by Alex Walters
He stood still and listened. The scratching sounds had ceased, but he could hear something else. He moved back closer to the wooden door. It was the ceaseless drumming of rain, occasionally heightened as a buffeting wind blew it harder against the woodwork. Doubting his senses, he moved to the edge of the door and held his face to the narrow gap between wood and stone. There was no question. He could feel the stream of damp air against his skin, hear the pounding of the rain.
For a moment, he felt an odd sense of relief, as if, with the change in the weather, everything had changed, as if he were some fairy-tale character who had fallen asleep and woken into a different world.
The sensation vanished as quickly as it had arisen. He was lost, cold and trapped. And, though he knew nothing else, he knew he must have been brought there for a reason.
Chapter 55
Winterman was still at the window, transfixed by the falling rain, when he heard a soft knock at the bedroom door. He felt his way across the darkened room to find the tartan dressing gown Mary had left for him. It had, he assumed, belonged to her late husband. He pulled it on, unsure how he felt about that.
He opened the door to find Mary standing on the landing. She was wearing a dressing gown which looked disturbingly like the twin of the one she had loaned to him.
'I heard you moving about,' she said. 'I was woken by the rain.'
'Spooner was right about a change in the weather. I hadn't expected anything quite so sudden.'
She led Winterman back across the room to the window. 'I'd begun to feel as if the snow would be here forever. And now it feels as if this will never stop.'
'If it carries on, the snow'll be gone by morning. Though that might bring its own problems.'
'How do you mean?'
'Flooding. With all this rain and the melting snow. And the ground will still be frozen.' He moved to stand beside her. It was growing lighter outside. He glanced at his watch. Nearly five.
She turned slightly. 'It's strange. That dressing gown's been through the wash a dozen times, but it still smells faintly of Jimmy.'
Winterman could think of no immediate response. Finally, he said, 'You must miss him.'
'I suppose I do. I mean, I do. I was desolate when it first happened. For months. It just seemed so ridiculous. I was going to say unfair, but when was death ever fair? It's just that it seemed such a pointless way to die.'
'Tell me about him. You were going to say something earlier.' After they had eaten supper, while her mother had been putting the children to bed, Mary had started to talk about Jimmy. But Mrs Griffiths had returned and Mary had changed the subject.
'I was going to tell you about Jimmy and Paul,' she said. 'You know Jimmy was in the force?'
'Someone told me that.'
'Hoxton probably. More of a gossip than Mam, he is.'
'So I'd noticed. Where did you meet Jimmy?'
'I'm honestly not sure I can remember. Some dance or other, I expect. I'd been aware of him for years, while I was still a girl really. I used to see him around, a few years older than me. You'd notice him. You would if you were a girl anyway. Touch of the matinée idol about him.'
Winterman felt another irrational prick of jealousy, and had to remind himself the man in question was long deceased.
'We didn't start seeing each other till after he'd got back from Dunkirk. He was still stationed in England – he said while they decided what to do with him. I met him a couple of times when he was home on leave, and he made a play for me eventually. We went out a few times. Not exactly courting. Not at first anyway. But we got on. And… well, you know how these things go.'
Winterman wasn't sure he did. His own amorous conquests had generally been just that. Conquests. Not a gradual blooming, as Mary was describing.
'He'd joined the police before the war. He'd done a few things since leaving school – factory jobs, mainly. But he was wasting his abilities. He wasn't academically bright, but he'd got a decent head on his shoulders. He'd have made something of himself.' She stopped for a moment, and took a breath, as if she had only just registered the implications of her words. 'Anyway, he did well. Just a PC on the beat, you know. But making good progress. He wanted to try for the sergeants' exam. Then the war came along.'
'How did he come to join up? The police was a reserved occupation.'
'He was a military reservist. He was in the Territorials. He'd talked about joining the army before the war. I don't think he could ever have stuck being at home while other people were out doing their bit for King and Country. That wasn't the sort of person he was.'
Winterman said nothing. He had shared the same sentiments himself, back in '39, but for most police officers, joining up wasn't an option. Gwyneth had worked hard to persuade him, not just that he should think of her and the children, but that he could play just as useful a role in the police. He hadn't really believed it then and he didn't believe it now.
'He was at Dunkirk?' he said.
'He never really talked about it. People expected him to have the usual raft of stories, but he just kept mum.'
'Lots of people did. Those who made it.'
'He was different after Dunkirk. That's what people told me. I didn't know him before, not properly. But people said he'd been more carefree, content just to let life happen. When I met him, you sensed he wanted to get on with things. He was frustrated they kept him hanging about, as he saw it, for months on end in some camp.'
'You married quickly?'
'That was part of it. I met Jimmy at the end of that summer, the summer Gary went missing. I was seventeen by then. Jimmy had spent the months after Dunkirk on manoeuvres. There was a plan to send them off to Greece, supposedly, but nobody knew when it was going to happen. Jimmy had an extended leave and we started going out much more seriously. Before he went back, he'd proposed. Dad had died before the war, Mam didn't know what to think. It was a strange time. Everything had a sense of urgency about it. So I said yes. He went back to camp and came back again on leave after Christmas. We took the opportunity and tied the knot.' She smiled. 'It wasn't really the wedding I'd envisaged, but it was fine. Honeymoon was a night in Skegness.' She blushed slightly. 'And the result was the twins.'
