Blood on the tongue bcadf-3

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Do you remember the fuss about the Canadian pilot who went missing?’

  ‘That one walked away,’ said Rowland. ‘The pilot. McTcague. Murder, that was, pure and simple. That man left four of his crew dead, and another one dying, and he walked away. He didn’t care about them, did he?’

  ‘Maybe it was shock. People behave in strange ways in those circumstances. He might not even have known where he was, or what had happened.’

  Rowland sniffed. ‘I’ll give you that. Sometimes we had men that would wake up in hospital and not know why they were there, let alone remember anything about a crash. Yes, it happens. Rut I reckon this one was different.’

  ‘Hut why?’

  Rowland walked back into the front room and sat at the table. Cooper followed, wincing at how slowly and painfully the old man walked.

  ‘He’ll be dead by now, I expect,’ said Rowland.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘there’s no good comes of talking ill of the dead. 1 wouldn’t want people to talk ill of me, when I’m dead. It won’t be long now, so it’s something I think of, I suppose.’

  ‘Apart from McTeague, there was only one survivor from that crash,’ said Cooper.

  ‘And has Ae said anything?’

  ‘No.’

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  ‘Loyalty, that is. The skipper could do no wrong. That was the way they were.’

  ‘Yes/ said Cooper. ‘You’re right, they were like that/

  ‘I always thought they would rind him pretty quick afterwards,’ said Rowland. ‘But they reckon he made it down to the road and hitched a lift. Dumped his flying gear somewhere and legged it.’

  ‘There was a lorry driver who said he picked a serviceman up on the A6 a couple of hours later and took him to Derby,’ said Cooper. ‘He never spoke much on the journey, he said. If it was McTcague, they never established how he got from Harrop to the A6.’

  ‘Folk round here picked servicemen up all the time,’ said Rowland. ‘That was how the lads got home when they were on leave, and back to their bases again. Evervbodv did it. Nobodv

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  would think of asking any questions.’

  ‘I realize that. And it was only because the lorry driver was local that he heard about the missing airman when he pot back

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  home from his trip. But McTcague was a deserter. They would have looked for him.’

  ‘A deserter? Aye, maybe. But he was one among hundreds,’ said Rowland. ‘Blokes went AWOL all the time, but they kept that sort of thing as quiet as they could. It was bad for morale, you know. They couldn’t have the public thinking their brave boys were too scared to fight.’

  ‘It was a different time altogether, wasn’t it?’ said Cooper. ‘A foreign country.’

  Rowland nodded, recognizing the reference. ‘The past is always like that, even if you lived through it.’

  Cooper stayed silent for a moment, letting the old man’s memories drift slowly into his head. He knew what distant memories were like a vast sea that seemed to approach with the tide, but then merely touched the shore and withdrew again, leaving just a trace o( its passing, a damp boundary along the shoreline.

  ‘McTeague,’ said Rowland thoughtfully. ‘He told his crew he was going for help, but saved his own skin. Now, if he had been the one that died and the others had survived, then it would have

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  been justice. There was no excuse for what he did. None. I just hope those four dead men were on his conscience for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Perhaps they were.’

  Cooper controlled a smile, ft hadn’t taken much for the old man to break his own rule about not speaking ill of the dead.

  ‘Two of the crew were Poles, weren’t they?’ said Rowland.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Brave lads, those. A bit clannish, maybe, but they fought well. They hated the Germans with a venom. They hated the Russians too, mind. Good haters all round, the Polish blokes. They had their beliefs, and they stuck to them — you couldn’t have convinced them to do anything else. You never heard of any of (Aezn deserting.’

  ‘They were fighting for something more immediate - they wanted to get back to their homes and families in Poland. That must concentrate the mind.’

  ‘But they didn’t go back to their homes, a lot of them,’ said Rowland. ‘They stayed on here. That was because of the Russians. They didn’t fancy Communist Poland.’ ‘And because they married English ^irls and settled down.’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. Can’t blame them, I suppose. I recall the local girls seemed to like them. They were a bit glamorous, mysterious — romantic, too. Well, the lasses like that sort of thing, don’t they?’

  ‘I suppose the British servicemen must have resented it sometimes?’

  ‘Maybe so. But the Poles were better than the bloody Yanks, anyway. If I had to choose, give me the Polish lads any time. 1 was glad they were on our side, though. I wouldn’t like to have them against me.’

  ‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘I doubt they’d soon forget a grudge.’

  Rowland stared silently past his shoulder. The old man’s hands moved slowly towards each other on the table, as if they could bring comfort to each other by touching. Cooper heard the electric kettle steaming in the kitchen, then a click as it switched oft. Rowland didn’t move.

  ‘You know nothing about it, do you?’ he said. ‘You weren’t

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  there, like I was. You didn’t have to pick up the hits. And there were lots of hits, you know. The Polish chap - Zygmunt, they called him. We managed to save him, hut there was his cousin that died.’

