Forgotten Voices

by Jane A. Adams

  She delved further, more pictures of fund-raisers and events. The odd feature in the society pages. She found his first engagement to a young woman called Elizabeth Rowley. Then the record of his marriage to Holly Whitely five years ago.

  So what happened to Elizabeth Rowley, Rina wondered. A half-hour of further searching turned up nothing and Rina decided to call it a day.

  What was she doing, anyway, Rina wondered. She was looking for something suspicious on the strength of two people she respected – Lydia and Andrew – not particularly liking a man who happened to also have known a murdered woman. Even for Rina, that was stretching things on the suspicion front.

  She shut her computer down and went in search of tea and cake and company, wondering if Mac was getting any further along.

  FORTY-ONE

  Mac and Andy, with a little help from Frank, had been examining the letters and other ephemera that he had found in William Trent’s desk. The documents came from four families.

  The Courtney file contained copies of the journal and the letters that Mac had taken back from William Trent. The Marsden folder – Marsdens, again, Mac thought – contained a selection of letters and what looked like a recipe book. He put it aside to take a proper look. The third family were the Verneys and Mac knew nothing about them. Photographs of young men in uniform and some others of what looked like a wartime Frantham had seemingly attracted William Trent’s attention to this file. Then there was the packet that had the reel of tape inside.

  So what had led William Trent to pick these out from the pack? What intrigued him about this information? And had he taken everything these families contributed to the exhibition or just selected elements? Thinking about it, Mac figured that it must just be extracts. Lydia had said there was far too much material to put into one exhibition and that she was hoping to be able to make regular changes, but he’d have made a bet that all the families who had contributed would expect at least something to be in the first exhibition and that William would have been selective in his borrowings. He’d have to have a chat with Lydia. See what else had come from these individuals and see if any light could be shed on why William had made his selection.

  ‘Call it a day?’ Frank asked. ‘It’s after six.’

  Mac nodded. ‘I’m going to get this lot copied,’ he said, ‘and see if Kendall’s come up with a tape deck in the morning. See you then.’

  Dinner over, Rina went back to her computer. The problem, she thought, was knowing how to search. She’d focused on Dan Marsden at first and found his first fiancée. Then the trail had petered out. But then, Rina thought, maybe the young woman hadn’t done anything newsworthy after she’d broken up with Dan.

  What other direction could she take, Rina wondered. She remembered something in the clippings Andrew had given to her about Dan and Elizabeth Rowley meeting at university. Sheffield, if she remembered right.

  Rina tried another tack, inputting Elizabeth Rowley and Sheffield University. She found a couple of hits, little mentions in the university magazine. She climbed, apparently and ran. Rina glanced at the time and decided she would give herself another half an hour. She was getting bored now and also starting to wonder if there was any purpose to this. Then a few minutes later she found what she had been looking for but never expected to find. An obituary for Elizabeth Rowley.

  Rina read on, eagerly. Elizabeth Rowley had died, aged twenty-one, in a fall. A climbing accident.

  ‘Our thoughts and sympathies go to her family and her fiancé, Dan Marsden.’

  ‘Three deaths,’ Rina whispered. ‘Surely, by any reckoning, that goes a bit beyond chance.’

  FORTY-TWO

  Reluctantly, Ray had agreed to see Daphne again but he found her in no better mood. He despised her, Ray realized with a bit of a shock. He really did.

  ‘Mum, I don’t think we should be doing this. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘What’s being fair got to do with it? This is about justice. About restoring the natural order of things. Just grow a pair, boy!’

  Ray sighed and leaned back in his seat. He glanced anxiously around the crowded cafe his mother had chosen for their meeting. ‘Mum, the kids—’

  ‘Should be with family.’

  ‘Diane is family. It’s what their mother wanted.’

  ‘We get the kids we get our land back. What belongs to us, Ray.’

