The Dead Can Wait (28 page)

Booth fidgeted slightly. ‘I have reason to believe he was quite taken with Miss Pillbody. Paying her court. And perhaps she might have made a useful shield.’

‘What, he was going to kidnap her?’ Coyle asked.

Booth considered this. ‘Well, a hostage might have been useful.’

‘Possibly. Don’t take this the wrong way, Lieutenant, but I’m surprised you allowed a writer of any kind to operate in the vicinity. Given whatever it is youse doin’ over there. Very surprised.’ In fact, he almost added, some might say it was foolhardy.

‘He was American. Or so we thought. Which made it trickier. But you are right,’ Booth said, with surprising self-loathing. ‘I was a fool. An absolute bloody fool. Excuse me for a moment.’

He took the water upstairs. Coyle could hear a conversation between the two, but not the words. When he returned, Booth said, ‘She’s bordering on the hysterical. And who can blame her? I have an idea. I’ll fetch Major Watson from the house. He can look at your shoulder and prescribe something for Miss Pillbody. I suspect she’ll have trouble sleeping otherwise.’

‘Reckon.’ But not him. Coyle could feel the energy seeping out of him. He had lost a fair amount of blood, he supposed. He could feel it crusted under his shirt, crackling when he moved. Still his brain tried to go over the facts, but it was slow work, like the wheels were rusty and neglected. ‘Why were you here again, Lieutenant? In this cottage when your man burst in?’

Booth was clearly used to being the one who asked the questions and bristled somewhat.

‘I’m just curious. Tying up loose ends in here.’ Coyle tapped his temple. ‘I helped get two men killed tonight. Well, one and half. I don’t think that fella there would have survived the . . .’ He mimed the knife through the jaw. ‘But, it sort of helps if I know why I had to shoot him.’

It was said with the utmost reasonableness and some of the stuffing leaked out of Booth. ‘I was here to, well, to cancel an appointment with Miss Pillbody.’

Coyle raised an eyebrow. Even that took an effort. ‘An appointment?’

‘All right, I, too, was seeing something of Miss Pillbody. Just for a little female company.’

Coyle was silent for a few moments. No wonder they didn’t like women on ships: they addled some men’s brains. He’d get a bottle from Sutton once all this was done. A bottle of Bushmills was all the company he wanted. ‘Did you share a drink?’

‘With Miss Pillbody?’

‘Aye.’

‘No. She was making some tea. We didn’t get around to drinking it. Why?’

Coyle moved his eyes from the two upturned glasses that lay next to the sink and said, ‘Nothing.’ He grimaced as a blade of hot pain ran across his clavicle and up his neck. He could do with that whiskey right now. And his damned thumbs had started prickling like chilblains again. What were they on about now? ‘If you don’t mind, Lieutenant, you’d best go and fetch our Major Watson, quick as you like.’

TWENTY-NINE

As he came down the stone steps with his orderly in tow, Lieutenant Booth noticed the ground in front of the ice house was unusually soggy, and he could hear water hissing as it spurted in fine sprays through the door seals, like leaking lock gates on a canal.

‘That’s odd, sir,’ said Ridley, the orderly. ‘Why is there water coming out of the ice house?’

Before Booth could reply, the full implications of what they were seeing sunk home. Ridley rushed forward, splashing over waterlogged ground, drew back the bolts and the two men swung the steel doors open. A torrent of filthy, cold water cascaded over the pair, slopping into their boots. As it subsided Booth shone his torch into the blackness, picking out two shivering figures intertwined on the top step.

‘Good grief, man, what happened?’

‘Thank God,’ was all Watson could manage in reply.

Watson slowly unfurled himself from Mrs Gregson, stood, and led her out into the twilight. Both were shaking hard. Booth turned to Ridley. ‘Go back to the house. Bring blankets and brandy, at once, man.’

He guided the sodden duo over to a low wall and sat them beneath its balustrade. Watson’s skin was very grey. It looked, from the staining on their clothing, as if the water had come up to their waists. ‘What on earth has been going on?’ Booth demanded, trying to massage life into Watson’s cheeks, while Mrs Gregson did the same with his hands.

‘We were in there examining the bodies when someone flooded the ice house,’ she said, indicating the stream of water that was still cascading down the slope. ‘There must be a mechanism for stopping the flow. A lever or wheel.’

‘Wait here,’ said Booth, and loped off, flashlight held in front of him.

The orderly returned with blankets and Mrs Gregson began to unbutton Watson’s squelching trousers. He protested, but she slapped his hand.

