by Iona Whishaw
“I’m looking for Inspector Darling.”
DARLING LOOKED OVER the documents presented to him by the Englishman who had been ushered into his office. He made some effort not to look flabbergasted that the English would have responded by sending a man out. Surely a wire would have answered any questions? The Englishman was a good-looking, tall man with waving light brown hair—in his early forties, Darling would have said. He radiated a sense of confidence and easy power that he had seen sometimes in British officers, who were largely recruited from the privileged classes. “I’m surprised that you have come all this way,” he said to the Englishman. “We could have spoken on the telephone.”
The director considered this for a moment, as if thinking about how much to say. “The fact is that both parties worked for us. The dead man was called Jack Franks.” He left it at that and hoped it would be enough, that this Canadian inspector had enough intelligence to understand, though he realized that was a faint hope. No one on the outside really understood, and while Canada had an intelligence service, it would not be operating in this last-stop sort of place. He looked again around the office and was surprised when his eye lit on a very fine watercolour, obviously of a local scene, judging by the trees and lake.
Darling in the meantime was fighting a deep sense of dismay. The fact that he’d been right to bring Miss Winslow in was little compensation for this knowledge that almost certainly made her guilty, and an expert liar. He supposed that was what people who “worked” for this man were good at.
“Am I to understand by ‘worked for us’ that they are some sort of operatives? Are you with the British secret service . . . MI6 or something?”
“I see no reason not to tell you. Yes. You can see why this makes it a delicate matter, and requires my presence,” the Englishman said.
“I think you’d better understand right away that just because they were both operatives does not mean you will be taking over this case. The murder happened here and is ours to deal with. What exactly is it that you propose?” He had said it, “operative.” Now much of what Miss Winslow had said, or not said, made sense.
The director turned and gazed at the man with some respect. He did understand. Looking at him closely he saw what he’d missed, probably because of his own prejudice about colonials. He hadn’t looked, as he usually did when he met someone new, for signs of real intelligence.
“I was going to propose that we take Miss Winslow right off your hands. She is a British citizen; she has been accused of the murder of another British citizen. We can try her in Britain.”
“She is, I believe, a landed immigrant, and therefore has rights under Dominion law. And, as I said, our case.” He considered for a moment. He’d been avoiding saying, or even thinking, the next question. “Obviously, then, Miss Winslow and Franks knew each other?” She had been utterly believable when she had said she had never seen Franks before. But of course, that merely meant she was good at what she did. Funny really, he was seeing it over and over. Something that was an invaluable trait in wartime was an enormous liability in peacetime. How many men had he arrested or dealt with for their violent outbursts in their homes or workplaces whose violent activities overseas had earned them medals? Lying well must be the most valuable asset of a spy, for it seemed to him that this was what he was dealing with and accounted for her unaccountable secrecy, which now was being used for covering a crime.
“No, they didn’t, funnily enough.”
Darling looked down at the papers under his hands to cover a flood of relief. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Then can you explain why he appeared to be looking specifically for her?”
The director considered this. If he could keep her in the “guilty” column, he could continue to press for her removal to Britain for a trial. On the other hand, he still felt that she was probably not guilty, and it could be better to clear her and hope that she would come willingly back with him.
“I can tell you that this man, Franks, was coming here for reasons entirely his own. He did not explain these to me when he asked for a leave, but said it was a family matter. I know he lost his parents in the Blitz and for some reason had been quite unsettled since that time. I prefer my people to sort out their personal business and come to work fully committed. I assumed that giving him some time would do this for him. It is a very unfortunate outcome for us to lose him. Tiresome, though I suppose we shall find a replacement with his talents from among the fresh crop of varsity graduates.”
Darling kept his face impassive. He found himself in the grip of a growing dislike of this man. Too charming, too handsome, and much too cavalier about his “people.” Tiresome indeed to lose someone! He tried to imagine how he’d feel if he lost Ames, for instance. “He told you that he needed to come to King’s Cove specifically for a family reason? The difficulty is that whoever killed him took all of his identification, and the only thing on his person was this piece of paper, badly soaked, with Miss Winslow’s name on it. On the face of it, that exonerates her, as leaving her name in his pockets is a damn fool thing to do; however, she had the opportunity, found the body, and his missing vehicle was found in her barn. In addition, she produced one of the missing shoes. She has been extremely helpful, but has refused utterly to say anything to help herself, except to admit that this man must have come for her. This has only made her situation worse, since it suggests that no one else at King’s Cove, a tiny settlement with a handful of people in it, mostly pre–Great War relics, knew him or had any reason to kill him. And I am at a loss to know why Miss Winslow should kill him, unless he was in a position to reveal that she is a fugitive from British justice, and she did not want to be discovered and sent back. Is she?”
“No.” The Englishman again fell silent, trying to decide how much to say. “Look, I will speak where she cannot. It is her very silence in this matter that may explain to you why I have come all the way here. Lane, Miss Winslow, is extremely bright and talented. She speaks perfect Russian and French and has had a peculiar international upbringing that we find most fitting for the work we require of her. She worked for us during the war. She was, and obviously continues to be, extremely loyal.”
