The Rest is Silence (Billy Boyle World War II Mystery) (9 page)

“Edmund Grange, you mean? Of the Devon Constabulary? Decent man, he should be of help to you,” Sir Rupert declared. “I sit on a committee for the Dartmouth Royal Regatta; I met him last summer while we were preparing for the festivities. Big headache for the police, I expect, but everyone enjoys the fun. It’s all scaled back these days, thanks to the war, but it’s a morale boost for the locals even so.”

“Oh yes, the Mayor’s Ball is the highlight of the week,” Helen said, lighting up with enthusiasm for a brief moment. Then her face went blank, and she stared down at her plate. Maybe the notion of going to the ball with David this year didn’t sit well.

“Give Grange my best,” Sir Rupert said, a brief frown creasing his forehead as he watched Helen. “And I’m glad you’re not badly hurt, or worse.”

“Indeed,” Great Aunt Sylvia said. “It would be a silly way to go, in any case. Tell me, Baron Kazimierz, have you family in Poland? It must be quite difficult for them, from what I hear.”

“No, Lady Pemberton,” Kaz said in a low voice. “I do not.” The only sound that followed was Edgar tapping the shell of his soft-boiled egg. After a few minutes, the idle chitchat picked up again. Kaz and I excused ourselves and made for the jeep.

Family was a hard subject for Kaz. His was wiped out by the Nazis after the invasion of Poland. They had been wealthy—far wealthier than the residents of Ashcroft House—and his father had had the foresight to transfer the family fortune to a Swiss bank in case of war. He hadn’t foreseen how quickly the war would be at his doorstep,
however, and had missed his chance to leave the country. The Kazimierz family had been murdered as part of the Nazi plan to exterminate the intelligentsia. Businessmen, aristocrats, lawyers, and anyone who might resist were ruthlessly slaughtered. Kaz had had no relatives to squabble with and no one but me to confide in since he was maimed in the explosion that had killed Daphne Seaton.

It was our first case together. Kaz lost the love of his life and got that scar as a daily reminder. He took chances and sought death after that, but he was too damn lucky to find it. Since then, he’s hung around to keep me out of trouble, I think. It’s a good thing for him that trouble seems always to be right around the corner.

Maybe I should revise that bit about Kaz having no one else but me. There is a princess in Rome, but she’s part of the underground, and he won’t be seeing her anytime too soon. Again, it’s a long story, but she deserves a mention. Sometimes broken hearts do heal.

“A hospitable bunch, but strange nonetheless,” I said, if only to break the silence as we headed down the long driveway.

“I admit there are undercurrents of tension within the family,” Kaz said. “That is clear. The question is, does it have anything to do with why David wanted me to visit?”

“It wasn’t just for old times’ sake?” We drove through the muddy streets of North Cornworthy, and I noticed the mill this time, down from the bridge that spanned Bow Creek. That was where Great Aunt Sylvia’s grandfather supposedly put his own sweat into the construction.

“I do not know,” Kaz said. “I think there must be something he wants to talk about. He seemed to relax when we said we’d stay, did you notice? Or it could have been the strain from his injuries. He is recuperating, after all, and still on sick leave. Perhaps it was a wave of pain that passed.”

“Having a wife who can’t look you in the face could cause a lot of pain,” I said. “You didn’t know Helen at all?”

“No,” Kaz said. “I hadn’t met her before. Whenever David mentioned her in his letters, it was what you’d expect. She was wonderful, he couldn’t believe how lucky he was, that sort of thing.”

“Some people are fine when the going is easy,” I said. “Wealthy girl gets a dashing, blond-haired RAF pilot who went to Oxford. Fairy-tale stuff. As long as the fairy tale plays out, she’s the perfect wife. But then reality comes along when his fighter goes down, and the charming prince isn’t quite so charming anymore. Life gets tough, and she doesn’t know how to handle it, so she hides out on his left side.”

“You could be correct,” Kaz said. “And if so, I don’t know what David might expect me to do about it. Perhaps he doesn’t want her to look at his burns, did you think of that?”

“It didn’t look that way to me,” I said. “She was the one moving around to his good side, far as I could tell. Either way, he might want a shoulder to cry on. Ashcroft may not provide many sympathetic listeners, especially when it concerns one of their own.”

“We shall see,” Kaz said. We drew closer to the River Dart and heard the blast of a steam locomotive from the opposite bank. The green hills rose above the rail line as the engine pulled its long load toward the coast. “You know, our dead chap could have come from anywhere. He could have come from the north of England on that very train, got into a dispute, and been shot and dumped in the water that same day.”

“Meaning we should widen the search?”

“Yes,” Kaz said. “Contact Scotland Yard as well. If we assume he wasn’t in the military, that narrows it down quite a bit. About thirty years of age, in decent condition, and engaged in a business that involves violence.”

“You’re right,” I said, following his lead. “He might have had a criminal record that would have kept him out of the service. Good thinking, Kaz. Let’s see what Inspector Grange has to say, and then we’ll follow up, maybe call Inspector Scutt at the Yard.”

I’d worked with Detective Inspector Horace Scutt of Scotland Yard a while ago. We hadn’t seen eye to eye at first, but he was a good cop, and I trusted him. He was beyond retirement age, staying on for the duration. It had to be tough, dealing with a war and thousands of rowdy servicemen when you should have been tending roses or doing whatever coppers do when they turn in their badges.

We threaded our way through Dartmouth traffic, mostly military, and sought out Inspector Grange at the Devon Constabulary. This time we were lucky.

“Glad to help, for what it’s worth,” Inspector Grange said when we’d explained our assignment. He gestured toward two chairs in front of his desk and flopped down into his own. He was stout, with a thick grey moustache and even thicker eyebrows. He looked tired as he fired up his pipe. “I heard you chaps got caught up in that mess at Slapton Sands. God-awful.”

