“All right, Lilly, thank you,” Lamb said. “Please do show us how to get in.”
“It’s through the back door,” Lilly said.
She led them to a rear corner of the house, which was near an oak tree from which hung an old rubber tire attached to a rope. The ground beneath the swing was barren, from where children had scuffed it while playing on the swing.
“That swing is haunted,” Lilly said. “It’s been there more than twenty years, since the O’Hares lived here.”
“Oh, Lilly,” Vera said.
“Well, that’s what everyone says.”
They stood next to two rotted wooden steps that led onto a narrow wooden porch that ran the length of the rear of the house.
“You go in through there,” Lilly told Lamb, pointing at the door in the rear wall that opened into the hall. “You’ll come to a small mudroom first, then the hall. The first room on the left is where it happened.”
Lamb carefully mounted the steps, which creaked beneath his weight. He tried the door and found that it opened easily, emitting a strident creaking noise that sounded, he couldn’t help but notice, just like the groaning doors in haunted house films.
With Vera and Lilly following him, Lamb stepped into the mudroom carefully and tested the wooden floor, which seemed solid enough. He was aware that Vera and Lilly were following him but decided that there was no harm in that.
He stepped into the musty room in which Claire O’Hare had committed suicide. In the low light, he could not discern much detail. He moved beneath the central beam and looked up at it but saw nothing that would suggest that someone had tied a rope to the beam and swung from it. Then again, twenty years had passed and the light was poor. A general odor of decay was very strong in the room.
“They say she was hanging right in the middle of the room, swinging like a pendulum,” Lilly whispered. She and Vera had squeezed into the room behind Lamb.
Lamb walked a slow circuit of the room but saw nothing interesting. He stopped at the jagged-toothed window, where the light was better. His foot came down on something small and solid. He lifted his foot and saw beneath it a small, dark, human-like figure. He instantly knew what it was—a toy soldier. He squatted and lit a match so that he could see it more clearly. The brief light illuminated a lead figurine of a man Lamb recognized from his youthful history studies as the Prussian Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, arrayed in an ornate uniform of crimson, blue, and gold. He recalled Rivers saying that the set of generals included Hindenburg. He picked up the figure. Its size was identical to that of the Grant he’d found among Albert Clemmons’s belongings and the Napoleon he’d seen on Algernon Tigue’s desk.
“What did you find, Dad?” Vera asked.
“A toy soldier.”
Lilly moved close to Vera. Lamb held up the figure in the light coming through the window.
“Do you recognize this, Lilly?” he asked. “Is there a boy in the village who plays often with toy soldiers or who keeps a collection of them?”
“I should think that they all do,” she said. “But I can’t think of anybody specifically.”
“Do any of the boys in the village come into this house on a regular basis?”
“Not that I know of. Most of the children in Winstead believe this house is haunted.” She hesitated a second, then added, “I don’t, of course. I’m too old to believe that sort of rubbish.”
“Of course,” Lamb said. He smiled at her. “Thank you, Lilly.”
“Is it a clue?” Lilly asked.
“No,” Lamb lied. “I’m merely curious.” He looked toward the door. “Well, I guess we can go now.” When Lilly and Vera turned toward the door, Lamb slipped the figure into his pocket.
He followed them onto the porch. When he looked in the direction of the oak tree he noticed that the tire swing was swaying ever so slightly.
TWENTY-FOUR
HAVING FINISHED THEIR SEARCH OF THE O’HARE HOUSE, LAMB AND Vera made the short drive to the prison camp. There, they stood on the edge of the farmhouse foundation with Harding, Captain Walton, and Wallace, who had just returned from interviewing Oscar Strand, the man who had sold the farm to the government. Lamb nodded brief greetings to each, including Walton, who stood slightly apart from the rest. Lamb had begun to wonder if the slackness he’d noticed in Walton on his first visit to the camp wasn’t purposeful—if the slackness might in some way have served Walton’s purposes, along with, perhaps, those of Taney.
