The Vanishing of Dr Winter: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 4)

by L. B. Hathaway

  ‘You could say he was in a bit of a rush, sir. Yes.’

  ‘I’ve got to go. My colleagues up there are waiting for me,’ the Professor nodded towards the crowd on the steps, almost reluctantly. He frowned a little. ‘Perhaps I’ve said too much. Forgive me. I don’t get the chance to talk too much about my son nowadays. Was there anything else you wanted from me, Miss Parker?’

  Posie bit her lip. The rain was turning to sleet and her face felt numb in the chill wind. She was desperately trying to think of anything Professor Winter might know which could help her to find his son.

  ‘Do you happen to know if your son had any nicknames at school or university? Any names he was known by affectionately? Something he could be using as a pseudonym?’

  The blank stare Professor Winter gave her answered her question more than adequately.

  ‘Oh, one last thing. Do you remember if William ever mentioned a Helena Llewellyn to you? She worked with him at the Casualty Clearing Station in Arras, too. She was a Sister there.’

  A faint flash of recognition passed across the Professor’s face for a second.

  ‘Ah! Aye. William did write to us about her. Told us he was engaged to be married to the lass. Sent a photograph too. Nice big fat lassie, wasn’t she? Dark? Sensible sort. Seemed he’d acted wisely for once, seen sense at last; realised that looks aren’t everything. Morag and I were delighted at the news. Goodness, I’d forgotten all about the fat lassie. What happened to her? I take it she died or something and then William met this woman who looked like Perdita?’

  ‘Something like that sir, yes.’ There was no point in shattering what little illusion Professor Winter retained of his son’s conduct with women. Some things were better left unsaid.

  ‘Take my advice, Miss Parker. Leave this well alone. You’re wasting your time. And mine. As I said, these are the delusions of a fantasist. There’s nothing worse. I bet this Felicity Fyne won’t even pay your fee.’

  Posie watched the famous surgeon walk away without a second glance behind him. She found herself strangely moved by him in a way she had never expected to.

  I will find your son for you, if indeed he is still alive, she thought to herself as she watched the Professor striding up the steps with his strange lurching walk.

  And then she walked back around the gardens of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, under the rain-drenched oaks, only half-seeing a pony and trap parked at the corner of the square, where a long queue of beggars had assembled, waiting for a cup of coffee and a bowl of porridge. She had forgotten that the park was famous for hosting a soup kitchen in wintertime, and that beggars from across central London flocked there in the hopes of some refreshment; something to keep out the cold. Most of the men looked bedraggled and damp, and some turned their faces towards Posie, expressing brief flickers of hopeful interest, detecting a woman with a bit of money.

  And Posie looked back intently, scanning the dirty faces with an almost anxious panic, whereas normally she would have scuttled onwards somewhat shamefully, guilty that her lot in life was so much better than theirs.

  You could be here, Dr Winter, she thought to herself. Right under our noses, and just a stone’s throw away from your father. You could have been here all along. One of these poor wretches, living a life you were not born to.

  But then she chided herself for her ludicrous flight of fancy. London was so full of the poor and people shirking their own shadows right now that to find one single soul amongst the masses would be nothing short of a miracle.

  But it seemed that that was exactly what she needed.

  ****

  Nine

  When she got back to the Grape Street Bureau, Posie found a hive of early-morning activity, albeit that the clock had not yet struck nine. All the lights were on and the fire was already lit. More Christmas cards had arrived with the first post and they were sitting neatly stacked, waiting for Prudence’s attentions in stringing them up around the room.

  Peeling off her horrible wet layers she noticed that Mr Minks had taken the prime spot by the fire in the waiting room. He ignored her imperiously as she hung up her gloves and scarf and hat on the brass fender to dry. The room held the bitter tang of coffee which had been left on the Primus stove too long, the scent wafting through from the kitchen. Prudence never could quite get the hang of coffee, somehow.

