Hushed in Death

by Hushed in Death (retail) (epub)

  Theresa’s head moved, almost imperceptibly, in affirmation.

  Vera glanced at Lamb, to be certain that she should continue. Lamb nodded his assent.

  “Who forced you, Theresa? Alan Fox?”

  Again, Theresa nodded, though barely.

  Lamb pulled out his notebook and hastily wrote in it a question, which he showed Vera, and which she asked Theresa Hitchens.

  “Did Alan take you to Elton House? Is that where it happened?”

  “Yes,” Theresa murmured, though she did not raise her face.

  “Is that why you stayed by the pond? You said that you’d lost everything there.”

  “Yes.” She began to cry again, and Lamb touched Vera’s arm, signaling for her to refrain for the moment. Once again, they waited several minutes for Theresa to finish crying before Lamb said, “Can I pour you some more tea, Theresa?”

  She shook her head. And then she raised it and looked at Lamb and Vera, who were sitting next to each other only a couple of feet away. She dried her eyes with her fingers, whereupon Rivers pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. She wiped her face with the cloth, then straightened in her chair and sighed deeply.

  When she spoke, she looked more toward Vera than Lamb.

  “That’s where they did it, at Elton House,” she said. “Dr. Hornby and the nurse. They did it, while Alan watched. Dr. Hornby put me to sleep and when I woke up it was done. Alan walked me home. My father was there. I didn’t speak to him; I couldn’t. Then Alan left.”

  Lamb ventured a question. “Did you set fire to the shed behind the pub because you were angry at Alan and your father?”

  Theresa looked down at the table. “Yes.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I ran away.”

  “Did you go to Alan Fox?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Theresa looked at Lamb for the first time. “I went to the pond. To be with my baby. Alan told me; he said it was a boy and that Dr. Hornby had thrown it in the pond.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  LAMB BELIEVED THAT THERESA HITCHENS HAD MUCH MORE TO tell him about Alan Fox, but that she was in no fit state to undergo a heavy interrogation. He arranged for Vera and Rivers to drive her to the hospital in Winchester, where a doctor could treat her and confirm that she had undergone an abortion. In order to make sure that she did not try to leave of her own accord, Rivers was to charge her with malicious destruction in the setting of the shed fire. And before he sent Vera and Rivers to Winchester with Theresa, Lamb asked Vera to gently prod Theresa on the question of whether Alan Fox had ever sent her love letters.

  If her claim that Hornby had aborted her unborn child was true, then he would also put together an arrest warrant for the doctor on a charge of violating the laws against performing abortions. The charge would give him the probable cause he needed to obtain a warrant to thoroughly search Elton House.

  In the meantime, he would leave Cashen, Larkin, and the uniformed men to continue processing Fox’s cottage for evidence while he and Wallace hauled Horace Hitchens to the nick and charged him with impeding a murder inquiry, giving Lamb an opportunity to sweat him properly.

  Lamb believed that Horace Hitchens had failed to come to the air raid shelter on the previous night because he had gone to find his missing daughter. He was fairly certain, too, that Horace knew that Theresa had set the shed on fire. But had he known for certain that Fox had impregnated Theresa and forced her to terminate the child? If not, he might have suspected something regardless —a suspicion that Joseph Lee might have heightened when he told Hitchens that he could ruin Alan Fox. Lamb knew from what Theresa had just told him that Fox had crossed paths the previous night with herself, Horace Hitchens, Frederick Hornby, and Matilda Stevens. And before the night had ended, Fox was dead.

  By the time Vera and Rivers headed off with Theresa, Horace Hitchens was beginning to come round. He had awakened from his stupor enough to sit at a table in his pub, where he complained of having a headache and asked for a drink, which Lamb allowed him.

  Before Hitchens reached the point of becoming recalcitrant or combative, though, Lamb and Wallace hustled the publican, handcuffed, into the backseat of one of the motorcars Cashen and the uniformed men had come to Marbury in. Wallace sat in the back with Hitchens while Lamb drove. Lamb expected Hitchens to complain on the drive to Winchester and perhaps to even become abusive and testy. But he sat quietly next to Wallace, staring out the window.

