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

by L. B. Hathaway

  Posie would have agreed with him once, but now she wasn’t so sure: the fire in Felicity’s eyes when she spoke of her husband and the photo she still carried in her wallet told a sort of love story. And Dr Winter was wrong: Felicity made hats, so she was creative, after all. Had these two ever really spoken to each other when they were courting? It seemed unlikely. It also seemed incredible that they could have married and remained at such cross purposes, but what did you expect when a marriage was based solely on looks, and the looks of a third party, come to that. But Posie kept quiet.

  ‘So I took my chance and I got out. I ran from the marriage, I suppose. It just happened that I had to run away from my old life, too, in order to get away from Felicity. But it was a small price to pay for my freedom. And I’d never have worked as a surgeon again with this, anyway,’ and he shook his right hand uselessly. ‘I saw that instantly.’

  ‘And your parents, sir? Wasn’t it a bit hard on them?’ Posie didn’t mention that Dr Winter’s mother was now dead; she didn’t feel it was her place to impart such sad news.

  ‘My parents are the kind of people who only wanted to know me if I was a big clever doctor, so I thought I’d cut loose from everything; let them all think I’d died. Well, in a way I had. Besides, my mother is one of those overbearing types, suffocating on an only child. She expected me to be in touch with her all the time, even from the front line. It was exhausting, so I cut loose from that too. So you see, my disappearing didn’t matter much, anyway. I haven’t been in touch with anyone since the war.’

  Posie was intrigued.

  ‘How did you manage it, sir? Felicity said you left all of your identity papers behind. How did you travel and work later on?’

  ‘Oh, that was the easy part. There were hundreds of our boys, all injured, being loaded up on to frigates bound for England. There was no way they were checking any paperwork. Once I got to Folkestone I contacted some lads I’d helped to patch up a couple of years earlier; lads from the East End of London. That’s the thing with being an army doctor – you meet all sorts. These boys were gangsters, but they had the biggest hearts. They were big-time criminals, permanently in and out of jail for counterfeiting and smuggling. They counterfeited my papers quickly; we invented Mr Florizel, who had an impeccable pre-war teaching career in a subject no-one would ever think me capable of teaching. This was the first job interview I walked into, and I’ve been here ever since. Happily, I might add.’

  Posie suddenly noticed that they had gone rather a long way along the tow path and were still trudging along by the river with no sign of turning right up towards the school buildings. In fact, they had gone so far along that they had left the comparative safety of the school way behind them. They were quite alone.

  ‘I say, Dr Winter,’ said Posie, frowning, coming to an abrupt stop. ‘I need to get to the train station and we seem to have ambled along rather far. Or is this a short cut?’

  Dr Winter jiggered around for another cigarette in his gown, ignoring her. He carried on talking as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it? How names can be misleading. I’ve often thought about it. Felicity means ‘happiness’, but I bet she never made anyone happy her whole life, certainly not me. And do you remember Helena Llewellyn? Poor old thing; named after a woman whose face launched a thousand ships, and yet she was plain as a farmer’s wife. Great big turkey of a girl. I thought I’d try something different for once, and she seemed a good enough egg; made me laugh a good deal which was nice back in those hellish days. But I would have run away from her too. She wasn’t my type at all; don’t know what I was thinking about really. At least I was able to extract myself from that situation easily enough.’

  ‘Because she died a horrible death, sir? Is that what you mean? How very convenient for you. And there we all were, thinking you were actually quite upset when you received that telegram!’

  ‘Oh, I was. It was a shock. It was ghastly. But you know what? In a way I was relieved too.’

  That this insufferable, selfish man could talk about girls in this horrible manner made Posie feel slightly sick. She was desperate to leave.

  ‘Look, I have to go, sir. So what exactly do you want me to report to Felicity? I need to tell her something about what’s happened to you.’

  Out of the corner of her eye and behind Dr Winter she thought she saw a blurry group of people in the far distance coming towards them down the path. They looked as if they were dragging something heavy behind them, but Posie focussed instead on Dr Winter’s face. He smiled slowly.

  ‘Oh, you won’t be reporting anything, Parker,’ he said assuredly, breezily. ‘Felicity’s probably getting along very nicely without me on her War Widow’s Pension. What more does she need?’

  ‘She tasked me with finding the truth. That’s my job.’

  ‘And is your job worth risking your life for?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Why on earth do you think I’ve told you everything so far? It’s certainly not so you can go simpering back to Felicity Fyne and offer up the details of my current life. Don’t you understand? It’s not my problem anymore. She’s not my problem anymore.’

  ‘She’s your WIFE, sir! You’ve already told me yourself that there’s no way you can get a divorce! So you’re still well and truly married in the eyes of the law. So she is your problem still.’

  Dr Winter’s face had gone a strange mottled blue-grey colour, and he had pressed his lips into a thin line. When he spoke again it was in a low whisper and Posie had to strain to catch the words:

  ‘How well you understand the situation, Parker. And now you too have become a problem for me. But unfortunately for you I can’t run away anymore, so you are going to have to vanish this time. Into the river, forever. I can see you’re the annoying sort of little madam who can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut, and I simply can’t afford to pay you to keep quiet as well. So I see no other way…’

  Too late Posie heard a tell-tale click and saw a small shiny black automatic pistol in Dr Winter’s hand. He must have had it concealed the whole time up the sleeve of his gown.

