“Good thing you all disobeyed orders. Thought it best to keep Falway behind a desk today. He was very shaken up, you know.” Ronnie sounded distressed too, not himself, behaving naturally, no pretensions.
“I’m sure he was. He handled that gun as if it were a snake. Don’t you train your men?”
“No, Geoffrey, the truth is, we don’t. Brass doesn’t approve. They’re afraid we’ll get trigger-happy like the Yanks.”
“I can see their point. But still, there is a war on. Perhaps I can bring some pressure to bear, get the army to train them and to leave Falway out of any fuss. If they didn’t see fit to let him in on their plans, they could hardly have expected him to cooperate.”
“Good idea. Yes,” Ronnie said, clearly relieved, “I can’t afford to lose manpower with so many coppers called up.”
“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask. You told me once you had a man placed at Blexton. What happened to him? He didn’t seem much help.”
Ronnie looked embarrassed again and studied his shoes. “I never told Falway about our plant. He went by the name of Neville Chambers. But I wondered why he’d proved so useless, so one of my men carried out a quiet investigation over the last couple of weeks. It seems he betrayed us and got a little too friendly with Bernhardt, helped him identify suitable houses to rob, helped him fence the stuff and shared in the take. He knew the fellow was suspected of espionage too. It happens. I must say, I’d always thought him pretty feeble, although he came highly recommended. We picked him up early this morning. He’ll be a guest of His Majesty for some time. Doubt there’s anything more to see here.”
The two old soldiers started to walk to the road. Geoffrey was amused how purposefully they marched, gradually falling in step, keeping time to the hard ground crunching under their boots. Would this land ever crunch under the Nazi boot?
“Oh, God!” said Geoffrey, stopping suddenly.
“What?”
“Ronnie, those transmitters must be expensive, precious. Why would Visser have two?”
“Back up in case one goes wrong?”
“Or for someone else to use. Someone we don’t know about yet.”
“Bloody hell!”
“Quite.”
They started walking again, each lost in private dread.
“Ronnie, you might want to get some of your chaps along to our boathouse. Rosie told me a few days ago she’d noticed some boxes inside that weren’t there before. Slipped my mind, I’m afraid. I opened one of them this morning. Could be some of that missing loot.” He hadn’t uttered the word “loot” since his boyhood, when adventure stories filled his head with fantasies of derring-do.
“I’ll get someone round right away.”
Geoffrey hadn’t tackled the subject of Cummins’s cavalier treatment of Rosie. He had to approach the right man, a man who would carry on about the vicissitudes of war, no doubt. They had to take the larger view, he saw that. But he wouldn’t forget. He’d find a way to sink that effete little excrescence, however long it took.
28
Falway decided to walk to the station. For once it was a clear morning, apple blossoms spotlighted for now by the testy British sun. He’d expected a good bollocking for interfering with the Intelligence men, but nothing. Sir Ronald had said goodnight when he left as if nothing had happened. Poor kid, he hoped she was on the mend.
“Has a car been laid on?” he asked the desk sergeant.
“Yes, sir, should be around in five minutes or so. Sir Ronald left word that he’ll meet you there.”
Damn! He might have known the old man would want to be in on the action.
Falway always felt a shifty chill when the prison gate slammed behind him. He could taste the bleakness and smell the seedy existence of the inmates. He signed in at the desk, no sign of Sir Ronald—where the hell was he?—and plodded behind the warden to the interview room, spending those few minutes calming his nerves. Got to get this one right.
Sir Ronald waited outside the door with someone else, a youngish man, not more than forty. Not one of the two from last night, thank God, but a no-name Oxbridge type, sleek and bland, expressionless by trade.
“This is Mr. Chalmering. He’ll be sitting in with us.”
Chalmering inclined his head, not deigning to speak. Falway afforded him a curt nod in return.
Sir Ronald and Chalmering sat against the wall next to the door, behind Tom Lake; Falway sat across from him at the table. He sat back, arms crossed, and stared at Lake in silence. It didn’t take long, as he knew it wouldn’t.
