It Begins in Betrayal

by Whishaw, Iona;

  That night, settled in her old room, Lane sat on the bed, pillows propped behind her, and looked at her notebook under the same lamp that had illuminated the wartime letters from her lover—which she had been instructed to destroy in her fireplace after she read them—and the instructions she received from the War Office. She leaned back and thought about Evans’s parents, her pencil end against her mouth. She knew nothing about Darling’s father. Would he want to come out to be near his son? Perhaps Ames would know, though somehow she doubted that Darling tended to confide in an underling. She looked at her watch. It was nearing ten o’clock. She could put in a long-distance call to Ames. No, damn it, it was Sunday. She would arrange it for the morning at the post office. She calculated that she would have to make the call at five in the afternoon to reach Ames first thing in the morning at the police station in Nelson.

  It was a fitful night. She dreamed her recurring dream of fire burning all the roads and keeping her from home, a home that, once awake, she could not recognize. She woke at three in the morning, angry that it looked like she was going to have to do with four hours of sleep, knowing that she would not sleep again that night. In the morning, bleary-eyed, she gratefully slurped the mug of hot tea provided by Mrs. Macdonald and was surprised and delighted to see an egg and some rashers of bacon on offer.

  “This is nice,” she said. “Don’t you have to keep to your rations, still?”

  “I keep a rooming house. There’s a wee bit more leeway for me. And anyway, you look like you could use it. Ah, good morning, Mr. Hemming.” A man with a shiny red face and smelling of lavender brilliantine had come in and bowed slightly to greet her. “Mr. Hemming, meet Miss Winslow. She were one of my girls during the war. She’s come out all the way from Canada.”

  Lane greeted the beaming Mr. Hemming and then realized there must be at least three more boarders to come who would occupy her landlady’s energies, so she said, “Mrs. Macdonald, I wonder if you could help. Do you have a London directory? I am trying to locate . . . one of my friends who worked with me as part of the typing pool.”

  “I can give you what I have, but it will only work if she’s on the telephone. If she’s living in rooms, you might not be able to trace her. Was she one of ours?”

  Damn, Lane thought. It was true. Who knew where the man would be living. “No,” she smiled in a way she hoped was convincing. “No, she lived in Shepherd’s Bush.”

  In her room, she studied the directory and saw immediately how difficult her task would be. She counted twenty-five A. Watsons and had no way of knowing if any of them was the one she wanted. Perhaps Darling knew more about Adam Watson than simply what football club he supported. She would find out at her morning visit. Hoping that taking the directory with her would not inconvenience Mrs. Macdonald, she placed it in her cloth bag and set out to visit Darling.

  “You think the reading material furnished by Rudy is inadequate?” he asked when she plunked two phone directories on the table between them. He looked better, she thought, more rested. His charcoal eyes had the slight sparkle of playfulness he seemed to reserve for Ames, and more recently, for her.

  “There are twenty-five A. Watsons in the book. I thought if you could see the addresses it might stir your memory. I stopped at the post office and picked up a directory for Haringey where that football club you mentioned seems to reside. The London directory doesn’t cover it. I haven’t looked at it yet.”

  Reaching for the Haringey directory, Darling opened it and intoned, “Watson, Watson . . . here’s a Watson, A. Bromley Road. I remember now. We used to kid him about that bloody football club, and he said he couldn’t help it, he grew up right beside their playing grounds, and I think Bromley Road is near the grounds. You might start there. Perhaps his parents live there and can tell you where he is.” He looked at her. “You look a bit tired. Are you sure you want to do all this?”

  “Thank you very much. I wish I could say the same about you. You look altogether rested.”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  “We’ll see. Perhaps one day. In the meantime, I have to hurry this directory back to Mrs. Macdonald before she misses it. If you aren’t right, I guess I’ll just have to troll through this lot. Oh. I’m calling Ames this evening to let him know how I can be reached. I don’t think he knows what’s happened, and I think he ought to. I’m wondering about your father and brother. Have you contacted them? Would you like me to?”

