JT02 - To The Grave
Page 20
“Danny’s regiment,” Jonathan said.
Tayte gave another nod. “When I read the name of the person who’d set the website up, I had no doubt that I was looking in the right place. It was created by a man called Mel Winkelman. He was mentioned in a letter Joan showed me a couple of days ago. By all accounts, he and Danny were best buddies during the war. Mel died several years ago, but his grandson keeps the site running.”
“And Mel didn’t think Danny went missing-in-action?”
“No,” Tayte said. “And he had a very good argument. You see, in November 1944, when Danny was listed missing, Paris was in allied hands - had been since the liberation in late August. Mel was with Danny and a few others from their company while they were there on leave. Apparently, it was the party capital of Europe at the time - a safe haven for battle-weary troops to get some well earned R&R.”
“So the ‘action’ part of missing-in-action is somewhat at odds?” Jonathan said.
“Entirely. Mel says their unit went wild on the streets of Paris and generally made a bad account of themselves as far as the locals were concerned. After going through plenty of booze and French girls, the latter of which Mel was quick to report that Danny did not indulge in on account of his sweetheart, they split up for one reason or another. That was the last time Mel saw him, during or after the war.”
“So why is Danny listed as MIA?”
Tayte tried his coffee again and this time he held on to it. “Mel goes some way to explaining that,” he said. “Apparently, Danny was down as AWOL for a time, but Mel thought there must have been some mix up, or that someone was covering for him. He was concerned that Danny never said anything to him about going AWOL, and knowing him the way he did, he was certain that his friend wasn’t the kind of soldier to walk out on a fight and leave his unit behind.”
“Did he ever challenge Danny’s status?” Jonathan asked.
“He did, but he goes on to say that no one in authority was ever keen to open an enquiry.”
Tayte reached into his briefcase and pulled out several photographic printouts that he’d made at the hotel before he left. He passed them across the table to Jonathan.
“Mel spent years after the war gathering all kinds of information himself - conducting his own enquiry. He even went back to Paris on a number of occasions, talking to people, trying to retrace his and Danny’s footsteps.”
Jonathan was studying one of the monochrome printouts. “Gay Paree, indeed.”
Tayte went over and sat beside him so he could see the images. “That’s Danny there,” he said, indicating a blonde-haired GI sitting at a table outside a café with several other soldiers. Everyone was laughing and drinking with a girl between each of them. “Someone in Danny’s unit took that photo,” Tayte added. “The rest of the pictures were taken by other soldiers in the area at the time. Mel said he’d found out who got passes to Paris that same week. Of those who survived the war, he’s contacted most over the years and that’s how he managed to gather all these pictures together. “There’s a full-face portrait of Danny in there somewhere.”
Jonathan flicked through them and found it. “Good looking boy,” he said. “I’m not surprised Mena fell for him.”
“That sharp dress-uniform must have helped, too,” Tayte said.
Jonathan went through the rest of the images while Tayte looked on. They were happy scenes of people caught in the moment as if they hadn’t a care in the world: a bottle of champagne being shaken over a crowd in celebration of just being alive - the cost of that bottle meaning so little at a time when the man holding it couldn’t know whether he would live long enough to spend his pay. There was another soldier engaged in a kiss like he knew it might be his last, held for all eternity by the click of a camera shutter.
Tayte stood up and went back to his briefcase. “There’s another image I want to show you,” he said, and he was smiling to himself as he brought it out. It was attached by a paper clip to the morning newspaper he’d picked up in the hotel lobby on his way out. It was the main reason for his excitement. He handed the image to Jonathan, keeping the newspaper back for now. It showed a smaller group in the corner of a smoke-filled bar: two soldiers having a drink together, one with white-blonde hair who was clearly Danny. The other could have been just about anyone. Only Tayte knew now that it wasn’t just anyone.
He let Jonathan study the image for a while to see if he could recognise the other man. When he didn’t, he held the newspaper up in front of him and let it fall open on the front page. “He’s with Edward Buckley,” he said.
Jonathan looked at the newspaper and back at the image. “My goodness, I think you’re right.”
Tayte had no doubt. The photograph of Edward and Mary, which Jonathan had previously shown him, was small and less memorable, but the newspaper headline of ‘Slain war hero!’ and the full-page image of Captain Edward Buckley of the British 1st Airborne Division, made the comparison clear.
“So…” Jonathan said. “Edward Buckley was in Paris at the same time as Danny.”
Tayte nodded. “And it could be more than just a coincidence. Mel had singled this photo out. It was the last picture he’d found of Danny before he went missing.”
“Do you think Edward has something to do with Danny’s disappearance?”
Tayte sat down again. “I don’t know,’ he said. “I really don’t. Maybe he helped him go AWOL - helped him get back to Mena. Joan Cartwright told me there was a rumour going around that Edward had helped Mena leave home. Maybe he hooked the pair of them up.”
“Maybe it has something to do with why Edward Buckley was murdered yesterday,” Jonathan said, glancing at the newspaper again.