“What are you staring at? What’s this all about?” Lake shifted in his chair a while longer. “Cat got your tongue?” His voice broke like an adolescent’s.
“We’ve got Bernhardt Visser, Lake. He talked. Told us what we wanted to know.” Falway paused, let the man stew for a few minutes. “Told us about your wife. About how you helped him. We found her, by the way. Your daughter identified her wedding ring. And her brooch. It’s a hanging matter now.”
Lake blanched. “You’re lying!”
“We have our ways of making men talk. We’ve got special people to handle things like that. Don’t make me call them in.”
Falway didn’t look at Chalmering, knew how his lip would have curled upon hearing such trite melodrama. Lake seemed to swallow it, though. Probably never went to the cinema.
“You knew Bernhardt was a spy. Do you need extra encouragement to talk? We have to let them know, give them time to get their gear ready.”
Lake started shaking now, his fists clenched on the table top, his head bowed, eyes squeezed shut. Falway stayed silent again. He didn’t take his eyes off him.
“I don’t believe you. Elsie couldn’t have been wearing those things. She threw her wedding ring on the dressing table the night she left me. And I wouldn’t let her take her jewelry. I didn’t kill her … I didn’t!” His voice had turned low and shivery and Falway caught a whiff of fresh sweat.
“No, we know Visser did it because you asked him to. And we know what he got in return. A safe haven. Use of the car. A place to hide things. A place to bury things, people. We found plenty of loot from all these burglaries we’ve been having around here. Was that your doing?”
“No, for God’s sake!”
“Oh, I think it was. You’re a greedy man, aren’t you?”
“Visser was trained to withstand interrogation, he wouldn’t have broken under your paltry efforts.” Lake bit his lower lip as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Talk.”
Lake heaved a great sigh and gave up. “He needed money to carry out his mission. He had some friend or other who helped him gradually sell things off. He could hardly expect me to support him.”
“How did you two meet?”
“Down at the pub, the Feather and Pheasant just after Elsie walked out. I hadn’t seen him in there before. He was sitting next to me at the bar and we talked a lot. I told him my troubles—I was damned angry—and he told me some of his. We went back to the farm for a brandy. I invited him to stay.” Lake’s color had heightened, his voice now stronger and indignant.
“And you talked some more?”
“We talked some more.”
“Did you know he had two transmitters, was sending information to the Germans? We found one in his room at Blexton and one buried in the copse near Elsie.”
Falway heard Sir Ronald whisper something to Chalmering and glanced over in time to see Chalmering’s brief glower. Hadn’t wanted that to come out. Those MI5 twits had told him to keep quiet. But he didn’t work for them, wouldn’t touch their slimy jobs with a barge pole. He turned his attention back to Lake.
“Well?”
“He said so, but I don’t see what sorts of things he could have known that were any use. He was just showing off, trying make out he was bigwig spy.” Lake looked cocky now.
“He could have reported on coastal defenses, army bases, munitions storage, local leading ci
tizens, food supplies. He could have drawn maps. Useful if the Germans invaded, don’t you think?”
“You’re exaggerating!”
“And why two transmitters? Was he expecting a friend to join him? Did you see him with anyone else?”
“He didn’t tell me his plans.” Lake shrugged. “How the hell should I know what he was up to?”
Falway leaned forward and pounded the table with his fist. “Why did you betray your country?” Lake recoiled, scraping his chair back. Sir Ronald had even started a little. “People die because of traitors like you.”
“You all betrayed me! Prosecuting me when that little freak caught a cold. I did my bit. I grew food for my country. The country spat on me first!”
“So it’s all our fault, is it?”
“Yes, it fucking well is, and that slut of a wife of mine is to blame too! I’m glad she’s dead, good riddance! She betrayed me, too. Elsie deserved what she got.” He was shouting now. “Yes, Visser did me a favor, and I did him one.” He puckered his mouth and a glob of spittle plastered Falway’s cheek.
