Ellen could feel the tension in the air. Now hunched up protectively, Mavis looked as if she didn’t wish to continue a conversation making her increasingly uncomfortable. Ellen asked the crucial question.
‘Why did you and Paul stop seeing each other?’
Mavis recoiled as if from a blow. ‘I’d rather not say.’
‘But you were the one who contacted him.’
‘I did, Mrs Marmion, and I take the blame.’
‘Blame?’
‘It would never have happened if I hadn’t written that letter.’
‘What wouldn’t have happened?’ Seeing the girl’s distress, she nevertheless pressed on. ‘I must know, Mavis, don’t you see that? It might give me a clue about my son’s behaviour. I know he’s not an angel – to be honest, living with him has been a trial at times – but we love him as a son and we’re anxious to know where he is. Any scrap of information would be useful to us.’
Mavis took a long time to gather up enough strength to speak again. Because of the way it ended, she’d tried to put her fleeting friendship with Paul Marmion out of her mind. Brooding on it was too painful.
‘The last time we met,’ she said at length, ‘Paul did something to me.’
‘What was it? He didn’t hurt you, surely?’
‘He tried to, Mrs Marmion. He grabbed me and … tried to molest me.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Paul.’
‘You asked for the truth and that’s it. I liked him until that point. The worst thing was that it happened in the church. I had to fight him off and run to safety. To tell you the truth, I never want to see your son again.’
Mavis began to sob but Ellen felt unable to reach out to her. She was too stunned by what she’d just been told. Paul had done something of which she’d never have thought him capable. It was a sobering reminder of how little she actually knew her own son. Eventually, she got up and enfolded Mavis in her arms for a couple of minutes. When the girl finally calmed down, Ellen left the room without another word and let herself out of the vicarage.
During the bus ride back to London, her mind was ablaze.
Maisie Rogers soon tired of being followed. The detective no longer came into the pub where she worked but she was nevertheless aware of his presence every time she stepped into the street. She missed Wally Hubbard and she knew just how much he would be missing her. It was not difficult to shake off the pursuit. Having got permission from the landlord to take time off, she changed out of the clothes she’d worn to work and into something very different. A wide-brimmed hat hid much of her face. There was a group of women in the bar, enjoying a drink together before going home. They were loud but good-humoured. When they surged out into the street, Maisie Rogers was tucked away in the middle of the women, using them as shields. It was five minutes or more before she broke away from the group. After she’d looked in every direction, she was able to relax. Nobody had spotted her.
‘It was easy,’ she later boasted to Hubbard. ‘Someone is still waiting outside the pub for me to put in an appearance.’
‘Well done!’
‘They’ll watch me more carefully in future, Wally.’
‘Don’t take any chances.’
‘I had to see you. We’re partners now.’
‘We are,’ he confirmed, hugging her.
‘How are you getting on?’
‘It’s a very cold bed when you’re not here.’
‘Well, there’ll be plenty of time to warm it up.’
They laughed. Over a drink, they each described what they’d been doing since they last met. Maisie was astonished to hear how far he’d travelled in the interim. On the table was a pile of newspapers.
‘Why did you buy all those?’ she asked.
‘I wanted to see if I was still on the front page,’ he said, ‘but I got hardly a mention in most of them. One of them cut me down to six lines.’
‘You should be glad, Wally. You’re no longer the main news.’
‘No, that comes from France. We’ve had another setback on the battlefield. The Krauts have seized more territory from our lads. On top of that, of course, the papers are still buzzing about the murder at that hostel. That’s why I had to have them.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘They’ve got vital information for me, Maisie. I’ve learnt something new from each and every one of them. I’m letting the police help me in my search. It will soon start to pay off.’
‘The papers don’t tell you where Ben Croft is hiding, do they?’
‘Maybe not,’ he replied, ‘but they’ve given me an important clue.’
‘Have they?’
‘Yes, Maisie. When I opened the Daily Mail this morning, I couldn’t believe my luck.’
‘Why? What did it say?’
‘I’ll tell you later. Let’s go and see how warm that bed is, shall we?’
Having discussed it beforehand, Marmion and Keedy, of one accord, delivered their report to Claude Chatfield. They believed that Breen had been holding back more than he actually told them. When they’d left his office, they were still toying with the possibility that Special Branch had been directly responsible for the death of David Ackley. The superintendent scotched that idea at once.
‘It’s inconceivable,’ he said. ‘Had they wanted to kill him, they’d simply have arrested him and spirited him away somewhere. They certainly wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of ordering one of their agents to knock out a bandsman, steal his uniform and slip into the hostel. Besides, Ackley was not that important. He was just a minor figure trying to stir up trouble.’
‘He was important enough to be locked away,’ Marmion pointed out.
‘They just wanted to shut him up.’
‘But why send him to Knockaloe and not to a mainland prison?’
‘Special Branch needed him far away and out of sight. They probably arrested him on a charge of sedition and shipped him off.’
‘But all he did was to write some articles in a magazine,’ said Keedy. ‘Is that enough to justify incarceration on the Isle of Man?’
