The Reckoning (32 page)

‘How did you arrive at that conclusion?'

‘She wrote letters to her solicitor and to Miss Dauncey from Toronto, outlining a scheme she said she had to travel across the country by slow stages to Vancouver; the point being that if she wanted to muddy the water, and make her movements difficult to trace, that was the best way of doing it. The police here have asked the Mounties to help, but so far they haven't located her. If she is behind this plot, it's possible she returned to England soon after she reached Canada.'

‘What about the letters she wrote?'

‘Well, this, I admit, is pure speculation, but I remembered Miss Dauncey telling us that after her supposed posting to the Middle East, her mother continued to receive letters from her, which Alma must have written in advance and left behind in England for others to forward. It occurred to me she could have used the same device in Canada. All that was required was to find some person or agency that would post them for her at agreed intervals.'

He paused, perhaps expecting some further reaction from Finch; but the architect sat immobile, expressionless.

‘If I'm right, she returned to England after a few weeks with a plan of action ready. First she stole the record – a daring act, but not as difficult to carry off as one might suppose. All it took was nerve. Now she had the names of her victims, but it took time for her to establish who they were and where they lived. In the meantime she set out to acquire some false identity cards.
This has been confirmed, by the way. The police have found the dealer in question; he admits selling the cards to a woman.'

‘Has he been shown a photograph of Alma?'

‘Not yet, sir.' It was Billy who answered. ‘He was only picked up yesterday. But the woman we're looking for has been changing her appearance. She's described as a brunette by witnesses, but I noticed from a photo Miss Dauncey showed us that Alma was fair-haired. Even if this man doesn't recognize her from her picture, it won't rule her out as far as we're concerned.'

Finch grunted, but said nothing. Madden went on.

‘She might have hoped the whole plan could be carried off without the motive for the murders being detected. The cause lay thirty years in the past after all, and there was no link whatsoever between the victims other than that single event: the court martial. But she was taking no chances. She stopped using her own name and, armed with the false identity cards, she went first to Ballater, in Scotland, where the doctor lived. He was shot towards the end of September. From there she went south, to Sussex. The second victim was a retired bank official in Lewes named Gibson. He was killed while out fishing, and the police have sufficient evidence to be able to place this same woman close to the murder site on the day in question. She had been using one of her aliases and had been in the area for a fortnight. It seems likely that she also called on Gibson on some pretext, in order to determine that he was the man she was seeking. Following that murder, and only a week later, the same woman called on the next victim, a retired schoolmaster in Oxford, posing as a collector for Remembrance Day, again in order to pin down his identity. He was killed a few days afterwards. The last man shot, Sir Horace Canning, was sufficiently well known not to need that kind of vetting.'

Madden paused to take stock.

‘I haven't mentioned the gun that was used in these killings,
but the police were able to establish quite quickly that the same weapon had been used in each case. And something else: the first three victims were all shot with iron-cored bullets, which according to experts here could only have been manufactured in Germany during the war, when they ran short of lead. Somehow these bullets found their way to England, most likely in a captured side-arm; a Luger in all probability. I mention this detail in the hope that it might mean something to you.'

Again he waited, hoping Finch would say something. The architect had paled slightly at his last words (or so it seemed to Billy, who was watching him closely). But he remained silent.

‘Even before we spoke to Miss Dauncey, there was no escaping the fact that the woman the police were hunting was far from ordinary.'

Madden paused to give weight to his next words.

‘Her ability to live in the shadows, to switch identities and change her appearance, to steal a court-martial record held under seal in a locked cupboard and leave no mark upon it, pointed to a person with experience well outside the norm: to someone used to living a clandestine life – to someone like Alma Ballard.'

At last the architect stirred. In the last few minutes he had shown signs that the tale he was hearing was having its effect, gnawing at his lip and at one stage putting a hand to his head. Now he sat forward.

