It Begins in Betrayal

by Whishaw, Iona;

  “Oxfordshire is it?” Darling said. He’d been stationed at an airbase in Oxfordshire during the war. There seemed to be some special irony about that. Though he felt a wave of anxiety at the mention of Special Branch, he stilled it. He did not, and could not, know what that would mean to his case, and he wanted to worry only about things that would be fruitful. “I imagine it was to keep me from seeing my lawyer or my friend who was providing bail money for my release until trial. I’m not terrifically impressed with the British justice system just at the moment.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  FIGHTING A WAVE OF RAGE, Lane stood in the doorway and breathed to try to still her pounding heart. Angus Dunn was standing in front of the window so that he was more shadow than man against the light.

  “Well, Miss Winslow, you’d better come in, hadn’t you?”

  “I was told I would be seeing Inspector Darling,” she said tightly, not moving.

  Dunn moved to one of two armchairs on either side of a small round occasional table. He waved his hand, indicating a chair, and sat then down himself opposite. “Yes, yes. We’ll get to that. Do sit down, please. And shut the door behind you. There’s no need to conduct our business for all to hear.”

  Your business is always conducted in secret, she thought. “You’ve had me followed.” She shut the door and moved to the desk and sat on a wooden chair.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Why are you so difficult? What’s happened to you? We were such good friends.”

  “You’re lying. I’ve seen your man twice now. Why am I here?” She was damned if she was going to engage in his disingenuous conversation about what they used to be to each other. You happened to me, she thought, with your lies and manipulation and easy disregard for the feelings or lives of anyone else.

  “It’s all business with you, isn’t it? Well, that at least hasn’t changed. It’s why we valued you so much. It’s why, Lane, we want you back. If I’m honest, I hadn’t read properly how things stood between you and Darling. I could almost feel envy. Anyway, when you came haring over here to save him, I must confess I was surprised, but I saw immediately how it might be an advantage to all of us. First, I have not had you followed. Second, I have a proposal. You won’t perhaps like all the terms, but one of them might serve your own purposes.”

  Lane watched his face, feeling suddenly vulnerable in the sunny clothes she had dressed in to see Darling. She wished she were in her dark functional tweed suit, armoured against Angus Dunn and all his manipulations, protected against her own growing fear that whatever he had in mind, she and Darling would be the losers. She waited, and said nothing. In the back of her mind she weighed his assurances that he’d not set someone on her. If not Dunn’s man, then who?

  Angus crossed his legs and tented his hands in front of his chin as if contemplating what he would say next. “Darling has been arrested for a capital crime. A crime that, in this still vulnerable postwar period, when families have sacrificed so much, most people will view with horror. He shot one of his own men on the battlefield. He is unlikely to escape hanging.”

  “Darling did not shoot him. He is being framed. Seeing you here today, it is quite clear to me that you and all the dark forces at your command have engineered this.”

  “Goodness. Such loyalty. How can you know? We have an eyewitness. Very good chap. He was quite shaken by the whole thing.”

  “I know Darling,” she said simply.

  “You thought you knew me,” he pointed out.

  Lane sat and looked at him, silent as he landed his arrow. How could I have loved him? she asked herself.

  “I do. You’re a bastard,” she said.

  “Yes, you’ve called me that before. I dare say I am. I’m the bastard who holds all the cards just now. Here’s the thing. If you agree to my proposition, Darling can escape the noose, and perhaps, when the dust dies down and Evans’s parents have gone home, we might even quietly let him go and spirit him out of the country back to that wilderness you call home.”

  AMES REREAD HIS notes. He had asked Fripps to keep an eye on the Browning manor house and call him the minute Mary Browning made an appearance. What would be the procedure if a foreign national came to Canada to kill someone? Was she brought back here for trial? He pursed his lips, feeling inadequate. It would no doubt require government involvement, jurisdiction, and who knew what complications. Feeling a desperate need for the commanding reassurance of his boss, he looked at the time. Could he get Miss Winslow on the phone? No. Clearly the middle of the night over there. If he phoned at midnight, or one, he could maybe catch her before she went out for the day. No. Of course not. He wouldn’t be able to reach her. He would have to send a wire to get her to call him. With a sigh he closed the file and prepared to go home and change to take Violet for dinner and a film.

