Lane shook her head. “Did you kill your gunner?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then you can stop telling me what I can and can’t do. I’ll tell you what I can’t do. I can’t sit here and wait for the man I love to be hanged. Have you given the solicitor every detail you can remember? What’s his name, I can’t keep calling him that.”
“Higgins. Am I the man you love?”
“Madly.” Much to her consternation Lane teared up. She reached across and took both his hands in hers. The guard pulled himself away from the wall and came toward them. “Blast him,” she said. “Have you been formally charged?” She pulled her hands away, glancing at the frowning guard.
“Tomorrow morning I expect.”
“Time’s up, miss,” the guard said.
“Promise me you’ll tell Higgins to confide in me,” she said, desperately hoping time was not up.
LANE SAT IN the passage, watching the earnest activity of the court hurrying past her. Men in suits, men in black robes and wigs, men in red robes, all about the business of dispensing justice, righting society, cancelling the debt incurred by crime. The bench she sat on was hard, and her stomach was in turmoil. She tried to recall how she practised breathing to calm herself before setting off on a mission. It seemed harder now. Then it had only been her own life she feared for. No matter how dangerous the flight, or the drop into enemy territory, or the possibility of being found out and arrested or shot, she always had the illusion that her life was in her own hands, that she would find a way to survive. Now she felt at one step removed. Darling’s life was in the hands of others, people intent on proving he’d willfully taken the life of an eighteen-year-old boy under his command. People intent on righting society by convicting him.
SHE DID NOT know how long had passed when she heard “Miss Winslow?” She looked up to see a man of no great height with receding hair combed straight back off his forehead, and an efficient but kindly expression. He wore a dark striped suit and brogues. A man who was doing well.
“Mr. Higgins?” Lane started to stand.
“No, don’t get up.” He settled beside her and opened his briefcase. “I understand I’m to take you fully into my confidence. I normally wouldn’t. You are not, I understand, married to Flight Lieutenant Darling, I should say Inspector Darling. However, I’m going to say quite frankly that we need all the help we can get, even from someone who is wholly unconnected with anyone in London.”
“Thank you, Mr. Higgins.” I’m not wholly unconnected she thought, though I would be loath in every way to have to call upon those connections. “What is the situation?”
“Tomorrow morning he will be formally charged with willfully and knowingly taking the life of one Arthur Evans by shooting him in the back during the course of an action in battle. The evidence I have been provided with is compelling in the extreme. The bullet found lodged in a rib has been traced to a revolver of the type issued to Flight Lieutenant Darling. Apparently the others were either unarmed or had a different weapon, so his would have been the only one of that type. And there was a witness, which is perhaps the most damning circumstance. The presiding judge will set a court date tomorrow. I must say that, on the whole, I believe him when he says he did not do it, but the War Office is intent on clearing a backlog of unresolved cases of treason, wrongful death, and so on, and this one has been described to me as ‘open and shut.’ I would be lying if did not tell you very frankly, Miss Winslow, there is very little hope.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“BE UPSTANDING.”
Lane, in the gallery, watched as the might of the legal system gathered below her rose. They settled again in a wave of wooden clattering like parishioners in church pews to await the word of God. The judge sat at the bench, shuffling with some irritation through the papers before him and then looked to the prosecution. The charges were read with a finality and gravity that was chilling, and Lane, wishing desperately that she could see Darling’s face, watched his back as he stood unmoving below her in the dock.
The judge consulted his papers again and held a whispered conversation with the clerk. “The trial date is set for June twenty-three. Yes?” This question was in response to Higgins rising.
“M’lud. I am requesting bail at this time. My client, Flight Lieutenant Darling, is currently a police inspector in the Dominion of Canada. He is not a flight risk and is fully aware of the provisions of the law.”
This brought the prosecution to its feet.
“If I may, m’lud, the prisoner is charged with shooting one of his own men under the cover of battle. A man under his command. A man who trusted him absolutely. It is unthinkable that he should be granted his liberty under these circumstances.”
