“Just a little more,” he said to himself as he brought up another browser screen, thinking to rule out the obvious possibilities before moving on to the more complicated process of getting to see Danielson’s full army record.
He logged into the ancestry website he used for a large part of his everyday research and brought up the page with the heading, ‘U.S. WWII Military Personnel missing-in-action or Lost at Sea, 1941-1946’. He already knew the statistics, reminding himself that of the sixteen million Americans who served during World War II, around four hundred thousand had died. Of those, seventy-nine thousand were unaccounted for and that number had only reduced by six thousand today.
As he typed the details into the search fields, he hoped that Danny wasn’t one of them, but when the results came back he slumped in his chair and sighed. There he was: Danielson, E. He read the rank: Staff Sergeant. Then he confirmed the service number to be sure. There was no question about it. According to the information, the ‘Date of Loss’ told him that Danny had been missing-in-action since November 1944.
Unless he went AWOL for Mena.
He figured it had to be a possibility and missing-in-action didn’t necessarily mean dead. Maybe Danny had engineered his way out of the war to be with Mena. As tiredness crept up on him, Tayte thought back to his earlier notion that Danny had taken Mena back to West Virginia. He thought about her little red suitcase again, considering that if Danny had managed to get back to her before the end of the war, their departure from England might have called for some urgency and that could account for why she had to leave it behind.
He liked that idea, but as he began to drift he knew it couldn’t be that simple. If it was, why had his client been given up for adoption? He made himself get up and get back into bed, thinking that he needed to conduct further research into Danny Danielson and as much as he wanted to go on with it now, he knew he couldn’t stay awake any longer. It would have to wait until morning.
Chapter Thirty-Two
By eleven a.m. the following day, Jefferson Tayte was driving through the English countryside, marvelling at how similar Hampshire looked to Hertfordshire, although it occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t so odd given their proximity to one another. It was all on a different scale from back home where driving from the middle of one state to another could take a day or more. According to the satnav, he was less than ten minutes from his destination: Bramshott House: residence of Edward Buckley.
He’d been awoken by the arrival of his room service breakfast that morning and it was unlike him to sleep so late, but he figured he must have needed it after last night’s research. When he’d tapped his laptop back to life, ready to continue looking into Danny Danielson, he’d had an e-mail pop up on his screen from Buckley. It had simply stated that he was free to see Tayte any time in the morning before noon. No telephone number was given.
The arrival of Buckley’s reply put everything Tayte had planned to do on hold - his Internet research and his breakfast - because an interview with Edward Buckley was something he could not afford to miss. He hoped Buckley might be able to tell him why he and Mary never married, and he could confirm whether he helped Mena to leave home. He also thought he might know something about what became of her afterwards and maybe even where she was now.
“At the next junction, turn right,” satnav lady said and Tayte obeyed, turning off the main road.
It was a pleasant morning he thought as he continued to drive deeper into the countryside. Gone were the clouds that seemed to have followed him since he arrived in England. Now the sky was suddenly blue, the air crisp and cool and the ground drying after yesterday’s rain. He looked up through the windscreen and smiled at it, thinking that the new week had begun on a promising note.
“You have reached your destination,” satnav lady said and instinctively, Tayte stopped.
When he couldn’t see anything obvious through the bare hedgerows to either side of him, he drove on again. The trees soon thickened around him, blocking his view, but after a few hundred metres, he came to a high, red-brick wall and then to a set of open gates that had the name ‘Bramshott House’ spelled out in wrought iron above them. He turned in and followed the pale gravel drive for a few hundred metres more, between towering, leafless oak trees and evergreen yews, until he came in sight of the house. He’d thought Joan Cartwright’s home was impressive, but he had to whistle at this when he saw it.
Bramshott House was a 17th century stone manor house, built on three floors with a clay-tiled roof, mullioned bay windows and numerous high chimney stacks rising from every gable. The grounds appeared neat if not fancy and Tayte thought they had probably seen better days, or perhaps it was just the time of year. There was no obvious parking allocation, so he drove up to what looked like a disused island fountain with pieces of statuary set in various poses around a larger centrepiece.
Tayte turned around it and stopped by the steps that led up to the main entrance porch. He got out of the car and climbed them, briefcase in hand, thinking how quiet it was. Beyond the birds in the distant trees the air was still until he raised the heavy iron knocker and let it fall. It sent a booming echo through the building as it crashed down onto the oak door and Tayte stepped away and looked around, hands behind his back like he’d just broken something.
He waited several seconds but there was no answer. At first he thought he’d arrived too late; he couldn’t see any other cars. Maybe Buckley had gone out earlier than he’d said. But the gates were open. Tayte figured if Buckley had gone out then the gates would probably have been closed. He checked his watch and the glowing red digits told him it was still forty-five minutes before noon. He knocked again and thought the sound was loud enough to get anyone’s attention no matter how big the house was or even whether the occupants were all asleep. He imagined that even if Buckley lived by himself, he would have staff to keep the house going.
So why aren’t they answering?
