The Dark Lady

by Sally Spencer

  “I go to the Old Comrades’ reunions now an’ again,” Woodend told him. “A lot’s happened to all of us since we were demobbed. We should have plenty to tell each other about how our lives have gone, an’ we all start with that – but somehow we always seem to end up yatterin’ on about the war. Yet you get two fliers together for the evenin’, with the drink flowin’ free, an’ they never even mention it. Did the pair of you ever discuss your wars, Mr Hailsham?”

  “No, not much,” Hailsham mumbled in reply. “Gerhard didn’t seem to want to.”

  “Well, that must certainly have been a relief for you,” Woodend said, “but I wonder why he was so reticent. I suppose real heroes are like that. You know – naturally modest. An’ he was a real hero, wasn’t he? He won an Iron Cross for his bravery.”

  “Where’s all this leading?” Hailsham demanded, with an edge of panic creeping into his voice.

  “I thought at first that you’d really got somethin’ against the Poles,” Woodend said. “But you hadn’t, had you? It’s true you wouldn’t have minded seein’ them arrested for the murder of Gerhard Schultz, but then you wouldn’t have minded anybody else bein’ arrested, either – as long as it brought a swift end to the investigation.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do. You’ve been terrified for days that I’d get around to investigatin’ you.”

  “I have nothing to hide,” Hailsham said weakly.

  “There was a Group Captain Hailsham with your squadron. I’ve had my sergeant check that out. He was a very brave man, by all accounts. He was shot down over the English Channel in 1940. They never found his body. An’ his name wasn’t Simon – it was Roger.”

  “Now, look here . . .” Hailsham protested.

  “There was also a Simon Hailsham,” Woodend continued. “Only he wasn’t a group captain. But he did play a valuable part in the Battle of Britain – the planes would never have got off the ground if it hadn’t been for corporal mechanics. Who was Roger? Your brother?”

  “My cousin,” Hailsham muttered, staring down at his drink.

  He looked up again, and in his eyes there was the look of an imploring puppy which has wet on the floor and is begging not to be beaten – even though it knows full well that that is exactly what’s going to happen.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Do?” Woodend repeated.

  “Who are you going to tell? My boss?”

  “I don’t like you very much, Mr Hailsham,” Woodend said. “I haven’t from the start. But then I don’t like a company which tips chemical waste into the countryside, either. All in all, I tend to think you an’ BCI probably deserve one another.” He lit up another Capstan Full Strength. “So I might just be persuaded to hold my tongue if . . .”

  “If what?”

  “One of the reasons the chief constable is givin’ me all this grief is because he’s gettin’ grief himself, from BCI. They’re puttin’ pressure on for a quick result – an’ I’d like that pressure eased a little. Do you think you could arrange it for me, Group Captain?”

  “You don’t know how high up this thing has gone,” Hailsham said. “Our vice-chairman had lunch with someone senior from Scotland Yard yesterday. I’m only a little fish in a big pond. There may be nothing I can do.”

  “But you’ll at least try?”

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?” Hailsham asked gloomily.

  “No,” Woodend agreed. “I don’t think you do.”

  It was a bad line, and Rutter was forced to shout. “Can you hear me, sir?” he bawled down the receiver.

  “Just about,” Woodend responded faintly.

  “Gerhard Schultz had a cousin called Johann. He was in the SS, and is still wanted as a war criminal. There’s just a chance that he escaped to England in November 1946.”

  “But what’s that got to do with the investigation that we’re conductin’?”

  “Possibly nothing. But if you remember, that Thompson chap I talked to in London told me that Gerhard Schultz had got a letter from Germany some time in November ’46, and a couple of days after that he said he had to go up to Liverpool on business.”

  “An’ are you suggestin’ that the business he talked about was meetin’ his cousin?”

  “Again, it’s a possibility.”

  “But what I don’t see is why a man who’d just landed himself a very good job would run the risk of consortin’ with a war criminal? What’s your explanation for that? Family loyalty?”