  Len was on the telephone speaking to a lawyer client in very loud, very grand, very important tones. He was simultaneously ripping apart a piece of red tinsel which had previously festooned the front of Prudence’s desk. He seemed very out of sorts. Posie soon realised why. Alaric was in the office too, and there was no love lost between the two men.

  Alaric was standing next to Prudence’s desk with his hands full of handwritten notes and a mouthful of paperclips. He had pushed his linen shirtsleeves high above his elbows and his trousers looked like they were held up with a length of fraying string. His posture was of one at a time of high crisis.

  ‘Prudence, were there any messages from Inspector Lovelace or any of his men for me? Or from anyone else, for that matter?’

  Prudence shook her head but didn’t look up.

  Prudence was bashing away at her black Underwood typewriter as if her life depended on it, a dark-red flush stealing unattractively across her neck and face. Occasionally she would nod her head, and Posie saw that Alaric was dictating something to her at breakneck speed. It wasn’t altogether surprising that Alaric had managed to get Prudence to moonlight for him. Prudence had a thing for handsome men. In addition to her penchant for titles, she was also rather attracted to famous people. In Alaric, formerly Lord Boynton-Dale, she had got all three.

  Alaric was one of the aristocratic Boynton-Dale family, a family besmirched by an unenviable notoriety, which he hated and did his best to ignore. He was also very famous in his own right, and his exploits as an explorer were often in the daily newspapers and penny magazines. As a result Prudence almost worshipped the ground he walked on. Annoyingly.

  Posie clucked her tongue loudly:

  ‘Is that your talk for tomorrow which you’re getting poor Prudence to type up, Al? She’s rather busy with the work I pay her to do, you know.’

  ‘Mnnnn? I’m sorry, darling. It won’t take more than five of her precious minutes. I promise.’

  Alaric gave Posie a peck on the cheek and smiled his lopsided, lovely smile and his strange copper-coloured eyes twinkled in the bright electric light. Posie rolled her eyes heavenwards and mumbled something audibly about ships which pass in the night. Which Alaric may or may not have heard. He certainly didn’t bother to respond, either way.

  Len came off the telephone and glared around malevolently before shuffling off to his own office, tea cup in hand and his morning post stuffed under his arm. Posie was just studying her own parcel of post when the office telephone rang again. She snatched it up and the Operator asked if she would accept a call from the Board of Education in Whitehall, from a Constable Smallpenny.

  The policeman was transferred through after a short wait.

  ‘Miss Parker? I’m working for Chief Inspector Lovelace on this project of yours.’

  Posie tried to sound calm and collected. ‘Ah, yes. Have you found anything for me?’

  ‘No,’ the voice came back resolutely. ‘Two of us were here last night for an hour and Constable Phillips and myself have been here since early this morning. We’ve been through every possibility there is. We checked against the name “Winter” and all derivations of “Winter” for all the Schoolmasters who started teaching in private schools in England since the Great War, from 1918 up to now. We’ve checked your fella’s date of birth against every single man appointed to teach a science subject, too, just in case we missed him somehow, but there isn’t anyone who seems to match the man you’re looking for, even allowing for discrepancies with the date of birth.’

  Posie blew out a great breath. She hadn’t realised quite how much she had been staking on this little investigation, hoping it woul
d throw up a clue, a lead. Now she had nothing. No idea where to turn next. Perhaps she had been wrong to follow her hunch about Dr Winter having become a Schoolmaster, after all? Perhaps, as Professor Winter believed, William Winter really was dead.

  ‘Thank you, Constable. You’ve been very thorough. Were there an awful lot of new Schoolmasters? A lot of men starting to teach the sciences since the war?’

  ‘Yes, a good couple of hundred. Some men re-entering the profession and others starting from scratch having left the armed services.’

  ‘Well, thank you for your time, Constable. I do appreciate it. I’m sorry it was a dead end.’

  A small embarrassed-sounding cough came down the line:

  ‘I say, Miss Parker. Constable Phillips and I are here now. The weather’s lousy outside. We’ve been given leave by the Chief Inspector to stay here until noon if necessary on this project for you. We’re more than happy to stay and search some more. In fact, we’ve got all the indexes of the schools out right now in front of us. Do you have any other leads? Any other names we can search for? Any other subjects your man might be teaching? Any other possibilities, however random, which might throw up your fella?’