  In Winchester, Wallace completed the process of charging Hitchens, and then put him in a cell so that he could stew while he and Lamb found something to eat.

  They went to the pub across the street from the nick and each ordered a pint of ale and some cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, which they ate at a table. They had nearly finished, neither of them having said much of anything, when Wallace spoke up. He decided that he was tired of waiting round for the right minute and had nothing to lose by speaking frankly to Lamb, who, he believed, valued candor.

  “I don’t quite know how to say this, sir, so I guess I’ll just say it straight out. I want to marry Vera. I know you’re aware of our relationship.”

  “I am,” Lamb said, looking directly at Wallace.

  “Well, then, I’d like to ask your permission for Vera’s hand in marriage.”

  Lamb pushed aside the plate in front of him. He pulled out his cigarettes and offered one to Wallace, who took it. Lamb lit the sergeant’s and then his own. When he had settled back into his chair, he said, “Are you sure, David? Completely sure?”

  “Yes, sir. Completely.”

  “Have you said anything to Vera about it?”

  “Yes. I haven’t asked her outright but I’ve made my intentions clear enough.”

  “And how has she responded?”

  “That’s just it, sir. I don’t know, really. She seems torn.”

  “But you are not torn?”

  “Not in the least.”

  Lamb took a drag from his cigarette, and sighed as he exhaled.

  “I understand your predicament, David, and I don’t envy your being in it,” he said. “But it’s not really my permission you need—though I’m glad you think enough of me to ask for it. It’s Vera’s you need. But you know that already, of course.”

  Wallace also sighed. “Yes, I know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lamb said. “I’ll tell you a secret; I have tried too hard to protect Vera from the vicissitudes of the world—the fact that life is unfair and that people can be ugly, stupid, ignorant, and violent. But I’ve learned that I can’t protect her and that, in any case, I’ve no right to even try. She’s a woman and must live her life—and I must allow her to live her life and to make her own decisions about the future. I know that probably doesn’t make you feel any better, but there it is.”

  “I understand,” Wallace said.

  “Look here, David,” Lamb said. “I realize that I haven’t been fair to you either since you were wounded. I’ve sought to protect you, too, you see, and am guilty of coddling you from time to time, even though I know you must despise that. What I did out at the pond a couple of days ago was wrong. I should have just sent you in after Lee. Even with your leg the way it is you’re stronger and more agile than Harry. But I misjudged you. And, at the very least, I can promise you that I won’t do that again.” Lamb stuck out his hand to Wallace and said, “Will you forgive me?”

  Wallace was dumbfounded. He had never considered that Lamb owed him an apology and hadn’t been asking for one. All the same, he appreciated what Lamb had said. “But, sir, I’m not asking for an apology” was all he could think of to say.

  “Take it anyway,” Lamb said. He stubbed his cigarette out on his plate and smiled. “It might be the last one you’ll ever get out of me.”

  They returned to the nick, where Lamb sequestered himself in his office to smoke another cigarette and clear his head before he interrogated Horace Hitchens.

 
His telephone rang; it was Rivers calling from the hospital.

  “The doctor says Theresa has definitely undergone a termination and very recently, probably within the last twenty-four hours,” Rivers said. “And it was no butcher job. Whoever did the operation knew what they were doing medically.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, he’s only had a chance to examine her preliminarily but she doesn’t appear to have any other physical injuries, though she appears to be suffering dehydration. The doctor said she’s had a definite psychological shock, likely connected to the abortion. Also, your daughter managed to wrangle a fair amount out of Theresa on the ride to the hospital; Theresa finally seemed to come to, like, and began talking. She said that her father knew about the pregnancy and was with Fox in wanting her to abort it. She said that Fox agreed to pay for it and that Horace had a plan to send Theresa away for time afterward, to allow everything to settle. After setting the fire, she went back to the pond alone and claims that Hitchens came after her and tried to convince her to come back to the pub, but that she refused and so he left her there.”