  “Quite the opposite,” Rutter told him. “It was his cousin Johann who’d arrested Gerhard’s best friend, Max, and sent him off to a concentration camp. Gerhard’s father is convinced that if he’d been able to find Johann back in Germany in 1939, he’d have killed him on the spot. Maybe that’s what he went up to Liverpool for – to finally get his revenge.”

  “This isn’t makin’ sense,” Woodend said. “If Johann knew how Gerhard felt about him – an’ surely he must have done – why would he have let him know he was landin’ in England?”

  “Maybe he was desperate,” Rutter suggested. “So desperate that he had to hope he could talk Gerhard into helping him. Or maybe the letter Gerhard received wasn’t from Johann at all. It could have been from Max, or someone else who had good reason to hate Johann – and since he was in the SS, I should think there’d be any number of them.”

  There was a pause, then Woodend said, “Liverpool’s only a short run from here. I’ll slip over there in the mornin’ an’ see if the local bobbies know about anythin’ unusual that happened in November 1946. An’ what will you be doin’ at the taxpayers’ expense in sunny Germany?”

  “I’m going to go to Karlsbruch and see if I can find Gerhard’s friend Max,” Rutter said.

  It had stopped raining just after five o’clock, and the sun had put in a brief appearance to evaporate the moisture. Dry ground and a dark night – the perfect conditions for a ghost on horseback.

  Using his torch to pick his way carefully over the slippery stones of the canal towpath, Woodend headed towards the bridge. It was around eleven o’clock, he estimated, which should mean that he would be in just the right place at just the right time.

  He reached the foot of the bridge, and climbed the dogleg path up to the road. If his suspicions were correct, he thought as he took a turn to the left, then what he was looking for wouldn’t be very far away.

  He found it less than fifty yards from the bridge, parked on a dirt track which ran off the lane towards a nearby farm. Other vehicles which passed by – and there would be few enough of them at that time of night – wouldn’t even notice it unless they were specifically expecting to see it. And why should anybody expect to see a Land-rover and horsebox on this road?

  From the other side of the horsebox, someone coughed.

  Woodend raised his torch. “This is the police,” he said. “You’d better come out, Mr Bernadelli.”

  Slowly and reluctantly, the man stepped from behind the box. Woodend angled the torch so it was playing on the man’s bushy moustache.

  “You weren’t at home, as you claimed, the night Gerhard Schultz was killed, were you?” the chief inspector asked. “You were right here, waitin’ for your Dark Lady.”

  “Yes,” Bernadelli admitted.

  “Well, now we’ve established that fact, you can bugger off.”

  “But I am responsible for the box,” the Italian protested. “It is the property of Miss Maitland’s riding school.”

  “I know it bloody is. An’ has Polly Maitland herself given you permission to use it?”

  “I have my own set of keys,” Bernadelli said – which was as good as admitting that he hadn’t got permission at all.

  “Don’t worry about the box,” Woodend told him. “I’ll look after it for now. If you want to finish the job you’ve been paid for, come back in half an hour – when me an’ the ghost have had our little talk.”

  Bernadelli squared h
is shoulders with injured dignity. “I was not paid to do anything,” he said, then he turned his back on the chief inspector and started to walk slowly away.

  Woodend uncorked his hip flask, took a sip of whisky, and listened intently. For the first couple of minutes there was only the sound of the insects, but then he began to discern a soft, rhythmical plopping sound.

  She was coming! The Dark Lady was coming!

  He positioned himself deep in the shadows, and waited. The plopping sound got louder and louder. Then it stopped, but now he could hear the snorting of the horse.

  “Luigi?” said a woman’s voice. “Where are you, Luigi?”

  Woodend switched on his torch and shone it on the animal’s legs. As he’d suspected, the area around the hooves had been swathed in rags. He raised the torch higher so it was shining on the face of the startled rider.

