He picked up his tunic, also clean and damp but with the back still unmended, and glanced over. For a bare second his gaze crossed Tanyon’s. Understanding deepened the dark eyes within the deadpan face. Faust whipped aside as if scalded, and didn’t need to look to know Tanyon did the same.
This wasn’t the relationship he’d have chosen. But it was something. It did include a measure of trust. And revenge would still be juicy. He finished dressing without another word and let Tanyon escort him from the guardroom.
In the corridor, though, he paused. “Lavatory first?”
Tanyon looked at him.
He looked back. “I’m not gonna clean it up.”
“Next to the infirmary. Leave the door open.”
He complied but took a good look about while he did his business. As he had suspected, the window wasn’t barred, only fastened with blackout shutters. He didn’t let himself think too much; his elation would show on his face and Tanyon would see it. He just washed his hands and filed the information away. He’d work on a plan later. It would be more entertaining than staring at Carmichael’s back.
Most of Stoner’s crew seemed to be off duty. He glimpsed Pym and Cavanaugh playing billiards in the little room beside Stoner’s office, Whiteside tossing darts and Ellington staring off into space, lips moving. Peckham, Reynolds, and Glover clustered about the radio as the alto singer from Charlie Barnet’s band warbled Good For Nothing Joe. Someone snickered as he and Tanyon passed by.
Alone in the work area, Mrs. Wainwright typed away. All the drapes were drawn and few lamps burned in the ballroom; the one on her desk illuminated only the bottom half of her face, spotlighting a clenched jaw.
In the airy blue sitting room, Stoner and Bruckmann awaited him with the walrus he’d seen earlier. The stout stranger rose from one of the wingback chairs before the desk, watching Faust’s approach with small, dark eyes that didn’t seem to need to blink. The blackout drapes were drawn here, too, and only the desk lamp was lit, leaving the corners dim and secret.
Behind the desk, for once paper-strewn, Stoner rose, as well. He still looked tired, but a gleam of something intense percolated beneath the age lines and papery skin, setting a warning klaxon clanging in Faust’s soul. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t do him any good at all.
He brought his heels together. “Mr. Stoner.”
“Herr Major.” Stoner inclined his head, eyes keen.
No, he hadn’t imagined it. The old warrior had a counterattack underway. Faust sighed, the stitches in his side tugging. He had more than an escape plan to think through.
“This is Chief Inspector Hackney. He is investigating the murders and requests your cooperation. Chief Inspector, this is Major Hans-Joachim Faust.”
Bruckmann, pencil ready, started writing.
“How do you do,” Faust said. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
Hackney cocked his head. “Whatever he just called you, I can’t pronounce it.”
Faust paused. There was a sense of solidity about Hackney, like a force that wouldn’t be budged before it was ready, and although his eyes were closely set, they were clever. “My name is Faust. The important part of what he said translates as major.”
“Major Faust. That I can manage.” Hackney looked openly at the sling. “Hurt bad?”
“No.” Although it hurt like the dickens since his tumble in the ravine.
The sharp brown gaze rose to meet his, a casual movement that didn’t seem random. “Will it bear weight?”
The sensation of solidity strengthened. Chief Inspector Hackney knew what he wanted to learn, would make his own judgments, and wouldn’t be distracted or forced. Faust answered honestly. “I can’t lift the elbow from my side. Whether that’s because it won’t bear the weight of the arm itself, or because of a limited range of motion from the muscle’s injury, I don’t know.”
“I see.” Hackney leaned his head back and looked at Faust for a long considering moment, then laid a hand on the papers atop the desk. “Can you read this map?”
He stepped closer. What he’d taken for papers were actually unrolled topographic maps layered one atop the other. With his left index finger, he traced a contour line until he came to the elevation notation. The line on one side was marked with a higher number, the line on the other side with a lower one. “All right, that’s uphill and downhill. This is a river?”
“The Patch,” Stoner said. “Little more than a stream.”