  To his amazement, as he walked up the hill to his rooms, he suddenly realized he’d rather just go home and settle in with a book. This must be how Darling feels, he thought. It’s the responsibility of it all. When Darling was in charge, he always stayed late, while Ames would leave the office with his hands in his pockets and a tune on his lips.

  “You’re a real drag,” Violet said over their dinner at a small restaurant below the courthouse. “You’ve barely said a thing all evening.”

  “I’m sorry, my sweet. I think being in charge of this case is getting to me. It’s suddenly gotten really complicated. The guys at the station aren’t helping, either. I know it’s a joke when they call me ‘boss,’ but I’m starting to feel all the responsibility with none of the power. They are just waiting for me to make a mess of things. I can feel it.”

  He was surprised when Violet took his hand. “It’s not like you to be like this. You’re the sunny optimistic one, remember? Who helped me when I got fired from the bank that time? I’m the one that’s supposed to be moody. Anyway, whether they like it or not, you are kind of the boss, and I’m sure you’re really good at it.”

  “Do you think so? Even I feel like I’m on the verge of messing things up. I really want to solve this murder before he gets back. I want him to see what I can do.”

  “How many times has he given you one of his backhanded compliments? He has a lot of faith in you, even if he doesn’t always tell you. I can see how much store he puts by you whenever I see you together. And I put a lot of store by you.” At this Violet leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips. “There now, let’s eat up and get to the pictures. I don’t want to be late. You’re bound to get some ideas from Humphrey Bogart!”

  The Maltese Falcon, while entertaining, did not give Ames any new ideas about his case. He was more relaxed, and rather buoyed by the new supportive and affectionate side of Violet. He nearly thought better of contacting Lane, but he really did need to know when Darling was coming back, especially if the case was going to take on complicated international ramifications.

  THE MORNING AFTER was lovely and fresh, with a dewy green smell that had the effect of energizing Ames after a shaky night of sleep. He decided to walk to the train station to send the wire rather than calling it in from the station. He had to repeat the address twice to the young man in the window. “Please telephone stop.” He counted back the time difference and added “six p.m. your time stop.”

  Having evaded the telegraph boy’s curious questions, Ames hurried back in the hopes that Lane would get the telegram and be able to call that very day, or the next. Much to his amazement a call was put through to the station by quarter after nine that very morning. Delighted at the modern world that allowed such ready communication with a place so far away, or perhaps at the prospect of talking again to Miss Winslow, he said, “Miss Winslow, is that you?” He was shouting a bit he realized, and then wondered if he had to. Something about England being so far away.

  “Constable Ames, how lovely. How are you? How’s the case coming?”

  “Well, that’s sort of why I need to talk to you. I think it’s about to get very complicated, and I was wondering about
when His Majesty is coming home.”

  Evading the question about Darling, Lane asked “Complicated? In what way?”

  “I’m pretty sure the victim was killed by her own sister. That middle one, Mary. An old lady claiming to be Agatha Browning’s sister was given a ride to the village, and then the ferryman said Agatha herself left that afternoon in her car and hasn’t been seen since. Anyway, I’ve managed to get hold of the police in Dorset, and they confirm that Mary Browning left her house some weeks ago and hasn’t been back. They’re going to telephone me when she turns up. That’s where it get’s complicated . . . I imagine all kinds of government types would have to be involved to get her back here to stand trial.”

  “Goodness. You have been busy. I wish I could help you, but I know absolutely nothing about extradition.”

  “Do you know when we might expect him back, Miss Winslow?”

