A Long Time Dead

by Sally Spencer

  ‘I … I wish I was dead,’ she told him.

  ‘There’s no point in talkin’ like that,’ Woodend said, holding out his hand to her. ‘Get up, an’ we’ll go an’ see if we can scrounge a cup of tea from the Women’s Voluntary Service.’

  The two women manning the WVS trolley were only too pleased to provide them with cups of the dark tepid liquid which had passed for tea since rationing had been introduced.

  ‘Now what’s this all about?’ Woodend asked Mary Parkinson, once they had taken their cups into a quiet corner. ‘What are you doin’ on this station at this time of night anyway?’

  ‘I was waiting for a train.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘To wherever it was going. But I’ve changed my mind about that now. There’s absolutely no point in running away when the thing you’re running from is yourself.’

  ‘What have you done?’ Woodend asked, with growing alarm.

  ‘What have I done? I’ve let myself down! And even worse – I’ve let Robert down!’

  ‘You want to tell me about it?’

  ‘I’m too ashamed to.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell somebody eventually,’ Woodend coaxed, ‘an’ since I’ll be gone from here in an hour or so, you might as well tell me.’

  Mary nodded, seeing the sense of the argument. ‘Robert has been away in London for over a week,’ she began.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘A couple of days after he left, Dougie Coutes came to see me. He said he had something very important to talk to me about, and why didn’t we go out for a drink? So we went to the Dun Cow.’

  ‘Go on,’ Woodend said.

  Mary swallowed a sob. ‘Dougie said he’d known lots of Americans like Robert. Dozens of them! He said they come over to England for the first time, fall in love with the country, and convince themselves they’ve fallen in love with an English girl, as well.’

  The bastard! Woodend thought.

  ‘You didn’t believe a word of what he said, though, did you?’ he asked.

  ‘Not at first, no. Or, at least, not entirely. I told Dougie that my Robert wasn’t like that. He never have said he loved me if there’d been any doubt in his mind about it.’

  ‘Quite right, too.’

  ‘But you see, I’d been worried about Robert – about us – for quite some time before I even spoke to Dougie.’

  ‘Why, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I couldn’t really understand what he ever saw in me. His family’s very rich, you know, and my dad’s nothing but a simple Devon farmer Robert is such a handsome man—’

  ‘Only when viewed through the eyes of love,’ Woodend interrupted.

  ‘—and I’m such a Plain Jane,’ Mary continued, ignoring his comment. ‘Dougie suddenly started to look very uncomfortable. He said he’d been trying to break things to me as gently as he could, but since I wouldn’t take the hint, he had no choice but to tell me the plain unvarnished truth.’

  ‘What plain unvarnished truth?’

  ‘That Robert was engaged to a beautiful young lady back in America. And … and that she’d come over to London to see him. I didn’t want to believe him, but it … it all made sense.’

  Aye, it would, Woodend thought. Coutes could be a convincing talker when he wanted to be.

  ‘Dougie drove me home,’ Mary continued. ‘My parents have to get up early in the morning, so they’d already gone to bed. We – Dougie and me – went into the front parlour. And that’s … that’s when it happened.’

  ‘When what happened?’ Woodend asked, though he already knew the answer.

  ‘The … the physical thing.’

  ‘He raped you!’

  Mary shook her head. ‘No. He made the first move, but I didn’t put up any resistance.’

  ‘But if he’d got you drunk—’

  ‘I wasn’t drunk, Charlie. I’d been drinking in the Dun Cow, but I wasn’t drunk.’

  ‘Then how …?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. I think I’d probably decided that there was no point in saving my virginity if there was no one I wanted to save it for. If I couldn’t have Robert, I might as well have anybody. It sounds mad, doesn’t it? But it didn’t at the time.’

  Coutes hadn’t been driven by love to do what he did, Woodend thought.

  He’d hadn’t even been driven by lust!

  Mary had been nothing but a challenge from the very beginning – and how much more of a challenge she’d become once she had fallen for Kineally.

