A Blind Goddess (13 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I
TOOK THE Bath Road out of Newbury, heading west on the north side of the canal. Military traffic was heavy, and there were formations of paratroopers on the road with full packs and weapons. It was slow going. To my left, fields sloped down to the canal, and as I neared the turnoff for Kintbury, I could see a line of GIs on either side of the water, moving across the fields, searching. I knew that what Payne was looking for was a clue, or maybe a body. There was little hope of the girl simply being lost.

Heading toward the bridge spanning the canal before Kintbury, I had to halt and pull over as a line of trucks jammed with helmeted GIs came up the road. Units were conducting field exercises, and I wondered if the white commander of the 617th Tank Destroyer Battalion volunteered them for the search because he wanted to help out, or if he figured they’d never make it into combat and this was all they were good for.

The trucks on my right slowed to a crawl and then stopped, a traffic jam at the intersection behind us screwing everything up. I tried to get by on the shoulder of the narrow road, but the ground was wet and muddy, so I decided to wait. The GIs on the truck next to me broke out smokes and started to chatter.

“Hey,” one of them yelled. “Lookit Mrs. Roosevelt’s niggers over there! Don’t them boys know there’s no cotton in them fields!” More catcalls and insults followed, some of the men turning away and
shaking their heads. The men of the 617th were too far away to know what was being said, but I saw them look in our direction. They didn’t need to hear the words; they knew what a truckload of whites screaming at them meant. There might have been a time when I would have ignored taunts like these, or thought of them as nothing but ignorant, but seeing Tree again reminded me of how hurtful they were, and how ashamed I felt, deep inside, when I heard them and did nothing.

“Can it!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “They’re helping to search for a missing girl. Which is a lot more than you’re doing right now.”

“Well, Captain, if there’s a missing white girl, the last thing I’d do is send a pack of niggers to look for her. They probably took her in the first place.” The loudmouth looked around for someone to join him, but an officer and a missing girl took the wind out of their sails.

“Sorry, Captain,” one of the men, a PFC who had been quiet, spoke up. “Some of us are still fighting the Civil War over here. Right, Bobby Lee?” Laughter broke the tension, and one of the men leaned over the side of the truck.

“Captain, is that the Tank Destroyer outfit, the one bivouacked in Hungerford?”

“Yeah, the Six-Seventeenth.”

“I’ll tell ya, if we run up against any Tiger tanks over in France, and we got one of them battalions backing us up, I won’t care much what color skin those gunners have, long as they stand their ground,” the PFC said.

“Niggers can’t fight,” the loudmouth said. “Everyone knows that.”

“I knew a guy in Boston,” I said. “A Negro who fought in the last war. You should tell the Frenchman who awarded him the Legion of Merit about that. Or maybe all the Germans he killed.”

The truck lurched ahead, taking their laughter, hatreds, and fears away. The line of men in the fields kept moving too, until they disappeared into the woods. Of the 617th, the paratroopers on the road, the GIs in the trucks, how many would be alive after we went into France? How many of them would even care about their petty
prejudices and beliefs once bullets and steel flew in their direction? And afterwards, if the 617th and other colored units did get into the fight, would anything be different? The world had changed so much in the last few years, it seemed impossible for everything to go back to how it was. But what would it be like five or ten years from now? I had no idea. Finding Stuart Neville’s killer was hard enough.

Crossing the bridge, I saw the Dundas Arms where Payne was coordinating the search. Police vehicles and US Army trucks were parked in the field where men with walkie-talkies barked commands. Kintbury itself was nice enough, narrow streets with red brick structures built close to the road, a few shops and pubs, but that was it. I could see why Tree hadn’t wanted to trade Hungerford for this village when it came time for off-duty entertainment. I took a right on Hungerford Road, where a sparse run of shops and homes gave way to countryside. Fields with stubble from the autumn harvest stretched out on either side, and it was easy to spot the manor house the Channel Island girls called home. Trees lined the gravel drive, overgrown with weeds, but once likely spotless. The three-story house sported tall chimneys at the sides, high windows, and shrubs that had been halfheartedly trimmed. Unlike most of the buildings in Berkshire, this wasn’t built with brick, but rather granite reflecting a pinkish hue in the sunlight. A plaque on the wall read
AVINGTON SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
. I knocked at the front door, and was greeted by a girl of maybe nine or ten.

