by Pam Weaver
Bert ran towards the oak tree thinking they had probably tied the victim (was it the doc?) to the tree. Maybe this was some sort of a joke. After all, the doc had said he’d just got married. Perhaps they were his mates and they would be coming back for him in the morning, but when Bert walked around the other side of the huge oak, he could see that this was no joke. A man’s body was hanging from a rope swung over a low bough. Bert reached into his pocket and got out a torch. Using a torch would break the rules of the blackout but he had to know who it was. The little beam of light confirmed his worst fears. With a cry of anguish he grabbed the man’s legs and tried to lift him. He managed to take his weight for a minute or two but what good was that? How could he cut the rope? Bert looked around for something to use as a stand for the man’s feet and saw a shape a few yards away. He ran over to it. It was a piece of tree trunk probably used by boy scouts sitting round a camp fire before the war. He rolled it to the body but when he got it directly under the feet, it was far too short.
Bert was sobbing now and he put his hands on the top of his head. ‘Oh my gawd, oh gawd.’ He couldn’t help. He couldn’t do anything. The doc’s body swung gently around and now Bert could see his distorted face. The eyes bulged, his tongue, huge and dark, lolled out of his mouth. He could smell shit and realised that as he was dying the doc had filled his pants. All he had on was his underpants. The man was gone. Common sense told him he’d been gone when Bert ran up to him. He could just make out something white on the ground and he picked it up. It was a pillow case with slits cut into the fabric for eye holes. What the hell …?
Bert lingered for a moment, tears and snot running down his face and his heart pounding in his chest, but then he heard the engine of a jeep coming along the road. As it screeched to a halt, Bert dropped the pillow case and ran like hell. They must have spotted his van in the layby and now they were coming for him.
Even after five years on the job, Bob Barrett still took his job as an Air Raid Precaution warden very seriously. He had joined up in 1939 and taken advantage of all the training on offer. Not that he’d had much opportunity to use it. There had been little bombing in the area, the only real danger coming from the odd bomb jettisoned in a field before the flight home. He had all the equipment too, but again, he’d never had cause to use the gas rattle or the ceiling pike. Bob had made a few enemies along the way. That was because he spent most of his time patrolling Wareham and the surrounding area on his bicycle making sure that everyone adhered to the blackout, and he wasn’t afraid to report any abuse of the rules. As a result, some who had once been his friends had heavy fines imposed upon them for minor breaches.
As he approached the small cul-de-sac at the end of the street, Bob could hardly believe his eyes. The front door of the cottage was wide open, curtains drawn back and light was spilling right up the pathway. Surely this was an open invitation to the Germans to bomb his beloved market town. This was a flagrant breach of the blackout, a definite fine, maybe the risk of imprisonment for the perpetrator. As he hurried towards the front door he was already getting his notepad and pencil from his top pocket.
‘Hey, you in there,’ he shouted authoritatively. ‘ARP. Put that light out.’
There was no response. Bob stepped into the hallway and closed the blackout curtain behind him. ‘ARP,’ he shouted again. ‘You’re showing a light.’
He couldn’t hear a sound. Now he was anxious. He knew the man who owned the cottage sometimes loaned it to friends. Sometimes he came down for the weekend himself. Bob had never met him, but they said he was some high-powered doctor in London. So where was he? Cautiously Bob searched the downstairs rooms. There was evidence that two people had eaten a meal in the kitchen but there was no sign of them. After a moment of hesitation when he’d called out again, Bob made his way upstairs. He found no signs of a disturbance on the landing but when he walked into the bedroom there was a scantily clad girl lying on the floor.
‘Are you all right, Miss?’ His question was a bit lame because from the look of her, she was far from all right. She had an ugly bruise on the side of her face which looked as if someone had hit her very hard. There was blood on the mat beside the bed and although she was still breathing, the girl was out cold. Bob wasted no time in racing downstairs to use the telephone in the hallway to summon help.