  ‘Robert phoned the very next morning,’ Mary sobbed, ‘and the moment I heard his voice, I knew that Dougie had been lying to me.’

  ‘Did you tell him what had happened?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You do know you’ll have to tell him when he gets back to Haverton, don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t! I just can’t.’

  ‘You must.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll forgive me if I do?’

  Would he? Woodend asked himself. It was true that Coutes had tricked her into bed, but shouldn’t Mary have had enough faith in Robert for the trick not to work?

  ‘I don’t know if he’ll forgive you,’ Woodend admitted. ‘I think he will. But even if he doesn’t, you still have to tell him. He has a right to know.’

  ‘I suppose he does,’ Mary said gloomily. ‘I know he does.’

  From somewhere in the dark night, a steam whistle shrieked like a banshee. The train, against the odds, was very nearly on time.

  The sailors and soldiers gathered up their kitbags. The land girls stood up – shakily, so it must have been wine they were drinking after all. The civil servants ceased to debate. And the woman with the children placed a protective hand on each of the kid’s shoulders, just in case they should feel the urge to rush towards the metal monster which was about to arrive.

  ‘Your train’s here,’ Mary Parkinson said, dully.

  ‘Aye, it is,’ Woodend agreed.

  The train steamed into the station, its wheels screaming as the brakes were applied, its boiler hissing furiously at this interruption of its purpose.

  ‘You’d better get on board then,’ Mary said, when the loco-motive had finally juddered to a halt.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I better had.’

  ‘After all,’ Mary said, laughing unconvincingly, ‘you don’t want to have to face a court martial, do you, Charlie?’

  ‘No, I certainly don’t want that,’ Woodend agreed, his laugh as hollow as Mary’s had been.

  He began to walk towards the locomotive, then stopped and turned around again.

  ‘I’m not so sure I was right,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Every man who’s goin’ into battle needs to know he’s leaving behind a woman who loves him,’ Woodend said. ‘So, for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t tell Robert what happened.’

  ‘And have him go into battle believing a lie?’

  ‘A lie? What lie? You do love him, don’t you?’

  ‘With all my heart. But—’

  ‘Look, you made one mistake – an’ it wasn’t even really your mistake,’ Woodend argued passionately. ‘You’d never have done what you did if that bastard Coutes hadn’t lied to you.’

  ‘It was still my decision,’ Mary said flatly. ‘It was still my lack of faith that caused it all.’

  ‘If Robert’s got to die, at least let him die knowin’ that he’s loved,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ if he manages to come back in one piece, marry him!’

  ‘If he asks me to.’

  ‘He’ll ask you to. Marry him, an’ make him happy for the rest of his life. That’ll more than pay him back for one little slip.’

  ‘You make it sound so simple,’ Mary said.

  ‘It is – if you just decide that’s the way you want it to be.’

  The rest of the passengers had already climbed on the train, and the guard was walking along the platform, slamming the doors.

  ‘You’d better go,’ the girl told him.

&
nbsp; ‘Remember what I said,’ Woodend pleaded. ‘Not what I said earlier – what I said just now. Promise me you’ll not tell him.’

  ‘The train, Charlie. Get on the train,’ Mary said, and he could tell she was crying again.

  ‘I’m not goin’ before you promise me—’ Woodend began.

  ‘We all have to do our duty,’ Mary interrupted him. ‘And yours is to get on that train.’

  She was right. He climbed on to the train, closed the door behind him, and pulled down the window. He’d half-expected that once he’d turned his back on her, she’d have gone, but she was still there, watching him.

  ‘Think about it,’ he urged. ‘Your future is in your own hands. Mary – an’ there’s not many of us can say that at the moment.’

  She nodded, sadly. ‘Goodbye, Charlie,’ she said.

  ‘Not goodbye,’ Woodend countered, trying his best to sound light-hearted. ‘It’s more a case of “so long”, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s goodbye,’ Mary said firmly. ‘I don’t think we will ever meet again.’