“I think I’ve heard enough,” said Chalmering almost inaudibly as he rose and knocked on the door. Sir Ronald stayed put. Lake sprang for him, or the opening door, Falway couldn’t tell which. Chalmering turned and flipped him against the wall with the easy flourish of landing a large salmon. Lake bounced onto his back and lay still. It had taken only seconds and the wardens rushed in to find the prisoner unconscious, a livid bruise already showing on his brow.
“Get him to sick bay,” said Sir Ronald, strident now. “I want him alive and well on the scaffold.”
Falway watched as they lifted Lake onto a stretcher—none too gently. He wiped his cheek. Disgusting. He dropped his handkerchief into a corner, a necessary sacrifice, even with the shortages. Nasty piece of work.
He’d never watched a hanging. Would he want to? Could he stomach it?
29
Falway sat writing his report on a black market ring they’d just cracked. Boring, very boring. But he’d had more than enough excitement last month. Spies and guns. He shuddered.
A knock on the door and the desk sergeant stuck his head around. “Someone to see you, Guv.”
A neat, pale woman stood in the doorway, smoothing her dress with one hand and hanging on to her handbag with such desperation her knuckles showed white. Nondescript at first glance, Falway discerned a certain grace in her features, a face that could prove appealing when at ease.
“Come in, please. What is your name?”
She stayed where she was.
“Elsie Lake, Inspector. Mrs. Elsie Lake.”
Falway’s mouth hung open like some gormless youth. “We thought you were dead.”
“I know, I don’t read the papers much, well, not at all actually, but I saw the headlines about the trial at the village shop yesterday evening, so I caught the night train.” Her voice trembled.
“Where have you been?”
“Scotland. Just outside Glasgow. I knew my husband would find me at my parents’ and find some way to hurt me. He did threaten to kill me, you know, and I think he meant it. I’ve got an old school friend up there and she helped me find a job. I’m a housekeeper on one of the big estates.”
She sounded more self-assured now. Falway sat back and waited.
“And I wrote to my son, although I don’t know if he got my letter. Who knows where he is.” She sighed, the tension in her shoulders not slipping out with her breath. “I don’t suppose he knows about his father. They would have told him about my supposed passing, though. Wouldn’t they?”
“I’m sure he was notified. Can’t always get the boys back in time, though. Oh, God, I’ve got to stop the trial!” He dialed with a frantic finger.
“Sir Ronald, please. Urgent. I don’t care if he’s on his way out. Get him!”
“Sorry, sir, I know the trial’s starting in an hour. But you have to stop it.” Falway held the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Because I have a visitor here. Mrs. Elsie Lake. Tom Lake’s wife.” He held the phone out to her. “He wants a word with you.”
Falway listened as Elsie gave Sir Ronald the same story she’d given him. He could hear the barking, saw Elsie’s mouth harden. A lot of character in that face.
“He was very drunk. He pushed me out of the door and bolted it. He’d forgotten about the bikes. I took one of those and left it at the station. Got myself up to Scotland as soon as I could.”
After she hung up, Falway said, “Good heavens, that’s more than ten or twelve miles. Must have taken hours.”
“I only had one thought in my head. To get as far away from that man as I could before he really hurt me.”
Poor woman, married to a brute like that. And the daughter wasn’t much better. He’d finally tracked her down in Bournemouth staying with a friend. Got tired of housekeeping and went to stay with the friend of a friend. When he’d asked her to identify her mother’s jewelry, telling her it had come off a corpse, she’d just shrugged. Heartless little tart. She kept looking at her watch. Expecting company. The way she was dressed, most likely a paying customer.
She handed back the phone.
“Get that body exhumed.”
“Yes, Sir Ronald, right away.” So who was the dead woman?
“Mrs. Lake. We found a grave with the body of a woman in it. Wearing your ring and brooch. Do you have any idea who that could have been?”
