Petrella at 'Q'

by Michael Gilbert

  “I thought—I thought he was there,” said the girl.

  “You thought?”

  “She means,” said Owers, “that she usually keeps that sort of flap thing down in front. The child’s very sensitive to sunlight.”

  “That’s right,” said one of the women. “Always down, that flap in front was.”

  Petrella detected a note of criticism in her voice. Maybe she was a fresh-air fiend. He said, “I suppose that means she can’t tell us when he went.”

  “Nine o’clock she says she put him out,” said Owers.

  “That’s right,” said the girl. She started to cry again.

  Petrella was remembering all the things that he now had to do. The routine was well established, but there was a lot of it He said to Blencowe and Owers, “Start taking statements from all the women who live here. We want to know if anyone has been seen in this courtyard since nine o’clock. Any stranger. Particularly a strange woman. You know the form. I’ll get back to the station and alert Central. I’ll need a description of the baby. Can anyone give me that?”

  He looked round the circle, which had fallen oddly silent. It was Owers, in the end, who said, “She gave me a sort of description. It was nine months old. Dressed in a white coloured wrap-round thing.” Constable Owers was a bachelor. Blencowe said, “He means a body-binder.”

  “Black hair, quite a lot of it for a baby of that age. Blue eyes.”

  The girl stopped crying long enough to say, “He had his father’s hair and eyes. He was the image of his father.”

  “That’s enough to be going on with,” said Petrella. He made his way back to the car which had brought him. As he was climbing in he noticed that one of the women had followed him. She said, “Excuse me for taking the liberty, but I’d like a word with you.”

  “Certainly,” said Petrella. “Jump in the back, we can talk there.”

  The woman said, “I don’t want to make trouble, but the others thought I ought to have a word with you. Before you start anything.”

  Petrella said, “Yes,” cautiously.

  “It’s like this. We don’t think there is no baby at all, not really.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “That Mrs. Morgan, she’s been here more’n a month now. And none of us haven’t seen the baby.” She added, with a depth of meaning which was not hidden from Petrella, “Nor we haven’t heard it, neither.”

  Petrella, who knew something of the way life was lived in council flats, said, “I suppose it’s possible. Some babies are a lot quieter than others.”

  “Another thing, she used to take it out in the pram, always with that flap down. Once, last week, Missus Crombie couldn’t resist it no more. She said, ‘I must have a peep at the little darling’, and she lifted the flap.” The pause was clearly for dramatic effect.

  Petrella obliged her by saying, “What was inside?”

  “Two packets of soap-flakes and one of corn-flakes.”

  “Soap-flakes,” said Petrella. “Washing. Surely you’d have noticed that.”

  “We’ve seen baby clothes. A pile of them hanging out to dry. But what we said was, baby clothes don’t necessarily mean a baby.”

  The verdict of the jury of matrons was clear. And it was a verdict which put Petrella right on the spot. He knew, none better, the necessity for speed when a baby was stolen. The whole of the police of the Metropolis and the Home Counties needed the news. Hospitals, child-welfare organisations, chemists’ shops, children’s clothing shops had to be alerted. A warning had to go to all Registrars. And that most useful ally, the Press, had to be briefed. He also knew that if he set all this in motion and was being fooled, he was booked for something worse than a red face.

  Back at Patton Street he got on the telephone and put his divisional boss, Chief Superintendent Watterson, rapidly in the picture. Watterson said, “From what you tell me, it seems to me we’re on a hiding to nothing either way.” (Some Chief Superintendents would have said “you”, not “we”. It was one of the reasons he liked working for Watterson.) He said, “She’s only been at Baldwin Mansions for a few weeks. The baby’s nine months old.”

  “If it exists.”

  “What I thought I’d do is get the girl round here for questioning. That’s natural enough in the circumstances, and it’ll keep her away from the Press. I’ll find out where she came from, get there quick. If there was a child, someone there must know about it.”

