Forgotten Voices

by Jane A. Adams

  Rina basked in it all, enjoying the sunshine, the company and the music. She had even taught Joy and Tim to jive in readiness for the NAAFI dance scheduled for that night. Joy had taken to it immediately; Tim could now move without falling over his feet and she figured they would both have a good time anyway.

  The only fly in the honey jar so far as Rina was concerned was the assumption by some of the local youth that she and the other older residents of Peverill House might actually be old enough to remember the war.

  She hadn’t even been born then, the world having to wait another five years for that significant event to take place.

  Mid-afternoon, she ran into William Trent. He looked harried.

  ‘I hear you’re giving a speech,’ she said.

  ‘Not a speech, no. I’ll be officially opening the exhibition later and Edward will be doing the announcement of the new computer games.’ William shook his head. ‘I’m not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to become involved. The idea of a game about war seems distasteful, somehow. I hope I’ve at least managed to inject a little history.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, you’ve injected a lot of history,’ Rina said. ‘And to be fair, there have been games of strategy for many thousands of years, I suppose you should just see this as the latest incarnation.’

  William harrumphed and excused himself. Rina watched him go. He looked old, she thought. Greyer and not just his hair. Life was taking a toll on William Trent. She’d meant to ask him for news of the younger Tailors. Had Jeb and Megan settled with their aunt? Were relations between Diane and Daphne still as frosty? But she was almost glad she hadn’t done so. He probably knew no more than she did; he certainly had more of an emotional investment in a situation that was, to Rina just another example of local tragedy. She didn’t want to pick at what were obviously still unhealed wounds.

  Joy had been examining some vintage clothing and now returned with her purchases. ‘Tim’s gone off to look at a tank,’ she said. ‘Edward has this idea about making one disappear and maybe doing a Christmas show.’

  ‘Won’t that clash with the Palisades performances? It’s also not going to be long enough to set up the staging. We’re almost in November.’

  ‘That’s what Tim said, so Edward suggested getting the hotel involved too. Anyway, let them argue it out. They’ll have more fun doing that than they will shopping with us. Miriam’s just nipped off to the loo; she’ll meet us in the cafe. Don’t know about you but I’m starving.’

  She slipped an arm though Rina’s and they wandered back towards the main building. The tower was now fully functional again and the main concourse beautifully restored, Rina thought. The de Freitases had thrown money at the project. What had been offices had now been converted into tea rooms and Lydia’s museum, as she rather grandly called the two areas of display and the long glassed area linking them. Miriam was waiting for them at the entrance to the cafe.

  ‘It’s pretty packed. Joy, nab that table over in the corner, Rina and I will order. Mac phoned, said he’s on his way.’ She smiled and Rina found herself transferred from the attentions of one young woman to another as Joy skipped off to capture the corner table.

  She was very blessed, Rina thought. She had loving friends and a good home and a sense of belonging. Precious things.

  Glancing around the room she caught sight of familiar faces. Celia Marsden sat with the flower-arranging committee.

  ‘Ah, there’s Mac,’ Miriam said. ‘Where did Tim get to? Should we order for him?’

  ‘No, don’t bother. He’s off with Edward discussing how to make a tank disappear. I’m guessing that could take some time.’

  Minutes later they were seated at the corner table distributing tea and sandwiches. Rina leaned back in her chair and surveyed the two young women and the man she had come to regard almost as affectionately as she regarded Tim.

  Life was very good, Rina thought. So why, looking over at the little group of women on the other side of the cafe, did she feel such a sense of something being very wrong?

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The official opening of the exhibition, press call and performance by local school children was scheduled for three p.m. and William Trent, in his role as historian, was due to make a speech.

  Rina spotted Andrew Barnes amongst the press pack and exchanged a smile. The children’s choir assembled in front of the platform and a small troupe of Irish dancers – also children – prepared for their performance on a specially constructed stage that would be ready for the musicians at the evening dance.

  Edward took his place before the microphone stand and thanked everyone for being there. He looked happy, Rina thought, and genuinely excited by the official opening. He spoke a little about the history of the airfield and the role it had played in both world wars. He talked about the tin huts and that they had been a POW camp. He mentioned that several of the Italian prisoners had stayed on after the war and become part of the local community and that links had now been forged with Pisa and Rome because of that. He spoke of the future and the children who would be singing and dancing later and then he handed over to William Trent.

  Rina’s attention had drifted a little and she let her gaze travel around the crowd gathered in the auditorium. Faces she knew, people she had come to see as friends and neighbours. Tony from the cafe, with his wife and children. Andy Nevins and his mother.

  The women from the flower arranging committee. Celia Marsden looking attentive. Martha and Julia whispering to one another.

  Vera Courtney staring hard at William Trent, a look of pure hatred on her face.

  Rina, her gaze fixed on Vera, tuned back in to what William was saying.

