The Silent Christmas

by M J Lee

  The Silent Christmas

  A Jayne Sinclair

  Genealogical Mystery

  M. J. Lee

  About M. J. Lee

  Martin Lee is the author of two different series of historical crime novels, the Jayne Sinclair Genealogical Mysteries and the Inspector Danilov series, set in 1930s Shanghai. The Silent Christmas is the fifth book featuring genealogical investigator, Jayne Sinclair.

  Also By M. J. Lee

  The Jayne Sinclair Series

  The Irish Inheritance

  The Somme Legacy

  The American Candidate

  The Vanished Child

  The Inspector Danilov Series

  Death in Shanghai

  City of Shadows

  The Murder Game

  The Killing Time

  Other Fiction

  Samuel Pepys and the Stolen Diary

  ‘Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing

  but of reflection.’

  Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER ONE

  Monday, December 21, 1914

  Neuve Eglise, Belgium

  He lay on his back on the hard ground and dreamt of England; picnicking on the grass in front of the bandstand, straw hat tipped over his eyes to shield them from the sun. Next to him, his wife, Norah, poured out another glass of pale ale and placed it next to his hand. On the stand the band played the Death or Glory March with the sousaphone slightly off the beat. Somewhere, John and Hetty were running around playing tag with the other children, their high-pitched squeals adding a note of urgency to the music.

  A shadow crossed his face and he felt a tap against his foot.

  'Time to get up, Tom. We're moving forward.'

  In the distance next to the lake, he could hear the shouts of Captain Lawson chivvying the men along. Reluctantly, he sat upright, yawned and said, 'What's his hurry? As long as we get there before nightfall...'

  He let the rest of the sentence trail away as so many other sentences had recently, vanishing into the cold, damp air of Flanders in December.

  His pal, Bert, shrugged his shoulders. 'You know what it's like in the army. Hurry, hurry. Stop, stop. Hurry again.'

  Tom Wright climbed slowly to his feet, wiping the dried mud from his puttees and boots. 'Nowt ever changes, does it?'

  Across the clearing, next to the bombed-out farmhouse, Harry Larkin was rushing towards them carrying three tin mugs of milky tea.

  'Sorry, lads, it's cold. Half the bloomin' army was lined up.' He handed across the lukewarm mugs. 'Down the hatch, as the actress said to the bishop.'

  'No rum?' Bert grumbled.

  'Not a drop. QM said it hadn't come up yet. But at least two of the cooks were pissed, so I think they’ve had their fill already.'

  'Bastards,' mumbled Bert, slurping his milky tea through his walrus moustache.

  'You went to say goodbye to the French girl, didn't you?'

  A broad smile crossed Harry's face. 'I can't tell a lie. Mimi has the sweetest lips in France.' He kissed the ends of his fingers and let them fly away from his face.

  Tom shook his head. 'You're going to get caught one day by some big, hairy French husband.'

  'Ah, but while the cat's away, the mice will play. And this little mouse likes to play with the French cheese. Talking about cheese, Mimi gave me this.' He pulled out a wedge of soft white Brie from under his jacket. 'Smells a bit but she said it was good to eat.'

  He took a bite before handing it to Bert, who sniffed it cautiously before nibbling the end and then immediately drinking his milky tea to wash it down. 'What I wouldn't give for a hunk of Cheshire and a wedge of bread; proper stuff, not this French muck. Can't beat a good chunk of Cheshire cheese.'

  Bert was a regular. Been in the army and the Regiment since before the Boer War, joined when he was sixteen. But even though he was only thirty-four, he looked far older. He'd come across with the Cheshires in the early days of the war, fighting through the retreat from the Marne, Mons and the Aisne, even surviving the Battle of Audregnies without a scratch when only six officers and 178 men had come through out of 910 men who had started the attack that morning.

  Bert had transferred across to the 6th Battalion when it arrived in France in November to bolster the ranks of reservists such as Tom and Harry. Despite the difference in their seniority, the men had found friendship in the long dreary marches of that long and even drearier autumn.

  'Sergeant!'

  Bert instantly stood to attention, spilling some of the tea on the front of his overcoat.

  'Make sure your platoon is ready to move. I want to relieve the Norfolks by four p.m.'

  It was Captain Lawson, who had approached soundlessly as they were drinking their tea.

  'Yes, sir,' Bert answered loudly, before turning to his mates and mouthing 'bloody idiot' and rolling his eyes. He finished the tea in one immense swallow and turned to the men lying on the ground, leaning against the wall of the farm or just standing talking to one another. 'You heard the hofficer, let's be 'avin’ you.'

  The men began packing up, accompanied by a chorus of grumbles and moans. As they did so, a solitary shell from a German whizz-bang whistled overhead, landing one hundred yards past the farm.

  None of the men moved or even ducked; each one carried on preparing to move forward as if nothing had happened.

  It was Tom that spoke. 'Looks like they are targeting the farm. I'd get the men moving a little quicker if I were you.'

  Bert stared at him and then up at the sky, as if trying to spot another shell in flight through the air. 'Get a move on, you lot. We leave in two minutes.'