Higgins rose again. “Flight Lieutenant Darling has, despite these wholly spurious charges, an impeccable war record, m’lud, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery under fire. And he has not yet been convicted of any crime. Although the circumstances are unusual, I nevertheless crave the court’s indulgence, and request bail.”
Lane crossed her fingers, frowning anxiously, watching Darling, who suddenly half-turned his head, as if he would search for her among the sparse crowd of lookers-on. The judge, holding his gavel, stared fixedly at the prisoner, as if to read on his face the outcome of any decision the bench would make. With a sigh, he lifted his gavel.
“Bond is set at five hundred pounds. I need hardly remind the prisoner that he’d better be present before me on the twenty-third of June.” The gavel came down, only barely obscuring the gasps of the people in the gallery. Five hundred pounds was a staggering amount of money. What one might expect of a judge who had no wish to release a man charged with murder and yet no wish to keep a war hero in prison.
Lane heard a muffled sob and turned for the first time to look at who else was in the gallery. One row behind her, near the door, she saw a couple in their fifties. The woman, wearing a drab brown dress and pinched black hat with one desultory and faded flower pinned to it over her grey hair, was now crying and had a gloved hand at her mouth. The man, Lane presumed him to be the husband, had his arm around her but was staring angrily down on the drama below. As the melee of leaving and conversation rose from the floor of the courtroom, the man stood and pulled at his wife’s arm.
“Come on, Mother,” he said. “It’s clear we’ll not get justice in this courtroom.”
Lane watched them leave and realized they must be Evans’s parents. It came to her forcibly that the profound conviction she had in Darling’s innocence was matched in power, or perhaps greater power, by the grief of Evans’s parents and their conviction that Darling was guilty. She felt a rush of empathy for them. They had lost a hero son, in battle, they had thought, a loss profound enough, but to learn from the authorities that a murderer had callously thrown away their son’s life must be the final devastation. And they had the man they strongly believed might be responsible in their sights, standing trial for their son’s murder.
Subdued by this glimpse of a world where either they or she must in the end endure bitter disappointment, Lane waited while Higgins spoke with the bailiff. She would, of course, despite the amount, stand his bail. She had no idea what Darling’s resources were, but hers would more than meet the case.
In the cell, Darling shook his head vigorously. Lane sat primly before him, her hands on her handbag, and Higgins stood discreetly by the door. “You are not to do this. It’s unthinkable. It’s a ridiculous amount. It was meant as a deterrent. Higgins, make her see sense!”
Higgins made as if to join them, but Lane put up her hand. “I’m not having you rot in jail when I have easy access to the means of getting you out.”
“No one rots in jail anymore. Conditions are quite hygienic, in fact.”
Lane glanced around the cell that smelled of cigarettes and boiled offal and bleach. “Don’t talk nonsense. Now, it will undoubtedly take me a bit of machination to get the bank here to release money from
my Canadian account. As you know, my father left me quite well provided for. I expect my ferocious old bank manager is still at his post at my London bank. He’ll help. No, don’t appeal to Mr. Higgins. He has already notified the bailiff of our intention to post bond. It’s Friday. I shall go to the bank immediately to set things in motion, but it may take into next week. Try not to rot until then.” She smiled brightly at Darling, whose heart swelled at the sight, and joined Higgins at the door.
LANE AND RUDY sat at the small kitchen table, with untouched cups of tea cooling at their elbows. Lane had a pencil and paper and was making notes. She had learned that the bank could get her bank in Nelson to wire the money, but it would take until the following Wednesday. She chafed at the delay but never questioned her resolve when she had first learned of the four-thousand-pound inheritance she had from her father that she would not touch it until she understood where it had come from. There had not been a moment’s doubt that getting Darling out of prison, hygienic as it might be, was the correct use for her money. She could not bear to waste a moment of the mere three weeks they had to try to get the evidence they needed to clear Darling, and so had marshalled Rudy to join her in trying to understand what they were dealing with.