  Lane leaned against the wall in the post office where the phone rested on a table. She wrapped her free arm around her waist. She mustn’t cry. “I . . . I think it won’t be long, Constable Ames. Still one or two things to tie up.”

  “Oh, good. It’s funny him being over there, and a letter from one of his chums over there is sitting on his desk over here,” Ames said.

  Lane stood up straight. “A letter? Do you know from whom?”

  “Dang. It’s sitting on his desk and I can’t remember. Man’s handwriting. The funny thing is the neighbour brought it in because it got delivered to him by mistake and got stuck in a catalogue. He nearly threw it away.”

  Was this important? It might be only one of a steady stream of letters from old mates for all she knew. “Ames, could you do me a favour? Could you open the letter? I’m certain Darling wouldn’t mind. He’s trying to get around to see all his old pals, and there’s one he’s had trouble locating.” Sort of true, she thought guiltily. We do need to find Anthony. “That letter might be from him. I wouldn’t normally advocate reading someone else’s mail, but it would really help him. He’s outside of London just now, so I’ll call him to give him the information if it is from that one buddy of his.”

  “Two minutes,” intoned a disembodied voice.

  “Yes, yes, operator. It will be longer. I’ll need to hang on. Ames, can you get the letter?”

  “Okay. Don’t go away!” Ames put the receiver down carefully, hoping that in the time it took him to bolt upstairs to Darling’s desk where he had put the letter, they would not be disconnected.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  London, April 1947

  LOUISE FREEMAN, NÉE HENDERSON SAT, dumbfounded, holding her mother’s hand. The oppressive dark oak of the room they sat in seemed to press in around her. “I don’t understand. Half of everything goes to some woman none of us has ever heard of?”

  “Yes,” said Benjamin Morris, the family lawyer. He was a man who viewed the assets of his clients as so many movable bricks. He had little emotional attachment to the meaning these assets may have to the people who owned them, or stood to inherit them. He was not an unkind man, but he offered no sympathy. Bricks had been moved from this pile to this pile. It was his job to indicate these facts to his clients.

  “Who is she?” Louise addressed the lawyer, and then turned with an air of accusation to her mother. “Mother?”

  “Oh, do stop making a fuss. There’s plenty of money. I don’t need much. We don’t even have to give up the house. I’ll move to the lodge, and you and Darren and the children can have the house to yourselves.”

  “That’s not the point, though, is it? Who is this woman?”

  In answer her mother stood up and pulled on her black gloves. “Thank you, Mr. Morris. So helpful as always. Will it take long to settle this matter?”

  “It may take some time to find the legatee, Agatha Browning. I understand she lives abroad. But in terms of the assets that remain with the family, there will be no difficulty. I have already begun to arrange the paperwork and will have my clerk bring it round for signatures.”

  In the car Louise looked darkly at the crawl of traffic in the City, and answered the question her mother had just asked. “I don’t want to have tea. I want to go home. George is going back to the uni this afternoon and I don’t want to miss him.”

  “If that’s what you want.” Her mother leaned forward and said to the driver, “Just take us home, Crawford.” She leaned back on the seat and shut her eyes.

  “Why are you being like this?” her daughter demanded, her voice rising. “How can you just . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Because, darling, if you’ve lived for forty years with a man who, as kind as your father was, loved someone else, it’s rather liberating to be free.”

  “You knew about this woman?” Louise’s outrage climbed.

  “It’s old history. I don’t care, and I don’t see why you should.” Seeing her daughter draw in breath to have another outburst, she continued: “It was someone he met and fell in love with when, ironically enough, he was about to become engaged to her sister. There was a bit of a scandal that ended with the young woman he jilted committing suicide. They were a prominent family at the time. Their father was the sitting member for wherever it was, but after the death of the daughter, he quit and disappeared, and the whole business ended for us when your father and I married. I bore her no ill will. I was in love with your father and thought he’d come round. He never really did, though he worked hard all our lives together not to visit the effects of his unhappiness on you or me. I won’t have you demean him by making this undignified fuss. Your father was an extremely honourable man, and this final provision in his will proves it.”