  This shout was followed by the whine of another shell, this time landing much closer.

  Tom picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder, taking hold of the rope of the ammunition box while Harry took up the other side. They both joined the long line of men trudging wearily towards the front.

  As they moved forwards, they passed the mangled remains of an artillery horse and rider ten yards off the path. The man’s back was arched and his hand frozen, fingers pointing upwards as if to touch the sun.

  Tom averted his eyes, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other on the slimy path leading forwards. He attempted to return to his memories of that warm day in summer with his wife and children, but much as he tried, they wouldn't come back.

  Instead, he stumbled forward, his eyes fixed on the back of the man in front of him. The rain began to fall, in large, heavy drops at first before turning into a steady, inexorable drizzle.

  Would he ever see his family again?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Friday, December 22, 2017

  Central Library, Manchester

  'The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.'

  Jayne Sinclair always started her presentations with the same quotation from L. P. Hartley. For her, it perfectly described the problems inherent in family history. Memories of our relatives were distant, intangible, unreliable and often lost.

  'Our role as genealogists is to use our research to bring these lost people, the vanished people of our family, back to life.'

  Despite it being only three days until Christmas, the audience in Central Library was large for a lunchtime lecture on a dreary, dull Friday. A peculiar English smell hung over the auditorium; the odour of slightly damp raincoats, very damp shoes and drying people. Perhaps it was because the weather was so unpredictable that the audience was so big, she thought to herself as she moved on to the next slide in her PowerPoint presentation.

  She had given this particular lecture many times before. It was her standard – 'seven ways you can discover more about your family history' – and was designed as a gentle introduction to genealogy. Sh
e illustrated her talk with examples from her own experience: the case of the adopted American billionaire who turned out to have Irish roots; the unfortunate history of the Lassiter family; and one of her more recent cases, the soul-destroying history of Harry Britton, one of the migrant children sent to Australia after World War Two.

  She finished her half-hour presentation and, as she always did, opened the floor to questions. After the usual embarrassed silence in the audience and the requisite number of coughs, a woman in the front row stood up.

  'What about DNA? Do you think the latest advances will change how we investigate our families?'

  'Thank you for a great question. The recent advances in DNA have already changed the way genealogists work. In one of my recent cases, I investigated the family origins of a young celebrity who discovered that she had African ancestry in her DNA.'

  The woman in the front row nudged her neighbour. 'That was the Emily Marlowe case, wasn't it?'

  'Through family history research, we managed to show where the African ancestor originated, revealing a whole new side to Emily's family she never knew existed.'

  Another hand went up. 'Which websites would you recommend for family history research?'

  This was quite a common question. 'The two big ones are Ancestry and Findmypast. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but both are great starting points in the journey to discover your family. Lost Cousins is another great site, particularly if you want to extend your family connections or break down walls.'

  'Walls?' the woman in the front row asked.

  'Walls are when there is a link missing to a past relative. Either we haven't found the document with the ancestor's name yet or the document doesn't exist. To go back further in the past, we need to break down the wall.'

  Another hand went up, from a man sitting next to a young boy. 'Do you ever use objects to help you research a family?'

  'All the time. The object obviously does not directly link us to family history but it gives us a new opening, a new window if you like, into that ancestor’s life. For example, one client had a medallion with a purple, white and green ribbon. A little research helped me discover that the medallion was given to members of the Women's Social and Political Union, also known as the Suffragettes.'

  The questions continued for the next ten minutes. When the clock at the back of the hall reached 1.55 p.m., Jayne thanked the audience and brought the presentation to an end. After a smattering of applause, people began to leave the auditorium, all except the man and the young boy, who remained seated.

  Jayne packed her bags and her computer and began to leave. As she did so, they both stepped into the aisle, blocking her way.

  'Thank you for the presentation, Mrs Sinclair, it was very interesting.'

  'I'm glad you enjoyed it, Mr...?'

  He handed across a bright blue card with what looked like a pink lightning flash on it. ’The name’s Wright. David Wright, I’m an electrician. And this is my son, Martin.'

  Jayne reached forward and ruffled the boy's hair. 'I'm happy that somebody so young is interested in family history.'

  'We have a reason. You see…' David Wright paused mid-sentence almost as if he were embarrassed.

  Jayne waited for him to continue. When she was a detective in the police, she found silence was always the most useful weapon in any interview. Rather than rush in and speak, she would let the witness fill the vacuum. Often what they said then was more important than any question they answered.

  'We found these things carefully wrapped up in an old chest in our attic and we wondered if you could help us.'

  The boy smiled and lifted up a Tesco carrier bag.

  'You've been shopping?’ asked Jayne.

  ‘Show her, Martin,' the father said gently.

  The boy reached into the bag and pulled out a piece of wrinkled and cracked leather, shaped like one of those wooden fruit bowls that were popular throughout the 1970s and could now be bought from IKEA.

  'What is it?' Jayne asked, bending down to look at the object more closely.