Deep in the woods with the body of Doctor Delaney hanging on a tree not thirty yards away, Bert held his breath. As soon as he’d heard the jeep coming back, he’d jumped into a ditch on the other side of a small hedge. Pushing himself under the overhanging foliage he hoped he was well hidden. He heard the men walking around and every now and then he saw the flash of a torch but luckily, although they came very close, they didn’t spot him.
‘He probably didn’t even come this way, boss,’ one man said.
‘He could have come into the wood to take a whizz,’ the other suggested.
‘Or maybe he’s doing some dumb Dora someplace else.’
The Big Man snorted. ‘She’d have to be dumb to lay down for him,’ he said and his two henchmen laughed.
He could hear them moving around. ‘What’s that on the floor?’ one of them said. Bert held his breath and his hand went to his pocket. His torch! He’d dropped his torch. His heart began to pound again. Should he stay still or make a run for it?
‘You dumb bastard,’ said the Big Man. ‘It’s your damned hood. Do you want to be caught? Pick it up.’
Bert heard the sound of a slap and one of the men said, ‘Yes sir, boss; sure, boss,’ in that clipped way all the Yanks addressed their commanders.
As they all walked away, a wave of relief flooded over him. They’d found the pillow case, that was all. Bert listened for them to start the engine and even though he heard the jeep drive off, he waited for some time before moving. He wanted to make sure that one of them wasn’t hanging around to jump out from behind a tree to grab him. Wet from the ditch and emotional about the doc, he finally reached his car to find they had slashed all four tyres and the rest of his nylons were scattered to the four winds. There was nothing else for it but to walk back to Wareham.
Thirty-Six
Inspector Gerry Collins flicked through the pages of his file. What a night! The whole scenario had begun when the air raid warden, Bob Barrett, had found an unconscious girl in the cottage. The door was wide open and the light was showing all the way down the driveway so Bob had gone inside, calling as he went, and eventually found her on the bedroom floor. It had been a bit of a shock. He’d phoned for help then run up the road to fetch Collins. She’d been attacked and was out cold, so he’d said. Collins threw on his clothes and ran all the way to the cottage. By now all the calling out and running about had attracted other people from their beds. Some were dressed, others wore dressing gowns. Together, they made the girl as comfortable as possible until St John Ambulance arrived. When they’d gone, Collins spent a little while looking around the cottage. There was a US uniform neatly folded on the chair behind the bedroom door but no sign of the owner. Her things were on the dressing table chair. Downstairs there were signs that two people had shared a meal and he found a posy of flowers in the sink but he couldn’t find a suitcase. What were they doing there? It was obvious that they hadn’t been there long but were they there legitimately or had they broken in? The cottage belonged to a London doctor who had inherited it from his mother when she died. That much he knew, but the identity of the girl and the whereabouts of the man whose uniform was on the chair remained a mystery.
Puzzled, he’d returned to the police house to find a message on the pad. His wife had taken down the details and then gone back to bed. Nobby Clark, the landlord of the Duke of Wellington, had telephoned to say that a travelling salesman had gone into the woods for a pee and found a body hanging from a tree. Collins went down there straight away. He found it easily, only a hundred yards or so from the road; an African dressed only in his underpants. The question was, how had he got up there? There was a log which he�
�d probably used to stand on, but why was he half naked? Was he connected with the girl in the cottage? From the moment he saw him, Inspector Collins knew this was going to be a long night.
*
In the morning, the hospital told him the girl in the cottage still hadn’t come round and so although he hadn’t been able to talk to her, he took the opportunity to take a look at her. A pretty girl; young, probably twenty or twenty-one, and wearing a bright gold wedding band. When she was found she was only wearing her petticoat so his greatest fear was that whoever had done this had attacked her in more ways than one. He still hadn’t properly connected her with the man in the woods until he went to the pub and asked Nobby Clark about the phone call.
‘Oh, that was Bert Harper,’ he said. ‘He was the fella who found the body in the woods.’
