It Begins in Betrayal

by Whishaw, Iona;

  “We have to find Anthony,” she said, putting her handbag on the floor by her chair and taking off her gloves, looking more full of purpose and certainty than she felt. “But, we have to be careful. It’s possible we have been watched. It’s possible our finding Anthony won’t be safe for him.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “WE HAVE TO FIND HIM, that’s all there is to it,” Lane said. She and Rudy sat at the kitchen table. Sandra was preparing dinner. She turned and leaned on the counter.

  “We aren’t going to attempt Belton, then?” she asked Lane.

  “The trouble is . . .” what could she say? She’d said out loud that she was beginning to think they were being followed, which, said out loud, sounded ridiculous. But she couldn’t bring herself to say that she thought Special Branch was behind whatever was happening. She’d seen someone outside her window, after all, casually talking with a woman. It was the woman, she realized, that made her dismiss her momentary worry. Now she reassessed this. The woman was a prop, or, she thought suddenly, the watcher. “The trouble is that the one person who can tell us anything is Neville Anthony. He’s the one who has convinced everyone that he saw Darling shoot Evans. He either believes he saw it or he has made it up. We have to find out why. Anyway, the way Darling tells it in the report, Belton was already retreating to the farmhouse. He might not even have seen what Anthony thought he saw. He might be a waste of a trip when we have so little time.”

  “Do we know where Anthony is?” asked Rudy.

  “No. Apparently Higgins tried to get that information but was unsuccessful. We may have to go the old-fashioned way. Telephone directories for a start. Have you got the London directories?”

  The London phone books provided a number of Anthonys, though only two Nevilles, one in Putney and one in Shepherd’s Bush. Resolved that they would tackle the visits first thing in the morning, they turned instead to the unresolvable problem of where Darling might have been taken.

  AMES PUT THE phone down and scribbled some notes. It was five in the morning, and he was desperate for coffee. The night man, not O’Brien, who didn’t start until eight, had been surprised to see him coming in at twenty to five and had offered him coffee, but they had run out of cream and, more importantly, sugar. Ames leaned back and looked at his watch. The café next door would open at 6:30 for the early shift workers. After much difficulty and three false starts with different exchanges, he’d managed to get a call put through to a police station in Dorset nearest Whitcombe. There he had learned that a spinster called Mary Browning did reside in the family home.

  “No, I don’t know if she’s there right now. Am I really talking to someone all the way over in Canada?” The man answering the phone had said his name was Terry Fripps.

  “Yes, Mr. Fripps,” Ames had said patiently. “Do you think you could find out for me and call me back? What time is it there right now?”

  “It’s gone one. Just finished my lunch. I can motor over and try to get back to you in an hour. I’ll probably wire you. I’m not sure how easy it will be to put a call through. Why? What’s happened?”

  “Her sister Agatha has died. If you find her at home, could you notify her? We have no other way of contacting her, and I believe she may be the only next of kin.” Might as well not say that he suspected Mary Browning of being involved.

  “Agatha Browning? Are you sure? I never knew them, mind, but there’s certainly a story around that she died back in the teens. Well before I was born, but it’s by way of being a local legend.”

  “What do you mean, she died back in the teens?”

  “I’d have to ask my mum. She knows the story. Bit of a scandal I think. Anyway, Mary Browning lives in that massive dilapidated old house all on her own. This person you think is Agatha, what happened?”

  “She was murdered. She lived out in the boonies and the local priest found her. She’d been stabbed.”

  Fripps whistled at the other end of the wire. “Murdered! You don’t say. Now that’s something. That’s really something.”

  Ames, feeling a slight impatience brought on by his lack of coffee had said, “Yes. It is. We’re reasonably sure it is Agatha Browning, so unless you have a grave or a death certificate over there, let’s assume it is. Can I expect your wire in an hour?”

  “Right. Make it two. I think I’d better get the story from Mum as well.”