  “We’ll hope it won’t be the Outer Hebrides,” said Watterson, who came from those parts himself. “All right. Whilst you’re doing that, I’ll alert Central, and start things moving. But I’ll warn them to keep it out of the papers for the moment. Right?”

  “Right,” said Petrella. It was a relief to have some definite action ahead of him.

  An hour later, as he sat in the front seat of the police car which Sergeant Blencowe was driving, he thought about the story the girl had told them. It was a simple one, and it could be true. Her husband, Evan Morgan, was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, and twenty years older than her. They’d been married for six years. During the first five years, he had had a shore-based job at Chatham and they had lived in their caravan on a site near Cuxton on the Medway. A year ago, two disasters had hit them at the same time. The caravan site had closed, and her husband had been re-rated for service on an aircraft carrier, currently in the Indian Ocean. A local landowner, a retired Commander Fanshawe, had come to their rescue. It was the Commander’s address, the Manor House, Cuxton, that Petrella had scribbled on a piece of paper.

  The Commander opened the door to them himself. Petrella put him down as a man with money, who had left the service before retiring age to look after his property. When Petrella said, “I’ve come about a Mrs. Morgan. I believe she had a caravan on your land recently,” the Commander stared at him blankly then burst out laughing and said, “Whoever said the law was slow? Fancy you getting on to it so quick.”

  “Getting on to what?” said Petrella blankly.

  “I suppose the planning people alerted you. Mind you, I knew it was wrong, but it didn’t seem to be hurting anyone. But regulations are regulations. Tell me the worst. Am I going to be put in prison?”

  Petrella had at last grasped what he was talking about. He said, “You mean you didn’t get planning permission for her caravan to be on your property?”

  “I tucked it away, behind Long Shaw Copse. I didn’t think anyone spotted it from first to last.”

  “That’s what I really want to talk about,” said Petrella, and told him the story.

  “It’s funny you should think that,” said the Commander. “It did occur to me, from time to time, that it was rather an elusive baby. I never saw it myself, and I couldn’t swear that anyone else did. Mind you, if she was fooling, she did it thoroughly. I saw baby clothes hung out to dry once or twice. And baby foods and stuff like that used to be delivered. I know that, because the tradespeople left the stuff here, and she collected it. They wouldn’t go up to the caravan. She had a boxer bitch she used to leave in charge when she went out. A short-tempered old girl. She took a piece out of my trousers once.”

  “Didn’t she have any friends? People who called on her? You couldn’t very easily hide a baby from someone actually in the caravan.”

  The Commander said, speaking slowly and rather reluctantly, “There was one. I don’t know that you can blame the girl. Living all alone in a neck of the woods.”

  “Could I have his name?”

  “He’s a local farmer. I don’t think I’m going to tell you his name. I’m sorry I brought it up. It was only gossip really.”

  “All right,” said Petrella. “But let’s clear up one point. Her husband was posted overseas in January last year. The baby’s said to be nine months old. Was it soon after he left that she got friendly with this man, because if it was—”

  “All right,” said the Commander. “I can do sums as well as you. Yes, it was immediately he left. She was very lonely. After the
child was born, she seemed to lose interest in him. Maybe the child was company for her.”

  “If he existed.”

  “If he existed,” agreed the Commander. “One way you could have found out would have been to have a word with our District Nurse. Only you can’t. Six months ago she drove her car over a chalk-pit in a snow storm, on her way to a confinement. Tragic thing. However, you could try the Registrar at Chatham.”

  “I was planning to visit him next,” said Petrella.

  From Chatham, an hour later, he telephoned Superintendent Watterson. He said, “We’d better back-pedal on this. No one here ever saw the baby. And no baby of that name was registered in the last six months of last year.”

  “I’ll talk to Mrs. Morgan,” said the Superintendent grimly.

  When Petrella got back, Watterson said to him, “I’ve had a word with the lady. I talked to her like a Dutch uncle.”

