An Empty Death

by Laura Wilson

  He’d decided, by the time he got off the bus, that he might benefit from a half-pint at the Swan and a quiet chinwag with Donald, if he was there. Unfortunately, Reg was there, too, and after half an hour of bumptious, ill-informed speculation about (a) how Stratton came by his black eye, and (b) when we would get to Berlin and capture, or possibly kill, Hitler, he decided it was high time to collect the children from Doris’s and go home.

  He stood at the scullery window, watching Monica and Pete mucking about in the garden and wishing that Jenny were standing beside him. When the children had gone up to bed, he switched on the wireless and listened to the report of Mr Churchill’s remarks to the House of Commons, wondering if there would be an official announcement of some sort about the end of the war. At some point, he must have dozed off, because he woke up to find that the wireless was still on and Monica was standing in front of him in her nightgown, looking concerned.

  ‘Are you all right, Dad? You look awful.’

  Stratton rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I’m fine, love. What time is it?’

  Monica glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Ten past midnight. Hitler’s dead, Dad.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘It was on the wireless. Just now. Do you think it’s true?’

  ‘Well, if it was on the wireless…’

  ‘But they might just think he’s dead. What if he’s pretending, and they’ve hidden him somewhere? He could wait for a few years and come back, and then there’ll be another war.’

  ‘I don’t think so, love. Apart from anything else, he wouldn’t have enough soldiers and tanks and things.’

  ‘But how do they know it’s really him? It might be just a man who looks like him.’

  ‘I should think they made sure before they said anything.’

  ‘They said another man was in charge of Germany now. Hitler chose him specially. He’s an admiral, and he says they’re going to go on fighting.’

  Stratton looked at his daughter’s worried face, and said, ‘He might say that, but they’re beaten. They can’t go on fighting.’

  ‘Can’t they?’ Monica sounded doubtful.

  ‘No, love. They’ll have to surrender.’

  ‘But we’re still fighting Japan, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but that can’t last much longer. Not now.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ Stratton stood up, easing the crick in his neck. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Bedtime. We’ll find out all about it tomorrow.’

  Eighty

  In Pentonville, two days later, lying on his back in a cell, on a bed made from wooden boards, a thin coir mattress and pillow, canvas sheets and rough, stained blankets, Strang stared into the clanging, stinking darkness. This was worse than the police cells – it was like being locked in a safe. As if he was a thing and not a person at all. A number. He’d be a number for what remained of his life – he had no great hopes for the trial – with the prison smell of sweat and shit permeating his clothes and skin. They’d taken away his belt, his shoelaces and even the buttons off his coat. He supposed they must do that to everyone, just in case.

  He’d failed. Of course he had. Strang would always fail…Of course Fay hadn’t loved him, of course it was all pretence – she’d known, unconsciously, that he was not Dacre, not fit to be loved, and, ultimately, she had despised him. He was worthless. And he’d thought he was trying to protect her, when all the time the big policeman had known…He saw that, now. All along, Stratton had wanted his confession for Byrne, and he’d also wanted to make absolutely sure that Fay hadn’t known him when he was Todd…And he’d fallen for it. He’d only stumbled across Reynolds’s body because, unable to sleep and restless as hell, he’d decided there was enough light to take himself off for a walk. Talking to Stratton, he’d been so confused that he’d got the timing all wrong…

  With Fay, it had been love at first sight. He had seen what he wanted to see. Even when she’d told him about Reynolds, even when Stratton had told him about the abortion…he’d made excuses for her: it couldn’t have been her fault, she must have been driven to it, she was disturbed in her mind…But the fact remained that she’d tried to blame him. No matter how he tried to explain it away, that was the case. Perhaps his unconscious mind had known that Fay was a fraud all the time, and that was why he’d been so attracted to the bitch…

  Aah, but she was so beautiful. If only she’d been real…There was nothing left. His mother…but he wasn’t letting her come near him if he could help it.