  “Good. I’ll be here. If you opt for the telephone, get your operators to put you through to the Nelson, British Columbia, detachment. Ask for Ames.”

  “Right you are. Murdered. Mum’s going to have kittens!”

  Ames, feeling very grown up after his first long-distance call to the police in Britain over his very own murder case, was at the door of the café when it was opened by April, who gave him a cool smile.

  “Good morning, April.” Time to bury the hatchet, he thought cheerfully. He would no longer be daunted by her unfriendly reception of him. “I need a giant cup of coffee and something to take away. I’m expecting a long-distance call in a couple of minutes.”

  “You’re lucky you’re the first one here, then. I’ll tell Jane. She can do you scrambles and toast. That do?”

  As a peace offering it was as good as any. “Wonderful! And I see you have a fresh pot of coffee. I’ll have a gallon of that while I wait.” Darling, when he gets back, will be disappointed that April and I are friends again. He will not be able to make fun of me, Ames mused while he lapped up the life-restoring coffee. Ha!

  He’d just finished his breakfast and put the paper plate into the garbage by his desk when the phone rang.

  “England on the line, Constable,” said the deskman.

  “Ames here.”

  “Hello, Constable Ames. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve got you on the line. Can’t talk long. Three minutes. You’ve given me quite an afternoon, I don’t mind telling you. First off, Mary Browning is not at home. I was pretty sure she doesn’t have a motor, so I decided to follow up and ask at the nearest station, and discovered that she took a train to London two weeks ago. There was no return on the ticket as far as the stationmaster could recall, but that wouldn’t be unusual if a person wasn’t sure how long they’d be away from home. But more the point is that her going anywhere is extremely unusual. She doesn’t even get much mail. Quite a solitary figure. An older woman called Tilly Barnes comes to visit from time to time. According to Mum, she used to be a housemaid or something to the family before the Great War. She must have married well because she does have a motor. I can go and find out more from her if you want. She may know. She lives about twenty miles away, so it won’t be till tomorrow.”

  “That would be great, thanks, Mr. Fripps.”

  “Sergeant” said Fripps genially.

  “Sorry, Sergeant Fripps. I can arrange to be here any time. It’s eight hours earlier here.”

  “I better tell you what Mum said, as well. She was that interested, I can tell you. It was quite the gossip when she was a young girl.”

  “Go on,” Ames said. Were all Brits this voluble?

  “Apparently there were three of them, Mary and Agatha and a younger one called Lucy. I tried to get Mum to just tell me what she remembered that was factual, instead of confusing it with what all the gossip was. So for sure she said that Lucy had intended to be married, and she was jilted. She died a couple of years after, and the rumour was that it was suicide, but that’s not known for sure. Their father was the member for this district, and he retired shortly after and was quite broken up over his daughter’s death. I believe he had heart trouble. He died in about ’09. Now the story is, and Mum wanted to make clear no one knew this part for sure, that shortly after Lucy was jilted, Agatha left the family home and was never seen again. She remembers, Mum that is, going through the society pages with her friends to see if Agatha had run off with the man and married him because they convinced themselves that that’s what had happened. They never did see anything. As far as she recalls, the man married someone else and that
was that. Sometime, and she can’t remember when, it got about that Agatha had died, which is why she’d never come back. They thought it was a motor accident in the city.”

  “Your mum is a gem. Does she remember the name of the man?”

  “Three minutes!” Said a voice.

  “Oops. Gotta go.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant. This is helpful. And thank your mum for me.”

  “She’ll be chuffed to be thanked by a Canadian copper! Should I give you a ring if Mary Browning turns up?”

  “Sure thing. I’d appreciate that. Just remember the time difference.”

  “Right you are!”

  “Hey, Sergeant. Could you track down that Tilly person and see what you can get out of her? If she was a servant to the family, she might be able to fill out your mother’s story.”