  Darling groaned and ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t want them worried, any of them. No. Not unless . . .” he left unspoken the direst thoughts: unless he was convicted and scheduled to hang. How long could he be “on holiday” from his job? If it went beyond a month, the Nelson city fathers would be bound to become involved and bring in some other person to take his job. “Can you just tell Ames I’m still involved in some bureaucratic quagmire without letting on? And ask him how he’s getting on with his murder. I don’t want him making a mess in my absence.”

  “I’ve had to speak to you before about not giving Ames enough credit,” Lane said, smiling. “I’ll give him your love then, will I?”

  AMES WAS FEELING the absence of his boss. The constable had always been the sidekick in the relationship, the one upon whom Darling could test his theories, explore possibilities. He could speculate without being responsible for the conclusion. Now, though he had taken O’Brien, the uniformed officer who usually manned the front desk, into his confidence, Ames very much lacked a sense of his own confidence. And furthermore, he was missing Darling’s company at breakfast in the café next to the station. He had, for one morning, thought of simply skipping his scrambled eggs and coffee out of his anxiety about April, who was still giving him the cold shoulder, but she seemed to have established a policy of having one of her workmates deal with him whenever he came in, so they had reached a truce of sorts.

  Now, fully caffeinated and fed, he looked at the notes on his desk and wondered what to make of the jumble of information he was gathering. He was becoming aware that, as usual, what ought to be a simple murder was ever-expanding in complexity. He tried to focus on the basics. Who would want Agatha Browning dead? What was to be gained by whoever it was? The first question yielded only one solid answer: the forestry company that was snooping around wanting the land on which her cabin sat. Perhaps the number could stretch to two and include any villager who had had an unpleasant interaction with her, but, and maybe here he was showing a prejudice, they were all over sixty. Though any of them, at a stretch, could have engaged in a spot of frenzied stabbing, would any of them have bumbled through the forest following the victim and pushed her over? And no murder weapon, of course. He’d lay any money that the knife had been hurled into the lake, well out of reach.

  He still had a day to await the return of the replacement ferryman, Nathan “Nobby” Bannon. That at least might yield information about someone coming in the few days prior to the murder. Wouldn’t there have been evidence at the cabin? There was such a mess he hadn’t really thought to try to ascertain if there’d been any evidence of someone staying there besides the victim. It hadn’t been cleaned up yet. He’d go back and really sift through the rubble.

  He looked again over his new notes and considered the question of who would benefit. He had no real sense of who Agatha had left behind in the old country. The old photo of the three girls smiling over the fence was it. He needed more information about her background. He underlined this and stood, prepared to go back and sift through the cabin more thoroughly, when the phone rang. It was O’Brien.

  “Call from afar for you, Ames. Might be the boss.”

  “Please hold,” said a voice. “Go ahead, Britain.”

  “Constable Ames. How are you?” Lane asked, after a brief crackling sound.

  “All the better for hearing you, Miss Winslow. How’s the old country?”

  “Very old, thank you.”

  “Raining?”

  “Not a bit. It’s unnaturally sunny, in fact. Ev
eryone is complaining about the heat. Listen, as it happens, I did run into Inspector Darling.” She hoped she would be forgiven for this bit of fabrication.

  “How is the old man?”

  “He’s not so very old. I told him I’d be giving you a call, and he asked me to tell you he’s taken up with a bit of bureaucracy here, so he’s not certain quite when he’ll be back. He’s wondering how you’re getting on?”

  Ames hesitated. “It’s not the same without him,” he said in a rush of confidence. “I think, well, I think we help each other think. I have got O’Brien as a sounding board, but it’s not the same. I’m not sure anyone is comfortable with me being in charge just now, either.”

  “You know, Constable, I at least have enormous faith in you. I’ve watched you work, and in spite of Darling’s deflating comments, you are full of good instincts and insights. And he thinks so too, or he wouldn’t have left you in charge.”