  Posie’s mind was a total blank. She couldn’t think of a single thing. She said so.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Constable Smallpenny, who was clearly in no rush to return to New Scotland Yard and was enjoying his relatively ‘free’ morning, ‘you think on it, Miss Parker. We’ll stay on here another hour, until ten. If something comes to you, telephone us here.’

  Posie hung up the receiver, feeling crushed. The words ‘mare’s nest’ kept floating through her mind, and she had absolutely no new ideas. Just then the telephone rang again.

  Sighing, Posie picked it up and the Operator asked if she would accept a call from the Post Office in Hampstead Village, London NW3.

  ‘Oh, go on then,’ she said crossly, which she immediately regretted. It wasn’t the Operator’s fault that her morning had been unfruitful. She had got precisely nowhere. While she was waiting for the call to be put through she grabbed her notebook and turned to the hasty note she had made about her meeting that morning with Professor Winter. Was there anything there which might help her now?

  ‘Posie?’ It was Felicity Fyne. The last person she felt like talking to. There was, after all, nothing concrete to report. Nothing at all, in fact.

  ‘I’m glad I caught you. I don’t have a telephone in my shop. So I walked here. Just wondering if there was any news yet?’

  Posie’s instinctive irritation was blunted by the sound of suppressed desperation in the woman’s voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘No, I’m frightfully sorry but I don’t have anything definite yet. I’m pursuing several leads, but so far they’ve come to nothing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Actually, I met your husband’s father this morning. It was interesting, but not very illuminating, I’m afraid.’

  Posie didn’t know why she said it, for it went against her normal rule of not talking about progress with clients until a case was solved, but something had to give. Besides, there was a chance that Felicity might actually know something useful.

  There was a small silence. Posie flicked her notebook.

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Oh, as you described. A cold fish, really. Although he obviously misses his son. His wife died.’ Posie omitted to say how, or why, or to mention the role of Felicity’s letter in the sorry tale.

  ‘I wondered…It’s probably nothing, but did your husband have any nicknames, or any aliases he might have used, ever?’

  ‘Sorry? No, no. I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Anything he was really fond of? Any especial pets he spoke about? Any sports he played? Any special tobacco he smoked? Anything? Anything at all?’

  At the deafening silence from the other end of the line Posie continued, remembering what Professor Winter had told her about his son’s passion for the theatre.

  ‘The theatre? A favourite book? Any particular literature? Any interests outside of medicine, I mean.’

  ‘No. None that I know of. He was just dedicated to his work. That was his whole life.’

  Posie caught her breath and blew outwards in disbelief. So Dr Winter hadn’t even shared his love of theatre and literature with Felicity Fyne. Had she really known the man she had so hastily married at all? What on earth had they spoken of to each other? If they had spoken at all, that was.

  ‘Okay. Well, thanks anyway. I’ll get back to you by Saturday. Then you can decide which colour hats to put out in time for Christmas Eve.’

  Posie checked her wristwatch quickly, it was quarter-to ten. She threw caution to the wind in her desperation.

  ‘You didn’t know Dulcie Deane well, did you, in Arras? Do you remember her? She was a regular nursing Sister.’

  ‘Who?’

  Posie described Dulcie as best she could. Dyed hair, freckly, prone to gossip, forgettable. She could practically hear the cogs whirring in Felicity’s mind.

  ‘Oh! Yes. That little nobody.’

  Posie counted to five and tried to remember that she wasn’t duty bound to like her clients.

  ‘But she’s dead!’ resumed Felicity, unfeelingly. ‘Why are you asking me about her?’

  Why indeed, Posie asked herself miserably. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  ‘No reason. It was just a line of enquiry which didn’t lead very far.’

  She cast her eyes over her notebook hurriedly, she saw the last line from her meeting with Professor Winter. The name “Perdita” scrawled there haphazardly.