  “Good evenin’, Miss Driver,” he said. “I warned you your job was reportin’ the news, not makin’ it, didn’t I?”

  The journalist dismounted, took off her long wig, and threw it to the ground in disgust.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Know what? That the Dark Lady wasn’t actually a ghost? I don’t believe in ghosts, lass. Besides, phantom ladies ride on phantom horses, an’ phantom horses don’t generally leave fresh dung on the road – an’ that’s what I slipped in when I was chasin’ after you the other night.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean, how did you know it was me?”

  “Oh, that was easy,” Woodend told her. “Knowin’ how involved he was with horses, I thought right from the start that Luigi Bernadelli would be in on the act. An’ when I was up at the ridin’ school, askin’ Miss Maitland questions about him, I took the opportunity to have a look at the ledger. You’ve been takin’ ridin’ lessons, haven’t you, Miss Driver?”

  “I should have taken them somewhere further away,” Elizabeth Driver said. “Chester, or Stoke.”

  “Aye, that would have been wise,” Woodend agreed. “What were you hopin’ to get out of it when you started this caper?”

  “Not a lot at first. A modest article on one of the inside pages of a national daily. Novelty value. And then, the night after I’d made my first appearance, someone was actually killed. It was a tremendous stroke of luck and I could see the potential for a front page splash.”

  “An’ why did you carry on doin’ it?”

  “To keep the story alive. Without the Dark Lady, this is a boring little murder.”

  “Bernadelli claims you weren’t payin’ him anythin’ for helpin’ you,” Woodend said, changing the subject.

  “He’s telling the truth. I wasn’t.”

  “So why did he agree do it?”

  “Because he’s a kind man who wants to see a struggling journalist get on?” Elizabeth Driver suggested hopefully.

  “Or because you’ve been sleepin’ with him.”

  “I did no such thing!”

  “But you certainly held out the possibility that you might well in the future, didn’t you?”

  “I may have said some things which perhaps he interpreted in the wrong way,” Miss Driver conceded.

  Woodend could picture it. Elizabeth Driver, with her plan to appear as the Dark Lady already fully formed in her mind, taking her riding lessons but still not quite sure how she could get hold of a horse and box. Luigi Bernadelli, helping her on to the horse, letting his hand slip on to her buttocks whenever he thought Polly Maitland wasn’t looking. Elizabeth Driver had recognised Bernadelli for the kind of man he was – a feller with his brains located squarely in his pants – and had made him an offer which proved irresistible to him. No wonder there had been so much giggling and innuendo on the Italian table when Woodend had asked where Bernadelli was the night before – he might not have slept with Elizabeth, but he had certainly told his friends that he had.

  Elizabeth Driver sighed. “So what happens now?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Woodend admitted. “Strictly speakin’, you haven’t committed a crime. There’s no law I’m aware of that says you can’t ride along a country lane late at night wearin’ a long wig, if that’s what you feel like. You haven’t even told any lies. I’ve been readin’ your pieces in the papers very carefully an’ you never make any claims yourself – you only quote what other people think.”

  “Yes, that really was rather clever of me, wasn’t it?” Elizabeth Driver said. “Sort of makes up for the mistake I made over the having the riding lessons too close to home.”

  “Yes, it was very clever,” Woodend agreed. “So, as you’ve probably already worked out for yourself, I can’t touch you.”

  “I had worked it out actually,” the reporter said complacently.

  “This whole Dark Lady pantomime’s got to stop, you know” Woodend told her.

  “It will stop. Tonight was going to be my last night anyway. The story’s just about been worked to death.”

  “An’ you do realise that I’m goin’ to have to let all the newspapers know you’ve been connin’ them.”

  Elizabeth Driver gasped with surprise. “But why should you want to do that?” she asked.

  “There’s two reasons,” Woodend said. “The first is that they’ve got a right to know they paid out good money for a pack of lies. The second is that if I let you get away with it this time, God only knows what stunt you’ll come up with when next you feel the need for national coverage.”