Likely the chattering one he’d followed his first night in England. “And here’s Margeaux Hall and Woodrow.” He touched their positions. “And this is the forested area, the Dark? Yes, I can read it.”
“Good,” Hackney said, “then show me where you went and what you did on Saturday night.”
“After I landed?” His split lower lip hurt, and he realized he was chewing it. “I’m afraid that’s not as easy as it sounds.”
Stoner leaned over the map and drew a small cross in the upper left quadrant with a red pencil. “Will it help orient you if I say a torn and blood-stained parachute was found approximately here?”
“Yes, it does.” He traced the distance between his landing point and Woodrow, and glanced at the scale reference. “I didn’t get far, did I?”
“Perhaps it’s best to remember you were injured,” Stoner said.
Was that sympathy he heard? Surprised, he glanced up. Stoner’s eyes were grave and without challenge. A truce had been called, it seemed, for the duration of the investigation if not the war. It was a reassuring thought, but still, Bruckmann was taking notes of the conversation.
He turned back to Hackney. “Please understand. I hadn’t slept Friday night and walked all Saturday night. I left my watch in France, I’m not a good judge of time, I’d been thrown from the plane, and I was disoriented. I’d also hit the back of my head and was dizzy. I knew I was bleeding but didn’t know how bad it was. And I may as well mention I was scared out of my wits. I didn’t stop to look for landmarks. I decided to head southeast and didn’t stop moving until I was caught.”
“Which Mr. Stoner says was about dawn?”
“About that.” He bent over the map again.
“So you took all night to travel less than twelve miles?”
There was something in Hackney’s tone, not quite skepticism but nothing near belief, which made him pause. “I just explained the circumstances.”
Hackney didn’t shift. His shrewd gaze, measuring and assessing, made Faust straighten.
“All right,” Hackney finally said. “Why did you decide to head southeast? That’s straight for Margeaux Hall.”
Behind the desk, Stoner froze.
Faust ducked his head, found the line of the forest on the map, and traced it south past the road. The Dark extended off the edge of the paper, leaving unanswered the question of just how far it could take him. “We’re starting to get into my escape plan, which is sort of a military matter.”
Hackney leaned onto the map beside him, his big splayed hand atop the Dark, and treated him to another level stare. “You say you didn’t kill anyone and I’m trying to find ways to corroborate your statement. But you have to meet me halfway.”
He paused. Hackney seemed trustworthy enough. But Stoner listened, impassive, and Bruckmann’s pencil hadn’t paused yet.
“I can’t do anything about them,” Hackney said. “You have to decide.”
Stoner’s keen blue stare didn’t waver. Surely he wanted his granddaughter’s murderer caught, but he wouldn’t jeopardize his duty to assist the process. Hackney was right. Cooperation couldn’t be a half-hearted venture — which meant everyone was still beating him.
“I knew the Thames was somewhere south of me but I didn’t know precisely where. I didn’t think I was physically capable of swimming or fording it and knew I couldn’t talk my way across a guarded bridge in a German uniform. I didn’t want to stumble into a populated area, like downtown Oxford, or into commercial shipping lanes. I didn’t want to head so far north I
wound up in freezing cold water and could see no reason to head west. So my choice of directions was sort of limited.”
Bruckmann’s pencil flew.
“All right, that’s clear.” Hackney touched the red mark Stoner had drawn on the map. “So you went southeast from here?”
“Roughly, yes. This field slopes to the east and southeast, so I went downhill, exited at the far end, fell over this little cliff in the dark, then followed the Patch downstream.” He shifted off his hand and traced the path, from the map’s upper left quadrant angling down to where he and Hackney leaned. “When it curved off to the east here, I continued southeast, but then the moon went behind the clouds and I got lost. I don’t know where I went. At some point, probably around here, I found the Dark and followed it south, because it was better than running headfirst into a farmhouse or something in the blackout. Just after dawn, I came out of the forest about here and Miss Stoner charmed me with her shotgun.”