“And does Miss Winslow,” Darling emphasized the name in a tacit disapproval of her first name being used by this man, “wish to return to your service?”
The director stood up and went to look out of the window. The street below had a charming, picture-book feel to it that made him want to disparage its small-town pretensions. This man was proving difficult. He had hoped that he could exert some sense of authority over the situation that would result in them immediately releasing Lane to his care. This local policeman was more clever and potentially more intransigent than he had expected and he was on delicate ground. He really had no authority here. And now this question. If he was honest, he would have to admit that she did not wish to return. Though he had not spoken with her at the end of the war, she had made it clear to her commander that she was emigrating and had unequivocally refused all offers to stay on in the service.
Finally he turned back to Darling. “Miss Winslow does not know the conditions that I am prepared to offer. I will be frank with you. My knowledge of her absolutely convinces me that she is not guilty of this particular crime. The man, Franks, as I said, was here about his own business. I merely took advantage of his coming here to have him deliver a message to her. If I am . . .”
“One moment. May I ask how you knew where to find her? Did she keep contact with her former employer?” Darling’s head was swimming and he was beginning to feel, though he would never have hinted as much to this slippery visitor, as though he was indeed in over his head. What if, in fact, she was still in the service, and was operating under instructions to “eliminate” this Franks, who might have been perceived as some sort of rogue? It would indicate a depth of concealment on her part that made him feel a frisson of disappointment, but it also threw into question whether, under such circumstances he would be able to mai
ntain his local jurisdiction of the case. If this man represented some organ, however secretive, of the British government, then might not the Dominion government also become involved? “Is she still, in fact in your ‘employ’ and was she acting on orders from anyone in your firm to eliminate this man Franks?”
The other man threw back his head and laughed. “You’ve been reading too much John Buchan, Inspector Darling. This is not some covert operation we are trying to cover up here. We keep track of all of our former employees, as you can imagine, even when they try to lose themselves at the farthest reaches of the globe.” He waved his hand to take in where they were now. “They are obliged to keep the Official Secrets Act and so we must have our ear to the ground, in case someone forgets, or as in this case, sometimes they are so valuable we wish to have them back. I assure you that Franks was here on a personal quest and I asked him to bring a message. I am offering to take the most assuredly innocent Miss Winslow off your hands and I can see, by the way, that in spite of circumstances, you yourself believe her to be innocent, and you can get on with solving your little local crime, committed, I dare say, by little local people for their own little local reasons. And now, if you don’t mind, as pleasant as this is, I need Miss Winslow’s address, as I would like to speak to her.”
Darling, as much as it annoyed him, could think of no immediate reason to deny the request. “As a matter of fact, we have her here at the moment. Please wait here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“MISS WINSLOW.” LANE TURNED AT the sound of Inspector Darling’s voice. She was not, as she had expected, occupying a cell full time, but had been put back into the room where she had answered questions so fruitlessly the day before. She had books and some writing paper that Ames had obligingly brought her. Because the building was on the corner, she could also see at an angle the street that ran down the hill toward Nelson’s main drag. It was treed and pleasant, with rather nice-looking wood-framed houses and little, meticulously cared-for front gardens. Surprisingly, rather than worrying about her situation, she had been spending her time there wondering why she had elected to live on a large unruly piece of land miles from anywhere. She knew she had made the right choice, but what was it in her that craved this independence? Her wild garden and ghost-ridden house, and the darkness of the nights?
Her two nights in the cell had been stressful, and after the unresolved interrogation of the day before, she felt she would continue to be incarcerated for some time. She had tried to bring her centre to a state of calm, as she used to do when she was working. She should be accustomed to these sorts of discomforts. She had found, however, that it was no longer easy, and she was more subject to the fear of any ordinary person.
In a way, she was relieved. It meant that she still was an “ordinary” person. She had not become entirely divorced from the world of real human feeling as her father had. The previous night, she had found she had been able to still her anxiety by looking meticulously at her mental shelving where she had begun to organize information about the murder. She smiled momentarily into the darkness when she realized the shelves were pale green, like the ones in her kitchen at King’s Cove.
She had decided to place people and information she felt were less relevant on higher shelves, and anything odd or suspicious on lower shelves, as she would in her kitchen: serving dishes for large parties on the top shelf; mugs, plates, sugar, salt on lower shelves where she would have them available. Once she had neatly arranged the top shelves with the Armstrongs, Kenny and Eleanor, and the cigarette-rolling Hughes women, giving them each a little space, she trolled mentally through the remainder of the residents to decide whom she could arrange on middle shelving, slightly worried that she could not immediately locate the Bertolli clan on the top shelving. As she wondered why, she drifted off and did not wake again until the early sun pooled on her blankets from under the curtains of the cell window. She woke with a feeling of having slept well for some hours, at least. She could not tell what time it was, though standing on the bed and looking out onto what street she could see revealed that some few people were already moving about. She thought it might be seven. What time would the station open? Indeed, what would be the next step? Though she had brought her pyjamas, she had slept in her slip. Putting on full nightwear felt too much like giving up altogether. She had thought that she would, she must, be released any moment. Now she was not so sure. It was absurd for her to be in a jail in Nelson, when she’d done nothing. She defiantly put on her skirt and blouse and a light sweater and then made the bed and sat and waited.