“Yes, maybe it has,” Tayte said.
He’d been thinking about the connection since putting Edward and Danny together in that scene, but he hadn’t really drawn any conclusions. Being with Danny at or around the time he went missing from his unit offered him no reason as to why anyone would want to kill Buckley. And why now, over seventy years later? Tayte didn’t know. He thought there might be something to it, but he knew he didn’t have enough information to take it anywhere, so he planned to focus on finding Mena now. As he figured he’d seen everyone he was going to see, he hoped Jonathan had something good for him.
Jonathan stood up. “Now, what about this tin I’ve found,” he said as if reading Tayte’s mind. “It’s in my study if you’d like to follow me.”
Parked in the lane outside the Lasseter house, screened by a tangle of brambles and low hawthorn branches, a dark green Land Rover Defender shook into life. It had been there since sunrise and the driver had been forced to start the engine from time to time to keep out the cold. He left it running and got out of the vehicle, dry leaves crackling beneath his shoes as he picked his way deeper into the verge, pushing the prickly foliage aside to get a clear view of the house.
When he found one, he removed the glasses that were pinched to the bridge of his nose and lifted a high-magnification riflescope to one eye. He used the limb of a branch to steady it, breath lingering like freezing fog around him as he scoped the house and the cars on the drive. There were two cars, but he was only interested in the silver Vauxhall that hadn’t been there when he’d first arrived. He made a mental note of the registration and continued to study the house and the windows, looking for activity until the cold began to make the lens shake in his hands.
He went back to the car where he would wait. With Buckley taken care of he’d planned on paying Joan Cartwright a visit today, but he deemed that no longer necessary - just as it was now no longer necessary to visit with Jonathan and his wife. Anything they knew about Mena Lasseter was surely now known to the American.
Two birds with one bullet.
He knew Tayte would show up at the Lasseter house eventually, but that he had come to him so soon had been an unexpected bonus. It would save time and that was all-important to him. But he didn’t want to be hasty. The American was going to find Men
a for him. All he had to do now was to watch and be patient.
The tin box Jonathan had found in the attic was sitting on an old pine desk by a window that looked out onto bare fields, stripped and cold in the pale winter sunlight. Jonathan went straight to it and Tayte followed him, eyeing all the old medical books that were lined up on shelves around the room.
“Most of them belonged to my grandfather,” Jonathan said, noting Tayte’s interest. He picked the tin box up and handed it to Tayte. “And I suspect that this belonged to my grandmother, Margaret.”
Tayte studied it, turning it in his hands. It was an old cash tin. He’d seen plenty just like it before. It was black and gold with a red line around the lid and there was a gold-coloured handle on top. He could see where Jonathan had attacked it, scarring the paint and twisting the metal. The hinges squealed as he opened it and inside he found a small stack of papers. Old family papers always put a smile on Tayte’s face and this was no exception.
“I’ve been through them,” Jonathan said. “I think you’ll be particularly interested in the top two.”
Tayte lifted them out and put the tin back onto the desk. The papers were pink and thin and as he unfolded the first he saw that the writing had faded to the point of being barely legible in places. The printed detail on what was clearly a carbon copy was much clearer.
“Trinity House,” Tayte read aloud. “The Sisters of Enlightened Providence. Catholic home for unmarried mothers.” He looked at Jonathan. “It’s a consent form to a mother-and-baby home.” He scanned the faded handwritten detail and could just make out the name, ‘Philomena Lasseter’. It was dated December 1944, confirming his earlier idea that Mena had run away from home at the end of that year in an attempt to keep her baby. But Tayte knew she hadn’t kept it and he thought maybe the contents of this tin box would confirm why.
“Look at the other form,” Jonathan said, pre-empting his next move.
Tayte unfolded it, expecting to find it identical in every respect apart from the date. They were both consent forms to the same mother-and-baby home and both were signed by Margaret Lasseter, this one dated early February 1945. But there was one other significant difference.
“Mena Fitch,” Tayte said under his breath, recalling the name on his client’s original birth certificate.
The form had answered the question of why Mena was recorded under her mother’s maiden name and he supposed that Margaret Lasseter had registered her under this alias to disassociate her daughter from the family and the shame she felt her condition had caused.
“So Mena came home again,” Jonathan said. “How come Dad never knew about it? He was back from the war a few months later. Even if he hadn’t heard directly, surely Granddad Pop would have told him where she was.”
Tayte thought about that. It seemed probable that whatever plans Mena had when she left home didn’t turn out how she’d hoped they would. Or maybe she had been found and brought back against her will. He thought about Mena’s visit with Joan, when she’d taken her letters and her pendant to her for safekeeping, perhaps knowing that they would be confiscated either by her mother or the Sisters of Enlightened Providence. It was in late January, Joan had said. Mena clearly meant to return for them, but she had not - or she had been unable to. He began to wonder how long Mena might have been detained at Trinity House. He picked up the tin again and began to scratch through the contents looking for similar forms.
“Was there anything else from this place?” he asked.