“Good day. May I help you, sir?” The words were obviously rehearsed.

“Yes, I’d like to speak to the headmistress, please.”

“All right,” she said, leading me down a hallway. “My name’s Nancy. Are you one of the Americans out looking for Sophia? Have you found her yet?”

“Not yet, Nancy. But an awful lot of soldiers are searching for her right now.”

“Good,” she said, and knocked on a door before opening it. “Miss Ross, there’s a Yank here to see you.”

“Thank you, Nancy. Would you run and tell Miss Jacobs that I will be with her shortly?”

“Captain Billy Boyle,” I said as Nancy raced off on her errand.

“Laurianne Ross,” she said, extending her hand. “Have you any news about Sophia?”

“No, I’m sorry. Only more questions.”

“Please, have a seat,” she said, returning to her desk. She was in her thirties, small, with longish dark hair and a look that said she was disappointed I didn’t bring good news.

“I wish I had something to tell you, Miss Ross, besides that the search is still going on.”

“It’s Mrs. Ross, actually. Miss Ross is just what the girls call me. My husband is in Burma. Or so he was two months ago when I last heard. Tell me, Captain Boyle, why are you here? I know the American army is helping with the search today, but is that your connection?”

I could tell I wasn’t about to pull the wool over this lady’s eyes. I decided to try something different and tell the truth. “I am working with Inspector Payne, but on another case. Did you hear about the murder in Newbury yesterday? Two days ago, to be precise.”

“No. Who was killed? Is the school involved in any way?”

“I don’t think so. A man named Stuart Neville, who worked at the Newbury Building Society. Are you familiar with it?”

“Of course I am, and so is anyone else who grew up in this area, as I did. Ask your question, Captain, I have my girls to look after.”

“Okay. In the past month or so, have any of the girls had a visit from a relative? Perhaps someone who escaped from the Channel Islands?”

“Captain, these girls are here precisely because they have no close relatives in England, none that would take them in. Their families are all trapped on Guernsey. There’s most of the English Channel to deal with, not to mention the Germans.”

“But some have escaped. A small boat could make the trip. You haven’t heard of such a thing?”

“No, sad to say. If I had, I might not tell you, since there could
be reprisals if word got out. Better for the Germans to think a man was lost at sea, don’t you think?”

“Yes. But no one has come around?”

“No,” she said as she pulled her cardigan sweater tight. “I do wish the council chap would come by though. He promised more coal. Is there anything else?”

“No. Thank you for your time. Caring for the girls must be demanding,” I said as I rose to leave. I wished she had given me some hope for my theory of a relative from Guernsey. I wondered at her admission that she might have lied to me if it were true. It was honest, at least, but it led me to question everything else she had said.

“It keeps me busy. We have a teacher in during the day and a cook who lives here. But so many girls can be a handful, no matter how delightful they are.” She walked me to the front door, as a great sadness washed across her face.

“Sophia. Was she one of the delightful ones?” I winced at my use of the past tense, but it was too late.

“Yes. And one of the oldest. She was quite a help, actually. Then one day she was gone. She and some of the other girls had walked together to the sweet shop in town. They decided to take the long way back, along the canal path. There’s a lane off the main road that leads to a small stone bridge. It was a warm day, and they like playing by the bunkers.”

“Bunkers?”

“You’ll find them all along the canal, on the north side. This was to be the main defense line in case of invasion. They’re all abandoned now, of course. Inspector Payne searched them first, thinking Sophia might have fallen and been hurt, but there was no sign of her. She’d simply vanished while the girls were playing. They thought she’d come back here ahead of them, and thought nothing about it. Do you think they will find her? Alive, I mean.”

“If she is alive,” I said, deciding to stick with the truth, “she’s far away from this search.”

“Then someone took her. Either alternative is horrible. But tell
me, Captain Boyle, why did you ask only about relatives in connection with your murder? I understand you would want to know about any suspicious strangers in town, but couldn’t a friend of the family have taken Sophia away? Perhaps someone who didn’t have legal guardianship, but who had her best interests at heart?” She looked at me with raised eyes, almost pleading for me to agree.