  There was nothing but silence, and Ames suspected his English colleague did not hear any of his last communication. His day, as it happened, had also been made, but by the cessation of hostilities with April. Feeling slightly smug, he contemplated his new notes. The one thing he could hang on to is that Mary Browning had left her home with a ticket to London and had not yet returned. That made it much more likely that it was Agatha’s sister Mary who came to see her, just as she had said. It also vastly increased the chance that it was her sister who killed her. The big question was why. The rumour that Agatha had run off with a younger sister’s beau? The trouble with that was that the jilting took place—Ames did a quick calculation—thirty-five or forty years before. He should have checked with Fripps about the exact date of the jilting. Why come now? If she did kill her sister, it must be something that had just come up recently. The trouble was, what? And when the hell was Darling coming back? Ames asked himself, tossing his pencil onto the desk and putting his feet up. But it was not to be. He’d no sooner put his hands behind his head to gaze at the ceiling for a few restful moments when O’Brien appeared from downstairs.

  “Remember that car theft from a couple of weeks ago? Well, the owner is downstairs, and he’s as sore as a wounded bear. Said he was sick of getting no action and he wants to talk to someone in charge.”

  TWO PHONE CALLS established that neither Neville was the one they wanted.

  “Somerset House?” suggested Lane.

  “There must be scores of people. You can’t just wander in and say ‘Neville Anthony.’ You at least need a date of birth,” Rudy reasoned.

  “He must be around Frederick’s age, mustn’t he? Or yours for that matter,” Sandra said, lighting a cigarette and looking at her husband. “Oh, Rudy, can you get that? I don’t want to drop ash on the carpet.”

  Rudy got up and disappeared into the hallway where the phone was ringing. Lane smiled at the memory of the double ring, and in the next second felt a lurch of missing her own dear old phone, with its counted rings and its party line. How would they all be at King’s Cove? The Armstrong and Hughes gardens would be in full bloom. Angela would be ignoring her garden, content to spend the days at the wharf with the boys. How innocent and far away that life seemed now. A dream of escape that was shattered by these inexplicable events that had brought her back to all she’d hoped to leave behind.

  “We can stop trying to find Darling, anyway,” Rudy announced when he came back into the kitchen. “That was Higgins. He went to the Canadians, and they hummed and hawed, but promised to call him if they came up with anything. They called him just now. Luckily he was still in chambers. Apparently Miss Winslow will have access to Frederick.”

  “What?” Exclaimed Lane. “Are you sure?” Her heart soared with sheer relief.

  “Yes I am, and you could tell Higgins was none too pleased. It is, he said, an extremely unorthodox move for someone not directly involved with a case in any way to gain access to a defendant without his brief. You are to go to the War Office, of all the places, for two in the afternoon tomorrow, where a meeting has been arranged.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  INSPECTOR SIMS SAT AT HIS unsatisfactory desk in the government office and ate the last crumbs of the admittedly excellent Welsh cake he’d brought from the tea room. He glared darkly around the office and then slung his arm over the back of the chair. He’d had a storied career as a no-nonsense policeman who, while efficient, had made it an article of faith that he did not knowingly or carelessly convict the wrong man. He’d seen the undignified scramble of fellow officers on the make to convict quickly, only to find they’d ignored or even manufactured evidence and, in the effort, jailed, or worse, hanged, the wrong man while the right one carried right on committing crimes. It seemed to him that there was little point in being a “law man,” as he’d heard it called in American movies, if he wasn’t capturing and bunging up the right people.

  Part of him wished he’d never asked to see the defendant in this case again because there was something about him that he liked. He would have said, had he met Darling anywhere else, that he was as straight as an arrow. And, though he did not like to admit it, Darling had gotten to him. Sims did not want to be anyone’s dupe. The very reason he’d asked to see the prisoner was to make sure he’d got all the information available to ensure a conviction. He had a momentary flash of guilt about badgering Darling, but quickly dismissed it. He badgered people. That’s how he shook them loose. Not pretty, but it worked, and he’d been absolutely certain of Darling’s guilt. But instead of being rattled, Darling seemed to condense into a ball of calm, clarity, and certainty, not only claiming his innocence, but also suggesting he, Sims, was being used. And, he could not help admitting to himself, even if the bullet came from a British gun, it was still only circumstantial as evidence. More importantly, if it wasn’t Darling’s gun, whose was it? He had taken at face value the military’s assertion that the crew carried different weapons. Now he wondered if he could trust absolutely what he was being told.