  ‘This exhibition represents all of those forgotten voices. All those whose stories might otherwise have not been told. There are those I know who believe that the past is the past and that we should not disturb the dust of those who are so long gone. But I disagree. We must remember and acknowledge the past, we must listen to those voices and we must tell their stories to the world.’

  Vera Courtney turned on her heel and left. Glancing sideways at William, Rina saw that he was looking in Vera’s direction.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Monday

  ‘William Trent,’ Kendall said. ‘His wallet was still in his pocket and nothing seems to have been taken.’

  Mac nodded. ‘I’ve not seen him since the Ellen Tailor murder went cold. Though Andy told me he came into the police station last week, looking for an address or something?’

  ‘Oh? Andy tell you who for?’

  ‘He did, but it didn’t mean anything to me at the time. He came into the police station wanting the address and Andy told him that we weren’t in the business of giving out addresses. Trent got annoyed and left. I ran across him briefly in the cafe on the prom. He apologized, tried to explain why he was looking for the person in question, I told him I still couldn’t help, he got annoyed again and then left.’

  ‘And?’

  Mac frowned. ‘And a couple of things, I suppose. The woman he was looking for was someone called Wenda Carson.’

  ‘Gwenda?’

  ‘No, definitely Wenda. She was the daughter of the vicar here, apparently. The vicar was the son of the chaplain at the POW camp during World War Two.’

  ‘Out where the tin huts are now?’

  Mac nodded. The so called tin huts were now a collection of small businesses, some still housed in the old Nissen huts, now substantially refurbished and made more fit for purpose, that had formed part of the accommodation. It had always surprised Mac that the camp had been just on the outskirts of town. The fence must have run right along the main road in places. Rina Martin had told him, when he first came to Frantham, that it had housed mainly Italian prisoners and that many of them had worked out the war on local farms, returning to the camp at night. Some had stayed on after the war, including the grandfather of the owner of Mac’s favourite little cafe on the promenade.

  ‘It seems Wil
liam Trent had got wind of the fact that Toni’s grandfather had been a POW.’

  ‘Toni? That’s the guy who runs Tonino’s?

  ‘Yes, he’d been asking all sorts of questions, wouldn’t leave when Toni asked him to and upset Toni’s wife, Bee.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘About the grandfather. Who he was, what he did here after the war. Why he stayed. Personal stuff.’

  ‘Why did he stay?’

  Mac laughed. ‘He worked on one of the local farms. He met the daughter of the farmer and fell in love. Her dad thought he was a good worker and a good man, but couldn’t possibly approve of a relationship with the enemy. The story is that on the evening of VE day, Tonino senior proposed to Martha and the father gave them his blessing. He wasn’t the only one around here to stay on. Rina always reckoned that a lot of them were just farm boys and teenagers.’

  ‘All the same under the skin,’ Kendall said thoughtfully. ‘But still, the father must have been open-minded.’

  ‘The way Toni tells it, the farm would have gone under without the extra help. They’d got a couple of land girls, but the government demands on food production sound back breaking. I suppose when you’ve worked beside someone for three years or so, you get to know them and the barriers come down.’

  ‘And this William Trent, he was making trouble?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘If you recall, he always had an acerbic manner,’ he said.

  He and Kendall looked down at Trent’s body and considered thoughtfully. The knife stood out from the body, angled just slightly as though the assailant had struck upward. There were no other signs of violence and no signs of any struggle or defence.

  ‘He turned away and was stabbed in the back,’ Kendall said.

  ‘So he didn’t think he had any reason to be afraid. He knew his attacker.’

  ‘That seems likely. Either knew them or felt he could safely ignore them. But what were they doing out here in the first place?’

  Mac glanced around, getting his bearings. They were halfway up the bank that separated the airfield from the town and the beach. A footpath ran across the top of the bank at the point, popular with hikers and dog walkers and often thronged with tourists in the summer. Popular too with plane spotters lately.

  But pitch dark at night. They were about three hundred yards, Mac estimated, from the control tower and ancillary buildings that had been the focus of the Saturday night dance. The de Freitases had managed to get an extension on the usual eleven p.m. shutdown and the dance had finished just before midnight. For the next half hour or so, Mac thought, the main external lights would have been on as people left either on foot or picked up their cars from the area close to the entrance that had been turned into a temporary parking spot. But the lights would not have illuminated the body. The best preliminary guess, judging by the state of rigor and also that there had been rain on the Sunday – the ground beneath the body being dry – was that he had been killed on the Saturday night.

  The last time anyone recalled seeing William Trent had been at nine forty-five, when he’d been bought a drink by the host of the dance, Edward de Freitas. Mac gathered that everyone had been quite relieved when, just a little later, they assumed he had returned to his cottage. What was strange was that no one had found him on the Sunday when the airfield had again been thronging with re-enactors, stallholders and visitors. True, the body lay in long grass hidden by scrubby hawthorns and gorse and was somewhat away from the action, but Mac was a little surprised that no child had run up and down the steep bank and tripped over him, no couple looking for a bit of privacy had come through this way. It seemed likely that the dance had continued after he was dead, that the festivities had gone on all day Sunday and his body had gone unnoticed. The man had gone unmissed and unlooked for.