“Not that I could see,” Jonathan said.
Tayte kept looking. “Many of these mother-and-baby homes were little more than sweatshops,” he said. “A throwback from the Victorian era.” He found a receipt for something and quickly dismissed it. “In many cases you could only get out again if a member of your family came to claim you.” He looked up from the tin and eyed Jonathan seriously. “Right now,” he added, “I’m guessing that as your father didn’t know what became of Mena, and as your grandfather doesn’t appear to have mentioned anything to him either, I suspect that your grandmother, Margaret, was the only person in the family who knew Mena was there.”
Tayte reached the bottom of the tin and a chilling thought gripped him. He hadn’t looked into Mena’s wider family. This assignment had so far been all about finding Mena - making the connection. Charting the family tree was something for later if his client wished it.
“When did Margaret die?” he said.
Jonathan scratched his chin. “Now let me think,” he said. “I remember Dad telling me she died before I was born - that was in 1950. I only knew Granddad Pop and I was about five or six when he died.” He scratched at his chin some more. “Now wait a minute. I know this one,” he added, like he was in the middle of a quiz game. Several seconds later, he said, “George Orwell!”
“What, 1984?” Tayte said, confused.
“No, when the book was published. That was in 1948. Dad was a big Orwell fan. He was always filling my head with things like that.”
“Are you sure?” Tayte said. “Or should I get my laptop out?’
“No, I’m positive. Margaret died in 1948. Just don’t ask me what she died of.”
“Three years after Mena went into the home,” Tayte mused. “It’s not long after, is it?”
“What are you thinking?”
“Right now I’m thinking the worst,” Tayte said. “But I hope I’m wrong. If Mena was still with the Sisters of Enlightened Providence when her mother died, who else was there to go and claim her if no one else knew she was there? Under a partly false name she would have become lost in the system.”
“I see,” Jonathan said. “So she could have been there for a very long time?”
Tayte gave him a slow nod. “There, or she could have been transferred someplace else. There were numerous institutions like this around at the time - many of which still operated to the Victorian moral standards in which they were established.”
“Well let’s hope Margaret collected her before she died,” Jonathan said. “Although, wouldn’t Mena have come home if she had?”
Tayte had been thinking the same thing but he’d concluded that they couldn’t know what Mena might do or where she would go. He thought that after being forced to give up her baby, maybe she didn’t want to go home.
“I was planning on visiting the local record office today,” he said. “I might get some more answers there and these consent forms should give me a head-start. Maybe you’d like to come along?”
“I’d love to,” Jonathan said. “I’ve nothing planned for today. That’s if you’re sure I won’t be in the way.”
Tayte smiled. “Believe me,” he said. “I need all the help I can get and I might have some more questions for you yet.” He flicked a hand at the consent forms he was still holding. “I’d like to go and check out Trinity House first, though,” he added. “It’s probably the quickest way to find out if it’s still there and I like to visit locations to get a sense of place whenever I can.”
Jonathan leaned in and read the address. “It’s just north of the city,” he said. “Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.”
“Great,” Tayte said. “See, you’re helping already.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
It took little time to discover that Trinity House was no longer at the address printed on the old consent forms. It was evident as soon as Tayte turned the car onto the road it once stood on that the whole area had been redeveloped into what was now a sprawling housing estate to accommodate city expansion and the inevitable growth of Leicester’s population. The home for unmarried mothers that had once stood in the middle of it all was now a shopping arcade, which according to the plaque set above the main entrance, had originally been built in 1959 and it had since been expanded and modernised. That information set Tayte wondering what had happened to all the girls who were interned at Trinity House when it closed. As he turned the car around and headed back towards Leicester, he hoped he would soon find out.
Tayte parked in the visitor car park, collected his briefcase from the back seat and he and Jonathan strolled the short distance to the record office entrance. He thought it looked like a converted schoolhouse that had been extended over the years into the complex it now was. It had sections of tall, white-painted windows set into the red brick walls, behind which he could easily imagine school assembly and gym classes taking place.
As they drew closer, Tayte felt his pulse rise. He knew that adoption agencies and homes like Trinity House were originally only required to keep records for twenty-five years - a requirement that was extended to between seventy-five and a hundred years from the 1970s - but on so many occasions he’d found exceptions to the rules. That was what he liked about local record offices: you never really knew what you might find until you started looking.
Inside, Tayte handed over his briefcase in exchange for a numbered locker key and they had to register before they were allowed access to the archives. They were directed to a high-ceilinged room that had document boxes stacked on shelves around the perimeter, and in the middle of the room they passed a line of chairs at a long table loaded with microform readers. At the end of the table they came to an annexed reading room where a few visitors were sitting hunched over documents. To their left, a middle-aged woman sitting behind an L-shaped desk smiled and greeted them as they approached.”
“Hello. How can I help?”
Tayte returned the woman’s smile. “I’m looking for information about a local mother-and-baby home that operated in the 1940s. I know it’s a long shot but do you keep anything here from that time?”