Angels in the Gloom (19 page)

“That loathsome policeman keeps coming around prying into our lives,” Penny said angrily. “I don’t suppose he’s going through my laundry basket, but I feel I can’t even take a bath for fear that he’ll knock on the door to see how much hot water I’m using.”

“His must be a very difficult job.” Hannah matched her step to Penny’s. “If there really is a German spy in St. Giles, it could be pretty well anyone, couldn’t it?”

Penny nodded in agreement. “Although I can think of dozens it wouldn’t be—the old village families, especially those with sons or brothers at the front. When you think of it, that doesn’t leave many.”

“He’ll have to look in other villages, the nearby ones, anyway,” Hannah reasoned.

“You wouldn’t get a car down that back lane,” Penny pointed out. “You’d scratch it to pieces and leave tire tracks all over the place. Our busy inspector would have seen them. Maybe that’s why he’s questioning everyone close enough to walk… or I suppose bicycle.” She gave a rueful little smile. “It’s incredibly grubby!” Then suddenly she was angry again. “I hate it! It’s not his fault, but I hate him, too—with his devious remarks and probing little eyes, as if he’s all the time imagining… I don’t know what. Think what it would be like married to such a man who spends his days pawing through the sins and tragedies of other people’s lives.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “I’m sorry. You haven’t even met him. How could you know?”

Thoughts raced through Hannah’s mind, memories of foolish things she had said and done that she would prefer no one knew. But she had thought of other things, too, about Ben Morven, the way he laughed, the easy way he walked, the look of his throat in a clean cotton shirt. He had good hands, brown and slender…

But then she focused again on what Penny Lucas was saying. Was that why Penny felt so very strongly about Inspector Perth? Did she know the narrowness of the back way to Theo Blaine’s house because she had been there? “Do you know Mrs. Blaine?” Hannah said aloud.

Penny was caught by surprise. Her face had a closed look. “Well, a bit, of course. Theo worked with my husband.”

What an odd way of putting it! She did not speak of Theo as Lizzie Blaine’s husband, as if she wanted to avoid the thought.

“Why?” Penny demanded, her blue-green eyes narrowed.

“I was thinking how dreadful she must feel,” Hannah lied. “It’s an awful way to lose someone. I hope she has good friends, I mean other than just people like the vicar, or… or that sort of thing.”

Penny looked at the road ahead. “We all lose people, especially these days. I don’t really know if she had friends or not. She’s rather a cold, self-contained sort of person. We each cope in our own way.”

“Of course. And I expect the policeman will bother her most of all.”

Penny stopped abruptly, swinging around, her eyes wide and angry. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Hannah assumed an expression of innocence close to apology. “I suppose because she must have known him best.”

Penny looked beaten. The courage and spirit inside her were suddenly deflated.

“I’m so sorry,” Hannah said quickly, pity overtaking sense. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose someone you know and have been friends with in such a way.” She had grown so accustomed to the lie that her parents’ deaths had been an accident, that she almost believed it herself. And regardless of that, she knew from the time Joseph had told her that it must never be spoken of. “If… if you want to talk to anyone who understands a bit, my brother would listen,” she offered to Penny. “A couple of years ago one of his very best friends was murdered. That’s how he knows Inspector Perth. It was pretty awful.”

“Really?” It was surprise in Penny’s face, but not much more than polite interest. “Perhaps. Just now I need to get home. I have a mountain of things to do, and I’m due back at the hospital in the morning. Thanks for…” She did not know how to finish the sentence, and she mounted her bicycle and with a quick smile, pedaled away with considerable speed, leaving the words unsaid.

Hannah stood on the curbside and watched her go, her blouse billowing in the wind and the sun bright on her hair, until she disappeared around the curve in the road. She seemed to feel the loss of Theo Blaine very deeply indeed, and yet she obviously did not like his wife, or know her very well.

