Flora's War

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘Damn!’ she muttered as she left the drawing room. ‘Who on earth would call at this time in the evening, without an invitation?’

  She went quickly down the stairs before the doorbell could ring and a servant go to answer it. She flung open the inner door just as heavy footsteps reached the top of the stone steps and a man stepped into the tiled entrance lobby. It was Andrew Stewart. He could only be here on official business.

  They must have found Gordon. She’d been given administrative powers earlier. Just as long as the procurator fiscal’s office issued the death certificate without question.

  ‘Lady Campbell,’ Andrew said, ‘may I come in and speak to you privately?’

  ‘Of course. Follow me.’ She went ahead of him in a cloud of scent; up the stairs to hold open the door to the drawing room, which Andrew had not seen for a few years. The smell of fresh paint was evident and the aristocratic, shabby look had gone. He knew at once that Sir Gordon had not had a say in this decor. It was the fashion now, in the houses that were being built all over the land, as well as the boxy little council offices, to have two different wall coverings as contrast, as it was said to give an optical illusion of height, depth or width. But this room had perfect proportions and now was decked out in orange hessian, which covered the fireplace wall, and a striped wallpaper with overblown flowers of indefinable species around the other three. The ceiling had been painted a lighter shade of orange and the plasterwork was multi-coloured, gilt trimmed and ghastly. There was also displayed a silver-framed photograph of Sir Gordon Campbell and his wife outside Buckingham Palace, Sir Gordon looking at his uniformed best and Ruth Campbell a wilting tulip on his arm. Seeing it, Andrew’s anger flared.

  Watching her carefully, he said, ‘I am sorry to have to break the news, Lady Campbell. Your husband’s body has been found.’

  She showed no feeling whatever. ‘How dreadful. Where?’

  ‘The River Esk.’ He waited. There was not a flicker of emotion on her face. She must be expecting company, dressed as she was. He said, ‘I realise that this cannot be a shock. But please sit down and let me pour a drink for you.’

  ‘I don’t drink,’ she said. She sat down. ‘What do I do now?’

  ‘You have to come to the mortuary to identify your husband.’ She would know this. She had enough experience of courts and legal matters. ‘I’ll drive you to Musselburgh,’ he said as coolly as he could.

  ‘No. It must wait until morning,’ she said with an impatient wave of a perfectly manicured hand. ‘I … I can’t face it. Not tonight.’

  ‘Ah, but you have to.’ Andrew stood up. ‘I will bring you back as soon as it is done.’ And as he watched her, a cold certainty grew with every word, every flicker of an eyelash. Ruth Campbell was behind her husband’s death. She knew a death certificate would not be issued unless the procurator fiscal was satisfied that the cause of death had been established and that there were no suspicious circumstances. She had not even asked if a doctor had viewed the body. He said, ‘I must ask you for any medicines your husband may have been taking, for further forensic tests. I’m sure you know the form, Lady Campbell.’

  ‘Let me know when we can have the funeral,’ she replied. ‘It will be a very quiet family affair. Under the circumstances.’

  The circumstance was the question of the death certificate. Until it was given, the funeral could only go ahead with the restriction that burial, not cremation, was chosen. She seemed to realise this for she said, ‘It will be a burial. I quite understand that you have your job to do, Constable.’

  ‘Inspector.’

  ‘I will take the medicine with me to Musselburgh.’ She gave Andrew a calculating look and then, in one of her remarkable lightning changes of mood, took a handkerchief from her pocket and began to dab at her eyes and hunch her shoulders forward. ‘Oh dear. Poor Gordon. I …’ She looked up. ‘It seems as if the Campbells are destined to die tragically, unexpectedly …’

  Andrew wore a noncommittal facial expression as he replied, ‘They certainly don’t die peacefully, do they? Nor do the Bickerstaffes.’

  ‘Bickerstaffes?’ She looked up, startled. Andrew was certain of her guilt. It had been sheer impertinence on his part to say what he’d said. She would be justified in making a complaint. Instead she said, ‘My sister’s death was an unfortunate accident, Constable.’

  ‘Inspector,’ he corrected her again.