  ‘And “Perdita”? Does that mean anything to you?’

  Posie could hear a shudderingly sharp intake of breath down the line.

  ‘Does it? If you know anything, please tell me.’

  After a slight pause, Felicity said in a much smaller voice than before:

  ‘No, “Perdita” doesn’t mean anything to me. But it obviously did to William. When he died I had to collect all of his personal belongings from his tent, as I told you. Well, there wasn’t much. But there was one book, a play, The Winter’s Tale. I’d seen him reading it sometimes at night. It seemed to calm him down. It was really dog-eared and looked like it had been everywhere with him. I’ve thrown it out since. On the flyleaf were the words “To my opposite number, my other half. My darling Flo. From Perdita. I love you until the end.” It’s burned into my mind, word for word. There was a date, too. Sometime around the end of the last century.’

  ‘What? Can you repeat that? I’ll write it down.’

  ‘Why? How can that be useful?’

  ‘I’m not sure it is. But this is the second time I’m hearing this woman’s name mentioned, and you never know.’

  Felicity repeated the memorised inscription with an ill grace. ‘I have to say, it made me feel pretty horrible, reading that after he had died. Cheap. As if he was still in love with whoever Perdita was. It was a shock. I was supposed to be the love of his life.’

  Posie gulped. ‘I’m sorry to be dredging up bad memories for you. I’ll come back to you soon. I promise.’

  Posie rang off. She stared into space. She was vaguely aware of Alaric clipping pages together in the corner of the room like a madman. She didn’t realise he was looking at her with some concern.

  ‘What is it, love?’ Alaric said in his low, enchanting, gravelly voice, cutting in on her train of thought.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ she snapped irritably, looking at her wristwatch again. Her time, or rather Constable Smallpenny’s time, was almost up.

  A thought suddenly came to her. A wild, crazy, urgent thought.

  Her memories of the past and her judgements about people she had known back then were proving to be fairly distorted, and even plain wrong on occasion. She had assumed that Dr Winter was solely focussed on his medical career; that he didn’t have an artistic or imaginative bone in his body. How wrong she had been! So perhaps she had been very wrong too in instr
ucting Chief Inspector Lovelace’s men to search only for a limited range of pseudonyms at the Board of Education. It seemed Dr Winter was capable of much, much more than she had given him credit for.

  ‘Where’s the nearest Public Library to here which would be open right now, just a couple of days before Christmas?’

  ‘Theobald’s Road,’ Prudence said automatically, without looking up from her final adjustments to Alaric’s talk. ‘I go there twice a week. I know the opening hours like the back of my hand.’

  Alaric raised a quizzical eyebrow: books and literature were not really his thing, which was quite ironic really as he lived comfortably off the income from book royalties; the books of a cousin of his who had died and assigned him all of her rights in her Will.

  ‘What is it that you need? I can get it tonight for you?’ Prudence offered. She patted her unfashionably long hair back into its hairnet and adjusted her spectacles, keen to curry favour while Alaric was still in the room.

  ‘That’s too late,’ Posie said, grimacing and heading to the fender to retrieve her damp outdoor clothes. ‘I need Shakespeare’s “Collected Works”! And I need it now.’

  ‘What is it you want to know?’ asked Alaric, casually. He picked up Posie’s notebook and read what she had written there. The last page.

  ‘Perdita? From The Winter’s Tale?’ he asked. His gorgeous eyes shimmered at her.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘“To my opposite number, my other half. My darling Flo.” Well, I know that Perdita’s opposite number in the play is Florizel. I take it that’s the “Flo” mentioned here?’

  Posie gasped, gobsmacked: ‘How on earth do you know that? I thought you didn’t read, let alone Shakespeare!’

  ‘Posh school,’ Alaric said, slightly embarrassed. He was shuffling his newly-typed talk into a manila folder and was struggling into his battered Burberry raincoat and belting it up all at the same time. ‘We had to read all the plays. In fact, The Winter’s Tale is one of the clearest which remains in my addled memory.’