  “Did she admit she’d been fooling everyone?”

  “Not in so many words. I thought her denials were wearing a bit thin by the end. When I told her that until we had actual proof of the child’s existence we weren’t prepared to pursue the case, I thought she was pretty relieved, actually.”

  Petrella said, “I shan’t be sorry, either. It isn’t as though we hadn’t got enough on our plates—”

  It was at this moment that Constable Owers came into the room. He laid the evening paper on the table, folding it ostentatiously so that the headline could be seen. It said, in large black letters,

  “WHERE’S THAT BABY?”

  The police had been discreet. The inhabitants of Baldwin Mansions less so.

  The next twenty-four hours was a period Petrella liked to forget. It wasn’t only the reporters, although they were bad enough. A missing baby is always good for a story. A missing baby which might not exist was front-page stuff. It was when District started getting round his neck that Petrella began thinking about resignation.

  Watterson did his best, but Baylis, the head of No. 2 District at that time, was a bit of an old woman. To do him justice, he was probably being prodded by Central.

  On the afternoon of the second day, with the temperature in the middle nineties, Petrella put his cards flat on the table. He said, “We’ve got two alternatives. We can tell the world that we don’t believe there was a baby. Or we can mount a search. I’d like to know which we’re to do.”

  “So should I,” said Watterson. “I put the matter in that way to Baylis myself.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that I was the man on the spot, and in the best position to make my mind up.”

  Petrella was on the point of saying something insubordinate when the Station Sergeant opened the door and ushered in a large, aggressive, red-headed man, who said, “What’s all this cock and bull about Elsie Morgan not having a baby? Certainly she had a baby. I’m his father.”

  Petrella said, “Might we have your name?”

  “Sam Turner.”

  “And you farm near Cuxton?”

  “That’s right. Someone been telling tales out of school?”

  “The person who mentioned you was careful not to name anyone. He just said that someone had been friendly with Mrs. Morgan, after her husband was posted abroad—”

  “Fair enough. I’m not denying anything. I was sorry for the poor kid. Dumped down in the middle of nowhere with nothing but sheep and cows to talk to. I’m not ashamed of what I did. These things happen.” He added, with a grin, “That husband of hers had been trying for five years. Perhaps he hadn’t got the knack.”

  Petrella thought that there were few men whom he had disliked more on sight than Sam Turner. And he could understand and forgive Mrs. Morgan getting tired of him. But his mind was preoccupied with much colder and less comfortable thoughts.

  Whilst he was working out this new line of speculation, Watterson took over. He said, “I take it you’ve actually seen this baby?”

  “Seen it? Of course I’ve bloody well seen it. I’ve had it on my knee. Piddled on me more than once, messy little bastard.”

  “I meant, have you seen it recently?”

  An odd look came into Sam Turner’s eyes. He’s caught on, thought Petrella.

  “I haven’t seen it up in London, if that’s what you mean. Soon as I read the papers I came up to have things out with Elsie. There was a bobby on the door. He wouldn’t let me in. That’s why I came round here.”

  “And this is the first time you’ve tried to see Mrs. Morgan since she left Cuxton?”

  “Of course it’s the first time. I didn’t know where she was before, did I?”

  “You mean she came up to London without telling you anything about it. That’s rather odd, if you were the father of her child, isn’t it?”

  For the first time, Turner looked uncomfortable. He said, “As a matter of fact, for the last few months, we weren’t quite so friendly. It wasn’t any of my doing – but that’s the way it was. Now I want to see her and the boy, and straighten it all out. I’ve got my rights.”

  “As things stand at the moment,” said Watterson coldly, “you’ve got no rights at all. If you’ll wait downstairs – the Sergeant will show you the way – I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  When the door had closed behind them, he said, “What’s worrying you, Patrick?”