  She lowered her eyelids. ‘I would rather not identify the body alone. I will ring my farm manager and ask him to take me.’ She stood up. ‘Please excuse me,’ and went from the room to the study across the hallway.

  Andrew moved to the door on the pretext of looking at the pictures in the hallway, though his heart was thumping as he strained to listen to what she was saying. He heard her say, ‘No. Now,’ without even a catch in her voice.

  The phone slammed down and a few moments later she came back into the drawing room, dabbing her eyes as if distressed, to find him standing by the open window, looking towards the South Lodge. Andrew said, ‘Would you like me to tell Miss Taylor for you?’

  The crying ceased. ‘No!’ she said. ‘Nanny Taylor is very old. She’s rapidly becoming senile. I will tell her in my own way, tomorrow.’

  ‘Would you like me to make international enquiries about Robert, Lady Campbell?’ he now asked coolly. ‘He is heir to the estate.’

  A dark flush rose on her face. ‘I must ask you to leave the Campbell family’s business to me,’ she said.

  And that might have been as far as it went that evening. Andrew had clocked up several lines of investigation – to check up on Elizabeth Campbell’s death, to look in on Miss Taylor since Ruth wished him not to, and to make international enquiries about Robert – but now Mike Hamilton appeared, well dressed and shaved, to drive Lady Campbell to Musselburgh.

  Hamilton had not done all this in five minutes. At this time of the year, as Andrew knew full well, a farmer rarely finished work until the sun went down. He had not simply jumped at his owner’s command. He had been getting ready for something, and by the look of her – scented and wearing next to nothing – their affair was still going on.

  Lady Campbell did not waste a minute in explanation either to Andrew or Hamilton. She went towards the door, clearly at ease with Hamilton, then turned to Andrew to dismiss him.

  ‘I can see myself out,’ he said, pre-empting her.

  He drove to North Berwick, parked on Quality Street, bought an Evening News and walked down to the harbour to watch the boats. He knew that much of what he was thinking was intuition and guesswork, but never before had there been a case closer to his heart than this one, which he was coming to think of as Campbell versus Campbell.

  At the harbour, he sat on the steps that descended into the water, glanced at the boats for a few minutes then unfolded the paper. The stop press section read: Body of Sir Gordon Campbell recovered from the Esk.

  It would make the headlines in tomorrow’s daily papers. Reading it in the newspaper was no way for Sir Gordon Campbell’s old nanny to find out. Ivy Lodge, Nanny Taylor’s home, was right on the edge of Ingersley land, abutting Davey Hamilton’s farm and not too far from the main road.

  Andrew would go back to Edinburgh on the A1, first taking the country road and enjoying the sight of the sun going down, red and orange, blazing over the cornfields, lighting the scarlet faces of the poppies that dappled and drifted in clouds across the fields of waist-high golden corn. The unanswered questions that teemed in him proved a distraction from the beauty of the countryside. The gold Zephyr, like the wind it was named after, whispered by hedgerows of hawthorn and birch that seemed to come forward, dark green and silver, to meet him. There was the scent of the sea in his nostrils, and inside himself on this rare, tranquil night, as the sun dropped low, a host of questions, overlaid with a seething anger.

  He reached the A1, turned left and drove the three miles to the turn-off for Ivy Lodge. The track to the lodge had never been given a good surface,
so he parked the Zephyr on the grass verge and walked the quarter of a mile to the house.

  Nanny Taylor was in her garden, talking to an old man and a young girl. As Andrew drew near he saw that the man was Davey Hamilton, Mike Hamilton’s father, and the girl his granddaughter Phoebe, whom Andrew recognised from photos young Robert had shown him.

  ‘Miss Taylor?’ he called from the gate. Nanny looked up at once, putting up a steady hand to shade her eyes.

  ‘Who is it?’

  He opened the gate and went towards them. ‘Andrew Stewart. You may remember me?’

  She was flustered. Her hand, which had been steady, shook as she held it out to him. Why was he having this effect? She said, ‘Of course I remember you. It must be about three years since we met at Ingersley. You came to take Robert sailing.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He shook hands then turned. ‘Mr Hamilton. I don’t suppose you will remember me?’

  The old man, still sprightly and upright said, ‘Are you the one who went to sea? Your mother used to be the cook?’

  ‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘And this must be Phoebe. Robert talked a lot about you.’

  She smiled, shook hands then went quiet as Davey Hamilton said, ‘We’ve come to break the news to Miss Taylor before she hears it on the radio or sees it in the paper. I take it that’s why you are here.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Taylor,’ Andrew said.

  Nanny Taylor pulled herself up and set her shoulders back. ‘Gordon would never have committed suicide! He would not do a dishonourable act.’

  ‘We don’t know the cause of death …’ Andrew started to say, but here she interrupted him.

  ‘Never. Never. No matter what Lady Campbell said to the papers. Depression? Nonsense!’ She spoke vehemently and Andrew noticed the flushing round her eyes and her darting glances at Davey Hamilton. She had been drinking. He tried to keep his face straight, and decided to probe a little. ‘You don’t think that Sir Gordon was depressed about losing Robert?’

  Indignation made the reddening even more noticeable as she replied, ‘How could he be? Robert is a very successful singer and song-writer in America. Sir Gordon and I talked about him all the time.’ Here she stopped and put a hand to her mouth as if realising that she’d let the cat out of the bag. In a much softer voice she said now, ‘Excuse me. I’m tired.’ She nodded quickly as if to dismiss them all, then slowly went back into her house.

  Davey Hamilton said to Andrew, ‘We’ll walk down the lane with you.’

  So, Nanny Taylor knew that Robert was alive and well. She also knew that Ruth Campbell was lying. Andrew turned this over in his mind, and so engrossed was he in his own thoughts that he barely listened to Davey Hamilton’s wartime reminiscences. He did notice that Phoebe had evidently heard them all before, for it was her voice that finally brought him out of his ruminations as she said, ‘Yes, Grandpa. You captured the pilot of the German plane that came down …’

  Davey laughed at her. ‘No. Of course not,’ he said.

  Andrew roused himself to ask, ‘Did it come down on your land?’

  ‘No. Over the far side of the A1. Not my land.’ Davey Hamilton smiled. ‘It’s this lassie o’ mine. She likes to tease.’

  ‘It must have been exciting. I’ll bet it brought out the crowds?’

  ‘Aye. They came from miles away. It gave the police a hard time, I can tell you. Keeping away souvenir-hunters,’ Davey said. ‘I never even got there on the day. I had to help one of Miss Taylor’s patients back to Ivy Lodge. Got all the way over the fields she had and her on the brink of giving birth.’ He went on, reminiscing, ‘Bonny young lass. Tall, with flaming red hair …’

  Andrew all at once was brought up with a start. ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Och! There were a dozen or more bairns born that first year. Miss Taylor was running around the area like a scalded hen. You never knew who any of them were, though they mostly came from the city. Here one day – had their babies then moved on into permanent accommodation somewhere.’ Davey Hamilton scratched his head and a frown creased his brow. ‘I believe that one went to Canada with her baby.’

  Andrew’s heart came shuddering almost to a stop but he managed to ask calmly, ‘So Miss Taylor opened Ivy Lodge as a nursing home?’

  ‘Yes. Delivered all the babies around here. Phoebe, Robert …’ Davey Hamilton, suddenly tired, stopped walking, leaned on Phoebe’s arm and said, ‘Well, this is as far as I’m going for a few more minutes. Here we are.’ He put out his hand to Andrew.

  Andrew’s car was only fifty yards ahead. He shook Davey Hamilton’s hand. ‘It was nice to meet you again,’ he said.

  Davey said, ‘Remember me to your mother.’

  ‘I will,’ Andrew replied, then he strode off back to his car, his mind spinning. He must find somewhere quiet. He headed for the monument to the Napoleonic Wars victory. It stood on top of Garleton Hill about five miles away. It would provide a quiet place to think, without distraction.

  All the little coincidences had begun to fall into place. Discovering that Flora had concealed her age had been the first real breakthrough after all these years. This had brought the revelation that there was only one Flora Macdonald. Now at last he felt in his bones that he was on the right track. Suppose his search through hospital records for a girl who had injured her back had been another false lead? Suppose that she had not fallen on the ice at all? Suppose that their one act of love, under the weeping tree, had resulted in Flora’s pregnancy? What then for Flora? She would have to lie to Mr Davidson and go to Ingersley to find Ma. Had Ma left Ingersley by then? And as he realised that Ma’s last days at Ingersley could have been Flora’s first, he knew the second gut-churning certainty of the evening.