  “Please don’t tell!” Elizabeth Driver said, in a little-girl voice. “I promise I’ll never do it again.”

  “You might say that, but you don’t even believe that now,” Woodend replied. “How will you feel about it next week? It won’t seem like a promise at all by then. So you see how I’m fixed – I have to tell them.”

  The journalist moved closer to him – almost uncomfortably close, it seemed to him.

  “I can be very appreciative when people do nice things for me,” she said, her voice now silky and seductive, “and unlike Luigi Bernadelli, you wouldn’t have to wait to get your reward.”

  Woodend took a step back. “I’m not quite as big a fool as that Italian feller,” he said, “but even if I was, my tastes would run to somebody a bit older than you.”

  The journalist flicked her head back defiantly. “All right, go ahead and tell the nationals,” she said haughtily. “But before you do, I’ll tell you what the result will be. Some of the papers will be shocked that I’ve tricked them into printing a false story. But there’s a couple of them – and we both know which ones I’m talking about – that will offer me a job on the spot, because making up stories is just what they do best.”

  “You’re probably right, lass,” Woodend agreed, “but even if I do fail to throw a spanner in the works of your already dubious career, I’ve at least got to give it a shot, haven’t I?”

  Sixteen

  It was a fine morning when Woodend set out from Westbury Park for Liverpool police headquarters, but the skies began to darken as the police Wolsey travelled along the East Lancs Road, and by the time the car entered the city, drizzle was pounding against the windscreen.

  The Wolsey pulled up in front of the police station. Woodend got out and, ignoring the rain, stopped briefly to breathe in the same air as had once been breathed in by Charles Dickens.

  Strange to be able to do that, he thought. But then, time was a funny thing. It had only been a few months since he’d last been in Liverpool. On that occasion it had been to investigate the death of a young guitarist. And now here he was again, dealing with a case which could well have had its origins in a period before that young lad was even born.

  Once inside the station, Woodend was taken straight to the office of Chief Inspector Albert Armstrong. The Liverpool policeman was in his early fifties, Woodend guessed. He had silvery hair and the tired, worldly eyes of a man who’d sometimes seen more than he’d have cared to.

  “This particular case you’re asking about happened in late November 1946,” Armstrong
said, when they shaken hands and sat down. “It had been a real bugger of a month. At nights, the cold cut through to the bone, but coal was still rationed, so we didn’t even have the consolation of a big blazing fire to sit in front of. Most of the days were foggy – that sort of fog which seems to get under your clothes and cling to your skin. Trams were running late, deliveries weren’t being made, the docks were working at half speed – you get the picture.”

  “I get the picture,” Woodend agreed.

  “The body turned up on the morning of the twentieth of November. It was lying in a shelter near the docks. Male, round about six feet tall, late twenties, stabbed with a clean thrust to the heart.”

  “You haven’t needed to look at your notes once,” Woodend said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’ve got your notes on your desk in front of you, an’ you haven’t so much as glanced at them.”

  Armstrong grinned ruefully. “Have you ever had a case which has become an obsession with you?” he asked.

  Woodend nodded. “Oh aye. More than once.”

  “Well, this case became my particular obsession. Not because I’d become involved with the family, as you can get during an investigation. Nor because I felt particularly sorry for the victim. I knew nothing about him, so I had no feelings one way or the other. No, what really got on my goat was that it was a case I’m sure we could have solved if we’d just made the effort.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “Because my boss didn’t want us to make an effort. He’d just lost his son in the war, you see, and as far as he was concerned, the only good German was a dead German.”

  “But you weren’t content to let the matter drop?” Woodend guessed. “You did some investigatin’ on your own.”

  Armstrong nodded. “Given where he was found, there was a good chance he’d come off a ship. I checked with the port authority, and found that a cargo boat from Bremerhaven had docked the night before. There’d been no passengers, and all the crew were accounted for. If the murdered man had travelled on that boat, he’d done it as a stowaway.”