  “You’re very nice to say so, Miss Winslow,” Ames said, his smile genuine. “Say, I just thought. I do need some more information about my victim. Is there someplace there where they have family records or something? The vicar said she might be from the aristocracy, so maybe it would be easier to find something about her.”

  “One minute,” warned the operator.

  “Look,” continued Ames, “I need to know if she had any relatives that might have more information.

  “I could certainly go to Somerset House to check the register. That’s right here in the city. I’m . . . I’m not sure I’d have time to go over to Dorset just now.” She was aware of the panic in the pit of her stomach. They’d less than three weeks to solve the death of Evans.

  “Anything you could do. All we’ve got is the name, Agatha Browning. I suppose that was her married name. Everyone called her Mrs.”

  “All right, Constable Ames. I’ll do what I can. Agatha Browning from Dorset. That might be enough. Darling sends his best.”

  “I bet he does,” Ames said, laughing. “And Miss Winslow . . . thanks, you know, for everything.”

  “You’re quite welcome. Bye for now.” Lane, having feigned cheeriness, hung up the phone, envious of Ames’s ignorance of the details of his boss’s situation. She smiled as she pushed the money for the call over the counter. The call box smelled heavily of smoke, and she was glad to be out of it. Back out in the sunlight, she sighed and thought about her next move. She was scheduled to meet Higgins at his chambers at nine o’clock the next morning. It was her hope to set out to Bromley Road in Haringey immediately after that, and if there were time remaining, go to Somerset House for Ames.

  She had told Mrs. Macdonald she would not be home for dinner. “I’ve had a last-minute invitation from a friend.” Rudy and Sandra had insisted she come to them for dinner, and her memory of Mrs. Macdonald’s efforts with any food but that consumed at breakfast decided her in a moment.

  Mrs. Macdonald had responded by smiling indulgently and making a shooing motion with her hands, no doubt relieved at the reduction in the washing up. “You run along and have a good time. Remember, the door is locked at ten!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Oxfordshire, August 1943

  “I’M WEARING TWO PAIRS OF socks this time,” Evans declared. “I nearly froze to death last time. Where’s Harlow, by the way?”

  Jones had his locker open and suddenly looked down. “He’s in sickbay with some sort of Delhi belly, and I’m not feeling too swift myself just now.” Jones turned and stumbled toward the lavatory.

  Evans leaned over to put his second sock on, thinking about the day’s mission. He assumed that the tension he felt in his stomach was the usual pre-trip jitters, and hoped it wasn’t whatever his mates had. He’d not eaten with them the night before because he’d gone to the pub with some men from another crew. A noise from Jones’s locker made him look up in time to get smacked on the head by a cascade of boots, jumpers, and papers that had become overbalanced. Cursing, he leaned over and scooped up the paper and kicked the boots to one side. As he was about to shove it all back into the locker, his eyes lit on a single photograph.

  He fished it out and put the rest of the things into the locker. There was a stamp of some sort, like, he thought, what you’d get on the back of a photograph, showing the company that developed it, only this was in German, along with someone’s scribbled note. It must also be in German, he thought, because he couldn’t read it. Glancing in puzzlement toward the lavatory where he could hear raised voices and men laughing in that slightly overwrought way they had before going up, he looked at the photograph. Curious, he squinted at it . . . something looked slightly familiar. Glancing around he moved so that he was under the overhead light. But of course he knew that couldn’t be right.

  “Golly. Sorry about that.” Jones said. “I always cram too much stuff in there.”

  “Your bloody locker emptied itself onto my head. I was trying to get everything back in.” Evans held up the photograph. “I heard you were clever with getting maps and the like. This looks like a German photo.”

  Jones laughed, taking the photo and gazing at it almost fondly. “Well, the Bosch are using our stuff. It seems only fair!”

  Men were milling near them, pulling on their gear. “It’s amazing how you chaps can distinguish anything. It could be Canterbury for all I know!” Evans said, tying his boots.

