The Armada Boy (23 page)

They watched fascinated as the skeleton
came slowly into view, the earth carefully brushed away.

One of the first-year students, standing
at the edge of the trench, leaned over to get a better view of the proceedings.
He missed his footing and fell forward, managing to right himself at the last moment
before he suffered the embarrassment of tumbling into
the trench. But his foot had kicked away some loose earth, revealing something
metallic embedded in the side of the trench, about two feet above the level of
the bones. Matt saw it and ordered the digging to stop. Then he brushed round
the object carefully until the compacted earth was worn away and a few inches
of the thing could be seen. He looked up at Dr Parsons, excited.

'Bloody hell, Daphne,.. I've seen
something like this before - there was one on the ship. It's gold, I'm sure of
it. I think it could be the hilt of a dagger.'

Wesley was in a good mood when he
returned home. Pam was there, hidden behind piles of paperwork. There was no
sign of a meal being prepared - it would be the freezer and the microwave gain.

She looked up and gave a half-smile.
'Didn't expect you back so early.'

'I've just been to the dig... saw my
old tutor. They've discovered a gold-hilted dagger... beautiful piece. They
only found it day by chance. A student dislodged the side of the trench and there
it was. Dr Parsons hasn't changed... it was great to see her again.'

'And the boss gave you time off for
this trip down memory lane, did he?' she said with some bitterness.

'We reached a natural break. How's things?'

Pam sat back and rested her hands on
her bump. 'I'm shattered'

'You should be taking things easy.'
he said. He could see the dark rings beneath her eyes and the strain on her
face.

She raised her hands in despair.
'How? You try telling the kids I've got to take it easy ... and the paperwork
doesn't go away.'

'Maybe you should think about giving
up till.. .'

'If I give up I don't get paid. You
don't want us to end up like Sue and Jim, do you?'

'ltd hardly come to that.' He went
over to her and put his arms round her. She pushed him away.

'Why wouldn't it? If we had to
survive on your salary ...'

'We'd survive. It wouldn't be the end of the world."

'And the house?'

'We'd manage ... we'd be okay.'

'That's what Sue and Jim thought.'
Tears were welling up in her eyes.

Wesley took his wife in his arms; he
felt the baby move a little in her belly. 'It's terrible for them but there's
nothing you can do about it.'

She started to cry. He hated it when
women cried: he was always afraid that anything he said would make matters worse.
He held her and said nothing, handing her a tissue when he judged the worst was
over. She blew her nose and leaned against his
shoulder. 'I'm sorry.'

'You sit down. I'll get supper.'

'Thanks.' She touched his face. 'I've
been thinking ... what if we let Sue and Jim have our spare room? It'd be
better than one of those seedy places they put them in....'

'Hang on. What about...'

'It was reading the work the kids
had done that gave me the idea. When people were turned out of their houses in
Bereton for the D-day landing practices they went to stay with friends or family
in places like Tradmouth or Neston ... places that weren't affected. Slept in
their spare bedrooms, on the floors. People rallied round. That's what we
should do .., don't you think?'

'It's not a good time. Pam. You've
got enough to deal with. The baby, and working, and .. .'

'Let me ask Sue. Please.'

'We really don't know them that
well. When I get home I need to unwind, not have a house full of...'

'It'll only be till they find somewhere.'

'That could be ages. No ... not with the baby on the way.'

'I didn't think you'd be so selfish.'

'I'm thinking of you. You're shattered as it is.'

'I'm still asking them.'

Wesley sighed: when Pam got in this
sort of mood there was no arguing with her. 'Go ahead, then ... do what you
want.' He called her bluff.

She looked more unsure of her ground
now. 'Okay. I'll ask them tomorrow. I'll go and put the supper on.'

'I said I'd do it.'

'No. You sit down. I can manage.'
She left the room, her hand on the small of her back, a martyred expression on
her face. She had had a bad day.

Wesley sat down in the chair she had
vacated at the dining table and flicked through a couple of exercise books. The
children had been asked to talk to elderly neighbours or relatives and recount their
reminiscences of wartime South Devon. In one book he
picked up something caught his eye - the word murder was printed immaculately
at the head of a page of superlatively tidy handwriting. He read on. The style
was immature but the content interesting.

"
My grandma told me about a murder that happened in the war
,"
it began. "
A man was out shooting
rabbits in Bereton and an American soldier shot him. My granddad saw it."

It was short and to the point, but
intriguing nevertheless. Wesley put the book back on the pile and looked at the
name of the child printed on the front - David Mallindale. Any relation to the
literary June? Wesley wondered.

Rat had it all worked out; he always
did. One of them would buy something small at the counter - a packet of chewing
gum, something like that - while the others helped themselves to as many cans
of beer as their coals could conceal. Rat made his last inspection of his
troops - the final briefing, then over the top.

They had waited till dusk — easier
to make a getaway if they were discovered And it was likely they would be - any
village shopkeeper would watch them closely as soon as they set foot on the
premises. Things like this were much easier in the anonymity of London.