“Sure, that’s possible. It was one of the first things I thought about. Thanks again.”

She shut the door behind me, and I think we were both glad to end on that fantasy. I left, having accomplished nothing but the raising of false hope.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I
DROVE SLOWLY along the Hungerford Road, and took a wide, unpaved lane toward the canal, figuring this was the lane Mrs. Ross had mentioned. It did lead to an ancient brick bridge, probably built to accommodate horse and cart traffic a century or more ago. I parked the jeep and walked across, and sure enough, on the north side, past the railroad tracks, stood a squat concrete bunker, hexagonal in shape, with firing slits on each side. The door at the rear had once been padlocked, but the latch now hung open. Inside was nothing but cobwebs, trash, and cigarette butts. Not a child’s playground. This wasn’t what had attracted the girls. It was the quaint bridge, arching over the canal. Perhaps those narrow riverboats had passed by, the canalman greeting the girls on the bridge. The spring grasses were soft and abundant along the bank, and I could imagine the girls dangling their feet in the water. I knelt and stuck my hand in the current. It was cold. Too cold for dangling.

I wondered about the boats. Could Sophia have been grabbed, or gotten onto one willingly? Tempted aboard, perhaps, as the canal-boat slowed to a stop, and then gagged and thrown below while no one was watching? It was a connection, at least, to Neville’s wet feet. Tenuous, but a connection. I scanned the bank one last time. A small plain paper bag was caught up in the grasses. It had been balled up and tossed away. I opened it and there was a distant, faint sweetish
smell. The candy store. Or sweet shop, as they called it in England. Might as well make another stop.

I drove back down Hungerford Road to High Street, where Payne had said the shop was. It didn’t take long to spot Hedley’s Sweet Shop, with its bright red and yellow sign. I went in, a tinkling bell over the door announcing me. It was a small place, two large glass cases taking up much of the room. They were less than half full. A man emerged from the back room, wearing a blue apron and drying his hands.

“May I help you?”

“Are you Mr. Hedley?”

“No, the name’s Bone. Ernest Bone. Bought the shop from old Mr. Hedley, and didn’t think Bone was a good name for a sweet shop. Besides, folks around here know the old name, it’s familiar to them. How can I help you?” Bone looked inquiringly at me, his thick eyebrows raised. He was balding, a bit stooped, but with a friendly face. A bit chubby in the cheeks. Just right for a candy store owner.

“I’m working with the police and the American troops who are looking for that girl,” I said, introducing myself.

“Oh, such a sad business. Poor Sophia. She was in the shop the day she went missing. But that must be why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I wanted to ask if you’ve heard anything at all about strangers in the area, or saw anything that day that was suspicious.”

“Well, Captain Boyle, the only strangers hereabouts are you Yanks. And the colored soldiers, I must say, are all very polite and courteous. But that doesn’t count for much, does it? I mean to say, a murderer could be quite pleasant, couldn’t he?”

“Yes, charming in fact. I wonder about the canal,” I said, picking up a syrupy-sweet smell wafting in from the back room. “Could she have been taken away on a boat? I heard the girls often go down to the little bridge, by the bunker.”

“On a nice day, I’m sure they do. The village lads as well, to play at soldiers in the bunkers. Perhaps someone on a boat took her, although the police would have a better idea of that. There is more traffic on the canal these days, moving goods. It’s very difficult with
the petrol rationing, you know. Canalboats don’t use much fuel going with the current.”

“So I’ve been told. They don’t travel by night, do they?”

“I doubt it, but I’m not from these parts. Moved here from Sheffield, up north. Don’t know much about canals,” he said. “But I do know a man was found dead by the canal in Newbury two nights ago. Is that why you’re asking?”

“You don’t miss much, Mr. Bone.”

“Don’t need to be a wizard to put two and two together. And folks like to chat, you know, when they stop in for their little sweets. Village gossip can be very informative.”

“What do people have to say about the Millers in Newbury?”

“The Germans? Some don’t like them at all, but I have to say many give them credit for going against Hitler when many of our own were going along with him. And for keeping a low profile, as well. They try to blend in, and not appear too foreign in their manners. People like that, they do.” Bone nodded his approval of the foreigners who worked not to appear foreign, which was a compliment coming from an Englishman.