  The guard blew his whistle, and the train slowly began to chug out of the station. The girl did not move, and Woodend only lost sight of her when the train track curved away.

  Instructors at police colleges had this annoying teaching trick of stopping training films half-way through, Woodend remembered.

  ‘How many men were there in that scene by the docks?’ they would ask their students. ‘What colour was the car? Was the man in the bowler hat wearing an overcoat or a macintosh?’

  The students would argue among themselves, but eventually agree that there had been four men, the car had been black, and the man in the bowler hat had been wearing an overcoat.

  ‘Are you absolutely – one hundred percent – sure about that?’ their instructors would demand.

  And the students would say that they were.

  The instructors would wind back the film and show that scene again – only to reveal that there were five men, the car was brown, and the man in the bowler hat wasn’t wearing a coat at all.

  ‘How do you account for the discrepancies?’ the instructors would ask, in a slightly hectoring tone.

  And the students would bow their heads and admit in a mumble that they didn’t know.

  ‘You didn’t see what actually happened at all, did you?’ the instructors would ask.

  No, the students would agree, they hadn’t.

  ‘What you saw was what you expected to happen! Or what you wanted to happen! Or what you felt should have happened! That’s what civilians do all the time. But you’re not supposed to be civilians, are you? You’re policemen. You’re supposed to be trained observers!’

  Sitting alone in the interrogation trailer, lighting up yet another Capstan Full Strength, Woodend softly repeated those instructors’ words to himself.

  ‘You’re policemen. You’re supposed to be trained observers.’

  He took a drag on his cigarette, and began to re-wind his own mental film – so that now he was walking backwards along the platform, now turning to Mary, now swallowing the words he had spoken.

  Stop!

  Rerun!

  ‘You do know you’ll have to tell him when he gets back to Haverton, don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t! I just can’t.’

  ‘You must.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll forgive me if I do?’

  ‘I don’t know if he’ll forgive you. I think he will. But even if he doesn’t, you still have to tell him. He has a right to know.’

  No mistake about it then! He was the one who had delivered the words. They were his – and his alone.

  So why had they come as such a surprise to him? How could he have remembered so much about that encounter on the railway station, yet have completely forgotten this crucial part of the conversation?

  He hadn’t forgotten it, of course. If he had, he could never have recalled now with such accuracy.

  What he had actually done, he told himself, was to allow his conscience to keep this part of the exchange between himself and Mary locked away in a shameful – and shaming – room at the back of his mind.

  The interrogation trailer door swung open, and Special Agent Grant – positively glowing with health and vigour after his run around the camp – stepped inside.

  ‘OK then, let’s get back to the job in hand,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Are you ready to begin the next interview, Chief Inspector?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Woodend said.

  ‘No?’ Grant asked quizzically.

  ‘I have to make a phone call,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘Well go right ahead. There’s a phone just by your elbow.’

  ‘It’s not the kind of phone call I make with you here,’ Woodend told him. ‘It’s the kind I have to make in private.’

  Eighteen

  The moment he’d dialled his home telephone number, Woodend felt himself starting to sweat.

  This reaction was not something new to him. He’d been suffering from it ever since the holiday in Spain – ever since the doctors had informed him that Joan had a weak heart.

  There was nothing to be gained by worrying, he told himself. Living with a heart condition was a bit like fighting a war. In battle, you’d catch a bullet – or you wouldn’t. A weak heart would fail – or it would carry on working. You took all the precautions you possibly could, but you knew that, ultimately, the matter was out of your hands. Which meant that fretting over what might happen in the future was worse than pointless – because the fretting only served to sour whatever precious time you actually had left together.

  He knew all that. He had explained it to himself a thousand times. Yet still, as he listened to the ringing tone on the other end of the line – as he unconsciously counted off the seconds – he couldn’t help picturing Joan lying on the floor of their little cottage, already dead.

  And the sweating got worse.