The windows of the mini-market were
still brightly lit. It was very much open: people expected a village store to
be open all hours. They could see inside - just a solitary woman at the till, plump
and middle-aged, not one to move fast. They'd hardly needed to wait till the
light disappeared - she'd be a pushover.

They left Fang tied to a telegraph
pole; the last thing they wanted was an argument about dogs on the premises.
Fang would slow them down, and the operation had to be quick if it was to work
- Rat made that quite clear. Fang sat patiently, watching his
master cross the road with his two companions and enter the mini-market,
resigned to a war of nerves with a ginger cat who sat crouched on the
churchyard wall nearby staring at him with sly, gemstone eyes. Fang stared
back: cats didn't bother him.

Dog entered the shop first, the others
behind. They scattered to their separate tasks: Dog to buy chewing gum. the
others to appropriate as many cans as they could without discovery. They were
in luck. The beer was hidden down a far aisle. Dog was at the
counter; the assistant watched him, uninterested, her only concern being what
she was going to cook for tea that evening and whether her daughter, Sylvia,
was still on that stupid diet of hers.

Snot and Rat busied themselves,
secreting cans in the pockets and folds of their ragged coats, glad that the
assistant was either too preoccupied or too stupid to realise what they were up
to.

It never does to become complacent
or to underestimate the enemy.

"You put those back or I'm
calling the police.'

Rat looked up to see the woman glaring at them from her post behind the
counter; one hand clutched a telephone handset while the other jabbed at the
number nine. Dog had left. They could hear Fang's barks outside receding into
the distance. He had got away.

Snot did likewise. He dropped most
of his haul but he managed to cling on to a couple of cans of strong lager as
he rushed from the shop.

Rat stood, staring at his adversary.
The woman put the phone down, unsure of her next move, praying silently that a
couple of burly constables would burst through the door that very second and
retrieve the situation. One of the thieves at least was still here
... but it was the one who looked the most dangerous of the three.
She moved warily towards the door while Rat stood by the display of beer cans
staring at her. She reached the door and slipped the catch down. He wasn't
going to escape ... the police would thank her for that. She felt quite pleased
with herself, with her presence
of mind, relieved to see that the thief was standing statue still.

Then he made a sudden movement and
she saw the flash of metal in his hand: a knife ... he had a knife. She froze
with terror.
His eyes stared into hers as he came slowly towards her ... mad, pitiless.

With an effort of will she flung
herself at the door and fumbled
with the latch she'd so smugly fastened a minute earlier. It wouldn't move: the
door remained locked and her hands had become clumsy with panic. He was still
coming towards her slowly... so slowly. She turned and saw the blade pointing
at her hard, shining and cold as death.

She could hear the distant siren of
a police car. Her fingers, endowed with fresh confidence, managed to operate
the catch. She threw open the door and ran outside into the street without a thought
for the stock or the till. She thought only of escaping that
sharp steel blade and the one who wielded it.

A police patrol car appeared round
the corner and she ran towards it, waving her arms like a castaway sighting a
rescuing ship on the horizon.

Rat followed her out, concerned not
with harming the woman but with getting away. He ran in the opposite direction
from the assistant, towards the church. He wasn't looking out for traffic when
he ran across the road; there was never much traffic in these
villages anyway. His expression when the green Land Rover hit him was one of
startled disbelief. He took the impact full on, bouncing off the bonnet and on
to the road. The driver, a farmer's wife delivering her daughter to the local
Brownie pack, jumped from the driver's seat to see if the man she'd hit was all
right while her daughter remained strapped in the front seat, howling.

The driver looked round as she heard
running footsteps and was amazed to see two uniformed policemen descending on
her. She looked back towards her victim to find that he was no longer lying on
the ground.

He was staggering down the church
path, moving fast for an injured man. The policemen stopped to mumble some
reassuring words to the shocked driver before resuming their chase. Rat reached
the church porch. He fell to his knees, doubled up with pain. The knife ...
where was the knife? He must have dropped it when the car hit him.

He reached up ... reaching for the
huge iron sanctuary ring in the centre of the church door. His fingers grasped
it and he hauled himself up. The ring slipped from his grasp and banged against
the door. He could hear the noise echoing inside the church. He
grasped at it again; it fell back, louder this time ... and again.

The vicar opened the massive oak door
and stared in disbelief at the man who had just fallen across the threshold of
St John's church and was lying on the stone floor in a pool of blood with two
policemen watching over him like avenging angels.

Chapter Nine

During World War II relations between
the people of this part of Devon and our American allies were not always
harmonious I'm sure Hitler's propaganda machine would have thrived on tales of resentment,
violence and even rape that the authorities of the time tried to dismiss or
cover up.

From
A History of Bereton and Its People
by June Mallindale

Gerry Heffernan arrived on the scene
as the ambulance was pulling away. The constables in the patrol car told him
the gist of what had happened. The vicar was speaking to the driver of the Land
Rover, both looked shocked. The overalled assistant from the mini-market was
being comforted by a neighbour who had come out of her house to investigate the
commotion.