  ‘Klemens Wach,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Aye. Have you talked to old Zygmunt?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘He won’t tell you much. No, not him. He wouldn’t tell you that, when we found him, he was holding on to his cousin like a mother holding a hahy. He won’t tell you that his cousin’s arm had been cut off at the shoulder, and that Zygmunt was trying to hold it on, with the blood spurting everywhere in the snow. His Hying suit was covered in it. When we found them, we thought for sure that we had two dead ones together, hut he was alive, just. It was his cousin’s blood that he was soaked in. You might get the impression that I think badly of McTeague. But imagine how old Zygmunt feels. And they say he’s never talked about it all these years. A thing like that eats at a man. He won’t have forgotten, or forgiven. Take my word for it — the one wish of his life would have been to find McTeapnc. It

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  stands to reason. I would have done the same, too.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘Mr Rowland, has anybody else been to talk to you about this?’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘I was thinking of a Canadian woman called Alison Morrissey.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Rowland.

  ‘Has she been?’

  ‘No, but there was a bloke called Baine. A journalist. He’s been here, and he mentioned the Canadian. He said she’s related to Pilot Officer McTeague.’

  ‘She’s his granddaughter.’

  ‘I don’t know what he thinks I might tell her,’ said Rowland. ‘I couldn’t tell her any more than I’ve told you. And I don’t suppose that’s what she wants to hear, is it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it is.’

  ‘Well, then. I’m not going to lie to the woman. So what’s the point of her coming here? She won’t like what I have to tell her. I told that to Baine. And do you know what he said?’

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  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘He said that perhaps my memory was faulty anyway. Can you credit that? Perhaps my memory was faulty. I didn’t reckon much to that. Did he mean he wanted me to lie?’

  ‘You can only remember what you saw and heard/ said Cooper.

  Rowland watched him, his mouth moving silently in the automatic grimace of hahitual pain.

  ‘Do you think I should talk to her?’ he said. ‘Is that what you’re here for?�
�

  ‘It’s entirely up to you,’ said Cooper. ‘It has nothing to do with me at all.’

  ‘Aye?’

  Rowland tried to rest his hands in his lap, but didn’t seem to find the position any more comfortable. He moved restlessly in his chair. He appeared to be saying it was almost time tor Cooper to ^o.

  ‘There must have been a lot of people up there after the crash,’ said Cooper. ‘Members of the mountain rescue tea, local police, RAF investigators …’

  ‘All of those. And the Home Guard,’ said Rowland. ‘You remember the Home Guard?’

  ‘Mr Rowland, I don’t remember any of it.’

  ‘Ave too vounp, aren’t you? Everybody’s too young these

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  days. The Home Guard were blokes who were too old or not

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  fit enough to join up. And there were some that were in the reserved occupations farmers and miners and such. It was Home Guard men who were set to watch over the wreck, but they were none too keen on their task.’

  ‘Would any of them still be around?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Nay, lon^ ^one. We’re goin$? back fifty-seven years, you know. There’s only a few of us left, the ones like me, that were only lads at the time. The rest arc pushing up daisies. There’s only me that remembers the crash, and the Pole, Zy^munt. And George Malkin.’

  ‘Do you know Malkin?’

  ‘Oh yes, 1 remember both the Malkin boys. They were kids back then lived on a farm the other side of Blackbrook

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  Reservoir, just across the moor. I remember seeing them hanging about on Irontongue Hill we had to chase them away from the wreck a time or two. Their dad came and took them home eventually. Rut they were both that sort of lad - inquisitive, adventurous.’

  ‘An aircraft crash must have been quite an adventure if you were a child.’

  ‘Yes, the Malkin boys,’ said Rowland, ‘they used to get everywhere. Their dad had taught them to be independent, and it would never have occurred to them that they couldn’t look after themselves. It’s something the kids don’t learn these days, independence.’ Rowland shook his head. ‘If you ask me, they’re ruining a whole generation.’

  Cooper’s questions seemed to have sparked Rowland’s memories. His eyes had developed a tamiliar distant stare, the look of a man recalling a time when he had been needed by his country, instead of being discarded.

  ‘Those Poles,’ he said. ‘Do you know what they called Britain when they came here? I mean the ones that came over from France to carry on fighting when the Germans invaded?’

  Cooper shook his head. ‘No idea.’

  ‘They knew there was nowhere else for them to move on to after Britain,’ said Rowland. ‘There was nowhere left for them to go to carry on fighting against I h’tler. So they called us “Last Hope Island”p>

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  17

  iSome officers were starting to call Edendale’s two Detective Chief Inspectors ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee’, because they were rarely seen except when they were sitting alongside each other at the head of a briefing. Everyone knew that a Senior Investigating Officer was unlikely to get involved directly in the day-to-day enquiries on a major case. Sometimes, as now, the SIO seemed to he completely out of step with what was happening on the ground.

  ‘Which car is this?’ DCI Kessen was saying as Fry slid into the meeting and sat at the back. Being at the back gave her very little protection, because most of the seats in front of her were empty. Both Cooper and Murfin were among the missing this morning.

  ‘Edward Kemp’s car/ explained DI Hitchens. ‘The suspect for the double assault. The Isuzu Trooper with the window-cleaning pear in it.’

