Darling leaned in and looked at the photo, fascinated by its close correspondence to the two documents. “That’s rather good. How did you get hold of that?”
“Frogs, sir. Someone was showing off with an aeroplane before the war. I managed to get hold of a pile of photos from this region. I always hoped one of them would come in handy. The photo people are snapping more pictures now, but not specifically of this region.”
“It means circling a fair way north to come at it as they suggest. It will add time,” Darling said.
“Yes, sir. But will be quicker if we can reduce the risk of being spotted coming in the usual way.”
The other pilots had already left the briefing room. Darling and Jones were the last two. The rest of his crew were preparing in the locker room.
“Well done, Jones. Always have something up your sleeve. Better run along. See you at nineteen hundred.”
Darling sat back watching the dusk settle on the airfield outside. He had developed a habit of meeting with Jones for a few minutes so that he could get the sense of the territory he was to fly over. Jones was like a good-natured merchant peddling black market socks at the Saturday market. He always seemed to have something to augment the official maps and photos they were provided, and while curious, Darling had mostly stopped asking how he had acquired them. “A wink and a nod, sir, a wink and a nod,” Jones would say.
When Jones had left, Darling used the few moments of solitude he had to go over in his brain what he’d seen, mentally preparing. In another half hour the small convoy of Lancasters would be roaring through the dark in formation, the North Sea a dark and sinister void below them. He thought about how that formation made them seem invincible, tied together as if by invisible cords, a rumbling blanket of destruction fanning out across the dark occupied French countryside.
CHAPTER FOUR
DARLING SLEPT LITTLE THAT NIGHT. He’d pulled the ladder down from the attic and spent a precarious evening avoiding stepping between the beams and going through the ceiling. He moved the trunk that he’d have preferred never to see again to the one small part of the attic that had a proper floor. Even though the war had been over for a little under two years, he felt like it was a distant and alien event, and he was filled with wonder as he pulled his flight jacket from the trunk that he had ever been a part of it. Why had he kept his Thermos and burn gloves, he wondered, or all the other little paraphernalia of his former life? Aside from the camaraderie and genuine love for his crew, and, if the truth be known, his Lancasters, he had found nothing else appealing in his wartime experience. Holding his uniform brought the whole thing flooding back.
He had gotten together with fellow vets a few times at the legion when he had first returned to civilian life. Touching down in his old life had felt alien at first, but he came to realize that for many of them the war had been the highlight of their lives, and they missed a sense, they said, of truly being alive. He could not bear to think that his wartime experience was going to be the one great thing he’d have to look back on, so he tried to throw himself back into his “real” life as quickly as possible. Policing had an intensity of its own, and he saw its advantages. For many of the men, a return to civilian life meant a return to working in mills, on the railways, in farming, or in offices. Perhaps it was harder for them.
At the bottom of the trunk he found what he was looking for. A manila folder full of paper. He took this down the ladder, without falling off, obviating the necessity of Lane having to make a difficult decision between swimming or visiting him in hospital. He switched on his kitchen table lamp and began to reread his notes about the crash landing on that horrible day.
When he had finished, he stacked the papers, squaring the edges, his usual way of aiding his thinking at work. The report was, as he expected it would be, complete and detailed. Was this what he was being called to account for? Surely they had the report. In fact, his superiors had discussed it with him in detail and had thanked him for his thoroughness, remarking, if he recalled, that they wished reports from others were so well done. Certainly nothing was missing in his accounting of the crash, the condition of the plane, their subsequent escape, the loss of one man in the crash itself, or the death of his gunner from German fire. In fact, he thought grimly, they’d given him a medal when the whole thing was over.
He poured himself a Scotch and stood, looking out at the lights of the town below him. Had there been anything unusual about that trip, besides the obvious difference of having crashed? Perhaps the fact of the crash had made any other unusual aspect of that flight so minor that he had forgotten it somehow when he wrote the report.
He took his memory back to before they set off that night. He tried to recall every detail: getting kitted out, whom he had spoken with, what he might have said to the men as they got into position. It was then that he remembered the only anomaly in that mission. Harlow was in sick bay. Some ghastly intestinal thing. Darling had stopped by to see him. Harlow had wanted to come, he remembered, and Darling had told him he certainly didn’t want him along making everyone else sick. He’d made a joke about Henry the Fifth’s men all having flux at the siege of Harfleur and that he didn’t want history repeating itself, which had gone completely over Harlow’s head.
“You read history at university, did you, sir?” the patient had said with weary sarcasm.
Neville Anthony had been assigned to replace Harlow as engineer on that mission. Try as Darling might, he could think of nothing else. Anthony had performed admirably, Darling recalled. Showed real leadership in the post-crash mayhem.
The next morning he woke from his few short hours of uneasy sleep still exhausted and vaguely headachy. He looked with distaste at the stale loaf of bread that was the only source of nourishment, and decided he’d pick breakfast up at the café next to the station. He could invite Ames along. His constable could happily eat a second breakfast moments after consuming his first. Darling would focus his energies on going over next steps on the dead Englishwoman up the lake. They should hear from Gilly today about how she died. Happy to have these distractions before him, he scowled at the folder containing his crash report, put on his hat, and went out the door.