‘Ever heard the expression “you’ll catch your death”? Well, you will, Major, unless we get you out of these things. What’s your name?’ she snapped at the orderly.

‘Ridley, miss.’

She didn’t correct him. ‘Now give me a hand, Ridley.’

Using one blanket to protect his modesty, within a few minutes they had stripped all the clothes from Watson’s lower half and swaddled him in a second blanket. Mrs Gregson was pouring brandy down him when Booth returned.

‘Well? Did you stop the flow?’

‘Yes. There was a stopcock system next to the lakeside, housed in a shed. A padlocked shed. The door had been forced.’

‘Someone tried to kill us,’ Mrs Gregson said. ‘And damned near succeeded.’

‘This is bloody monstrous,’ declared Booth. His lower lip wobbled. For a second Mrs Gregson thought he might cry, but he visibly pulled himself together.
Boy for a man’s job,
she thought.

Watson mumbled something.

‘What?’

‘You must get dry, too,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re shivering.’

It was true; her flesh was also severely goose bumped and there was a cyan tinge to her lips. ‘I’m not about to get undressed here,’ she said firmly. ‘Can you walk, Major?’

‘Shall I fetch a motor car round? We can get one to that path over there,’ Ridley asked.

‘Get a move on then,’ said Booth, angry at himself for not having considered that.
Too much going on for one night,
he thought.
My head is all over the place.

While Ridley was gone, Booth asked: ‘How did you stop the water rising over your heads?’

Mrs Gregson gave a larger spasm at the thought of the method they had used to block the drain. ‘Don’t ask. We have some clearing up to do in there.’

Watson again chattered something between his blue lips. He repeated himself once more. ‘Tell him. Grenades.’

‘We think your three men had been shot or otherwise murdered and grenades used to cover the wounds.’

‘Ah.’ It was a mournful sound.

‘You don’t seem too surprised, Lieutenant.’

Booth quickly explained the events at the village and Coyle’s belief that Ross had been a German spy.

‘C-Coyle’s a good man. One of the best. T-trust him,’ said Watson.

‘Good Lord, what a situation,’ said Mrs Gregson. ‘So you think this German spy was behind everything happening here?’

Booth helped himself to some of the brandy. ‘I have no idea. But I was hoping Major Watson could help his man, Coyle. I came back to find him and the colonel said you were out here with the bodies. A stroke of luck for you, I suppose. But Coyle’s shoulder is in a pretty pickle. And someone needs to check Miss Pillbody, who has had quite the shock.’

Watson nodded enthusiastically but Mrs Gregson said: ‘Out of the question. Major Watson needs to be wrapped up in bed, with hot-water bottles and someone to keep an eye on him overnight. He isn’t as young as he once was.’

Watson’s head moved in protest. ‘N-n-n—’

‘John Hamish Watson, do not argue with me. I’m the closest to a physician you can get at this moment. And I’m keeping you here.’

They heard the crunch of tyres on gravel and saw the pale ovals of a slow-moving vehicle’s lights as it approached along the path.

Mrs Gregson turned to Booth. ‘If it’s setting of bones, the cleaning of bullet wounds, bandaging or slings, I can do that as well as Major Watson.’ The major chose not to disagree with that. She, too, took a mouthful of brandy, enjoying the burn on her insides. ‘Give me ten minutes to wash and change and I’ll come to the village with you. I can probably sort your Miss Pillbody out as well.’

They entered Miss Pillbody’s cottage through the smashed front door. Booth noticed that Coyle’s car, the one Ross had stolen, was missing. Had Coyle left? Gone back to the pub? If so he had done so without the borrowed bicycle. That still lay discarded at the gate.

Booth went into the cottage first, shouting, ‘Hello?’

It was Mrs Gregson who noticed the figure lying in the hallway, tucked up in one corner, as if it had been kicked there. She bent down and examined the broken body. It was a doll, with a large spherical head and a rather leering expression. Or it would have been, if the porcelain hadn’t split, with one side fragmented into a hundred pieces. It was like a miniature Humpty Dumpty.

Booth stopped to see what she was doing. ‘That’s one of Miss Pillbody’s dolls. She collects— oh, God.’ He unclipped the flap of his holster and extracted the Webley. ‘Miss Pillbody! Nora! Hello?’

He started up the stairs. Mrs Gregson put her head into the living room, and then into the darkened kitchen. ‘oh my Lord,’ she said softly, when she turned on the electric light. ‘Lieutenant Booth.’

He clattered down the stairs. ‘Nobody up there. Both rooms empty—’

Then he saw what she was staring at, mouth open in horror.