  Men were shouting from cell to cell now, something about Hitler and the end of the war. The warders seemed to be making only a half-hearted effort to quell the noise. He wished they’d all shut up. He didn’t care about it. Why should he? He wasn’t going to be around for the peace.

  He wondered where Fay was. In a cell like this one? What would happen to her?

  He couldn’t think of Fay, of anything. I’m a blank, he said to himself. I’m nothing.

  He turned onto his side, curled up, and closed his eyes. All I ever wanted, he thought, was to be part of the world.

  Eighty-One

  The following morning, Stratton bought a copy of the Daily Mail before boarding the bus. The headline read: ‘HITLER DEAD – DOENITZ APPOINTED FÜHRER’. That must be Monica’s admiral, thought Stratton. The German radio gave the news to the world at 10.25 last night in the following words: ‘It is reported from the Führer’s headquarters that our Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, has fallen this afternoon in his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to his last breath against Bolshevism.’

  Stratton scanned the rest of the column. It didn’t say how Hitler had died, and Stratton wondered if he’d been killed by the Russians, or even by the Germans themselves. A shame, he thought, remembering the films he’d seen of the concentration camps, that he wasn’t given a taste of his own medicine. Still, he was dead, and the world was a better place without him. The trouble was, they’d all spent so long learning not to believe things and preparing for the worst, that it was hard to adjust one’s thinking or even take it in properly.

  ‘Shame he won’t be brought to trial,’ he heard a woman say. ‘I’d like to hear him try and defend himself after what he’s done.’

  Fay Marchant had lost some weight, Stratton noticed as he sat opposite her in the interview room. Compared to the robust Policewoman Harris, who was standing beside her chair, she looked like a wraith. Her smart clothes – a blue costume, worn with high heels – seemed to hang on her, and she was hollow-cheeked. Her brown velvet eyes looked even bigger than before, with dark grooves beneath them that looked as if they might have been worn there by the passage of tears. She had a determined, almost iron-clad air about her, as if, come what may, she would remain calm. Stratton found himself taken aback by this – it was disconcerting, like putting a shell to one’s ear and not hearing the sound of the sea. Offering her a cigarette, he said, ‘You know why you’re here, of course.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector. But I don’t understand why, with no evidence, you have suddenly decided to arrest me. It must be a mistake – that’s why I haven’t asked for a solicitor. I’m sure that between us we can sort out it.’ She smiled at him.

  ‘Let’s start with the man you knew as Dr James Dacre, shall we?’ said Stratton. ‘I’d like you to tell me, from the beginning, about your friendship with him.’

  ‘I told you. I first met him when we bumped into each other in the corridor outside the Men’s Surgical Ward and—’

  ‘That was the first time you’d ever seen him, was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, as far as you know, you’d never seen him before in your life?’

  ‘No.’ Fay looked puzzled.

  ‘Did you ever know a man called Todd? Sam Todd?’

  Fay shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. Is that James’s real name?’

  Stratton ignored the question. ‘So, you’re telling me you’re absolutely positive that you never met Dr Dacre before you bumpe
d into him in that corridor?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t understand what that has to do with…all this.’

  ‘It was something you said to me, Miss Marchant.’ Stratton kept his voice deliberately casual. ‘On the telephone. About Dr Reynolds being hit over the head with a brick. That wasn’t in the newspapers, or even in the medical reports – and it isn’t customary, as you must know, for pathologists to broadcast such information to all and sundry. When I asked you how you’d come by this information, you said that Dr Dacre had told you. It didn’t strike me until much later that you did not know – and our false Dr Dacre confirms this, as you have just done yourself – that he had been working in the mortuary, as an attendant. Sam Todd was his name then, by the way, one of many that he’s used in a long career. So, as far as you were concerned, there was no reason for Dr Dacre to be in possession of that information. And no reason for you to have the information unless you knew a lot more about the events of the night of Dr Reynolds’s death than you’d previously told me. A brick is an odd choice of weapon, Miss Marchant. There’s not much leverage – unlike, say a club or a poker – and you’d have to bring it down several times with a lot of force in order to kill someone. However, the choice of a brick – plenty of those on a bomb-site – suggests that the killing was not premeditated, which, of course, is a point in your favour. Also, my sergeant has been hard at work looking into Dr Reynolds’s bank account, and into yours, too, and there seem to be a number of identical sums of money that went out of his account and into yours very shortly afterwards, all of them last year, between Easter and the beginning of June. The final one was a fortnight before Reynolds’s death. So, you see, we do have a lot to talk about. Perhaps you would start by explaining what actually happened. If you co-operate now, I may be persuaded to forget that you’ve lied to me on several occasions, but if you don’t…Well, I’d like to help you, but it’s not really up to me, I’m afraid. My hands are tied. My superior – well, you had the unfortunate experience of meeting him last time so you know he can be quite a martinet about these matters – he thinks I’ve been rather a soft touch where you’re concerned…’ Stratton let the rest of the sentence, with its implied threat, hang in the air between them.