  “Anything else on Alan Fox?”

  “Only that she swears that the last time she saw him was when he dropped her at the pub after bringing her down the hill from Elton House.”

  “Did Vera ask Theresa if Alan Fox had ever sent her a love note?”

  “She did and Theresa said that no, Fox had sent her nary a one.”

  “All right, Harry. Thank you.”

  “But that’s not the end of it, sir, though I think we have to take this with a bit of caution, given how angry Theresa is with her father at the moment.”

  “What is it?”

  “She claims that Horace left the pub in the wee hours on the night that Joseph Lee was murdered. She said she woke up when she heard him come in. She told Vera that she wouldn’t be surprised if her father had killed Lee—not for her sake, but for Alan Fox’s.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  IT WAS NEARING EIGHT O’CLOCK BY THE TIME LAMB SEATED himself across from Horace Hitchens in the interrogation room.

  By then, he had begun the process of obtaining a warrant to search Elton House, though he would have to wait until the following morning for a judge to approve it. Winston-Sheed had moved Alan Fox’s body to the morgue, and Cashen, Larkin, and the others had returned to Winchester from Marbury.

  Hitchens sat bleary-eyed and sour-faced at the bare wooden table in the windowless room. Thankfully, he had not requested a lawyer. Lamb thought that this might be because he wasn’t aware he could do so, though he was more inclined to conclude that Hitchens believed he hadn’t a need for a lawyer—that he could lie, bluff, and threaten his way out of any interrogation. Lamb planned to use Theresa as a kind of wedge with which to pry Hitchens open.

  Lamb had with him, concealed in a cardboard folder, one of the photos of Fox that Larkin had shot at the scene; the shot showed Fox lying on the floor of his studio with the blood pooling round his head. He went right to heart of the matter.

  “Alan Fox impregnated your daughter and then forced her to terminate the child—an arrangement you approved,” Lamb said.

  Hitchens looked fiercely at Lamb. “That’s a damned lie, I’ll not stand for it!”

  “Are you calling your daughter a liar, then, sir?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We found her earlier today, by the pond at Elton House, and she told us everything. She even admitted to setting fire to the shed. She said that she was mad at Alan Fox and at you, Mr. Hitchens.”

  “What have you done with Theresa? Where is she?”

  “I’ve sent her to the hospital.”

  “But you’ve no leave to do that.”

  “That simply isn’t correct, Mr. Hitchens. I have all the leave I need.”

  Hitchens slapped his hands against the table. “You’re a bloody liar, Lamb. A liar.” He stood.

  “Sit down, Mr. Hitchens,” Lamb said.

  Hitchens continued to stand. He said nothing, staring down at Lamb, his chest heaving and his eyes filled with rage.

  “Sit down,” Lamb repeated. “Or I’ll have you handcuffed to the chair.”

  Still, Hitchens did not sit.

  “You can take a swing at me if you want to,” Lamb said, speaking calmly and remaining in his chair. “But I would advise against that.”

  Hitchens sneered. “You mean you’ll call in your gorillas.”

  Lamb looked directly at Hitchens and quietly said, “Not at all. I have no doubt that I could handle you quite easily, Mr. Hitchens. You’re all bluff, after all. On the other hand, I spent most of 1917 on the Somme, where for four months my main job was to crawl through the mud across no-man’s-land in the middle of the night to raid the German trenches in search of intelligence. In performing that duty I unfortunately was forced to kill exactly three men with my bare hands.”

  Lamb paused for just a hitch, then said, “Each time I felt the life draining from them and each time they pleaded with me to stop. But I kept on because if I didn’t kill them then they would have killed me.”

  Hitchens, stunned, stood for a few seconds more before sitting. Lamb pulled his ever-dwindling packet of Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes from his pocket, along with the matches, and slid them across the table to Hitchens, who silently took one and lit it, but otherwise did not acknowledge the gesture.

