‘You don’t think he might be a second victim?’
‘It’s one thing to attack a defenceless woman,’ said Kirk. ‘Quite another to have a go at a man in the prime of life, trained, fit, tall. Even if he did have a gammy ankle.’
‘That ankle!’ she said. ‘But I saw him running for a train!’
‘Did you indeed? When, exactly?’
‘A fortnight ago; the day I was in London. And now I come to think of it that was before he took this cottage for another month. Now the plot thickens very much upon us . . .’
‘That’s a tough one, Lady Peter. I don’t have enough eddication for that one. And I do think as how we’ve got to get in to this cottage.’
‘It is rather obscure, Mr Kirk. The Duke of Buckingham, in a play. Miss Hodge would let you have a key.’
‘To sneak a look? Against the rules.’
‘I’ll get the key,’ said Harriet. ‘And if anyone objects I shall say with perfect truth that I was looking over the place because I want to rent it as soon as it’s available. You just happened to be with me.’
She left him standing in the garden and went to look for Susan Hodge.
Brinklow hadn’t taken his things. His shirts were in the wardrobe, there was food in the larder – bread, curdled milk, some rather grey-green-looking sausages – his ration-book was propped behind the clock on the kitchen mantelpiece. A game of chess was laid out to be played solitaire, with a chess problem book open on the table beside it. It was the ration-book that was conclusive; to leave it was to risk starvation. A little discreet rummaging in a chest of drawers produced a wodge of banknotes in an elastic band. A lot of money.
‘He’s coming back,’ suggested Harriet.
‘Looks as though he meant to,’ Kirk agreed. ‘I still don’t like the look of this. I’m going to get a warrant, and search properly. I could do with fingerprinting the scene, just in case. I suppose Mr Bunter wouldn’t care to assist?’
‘I’ll ask him,’ said Harriet. ‘But his wife is with us just for two days, so don’t keep him too long, will you?’
This led to a briefing of Bunter, who was very willing to help out, and put on his jacket at once. He borrowed talcum powder from Harriet, and set off. She went to her desk, and opened her notebook to work.
Perhaps an hour later Hope began to play the piano in the room below. Harriet laid down her pencil and listened. She loved the sound of the piano being played in another room, the sense of the house shared with music. Her mother had played, though mostly hymn tunes. Peter played, mostly Bach. Hope was playing Chopin: a nocturne. And it was a piece that Harriet knew from long ago, because the German music teacher at her school had loved it, played it often, played it with intense feeling. The Fräulein had not succeeded in teaching Harriet to play; she had managed in the course of that failure to teach her to listen. So now the Fräulein was back in Harriet’s mind: her blunted features, dark straight hair, strong square hands on the keyboard. A couple of years back Harriet had suddenly and unexpectedly had a letter from her, forwarded by the school. The Fräulein remembered England with much affection. She had heard that Harriet was a writer; she would like to read something Harriet had written. Would Harriet, for old time’s sake, send her a copy? Ordering books from England cost more than she could afford. Times were hard; it was very hard indeed for musicians to live in Germany nowadays. ‘Of course,’ she had added, ‘I am an ardent Nazi.’
Harriet had sent the book. And now she sat wondering what becomes of ageing women whose skill is rooted in the wrong memories, when times turn murderous? It might well be that ardent Nazis were not encouraged to play Polish music. Had the Fräulein been playing Chopin when the bombs fell on Warsaw, or did the nocturne ring out for the last time on the last night of August last year?
If Chopin and the old school hall were out in force taking messages to the Fräulein, Harriet would not have cried halt. Deeply troubled, seeing suddenly how deadly the virtues of England were, she began at the climax of the music to weep. Quite silently. She did not hear the light step on the stair. She heard, with the zany inconsequential quality of a dream, Peter’s voice behind her saying: ‘And sorrow proud to be advanced so . . . what’s amiss, Domina? I hope you’re not regretting your skills as a code-breaker; never was a wife presented with so elegant a chance to disembarrass herself of a husband without the trouble and expense of a divorce . . .’ But his voice was shaking. She pushed back the chair from her desk and went straight to his arms.