“No, no idea. I don’t think Tom had a girlfriend. He always stayed at home in the evenings, worse luck. Of course, he was always having a go at the land girls, but I don’t think they always gave him what he wanted. Most of them just left in a huff.”
Falway rose. “Thank you for coming in. You’ll have to stay down here. Your parents could put you up?”
“Yes, of course. But I can’t stay too long. I wouldn’t want to lose my job, I’m very good at it and I’m happy there. Although my boy might turn up, mightn’t he? It would be lovely to see him.”
“I understand. I’ll try to find out your son’s whereabouts. But there are matters to be cleared up, so I must insist you stay close by while we conclude our investigation.” He hoped he sounded firm.
“Don’t try to bully me, Inspector. I’ve had more than enough of bullying!”
“My apologies, Mrs. Lake. You do know your husband was aiding a German spy?”
She subsided into a chair.
* * *
Falway contemplated the coffin, swaying precariously on its way up from its dank grave, a rip in the carpet of weedy grass. A poor little affair. The parish had tried to do right by her, but they had little money to spare these days. He spotted Elsie Lake watching from a distance. Morbid curiosity driving her to see her alter ego disinterred?
The sun shone with a mocking brilliance, illuminating the soil and dust motes. He brushed crumbs of dirt off the brass nameplate.
“Load her up, get her to the morgue.”
He’d thought it odd at the time that Sir Ronald hadn’t taken it for granted that it was Mrs. Lake they’d found. Wanted a full description of any identifying marks on the body. Canny old sod. Only one other woman had gone missing in the last few months. Now he’d have to visit that poor wreck of a soldier and interview him. No time like the present. He wrapped his scarf tighter, although it wasn’t that cold, and walked towards the town.
The man droned on about his faithless wife until he’d just come out and said it.
“Look, a body has been found. It could be someone else, but we need to be certain. Now, what about your wife. Moles? Scars?”
Brutal, he knew, but it stopped the man short. He winced.
“I should never have said those terrible things. Sylvia? Dead? Are you sure?” He’d looked washed out to start with, but had a pronounced pallor now.
“No, as I just said, we’re not sure at all. Marks?”
“She had her appendix out when she was about twelve, I think. There was a mole on, er, well.”
“Oh, for God
’s sake! Where?”
“Her bottom.”
“Which side?”
“Er, right.”
“We’ll let you know, sir. Thank you for your help.”
He let himself out. The poor fellow could hardly walk.
Falway called in on the soldier again that same evening.
“I’m sorry, sir, I have bad news.”
“It was Sylvia?” No emotion this time, mouth set hard. He’d been doing some serious thinking, perhaps.
“Almost certainly. And we obtained some dental records, and they more or less matched up. The scar and the mole were difficult due to de … er, due to the time she’d been in the ground, but the doctor was pretty sure of at least the scar.”
The young man stared at the wall, his face closed and white. No tears. He knew she hadn’t cared about him. Falway had heard the stories when he investigated her disappearance; it seemed just about everyone in their village had heard about her carryings on, and many of the young people in the neighboring ones too.
He didn’t blame the boy for his bitterness. Unmissed and unloved while he’d floundered in wet trenches, getting shot at and fearing death every waking moment, and then one operation after the other, lying in pain in hospital while she gallivanted around. She couldn’t even be bothered to visit.
He sighed as he let himself out. Bernhardt Visser had needed Tom to trust him and be in his debt. He couldn’t find Elsie since she was up in Scotland, so must have looked for a woman who resembled her, at least superficially. Well, she was the type to come to a sticky end. But why bury her with the jewelry? Visser wouldn’t count on her being found. Did he expect Lake to check up on his handiwork? Probably the sort of thing he’d do himself.
Falway still missed his wife, dead seven years now. Even when the morphine didn’t help anymore, he still hadn’t truly believed she would die. He’d have liked children, and he knew Ellen blamed herself. They’d been happy, though, except for that one regret, content with their lot. That was more than most people could say, and certainly more than that poor young soldier could say.
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