“When you were lost, did you see any houses?” Hackney asked.
He told the honest truth. “The blasted blackout works. I didn’t even see the ground most of the time.”
“Did you hear any dogs barking? Hear chickens in passing, or cows, or anything of that sort?”
He shook his head. “I never saw or heard the chickens until today.”
“You right handed?”
“Um, yes.”
Hackney picked up the red pencil Stoner had set aside and handed it to him. “Can you trace your path on the map? When you’re not certain, use a dotted line.”
When he’d finished, sketching across the thick paper in awkward left-handed strokes, Hackney swapped it for a green pencil. “Now trace in the line from your escape today and tell me about it, too. Start at the car.”
With his finger, he traced the road from Margeaux Hall back toward Patchley Abbey, his finger traveling slowly past the Dark and pausing on the far side, where the map showed a small cluster of buildings. “This is the chicken farm?”
“Yes,” Stoner said.
On the other side of the road, the field he’d crossed rose and fell in waves, the contour lines closely spaced and rippling toward the southern half of the Dark. He pointed at a spot on the road. “The car stalled out around here.” He told them about taking advantage of Tanyon’s distraction and Norris’ inexperience. With any luck, Stoner would give his sergeant an earful later.
“I jumped over the wall into the chicken farm and threw some pebbles over the birds to make them squawk, then moved to a position opposite the front of the car. When I heard the driver’s door open, I rolled back over the wall and crossed the road ahead of the car while the sergeant got out and ran around the back of it. Then I just went over the other wall, here on the far side of the road. I followed it to about here, then took off across the turnips.”
Something he said hit home with Hackney. The grave, assessing stare melted at the edges into something a few degrees warmer, not trusting but no longer so distant, and that had to be good. Faust told them of his hurried journey through the southern half of the Dark, flipping to the next map in the pile and shoving the top one aside, finally finding and marking the ravine which had sheltered him, much further south than he’d thought he’d been. “And they caught me there.”
Hackney nodded and gathered his maps. “I have three more things to ask of you. Firstly, I need to borrow your boots.”
He blinked. “My boots?”
Hackney didn’t glance up, eyes narrowed at the maps he rolled.
“May I ask why?”
“We found some footprints about the chicken farm.” He fastened the maps with twine. “I need to have plaster casts made of the soles of your boots to figure out which of them is yours.”
He hadn’t gone anywhere near the farmhouse, so this was evidence which could possibly clear him. But he’d need his boots to escape. If he lent them to Hackney, there was no telling when he’d get them back.
“Unless you have something planned, Herr Major,” Stoner said, “you won’t be going outside for a while and the floors are warm enough within.”
He sat down and fumbled with the knots, angry heat in his face. The question was, could he outwit Saint George over there while waiting?
“Appreciate it,” Hackney said. “Secondly, would you be willing to volunteer a blood sample?”
He tugged off his left boot. “Again, may I ask why?”
“The killer left traces of himself.”
“Near the victim?”
“Inside her.”
He froze. Anger glinted within Hackney’s close-set brown eyes and his jaw seemed welded shut. “Oh. And that tells you something?”
“Some years back, the science boys learned a person’s blood type can sometimes be determined from his other bodily fluids. Do you know your blood type?”
He fumbled with the knot on his right boot. “I think it’s O.”
“Positive? Negative?”
“I don’t know.”
“Secretor?”
“I don’t know what that means.” He handed both boots to Hackney.
The detective tugged a brown paper bag from his coat pocket, dropped the boots into it, and rolled the top down. “The sample? It can’t convict you but it might clear you.”
“All right.”
“And lastly, of course, I’ll need to take your fingerprints.”
“All right.”
He had to stoop and twist to keep his right elbow clamped to his side while Hackney rolled his fingers first on an ink pad, then on a white card divided into ten little squares. As each square was filled with swirling inky lines, surprisingly unsmudged, it bared his soul ever more deeply, this time at a coldly scientific level he couldn’t fight. With his fingerprints, and his blood, and his boot prints all filed away, he might never feel comfortable in England again.