The house had fallen quite silent. Not another note, not a step on the stairs, not a voice in the hallway. It was as if the two of them had boarded the Marie Celeste alone. Some time later, Peter said, ‘This can’t be true, can it? Aren’t you going to produce Miss Twitterton from a closet, or a body from the cellar to locate us on solid ground?’
‘Yearning for pumpkin-time? Not charming of you, my lord. I don’t need stage props to find you real. Although perhaps you are rather unbelievably kempt and clean. Bunter was more than scruffy when he showed up again.’
‘Scruffy? Bunter? Oh frabjous day! I wish I had seen that.’
A tap on the door announced not Bunter, but Mrs Trapp. ‘Very sorry indeed to disturb you, my lord, my lady, but Superintendent Kirk is downstairs in a somewhat agitated state, asking to see Lady Peter. I did not take the liberty, my lord, of informing him that you had returned. I thought you might like to tell him yourself.’
‘Peter, if you laugh as hysterically as that he will hear you, and the cat will be out of the bag.’
‘And what kind of a cat, may I ask, do you take me for? Pedigree Persian? Siamese?’
‘A common sort of a ranging tom, I think, with a tabby coat like a garden tiger.’
‘Mewing to be stroked,’ he said.
‘You shall have milk and fish and infinite caresses. But first we must assist the police. Our ordinary duty in peace and in war.’
‘But, Harriet, I haven’t an idea what is going on. I am quite clueless. Have you been doing a bit of sleuthing on the side, to fill in long hours of idleness while I have been away?’
‘What makes you think I am idle in your absence? I wrote it all down for you, Peter, you can read it up tonight.’
Superintendent Kirk was not as amazed to see Peter as Harriet had expected. He did say warmly, ‘Glad to see you back, my lord,’ but he was deeply preoccupied with the matter in hand.
‘We’ve called off the search for Brinklow, Lady Peter,’ he said. ‘We have, in a manner of speaking, run him to earth. And guess what—’
‘Brinklow?’ said Peter. ‘A Flight Lieutenant Brinklow? Alan Brinklow?’
‘That’s him,’ said Kirk.
‘He’s dead,’ said Peter.
‘Now, however did you know that, my lord?’ said Kirk.
The question hung in the air between them like an undetonated bombshell. Peter opened his mouth and shut it again.
‘We only found him an hour ago,’ said Kirk.
‘You can’t have,’ said Peter. ‘He’s dead.’
‘You’re right there, my lord,’ said Kirk. ‘He’s as dead as any corpse I’ve ever seen. But what I want to know is, how do you know that?’
‘Peter must be guessing, Superintendent,’ said Harriet. But she was looking at her husband with an expression of astonishment. He had gone very white, she saw. He was definitely in earnest.
‘Guessing, my arm!’ said Kirk.
‘Hell,’ said Peter. ‘Hell, hell, hell. Look, Kirk, where did you find this corpse whoever it is, and why were you looking for him?’
‘As to why, my lord,’ said Kirk, ‘your good lady knows all about it. She will fill you in. He was wanted for questioning in connection with the events of the night of the 17th of February. As to where, buried in a pile of loose earth in George Withers’s back garden. A pile of earth thrown up beside the hole he was digging to plant his Anderson shelter. Says it’s been there for days and days. He dug the hole, and then he went down with flu and hasn’t been nea
r the job for more than a fortnight. Then this morning he was feeling up to it again, he got the metal bit bolted together and standing ready, and when he went to shovel the earth back on top of it like the Ministry pamphlet says to do he had a nasty surprise.’
‘Cause of death?’ asked Peter.
‘Throat cut. The pathologist is there now, and I must get back there. I have left Mr Bunter standing guard over the cottage in Yew Tree Lane, and I have just called in to ask Lady Peter to send someone up there to tell him not to bother. Contents of the cottage can wait.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Peter. ‘Haven’t seen Bunter in weeks. But look here, Superintendent, whoever you’ve got laid out in Mr Withers’s garden, it isn’t Alan Brinklow, believe me.’
‘But how do you know, my lord?’ cried Kirk in exasperation.
‘Because, as I said, he was dead already,’ said Peter mysteriously. ‘Look, Kirk old chap, you’ll have to wait a couple of hours for an explanation.’