  Fay sat quite still for several minutes, her hands clasped in front of her on the table, then said, ‘The night that Duncan – Dr Reynolds – died, I was there, but it was an accident.’

  ‘I see.’ Stratton took out his notebook.

  ‘We’d been out together. Well, not exactly out, but to the flat I told you about, the one in Holborn.’

  ‘The address?’

  ‘Bedford Row. Number thirty-four.’

  ‘You spent the entire evening there, did you?’

  Fay shook her head. ‘When I said I was in the nurses’ quarters, I was telling the truth – well, partly. I went out at about half past nine – I made up my bed to look as if I was in it, with the covers pulled over my head. I’d often done it before, and nobody had ever spotted that I wasn’t there. Nobody saw me – they were either asleep, or out, or working. Dr Reynolds was waiting for me at Bedford Row. We had an argument.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I was upset. Ever since the…what happened…he’d been ignoring me, going out of his way to avoid me, and I felt…I was unhappy, and there was no-one I could talk to. I said if he didn’t meet me I’d write to his wife and tell her – and I did mean it, because I was desperate. I just wanted him to…to be like we were, I suppose, but he was so cold. When I arrived, he behaved as if I were just a nuisance, that I had no right to ask anything of him, or…I mean, I wasn’t asking him to leave his wife or anything, I was just…just…’

  ‘Blackmailing him,’ said Stratton. ‘It’s perfectly true that the last thing you wanted was for Dr Reynolds to leave his wife. She’s a very wealthy woman, and I don’t believe he ever had any intention of leaving her. But she might have left him if she’d known about you. Oh, she might have forgiven an affair, but the pregnancy, and then the deliberate and calculated murder of his own child, when she herself had never conceived…But you know all this, don’t you? That was why he was willing to pay up for so long. And then, that night at Bedford Row, he refused, didn’t he? He called your bluff – challenged you to speak to his wife. I suppose you could have threatened to report him for an illegal operation, but that would have got you into trouble too, wouldn’t it?’ Stratton sat back and folded his arms.

  Fay, whose expression had turned from puzzled amusement to outrage during the course of this speech, said, ‘It isn’t true! None of it! I wanted reassurance from Duncan, I wanted him to tell me that he still loved me, and…It’s so hard to explain. I’d gone through all that – a nightmare – and he’d just abandoned me. I tried to tell him how unhappy I was, but—’

  ‘Stop wasting your breath, Fay. I don’t believe a word of it.’

  ‘You can’t prove it.’

  ‘Yes, we can. Banks keep records, you know.’

  ‘He gave me the money. I didn’t ask for it.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He felt sorry for me.’