‘No, Sergeant,’ said Marmion, ‘it isn’t. At face value, all that he was doing was to let off steam and wave his fist at the government. A lot of people do that. Ackley would have been in good company in Knockaloe. Like him, most of the internees have committed no crimes at all. They’re harmless people with the misfortune of being immigrants.’
‘Yet they had to be locked up,’ insisted Chatfield. ‘Many of them are blameless, I agree, but there’s a hard core of dissidents among them. They really belong behind barbed wire.’
‘How difficult would it be to get into the camp, sir?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, we might find that someone else is hidden away there.’
‘Ben Croft?’
‘It’s a possibility, Superintendent. Ackley could have met him there and stolen his papers. How else could he have got hold of them?’
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ said Keedy. ‘One murder could help to prevent another. David Ackley’s death is pointing us in the direction of Knockaloe. If we can get to Croft first, we can save his life.’
‘I remain unconvinced that he’s on the island,’ said Chatfield.
‘Will you at least find out, sir?’
‘Yes,’ added Marmion. ‘There must be some way of checking the list of internees at the camp.’ Chatfield pursed his lips. ‘He could have been interned because of his German heritage, sir. It’s worth investigating.’
‘What if he is in Knockaloe?’
‘There’s an easy answer to that, Sergeant.’
‘What is it?’
‘One of us will have to go to the Isle of Man to warn him.’ Marmion patted him on the shoulder. ‘That’s a job for which you’re ideally suited.’
When she got back to the house, Ellen wept for a long time. Her search had been futile. She’d not only had a very unpleasant meeting with Barbara Fryatt, she’d learnt something appa
lling about her son. Mavis Tandy was young, unworldly and patently virginal. The news that Paul had assaulted her – in a church, of all places – made Ellen feel sick. What had the army done to him? How had it changed him from an essentially good person into one who was a danger to women? Hearing what Mavis had to say was a searing experience. When she confided in her husband and daughter, Ellen would have to go through it all again. They would be as disgusted as she felt. Throwing darts at a sketch of Sally Redwood had been bad enough. What Paul had inflicted on Mavis was far worse.
There was one consolation. Outraged as she must have been, the girl had not run straight to her parents and described what had happened. Mavis chose instead to bottle up the experience and to suffer in silence. Had she confided in her father, he would surely have come knocking at the door of the Marmion house and demanded to see Paul. There might even have been a threat of legal action. That thought brought fresh tears from Ellen. How would it have looked if the son of a Scotland Yard detective had been arrested and charged by the police? Did Paul have no consideration at all for his family?
Ellen was torn between two extremes. As a mother, she had to love, nurture and protect her son; as an independent observer of the situation, however, she felt that Paul was unworthy of belonging to a family that set high standards when it came to behaviour. Two innocent young women had been abused. In the company of such women, Paul could simply not be trusted. He was becoming a positive menace. It was a giddying realisation on Ellen’s part. Still determined to find her son at all costs, she heard a voice whispering a seductive question in her ear.
Wouldn’t it be better for all of them if he never came back?
It had been a dreadful day for Reuben Ackley and his wife. Now that the murder victim had been identified as their son, every newspaper has broadcast the information. They’d also dispatched reporters to Oxford to besiege the parents at their home and demand to know details of David’s involvement in political activism. Neither Ackley nor his wife was equal to the intense and invasive pressure. It left them confused and alarmed. Ackley was at ease in the groves of academe where the biggest demand on him was to deliver a lecture on the operation of the British legal system to a room full of attentive students. Facing a mob of reporters, he could only gibber. Questions were fired at him indiscriminately like so many bullets and the photographers made him blink with their flashbulbs.
The parents could never mourn for their son in the normal way. The rift between them and David was too wide and of too long a duration. In their perception, he’d died years ago. That was when they’d felt real anguish. All that his actual death did was to arouse a distant sympathy and a deep hatred of the political beliefs that had led him astray. Shocked by the murder, they somehow managed to feel that it had happened to a stranger.
In return for giving them a long interview, Ackley had gained a promise from the press that they would not pester him the next day. Incredibly, they kept their word. When he opened the bedroom curtains the following morning, there were no serried ranks of reporters with their notepads at the ready and no photographers lying in wait. The worst, it seemed, was at last over. Ackley even dared to think that he could cycle into college and work in his study. Over an early breakfast with his wife, there was no mention of the horror that had descended upon them or of the funeral arrangements that would have to be made. They pretended that their son simply didn’t exist.
Ackley was about to mount his bicycle when the man appeared at the gate. He was a solid individual in a raincoat and a trilby.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said, cheerily.
Ackley waved a hand. ‘I’m not giving any more interviews to the press.’
‘Oh, I’m not from a newspaper, sir. I’m Detective Constable Rogers. I’ve been sent to make sure that you’re not troubled by reporters.’
‘Then you’re a blessing in disguise.’
‘Have they made your life a misery?’
‘It was torture.’