Larkin and the police surgeon, Winston-Sheed, had nearly finished exhuming what amounted to a full skeleton to match the skull that Charlie Kinkaid had found. But in doing so, the forensics man had unearthed yet another conundrum, as Harding promptly informed Lamb: the skeleton appeared to be that of a very young child, perhaps no older than two or three at the outside. However, in digging up this skeleton Larkin had found another child’s remains, just nine inches above the head of the first skeleton. This second child appeared to be older, in the range of five or six. In addition, the first skeleton clearly showed that the child had a clubfoot. Lamb thought of the O’Hare twins. They had been five years old when they had disappeared, though he remembered hearing nothing of either of them having had a clubfoot, nor had Horton’s file contained any mention of either of the O’Hare boys as being clubfooted.
Lamb removed his hat and handed it to Wallace, then moved to the edge of the foundation and eased himself into the burial site. Winston-Sheed rose to meet him and shook his hand. The doctor’s temples were moist with perspiration. He dug into the inner pocket of his jacket, removed his cigarette case, and offered one to Lamb, who accepted, then took one for himself.
“Do we know the sex?” Lamb asked the doctor. He took a pull from his cigarette, which calmed him.
“A boy. The skeleton looks complete and apparently the body was buried naked, as we’ve found no sign of clothing in the grave. The man who found it took off the tip of its left index finger with the point of his shovel—that was the first bone he found. On the following day he grazed the top of the skull. He marked the site for us almost perfectly.”
“Do we know how the first child died?”
“Strangled, probably. The hyoid bone is broken. It wouldn’t have been difficult. Of course there might be other signs of abuse or trauma on the bones. And there’s the clubfoot.”
“What about the other skeleton?”
“Larkin has uncovered the feet and a portion of the legs so far, as you can see. The child was wearing black shoes—boy’s shoes by the look of it—white socks, and tan short trousers. Preliminarily, I’d say that this second child is older than the first by a couple of years.”
“So who is this younger child, then?” Lamb said. He was thinking aloud, more than conversing. He had expected the first skeleton to be that of one of the O’Hare twins and reasoned that the other twin was also probably buried there. Now, Larkin had found two skeletons, but one appeared to be too young to belong to either of the twins.
“Have you found any sign of a third skeleton?” Lamb asked the doctor.
“No.”
“What are you thinking, Tom?” Harding asked from the edge of the foundation.
Lamb said that he was now assuming that the second skeleton could very well be one of the O’Hare boys. The child seemed to be the right age and had been found with black shoes. “The description that Albert Clemmons gave Ned Horton of what he saw the boys wearing on the morning of their disappearance included black shoes, white socks, and tan short trousers for both of them. One of them was wearing a green shirt, while the other was wearing a blue shirt.”
Lamb looked at the larger skeleton—the second one Larkin had found. “If Mr. Larkin uncovers either a blue or green shirt with these remains, then I’d have to say that we’ve found one of the O’Hare boys, and that if we’ve found one, we are likely to find the other. As for the other child, I’m stumped.”
“It’s obvious we have a child killer on our hands here,” Harding said. “I’ve
already put some men to the job of rooting around in the records to see if any children other than the O’Hares have gone missing in this area in the past twenty years. We’ve only two more days to figure it out—and to find out what else, if anything, is buried here. Then it’s back to work on the bloody prison camp.”
“I should think the army could see its way to giving us an extension based on what we’ve found here,” Winston-Sheed said.
“Don’t bet your wages on it, Doctor,” Harding said. “Life is rather cheap these days, in case you hadn’t noticed. As Taney said, they’ve a boatload of Italians due, and they’ve got to put them somewhere.”
Lamb climbed out of the hole and rejoined Harding, Vera, and Wallace. During the time that Lamb had been in the foundation, Captain Walton had returned to his tent. Lamb had not yet had time to bring Harding up to the mark on his interviews with the Tigue brothers. He now told the super about the toy generals he’d found in Clemmons’s campsite, on Algernon Tigue’s desk, and in the O’Hare house. He added that Algernon Tigue had said that Lawrence had given him the Napoleon and had possessed a collection of toy soldiers as a boy.
