It Begins in Betrayal

by Whishaw, Iona;

  AMES, SHE COULD see, was unreservedly delighted to see her. Had she even detected relief? He pulled out a chair and then hovered nervously for a moment.

  “Should I get some tea up here? Coffee?”

  “Not unless you want some. I drank a whole pot of the stuff this morning.” Ames sank into his chair. She watched him. He had changed. He had a new cast of worry around his eyes. It made him look older and more serious. She wasn’t sure this was an improvement on the usual sunny and unwavering optimism with which he approached the world. “Have you heard from His Nibs?” she asked.

  “No, I have not. And I can’t call him because I don’t know where he is. He said he was staying with a friend. Some pilot he was in the action with. He didn’t tell you?”

  “No.” Lane went from a brief moment of relief to a more pervasive worry. It was not like him not to have contacted her, and if she’d been thinking clearly, she would have seen that immediately. “He said he would wire me as soon as he could. Perhaps he’s still sorting himself.” She did not want to add worry about Darling to Ames’s list of troubles.

  “How is the case coming? Darling said I should keep an eye on you. But you don’t have to tell me of course. Police matters and all that.”

  Ames looked relieved. “I can’t see any harm in it. You’ve practically worked with us before. And for a change you aren’t involved.” He smiled and for a moment the sunny Ames was back. “Do you mind if I tell you? I mean, have you got time?”

  “I’ve got lots of time. I have to stop by the travel agency to pick up my tickets, but they don’t close till four thirty.”

  Ames, who had pushed his chair back so that it was on its back two legs, thumped down. “Travel agency? Not you too. Where are you going now?”

  Lane realized she hadn’t told him, in fact she hadn’t told anyone, she was going. Her heart sank at having to tell Angela and the Armstrongs, and anyone else at King’s Cove who might care, that she would be away an indeterminate amount of time. She had asked the agent to leave her return ticket open. Though Ames might harbour suspicions, he didn’t really know yet that she and Darling were in love. Best to keep it simple; no need to tell him she was dashing back to the old country for Darling’s sake.

  “I’m off to see my grandparents. They’re getting on, and I may not get that many opportunities.” It sounded very convincing, even to her. Her visit to the bank had given her another reason to need to see them. Her father had left her an enormous legacy of four thousand pounds, and she had been puzzled and troubled by where he might have accrued so much money in his line of work. She wanted to find out from her grandparents anything they could tell her about a man who had been elusive and forbidding all her life.

  “Well, that’s dandy! Let’s all bugger off to the old country and leave Ames on his own, excuse my French,” Ames said. “I better get a move on then, I guess, and tell you about what’s going on with the case before you disappear in a puff of smoke.”

  WITH A CLARITY that impressed Lane, Ames outlined the main details of the case. He did not consult his notes or show her any photos, which she assumed he must have taken. “Now,” he said after a few moments, “I have discovered something else that complicates what seemed to me at first to be a very personal murder. There was an old sawmill there that closed down years ago, and some outfit is thinking of reopening a mill away from the town and up behind where Agatha lived. When I went through her house, I found a letter from a month ago from some representative of the company. It said this was their third time offering her a sum of money to vacate the property, as they need to put a road through to the new facility they are going to build. She’d crumpled it up and tossed it in the garbage.”

  “That is interesting, certainly. But surely you aren’t saying you suspect a respectable forestry company of murdering an old lady to get her out of the way of a road they want to build. I’m sure even in the wilds of British Columbia that isn’t a common business practice.”

  Ames shrugged his reluctant agreement. “Probably not, but the letter has quite a threatening tone to it, legal action sort of thing. It turns out that might not even have been her own land. It looks like she just set up shop on Crown land. The place was practically a ghost town when the original mill shut down, so probably no one cared.”

  “Where did the letter come from? I mean, is it directly from the company itself, or a law office?”

  Ames leaned over and looked through some files he’d placed on the floor to free up the chair for Lane. “Here. Morgan Franklin Limited. It’s a name that could cover a multitude sins. The frank on the stamp is smudged, but the return address is in Vancouver.” He handed the letter over, holding it carefully in a clean handkerchief.

  Using her handkerchief to protect the letter from her fingerprints, Lane looked at it. It was certainly cold. In addition, the writer said, another agent would be coming in the second week of June to discuss the matter. “I wonder if any of the other residents had this sort of letter?”

  “I met the agent. He didn’t seem particularly threatening. Certainly not as bad as this letter. He was just getting around to seeing people. One old codger who lives near the edge of town had a pleasanter version of the letter saying the company would like to purchase what amounted, he said, to a strip of his land where he plants potatoes. He said he wouldn’t mind having the extra cash, so he never received any more.”

  “So if her cabin is on Crown land, they might have been offering a small amount of money even though legally they would not have to because, in point of law, they could go directly to the Crown to negotiate for the use of the land to put in a road. When she didn’t respond, the gloves were off. That is unpleasant, certainly, not to say cruel to force an old woman out of her home, but it does not suggest someone came and killed her.”