  Shaking off the useless emotion of anger at the thought of being used by shadowy forces somewhere up the chain of command, he got up and went in search of the pretty woman who worked at the desk. He’d been told to ask her for anything he needed. He needed the file with the original statement from that airman, Anthony.

  Two Months Earlier

  “YES?” THE MAN at the information desk in the War Office raised his eyebrows inquiringly and still managed to look uninterested.

  “I need to see someone,” Neville Anthony said in an urgent whisper. He looked nervously around, unsure that this was even the right place.

  The deskman hesitated. The person before him seemed very agitated. Could he be an ex-soldier with the shakes, intent on making trouble? “What about, please?” the deskman asked.

  “I need to report a crime.”

  “Ah. I see. There is a police department right near here. If you go back out the door and turn . . .”

  “No, no, no! A war crime. A battlefield crime.”

  “The war is over, you know. What sort—”

  Neville Anthony slammed his fist on the ledge of the booth. “I know the bloody war is over! Now are you going to let me see someone, or do I have to make a scene?” His voice was rising steadily, causing the soldier on guard at the entrance to turn around and frown. Should he intervene?

  “All right. Pull yourself together and sit down. I’ll call someone.” He took up the telephone receiver and watched as Anthony took a step away from the window. In a moment the deskman put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, “What was your name again?”

  “Flight Engineer Neville Anthony,” he said, his voice calmer.

  The deskman conveyed the information and then nodded into the receiver. “Someone will be down. Please sit over there.” The guard at the door watched as the man moved more calmly to the bench. No need to get involved. A uniformed officer summoned Anthony more quickly than he expected.

  “Right, Flight Engineer Anthony. I’m Corporal Edwards of the crimes division. Please have a seat. How can I help?” Edwards had his hands folded on a pad of foolscap and looked as benign as he could.
He’d heard that this man seemed close to making a scene, and Edwards didn’t completely trust that Anthony wasn’t an escapee from the local nuttery.

  Anthony drew in a breath and closed his eyes. He had to get it right. He looked up at the corporal and then at the paper he was resting his hands on, as if to say, “Are you going to write this down or not?” Seeing no move in that direction, he started. “I was a flight engineer. In April of ’43 I was assigned to Flight Lieutenant Darling’s plane. Someone had gotten sick. I didn’t usually fly with him. I was glad of the assignment; I’d heard Darling was a good man. We were over France . . . no . . . wait. I should say that the mission that day was to get at some arms factories reputedly operating in the north, in Germany. Anyway, I heard one of the engines drop out, enemy fire, probably at the same time as Darling because he sounded the alarm and told us all to brace. He managed to bring the plane down, and we made a run for it. We were missing one man, and another was badly wounded. Darling and I pulled the wounded man, that was Rear Gunner Evans, nearer to where we were gathered, and then two things happened. The plane blew, and we came under fire. Are you going to write this down?”

  Edwards pursed his lips. This man said he was reporting a crime. It had been his intention to listen to the story and assess whether a crime had been committed. “I will as I deem it necessary. Could you go on with your story, please?”

  “Anyway, when we came under fire, Darling shouted at us to make a run for it. We were on the edge of some sort of wood, and there was a farmhouse nearby. He might have said to make for the farm.” He frowned at this and looked down. Was that right? “I saw that he was going to try to hold them off. The Bosch, I mean, and I stayed a bit behind to cover him. When it seemed that the others had gotten away, I saw Darling lean over Evans, trying to pick him up. Then there was a barrage of Bosch gunfire and he just dropped him. He . . . he . . . pointed his revolver down and shot him where he lay.”