“But I sensed, too, that the brothers are rivals—or that Algernon sees them in that way, at any rate,” Lamb said. “He also claimed that Lawrence Tigue’s wife has not gone to wait out the war with her sister in Chesterfield, as Lawrence claims, but that his wife has left Lawrence for another man. He seemed pleased by this and spoke of his brother in a way that made it clear that he feels no sympathy for him.”
“What is the meaning of the toy soldiers, then?” Harding asked.
“I don’t know yet. But there are too many damned coincidences—or apparent coincidences—popping up in this little village. I think someone might be using the soldiers to point us in a certain direction, though I’m not certain yet whether that direction is toward or away from the killer.”
Harding looked into the foundation. “The Tigues sound like good suspects in this mess,” he said. He looked at Lamb. “I needn’t tell you that we mustn’t let them slip away.”
“I’ve advised both of them not to leave the area,” Lamb said. “But I have nothing to hold them on yet. They both argue that the children could have been buried in the basement of the house during the ten years when the place lay abandoned, though I tend to believe that the remains are older than that.” Lamb looked again at the second, larger skeleton. “If we can positively identify this boy as one of the O’Hare twins, then we should have enough to at least bring them in and hold them on suspicion of murder.”
Harding frowned. Lamb considered informing the superintendent of his working theory of the possible relationship between Lawrence Tigue and Ruth Aisquith—the theory that explained why Ruth Aisquith had been found carrying around such a large sum of cash. But he decided that he needed more evidence that the theory was correct before he informed Harding, who preferred the delivery of fact to that of theory and guesswork.
Hoping for better news, Lamb turned to Wallace for a report of his interview that morning with Oscar Strand.
Strand originally had bought the land hoping to develop it into a housing estate after the first war, Wallace said. But the Depression, and then the second war, had intervened. Strand had sold the parcel to the government only the previous year. By then, the farm had lain fallow for a decade, since Olivia Tigue had died and her sons had gone their separate ways.
“He sounded as if he was glad to be rid of the place,” Wallace said. “He’d had high hopes for it that never quite blossomed. He rented the farm to Olivia Tigue for ten years and got to know the Tigues pretty well. He said that at the time the Tigues first came to the farm, Olivia Tigue told him that the boys’ father had been killed in Arras. He said that he admired Mrs. Tigue; he described her as a strong, hard-working woman who made a life for herself and her sons on the farm. He’d doubted at first that she would last long as a farmer, but she proved him wrong, and he came to respect her for that.
“He came to the farm once a month to collect the rent; Mrs. Tigue always paid on time. Neither of the boys was allowed to slack off when it came to the farm, especially Lawrence. He described Lawrence as shy and quiet—though a hard worker, like his mother—and Algernon as more open, friendly, and self-confident, even charming. He reckons that Lawrence Tigue had to become the man of the house rather early, given the father’s death, whereas the little brother was free of those responsibilities. Algernon Tigue also was a bit of a whiz at maths, apparently, even then. According to Strand, Algernon went to university, while Lawrence stayed behind on the farm with his mother until she died.”
“What did he have to say about Clemmons?” Harding asked.
“I didn’t tell him that we’d found a suicide note near Clemmons’s body,” Wallace said. “Though I did say that we were considering the possibility that he might have poisoned himself. He described Clemmons as a bit of an oddball and said he wasn’t surprised when it came out that Clemmons was a convicted pervert.”
Lamb silently assessed his situation. The information Wallace had gleaned from Oscar Strand hadn’t been as detailed or as deep as Lamb hoped it might have been. He would have to press the Tigues harder, he decided, and perhaps play one off the other.
He fought off a momentary feeling that events were threatening to swamp him. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to go home to Marjorie and a decent hot meal with a glass of beer, followed by a decent cup of tea. He looked at the western sky, which still was bright and clear. But he decided that he was finished for the day—that he must extract himself from the swirl of events in order to take proper stock of them.
He looked at Vera and said, “Let’s go home.”
At a little past eight o’clock that night, Gerald and Wilhemina Wimberly sat together at the table in the kitchen of the vicarage.