  She had been right all along.

  The gut instinct had never let her down yet. Posie breathed through her mouth, willing herself not to panic.

  Dr Winter trained the gun on her now, his right hand shaking profusely, and his left hand clutched over it for control.

  ‘No one will find you. No one knows you’re here, do they? No one will look for you either. Why, you should have left at least half an hour ago! And when your body falls into the river it will be washed along very quickly; the current here is very strong. It will most likely end up in some fenland boggy marsh. And months later, when it is found, no one will think to connect it with a low-life Private Detective who once made a nuisance of herself at Wickham Academy, pretending to be a would-be parent.’

  Strangely enough Posie was very calm.

  She had been in this situation before, of course, when she had been held hostage by a world-famous criminal who had toted a loaded gun about with far more panache than Dr Winter ever could. But it was the presence of the group of figures, a woman in a headscarf and two blonde little boys, coming closer, being blown about by the wind, who really gave her a sense of safety. Dr Winter hadn’t seen them as he had his back to them. They were too far off to see what was really happening.

  Dr Winter motioned Posie to move. Posie stepped back on the path, exactly where he wanted her to go, so that the river was right behind her; just one step away. But even among the fear and the madness, something Dr Winter had said rankled and stuck out as being strange. A bargaining chip.

  ‘Did you just say you couldn’t afford to pay me to keep quiet ‘as well’?’

  Dr Winter didn’t say anything. He just steadied his arm, which took a fair bit of doing.

  ‘Someone else other than me knows your secret and has contacted you? Is that it?’

  Posie gulped at the silence. She had nothing el
se to bargain with, so she’d try anything. Needs must.

  ‘I didn’t get around to telling you, did I? Felicity is being blackmailed, sir. The blackmailer seems to know all about you, and they’re asking her for thirty pounds. They’re threatening to contact the police, to try and take away her falsely-claimed War Widow’s pension. But I’m guessing that you are being blackmailed too. Is that right?’

  At his silence she kept talking.

  ‘But I can help you, sir. I promise you. If you let me live I’ll speak to the blackmailer this week, before Christmas. And I’ll get them to leave you in peace. Forever. You’ll never see or hear from me again, or from the blackmailer. And if you want, I can tell Felicity that you really are dead. For what it’s worth I think she’ll believe me.’

  There was a whistling sound, a surprised intake of breath. But Dr Winter kept the gun trained on her.

  ‘You’re right. You sound as if you know who the blackmailer is, Parker. Do you? Someone who knows my whereabouts is very dangerous to me, for a number of reasons.’

  ‘I do know who it is, sir.’ She tried her best to sound convincing. She didn’t need to admit to him that she had no cast-iron proof, just a series of hunches joined together.

  The gun was lowered a fraction. ‘Well? Who? Confounded scoundrel! Ruining my last two Christmases running and then sending me yet another request for money last week!’

  Posie had been absolutely right. Dr Winter had taken the bait.

  ‘I can’t tell you who it is, sir. Not until everything is sorted. Did they ask you for thirty pounds too? And you paid it?’

  Dr Winter nodded. ‘Both times. It was all the money I had managed to save; virtually a third of my yearly salary. And you can imagine, we teachers earn a pittance since that wretched Geddes Axe programme of the government slashed our wages earlier this year.’

  ‘Twice, sir? You paid thirty pounds, twice? Good grief! I promise I can help you, sir. Put this behind you. Now, please do put down the gun. We’ll not get anywhere like this.’

  At last Dr Winter lowered his gun and was looking at Posie with a modicum of interest mixed in with loathing.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, scowling, his gun slack at his side. ‘This needs to be nipped in the bud. I just assumed the blackmailer was one of the East End lads who had made my new passport and teaching certificates; a kind of continuous payment. The cards always threaten contact with Felicity if I don’t stump up the cash. Now that’s a fate worse than death.’

  ‘What were you going to do this time? Pay up?’

  Dr Winter nodded. ‘Yes. I’d have managed somehow. The last card made reference to criminal acts of mine being reported to the police. In addition to my cover being blown. Gracious, it doesn’t bear thinking about!’

  ‘What criminal acts would they be, sir? I don’t follow.’

  ‘BILLY? What are you up to?’

  Dr Winter almost fell into the river himself in surprise as the woman who Posie had seen approaching on the tow path rapped him on the shoulder. The small group had now drawn level with them, and Posie saw that the woman was very, very pretty, with short blonde hair underneath her wet headscarf, somewhat uselessly set in a fashionable marcel wave, and tendrils of the hair were escaping in the wind and rain. The two boys were very small and looked almost identical to each other. They were clinging to the woman’s tweed skirts. Posie saw at once that the boys were too small to be boarders.

  ‘What on earth are you doing out here, darling? You’ll catch your death! And who is this?’