Was it possible she had had a love affair with Blaine, and her husband had discovered it? Was that what Perth was sensing, searching to prove, and was that why Penny felt so threatened and intruded upon?

If she had met Theo Blaine secretly, where would it be? And when? Certainly not where he had been killed, but what about the woods beyond? Hardly in the winter, but in the spring or summer? Only in the evening. Too much chance of children playing in daylight.

But outside of romantic novels, did people really make love in the woods? It would be uncomfortable, almost certainly damp and a bit muddy, and with a hideous chance of being stumbled on by someone out walking their dog, or an enthusiastic botanist or collector of butterflies. What a ghastly embarrassment! She felt her own face color as she visualized the scene and, in spite of herself, she began to giggle-So much for illicit passion in the woods!

She walked slowly, thinking. For a romantic liaison you would have to go to a well-populated place where you could remain anonymous—and that meant Cambridge. Penny was there anyway, at her duties in the hospital. What about Theo Blaine? He would have had a car to drive to and from the Establishment. He could very easily have gone to Cambridge. The Establishment would have assumed he had gone home; Lizzie Blaine would have assumed he was working late.

Perhaps Dacy Lucas had even borrowed Penny’s bicycle to go along the back lane through the trees to confront Blaine, and they had quarreled. What if Blaine had refused to give up his affair, and Lucas had attacked him in fury? Or perhaps Lucas had threatened to tell Lizzie Blaine, and Blaine had attacked him, and Lucas had defended himself rather too well? Then, seeing what he had done, he had been horrified and run away. Who would believe he had not meant it?

Probably Inspector Perth knew all this. But what if he did not? He might still be convinced that it was a German spy. That thought was so horrible she felt suddenly as if her own home had been violated, someone dirty and violent had broken in and soiled everything. It would take months, years before it could be made clean again.

Perhaps she should tell Perth at least where to look! She had grown up with the code of honor that you did not tell tales on people, and if you were caught in something you owned up to it. Above all, you never ever let someone else take the punishment for what you had done. That was the ultimate cowardice.

But this was different. How much would everyone suffer if Perth stayed in the village and continued to awaken suspicions, even resurrect old feuds? There was more than enough grief already, and no doubt more to come. The first whispers of suspicion had started.

Without realizing it, Hannah had changed direction and was walking briskly toward the railway station.

Perth was not in when she arrived at the police station in Cambridge, and she had to wait over half an hour before he came. He looked hot and tired, as if his feet hurt, which quite possibly they did. His shoes were worn down at the sides and he limped a little.

“Yes, Mrs. MacAllister, what can I do for you?” He waited until she was seated, then lowered himself into the chair opposite her, taking his weight off his legs with visible relief.

Briefly and quite succinctly she told him what she had heard, and what she suspected.

“Really?” He was guarded, but certainly not without interest. “She was on a bicycle, you say?”

“Yes. Most people ride bicycles in Cambridgeshire, especially now. It’s the best way to get around.”

“I know that, ma’am. I’m local born and bred,” he said patiently. “A ladies’ bicycle that’d be?”

“Yes, of course!”

“You didn’t happen to notice her hands, did you?”

“Not particularly. Why?”

“She didn’t have a little cut or scratch, or a plaster, maybe? About here.” He indicated a small sticking plaster on his own hand, across the palm near the base of his forefinger.

“I don’t think so. I don’t remember. Why? You…” Her imagination raced. “How did you do that?”

“You don’t want to know that, ma’am.” He winced slightly.

“You picked up… the… fork!” She realized with a shiver why he was reluctant to tell her.

“Yes, ma’am. It’s just a little sort of nick. A screw sitting a bit too high. But it tore the skin and drew blood.”

“If she picked it up, couldn’t you tell?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. Whoever used it smeared it with so much mud there was nothing to see. No fingerprints at all, nor any blood. Could be they had gloves.”