  ‘What did belong to us, Mum. Look, Ellen and Jeb did their best by the both of us. They fixed you up with a nice house when they were barely making ends meet themselves. They helped me settle in New Zealand, they—’

  ‘Which you bloody hate. For that matter, I hate that bloody house too.’

  ‘Not their fault it didn’t work out for me. Carol loves it there. And I like it too, come to that. She’s got a good job and friends and it’s no one’s fault that—’

  ‘Then let her rot there. You’re back now and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘I’m back for a visit. That’s all.’

  ‘You can’t go back. I bought you a one-way ticket.’

  ‘Which Carol helped me upgrade to a return. I’m doing the right thing for once, Mum. I’m going back. We’re going to arrange a divorce and then I’ll make up my mind. I’ve been offered a decent job. I went for the interview just before I came back and I accepted. It starts next month and—’

  ‘But this is your home. The farm—’

  ‘Is no longer ours. Ellen did a good job with what she had left. What happens now has to be in the hands of her kids and her sister. Not us. Our time has gone, Mum.’

  ‘You don’t mean that. You can’t. She’ll persuade the kids to sell up. She’ll take them away.’

  ‘Best thing for them if you ask me. I hope one day they might visit me. I hope we can heal the rift. I liked Ellen, liked her a lot. No, I have to say it, Mum, I loved Ellen. That was one of the problems between me and Carol. I married her because I couldn’t have Ellen and I hoped getting together with a nice girl like Carol would make it all right.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Oh, but I am. Carol and me, we had a proper talk before I came back. Said things we should both have said a long time ago. She deserves better than me and I deserve to be able to make a fresh start, so it’s all decided.’

  Ray Tailor got up, scraping back his chair. Daphne was stunned, for the moment, but he knew that wouldn’t last for long.

  ‘They suspect you of shooting her,’ she spat at him.

  ‘Maybe they do. I’ll have to sort that out, won’t I? Mum, you told me to grow a pair and in that, you’re right. I aim to. Everything else, well, you got it wrong.’

  FORTY-THREE

  Mac listened to Rina’s description of her research and agreed it was a strange series of events.

  ‘There are a lot of missing women in this business,’ he said. ‘William Trent lost a fiancée in a carjacking. Dan Marsden lost a girlfriend in a car accident and fiancée in a climbing accident – and Rina, that’s unlucky, but it happens. We can’t get carried away here.’

  ‘But it’s worth following up?’

  ‘I’ll talk to Kendall.’ He sighed. ‘Rina there’s nothing I’d like more than a break in this case, but losing a girlfriend and fiancée to what were probably … almost certainly accidents, is not remotely related to taking a gun and shooting someone.’

  ‘Oh, I know that, Mac. I just thought—’

  ‘And I’m grateful. And now we have another death.’

  ‘Ellen’s friend, William Trent.’

  ‘Which does not mean the two things are related. Though I agree, it’s uncomfortably coincidental.’

  ‘And any leads?’

  ‘Rina stop fishing.’

  ‘I’m not fishing, I’m asking a direct question. I’m not subtle, you know that.’

  ‘No, no leads,’ he admitted.

  ‘Mac, this might sound like a long shot, but you should try talking to a woman called Vera Courtney.’

  ‘Courtney … one of the fl
ower ladies? I think uniform spoke to her. Why should I speak to her about Trent?’

  Rina took a deep breath. ‘Right, this is what I’ve put together. Might be adding two and two and making five, but … Vera Courtney said she’d lend some books and papers to the exhibition. Then she changed her mind. Trent was very keen to get his hands on what she’d brought along to the airfield. The journal and letters you brought to me to look at were Vera’s. She was seriously upset about him having them. She went to the airfield to try and get everything back and it wasn’t there. Ellen hadn’t taken it over there. Which probably means that William Trent had persuaded her to let him … well, let’s be generous and say borrow those things.’

  ‘Others too,’ Mac observed. ‘We found some other items when we searched the cottage. Rina, you don’t happen to have a reel to reel tape recorder, do you?’