  The woman gave Posie a good long suspicious look. Posie and Dr Winter had been standing unaccountably close together and from a distance it could, she supposed, have looked a bit odd. The woman suddenly reminded Posie very much of Felicity Fyne. Who had, in turn, reminded Dr Winter of his first love.

  A crazy thought came to Posie. Had he found her at last? Could this be the real Perdita? If so it would make for a peculiarly mad kind of logic, but it would mean that something had been achieved in all of this mess, which would be nice. She could stop hating Dr Winter quite so much if he had at least found his hearts’ desire. All that searching had come to something.

  Posie recovered herself. ‘My son Harry is a prospective pupil here, and Mr Florizel was just showing me around the place.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  The woman turned to Dr Winter accusingly. ‘All the way down here on this track, Billy? Bit far from the school, aren’t you both?’

  ‘Why, yes!’ trilled Posie, smiling, feeling she owed some sort of explanation to smooth things over, still horribly aware of the gun close at hand.

  ‘Mr Florizel was kindly humouring me. I wanted to get a full sense and measure of the place, you know. See if little Harry will like it. He adores nature, and rowing, too. So I absolutely had to see the river. I like to suss absolutely everything out first of all. And who are you exactly?’

  The woman came forwards rather reluctantly, belatedly remembering her manners and extending a hand insincerely.

  ‘I’m Mrs Florizel. William’s wife. I’m very sorry but I’m not dressed up for company and neither are our sons. We didn’t expect to see anyone around the place. We’re just out collecting holly and ivy to decorate the living room of our Schoolhouse for Christmas. Except that we haven’t found as much as I’d hoped.’

  Posie turned to Dr Winter and gave him a barely-disguised icy stare full of disbelief.

  Another wife!

  She noticed that he had managed to hide his small automatic pistol again carefully. He had the good grace to look down at his black shoes in the mud of the path. Mrs Florizel turned to Dr Winter.

  ‘I’m going to carry on looking for holly, Billy. Can you take the twins back up to the house? They’re soaked through; all this rain! Get them in the bath. Hurry now! And then can you get the soup warmed up? The lads need to eat soon.’

  And with that Mrs Florizel went on down the path, dragging a sack along behind her and casting quick nervy looks back over her shoulder.

  Posie exhaled very slowly. She was almost certain that she was out of danger now, and the presence of the two little boys who were tugging at their father’s gown almost sealed it. She could have kissed their wet little faces. When the boys started to run away from the river, up a stony path she had not noticed, Dr Winter and Posie started to follow them.

  ‘Now you see the problem,’ Dr Winter said softly, avoiding Posie’s gaze.

  ‘Is that her?’ Posie asked blandly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Perdita. Your actress. I have to admit there’s a neat symmetry to the whole thing. How did you find her?’

  Dr Winter had narrowed his eyes and looked incredulous.

  ‘How do you know about…? No, never mind, don’t explain; I suppose you have your methods in your line of work. And, no. That isn’t her, thank you very much. If you must know I did resume my search for the woman you speak of; her real name was Gloria Thummings. I couldn’t forget her, obviously.’

  He kicked at a stone on the path almost in anger. ‘But when I got back from France I found Gloria had been dead at least fifteen years. I got concrete proof of it at last. Death certificates, the lot. The woman I had searched for since I was eighteen had been living in a damp flat in Glasgow, just around the corner from my parents’ house, dying of rotting lungs for almost all of the time I had been searching for her. Gloria never worked as an actress again after The Winter’s Tale, and she never read the newspapers, still less the theatrical notices. So she never knew I was looking for her. It was all so damned ironic. I could have helped her; saved her, probably. Even towards the end. It was all a total waste of time. A tragedy for her, though.’

  Privately Posie wondered whether if Dr Winter had found Gloria Thummings with her rotting lungs he would have given her the time of day, let alone the benefits of his care and love. Gloria would have been much changed by her illness and Dr Winter was obviously a man who wanted physical perfection in a woman. Dr Winter was a fantas
ist, and not a particularly nice one at that. He had been living off a fantasy for years, and poor Gloria wouldn’t have held up under the scrutiny.

  Dr Winter glanced quickly up at his sons. They were running ahead over hard wet ground, throwing sticks and stones at each other as little boys like to do. Posie was sure that Dr Winter was a good father, but she was mindful of the gun which even now was lying concealed in the folds of his gown, and she was mindful too of how precariously her life had hung in the balance only ten minutes previously, and how it might still not be guaranteed. It was only a short walk to the school gates and then she would be properly safe and free of this monster; she just had to hold her tongue in the meantime and not rub the man up the wrong way.

  ‘Who is this lady, then, sir?’ This lady who thinks she is your wife. More fool her.

  ‘I met Valerie, the twins’ mother, when I came here. She was interviewing for the Matron’s job at the school at the same time as I was interviewing as a teacher. She works as the Matron here and we live here in the Schoolhouse with our two sons. It’s all been most convenient.’

  ‘Yes. I can see that.’

  So, it was clear that Dr Winter was worried that his past would break through into his new life, for it was obvious that Valerie Florizel had no idea she was married to a man who didn’t really exist and who, more importantly, was already married.