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  Fry noticed that the officers present had split into two groups, one on either side of the room, like opposing teams, with the two DCIs as the captains. She thought at first there was some kind of team-building exercise going on. Then she realized that they were all sitting up against the radiators on the walls. There was no warmth in the centre of the room — only an icy draught that ran from the door straight down the middle to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who were prevented by their status from moving

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  nearer to the warmth.

  Fry took out her notebook and tapped her pen on it. With so few officers doing interviews, the regular briefings were starting to look like a waste of time, especially when there were two bosses to be kept up to speed. She ought to be out on the streets herself, keeping an eye on what was happening. She ought to be conducting interviews of potential thugs. She ought to be finding a missing baby. She had written two words at the top of her pad for the meeting. It said: ‘More staff?’ and was underlined.

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  ‘We’re looking tor a four-wheel drive because of the time line,’ said Hitchens. ‘We think the body was dumped in the lay by after the Pass had already been closed because of the snow.’

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  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘Forensics are still going over the Isu/,u. According to Kemp’s wife, he was missing all night, as was the car. And DC Cooper spotted some rolls of blue plastic, which are the sort of thing we think might have been used to wrap the body in when it was transported.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Cooper apprehended Edward Kemp on suspicion of the double assault next morning. Kemp was identified by witnesses as one of four men committing the assault. But he was released on bail.’

  ‘Released?’

  ‘We can soon locate him again,’ said Hitchens confidently.

  ‘But we’re still looking for the three other suspects in the assault case, aren’t we?’ said Tailby.

  ‘It you can call it looking,’ said Hitchens. ‘We’ve got a couple of people sitting by telephones, hoping members of the public will do the looking for us. 1 know DS Fry feels the same, but we were hoping there might be news of some extra staff being allocated.’

  The comment seemed to go right over the heads of the two DCIs, like a passing breeze that barely ruffled Tailby’s hair. Tweedledee and Tweedledum seemed to move a little closer together.

  ‘I’ll take some convincing about this,’ said DCI Tailby. ‘It’s rather optimistic to imagine that Kemp is going to help us clear up both enquiries. Not that I wouldn’t be grateful to him, but I don’t believe in luck like this.’

  Frv raised her hand.

  ‘Ah, DS Frv,’ said Kessen. ‘What good news have you

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  brought us?’

  She filled the meeting in quickly on her interview with Mrs 1 ennent.

  I’ll have to leave shortly,’ she said. ‘I’m going to visit Kemp’s house. Of course, there’s no one else free to do it.’

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  ‘The missing baby?’ said Tailby. ‘That would be very convenient, wouldn’t it? Three enquiries at once. I think I’m more interested in the clothes. They might constitute hard

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  evidence.’

  The clothes found by the traffic officers in the streambed were

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  laid out in latex bags. There were several shirts, two pairs of trousers, underwear, a dark blue sweater and three or Four odd socks. They had been air-dried and closely examined for traces of blood, sweat or other substances that might help an identification.

  ‘We thought at first there was a good chance they belonged to the Snowman,’ said Kitchens. ‘The shirts are a similar quality to the one he was wearing.’

  ‘Rut … ?’

  ‘They’re the wrong si/.e.’

  ‘Damn.’ Tailby’s face creased in annoyance. ‘Do you mean some idiot’s been spreading clothes around the landscape just for a bit of a joke? Do these people do it on purpose to waste our time?’

  ‘They may actually have come from the blue bag, for all we know,’ said Hitchcns.

  ‘But if they’re the wrong size

  ‘It’s only an assumption that the bag was the Snowman’s. There was other rubbish
dumped in that lay-by.’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘However, we do have this,’ said Hitchcns. ‘We found it in the pocket of the coat he was wearing.’

  He held up a smaller evidence bag. Whatever was in it was so small that officers a few” feet away had to lean forward to be sure there was anything there at all.

  ‘It got a bit wet from the snow, but fortunately the printing is good and hasn’t washed away. Aside from the Snowman’s apparent visit to Woodland Crescent on Monday, this is the best lead we’ve had to date, folks.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Fry.

  ‘An admission ticket. It’s for entry to an air museum at a place called Lcadenhall.’

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  When Ben Cooper left Walter Rowland’s house, he walked into an awkward deja vu. Alison Morrissey was standing in the road, with her hands shoved in the pockets of her coat. A few yards away, Frank Baine stood by a black Ford estate.

  Morrissey watched Cooper as he began to walk back towards his car. For a futile moment, he thought he was going to get away without speaking to her.

  ‘Detective Cooper, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Can I have a word, please?’

  Cooper pulled his coat up round his ears. ‘Is this a coincidence?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Morrissey. ‘Frank lives near here and he saw you arrive, so he phoned to tell me. I’ve been waiting for you to come out of there.’

  Cooper couldn’t read her expression, but he didn’t think shewas happy. It might have been the cold making her face flushed, but on the other hand, it could have been anger.

  ‘I accepted that the local police aren’t going to help me,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t realize they would set about interfering and trying to stop me.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m trying to do,’ said Cooper.