“Are we sure we have them all?” she asked. “Watson the navigator; Anthony the flight engineer; someone called Salford on the wireless; poor Evans, the rear gunner; Belton, the front gunner; Jones, the aimer whose body was never found; and Darling himself.” Darling had left Rudy this list before he had been arrested.
“That’s it. What we don’t know is, who among them claimed to witness Darling shoot one of his own men in the back.” Rudy looked at his watch. “Higgins will be here any minute. I hope he is genuine in his assertion that he will take us completely into his confidence. And even if he does, I don’t see, really, how we can help.” As if on cue, the bell sounded, and Higgins, clutching his briefcase, was ushered in. Divested of his hat and jacket, he sat down at the table, pulled a file from his briefcase, and then looked hopefully at the teapot.
“It’s good of you to come out on a Saturday. I’ll ask Sandra to brew us up a fresh pot. We’ve just been making notes based on what Fred gave us. Not much, but it’s a start.” While Rudy was up finding his wife, Higgins took up the paper.
“Seven names—the usual crew of a Lancaster. Ah, yes,” he stabbed at the paper with a finger. “There’s our witness. Apparently impeccable.”
Lane leaned forward. “Who?”
“Neville Anthony, the flight engineer.” Lane took the paper from Higgins and stared at Anthony’s name as if it would somehow reveal the reason a man of perfectly impeccable reputation would accuse Frederick Darling of murdering a member of his own crew in cold blood.
“Well, we need to trace all these people, interview them. How does this Anthony rate his ‘impeccable’ reputation? Darling told me he was a last-minute replacement. How do we know he wasn’t a plant of some sort?”
Higgins sat silently for some moments, staring at his hands. “A plant for what? To frame Flight Lieutenant Darling for murder nearly two years after the end of the war? That suggests an extremely elaborate and risky conspiracy, and to what end? Miss Winslow, and you will forgive me here, in spite of what you or I may believe, we don’t fully know that Darling did not, in fact, commit this crime, do we?”
Lane felt herself colour. “I do know, Mr. Higgins, and if you haven’t the faith in his word that you claimed you had, I don’t see how you are going to be of any use to us.”
Coming back just in time to hear Lane’s comment, Rudy said, “How’s it all gone west here? I was only gone two minutes.”
“Mr. Higgins is not fully convinced of Frederick’s innocence.”
Higgins sighed. “I am only saying that it would be foolish of us not to take all possible facts into consideration. I do believe him to be innocent, and he is a fellow airman, and I know what we all endured together. I will do my utmost to see that he is not wrongfully convicted. Frankly, all of the forces possible are arrayed against us, and we will have to be absolutely sure of our facts to be successful. I have already contacted the War Office to help me locate the men on this list. They were astonishingly unhelpful, though they have given me an appointment in three days’ time. And needless to say, the prosecution will be anxious to keep us away from their star witness. It will be an uphill slog.”
“Not a lot of time,” Lane said. “I want to come with you to the War Office. We must find those men, including this Anthony fellow. We have to know what happened from every point of view.”
Higgins nodded. “You’re right. Someone shot Evans. Darling thought that it was the enemy. We have Anthony saying Darling did it. If we could get the story out of each of them, provided they survived the war, we might get a fuller picture.”
Lane nodded. “Let’s look at it this way. This Anthony claims he saw Darling shoot the gunner. That can be one of two things. Either he thinks he saw Darling do it, or he is lying. If he is lying, why?”
Rudy, entering into the spirit of the thing, said, “Because he did it himself? Or he saw someone else he wants to cover for do it?”
“This is what I don’t understand,” said Lane, collapsing back against her chair. “Why bring it up now? If he did it himself, he’s taking an awful risk by coming out with an accusation like that. Any one of the others could have seen him do it. He must be very confident, either in his belief that he was unseen or that he saw Darling do it. We must get at those other men. Three days is a long time to wait. I’ll start immediately by looking right here in the London directories to see if any have fetched up here. In fact, I think we can narrow our search if Darling himself can remember where they came from. I’ll ask him tomorrow when I visit again.”