'Did he go off to Greece?'
'It never happened. Not for Jimmy anyway. There was a change of plan. Wasn't clear what was scheduled for Jimmy's regiment after that. There were plenty of rumours, but they ended up kicking their heels on Salisbury Plain. It meant he got a few more spells of leave. He was able to see the twins.' She stopped, catching her breath again.
'What about Paul? He was still around? Was he never called up?'
'He wasn't eighteen till '43. Then they turned him down on health grounds, would you believe? The official line was that he suffered from asthma. He did, but I've never seen it affect him. I suspect they decided he wasn't mentally stable after what happened with Gary.'
'I don't know if that would be grounds for keeping him out of the services,' Winterman said. 'Some might see it as a qualification.'
'Anyway, they turned him down. But he was already keen on joining the police. They were taking cadets at sixteen because of the shortage of manpower. It was because he idolised Jimmy. Paul and Jimmy got on like a house on fire. I used to joke that Jimmy was only courting me so he could spend time talking to Paul about life in the force. I'm sure Jimmy would have gone back to the police after the war.' Her eyes were fixed on the rain-soaked landscape, but it wasn't clear what she was seeing.
'Had Paul got over what had happened to Gary?'
'Not entirely. He still believed that Gary hadn't drowned, that his death wasn't an accident. It was one of the things he talked to Jimmy about.'
'And Jimmy believed him?'
'Not exactly. But he took Paul seriously. He reckoned there'd been a few incidents up at the gravel pits – children being approached by strangers – before the war. There was even, going back a few years, a missing child.'
'Missing child?' In his mind
's eye, Winterman could see the empty sockets of the children's skulls they had found.
'This was ages ago. I don't know – '36, '37, something like that. Somewhere up there. Jimmy reckoned they'd eventually found the child's body, dumped in a ditch, but they'd never solved the crime. Anyway, he was inclined to take Paul's ideas more seriously than most.'
'Including the police?'
'Including the police. But, as Jimmy said, the police were so short-handed they weren't looking for trouble. I'm not saying he thought Paul was right. But he thought it should have been investigated. That was why he started digging on his own.'
Winterman had assumed, since Mary had raised Jimmy's name, that her narrative was leading somewhere. 'What sort of digging?'
'Oh, not a lot. He was only home on leave for short periods. He called up some old colleagues. Spoke to a few of his local contacts.'
'Did he find anything?'
She hesitated. 'I'm not sure. Nothing concrete. But the last time he was here – I mean, the last time before…'
Winterman nodded. 'Go on.'
'A couple of nights before he went back, he met someone for a beer. One of his contacts. I don't know who. I got annoyed about it, because I wanted to be with him as much as possible before the end of his leave. He arrived home, a bit tipsy, to say he'd some information that would be of interest to Paul. He was being slightly secretive, which wasn't his style at all. Said he didn't want to say too much until he'd found out a bit more. Didn't want to get Paul's hopes up, I suppose.'
'Did he say anything to Paul?'
'I don't think so. Nothing of substance anyway. They spoke the next day and I remember Jimmy saying he was making some progress. But nothing else.'
'Do you think there was anything to it?'
'I do actually. Not necessarily that he'd found out anything important. But he'd got wind of something. I could tell when he came back from the pub. He was excited – no, that's not right. He'd got the bit between his teeth. That was the feeling I had.'
'But he gave no clue what it was?'
'No. He was a lot quieter the next day, once the beer had worn off. I asked him about it, and he said he'd put out a few feelers and was hoping to get some information back. That was the last he said about it. Then he went back.'
There was a moment's silence, disturbed only by the continuous washing of the rain against the window.
'I shouldn't have brought all this up,' Winterman said finally.
'No, it's fine. It's all behind me now. Sometimes I miss him dreadfully. But most of the time it's like another life. He left the next day, and three days later he was dead.'
'A training accident?'
'George must have told you. Did he tell you I went mad?'
'He said you took it badly.'
'I was devastated. It took me totally off guard. I don't really even know why. I mean, he was a soldier. We were at war. I knew that, sometime, I might have to face something like that.'
'It never makes it any easier.'
'No, and it wasn't just that. He'd come through Dunkirk pretty much unscathed. He'd had one or two other near misses. I thought he had a charmed life. If he'd been sent off to fight again, I imagine I'd have started worrying, but I was putting off thinking about that till it actually happened. This came out of the blue. A stupid accident. I just couldn't accept it. I started putting two and two together and making a lot more than four. I was the same as Paul after Gary disappeared. I convinced myself Jimmy's enquiries had ruffled some feathers. That it wasn't an accident.'
'It would take a lot to organise that,' Winterman pointed out. 'Do you know who actually fired the gun?'
'They hushed it up, which at the time made me even more certain that there was something fishy about it.'
'They kept the lid on countless training foul-ups during the war. To prevent damage to morale,' he added, in a fake BBC voice. 'To stop the top brass looking stupid, more likely. There's nothing particularly sinister in that.'