‘You make a strong case, Mr Madden.' His voice was calm, his tone even. ‘But you're not being entirely truthful with me.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘You neglected to mention the man you spoke of earlier: the one the police were searching for – the presumed killer. He played no part in your tale, I noticed. But then perhaps that's because you don't believe he exists.'

Billy glanced at his old chief. The look on Madden's face told its own story.

‘You think Alma shot these men, don't you?'

Madden bowed his head in assent.

‘I've never believed there were two people involved. I couldn't conceive of this being other than a solitary obsession, and since it's plain – to me at least – that Alma was the one who set the plot in motion, it must be her finger that was on the trigger. I would to God it were otherwise.'

His voice shook.

‘The reason the police announced they were looking for a man was because a witness saw what he thought was a male figure approaching the second victim shortly before he was shot. The person was dressed like one, and the odd thing was that he knew he had been observed and seemed unworried by the fact. I believe that person was Alma, and she wanted to be seen dressed as she was. She had a knapsack with her and doubtless a change of clothes. When she walked back into Lewes later, it was as a woman.'

Finch sat like a statue, his face a mask.

‘What do you want from me, Mr Madden?' He spoke at last. ‘What do you expect me to say?'

‘We need to understand how this came about.
I
need to understand. What drove her to it?'

His voice held a note of appeal. Then he pressed on.

‘I can't believe the simple fact of her father's execution, however terrible, would have pushed her over the edge. There was something more, something from her past that helped lead her to make the choice she did. When she returned near the end of the war she was in deep depression. “Near catatonic” were the words Miss Dauncey used to describe her. Alma never revealed the cause of it; the only clue she gave was when she announced her decision to emigrate. She said, in effect, that she wanted nothing more to do with this country. We know how she felt about her father. But that wasn't the whole story, was it? What other pain
was she carrying? What caused her to turn away from life? I think you know the answer.'

The morning had all but passed, but the day was no brighter. Dense fog still blanketed the wide picture window. A little earlier Finch's secretary had knocked on the door to remind him of a meeting of the firm's partners scheduled for noon, only to be told that he would not be attending it and she should alert the others to his absence.

As before, Finch had risen from the table following Madden's declaration, but this time, instead of going to the window, he had wandered about the office, hands in pockets and head bent, seemingly turning over in his mind what – if anything – he would say to them. At that moment he was standing in front of a framed drawing hanging on the wall above the draughtsman's desk. Turning, he caught the direction of Billy's glance.

‘Palladio,' he remarked. ‘Does the name mean anything to you, Inspector?'

‘I'm afraid not, sir.'

‘He was a sixteenth-century architect, probably the most influential in history. That's a house he designed near Venice.' He nodded at the drawing. ‘His name is synonymous with harmony. When you see a Palladian villa you think: yes, of course, that's the only way it could be. He knew instinctively how to strike the right balance. Would to God Alma had been blessed with the same gift.'

Crossing the room to a cupboard, he returned with a bottle of wine and some glasses in his hands.

‘Will either of you join me?' he asked.

‘Thank you, sir. I'd better not.' Billy shook his head.

‘I will.'

To Billy's surprise, he heard Madden accept. They watched as Finch opened the bottle and poured the wine.

‘I met her first in the spring of 1943.' He resumed his seat. ‘I was running a circuit in Orleans. And you were right, Mr Madden, my cover name was Antoine. Alma's was Chantal. She was sent over to be my wireless operator. It was a dangerous job; the Germans had good tracking equipment and they were relentless in chasing down radio signals. I had lost my last operator, also a woman. She had stayed on the air a little too long and, when the Germans burst in, she had shot it out with them rather than be captured. We all knew by then what lay in store for any agent who fell into their hands. Alma came with high recommendations. She was in the Signal Corps when she volunteered for SOE and was recruited mainly because of her French background. But she proved to be a natural. According to the people who trained her, she wasn't only intelligent and quick-witted; she had the capacity that was vital for our work of being able to assess a situation correctly and select the right course of action; all under pressure. Plus she was rated a crack shot.'

He caught Madden's eye.

