by Alex Walters
'Don't cross Mrs Sheringham,' Spooner advised. 'Though I agree she's not the best company. What about your Mary?'
'She's only part-time.' As he spoke, some thought nagged briefly at Winterman's mind. 'And she's hardly my Mary.'
'Not what I hear. But you're right. We need to make a decision about this office. Either move some more officers out here or shut it down.'
'Your decision. But I know what I'd recommend.' Winterman regarded the older man who was sitting opposite him. He still didn't know whether to trust Spooner. He'd underestimated him, that was for certain. But his initial instinct had been right. A few years off retirement, Spooner wasn't going to stick his neck out. 'You didn't answer my question about Callaghan's conspiracy theory.'
Spooner's expression was unchanging. 'I thought I had.'
'What if there's something behind what he says? What if Hoxton was just a footsoldier, doing someone else's dirty work? It would make more sense of Merriman's murder. Why would Merriman blackmail Hoxton? He hadn't got two farthings to rub together. Whereas if Merriman was blackmailing someone with some money and a reputation…'
'Like Hamshaw?'
'For example.'
For the first time, Spooner looked genuinely angry. 'Look, Winterman. Just leave it. Hamshaw can be a ruthless bastard. It'll be worse for you if you go stirring things up.'
And even worse for you, Winterman thought. 'I'm only suggesting we–'
'We do nothing,' Spooner said. 'If I find you've even spoken to Hamshaw without my say-so, I'll have you on a charge so quick your feet won't touch the ground. Is that clear?'
Clear enough, Winterman thought.
He had spent the day mulling over Spooner's words. He still felt uneasy. It wasn't that he necessarily gave any credence to what William had said. It was more that he felt an unease, a sense that stones were being left unturned. That was the world they were in. Resources were short. No one could waste time on half-baked fancies. Even ignoring Spooner's warning, there was nothing to be gained from prising open that particular can of worms. And a lot to be lost.
By the time he arrived home that evening, Winterman had decided to follow Spooner's orders. He knew himself well enough to recognise that, in part, his reluctance to do so stemmed from nothing more noble than simple stubbornness. He didn't like being told to back off. But stubbornness wasn't a good motive for anything. Whatever Spooner's own motives, he was right.
Winterman pushed open his front door, his mind already moving on to the prospect of an evening with Mary. Probably just a visit to the pub, some fish and chips, and then back here. She hadn't been in the office for a couple of days, and Winterman realised he had been missing her.
As he stepped into the hallway, he stooped to pick up a buff foolscap envelope from the doormat, glancing at it with curiosity. The envelope was blank and had been hand delivered. He tore it open and tipped out the contents.
It was a set of half a dozen photographs. Winterman stared at the top one for a moment in bafflement. It showed a squalid-looking backstreet, probably somewhere in the town. In the centre of the picture, there was the door to some kind of sleazy private members' club. From his time on the beat, Winterman knew exactly what sort of club it was likely to be.
There was a figure caught entering the club. A woman, her back to the camera, a scarf wrapped tightly around her head. No features were visible, and the figure's body was little more than a grey silhouette. But Winterman knew at once it was Mary.
He flicked rapidly through the remaining photographs. The rest were interior shots, poorly lit as though the photographer had been reluctant to use a flash. All of them showed Mary. In the first, she was standing behind a tawdry-looking bar, serving bottled beer to an overweight man. In another, she was sitting next to the man, clearly trying to look attentive. Others showed her in the same position, her expression one of forced joviality.
The penultimate photograph showed the man pawing ineffectively at Mary's blouse, a clutch of white fivers in his hand. And the final photograph showed Mary holding open a door, presumably in the same dismal clubroom, for the man. At the bottom, someone had typed, neatly: 'More where these came from.'
Winterman stared at the photographs. He recognised something that had briefly nagged at his brain earlier in the day, when he had talked about Mary working part-time. It was a trivial detail from right at the start. When Mary's mother had found the child's body in the dyke, she had telephoned for Mary at the office. It had been one of Mary's days off, but she had not been at home. She had had a job – some kind of job – that her mother knew nothing about. Perhaps she still did.
It was not so surprising. They paid her as much they could afford in the office, but it was little more than charity. She had to support her mother and her children, and there was little work to be had. These were hard times.
The message of the photographs was clear, he supposed. It was a warning. If you stir things up, we'll do the same. Perhaps it had come from Spooner, perhaps not. Winterman had already voiced his unease to others at headquarters. But the warning was effective enough. He couldn't begin to imagine what the impact might be if he were to respond – on Mary, on her mother, on the children.
It was all so unnecessary, he thought bitterly. He had already decided to do nothing. It was almost as if they – whoever they might be – wanted to provoke him, prove how impotent he really was. Just to show that they were in control.
He took the photographs between his finger and thumb, carried them though into the parlour and dropped them into the fire grate. He found some matches and set fire to the prints, watching until the last fragments had been consumed. The gesture was little more than symbolic. No doubt more copies could be made. But it made him, momentarily, feel a little better.
Chapter 74
Mary, breathing softly on the far side of the bed.