‘Well, you’ll have me to keep them at bay now.’
‘Thank you. What was the name again?’
‘Rogers, sir – Detective Constable Rogers.’
Wally Hubbard had no qualms about borrowing Maisie’s name. Nor did he mind lowering his rank to that of a detective constable in the local constabulary. He simply wanted to get close to the father of David Ackley. The man might well have information that Hubbard could use.
‘It’s a bad business, sir,’ he said, soulfully. ‘You have my condolences.’
‘Thank you.’
‘The worst of it is that you don’t know who killed your son.’
‘We don’t know who and we don’t know why.’
‘Inspector Marmion will get him in the end.’
Ackley was surprised. ‘You know the inspector?’
‘Yes, I’ve had the good fortune to meet him once or twice. He’s something of an icon at Scotland Yard. The investigation is in the best possible hands, sir.’
‘I sensed that. The inspector is so kind and understanding.’
‘He knows how to comfort grieving parents.’
‘It’s not comfort that we seek,’ said Ackley, cocking a leg over his bicycle. ‘It’s an explanation of how it happened. That’s all we want. Inspector Marmion has promised to keep us informed at every stage.’
‘That must be very reassuring for you, sir.’
‘It is, I can tell you.’
‘And has he been able to tell you anything new about the case?’ asked Hubbard, casually.
‘Oh, yes. In fact, he rang us first thing this morning.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He’s discovered something about our son that he felt we should know.’
‘That was considerate of the inspector.’
‘It turns out that, before he ended up at that Salvation Army hostel, David had been held at Knockaloe Camp. That’s on the Isle of Man.’
Hubbard grinned. ‘I know where it is, sir. Good day to you.’
Raising his hat in gratitude, he went skipping off down the road.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Before they reported to the superintendent, Harvey Marmion wanted a private word with Keedy. He invited the sergeant into his office and closed the door before speaking. When he’d got home late the previous evening, he explained, he’d been given some disturbing news. Keedy was stunned by what he heard.
‘When did this happen?’ he asked.
‘It was several weeks ago, Joe. The girl got in touch with him by letter and Paul agreed to see her. Ellen was glad that he’d finally found someone with whom he actually wanted to spend time but the friendship was short-lived.’ Marmion frowned. ‘Now we know why.’
‘Did he really jump on her in a church?’
‘That’s what Mavis said and there’s no reason to disbelieve her.’
‘What a stupid thing to do!’
‘It’s more than stupid. It’s verging on something much nastier. Ellen was overwhelmed with shame. Thank heaven that Alice was there to comfort her. She spent the night with us again, by the way.’
‘What was her reaction?’
‘She was as horrified as I was.’
‘It seems so unlike Paul,’ said Keedy. ‘He was such a relaxed, easy-going sort of person. The last thing I’d expect of him was assaulting a girl like that. And didn’t you say she was a vicar’s daughter? What on earth made Paul think that she was likely to welcome his advances? From what she told Ellen, it’s clear that Mavis gave him no encouragement at all.’
‘The girl simply wanted to talk about Colin Fryatt.’
‘Paul should have read the signs.’
‘His eyesight wasn’t so good when this happened, Joe.’
‘It’s not a question of eyesight,’ said Keedy, airily. ‘Women give you little hints. There’s a sort of Morse code you have to learn. Master that and you know exactly when to make your move.’
Seeing the look in Marmion’s eye, he fell silent. Having talked familiarly
as if he was in a pub with a male friend, he remembered that he was with his future father-in-law. Keedy’s comments – and the tone he used to make them – were not well received. For his part, Marmion was once again obliged to speculate on what sort of sexual relationship the sergeant had with Alice. He had to force himself to concentrate on the plight of his son.
‘Where the blazes can Paul be?’ he asked, banging a fist on the desk.
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘And why hasn’t he got in touch just to put our minds at rest?’
‘He’s not thinking about you and the family, Harv.’
‘Then what is he thinking about?’
‘Himself – he’s on some kind of journey.’
‘And where is it taking him?’
‘I can’t answer that one,’ said Keedy with a shrug. ‘Does he have any money?’
‘He has his savings.’
‘Did he take them with him?’
‘Yes, it’s one of the first things that Ellen checked. He’s always been careful with money, so he must have quite a bit.’
‘There you are, then. That should give you some reassurance.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s not going to be starving and sleeping rough. If he has money, he can always buy himself a bed and a meal. You can live very cheaply that way.’
‘I’m not so sure, Joe.’
‘There’s no shortage of accommodation, especially in holiday resorts. The war has robbed them of business. Prices have gone right down.’
‘Somehow, I don’t think Paul would take advantage of that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It was that message Ellen found in the dustbin.’
‘Ah, yes …’
‘Paul knew he’d done wrong. He was telling us that he felt worthless. He didn’t want to cause us any more trouble.’
‘But that’s precisely what he’s doing by running away. He must know the heartache it would cause the rest of you. He’s not doing you a favour,’ said Keedy. ‘He’s putting you through hell.’
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