He tried again and he really threw the hammer down this time; so much so that he heard woodpigeons flapping in the distance. When no answer came again he shook his head and decided to take a look around, thinking that maybe he could get someone’s attention through one of the windows. He also considered that Buckley was an elderly man now. Maybe he was deaf and the staff were on their morning off.
Tayte followed the gravel around to the right of the building and came to a block of stable-like garages. There were no doors. He could clearly see the cars inside and all the bays were full. Turning back to the house he began to peer in through the windows. The rooms were vacant and full of antique furniture and old paintings hanging from the picture rails. A cold breeze hit him as he arrived at the back of the house where he saw an expanse of winter countryside and there was evidence of what must once have been a fine parterre garden. Now, the low box hedging that framed and segmented it stood alone and unkempt.
He went up to the next window and then the next, and just as he stepped away this time, movement caught his eye. He went back to it, dropped his briefcase and cupped his hands over his face to block out the reflection. It looked like a study. There was a desk with a computer screen in the middle and the walls were decorated with bookshelves. He caught the movement he’d seen again and it drew his eye. Someone was kneeling on the floor by the desk, holding out a clenched fist. As Tayte’s eyes adjusted to the light inside the room he saw that it was an elderly man and he supposed it was Edward Buckley. He looked in pain, like he was having a heart attack.
Without thinking, Tayte repeatedly shoved his elbow into the window until the leaded glass shattered and began to break away. When the jagged hole he’d made was big enough for him to reach through, he unlatched and opened the window then pulled himself up into the frame.
“Mr Buckley!” he called, “It’s Jefferson Tayte. Hang in there!”
As he fell through the window and picked himself up again he heard Buckley groan. The man gave a sudden jerk and staggered back into the desk. He fell as Ta
yte ran to him, but Tayte was too late to help him. He knew Buckley was dead the moment he saw his ashen face and the blood that was seeping out across his shirt. This was no heart attack. He’d been shot.
Tayte was aware of a door behind him, directly facing Buckley and the desk. He spun around and saw a woman’s body lying in the half-light beyond. As he went to it he heard a door slam, followed by the now familiar sound of the heavy iron knocker as it rebounded against the front door. He leapt over the body at his feet and ran towards the sound, but as he came out into the entrance hallway he stopped. Another body, a man this time, was lying just inside the front door and Tayte supposed that his killer had shot him dead as soon as he’d answered it.
Tayte went to the door, eyes on the dead body the whole time. He eased it open and peered outside but there was no one to be seen. Looking down at the dead man again - at the blood-filled hole in his forehead - he took out his phone and called the police.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was gone four p.m. by the time Tayte had finished helping the Hampshire Constabulary with their enquiries. Three hours after that, he was back at his hotel in the Tanners Bar, getting better acquainted with Jack Daniels. His story about who he was and what he was doing at Bramshott House that morning had checked out easily enough. Jonathan had been quick to vouch for him when the police had called and Tayte had been able to show Detective Inspector Lundy, who was leading the enquiry, the e-mail exchange he’d had with Edward Buckley, validating his visit. He wasn’t able to give him any idea as to why Edward Buckley had been murdered, but his questions had given Tayte cause to wonder at the killer’s motive himself.
There had been no robbery. Buckley’s murder appeared to be pre-meditated and the staff had clearly been in the way of the killer’s objective. To Tayte, and he imagined to the police, it had looked like a cold-blooded assassination that he just happened to walk in on - albeit too late to prevent it. But then Tayte knew that he would also be dead now if he’d arrived at Bramshott House any sooner.
He picked his drink up off the bar and the pain in his left elbow reminded him that he’d not long since used it to smash through a window. It was just a bruise, he’d been told, but it hurt just the same every time he tried to use it. He swivelled around on the stool and switched hands. Then he took a big slug from the tumbler, rattling the ice, thinking of all the answers that must have died along with Edward Buckley.
He couldn’t help but question the odds of Buckley being murdered on the same morning that he was due to meet him and he wondered if what he was doing in England had somehow helped to bring Buckley’s murder about, in which case he figured they weren’t such great odds at all. He’d been to see several people over the weekend and he’d asked some potentially sensitive questions - stirred up the past. Or maybe he’d simply arrived in the middle of something that was going to happen anyway and that his arrival had just sped things up. He ordered another drink, thinking that it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.
As his drink arrived he heard the theme tune to Anything Goes coming from his pocket - and so it seemed did everyone else in the bar. He took his drink out into the lobby and answered the call, seeing on the display that it was Jonathan. He sounded upbeat about something.
“How are you?” Jonathan said.
If Tayte was honest with himself, he didn’t feel all that great. He’d pinned a lot on being able to talk to Edward Buckley and everything that had happened at the house and afterwards with the police had left him feeling in need of the second drink he was holding.
“I’m fine, I guess,” he said, not wanting to dampen Jonathan’s mood.
“You don’t sound it. How’s the elbow?”
“It’ll mend.”