‘And he’s still here?’
‘He’s gone to the garage,’ said Nobby. ‘Somebody slashed his car tyres and they’re fixing it up for him. Who was he then? The body. I hope it wasn’t the black man we had in here yesterday.’
‘Well, he did look African.’
Nobby shook his head sadly. ‘If it’s the same bloke, he’d only just got married.’ The landlord frowned. ‘So what do you think happened? Knocked her about a bit and then went out and hung himself?’
Collins shook his head. ‘There were signs of a struggle,’ he said grimly.
‘The blighters,’ Nobby muttered.
Collins frowned. ‘Why do you say that?’
Nobby was wiping the bar with a tea towel that had seen better days. ‘We had a little reception for them,’ he went on. ‘Her mum and dad and her sister were here. At least that’s who I think it was. They were going to go straight back home but then the flap started and all trains were cancelled. Any road, there were some of them white Yanks in the bar. Trouble makers. I heard them ranting on about a black guy marrying a white girl. “That’s enough of that,” I says. “You leave them alone. It’s none of your business.”’
Collins raised an eye brow. ‘What happened then?’
Nobby shrugged. ‘They up and left.’
‘You say her family was here,’ said Collins. ‘What happened to them?’
‘They had their breakfast and left for the station,’ Nobby said. He glanced up at the clock. ‘About ten minutes ago.’
Later that afternoon, Frankie opened one eye. She felt dizzy and disorientated. Her stomach felt queasy. She closed her eye then tried again. She was in a small room. If the door would stop moving from side to side she might be able to work out where she was. Her jaw hurt, her mouth felt funny and her chin was all tingly. She made an involuntary sound and Aunt Bet’s face appeared in front of her.
‘Hello, lovey,’ she said. ‘So you’ve woken up at last.’
There was a movement on the other side of the bed and she saw Uncle Lorry getting to his feet. He patted her arm and then said emotionally, ‘I’ll get the nurse.’
Frankie tried to lift her arm but it seemed to be attached to something.
‘Lie still, lovey,’ said Aunt Bet. ‘You’ve got a drip in your arm.’
Frankie stared at her in bewilderment. A nurse bustled into the room. ‘Ah, you’ve come round,’ she said, taking Frankie’s wrist in her hand and looking at the fob watch on the top of her apron. Uncle Lorry came back into the room and sat again.
‘You gave us all a nasty shock,’ the nurse went on. ‘We were a bit worried that you might have broken your jaw but the X-rays tell us you’ve just been badly bruised.’
Frankie tried to make sense of what she was saying. How did she almost break her jaw? She didn’t remember doing that.
Pulling out the retractable back rest, the nurse helped her to sit up a bit and then offered her some water. Never had water tasted so wonderful, but Frankie could only manage a few sips before she sank back onto the pillows. ‘What happened?’ she whispered.
The nurse wrote something on the chart at the end of her bed then looked up at Aunt Bet. ‘I’ll leave you to explain that, shall I?’ she said. ‘Try not to upset her too much.’
Aunt Bet glanced at Uncle Lorry helplessly.
‘Why are you both here?’ Frankie said as the nurse left the room.
‘We were just about to catch the train,’ said Uncle Lorry, ‘when a policeman came and told us you’d been hurt.’
‘We came straight here,’ Aunt Bet went on.
‘But Barbara went on home,’ said Uncle Lorry. ‘She had to be back at work but we’ll let her know how you are.’
‘Somebody attacked you,’ said Aunt Bet, tight-lipped.
Frankie’s mind struggled to comprehend, then all at once her heart constricted. ‘Oh Aunt Bet … Romare …’ she whispered as it all came tumbling back.
‘Don’t even say that man’s name,’ Aunt Bet said savagely. ‘He had us all fooled.’
Frankie frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘How could he have done this to you?’ Aunt Bet was on the verge of tears.
