re your chances?’
‘Fair, I’d say.’
‘Fairer now that Alessandro Pontelli’s out of the way, I dare say. You didn’t try to get him out of the way by any chance, did you, Mr Goodenough?’
A silence fell between the two men which not the muzak, nor the chink of glasses or the tinkle of small talk, nor the more distant susurration of a large hotel at the start of a busy evening could render less silent.
‘I’m not sure I understand your question,’ said Goodenough finally.
‘Well, it’s simple enough,’ said Dalziel innocently. ‘You’ve just been telling me how much you’re willing to shell out to buy off Mr Huby and Mrs Windibanks because of their nuisance value. Anyone claiming to be the actual heir would have the biggest nuisance value of all, I’d say. So I just wondered if, after Mr Thackeray told you this Pontelli fellow had been to see him, you might have tried to buy him off too. That’s all. Perfectly natural, I’d say.’
‘Yes, it might have been,’ said Goodenough. ‘Except I’d have had to know where to find him, wouldn’t I?’
‘That’s right. I’d not thought of that,’ said Dalziel ingenuously. ‘It must be age creeping up. Where were you on Friday night, by the way?’
‘Aye, well. Start there.’
‘Well, I was across in Ilkley early on …’
‘Ilkley. Now there’s a thing. What were you doing there?’
‘I went to see Mrs Laetitia Falkingham, the founder and president of Women For Empire which you will recall is the third beneficiary under Mrs Huby’s will. I wanted to get her organization’s accord in my plans for contesting the will.’
‘And did Mrs Falkingham play ball?’
‘Indirectly. Mrs Falkingham is old and frail and has handed over the reins of WFE to a young woman called Brodsworth who has full legal and executive authority.’
‘Sounds important if you put it like that. What’s it mean?’
‘Nothing at the moment. WFE consists almost entirely, I suspect, of a very small, extremely geriatric membership. It has small funds and less influence. In short, it seems set to die with Mrs Falkingham.’
‘Except …?’
‘Except that Miss Brodsworth and her friends seem determined to keep the organization going.’
‘"Friends"? What friends?’
‘I find it hard to believe that a woman like this Miss Brodsworth would be content to channel her political energies and beliefs through an organization like WFE.’
‘You sniffed an ulterior motive?’
‘Very strongly. But she seemed to be legally empowered to act on behalf of WFE, so I got her signature on a document empowering PAWS to initiate proceedings on behalf of all three secondary beneficiaries.’
‘You don’t look to me like a man of quick judgements, Mr Goodenough,’ said Dalziel.
‘Thank you. I’m not. That’s partly the reason I stayed on up here over the weekend. I know Eden Thackeray wasn’t happy about the Brodsworth woman either and I wanted to be sure that I understood the extent of her executive power.’
‘Because you were worried about the money falling into the wrong hands, or because you were bothered in case her signature mightn’t be valid?’
Goodenough frowned.
‘I see you’re a cynic, Mr Dalziel,’ he said. ‘But I admit my motives were mixed.’
‘And Eden Thackeray?’
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