'Oh, I know. But at the time it all seemed very cloak and dagger. At first, they wouldn't tell me how he'd been killed. Then when I kept pressing them, they admitted he'd been shot, and finally they admitted it had been in training. But they insisted he'd been caught by a stray bullet, that they had no idea who'd fired it.'
'It's possible. Those exercises can be a melee. In fairness, they're trying to replicate the real thing. But they might have just been sparing the feelings of whoever was responsible.'
'It wouldn't have helped me to have known. But it didn't feel like that at the time. It felt like adding insult to injury. It just increased my suspicions.'
Winterman gazed at her for a moment, taking in for the first time the rich chocolate brown of her eyes, the flawless cream of her skin. 'Life's just a series of accidents. Mine is anyway.'
She nodded, her eyes fixed on his. 'All you can do is make the best of whatever's thrown at you.' Then she added, in little more than a whisper: 'Kiss me.'
For a moment, he thought he'd misheard her or that his own wishful thinking was leading him astray. Then she raised her lips and he realised that, for once in his romantic life, someone else was making the moves. All you can do, he echoed to himself, is make the best of whatever's thrown at you.
As he moved forward, he heard the rain redoubling its torrents, pounding on the windows and roof. But his body, finally, had cast off the chains.
Chapter 56
Brain woke early, his head aching and his brain still befuddled by the whisky he and Hoxton had polished off the previous night. He had been secretly overjoyed when Hoxton had turned up in the early evening seeking accommodation for a second night. Brain's day had been pretty miserable, spent, for the most part, standing in the frozen church to no worthwhile purpose. The arrival of Carson and the HQ team had provided short-lived relief, but boredom had quickly been replaced by irritation at the supercilious disdain of the CID team. The sense of inclusion he had felt working with Winterman had melted away, and Brain was very firmly put in his place. Which, unsurprisingly, was back standing by the churchyard gate.
He had waited, as he had promised, until the ambulance arrived to collect the child's remains. Then, as evening fell, he had made his solitary way back to the station, reconciled to another evening alone. He assumed Marsh would have reappeared and Winterman and the rest would have returned to town.
Hoxton's arrival had therefore been both an unexpected pleasure and a source of concern, since it confirmed that Marsh had still not been traced.
'I thought he'd have turned up by now,' Brain said as he ushered Hoxton into the warmth of the station.
'So did we. Don't know what the bugger's done with himself.' It was difficult to know whether Hoxton's gruff exterior concealed any more tender response.
'You've not reported him missing?'
'Not yet. He's probably got his reasons for making himself scarce.' Hoxton made his way, blank-faced, through into the living room. 'But if he's not turned up by tomorrow, we'll have to do something.'
Whatever might have happened to Marsh, it was a pleasant enough evening for Brain. Hoxton, despite his surly demeanour, was good company, a fount of anecdotes about his career in the police service. They retired to the pub for a couple of pints and a plate of Norman's Spam sandwiches, and then, late in the evening, returned to the station with a bottle of whisky which Hoxton had somehow persuaded Norman to sell them. It was after midnight before they finally finished the Scotch and thought about turning in for the night.
Brain had been rising to begin locking up when Hoxton had held up his hand as if to silence the younger man. 'What's that noise?'
'I don't hear anything.' But even as Brain spoke, he realised there was something, though he couldn't immediately identify the sound.
'You got dodgy plumbing in this place? Or is it spooks? Sounds like someone running a bath upstairs.'
'Nothing wrong with the plumbing that I'm aware of. Wouldn't be surprised if this place was haunted, but I've seen no
signs so far.'
Hoxton made no response, but climbed to his feet and stepped over to the front window. 'Good God. Come and look at this.'
It was the rain, of course. There had been no clue of its imminent arrival even when they had left the pub a couple of hours before. Brain moved past Hoxton, out into the hallway, and pulled open the front door.
The scent of the damp air hit him immediately. It was startlingly different from the icy cold that had been omnipresent for weeks – warmer, more welcoming. He was almost tempted to step out into it, despite the torrents of rain clattering down the street. In an upper window of the house opposite, another silhouetted figure was staring out into the night, marvelling at this extraordinary transformation.
'Would you ever have believed it?' Hoxton said from behind him.
'It's amazing. I've never seen weather like it.'
'It's been that sort of bloody year, hasn't it? Coldest winter on record, and now this. Christ knows what it'll do to the rivers.'
Flooding was a constant threat in these parts. A small rise in the levels of the local rivers was enough to send water washing across the endless flatlands. The fenlands the Dutch had helped reclaim in the seventeenth century were always under threat, but that was expected and, in general, under control. The bigger problems occurred when the levels rose still higher and the water encroached beyond the traditional flood plains into more inhabited areas. Brain had encountered several floods in his time in the police and the experience was never pleasant. He was always astonished that water could do so much damage, be quite so eerily threatening.
'Let's hope it lets up quickly,' he said.
Hoxton peered past him, staring up into the heavy night sky. 'Don't see much signs of it. Reckon this lot's in for the night at least.'