As he showed Higgins to the door later, Rudy remarked, “That’s some woman Freddie’s got himself. She’s like a terrier.”
“Good-looking too,” remarked Higgins, putting on his hat. “I only hope she doesn’t get in the way. A hysterical woman about the place will do my client no good at all.”
“DARLING, YOU LOOK awful. Are you sleeping?” Lane was once again across from Darling at the small worn wooden table, with a guard nearby, alert for any funny business.
“Not particularly. I admit, in spite of my objections, I can scarcely wait to get out. I wonder if this will give me any greater sympathy for the prisoners I bung up? I wonder if I will live to ever bung anyone up again?”
“Oh, darling, I can’t bear to see you like this,” Lane moved as if to take his hand, and then pulled it back again.
“I’ve gone over and over in my head what happened, trying desperately to remember where everyone was, and even when exactly I knew Evans was dead. It’s remarkable how unreliable memory suddenly seems. We all act as if we remember things precisely, but when I try to nail something down absolutely, ‘I was here or here, Evans was there, the Germans firing from over there’”—Darling moved his finger across the table as he spoke, pointing at remembered positions—“then it all seems to go blurry. There was such a bloody lot of noise. Shouting, shooting, flames roaring. And it was dark except for what was illuminated by the fire. Oh. And flashlights. Someone had flashlights. Did some of my men, to get away? Or was it Germans looking for us? Anyway, I’ve already told Higgins all of this. It’s ridiculous to be going over and over it. Sometimes I glimpse a memory somewhere in the corner of my mind that I felt there was something wrong, but then it was a battle. Everything was wrong.”
Wishing now she’d brought her notebook, Lane asked, “Did you fire your revolver?”
Darling frowned. “I did, yes. I took it out and shouted at the men to make a run for it, that I would cover for them. Then I ran forward a bit, toward where I thought the Germans were. I was low, behind bushes. I heard shots and at first I couldn’t tell where from, and then one came from ahead of me, so I moved forward and shot into the dark. I’m certain I hit someone. I expect I thought I could draw their fire toward me. I fell back an
d made to pick Evans up and cart him off in the same direction as my retreating men, but then I saw he was dead. I made a run for it.”
“Perhaps Anthony saw you shoot and thought you were shooting Evans.”
“But he and I moved Evans there from where he’d stumbled near the rear of the plane. When the fighting broke out I ordered Anthony away. He should have been far away by then, but he stayed a little behind me to cover me. Oh God. It’s no good. I’m going round and round in my own brain here.” He leaned forward, his head buried in his hands.
The guard came forward, “Miss . . .”
Lane looked up. The guard was young. He did not look, on close inspection, like an unkind person. Perhaps a bemused ex-soldier, happy to find the work after the uncertainties of war. “Look, I have to go. The minute we get you out we’ll go over this. In the meantime, I’m going to be scouring the London directories to find anyone I can. Oh, blast. I was supposed to ask you if you remembered where they were from.”
“The only one from London was Watson. Adam Watson, the navigator. I remember that because he used to gas on and on about his football team, Tottenham Hotspur. I’d have to think about the rest. But the War Office will know.”
“Higgins and I are going to the War Office on Wednesday. And with any luck, we’ll have you out by then as well. Yes, yes, I’m off.” Longing to kiss him, she took a last look at him, standing by the table, as she went out the door the guard was holding open for her.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WASN’T UNTIL SHE HAD left Darling that she suddenly thought about his father. She was fairly certain he had a brother as well. She knew his mother had died, though she had never learned how. It struck her now how remarkable it was for her, for them, to be so in love and know so little about each other. Both of them were inclined to privacy and a disinclination to divulge, Darling, if anything, more so than her. “She died after an illness,” he had said once, but she remembered the expression that flitted across his face momentarily, and she knew that it was a great sorrow he had buried.
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