Frankie shook her head making it spin again. ‘It wasn’t him,’ she said. She was beginning to feel a tightness in her chest.
But Aunt Bet wasn’t listening. ‘They found him in the woods,’ she said squeezing the end of her nose with her handkerchief. ‘And after what he did, I can’t say I’m sorry.’
Frankie’s eyes grew wide and she tried to get up. ‘Is he here? Is he all right?’
‘Hang on a minute, Bet,’ said Uncle Lorry getting to his feet. ‘It might not be what you think.’
‘Is he badly hurt?’ Frankie repeated desperately.
‘He’s dead,’ Aunt Bet said coldly. ‘Hung himself, didn’t he.’
‘Shut up, Bet! Stop jumping to conclusions, will you!’
‘Don’t you speak to me like that,’ she began but then Frankie began a terrible howl that went on and on and filled the room. Aunt Bet clasped her handkerchief to her chest, her mouth open in shocked surprise. Uncle Lorry leaned over and stroked Frankie’s hair murmuring, ‘It’s all right, lass. It’s all right.’
Seconds later they heard the sound of running feet as the nursing staff came back into the room to see why Frankie was still screaming.
Back in his office, Inspector Collins tapped the end of his pencil on his desk. There were so many things about this case that didn’t add up.
Why would a man on his honeymoon night take himself off in just his underpants and hang himself in the woods? It was an absolute nonsense and yet that’s what the Yanks were making out had happened. One look at the fellow’s bare feet told him an entirely different story. His soles were pink and unmarked but the tops of his feet were deeply scratched and had bled. No, as far as Collins was concerned, the man had been dragged to the woods. And another thing; did they think he was an idiot or something? How did a barefoot, near-naked man walk nearly three miles (there was no evidence that he drove there) out of town with a bump on his head the size of a goose egg? That alone would probably have knocked him silly. And where did he get the rope?
He still hadn’t got the girl’s side of the story but when he’d turned up at the American base, they were less than helpful. There was only a skeleton staff remaining and they were busy packing up to follow the advance to France. Time was of the essence because they had to be across the channel.
‘Just wrap it up and file it,’ the Base Commander had said. ‘We’ve more important things to think about. Today is D-Day. There’s a war to be won. One dead deserter in a wood can keep.’
But that wasn’t Inspector Collins’ way. He felt his temperature rise. ‘If we don’t stick to the rule of law,’ he’d said tartly, ‘what’s the point of winning a war? We’d be no better than the Nazis; one rule for them and another for everybody else.’
The commander’s eyes had glazed. ‘Look, buddy, I’m sorry. I haven’t got time for this. He was only a black man. Nobody cares. It’s your problem.’
Frankie told the inspector a whole different story. Just the same as Aunt Bet, Collins had toyed wi
th the idea that Romare had in some way been responsible for what had happened and that, ashamed of his actions, he had ended his own life.
‘Romare didn’t hurt me,’ Frankie told him quietly. ‘Why would he? I am his wife.’
White-faced and crushed, she went on to explain to Collins and his sergeant how she’d seen a man with a pillow case on his head at the bottom of the stairs; how he and two others had burst into their bedroom and coshed her husband over the head before they carried him off; she told them how when she had tried to run after them, Lyman Spinks, a staff sergeant in the United States army, had hit her across the face with a baseball bat.
‘How do you know if it was him if you couldn’t see his face?’
‘I recognised his voice,’ she said, her voice beginning to waver, ‘and when he grabbed me, his ring made this mark on my arm. He always wears a ring on the third finger of his right hand. It’s very distinctive: a snake with ruby eyes eating its own tail.’
The two men took down the details.
Frankie’s chin was trembling. ‘How did you find my husband?’
‘A tip off,’ said Inspector Collins. ‘Someone rang my home to say he’d gone into the woods for a pee and saw a body hanging from a tree. I caught up with him before he left Wareham. A man called Bert Harper. It seems he knew you both.’