  “No, I suppose not. But here’s the interesting bit. A guy called Carter, who lives in the house behind the church, happened to be going to the ferry just a couple of weeks ago. He was passing the place where she usually parks her car, and he said she was standing by her car brandishing a shotgun and shouting at a man who seemed to belong to a fancy car that was parked next to hers. I was a bit annoyed to hear this because, when I interviewed everyone the day I went out there, the forest company agent who has moved there to investigate the viability of the project neglected to tell me about it. I now have to go back and interview him again, and the ferryman, in case it was someone else in a fancy car he neglected to tell me about. Having said that, it wasn’t unusual, apparently, for her to fly off the handle if people encroached on her land. I got the feeling the people in the village were a little cautious around her.”

  “Charming. What are you going to do next?” Lane asked.

  “It seems perfectly obvious that someone drove her car away dressed in a manner that convinced the ferryman it was Agatha, and that someone is probably our murderer. I need to find that car, and I need to know how he or she got over there in the first place. I’m going to assume they came by water, which means a rowboat or canoe must have been abandoned on the shore. I’ll get the Vancouver Police to check on the agency that wrote that letter. It’s a waste of time, but I have to cover all the possibilities.”

  “The inspector would be very proud of you!” Lane said, getting up. “I’ve got to be off. I’m leaving in a couple of days, and I have a lot to do.”

  “You wouldn’t be seeing his majesty while you’re over there, I don’t suppose?” Ames was close to winking, Lane thought.

  “England looks small on the map, but it’s a long, long way between London and Scotland.”

  “Hmm. Too bad. Agatha Browning came from some fancy family there, apparently. Someplace called Whitcombe in Dorset. I could have asked you to go and find out what you can.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE RINGING FINALLY PENETRATED LANE’S consciousness. She was still in the grip of a dream in which the piercing ringing played a part. Sitting up, she pulled the chain on her lamp and then, galvanized
by the time—two in the morning—she threw her blankets off and bounded into the hall. Snatching the earpiece she said, “KC 431, Lane Winslow speaking.”

  There was a silence, and then someone very distant said, “Please hold,” and then a male voice she did not recognize. Not Darling.

  “Is this Miss Winslow?”

  “Yes, this is she.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what time it is over there. I hope it’s not the middle of the night or anything. My name is Rudy Donaldson.”

  “It is the middle of the night, actually. What can I do for you?”

  “I am sorry. Only Fred said I needed to contact you in case. I’m not sure he’d want me telephoning you at this stage, but I felt I ought to.”

  Lane felt herself go cold. “In case what? Has something happened?”

  “He was arrested this morning. I’ve got a solicitor, though. I think he’s seeing him right now. He’ll be arraigned in a few days.”

  Lane put one hand against the wall to steady herself. The light from her bedroom made an angle on the wall just past where her phone hung, emphasizing the darkness beyond. “Arrested for what?”

  “I think it might be for murder. He’s been down to the War Office for a couple of days in a row being questioned about a crash and the death of a gunner. He really hasn’t been able to make out what it’s all about, but they seemed to really focus on his gunner dying during a crash. I’m sorry. I don’t know how much you know. Then today he telephoned to tell me they were bringing him in and that I should get the solicitor.”

  Murder. A hanging offence.

  “Miss, are you there? Hello?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m here. They think he’s murdered the gunner,” she said flatly.

  “It looks that way. I don’t know what else I can tell you. I’m going to go by and see him this afternoon, bring him his sponge bag and a change of clothes, some books. Can I reach you here most times if I have an update?”

  “You won’t need to bother, Mr. Donaldson. I’m flying out from Vancouver the day after tomorrow. How can I reach you?”

  KENNY ARMSTRONG’S RED truck was at the top of Lane’s driveway. He and Eleanor, his wife of almost thirty years, stood with Lane on the front porch, waiting while she turned the key in the lock. The click in the quiet morning had a ring of finality. Kenny reached for her suitcase and started back toward the truck.

  “We’ll look in, dear. You mustn’t worry. No doubt Kenny’s dear departed mother will be opening the attic windows to keep the air fresh. I’ll close them just in case of rain,” Eleanor said.

  Lane smiled ruefully at this mention of the resident ghost, assumed by everyone to be Lady Armstrong, to whom her beloved house had once belonged. She was thought to be the one who mysteriously engaged in opening the windows in the attic. Lane, more inclined to believe in faulty equipment, had had the latches fixed, but the window opening persisted. She had come to regard the long-dead Lady Armstrong as a guardian angel. Well, she’d be no good under the current circumstances, Lane thought grimly.

  “It’s so good of you to take care of things,” she said, taking one desperate, longing look around her garden and at the lake beyond. “I was really going to get at the garden this year. You all put me to shame,” she added sadly. The day, instead of being sombre as befits a painful parting, was diabolically all golden sunlight, highlighting the deep green of the lawns and playing through the leaves of the weeping willow by her pond.