There would be a man-to-man reunion between Peter and Bunter. Harriet thought she had best leave them to it. She would round up the children and take them off somewhere. It was a hot afternoon; perhaps they would like a dip in the Pag. There was a swimming hole across the meadow from Talboys with a shallow bank of gravel for the little ones to splash on if they were carefully watched. A cheerful chaos broke out in the boot room behind the kitchen and spilled into the hall while the children collected rugs and towels and drinks and biscuits.
Sitting on the river bank, keeping an eye on the children, and then in due course shedding her shoes and stockings and paddling herself, looking, under Polly’s instructions, to see her feet ‘wobble’ on the submerged shingle, and admiring one after another the pebbles chosen by the children as special, Harriet was possessed by joy. Joy and guilt. She might have been going to share the terrible pain of the bereaved, the threadbare consolations of those whose dear ones had died for their country. Peter’s name might have been destined to be written in gold in Balliol College chapel, and on the walls of the church in Denver – in blessed memory, at the going down of the sun; greater love hath no man; in proud and grateful memory – and at least for the moment he was spared, she was spared. It wasn’t fair. But how good it made the cool water, the gentle sun, the children’s laughter.
At tea-time they came trailing home through the ankle-high grasses – the hay would be ready to cut early this year – a little gaggle of them, and the children at once besieged Mrs Trapp demanding their tea. Harriet found Peter reading the letters she had written to him all about Wendy Percival.
‘Thank you, Harriet, for writing all this. It must have been frustrating to have had no reply.’
‘It kept you in mind, Peter. It helped me think.’
‘It’s invaluable now. I’ve given Bunter the afternoon off. He’s taken Hope on a walk to Broxley. I’ve asked Bungo to come up, though. And Kirk to join us. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I mind. Dreadfully. But it’s quite all right. Why the awful Bungo?’
‘Is he awful? He’s a bit cheesy. But he’s very clever, Harriet. As he needs to be.’
‘Any friend of yours, my lord,’ she said. ‘Have you told Mrs Trapp about extra people for supper?’
‘She said she would contrive. Has it been difficult?’
‘Nothing to complain about really. Food has got rather boring. But I have always eaten to live rather than lived to eat. I don’t like bananas anyway.’
‘I promised myself recently,’ he said, ‘that if I got home and could be sure of a daily hunk of bread and a glass of clean water I would never complain again.’
‘Golly, Peter. You won’t be able to keep that one. And was it really that bad? You’ve no idea what it does to me to think of you hungry . . .’
‘Hunger wasn’t the worst of it,’ he said.
She shuddered, and then braced herself. ‘What was the worst?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer. ‘I don’t think I have actually thanked you, Harriet, for saving my life.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ she said. ‘It was nothing.’
‘Good God, Harriet, when I think what an incubus it was when I saved you! What a struggle it was to put that behind us and get on any sort of equal footing! What do you mean, it was nothing? I’ve been longing to get even with you!’
‘Well, there’s something about it I hadn’t previously realised. It wasn’t personal. I would have done as much for absolutely anybody, had I been in a position to. And – I’m right, aren’t I – it wasn’t personal from you, either. You would have saved any old accused standing in the dock falsely charged.’
‘Of course I would. What was personal was seeing you. Seeing at one glance that you couldn’t have done it. What is personal this time is your knowing what my text must have been. And of course, wanting me back.’
‘Yes, my dear,’ she said. ‘I did want you back.’
They sat in solemn conference in the dining-room. Bunter set a bottle of port on its silver coaster beside Peter at the head of the table.
‘Pull up a chair, Bunter,’ Peter said. ‘You’re in on this.’
Superintendent Kirk sat beside Harriet, and Bungo faced them, with his secretary taking minutes.
‘This is very serious, Wimsey,’ said Bungo. ‘I have had to run a security check on everyone present.’
‘I thought you would,’ said Peter. ‘How did we score?’
‘Superintendent Kirk is as clean as a whistle,’ said Bungo. ‘As is Bunter. We have been ignoring your ex-communist sister, Wimsey, as you know, but she is still in the record. Some of your wife’s old friends had better be dropped. I have clearance for this discussion, however, among these present, from the highest level. But I must warn you that this is top secret. Breach of confidence might amount to treason.’