  ‘From what I can gather, no one liked him very much,’ Kendall said.

  ‘He could be a bit sharp. I don’t imagine he was an easy conversationalist or that he socialized at the dance. But still … sad, but from what I’ve been told I think everyone was just relieved he wasn’t there.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘He wasn’t an easy man to get along with.’ Lydia de Freitas sipped at her tea and considered what she had just said. ‘I mean, I know you are not supposed to speak ill of the dead and I suppose especially of the murdered, but all the same, he wasn’t a nice man.’

  Rina nodded solemnly, agreeing with both sentiments. ‘Tim said he was very knowledgeable,’ she offered, feeling that maybe she should, for form’s sake, soften the judgement.

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly. And what he knew he knew, if you see what I mean. There could be no variation, no argument. What William Trent believed and thought was gospel and you couldn’t get him to shift or modify one millimetre once he’d got his ideas fixed. I know Edward wished he’d never taken him on as a consultant.’

  Rina nodded again. She knew from Tim that the rest of the team had felt the same way. He’d explained that. William Trent had been consulting on the follow up to a newly launched first- person RPG, based around some of the lesser known aspects of the World War Two conflict, many of which had begun very close to Frantham. The D-Day landings, for instance, which had been launched from along that same stretch of the south coast.

  ‘From what Tim said, William Trent really knew his subject but he had no feel for fiction or for game play and what was required in a field that was, first and foremost concerned with entertainment.’

  ‘He was a royal pain in the arse,’ Lydia said bluntly. ‘He upset the storyliners and the animators and the programmers by telling them that they were either missing the point or telling the story wrong. He had no patience with the idea of fusing real action with fiction. For him it was all or nothing; one or the other. At one point Edward had threatened to terminate their agreement and ban him from the site.’

  ‘But he still let him make a speech at the opening,’ Rina said.

  ‘Yes, and look how that turned out. Edward thought he owed him that, though. He’d brought some good stories to the table, some really interesting material, it wasn’t that, it was his attitude, I suppose. He was just an awkward sod. But it’s a whole different level, isn’t it, between disliking the man and wanting to stab him in the back.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a question of degrees,’ Rina said. ‘I suppose anything can build incrementally to that level and if he annoyed Edward as much as he did, then I can imagine he must have done the same and more to other people.’

  ‘True,’ Lydia agreed. He husband was not a man easily driven to anger or even irritation, but William Trent had managed to do both.

  ‘I understand he was divorced,’ Rina said.

  ‘Years ago apparently. They had a son, too, but I don’t think there’d been any contact to speak of, not since the divorce. Edward made the mistake of asking about it once and was treated to an hour long tirade on the … I think it was the inability of women to commit to anything that wasn’t a pair of shoes or a knitting pattern. Something along those lines, anyway.’

  ‘That’s sad though, isn’t it?’ Rina said. ‘To have a child and then not have any contact. You’d miss so much.’

  Lydia smiled a little sadly. Neither she nor Rina had been blessed with children and though Lydia had talked from time to time about adopting, Rina thought it unlikely she would ever carry the idea through. She was no stranger to violent death. Her brother-in-law had been killed violently the year before and her marriage to Edward rocked by those events. It would, Rina thought, take time and energy to restore their own equilibrium, never mind taking another person into their family.

  ‘It happens a lot,’ Lydia said. ‘But in this case I find it hard to blame the mother. I just wonder what on earth made anyone marry him in the first place.’

  ‘Maybe he was different then?’

  ‘Maybe so. And you’re right, of course, it is sad. Having contact with his son might have changed William’s perspective. It might have mellowed him.’

/>   ‘He seems to have liked Ellen Tailor’s children,’ Rina observed.

  ‘Oh goodness. You know, you’re right, I’d forgotten that,’ Lydia confessed. ‘He came over a few times with Ellen and sometimes with the children. They called him Uncle Bill and he was really gentle with them, you know?’

  The two women looked speculatively at one another and then shook their heads. ‘No,’ Lydia said. ‘I don’t believe that. How could there be a connection between Ellen Tailor’s death and William Trent’s?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rina admitted. ‘But it is a terrible coincidence, isn’t it? You have to wonder.’

  Lydia set her cup back on the little table. ‘Anyway, I’d best be going. Is it selfish to say I’m glad he didn’t get himself killed before the weekend?’ She smiled wryly. ‘I know, terrible thing to say. And you, Rina, are the only person I’d ever say it to.’

  ‘And your secret is safe,’ Rina told her. ‘And I do know what you mean.’

  She stood too and made ready to see Lydia off.

  ‘I don’t suppose your pet policeman has any further clues?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Rina said. ‘But I’ll let you know if he lets anything slip.’

  Rina’s ‘pet policeman’ was at that moment standing in a chilly room, watching a post-mortem.