“At any rate, once they were gone he nursed me for a few days until I could move more comfortably, and then he gave me clothes and organized transport back to England. It was all very dangerous, probably even more for him than for me. He was a brave man. I’ve never known whether he survived the war. After it was all over I tried to trace him, but I didn’t know exactly where I’d been, and records were in a shambles. I’ve never known,” he repeated, and sighed.
I was turning to an icicle. I struggled to my feet, my knees even stiffer than usual. “Maybe we should go in?” I suggested.
“Yes,” said Merrifield, rising with less difficulty than I. “The day and the story have chilled us.”
We were nearly back to the house when Jane spoke. “And Bill? When did you hear anything of him?”
“Not for years, actually. He was listed as ‘Missing in action,’ and his parents were notified. The war dragged on, though we all knew that Hitler was defeated. It was only a matter of time. Then after the smoke cleared and we had won the war, we began to realize we now had to win the peace. I planned to make a career in the Air Force, so I stayed in. I was posted to various locations and kept quite busy, though I found time to marry and start a family. I was in Africa in late 1945 when word sifted through channels that Flying Officer Fanshawe had been found in a prison camp, ill and malnourished, but likely to survive. I was delighted, of course. We’d been given the address of the hospital where he was being treated, so I wrote to him, but he replied only briefly. I thought he was still weak and unable to hold a pen for very long, and dismissed the matter from my mind.
“I didn’t return to Sherebury for any length of time until I retired, and by that time Bill was no longer living here. I had lost touch with him completely, so you can imagine my surprise and pleasure when he moved back here and took the job at the museum. My wife had died, of course, and I admit I was rather lonely. We saw a certain amount of each other, although he would never talk very much about his war experiences.”
“Didn’t you think that was rather odd?” I asked. “So many men like to tell war stories, literally.”
“No, I understood. He had suffered terribly in prison, and he felt, I think, that he’d done very little to help his country. He was wrong about that—the Battle of Berlin alone was a tremendous boost for the Allies—but he preferred to talk of other things, and I respected that. And then of course I became unable to keep the house in good condition and had to sell it and move here, and ironically, we lost touch again.”
“Donated some of your war memorabilia to the museum, didn’t you?” Jane put in.
“Yes. I do feel rather strongly that the history of Sherebury’s contribution to the war must not be lost. Bill and I had a few conversations about a special display paying homage to the men—and women, of course—who served in the armed forces during the war. The memorial in the Cathedral honors those who died, but I felt it was important to remember those who served and lived on, as well. Goodness knows what will happen to the materials now that Bill is gone.”
We had reached the sun porch, now deserted in the waning light. As we entered the door I studied it thoughtfully.
“I’m a little surprised that they keep this door unlocked. Surely there is an occasional resident who forgets where home is, and might wander off. I would think they’d limit the exits to those with staff nearby to keep an eye on who comes and goes—not to mention the fact that someone undesirable might come in by a rather remote door.”
Merrifield pointed to the ceiling. Sure enough, a small camera, nearly hidden in the decorative molding, was pointed at the door. “One has the feeling of being watched all the time,” he said with distaste, “except when we’re actually in our own rooms. It’s one of the reasons I dislike living here. It is for our own protection, I know, but it gives me an unpleasant feeling. And for this particular door, it’s unnecessary, in my opinion. The part of the grounds where we walked today is completely enclosed by quite a high wall. No resident could get far, and no outsider could come in.”
“Still, I’m glad the security camera is there. It makes me feel better about the whole thing.”
“Ah, yes, Mrs. Martin, but then you are not the object of the scrutiny.”
“True enough.”
Merrifield sat, rather abruptly, in the nearest chair. “Ladies, I have enjoyed this very much, though I doubt I’ve been much help to you. The people who could answer your questions about Bill’s war would be those who shared his prison time, but I have no idea where you’d find them. Most of them are probably dead by now. I’m among the few who have lived so long. Too long.” He sighed. “I’m afraid I have become a bit tired. Would you mind very much if I said good-bye? I believe it’s time for my nap.”
He looked gray and exhausted. My conscience smote me. “We’ve talked too long, and I promised we wouldn’t. Thank you so much, you’ve been a big help. Shall I send a nurse to you?”
“If you would be so good.” He leaned back in his chair, looking suddenly like the very, very old man that he was.
FIFTEEN
“I HOPE HE’LL BE ALL RIGHT,” I SAID AS JANE TURNED THE CAR around and headed back to the road. “Nice man.”
Jane nodded. “Bill respected him. Fine officer, he always said. Evenhanded with the men.”
“That matters a lot. I’m glad I got to meet him. He won’t be with us much longer, I expect.”
“Didn’t look good, there at the end.”
“No. And I don’t know that what we got was worth the trouble, for him, I mean. He didn’t tell us anything new, really.”
“Said why he was flying low.”