“Good,” Jonathan said. “Anyway, I’ve found something that should cheer you up. I went into the attic again this afternoon - into crawl-spaces I never knew were there - and I’ve found something I’m sure you’ll be interested in.”
“Go on,” Tayte said. “What is it?”
“A tin box. It was locked and I had to break it open.”
“What was inside?”
“Papers.”
Tayte was smiling now. “What kind of papers?”
Jonathan didn’t answer straight away. When he did he said, “I think it would be better to show you. Can you come over in the morning?”
Tayte checked his watch. It was still early: not yet seven-thirty. “Is it too late to come over now?” He really wanted to see those papers.
“It’s not the hour so much,” Jonathan said. “But we’re just on our way out. Geraldine’s got this thing about Pilates and I said I’d give it a try. She’s been on at me for weeks.”
Tayte didn’t want to wait until morning, but it seemed he had no choice. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll come by in the morning.”
“I expect you could use an early night,” Jonathan said.
Tayte didn’t feel much like sleeping. He still needed to calm down first. “I was going to look into Danny Danielson some more first.”
“What have you discovered?”
Tayte told Jonathan what he knew.
“Missing-in-action?” Jonathan said. “Poor chap.”
“Maybe,” Tayte said, wondering again whether Danny could have gone AWOL for Mena. “He was listed in November, 1944,” he added, and for the first time he considered how close that was to the time Mena left home. “I should be able to tell you more in the morning.”
“Tomorrow then,” Jonathan said. “Come as early as you like.”
When the call ended, Tayte sat back and continued to sip his drink, thinking that he would be at the Lasseter house bright and early to see what was on those papers Jonathan had found.
“Family history starts at home,” he told himself.
It was a reminder to him that it was essential to talk to the family first, and it wasn’t just the information and the memories they could share, but the photographs and the documents that were so often hidden away, waiting to be found. He knew it could save time later on and he hoped it would now.
He considered everything he’d learnt about Mena so far. According to Joan, Mena had said that she’d been raped and Joan was of the impression - garnered from Mena herself - that it was Danny who had raped her. Then Mena had fallen pregnant and as if to confirm things, she was telling everyone that she was carrying Danny’s baby.
But what about the letters?
They clearly conflicted with the idea that Danny could have raped Mena, not least because it was also clear from everything he’d heard and read that Danny and Mena had fallen in love during the summer of 1944. Tayte thought that Mena might not have become pregnant when she was raped, but had later become romantically involved with Danny and had conceived her baby as a result of that relationship. But it was all speculation and it didn’t account for why Joan - until she had read Danny’s letters - believed from Mena herself that it was Danny who had raped her. It all came back to that.
Joan had also suggested, from the gossip that had been circulating in Oadby at the start of 1945, that Edward Buckley had helped Mena to run away and he wondered again why Edward might have done that. He thought it could have something to do with the reason he and Mary never married, but it was just more speculation for now. He thought about Mary then, or Grace, as she had become, who in many ways had run away herself soon after the war. And there was her grandson, Alan Driscoll, who was clearly bitter towards the much wealthier side of the family - towards the Ingrams - because of an earlier family rift.
Tayte sighed as he got up and headed over to the reception desk to order his room service meal, thinking that it was all good background information to have, but he couldn’t see how it was going to help him find Mena. He needed facts and as soon as he’d been to see Jonathan in the morning he was going to explore the archives at the local record office - although as Mena had run away from home he knew she could have gone just about anywhere. The local record office might not hold
any information on her post 1944.
As he arrived at the reception desk he turned his thoughts back to Danny and the further research he wanted to conduct. He didn’t expect to discover much, but he wanted to confirm his earlier findings and he thought that if there was more to Danny’s story then it could take him closer to Mena, too.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Tayte couldn’t stop smiling all the way to the Lasseter house the following morning and it wasn’t because of the sun on his face or the promise of learning more about the documents Jonathan had found. It was because he’d made a discovery of his own and for Tayte there was no better tonic. He arrived around eight-thirty just as Geraldine was leaving for work. Ten minutes later he was in the sitting room with Jonathan, shoes off by the fire with a mug of coffee in his hand. Before he got stuck into Jonathan’s find, he wanted to talk about last night’s research while the details and his excitement about what he’d found were still fresh.
“I wanted to see if I could find out anything more about Danny Danielson before I went to bed last night,” he said. “I’ve had a feeling that there was more to his missing-in-action status in light of everything I’ve heard and it turns out I’m not the only one.”
“Interesting,” Jonathan said, raising an eyebrow.
Tayte sipped his coffee, which was too hot to drink so he set it back down on the table. “I’ve had the notion that Danny might have found his way back to Mena,” he said. “And I figured if he had then he must have generated a few records by now. Anyway, I wanted to see if I could turn anything up.”
“And judging from your much improved tone this morning, I’d say you have,” Jonathan said.
Tayte nodded. “I thought I’d Google Danny first. I got almost seventeen thousand results for his name, but things narrowed down when I added ‘82nd Airborne’ to the search. There were only seven results then and one was for a website about a member of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.”
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