  He parked at the foot of the monument and ran up the hill to the tall tower. He opened the door and climbed the steps to the narrow platform at the top, from where he could see a splendid panorama – Edinburgh and the Lothians and down to the Borders and across the water to the distant hills, with everything bathed in magical golden light. Even as he drank in the peaceful scene, the questions and train of thought that a chance remark of Davey Hamilton’s had brought set his mind racing. Was he looking at an impossible scenario? If the pregnant girl with flaming red hair was his Flora, then why had she not told him?

  Hardest of all to equate with his line of thought was this question: could Flora have become Nanny Taylor’s patient without either Nanny or Lady Campbell knowing who she was? Or aware that he, Andrew Stewart, the son of their cook, was the father of her unborn child?

  He leaned his elbows on the narrow parapet and tried to be rational, but he knew this gut-churning sensation well. It came to him when he was on the right track. Who was it who said of detection that if you took all the evidence and eliminated the impossible, then what you were left with, however far-fetched, had to be the probable? He was now left with the probability that Flora gave birth at Ivy Lodge, then fled to Canada with their child. He had no idea why she would do this, and, until he found her – and find her he would – no clue as to why she would have wanted to cut him out of her life when she most needed him.

  He descended the steps and sat on the grass at the foot of the monument for another few minutes. Shivers ran up and down his spine, for all the heat of the July night. And as he sat, his head in his hands, there swept over him an almost spiritual sensation; one he would never recapture. It was as if were looking, humbly, on the face of God. His child – the unique person that was half himself and half Flora –somewhere walked the face of the earth today, living and breathing and knowing nothing of his, or her, father.

  The sky above him was cobalt blue now and he saw through his teary, misty eyes the clouds ablaze, copper and bronze and flaming red behind the distant dusky hills, and as a great lump came into his throat, his feelings turned from humility to desperation. He would not rest until he discovered the truth of what had gone on at Ingersley in 1940. He would not rest until he saw and touched his own child who was conceived
under the weeping tree.

  He sped back to Edinburgh to question Ma without upsetting her; careful not to hint that Flora’s disappearance was on his mind.

  ‘Do you remember the exact day you left Ingersley?’ he asked casually, knowing the date that was one day after Flora Macdonald left Mr Davidson’s house in Portobello and signed on as an evacuee at North Berwick station.

  Ma remembered. The date fitted. He asked, ‘Tell me again, Ma. How did it happen?’

  She told him of being visited in the old drawing room of Ingersley House – then a hospital ward – by Lady Campbell, who said she was to be removed to a convalescent home. Ma finished with, ‘I never went back, you remember. She found me a good job–’

  Andrew remembered. ‘And she gave you furniture and money.’

  Lady Campbell had deliberately sent Ma away. But why? She was no philanthropist, no giver of charity. She had never acted except in self-interest in her life.

  ‘Yes. She was good to me. She was having problems of her own. All those evacuees to find homes for. And her expecting her first baby.’

  If Flora, pregnant and desperate, had gone to Ingersley looking for Ma, why was Ma never told? Who had kept it from her? Why? It still did not add up. He could be on the wrong track – the girl may not have been Flora. He’d need a few more facts before he tackled Nanny Taylor.

  The following morning at the office, as soon as he had drunk a cup of coffee and read his post, he sent for Brodie and asked him to check the register of births in North Berwick between the date the Heinkel was shot down and the end of July. Next, and thinking about the investigation in hand, he put in a transatlantic call to New York. There was a reciprocal agreement through Interpol and soon he found himself speaking to his American counterpart. ‘I want you to trace a Robert Campbell,’ he said. ‘He landed in June, nineteen fifty-eight and has become a successful singer and song-writer over there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Robert Campbell.’

  ‘Never heard of the guy.’

  Andrew believed him. It would be Nanny Taylor’s exaggeration. He laughed. ‘Try Nashville, Tennessee. He wanted to go there.’