When it was over, he straightened and stared at his inky hands. They looked awful, as if he’d leave his fingerprints all over the Hall.
Hackney froze. “No handkerchief?”
“I had one when I arrived, but I lost it somewhere. I haven’t seen it since I was captured.”
“Actually, it was taken from you on Sunday morning.” Stoner rose and handed Faust his own. “It will be returned to you, along with your identification and other belongings, when you leave this establishment.”
The little square of white linen was already smeared. Surprised, Faust glanced up. Stoner’s hands were also blackened at the tips. So were Bruckmann’s and so, he realized for the first time, were Tanyon’s.
“We have to take everyone’s fingerprints,” Hackney said.
“Oh.” His wiping didn’t seem to remove much ink from his fingers, but at least he might not leave visible evidence of himself wherever he went. He sighed, the stitches in his side tugging. At least he wasn’t the only one looking grubby. “I suppose I don’t know much about all this.”
“Point in your favor.” Hackney wasn’t quite smiling, but his lips stretched across his face and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “As the criminals do tend to know these things, often from past experience.”
“Oh.” He returned the no-longer-white linen to Stoner with murmured thanks. “If there’s anything else I can do, please let me know.”
Hackney’s suspicious face didn’t seem capable of beaming, but he at least smiled. “I will.” He turned to Stoner. “What we discussed earlier — ”
“Yes,” Stoner said, his chin lowering.
“ — seems a better idea than ever.”
“I have implemented it.”
“Then I’ll be going.”
Bruckmann set aside his pencil and half rose.
“No, don’t bother, I can find my way to the door and your soldiers can see me off. Gentlemen.” Hackney nodded to Stoner and Bruckmann, then aside to Faust, and left with the rolled maps beneath one arm and the paper bag of boots in his hand.
As the door closed behind him, Stoner sank into his chair, his shoulders drooping
and his head turning aside. Faust waited, but the old man seemed to have forgotten his presence, staring at the photo frame on his desk as if it was the only important item in the room. With Bruckmann’s pencil stilled, silence enveloped the office. It was the silence of the countryside, without all the background city noises of vehicles and people and machinery, and it was so deep and penetrating, it wrapped itself about Faust like a second skin, closer than his uniform, and pressed against him with its weight. He glanced at Bruckmann, immersed in reading his notes, and then at Tanyon, who looked back without a flicker of emotion. The silence made him shift his feet, but intruding on the old man’s grief seemed even uglier.
Finally Stoner sighed. “I’m afraid my heart isn’t in our little game tonight, Herr Major.”
Faust perched on the edge of the wing chair. “I suppose I should be grateful.”
Stoner turned to face him. The motion was slow and creaky, as an old man might move, and his focus seemed distant. Faust plumbed the depths of sorrow in Stoner’s eyes and couldn’t repress his sympathy. If he was being hoisted again, the old man was an actor of the highest caliber.
“And I suppose I should take advantage of your cooperative mood tonight and press the attack home.” Stoner looked down at his inky hands. “But it simply doesn’t seem to matter. My superior shall be quite upset with me.”
“Only if he’s inhuman.” The weight of the silence, or the weight of something else, remained beneath their words, as uncomfortable as ever.
Again Stoner glanced up. This time a bare shadow of mirth glimmered within him. “I assure you.”
“So I’m not the only one with a lousy boss?” Faust could bear that weight no longer. He leaned forward. “I’m sorry about your granddaughter, Mr. Stoner. But I didn’t kill her.”
The old man’s expression focused and hardened, as if his anger had been waiting in the room’s shadowy corners for some such indiscreet words. Faust’s breath caught; despite their bantering, the underlying tension remained, camouflaged by the silence and as tempestuous as ever. He had to keep reminding himself he couldn’t trust this man, no matter how charming he seemed, nor how grieving.
Deal with the Devil Page 23