  “Don’t you worry, lovie. You have a nice visit with your gran. They’ll be so happy to see you. Then you hurry back to us.” Eleanor was patting her back as they walked toward the truck. Lane had pulled on her white gloves and hung her handbag over her wrist. She’d not told them about Darling being arrested. She didn’t quite know why. There was usually nothing she didn’t tell them. Perhaps it was her own fear that if she said it out loud it would make it real, make it rush to its unthinkable and horrific conclusion, Darling hanged for a murder he did not commit. In the middle of her last sleepless night in King’s Cove, when she had no defences against her darkest musings, the thought presented itself that he might be guilty after all. What did she really know about him? But in the first grey light of dawn, she knew. She knew as well that there would be nothing she could do by rushing over there, but she could not leave him to face things alone.

  “Thank God! I thought I’d miss you!” Angela was hurrying down the road, calling out loudly.

  Lane endured the hugs and Angela’s tears and now sat quietly in the truck, her heart constricting with pain, looking out the window as Kenny drove down the King’s Cove road, past the church, which was bathed in sunlight, and the creek running by that gurgled cheerfully. Eleanor, Kenny, and Angela seemed now to be her three favourite people on earth. It was ridiculous, she knew, but she was in the grip of an almost superstitious fear that she might not come back.

  “I’ve never been back to the old country, myself,” Kenny was saying. “It wasn’t easy in those days. Once people came out they tended to stay. Not like now, eh? A train to the coast and then a flight all the way.”

  “You could still go,” Lane said, glad of this distraction.

  Kenny turned onto the Nelson road, happy to see no one ahead on the road kicking up dust. “Nah. Nothing there for me, is there? My people are all gone. I probably wouldn’t recognize the place I was born.”

  Lane was silent, thinking about her own people, her grandparents who had moved to Scotland after coming away from their home in the British colony in Latvia, their rambling home nationalized by Russians during the war. They would never go home either and had seemed to settle contentedly into their small farm in Scotland. She would, of course, have to, wanted to, see them, but she could think of nothing but Darling, locked up, waiting for a trial that might doom him.

  Kenny gave her one last hug and handed her into the train, and now Lane sat, watching the lake, the forest, the mountains, all falling behind her, disappearing as if they had been a dream.

  London

  “YOU’VE A VISITOR,” the guard said gruffly. Darling put down his book, stood up, stretched, and rubbed his eyes. The light wasn’t brilliant in the cell, and Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier was hardly uplifting; it bespoke a turn to Bolshevism Darling had not expected from Donaldson, who’d lent him the book. The quiet hum of prisoners and their visitors, unseen in nearby cells, made the grey stone walls seem haunted. He expected to see Higgins, the solicitor, ushered in with his briefcase. His heart gave a leap. It was not Higgins. It was madly and improbably Lane, holding her handbag nervously in both hands, her face slightly shaded by a pale yellow hat that contrasted with the dark waves of her hair. The door was unlocked, and Lane was ushered in and given a chair on one side of a small table.

  “I’ve only ever seen you in a hat once,” Darling said, sitting opposite her.

  Lane said nothing but reached across the table to take his hand. The guard behind her moved forward and cleared his throat. She took her hand back and clasped her hands together in front of her.

  “I thought I’d better be as respectable as possible under the circumstances,” she said.

  “Lane, God, I can hardly believe it’s you . . . what are you doing here? I issued strict instructions to Donaldson to call you only if things became dire.” He longed to take her hand, to kiss her, to stroke that wonderful hair.

  “I don’t know how much more dire you want them to be. I understand you are being charged with murder. Is your solicitor any good?”

  “He seems competent enough. He’s gone off to find out as much as he can. I expect he’ll be back this afternoon.” Darling frowned. “I don’t understand how you’re here. Where are you staying?”

  “Funnily enough in the same rooming house I was in during the war. Mrs. Macdonald seemed happy to see me, and my old room had just come vacant. It takes me back, I can tell you. I keep expecting my flatmate to come and distribute ash all over the floor, but it’s very quiet, all things considered, and I have
the room to myself. Now then. The solicitor. I don’t expect they’ll let me hang about when you see him, but I’ll wait on a bench in the hall. You have to tell him that I’m to know everything. Promise.”

  Darling looked at her, wanting to drink in every line of her face. “I don’t think you should get involved . . .” Did he really think that? He knew there would be nothing whatsoever she could do, alone against the juggernaut that was the War Office. There would, he very much feared, be nothing anyone could do. He’d already been interviewed once by an extremely brusque and ill-tempered inspector named Sims, who clearly believed Darling had done it and expected to make short work of the investigation and get back to his own office. Sims did not seem the sort of man who could be charmed, even by Lane. “I promise you. There is nothing you can do. The investigator, Sims, a civilian they’ve roped in from the Yard, is absolutely convinced I’ve murdered my eighteen-year-old gunner. He must have extremely compelling evidence.”