“WELL, WHAT DO we think, Ames? Murder most foul, certainly, but with what motive?” Darling drank gratefully from the mug of strong coffee April had placed before him with a large smile. She had no such smile for Ames. Darling whispered, “It’s been almost a year. Even I am beginning to feel sorry for you.”
Ames, used to his boss’s insinuations about his personal life, rose above this remark and said, “I really can’t help thinking there was something personal about it. That she knew her attacker. It’s what you said yesterday, sir. Something coming out of the past.”
Darling drew in a breath to speak, but Ames put his hand up. “I know, sir, before you say anything, I’ve no real evidence for that, and one shouldn’t base any conclusions on feelings.”
“As a matter of fact, I was about to say that if, as you say, there was something rather savage about the scene that seemed more than someone surprised in a robbery, then I don’t say you should disregard feelings. They are part of a thinking man’s toolkit. But one shouldn’t try to make evidence fit them.”
They ate their scrambled eggs and toast in companionable silence, Ames enjoying, for a record second day in a row, a feeling of being approved of by Darling. As he plopped his napkin onto his empty plate, he was emboldened to say, “I think we should go over the interviews I did again, and see if what Gilly tells us moves this along a bit.” Darling looked in wonder at Ames, Lead Investigator, and called for the bill. “I’ll get this,” he said. “This once!” He added.
BACK AT THE office, Darling made the surprise move of suggesting they meet in Ames’s little office. “We might as well. Saves moving your file back and forth. I suppose I’d better bring my own chair?”
Ames had two chairs in his office, but one was always covered in his “out” pile of papers.
&nb
sp; “Give me a minute, sir!” Ames exclaimed, darting into his office. Darling moved on to drop his jacket and hat off on the coat rack behind his own desk. He felt his office was still tainted by the government man’s presence. His life was upended, and though he knew he was being indulgent to Ames, Darling was going to have to leave this investigation in his hands and wasn’t sure how he felt about Ames’s abilities when left entirely on his own.
“Why don’t you give me the gist of the people you talked to,” Darling said, sitting on the now-empty chair. He could see that Ames had taken the pile of papers and files and stacked it on the window ledge, where it now rested precariously. He ought to put in a bookshelf for Ames, he thought.
“There aren’t too many people there, sir, as you saw. The good Father,” he opened his book to scan his notes, “went up to the forest above the cabin on a whim. I didn’t ask if he stopped by Mrs. Browning’s or just went directly up along the path. He said he wanted to see where they might put the new sawmill someone is talking about. I suppose he’s telling the truth. Man of the cloth.”
“Supposing is not always the best strategy for a detective, Ames. You have to know as much as you can, and even then it will still be hard to know what actually happened. Never mind. Go on.”
Unsettled and glancing at his boss, Ames continued. “He said he came to see her a few times a month to check in and see if she needed anything. He worried that she was getting older. But he did comment that she was very healthy and sure-footed for her age. I don’t really think he has anything to do with it, sir. Why would he telephone us?”
Darling shrugged. “That’s as may be, Ames. It wouldn’t be the first time. But on principle I agree with you. It isn’t very priestly behaviour. Even if he was someone from her past out to get revenge, he’s had twenty years to do it. All right, go on.”
“I talked to a Mr. and Mrs. Elliot. They live opposite the church. Old as Methuselah. They said they knew Mrs. Browning well enough. Saw her in the store sometimes and exchanged a few words. They didn’t see anyone they didn’t know that day. They were very nervous and asked me if they were safe. I suggested they keep their door locked at night, in case.”
“Yes, well, we don’t really know what time this attack happened. Go on.”
Ames continued doggedly. “The only other person I talked to was a gentleman who moved recently into one of the empty houses. He’s from a forestry company. Says he’s here to survey the situation, as they are thinking of building a new mill. He showed me his identification and his notes. He did say he’d seen the cabin because it lies along a route where they might put in access to some part of mill. He had a note that he was going to talk to whoever lived there, but he hadn’t had time yet. His company had sent letters to everyone, and she never answered hers, so they sent several more. He’d already spoken to one other property owner near the ferry and hadn’t got to Mrs. Browning yet. I suppose wanting the property as access is a motive.”
“Usually they offer to buy people out, not stab them and leave them for dead. Well, I had a similar set of unhelpful visits to three other families. They’ve all been there since the twenties. They worked here on the railway till they retired and are able to scrape by on their pensions. So that brings us to the deepest mystery of all. The car Mrs. Browning drove was not there, and the ferryman swore she herself drove it across yesterday afternoon and has not returned. And he does not recall anyone unusual coming over in the last month, let alone the last twenty-four hours. However, he was not on the job for three days prior. Someone he called ‘Nobby,’ who turns out to be a young fellow called Nathan Bannon, who normally works at the gas station in Balfour but unfortunately has gone out to the coast for a week to look into going to university. I’ll speak to him when he gets back. Oh, and no extra car anywhere.”