  She laughed. ‘No, even we’re not as old-fashioned as all that. Why?’

  ‘There was a tape in amongst the stuff we found at Trent’s cottage. I’ve nothing to play it on. I’m hoping Kendall will be able to help.’

  ‘Who does it belong to? Vera mentioned a missing tape.’

  ‘Did she, now. Well, there was no label on the packet so I don’t know. Did Vera say what was on it?’

  ‘No, but she was very upset about it. Actually, she was incandescent, if I’m honest. Actually she was extremely upset by the whole thing.’

  Mac nodded. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘I know that the journal and letters were very personal. I read them and frankly, I think I’d have wanted them kept private too. And then there’s the secrets the writer hinted at. Tim and I did some digging and a lot of it seems to refer to an SOE operation based here. It’s still sensitive stuff.’

  ‘I’ve not had time to read everything,’ Mac admitted. ‘It is all ancient history though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not to everyone, it’s not. I think that Trent persuaded Ellen to lend the journal to him. But she didn’t tell Vera, for obvious reasons. I think Vera guessed that Trent had her documents.’

  ‘But, Rina, if you’re right, all he did was borrow a few research sources. Someone stabbed him to death, that’s—’

  ‘I know, but the link is there, isn’t it? Vera and Ellen and Trent. Look, I saw the way Vera looked at him when he made that speech. She was furious. It was almost as though he was speaking directly to her. Secrets should be exposed. That’s what he was saying. Forgotten voices should be heard. I saw her face, Mac, she was dreadfully upset. She looked as though she really hated the man.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  ‘You think you can scare me? You’re even more pathetic than I thought.’

  He turned his back on me then and that’s when I did it. I don’t think I went out with the intention of killing him, but then, you never know what you’re really capable of until it’s done. But I just wanted some acknowledgement. Some consideration. Some sense that the bloody man actually understood what he was going to do to people if he carried on. To good people, honourable people. Not like him. He was not a man who even understood the concept of honourable.

  So I killed him.

  And I’m not sorry.

  And I’m not going to give myself up.

  I bent down and used my sleeve to wipe the shaft of the knife and then I walked away. Just like that. I was amazed, if I’m honest, at just how good it felt to know that he was no longer in the world. Could no longer torment and persecute and malign. If I’m honest I was almost proud of myself – though I didn’t expect that feeling to last long. I’m a realist after all and I know that euphoria is the least real, least permanent of all emotions.

  But, boy, did it feel good at the time.

  What did I do then? Oh, I came back to the dance and bought a round of drinks. My own private little celebration. And then I danced what was left of the night away.

  I wondered if that was what psychopaths felt like all of the time. That feeling of power, of lack of control and yet being in control all at the same time. If it is, then I can understand it totally, why they do what they do and yes, I do know how that sounds.

  And how do I feel now?

  Well, of course the emotion has cooled a little and I’m terribly conscious that there may be consequences, but I can’t bring myself to worry about that at the moment, I have to behave normally, keep my life as it was before I did this momentous thing.

  But I will confess to one, small thing. Each night since, each night before I go to sleep, I do raise a glass to myself and to those he sent to die. Boy, but he was an arrogant sod. His way or no way, that was always his trouble.

  A pause, only breathing and the sound of birds recording on to the tape.

  So, I’ll leave this as a record for those who need to know and I’ll make whatever peace I have to make when the time comes.

  Another pause and this time there is no doubt that the speaker is crying, softly and with great restraint, but also unmistakable pain.

  I miss you so much, my lovely. And one day I will see you again. That’s the one thing that makes it all bearable. That’s all that makes it bearable.

  ‘Who is this?’ Mac asked.

  Kendall shook his head. ‘I have no idea. Perhaps Vera Courtney will be able to tell us. I’m not surprised she wanted this kept out of the way, but I’m not sure I understand why she kept it.’