‘Bungo, I think you and I are the only ones who know what this is about,’ said Peter. ‘Shall I explain, or will you?’
‘Oh, you do the necessary, old man,’ said Bungo. ‘You’re the detective round here.’
‘Right,’ said Peter, ‘here goes. Superintendent, when you turned up to tell Harriet you had found Brinklow—’
‘You knew right away he was dead!’ exclaimed Kirk. ‘Before I told you. And as far as I can see you shouldn’t have known, and I haven’t had an explanation.’
‘I recognised the name,’ said Peter. ‘It was mentioned to me – as a successful counter-intelligence move – while I was being debriefed from my recent expedition.’
‘Keep closely to the point, Wimsey,’ said Bungo.
‘This is what I think happened,’ said Peter. ‘Bungo will correct me if my impression is wrong. Alan Brinklow was a reconnaissance pilot, a skilled and brave one. His plane was shot down over the North Sea, and he baled out, but he died of exposure from hours in the water. He was fished out by one of our patrol boats, on a secret mission. All his identity papers were in his pockets, he was as found, downed and drowned, and there was something – don’t worry, Bungo, I’m not going to say what – something of very high importance going on over which we wanted to mislead the enemy. The patrol boat captain decided to plant some extra papers in Brinklow’s pockets. They weren’t very sophisticated, because they had to be mocked up quickly on board ship, so they just took the form of crudely coded letters, instructing Brinklow to parachute into an occupied country, and go somewhere with orders for somebody. Okay so far, Bungo?’
Bungo nodded and Peter went on. ‘The patrol boat went close inshore, and pushed the body overboard, hoping it would be washed up on a handy beach. And it worked. The Germans did react to the phoney orders Brinklow was carrying. Everyone congratulated themselves and the patrol boat captain on a nice piece of dirty trickery. And now . . . You can see why I was thunderstruck to be told not only that Superintendent Kirk had been looking for Brinklow, but that he had been found interred in Paggleham. You know, Harriet,’ he added peevishly, ‘I’m afraid we may have to move to a remote island of the Hebrides and live o
n a solitary rock. We seem to cause our neighbours to be beset by bodies.’
‘So let me get this straight,’ said Superintendent Kirk. ‘You are saying that the fellow who has been living in Paggleham with a broken ankle all this while wasn’t the real Brinklow?’
‘Can’t have been, no,’ said Bungo.
‘Then would somebody tell me who the hell it was?’ cried Kirk. ‘I’ve got the wrong body, is what you’re saying. What do I do now?’
‘That’s what we’re here to work out, old chap,’ said Peter. ‘What happened about his papers?’
‘I brought them, as you asked, my lord.’ Kirk produced a file from his briefcase, and tipped the little clutch of documents on to the table. ‘I must ask you not to touch anything,’ he said. ‘Fingerprints.’
‘Bunter, do we still have a little cache of cotton gloves?’ Peter asked.
‘I will go and see, my lord. We did before we left.’
They sat round staring at the contents of Brinklow’s pockets. Harriet was looking at a little brick-coloured fibre-board disc on a string stamped with name, number and ‘RC’. That’s why we didn’t see him in church, she thought.
There was an identity card of some kind – headed RAF 1250.
Bunter, returning and putting a pair of white gloves on the table, said quietly to Harriet, ‘Lord St George has arrived, my lady. Shall I ask him to wait in the study?’
‘Yes, he’d better,’ said Harriet.
‘Where’s Brinklow’s pay-book?’ asked Bungo. ‘Where’s his ration-book?’
‘His ration-book,’ said Harriet, ‘is on the mantelpiece in his cottage.’
‘Yes,’ said Kirk. ‘He had registered it with the village shop, and with Wagget the butcher.’
‘Yes, but who had?’ asked Harriet. ‘I’m getting confused. What I meant to say is, surely airmen don’t have their ration-books in their pockets when they fly missions?’
‘That’s a good question,’ said Peter. ‘Perhaps Jerry can help us after all. Ask him to step in will you, Bunter.’
A Presumption of Death Page 18