  MARY BROWNING SHUFFLED downstairs to the kitchen, put the kettle onto the stove, and then, tying the belt of her frayed silk robe around her thin waist, made for the front door. The newspaper had been delivered, as it was every morning, by a boy from the village on his bicycle. He’d had the decency to put it under the overhang above the door for a change, as the winter rain was pounding down incessantly. Back in the kitchen she put the paper on the table and pulled open the cupboard where she kept a tin of tea. Frowning, she shut the cupboard. Blasted Tilly had been in and tidied up again. What would she have done with it? Cursing about meddling women, Mary launched a search, finally seeing the tin on the counter by the stove, ready with her brown teapot, the sugar, and a cup full of spoons. She harrumphed dismissively.

  Mary lived alone in the house she had inherited when her father and sister died. At first she’d kept the servants on and tried to keep it up, but now, in her sixties, she had shut most of the rooms and confined her activities to her bedroom just up the stairs, the kitchen, and a small sitting room facing the back garden. She knew already that she would probably move her bedroom down to the first floor and convert the old dining room into sleeping quarters. No one came to visit, except their old maid, Tilly, who had left service when she married a man who owned a garage and had left her quite well off. Tilly’s son had taken over the garage and had expanded it as he took on war work, providing upkeep for military vehicles. Tilly, though nearly in her fifties at the start of the war, had volunteered to drive and worked for the land army driving a delivery truck. Now she had a very smart grey Vauxhall saloon of her own, and she used it to visit her erstwhile employer, whom she now considered her friend, though patently someone who needed help keeping organized from time to time.

  The hot water sorted, Mary, with the newspaper under her arm, took the tea on a tray into the little sitting room. Bowed windows flanked by faded floral curtains that she never closed showed yet another front of grey weather encroaching on them from the sea. She was grateful that in spite of the loss of people she loved, and all she might ever have hoped for herself, her view, down the now-overgrown garden to the river and across up the field, had not changed. She scoured the front page and, though relieved now that the war was over not to have to read endless stories about the progress of the imperial army against the enemy, she nevertheless found herself equally
reluctant to witness the downfall of all that was civilized in the growing number of stories of more and more Nazi atrocities being unearthed, and the growing restiveness and violence in India. Would the world ever be normal again?

  She skipped over the page designed to help housewives cope with the continuing rationing with recipes for delicious cakes made with beets—“He won’t spot the difference!”—and felt a slight relief from the pressures of a collapsing world when she arrived at the society pages. “Mr. and Mrs. Duncan are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Pauline to the Honourable John Simpson.” Pauline Duncan was shown smiling demurely at the camera, wearing a twinset with pearls, her blond hair set in a becoming pageboy. Mary guessed that the twinset was some dusky rose colour.

  “Good luck to them,” Mary muttered, drinking her tea. She did not favour any of the vast collection of porcelain teacups they had accumulated since her mother was chatelaine of the house, and that now lived in glass-fronted cupboards in the closed off dining room, but instead used a mug because it held a decent amount of tea. It was down at the bottom of the second page of the society pages, a small item she would never normally have bothered with, but for the fact that it was her own surname that leaped out at her. The headline, in a departure from the usual sober manner in which all things in the paper were announced, read MYSTERIOUS WOMAN CLAIMS INHERITANCE

  The recent death of the financier Alphonse Henderson has unearthed an intriguing mystery from the earliest part of the century. It is reported that the contents of his will stipulated that a significant portion of the deceased’s fortune was left to a mysterious woman instead of wholly to his wife and daughter. This reporter has ascertained that the legatee is called Agatha Browning, and she is the eldest daughter of a once-prominent family that has since faded into obscurity. She has been living in obscurity in the Dominion of Canada for nearly forty years. The widow has not contested the bequest.