Coyle was sitting at the table, his upper half bent over it, arms out straight before him, as if he were in supplication to some deity. One hand was crossed on top of the other, and a knife had been stabbed through them with considerable force, pinning both to the table.

Mrs Gregson approached the poor man, telling herself she had seen far, far worse than this. Dispassionately, she took in the hole in the back of the skull, and the matted, singed hair around it. Shot. At very close range. His face lay in a halo of blood, already half-congealed. She touched the body, warm to her fingertips, but not warm enough. She didn’t have to check for a pulse, but she did so anyway. Not a murmur.

‘Oh my God, they’ve taken Nora.’

That was the second time she had heard him use her Christian name. ‘Nora?’

‘Miss Pillbody.’

‘And her dolls?’ she asked, holding up the shattered toy.

His eyes darted to the empty shelf. ‘Good Lord, yes. There were a dozen of them. Whoever took her can’t have got far.’

‘I’d stay here for a moment, Lieutenant,’ she said. ‘Go and look upstairs again. Look in the wardrobes. The drawers. Under the bed.’

Puzzled, he did as he was told, while Mrs Gregson examined poor Coyle. His shirt had been partially ripped off his back to reveal the jagged wound in his shoulder. But whoever had done this had not exposed it to dress it; something has been shoved in that hole, she was certain: a knife or a bradle. Coyle had been tortured, the wound, which must have been agony enough, worried and stabbed and pierced to try and extract information from him. She suppressed the urge to be sick.

Booth reappeared. ‘You are right. Clothes missing, some drawers emptied, evidence of something dragged from under the bed . . .’

‘Could it be a suitcase?

‘Yes. She’s been kidnapped.’

‘Kidnapped? But what sort of kidnappers stop to grab a suitcase and bring the victim’s collection of dolls?’ she asked, sceptically. ‘Or are we looking at . . .’

‘What?’

She voiced the thought quickly. ‘A second German agent?’

It hit Booth like a physical blow and he stepped back. His face was a picture of misery and shame. ‘No. Absolutely not. It can’t be . . .’

‘Think before you speak,’ snapped Mrs Gregson, sharply. ‘Anything is possible in this day and age. I’ve just been locked in an ice house and half drowned. Could she have been an enemy spy?’

Booth ran a forearm across his brow, wiping away a sudden film of sweat. ‘I don’t know.’ He crossed to the drainer. ‘Coyle asked me if I’d had a drink with Miss Pillbody.’

‘Had you?’

‘I hadn’t, but . . .’ He picked up one of the two glasses and turned it over in his hand, like a pawnbroker appraising trade. He sniffed. There was the faintest hint of a sweet alcohol.

‘But perhaps the German agent had, this Ross,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he had been here before you arrived.’

‘I thought he was just, you know, keen on her. A rival, if you will.’

Mrs Gregson really wanted to unleash a tongue-lashing on him, but she simply asked: ‘And now?’

Booth swallowed hard. He looked as if the earth was shifting beneath his feet and he steadied himself on the table. ‘Christ.’ But there was still doubt in his eyes. ‘There has to be some other explanation. She was a schoolteacher. I threw her out of the school. No, no. You must be wrong.’

‘Give me a moment,’ Mrs Gregson said.

She found it in the small parlour, behind the false back of an alcove cupboard. Pillbody had smashed the valves, bent the Morse key and pulled out some of the wires to render it useless. She called Booth through to show him the radio, compounding his torment. She knew he could see a promising future in army intelligence spiralling down in flames.

‘What do we do now?’ he asked, no longer trusting his own judgement.

‘This cottage needs to be searched by experts.
I assume you’ve done the
same with this Ross’s lodgings
.’

‘Not yet. I’ll organize it.’

‘I don’t think there is much to be gained by leaving poor Coyle there like that.’

‘No.’

‘He’s been tortured,’ she said.

‘With the knives?’

For some reason, she didn’t feel like sparing his feelings. ‘At the very least.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive. By your Nora, I would imagine.’
Careful now, you are becoming vindictive, she thought.

‘Please do not call her that.’

Then the dam burst and she found herself furious at this man. Somewhere along the line he had allowed not one but two German agents to get close to him, had let himself see just a woman for stalking, not the wily bitch that must have been hidden under her petticoats. The result of his foolishness was sitting, pinned to a kitchen table, his last minutes on the planet a miasma of pain. Booth wasn’t the first man in a position of power who had acted inexplicably over a woman, nor would he be the last, but that didn’t make Mrs Gregson any better inclined towards the idiot.