I smiled. “Yes. Stanley’s a bit prejudiced, isn’t he? I’m inclined to believe Merrifield’s version. There was one question I wanted to ask, but I really couldn’t keep him any longer. Do you know where Bill was imprisoned? Which camp, I mean?”
“Colditz. Not one of the worst ones, and nothing like the concentration camps. Not a Buchenwald, or an Auschwitz, or a Dachau. But bad enough.”
“They were all bad. I saw some photos once, at the Imperial War Museum. Dachau, I think it was, when it was liberated. Thousands of men lying naked, the dead and the near-dead together. They were no more than skeletons with skin. You could count their bones. The captions said most of them died later, despite everything doctors tried to do. I had nightmares for weeks after looking at those pictures. And if Bill had been Jewish …”
We drove back to town in silence.
“Tea?” said Jane when she had parked her car in her drive.
“Thanks, but I need some thinking time. Unless you’d like company? Today must have been hard on you, reliving Bill’s horrible experiences.”
Jane nodded. “Yes. But worth it if we can get at the truth. Go home and do your thinking.”
“Right. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything useful.”
Alan came to give me a hug as soon as I’d hung up my coat. He knows me so well he seldom needs to ask about my moods. He questioned me only with a look, to which I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.
“What have you been doing with yourself all day?” I said, mostly to avoid any other subject. “I feel like I haven’t been home for weeks.”
“Addressing Christmas cards.”
“You’re kidding!”
He pointed to the pile of cards on the hall table, stamped and ready to mail.
“Good heavens! I didn’t know men even knew how to do that. I hope you didn’t forget to write notes to—”
“Notes to everyone present and correct. I’m a very exceptional man, my dear. I hope your American friends can read my handwriting”
“They probably won’t be able to, but they’ll think it’s charming even so. Just the way they do with a British accent. Well, for that, my dear exceptional man, you deserve an extraspecial tea. Let’s see what we can find.”
I made a quick batch of scones and opened a carton of clotted cream. We don’t usually ind
ulge in such treats, but any husband who takes over the Christmas-card chore deserves to be pampered. I’d worry about his cholesterol level later.
Alan kept up a babble of remarks about this and that during tea. I replied absently, and suddenly interrupted. “Alan, is there any way to trace the men who were held in a particular POW camp in Germany during the war?”
He had been talking, I think, about his grandchildren. He blinked and redirected his train of thought. “Frankly, I doubt it. The Germans destroyed sheafs of records at the end of the war. Sorting things out when the camps were liberated was a nightmare, and after all these years …” He sighed and shook his head. “You’re thinking of Bill Fanshawe?”
“Of the men who were in there with him, yes. He spent most of the war in Colditz, and I have the feeling that any secrets he might have taken to the grave with him would have dated from there.”
Alan nodded slowly. “They were places for secrets, certainly. Escape plans, sabotage plans, assassination plans … desperate men will do anything they can to try to improve their lot. There were thousands of heroes in those camps, you know. Men who helped others to escape, often at the cost of their own lives. Men who tried to hide Jews destined for the gas chambers. Men who smuggled German war secrets out to Allied forces. There were even some Germans who were so revolted by the conditions in the camps, the atrocities, that they secretly helped the prisoners. When they were discovered, they were shot at once as traitors, of course.”
“And I suppose there were the other kind, too. Turncoats. Men who traded secrets to the enemy in return for favors.”
“Yes, unfortunately. There are always a few. They didn’t last long if the other prisoners found out about them.”
“But suppose, just suppose, that Bill found out about one of them and didn’t do anything about it, for whatever reason.” I was warming up to my theory. “Suppose he was too ill to act, or it happened just before the camp was liberated. What would he have done with that knowledge?”
Alan considered. “Do I recall that he was in pretty bad shape when the camp was liberated? Physically, I mean?”
“I got that impression. He’d broken some bones when he bailed out of the plane, and they were never properly set until after the war. Merrifield said he was sent to a hospital. I imagine most of the men were, though, a field hospital at least. There at the end of the war most of the prisoners were starving, weren’t they?”
“In some of the camps, not all. Certainly there was greater need for medical attention than the Allies could easily provide, but they did what they could. However, what I was getting at was that Bill was probably in no condition even to remember details from the camp, much less do anything about them. If he knew something about one of the other prisoners, I’d think he would have reported it to the proper authorities as soon as he could.”
“Me, too. But just suppose he didn’t, for whatever reason.”
“If I were you I wouldn’t pose that supposition to Jane.”
“Why not?”
“Because it sounds a great deal as if you’re suggesting blackmail,” said Alan, draining his cup. “More tea?”
“But—I wasn’t—how could you—” I spluttered. Alan refilled my cup.
“I don’t think that’s what you were thinking. I said it sounded that way. And you have to admit it’s a possibility. Far-fetched, but possible.”
I sat back to think about that. “All I meant was that if Bill knew something that might hurt someone else, that someone might have come to get him. And that might explain why he—Bill, I mean—was in that terrible tunnel. He was hiding. And the effort, along with the fear, was too much for him and he collapsed.”