Earlier that day, Gerald had done everything Doris White had demanded of him; doing so had taken all the willpower he could muster, and many times, feeling humiliated by the way in which she’d seized control of him, Gerald had wanted to kill Doris. He had consoled himself with the notion that her control was only temporary, for he had worked his magic on her regardless and she had agreed to his plan. And so, in the end, he counted himself the victor.
He’d told Doris that he’d sent Wilhemina to London, though, of course, he’d done no such thing. The whole time Doris was in the vicarage that day, Wilhemina had been hiding in the attic. All the while, Wilhemina had known what Gerald and Doris were doing in the sitting room, but she had swallowed her humiliation and remained silent, as Gerald had instructed her to do. Gerald had promised that he would take care of the problem and was doing so.
Now Gerald and Wilhemina sat across from each other, as they had countless times during their marriage, the table barren even of a pot of tea. They had become conspirators rather than man and wife, though Wilhemina would have said that their marital union had come undone many years earlier.
Patiently, Gerald outlined for Wilhemina his plan to rid them of Doris White. He had convinced Doris that the two of them, Doris and he, would leave Winstead to begin a new life together. After midnight, he would go to Doris’s cottage, where she would be waiting for him. He would take with him a bottle of port with which he would propose they toast their new freedom—a bottle that he had laced with a heavy dose of rat poison.
A sick feeling threatened to overtake Wilhemina, though she managed to dispel the feeling rather quickly. She had no objections to Gerald doing away with Doris, who was less than worthless to her. Her main concern was that Gerald’s killing of Doris would worsen rather than improve their present situation and cause Lamb and the other police to come after them with yet more vigor.
“I’ve taken care of that,” Gerald assured her. “In any case, we can afford to take no chances with her. She knows too much. Eventually, she will hurt us unless we get rid of her.”
Once the poison had killed Doris, he would compose a suicide note on Doris’s typewriter in whic
h she would confess to shooting Ruth Aisquith with Gerald’s gun, which she had stolen from his study a week earlier. Her motive would be jealousy; the note would contain her confession that she’d secretly been in love with him—Gerald—but had not believed it proper to act on this love. Then, when she’d noticed Ruth Aisquith coming to the church in the mornings, she’d become consumed by the idea that Ruth had romantic designs on Gerald, which she could not abide. And so she had acted in a moment of envy and rage. Afterward, she’d admitted to herself the monstrousness of her act and become remorseful and frightened that she would be caught and face a trial and hanging. Therefore, she had ended her life by swallowing rat poison in a glass of port. The note also would say that Doris had hidden the pistol in a place where no one ever would find it because she wanted to ensure that it could no longer be used for evil purposes.
“Once that’s done, I will come home,” Gerald said. “We will provide each other with alibis. Each of us will say that the other never left the house.”
Wilhemina was not certain that Lamb would buy that scenario. Even so, Gerald was right—with Doris gone, Lamb never would find the pistol, and the only other eyewitness to the events in the cemetery would be out of the way forever. Lamb could entertain all the doubts he wanted, but doubts did not amount to evidence.
“It’s foolproof,” Gerald assured her. He was thinking beyond the deed itself to the new life—the actual one, unfettered by human millstones—that he would begin elsewhere. Initially, he would have to take Wilhemina with him. But he could take care of her in due time. Then he would be free again.
He smiled and touched her hand. “Soon, everything will be back to normal,” he said.
TWENTY-FIVE
LILLY AWAKENED AT A LITTLE AFTER ONE A.M. FEELING RESTLESS.
She lay awake for ten minutes or so, listening to the empty house creak. The night sounds that emanated from the house’s corners and hidden places still upset her, though she had tried her best to harden herself to them. Her mother had tried to pacify her by saying that the sounds merely came from the house “breathing,” which she found ridiculous, the kind of thing an adult would say to a very young child. She found it ironic that her mother had concluded that she was old enough to stay in the house alone through the night yet otherwise treated her as if she still were a little girl.
The Wages of Desire Page 19