  “It’s something that’s been bothering me all along,” said Petrella. “And I’m afraid I’ve guessed the answer. If she wanted to keep the baby hidden, why on earth did she come up to London? As long as she was tucked away, in a caravan, on private property, guarded by a dog of uncertain temper, the thing was easy. In a council flat in London, it must have been almost impossible.”

  “All right,” said Watterson. “I can see you’ve worked it all out. You tell me.”

  “I think it was because she wanted to lose the baby convincingly before her husband came home. She couldn’t stage-manage it in a field in the country. No one would have believed it.”

  “That’s possible enough,” said Watterson slowly. “But if she brought the baby up with her, where is it now?”

  “She didn’t bring it with her,” said Petrella. “It’s in a hole in the ground, somewhere in Kent.” He added, “Sam Turner thinks so, too. I saw him thinking it.”

  There was a long silence.

  “It makes sense,” said Watterson, at last. “We’d better alert the local talent. If she did it at the last moment before she came to London, the grave will still be fairly fresh. They’ve got instruments which register on freshly opened ground. They’d better get on with it.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.

  Petrella said, “I wonder if I ought to have a word with Mrs. Morgan first.”

  “We can’t possibly charge her.”

  “We can’t.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I thought I might take Sam round with me. He already suspects the truth. As soon as he sees the child isn’t there, he’s going to blow his top.”

  “Shock tactics?”

  “It might work.”

  “I can’t think of anything in Judges’ Rules against it,” said Watterson.

  When Petrella arrived back at Baldwin Mansions he found the patient Constable Owers arguing with a thick-set, black-haired man wearing a dark blue suit and the unmistakable look of a sailor out of uniform.

  “He says he’s this lady’s husband, sir.”

  “Of course I’m her husband,” said the man in tones of deep exasperation. “Who the flaming hell d’you think I am? The Shah of Persia.”

  “I expect you have some identity documents,” said Petrella pacifically.

  “It’s a fine state of affairs if I need a ticket to get in to see my wife,” said the man. He produced a pay-book and other papers which identified him as Chief Petty Officer Evan Morgan. “I’ve spent fifteen flaming hours out of the last twenty in aeroplanes. Now I’ve got here, the police stop me seeing her.”

  “I think we’d all three better go in,” said P
etrella, with a glance at the crowd who were lapping it up. It seemed hardly the time or the place to explain who Sam Turner was.

  When Mrs. Morgan opened the door to them, she took a startled look at the three men, threw her arms round her husband’s neck, and burst into tears. Somehow they got themselves into the living-room.

  “What’s all this, Else,” said her husband. “I saw a lot of stuff in the papers about our baby. The Navy flew me home straight away. Where’d they dream up all that story about it not really being there at all.”

  “Of course it was there,” said Turner, who had been steadily coming to the boil. “I told ‘em, I’ve had it on my knee, more than once.”

  “And who the hell are you?”

  “If you want the truth, you’d better have it. I’m his father.”

  There was a moment of paralysed silence, and then Morgan, moving with surprising speed for a man of his bulk, had Turner by the throat. Turner grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them off. Then he changed his tactics and hit Morgan in the stomach. As Morgan dropped his hands, they broke apart and Petrella slipped between them. They were both bigger and heavier than he was. Before they could start the fight again they were interrupted. It was the thin cry of a baby, who has been woken up, and is annoyed about it.

  Mrs. Morgan darted from the room, and came back, carrying a fat, sleepy-looking child. It had a surprising amount of hair for its age, and it was already quite undeniably russet, if not yet red colour.

  “Look at him,” said Turner. “Look at his hair. Look at his eyes.”

  “My grandfather had red hair,” said Morgan. “The child’s thrown back to him.”

  Turner growled, and sidled forward, but Petrella had had enough. He said, “If you start rough-housing again, I’ll have you run in.” He signalled from the window to Sergeant Blencowe, who came at the double.

  “Take this man back to the car,” he said, “and keep him there.”