GILLY’S REPORT WAS, as ever, succinct. “The victim was in her seventies, very thin as you can see, but overall in good health. Quite muscular in fact. It’s clear she put up a fight. She was slashed with a kitchen-type knife. Something smaller than a bread knife and larger than a paring knife. The assailant plunged the knife into the space just below the shoulder and then pulled the knife down and across toward the heart. It was certainly not the work of an expert. More of a slash in the end than a stab. At a guess I’d say there was a struggle. The assailant, whom I’ll call right-handed, meant perhaps to stab at the heart, but the victim was fighting and twisting, and we ended up with this mess. She certainly bled to death, though there are abrasions on the face and hands, but you found her face down on the floor of a messy forest, so those could have happened when she fell, or was pushed, into it. All happened in the last, I’m going to hazard, forty-eight hours.”
“In a way this supports Ames’s theory that there was something impromptu and frenzied about the whole thing,” said Darling, looking with interest at the woman’s face. The vicar had said she was rumoured to come from the aristocracy. Was that something one could see on the visage?
“I wouldn’t say ‘frenzied’ necessarily. That might imply someone stabbing a victim many times, but there is certainly something unrehearsed, as if a fight broke out, and the assailant had the physical advantage. It could certainly be committed by a strong woman, or by a man unused to fighting or violence but roused to sudden anger.”
THE LONG SUMMER light was being pushed across Elephant Mountain by the encroaching shadows of evening, and Darling stood at the living room window in his house on the hill, watching the engulfing twilight, feeling it as a metaphor for this moment in his own life. He had not phoned Lane yet with the news, and he had left his bag half-packed on his bed, desperate to see the last of the sun before nightfall. As he analyzed his own feelings, he saw that the worst thing about the whole business was the unknown. He had gone over and over the events of that deadly night in ’43 and still could not divine the source of the government man’s “unanswered questions.”
He turned and sat down at the small table where his telephone was and picked up the receiver.
“Inspector,” said Lane.
“Maybe not for long,” he said after a pause.
“Whatever is the matter? You sound ghastly! It’s not that business with the government man?”
“It is indeed. How perspicacious of you.”
“What’s he said?”
“I’m off to England. They’ve ‘reopened’ an investigation. I didn’t know there’d been an investigation in the first place.”
“Into the crash? There were plenty of downed planes. Why should yours be any different? Except that you seem to have survived it. That must be unusual.”
“I did, yes, thank you for noticing, as did most of the rest of the crew, barring Jones and Evans.” Darling trailed off. Was that it? Was it Evans’s death they were interested in? The questions he was asked were very oblique, if so.
“What is it?” asked Lane.
“Well, I’ve been thinking the whole time it’s the plane crash they are questioning, but now I wonder. There was an odd question about whether I’d moved Evans’s body. A man called Anthony and I moved him just after we got out, to get him away from the plane. He was alive. We were under attack, and I ordered everyone away; I stayed back, covering them, and to protect Evans. He was too wounded to run, so I stayed with him till it was safe to carry him out. When I went to pick him up, I saw he was dead. I felt badly, but I beat a hasty retreat. That was the last I saw of him. Later I learned a French farmer had collected him.”
“They are seriously making you go back? Is it the police, or the military police, or even, God help you, intelligence?”
“This is like one of those multiple choice questions in physics where you can’t begin to know what the answer is, so you eliminate the least likely. Let’s eliminate intelligence. That leaves the police or the military.”
“Something that happened has gone into the ‘crime’ column for some reason. But why you? You’d be the last person I’d look at.”
“Thanks for your faith
in me.”
“A girl knows these things. So, when are you going?”
“I’m going out to the coast by train tomorrow and then flying to Montreal and thence to London.”
Lane was silent, her heart sinking. “So soon! Well, I wish you weren’t,” she said at last.
“I know,” he said—so softly that she felt his voice inside her. Another silence.
“Who will I talk to every evening?”
Darling had to pull himself together. “Your irrepressible friend Angela. No doubt she will get to work finding a replacement for me the minute I’m gone. Your friends the Armstrongs, your in loco grand-parentis. You can take up new pursuits instead of meddling with things that don’t concern you. Speaking of which, I jokingly told Ames he could call you if he got stuck with that murder up the lake. I wish I hadn’t. He’ll jump at the chance to speak to his beloved Miss Winslow. You’ll not have a moment’s peace.”
Whitcombe, July 1905
“YOU’RE RUNNING A risk, setting up outside. I don’t care if it is his first time here, we’ll hardly make a good impression if we drown him.” Agatha stood with her sister Mary surveying the tea table, set out on the lawn under the willow at the back of the house. Five rattan chairs were in a semicircle around it, facing the view of the river at the bottom of the garden and the rising meadow on the other side. The air was thick and warm, sun filtering through the leaves onto the table, but Agatha’s misgivings were focused on the dense blue-black roll of cloud that was building up beyond the meadow.
“It’ll give him a good taste of the mad family he’s marrying into. Poor Lucy. She’s been in a flap for days. She’s terrified we won’t approve of him. She’s upstairs now making poor Tilly pin and unpin her hair over and over.”
“I can’t see why. We’re not marrying him. Why should we need to approve of him? What’s he called again?”
It Begins in Betrayal Page 4