  The ringing tone stopped, and a voice said, ‘Joan Woodend here. Who am I speaking to, please?’

  ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘How are you, love?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Joan told. ‘Why are you calling? You’re not checkin’ up on me, are you, Charlie?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not, love,’ Woodend protested. ‘The doctors told me that with a little care you’d be perfectly all right, an’ I always believe what the doctors’ tell me.’

  ‘Except when it comes to your own boozin’ an’ smokin’,’ his wife said scornfully. ‘So why are you ringin’ me in the middle of a case? You never ring me in the middle of a case.’

  ‘I … er … wanted to consult you about somethin’ to do with the investigation,’ Woodend said awkwardly.

  Joan laughed. ‘Now there’s a novelty. What does this case involve? Bakin’ scones? Or donkey-stonin’ the doorstep?’

  ‘It’s about the War,’ Woodend said. ‘Or rather, how people felt durin’ the War.’

  ‘Go on,’ Joan said.

  ‘Did you ever find yourself attracted to anybody else while I was away fightin’?’

  Another woman might have be thrown by such a question, and lapsed into silence. Joan Woodend wasn’t.

  ‘I’d be lyin’ if I said I hadn’t been attracted to anybody else,’ she replied immediately. ‘I was very lonely without you, an’ there some good-lookin’ lads around. But, I can assure you, Charlie Woodend, it never went any further than just fancyin’ them.’

  ‘I know that. But say it had gone further.’

  ‘Where’s this leadin’, Charlie?’ Joan asked suspiciously.

  ‘I’ve been tryin’ to get inside somebody’s head, an’ I’ve not been havin’ much luck.’

  ‘A woman’s?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You’d better go on, then.’

  ‘Say you had had a bit of a fling with another feller, an’ bitterly regretted it afterwards. Would you have told me about it?’

  ‘That’s not an easy question to answer, Charlie, since no such thing ever did happ
en.’

  ‘I understand that. But just try to put yourself in the place of a woman who it did happen to.’

  This time there was a pause – a long one.

  ‘Not until after the War,’ Joan said finally. ‘I wouldn’t have told you until after the War.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’d have been no point, would there?’

  ‘Wouldn’t there?’

  ‘None at all. I might have felt better in myself for havin’ got the whole thing off my chest, but it certainly wouldn’t have done you much good to be told, now would it?’

  ‘You don’t think that couples should be honest with each other at all times?’

  ‘No! I think couples should be honest with each other whenever possible. But there are occasions when it’s best to keep your trap firmly shut – and that would have been one of them.’

  It was not the answer he would have liked to hear, but he recognized that it was probably the right one.

  ‘Thanks, love, you’ve been a great help,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to get back to work now.’

  ‘An’ so will I, Charlie. Your phone call’s put me right behind with all my chores.’

  ‘Don’t go doin’ too much, now,’ Woodend warned, worriedly.

  Joan laughed. ‘The house doesn’t clean itself, you know.’

  ‘I do know that, but—’

  ‘I said, it doesn’t clean itself,’ Joan repeated.

  ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ Woodend agreed, nodding resignedly. ‘I don’t know exactly how much longer this case will take, love, but—’

  ‘You never do know how long a case will take. But whenever it’s over, I’ll be here.’

  But would she? Woodend asked himself, as he put down the phone.

  Would she?

  For a full five minutes after the phone call, Woodend sat immobile. His eyes – almost unseeing – were fixed on the wall of the trailer. His mind had embarked on a guilty journey into its own dark corners and hidden recesses.

  He might have stayed like that for much longer, had not his body’s craving for nicotine made it necessary for his arm to move, and his eyes to focus. He lit up a Capstan Full Strength, and was not surprised to note that his shaking hand made the match flame dance.

  Ever since he’d arrived back at Haverton Camp, he now realized, there had been a goblin of fear squatting in his brain. And this goblin had been whispering incessantly that it was his advice – however hastily retracted – which had set off the chain of events which had led to Robert Kineally’s death.