“Almost equally far-fetched, I’d say. You’re supposing that someone Bill knew in a prison camp nearly sixty years ago was still alive, knew where Bill lived, knew that Bill carried this secret with him, somehow divined that Bill might reveal it, and—what? Threatened Bill with bodily harm? Didn’t threaten but merely turned up, and put the wind up poor Bill?”
“Hmm. I haven’t thought it out, have I? But, Alan, you’re a policeman. You’ve known stranger things to happen. You said it yourself: desperate men will do anything.”
“Indeed. It’s only that I doubt that a man of Bill’s age, or older, would be all that desperate about anything.”
“Reputation?” I said dubiously.
“Perhaps.”
I sighed. “Anyway, it doesn’t look like anything I could possibly follow up. The police could, maybe, but they’re not dealing with Bill’s death right now.”
“And your theory doesn’t explain why the museum and Walter would be involved. That’s what the police are worried about.”
“You’re right.” I sighed again. “Okay, so it’s back to Bill’s old friends, I guess. You know, I started this with the idea of helping Jane deal with Bill’s death, and I’m not at all sure it’s been good for her. It must be pretty devastating to have the wartime stuff raked up over and over again.”
“Jane’s tough, Dorothy. I think it may be harder on you, in a way. Don’t forget that everyone in England had some personal tragedy in that war. I doubt there was a soul who escaped, who didn’t lose a husband or a brother or a son or a cousin or at the very least a home. My favorite uncle was killed at Dunkirk, my cousin was badly wounded, and we lost every chicken we owned in a bombing raid. Oh, you may well laugh, but it was serious for us! The point is that we’re used to war stories, very personal ones. They’ve lost most of their ability to shock. They’re new to you.”
“New and extremely unpleasant. I think, as Scarlett said, I’ll think about that tomorrow. Tonight I’m going to wrap presents.”
But of course I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop gnawing on the possibility that something could be learned from Bill’s fellow prisoners, if only we could find them. The fact that finding them was probably impossible was frustrating in the extreme.
The next day, Saturday, the fickle weather changed again. I woke up cold, and when I looked out the window, a few snowflakes caught the light of a streetlamp. The sky was still dark, but the earth was beginning to lighten under a powdered-sugar dusting of snow.
Alan was still asleep, but I was wide awake. Snow! Real snow for Christmas! Maybe I’d get Alan to go with me to London and do some proper shopping, Harrod’s and all that. I dressed and went downstairs to make coffee. The kettle hadn’t even boiled when the phone rang.
“Saw your light,” said Jane. “Had an idea last night.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t sound keen, do you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Jane. It’s just that the snow has put me in a Christmas mood, and I wasn’t thinking about anything else. What’s your idea?”
“Been talking to men about Bill’s war. How about a woman?”
“What woman? Bill didn’t have another girlfriend, did he?”
“Had lots. Good-looking he was in those days. Picked me. Wasn’t what I meant, though. There’s a WAAF still alive—”
“A waif?”
“WAAF. Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.”
“Oh, of course. Yes, a WAAF?”
“Who knew Bill. Fancied him. Stationed at Luftwich. Lives in Lowbridge. Feel like a trip over there today?”
I abandoned my vague ideas of Christmas shopping. I had more than a week left, after all. “Sure. Why not? Only—”
“Only I drive. Right.”
We arranged to leave about nine, which gave me two hours to finish my Christmas list and a grocery list, feed Alan and the cats, and wonder what a superannuated WAAF could tell us about Bill and his war that might be of any help.
SIXTEEN
THE SNOW HAD STOPPED BY THE TIME WE SET OUT, BUT THE streets were a little slippery. I was profoundly glad that Jane was driving. I’ve had more experience on wintry roads, true, but she’s much more familiar with English traffic. “Do you think we’ll get any more?” I asked, looking out the window at the already melting snow.
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“Telly said rain and fog tonight.”
“So much for my Christmas snow.”
“Might get some yet. Never can tell, this time of year.”
“Yes, the only predictable thing about English weather is its unpredictability. Jane, tell me about this woman. What did she do in the war? The WAAFs didn’t fly, did they?”
“Good grief, no!” Jane was so startled she veered into the right lane and narrowly escaped being mowed down by a beer truck. (Or “brewer’s lorry,” but I still tend to think in American.) “Women didn’t go into battle. She was in Ops.”
I sighed. “Jane, much as I hate to cramp your style, you really are going to have to translate for me. Standard English I can manage okay. Wartime shorthand, no. I presume you’re not saying she had something to do with growing hops.”
Jane hooted. “That lorry’s got beer into your head. Ops, not hops. Not lost my aitches at this stage of my life. Short for Operations Room. Don’t know from my own experience exactly what she did. Never was in the military myself. Believe it had to do with those huge maps on tables, with little airplanes to move about showing where real ones were. Always looked in the movies like a children’s game.”
Winter of Discontent Page 11