  ‘So, you’re saying that he willingly gave you what amounted to a very large sum of money, and that he died by accident. Pull the other one, darling, it’s got bells on.’ Stratton regarded her, his head on one side, and decided it was time for the next broadside. ‘You know, Fay, my sergeant’s been a very busy man the past couple of days, but he managed to find the time to go to the Middlesex and talk to a couple of the younger doctors there about your friend Dr Dacre, and do you know what he learnt? Dr Dacre had told them he was married. We all know how fast news travels in a place like a hospital, especially if it’s about an attractive young doctor. All the nurses would have been gasping to find out about him – of course, his being married would put most young women off, but not you…Or perhaps he told you himself. After all, you had him wrapped round your little finger from the first, didn’t you? Perhaps you created a nice feeling of intimacy and trust by reciprocating with a few little confidences of your own…His being married was the attraction, wasn’t it? You were planning to do the same to him. Not with a baby, perhaps, but…You might have made a bit out of it – not as much as you had from Dr Reynolds, but something. If, of course, he’d been genuine. I’ll bet you thought you were pretty clever, lining up another mark so soon, but he fooled you, didn’t he? Just like he fooled everyone else.’

  Fay’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth was set in a thin, mean line. She didn’t look beautiful any more, just vindictive.

  ‘I’ll bet you played him – in fact, I know you did. You see, Dr Wemyss told my sergeant that he’d mislaid a key for the room kept by his family at the Clarendon Hotel. He’d sworn it was in his jacket pocket, but when he looked, it was gone. And then the next morning, by a miracle, as he thought, it was back. His friends, Dr Betterton and Dr Unwin, the only ones who knew about it, denied borrowing it without his permission – it was only in the course of the conversation with my sergeant that he recalled that Dacre knew of it, too. Can you guess when it went missing?’

  Fay’s expression told Stratton that she knew only too well, but she said nothing.

  ‘I’ll tell you, shall I? It was the evening our good doctor took you out for that first drink. My sergeant – what an efficient chap he is! – sent someone round to the hotel to make enquiries, and, sure enough, the two of you were seen. You’ll be glad to hear they remembered you immediately. They don’t often come across men being so importunate – or women defending their honour so vigorously – in the lobby. Because you did defend your honour, didn’t you, Fay? You thought Dacre was rich, but you weren’t going to give up the goods until you were sure of him, so you played coy…Clever girl. But you’re wasted on nursing’ – Stratton shook his head sadly – ‘you should have gone on the stage. Or,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘on the streets. Whoring isn’t respectable, but it’s a damn sight more honest than what you did, or tried to do, to those men.’
r />   Fay reared back, her cheeks flaming as red as if he’d slapped her. ‘How dare you!’

  ‘You’re lower than a whore, Fay. You’re a murderess.’

  ‘No!’ Fay screamed the word and burst into hysterical sobs. Policewoman Harris placed a hand on her shoulder.

  Stratton folded his arms. ‘Turning on the taps won’t work,’ he said. ‘And you won’t leave here until I get the truth.’

  Harris proffered a handkerchief, and Fay, rocking backwards and forwards, buried her face in it. After several minutes the weeping abated, and Fay, after a last few hiccups and sniffs, was silent.

  Stratton sighed. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘suppose we start again, from the beginning. You went with Dr Reynolds to Bedford Row. What happened after that?’

  ‘It wasn’t fair,’ said Fay, in a hard voice. ‘I deserved the money, after what I’d been through – what he put me through – but he wouldn’t give me any more. He was horrible to me. I couldn’t believe…I kept on arguing with him, but it was no good.

  ‘Eventually, he said he’d walk me back. He kept saying that he had to get home, that his wife would be worried…’

  ‘What time did you leave Bedford Row?’

  ‘I don’t know. Late. After midnight. The flat doesn’t have a telephone, and he said he was going to call his wife from the hospital. We argued all the way back.’

  ‘It must have been a tricky walk, in the dark.’

  ‘We had our torches, but it took a long time.’

  ‘Which route did you take?’

  ‘We went down Theobald’s Road, to Oxford Street, then up Tottenham Court Road and down Goodge Street, then we turned off.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Goodge Place, so we could use the back entrance. Duncan didn’t want to go down Cleveland Street, next to the hospital, because he thought someone might see us. We were in the middle of Goodge Place, where the road sort of kinks round, when he said I should go back to the nurses’ quarters and he would go round to the front of the hospital to telephone. We were still arguing, and he said…he said…’