Eventually she heard keys and the door swung open. A young officer asked her to follow him and, as the morning before, she had been put into the interrogation room, as she now thought of it. She had found there a mug of coffee and a boiled egg with a piece of buttered toast, which she dispatched, her heart sinking slightly because she was not being taken to speak to someone about going home. She had thought she would be too distressed to eat, but found that not to be the case. Now, here was Inspector Darling with an extremely professional manner.
“Yes, Inspector. More questions—hopefully more to the point?”
“At the moment, I am proposing to have you speak to a Major Dunn, who has travelled from London to see you.”
Lane stared at him and then clutched the chair she had been standing behind. She sat down heavily. “Who? Who?” she could hear herself asking this question as if she were shimmering outside of herself and could not bring herself back into focus.
With some alarm, Darling saw that she had gone quite white. “Are you all right?” He hurriedly poured a glass from the pitcher she had been provided with earlier that day. She drank clumsily and tried to lengthen her suddenly short, shallow breaths.
Drawing in a long breath she asked again, “Whom am I to speak to?”
“A Major Dunn. He’s come out from England. He says he knows you. Is this not the case?”
“My God,” she whispered, “then he’s not dead.”
“Why should he be dead? At least, if the man upstairs is Major Dunn. I suppose in your line of work, even that much might not be certain.” Darling was surprised, and then instantly sorry, about the bitterness that was evident in his last remark.
Lane drank more slowly and then put the glass down, appearing not to notice Darling’s tone. “I, we all, were told he’d died, been shot down. I . . .” She was trying to keep her hand from shaking, and to buy time. What could she say to Angus? Her heart pounded and she felt suddenly ill. What was she so afraid of? That he might be the one sent to take her back? That she might still need him? That she had been deceiving herself about her own newfound liberty? “But why is he here?” she asked, in what she hoped was a calm, untroubled tone.
Darling, who had been taken aback by her reaction, watched her thoughtfully. “I have been given to understand that you worked for him. He has been able to furnish some information that you would not, Miss Winslow, that might exonerate you in this matter. Not, unfortunately, without a price,” he added as a bitter afterthought.
“Worked for him. I see. So that’s how it was,” she said, more to herself than Darling. He could make nothing of this. Then she added, “What do you mean, not without a price?”
“Nothing. I’m having the usual competitive feelings of any policeman when someone tries to come and take over a case. I’ve told him I’d take you up to my office to see him. Would that suit?”
Lane was almost more troubled by his solicitousness than his officiousness in locking her up for two nights. “I will see him wherever you wish. I wonder . . . no, it’s fine.”
“You wonder what?”
“I was going to ask if you would mind being present at my interview with Major Dunn, but, well, it’s complicated. And perhaps he would prefer to speak with me alone.” She suddenly wrung her hands together. “I don’t understand. Why is he here? How did he know to come here?” She looked at Darling in some distress and then her face cleared and she became cool.
“You did this! This happened because you contacted the authorities in Britain. Of course it would have triggered the firm to get involved.” She turned and stood before the door, waiting for him to open it. “We might as well get this over with. It doesn’t matter whether you stay in the room or not. I obviously am in the power of everyone else here. How very foolish I was to think I could get away.”
When they entered Darling’s office, Angus, the director, had his back to them, and the light from the window made him appear as a dark silhouette, but one she would have recognized anywhere. She felt her heart turn over, and she clutched her hands together to try to calm her anxious breathing. She sat down without saying anything and waited. Dunn turned around and smiled at her. She coloured and looked away. She could not take in that he, Angus, was here. Not dead. She was suddenly angry at the mourning she had done. All the innocence and unrecoverable youth she’d lost in her sorrow. The unbelievable depth of his deception.
“Miss Winslow!” he said, “how very nice to see you again.” So that’s how he was going to play it. She would not join in.
“Back from the dead, Angus. It must be very pleasant for you.”
“Inspector Darling, I wonder if you might leave us alone. I promise not to spring her,” Dunn said smoothly.
Darling looked at Lane, who gave a slight twitch of the head that seemed to indicate indifference. With a brief hesitation, he turned and stood in the doorway. “You have twenty minutes,” he said. He closed the door and had a momentary and irrational desire to get a glass and put it to the wall. He had seen enough, however, to guess at new depths of self-preservation in his prisoner and he felt a certain delight steal over him about it. He didn’t have enough to smack down his self-satisfied, arrogant visitor, but she most clearly did. He would go in search of Ames, and bring him au courant.