  “They can all look alike. Luckily we’ve got a bunch of women who know how to read them. It’s not Canterbury, it’s Dresden. Jerry has kindly made some pics for us that we’ve got hold of. It makes it easier for me to point, and you to fire away, kid!” Jones tousled Evan’s hair, and put things back into his locker, whistling under his breath, “Now let’s get a move on and not keep Flight Lieutenant waiting.”

  Later, alone in the rear gun compartment, watching the darkness that was the North Sea passing below him, Evans would think about how amazingly clever Jones was.

  Haringey, June 1947

  LANE STOOD ON the doorstep of a house in the middle of a row along the quiet street, waiting. It was Tuesday morning, at a time when she knew that Adam Watson would surely be at work, and very likely not living at his parents’ family home. She had knocked and thought she heard something, but then the house was quiet again. Finally, a young man, looking vaguely reluctant about answering the door, put his head out and said, “Yes?” She could hear a shuffling within. The parents?

  Smiling her brightest, she said, “My name is Lane Winslow. I’m looking for Adam Watson, who flew with Flight Lieutenant Frederick Darling.”

  The man looked behind him now, frowning, and stepped onto the doorstep closing the door behind him.

  “I’m Adam. What’s this about?”

  Lane struggled with how to proceed. He clearly seemed thrown by her appearance, or Darling’s name, or who knew what. “I’m a friend of Insp . . . Flight Lieutenant Darling’s. He’s here in London just now and we’re going over all the events of the crash of 1943, and we need to interview all the people who were there. I’m wondering if you could spare a few minutes to tell me what you remember?”

  Watson shifted nervously and then said, “Do you have some sort of identification? How am I supposed to know if you are who you say you are? Anyway, an official report was done on all that. It’s finished.”

  This clear shift to suspicion puzzled Lane. “Oh, I’m no one official. I literally am just a friend of his . . .” She could hear how ridiculous she sounded, especially in the face of what increasingly looked to her like fear. What did he know, and why wouldn’t he say? She could see he was beginning to back away and she would lose him altogether. “Listen, I’m going to be straight with you. He’s in prison, charged with deliberately shooting the rear gunner, Evans. You know him, Mr. Watson. You must know he’s incapable of such a thing. We just desperately need to hear from everyone who was there.”

  Watson’s head drew back as if he’d been struck. He put his hand on the door handle. “He what? No. I’m not to talk to you, to anyone.” He slid
into the house and closed the door. She could hear the bolt being knocked home. She knew from the silence that he was standing just behind the door. Pulling out her notebook, she tore a sheet off and wrote her name and the phone number of the rooming house and then put it through the mail slot and called through the door, “If you change your mind, Mr. Watson, please, please call me here. Darling’s very life depends on it. Please.” She heard herself sounding frantic and, pulling herself together, walked away, back toward the tube station, back toward London, the sound of the bolt being thrown reverberating in her head.

  Feeling she had to do something useful and needing time to try to understand, to grasp the full meaning of her interaction with what she now realized was a very frightened man, she resolved to go to Somerset House and see what she could do for Ames. On the underground, she pulled out her notebook and wrote down the conversation as she remembered it, staring in particular at his words, “I’m not to talk to you.”

  IN TRUE LONDON fashion, the morning, which had started out cloudless and warm, turned first cold, and then, by the time she arrived at the entrance at Somerset House, clouds had banked, and she just made it in before a sudden and heavy rain. Putting Watson, A., temporarily into the back of her mind, where she hoped something would come to her later, she procured a birth certificate for Agatha Victoria Browning, born to Geoffrey Browning and Cecelia Browning, July 1874, Whitcombe, Dorset. That was straightforward, then. Browning was not a married name.

  “Any siblings?” she asked the clerk, who disappeared to the files and returned with four additional papers.

  “Two siblings. Mary, 1876, and Lucille, 1887. I’ve brought the father’s and the youngest sister’s death certificates as well in case they are of any use. The father, Geoffrey Browning, 1909. And here’s one for Lucille Alice Browning, 1908.”