  David Wright smiled. 'That's what we want you to find out, Mrs Sinclair.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tuesday, December 22, 1914

  Wulverghem, Belgium

  The brazier burnt with a warm, red glow, the men huddled over it, their bodies attempting to absorb every last ray of heat. All the time, they stamped their army boots in the sludge of the trench, desperately trying to retain a semblance of life in their cold feet.

  The trench itself was a ragged affair; a wall of sandbags built up in front of a shallow ditch to form a parapet, into which had been inserted observation posts. Every twenty yards or so, a wooden roof betrayed the presence of a shallow dugout lined with straw. In front of the line, barbed wire stretched along the ground like a creeping vine, wild in its confusion.

  A former turnip field sloped gently upwards to the German lines two hundred yards away. The Germans, from their elevated vantage point, could see most of what was happening in the British trenches, particularly when the snipers were active. All the soldiers of Bert’s platoon quickly became adept at keeping their heads down below the parapet.

  They had been lucky that evening. A warm stew of bully beef had been delivered in billycans to the front line, followed by cocoa and the obligatory tot of rum.

  'Must be Christmas,' said Bert, 'even the food is warm.'

  Tom grunted and swallowed the last of the hot chocolate. The crack of a rifle bullet was followed by a soft thud as it struck the revetment of the trench twenty yards away.

  'Keep your ‘eads down,' shouted Bert over his shoulder.

  'Fritz is busy tonight,' said Harry.

  As if to confirm his words, another bullet whined over their heads.

  'You know, right now, me and the wife would normally be going to Victoria market to find us a bird. A goose is what I'd choose, if it weren't too expensive, mind. Mister Brocklehurst would always let us leave early in the days before Christmas, five o'clock instead of the usual six thirty. He was good like that.'

  'Where did you work?’asked Bert

  'At Bankwood Mill. I was a cotton piecer. Not a bad job and we got every Sunday off. Mister Brocklehurst was a Methodist, couldn't abide people working on Sundays. Had to go to church, though, even if you were Catholic. Black mark against your name if you weren't seen in a church. What about you, Harry?'

  ‘Mum was a Catholic but Dad worshipped down the local pub.' He stared into the embers of the fire and laughed. 'Worshipped there every night, he did.'

  'I meant what work did you do in civvy street?'

  'Not a lot. This and that.'

  'This and that, what?'

  'One job I had was delivering milk. But I didn't last long. I could never remember who got what, when, where or how much. That was, of course, when I could remember to get up.'

  'Yeah, a milkman that can't get up in the morning. Could be a problem,' said Bert.

  'That wasn't why I got sacked. Nah, they were okay about that. It was the hoss that did me in.'

  'The hoss?' asked Tom.

  Harry stretched his fingers in their cut-off mittens in front of the brazier. His words came out like little puffs of smoke in the cold night air.

  'The nag didn't like me. I used to tell it to go one way, it went the other. I tried to feed it, it refused to eat. I think it complained to the boss one day and I was sacked.'

  'The hoss complained to the boss?'

  'I'm sure it did. The boss came up to me one day. As cool as Lillie Langtry he says, “The hoss and you aren't getting on. Now, I can get milkmen any day of the week but I can't get a hoss like that.” So I was out on my arse. As I was taking off my apron and walking to the office to pick up my wages, I heard the hoss give a loud whinny. It was like the bastard were saying, “Piss off and don't come back.” I got my revenge, though, didn't I?'

  'What do you mean?'

  At this, Harry leant in closer as if telling a secret. 'Nipped back later th
at night, didn't I? Put some ball bearings in his feed. I pity the poor bugger sitting behind the hoss next morning.'

  With a self-satisfied look on his face, Harry sat back and smiled. ‘I was glad anyway when they gave me the sack. Being a milkman wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.’

  ‘I suppose you had an ‘igher callin’?’ said Bert, nudging Tom’s elbow.

  ‘Gonna be a footballer when this lot’s over.’

  ‘Footballer?’

  ‘Aye, had a trial with Stockport County, I did. Said I was a good little winger.’

  ‘So how’d you end up in the army?’

  ‘I was a reservist so called up, wasn’t I? Said they’d keep my place when I returned after Christmas, though.’

  Tom looked around him. ‘It’s nearly Christmas and we’re still here.’

  ‘True. But it’ll be over soon and I can go back and play. The league is still going.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so certain, Harry. This little lot is going on for at least another three months,’ said Tom.

  A star shell rocketed up into the sky and drifted down over no-man’s-land, illuminating the gap between the two trenches in a bright white light.

  Tom leant closer to the fire, trying to find more heat from the dying embers. ’Fritz is active tonight. What about you?'

  Bert sat up straighter. 'Regular, me. Joined in 1896. Nineteen years next March I'll have, plus two good conduct medals. Might make Colour Sergeant with a bit of luck, if I keep my nose clean.’

  Another bullet whined over their heads.

  ‘And if you can avoid one of those.’

  ‘You won’t find me taking any risks. Eighteen years in the army has taught me to look after myself – no bloody heroics and never, ever volunteer.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Good advice, but why'd you join in the first place?'

  Bert shrugged his shoulders. 'There was an army recruiting office and they were looking for volunteers. And besides, it was either going down the pit or joining up. Which would you choose?'