“Why would she kill him?” she asked. “If she loved him…”

“In love, Mrs. MacAllister,” Perth corrected sadly. “It’s a very different kind of a thing, sometimes. It’s about wanting, sort of owning, not about caring what happens to the other person. I’ve known people kill someone they reckoned was unfaithful to them. Or maybe just rejected them, let them down hard.”

“I don’t…” she began, then stopped.

“‘Course you don’t,” he agreed. “Nobody does. Wouldn’t need detectives in the police if it were clear. Thank you for coming in.”

She left feeling queasy. She was wrong for coming, and yet if she had not, that would have been wrong, too. There was no good path.

She walked back toward the station and was almost there when she nearly bumped into Ben Morven, who was crossing the road and apparently going the same way. His face lit up with pleasure immediately.

“We’ll make the next train easily,” he said. Then he frowned, looking at her more closely. “You all right?”

“Does it show that much?” She was rueful.

“Sorry. That was a bit clumsy. But you look as if something nasty has happened.”

She saw the anxiety in his eyes and found herself laughing. “I’ve been talking to that miserable policeman,” she told him. “I really can’t bear the thought that there is a German spy in St. Giles who killed poor Mr. Blaine to stop his work—or that there was some sort of personal hatred so awful that it ended in murder.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see any other conclusion,” he said unhappily. “From what I hear, it could hardly have been an accident.”

“No.” She refused to picture it in her mind.

He took her arm, and his strength was enough to draw her to a stop. “Don’t think about it, Hannah. Leave it to Perth. It’s his job. Either you’ll waste your time and learn nothing, or you’ll discover too many things about people you would far rather not know. We all need a little space…” he hesitated, letting go of her. “A little room to cover our mistakes and let them go. It’s a lot easier to do better next time, if last time isn’t printed in your neighbor’s eyes.”

They were in the way of the crowd, but she did not care. She looked at him gravely. “You knew him. Did you like him?”

“Yes,” he said without prevarication. “Actually he was a good bloke, nicely eccentric. A bit selfish at times, but I think that was because he was so absorbed in his work he didn’t realize that most people didn’t even know what he was doing, let alone care. I did like him.”

“Was he really brilliant? I mean—someone who would go down in history?”

He smiled slightly. “I think so.”

“Might he hurt somebody without meaning to, just because he wasn’t… paying attention to them?” She did not know how to phrase it without being obvious.

He understood immediately. “You mean like Lizzie?”

“Or anyone else,” she added.

“I don’t know.” He frowned. “Lizzie wasn’t in that evening. I telephoned to speak to Theo. I called two or three times, but there was no answer. I suppose I’m going to have to tell that damn policeman, if he asks. I’d rather not. I like her, too.”

“Does that make a difference?” she asked candidly.

He lifted his shoulders a little. “No, I suppose not. And as long as he doesn’t have the answer, he’ll go on looking, turning the village inside out and opening old wounds of all sorts. Somebody did it. We have to know who. Poor Theo. What a terrible way to die.” He took her arm again. “Come on, or we might miss the train.”

They hurried along the pavement and went in through the entrance to find the platform crowded with people. A troop train had just pulled in, carrying wounded from the front and everywhere they turned there were white-faced women who were alternately hopeful and fearful of seeing the ones they loved. Some of them had heard only a little news and they were almost numb with the exhaustion of waiting.

The engine still belched steam, doors clanged to, voices rose to a fever pitch—all echoing in the vast roofs above. Someone called out for help; orders were barked. Nurses in gray uniforms were trying to organize stretchers and find ambulance drivers. Porters were doing their best to get the most severely wounded away first.

Hannah could see motionless, bandaged figures lying on stretchers. One she saw very clearly had thick swaths of cloth, already bloodied, where his right leg should have been. She thought of Joseph, and how easily that could have happened to him.

“I’ve got to help,” Ben said urgently, cutting through the clamor in her mind. “I’ll get the next train. I can carry some of these. You go on.”