‘I soon realized I had a remarkable operative under my command. Alma slipped into her role at once. We already knew that women were generally better than men at assuming new identities; they seemed able to adapt to their new personas more easily; to live their lives more naturally outside the demands of their jobs. Alma was outstanding in that respect. She soon had a circle of acquaintances in Orleans who knew nothing about her clandestine activities, but provided the sort of camouflage needed to deflect suspicion. She was an expert WT operator, but even so I felt she was wasted in the role and I managed to persuade London to send me a replacement. Alma became my courier, and later on my second-in-command. She took over responsibility for organizing the reception of shipments of arms and ammunition sent over from London, usually by parachute drop. We were supplying two separate Maquis groups at the time, and she was my liaison officer. We were trying to get them to coordinate
their operations – never an easy thing. The aim was to disrupt Nazi road and rail communications as much as possible, and Alma used to shuttle between them, offering advice and whatever else they were willing to accept in the way of encouragement. It was a job she proved adept at, not least because the men admired her. She was quite fearless. She used any excuse to join in their attacks on German convoys and emplacements, and before long the men were in awe of her; or so I was told. I don't know whether the connection between Orleans and Joan of Arc ever occurred to them, but it certainly did to me, and I warned her more than once to keep a rein on her thirst for battle. We were there to do a job, I told her, not to win medals, but even as I said it, I knew I was wasting my breath.'

His smile as he reached forward to refill their glasses was touched with sadness.

‘The Nazis were never able to locate the Maquis camps – they kept shifting – but they knew what was going on and did their best to make movement in the area as difficult and dangerous as possible. God only knows how many times Alma was stopped and questioned, but she always managed to talk her way through the roadblocks, and the reason, I think, was because she was truly unafraid and the feeling communicated itself to the soldiers she encountered. Given how she was living and the risks she was taking, it was an extraordinary attitude of mind and something I've never really understood. Fear is natural, after all. It's part of what makes us human. But I never saw Alma show the slightest sign of it. However, I did get some insight into her when she told me about her father, how he had died a hero . . . the attack he was supposed to have led on the German trench . . . I expect you know the story – the one her mother told her?'

Madden nodded

‘I never met her, the mother, but I wonder about her now. Just what did she think she was doing, creating that myth about
a dead hero? What did she turn her daughter into? Some sort of throwback to the Middle Ages? I sensed Alma was somehow bent on living up to his example, and I warned her more than once against being reckless. But by now we were all working under intense pressure and there was nothing I could do but hope she would exercise good judgement. The invasion was in the offing, and we'd both been sent north to help with the efforts being made to disrupt the Nazi defences. We were dealing with a different lot of Maquisards and their commander had come to Le Mans, where I was setting up a new network with two of his men, to meet me.

‘When they returned to their camp I sent Alma with them, travelling on her bicycle as she would need it later, while the men followed in a farm lorry. She was in the process of going through a German roadblock in the countryside as they came up behind her, and after she had passed the barrier she looked back and saw that they were in trouble. It turned out later that there had been a problem with one of the men's papers. In any event, it was enough for the officer who happened to be there inspecting the post – a lieutenant – to order the men to be detained, and as Alma watched from a little way down the road she saw all three of them being herded at rifle point into a nearby hut. I told you earlier how her gift for assessing a situation had been noted during her training. I'd had occasion to witness it in the past, along with her capacity for swift decision; and although I had recognized its value, I was also aware that if she had a weakness, it was this tendency to act on the instant, without reflection. At that moment, however, the gift stood her in good stead. She had realized at once that if the men ended up in the hands of the Gestapo, as was likely, it could prove fatal to the whole group, since one of the captured men was their leader. He would hold out under questioning for as long as he could – that went without saying – but in the end he would talk. Everyone did. There were four soldiers on duty at the roadblock, and the
lieutenant made five. Alma was armed. She carried a pistol strapped to her thigh, on the theory that the average soldier wouldn't run his hands over that part of her body – he'd be too embarrassed – and she'd been proved right. She wheeled her bicycle back towards the roadblock.'