  ‘The similarities, though,’ Mac said. ‘The dance, the knife …’

  ‘Mac, that’s a stretch isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He told Kendall what Rina had theorized and also what she had found out about Dan Marsden.

  ‘It’s all hearsay, Mac. And much as I respect Mrs Martin—’

  ‘I know. But we can at least put the questions, can’t we?’

  Kendall nodded. ‘I’ll … request that Dan comes in and we should see what Vera Courtney has to say.’

  Mac took Yolanda and drove out to Vera Courtney’s home, a bungalow on a good patch of land about two miles from Ellen Tailor’s farm. He had the tape recording with him.

  She seemed unsurprised when she opened the door and he explained who he was. She had eyes only for the plastic folder, containing the reel of tape that he held in his hands.

  ‘You found it then. He did have it, didn’t he? I knew he had.’

  ‘The tape was in William Trent’s drawer. We didn’t know it belonged to you. Not at first. Rina Martin said you’d mentioned a missing tape. You can confirm that this is yours?’

  She nodded. ‘You’d better come in. Rina returned the journal and letters to me. She was very kind.’

  Once inside, Vera stood uncertainly in the hall, looking at the tape. ‘Have you heard it?’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t know what it means.’

  They followed her as she walked unsteadily into the living room and sat down beside the window. ‘The diary belonged to my father,’ she said. ‘He should never have kept it. The tape recording was made by the man who killed him. It was made many years later and sent to my mother, along with the knife that he used. I think Teddy was looking for absolution. I think he was dead before the recording arrived. My mother never said.’

  ‘Who was Teddy?’

  ‘One of those my father sent away, sent on missions. Sent to die, probably. Teddy went three times. My father went on four missions, behind enemy lines. Yugoslavia, Mitilini and twice in Crete. He was with SOE.’

  ‘Special Operations Executive,’ Mac said.

  ‘Yes. He was fortunate to survive. After the fourth operation he was grounded, he trained the next cohort. Among them was Teddy. Teddy was broken by it all and my father knew it. He pulled him out, retired him. So many died, Inspector. Very few returned. My father found it hard to live with himself after a while. He sent others where he had been and knew that the odds of them living through the experience were minimal. He died a little inside with every death and so did Teddy, only Teddy blamed my father. One night, I suspect after a little too much drink, he confronted my father, Bobby Courtney, a
nd he killed him. He was never caught, but at the end of his life he confessed.’

  ‘And all of this interested William Trent.’

  ‘Of course it did. At first, I thought perhaps I could live with that. I could tell my secrets and have the world know that Bobby Courtney was a hero. But then I remembered that he had seen himself as something very different from that. We’d not spoken of it in our family. We’d not acknowledged it. My mother had hidden … had suffered, had kept silent. What could I do?’

  ‘Did you kill William Trent, Miss Courtney?’

  She blinked. ‘Do you know who killed Ellen Tailor?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  She nodded. ‘Ellen was seeing Dan Marsden, you know. She thought she’d hidden it from me, but she hadn’t. I told her he was not a good man, not really. I never forgot how unhappy he made that pretty girlfriend of his.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘Yvonne. Such a pretty girl.’

  ‘She was killed in a car crash.’

  ‘She thought she was pregnant and she’d told Dan. He was furious and they argued. She drove off in the rain and must have taken that bend too fast. He said some dreadful things, Inspector. He drove her to her death, in a way.’

  ‘And how do you know all this, Miss Courtney?’

  ‘I know because Celia told me. She heard the argument and demanded to know what was going on. Celia and I are old friends. Sometimes the only people you can tell these things to are those you knew when you were all equally young and silly. Poor little Yvonne.’

  ‘Did you kill William Trent, Vera?’ Mac asked again.

  Vera sighed. ‘I need to get someone to feed Charlie,’ she said. ‘Charlie is my cat. Can you arrange that? I need to get my coat. It’s in the hall.’

  Mac followed her from the room and waited until she’d taken her coat from the hall cupboard.