Winterman lay awake, the last dregs of the familiar dream still fogging his mind. He had spent most of the night awake and, when sleep had finally come, he had found himself once again out in that endless rain, sensing the floodwaters rising. He had woken with a start, his mind filled with a terrible, unfocused sense of dread.
Then he remembered the photographs. The stilted evening they had spent together, Mary knowing that something was wrong, he barely able to speak. Winterman knew she thought that the relationship was fizzling out almost before it had begun, and he didn't even know whether she was wrong.
Lying there, he thought that she was. It was too important to let go. The truth was he loved Mary.
Tomorrow he would speak to her. Tomorrow he would find out the truth. And, tomorrow, together, they would decide what to do next.
He rolled over in the bed, tangled in the sheets and blankets, knowing that he would not sleep again that night. Finally, he made his way across the darkened room and, as so often before, pulled back the curtains to stare out across the night-shrouded fens.
He could see the first deep crimson signs of dawn in the east. It was a fine night, the sky full of stars. Before long, it would be the start of summer.
But in his own mind the winter was barely over. The rain was still coming down, heavy and relentless. Somewhere out there, there were the children, still lost, still reaching out. Still trying to find their way back home.
And there were no answers.
Part III
March, 1947
Chapter 75
Even the ticking of the carriage clock swept Winterman straight back to his childhood. It was a sonorous tick, redolent of solidity and fine craftsmanship. It had always been there, so familiar as to be almost unnoticeable. One evening, a few days after returning, he had neglected to wind it. In the morning, the silence had been unexpected, disconcerting, as if something had been sucked from the air.
He had wondered, from time to time, about the clock's history. Was it a family heirloom of some sort? Or had his parents bought it sometime in the early days of their marriage? It had been there as long as he could remem
ber. He had never thought to ask while they were alive. The clock had been just one more item on the inventory he had compiled as executor of his father's will. Whatever its history might have been, it was an heirloom, part of his own inheritance, along with the house and everything else in it.
Seven o'clock. Time to wake Mary. Make her a cup of tea in bed. He had been up since just after four, watching through the uncurtained windows as the sky slowly lightened. The weather had picked up. It looked set to be a fine spring day, the low sun picking out every burgeoning leaf in gold.
He had realised, as the first sliver of the rising sun had emerged from behind the distant horizon, that today Mary was not due to work at the office. One of her non-working days.
Mary had previously stayed over only on the days when she was due to come in to the office. It had made sense. They had observed the proprieties, supposedly to spare Mary's mother any embarrassment. Winterman rarely stayed over at Mary's house, and when he did he slept in the spare room. Mary's nights at his had been justified on the basis of convenience. It would be pointless to ferry her back to Framley at the end of the evening. Mrs Griffiths undertook the occasional babysitting duties, and in return they all maintained the fiction that Mary also used Winterman's spare bedroom.
But it meant that Winterman had never witnessed Mary's movements on the days she was not due to work with him. Until now.
After a visit to the pictures – they had seen some odd romantic film about nuns in the Himalayas Mary had been keen on – they had finished the evening with a quiet drink in one of the more salubrious town centre pubs. Winterman, his mind running endlessly over the past day's events, knew he had been lousy company. He could sense Mary's discomfort. He had assumed he would drive her back at the end of the evening, and had been surprised when she told him that she had arranged for her mother to babysit.
He had been unclear about Mary's motivations for staying over. Perhaps each of them had been expecting the other to announce the end of their relationship. In the event there was nothing more momentous than a late night cup of tea and a tacit acknowledgement they were both too tired or too tense for any romantic conclusion to the night.
But here she was. Asleep, upstairs. While Winterman sat turning the same thoughts endlessly over and over in his mind.
He was rising, preparing to put the kettle on, when the living room door opened. Mary was standing, wrapped in his old tartan dressing gown, looking as if she had been deliberately posed in the doorway.
'You've been up a while,' she said.
'Sorry. I tried not to disturb you. Couldn't sleep.'
'More nightmares?' He had told her, half-embarrassed, about his recurrent dreams – the rain, the lost child.
'Some dreams. But I was thinking.'
She moved to sit on the sofa, a cautious foot or two away from him, tucking the dressing gown decorously across her knees. 'Yes, that was pretty evident. Last night as well.'
'I was awful company.'
'We both were. Both thinking.'
'It's always a bad habit. So what were you thinking about?'
There was a moment's silence. Then she said, 'You want to get this place aired properly. It doesn't feel lived in.'
'Is that what you were thinking about?'
'No. But I like this house. I could imagine living here.' Another moment's hesitation. 'I need to talk to you.'
'About your other job?' He had tried hard to keep any note of bitterness out of his voice and thought he had just about managed it.
'Somebody's been talking then. This bloody place.'
'Not exactly talking. Someone sent me some photographs.'
'The bastards.' She shook her head, tears in her eyes. 'That's what I wanted to talk to you about.'
Winterman instinctively reached out a hand and touched her arm. A moment later, he was holding her hand, feeling her fingers trembling between his. 'You knew about the photographs?'
'Not until yesterday. Someone sent me a set too. Photographs taken in the bar–' She gulped, as if scarcely able to speak. 'They made me look–'
Winterman gripped her hand more tightly. 'It doesn't matter.' He didn't know whether or not he was lying.