  “Why did you leave your daughter by the pond after you found her there during the air raid? I know for certain that neither you nor your daughter were in the shelter, because I was there. A woman called here and reported that the pub was on fire; that same woman called Arthur Brandt and reported the same thing. I’m quite sure that the woman was Theresa. She was angry at you and Alan Fox and because of that set the fire and ran away.”

  “She didn’t want to come home,” Hitchens said sullenly. “She wanted nothing to do with me. I didn’t blame her so I let her be.”

  “One other person also failed to show at the shelter that night and I think you know who that is,” Lamb said. He was fishing again—testing a theory.

  Hitchens looked surprised. “Why would I know?”

  Lamb removed the photo of Alan Fox’s body from the folder and slid it across the table so that Hitchens could see it.

  Hitchens looked up at Lamb with alarm in his eyes. “You’re saying I did that? I didn’t even know Alan Fox was dead until this very minute.”

  “You agreed with Alan Fox that Theresa should have an abortion and even had a plan to send her away for a while, after the job was done, so that she could recover away from the gossip and the prying eyes of Marbury. But I think you had no idea, really, how losing the child would affect her. I think you believed it would be much like any other medical procedure and that Alan Fox probably convinced you of that. Then, when Fox brought her back to the pub last night you saw how wrong you had been—and when Theresa set the fire you realized how truly traumatized she was. She ran away and you braved an air raid to find her, but she sent you away, told you she wanted to have nothing to do with you anymore. How am I doing so far, sir?”

  Hitchens looked at the table, but didn’t speak.

  “Any man—any decent man who loved his daughter—would be left reeling from that,” Lamb continued. “And it would be only natural, then, to turn some of that rage onto the man who had seduced his daughter and then led her astray for his own selfish pleasure.”

  Hitchens looked up at Lamb open-mouthed. “Are you saying you think I killed Alan Fox?”

  “Did you?”

  “No!” Hitchens protested.

  “But you hated him for what he’d done to Theresa,” Lamb said, allowing his voice to rise a bit. “You knew Alan Fox well enough. He did whatever the bloody hell he pleased and got away with it. His wealth and his position always protected him from the consequences. And you decided that had to end.”

  “No!” Hitchens said again. “I’ll admit that I despised Fox for what he’d done; I’d even warned Ther
esa against him. I knew what he was like, just as you said. But once it happened I did what I did only for Theresa’s sake, not for his. I couldn’t afford for her to have the operation, but Fox could. And so I went along with it. I thought it would be best for Theresa, but I was wrong. But I didn’t kill Fox. I swear to you, Lamb. I had no idea he was dead until just now. After I left Theresa, I came back to the pub and drank myself nearly to death, as you saw. I was hoping that I might never wake up.”

  Lamb remained calm. “Did you kill Joseph Lee? He came to you after he’d fought with Fox and claimed he had something on Fox that could ‘ruin’ him. Maybe he found out somehow that Fox had gotten Theresa pregnant. He had a love note that someone convinced him had been written by Alan Fox, but I think it was a fake. Whoever gave him the note might also have known about Theresa. You did your best to keep everything secret, but these things tend to get out regardless. And so when Lee told you what he knew, you had to silence him.”

  “No, I swear it.”

  “Your own daughter just admitted to me not an hour ago that you snuck from the pub on the night Lee was killed and returned a short time later.”

  Hitchens’s eyes shifted quickly from right to left, like those of a trapped animal looking for escape. “No! She’s lying; she’s confused.”

  Lamb exploded. He pounded his fist so hard that it shook the table. “Stop lying to me, goddamn you!” he yelled.

  He looked fiercely at Hitchens and even pointed his finger at Hitchens’s face. “I swear to you, Hitchens, that if you killed Alan Fox I will see you hang for it. But if your daughter did it, then I’ll see her hang. It makes no bloody difference to me. I’ve been patient with you, but I’m finished. You have one chance—one bloody chance—to tell me the truth, here and now. Don’t squander it, for your daughter’s sake if not yours.”

  Hitchens began to waver. “But Theresa didn’t . . .”

  Lamb interrupted him. “The truth, Hitchens. I warn you.”

  Hitchens slumped in his chair.