She pulled her hand from his and jumped up from the sofa. 'Of course it bloody matters. Those photographs, they made it look as if I…' She was clearly unable or unwilling to find the right words. 'They sent you the photographs? The same photographs? What did you think?'
Winterman pushed himself to his feet. 'I don't know. I couldn't make any sense of it. So tell me.'
'There's nothing to tell, not really. I had another job. Do you know how little money I've got? How much we struggle to make ends meet? And, no, it's not the most salubrious job in the world. Barmaid in some sleazy bar where every other customer's trying to pick you up. But he pays better than any pub round here and I'm just a bloody barmaid. That's all. Nothing else. I get a few quid extra because I'm prepared to dress up a bit and let some of those sad sacks lech over me. Nothing else.'
Winterman opened his mouth to offer some platitude, then realised he had nothing to say. He had doubted her. Just for a short time and reluctantly, almost disbelievingly. But he had doubted her.
'So why didn't you say something before?' He was aware that even now he sounded accusatory.
'Because it's cash in hand. Because it's a sleazy dive which is probably home to half the spivs and crooks in the county. Because you're a policeman. Why do you bloody think?'
It was a fair response. He wasn't sure how he'd have reacted, and he didn't yet know her well enough to make any demands on her. 'But you would have told me eventually, I suppose.' Now, he thought, he just sounded petulant.
'I suppose so. I wasn't planning on staying there much longer anyway. It just a way of making ends meet. It wasn't exactly something I did for fun.'
'I'm sorry. Tell me about the photographs.'
She looked at him as if about to say something else then pushed herself up from the sofa. 'I've got them in my handbag. We can compare them, see if they really are the same.'
'I can tell you if they are. But we can't compare them.' He paused, stalled by her quizzical expression. 'I burned them.'
She smiled, then suddenly laughed. 'And you're supposed to be the brilliant detective. Good job I kept the evidence, isn't it?'
Chapter 76
Five minutes later, they were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping tea, staring at the photographs Winterman had spread out across the varnished table. There was no doubt they were identical to those he had destroyed.
'I was set up,' she said.
Winterman flicked again through the various prints, noticing quite how striking Mary looked even in these dimly lit shots. He had to admit, seeing them again, that there was nothing incriminating here. The sequence of shots had been selected to create that impression. 'How did it happen?'
'Easily. The first few shots are genuine enough. That's what he expects us to do–'
'Who expects you to?'
'Charlie. Charlie Driscoll. He owns the place. I've been told he's the Honourable Charles Driscoll, but I don't believe a word of it. I've met few people who are less honourable.'
'Doesn't mean he doesn't have the title. I've met a fair few dishonourable Honourables. Anyway, go on.'
'Charlie wants us to… oh, you know, flirt a bit with the customers. It's harmless enough, I suppose. We're there to look decorative.'
Winterman didn't doubt it though he was less convinced of the harmlessness. 'Who is this chap? The customer.'
'Haven't a clue. He wasn't someone I'd seen before. One of Charlie's business associates, I assumed. It's a member's club, so I suppose he's a member.'
'Though I don't imagine Charlie's too scrupulous about checking people's bona fides.'
'I imagine not. And if you ask him, he'll just deny all knowledge. Very discreet is Charlie.'
'So what about the last few shots? What's going on there?'
She looked up at him. 'Not what
you think.'
'I–'
'I'm joking. Be quiet before you incriminate yourself any further.' She picked up one of the photographs. 'I can remember it quite clearly. That chap had had one or two drinks – couple of large scotches, if I remember correctly. Gave the impression he might have had a few somewhere else beforehand. Bit shaky on his pins. Anyway, he'd just knocked back one of the scotches when he said he didn't feel well. Said he felt a bit queasy, and did we have a gents he could use. We don't really, because there's a public convenience outside and Charlie's too mean to provide anything else. But he's got his own place in the office behind the bar and I didn't think he'd want this chap throwing up in public. So I offered to take him through to the back and…' She gestured to the photograph. 'Bob's your uncle.'
'So who took the photographs? These have been lit. Not well, but enough that you can work out what's happening. You must have seen the flash?'
'There was a bunch of actors at the far end of the bar – we get a lot of them from the theatre – and someone was taking photographs. Maybe more than one person. I imagine that's how they worked it.'
'Anything written on your prints?'
She flicked through them and shook her head. 'Nothing. What about yours?'
'"More where this came from."' He smiled ruefully. 'Another reason I shouldn't have destroyed them.'
'I'm flattered that you did. But what's it all about?'
'I think it was about keeping me quiet.' He briefly recounted his conversation with Spooner.
'You think Spooner sent them?'
'No. I'm still prepared to believe Spooner's not one of them. He's just looking not to rock the boat. I don't think he'd try to scare me off.'
'That might be what he wants you to think.'
'Of course. I've no particular reason to trust him. But I've no particular reason not to, just yet, and I'd rather keep all the friends I can. The truth is I blabbed my mouth off about Hoxton to others at HQ. Anyone could have sent these.'