“The only good thing is that it was a rehearsal, not the real thing,” Kaz said. “Do you have any further information on our corpse from the beach?”

“I suspect you know as much as I do, if you’ve talked to Dr. Verniquet.” He puffed to get the bowl hot and blew out a stream of smoke that filled the room with an aroma of ashtrays and wet socks.

“Guy about thirty, shot in the arm and then the head, in the water for three to four months,” I said. “No missing person reports that match?”

“None from Devon, that much we know,” Grange said. “Of course, that could be meaningless. It could be a local no one cared to report, or an outsider no one wanted to.”

“Do you know many male civilians of that age who wouldn’t be missed?” I said. “It’s not like he was an old man off in the woods.”

“I agree, Captain Boyle,” Grange said. “If he had been local and unmarried, there would certainly have been a lady or two who noticed, what with most of the eligible men gone.”

“And if he were married, his wife would have reported him,” Kaz said.

“Yes,” Grange said. “Although perhaps not, if she was the one who killed him.”

“A wife would be more likely to shoot him in the heart,” I said. “Not the head.”

“I’ll take your word for that, Captain,” Grange said with a friendly smile. “But as it stands, I have nothing of value to report. I sent out word to the rest of the constabulary to ask around again about any
man missing for a month or more. Pity there wasn’t enough of the face left to use for a description.”

“I know Detective Inspector Scutt at Scotland Yard,” I said. “Would you mind if I contacted him to see if he has any information about anyone fitting the description?”

“Go ahead, if he’ll act on it,” Grange said, waving his pipe. “It’s doubtful our chief constable would request assistance from the Yard for a minor case like this, but if you can get Scutt to assist informally, I’m all for it.”

“Thanks, Inspector,” I said. “I don’t want to cause any problems.”

“No problem if we get some help on this, Captain Boyle. We’re short-staffed here, and we have it better than most.”

“Why is that?” Kaz asked.

“Oh, the South Hams,” Grange said. “When the government evacuated those villages, we absorbed the constables to help us cover the rest of Devon. Even so, we’re short of younger men. Plenty of oldtimers like me, not short on experience. But stamina, that’s harder to come by. Many of our lads enlisted as soon as they could, and I can’t blame them. But it leaves us in the lurch, especially with so many army and navy chaps coming in. Royal Navy, US Army, it doesn’t matter, they all want to have a good time when they get a pass, and there’s the devil to pay some nights. Plus we’ve had a rash of burglaries lately. A few well-to-do ladies have had their jewelry pinched.”

“What about the War Reserve Constables?” I asked. “Tom Quick seems pretty sharp. He was a constable before the war, he said.”

“Ah yes, Tom Quick is a good man,” Grange said.

“Why is he not a regular constable?” Kaz asked. “His limp did not appear too bad.”

“Limp?” Grange said. “Oh, his limp. I couldn’t tell you. Dr. Verniquet decides who’s fit enough for what. Now, anything else I can do for you?”

There wasn’t. Not that he had done anything in the first place.

“That was odd, about the limp,” Kaz said as we left the building.

“Yeah. He acted as if he’d never heard that was the reason Quick wasn’t on the regular force,” I said.

“And then he covered his tracks,” Kaz said. “Not that it matters. But it bothers you?”

“Everything that doesn’t make sense bothers me, Kaz. What’s the story with Tom Quick? Where does all the tension at Ashcroft come from?”

“Not to mention our dead body,” Kaz said as we got into the jeep.

“No,” I said, my hand draped over the steering wheel as I looked out over all the ships anchored off Darmouth harbor. Destroyers clustered at the center of the river, and smaller landing craft huddled close by the docks. Fairmile Motor Torpedo Boats cruised out toward the Channel, the throaty rumble of their engines echoing against the hills across the wide river. “The body doesn’t bother me. A guy was killed, floated around for a while, and then washed up at Slapton Sands. It makes sense. All we need to do is reconstruct what happened before he took a couple of slugs. Quick and the crew at Ashcroft, they’re all unanswered questions and confusion. They all have secrets. The dead body is just an unknown. There’s a big difference.”

“I see your point,” Kaz said. “But it is none of our business, really. Whether Quick has a limp or not, what David wants, why the overall tension at Ashcroft: these are all merely curiosities. Colonel Harding will want a report on our progress on the actual case, Billy.”

“We’ve been going about this all wrong,” I said, turning to look at Kaz. I think he’d been lecturing me, but I hadn’t listened too much after the word
business
. “Most murders are about love or money. Assume money in this case. A criminal enterprise. So who should we talk to? A county detective is going to be as much help as a fisherman. We need to talk to a crook.”

“Not that fellow in London,” Kaz said. “The one who has the gang in Shoreditch?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t know what sort of reception I’d get. I’m thinking of Razor Fraser.”

“The solicitor?” Kaz said.

“Yep. And he’s closer than London, to boot,” I said. Stanley Fraser was a lawyer whose clients were mainly known criminals. I’d
questioned him on our last case, but it had turned out he had nothing to do with the crime in question. There’s always a first time.

“Why would he help?” Kaz said.

“I’ll try the carrot, and carry a big stick,” I said. Fraser was based in Hungerford, more than halfway to London, but it was the only idea I had. He was connected to several major gangs, according to the police inspector who had come along for that last interview. Razor—so called because he got a client declared innocent after witnesses had seen him slit the throat of his victim—knew things. And one thing I’d picked up on was that he craved respectability. Maybe I could use that. If he knew anything—and it didn’t mean selling out a rich client—he might go for it.

“We should get started,” Kaz said. “It’s a long drive.”

“I’ll go. You can spend some time with your buddy and snoop around Ashcroft,” I said with a grin. I wanted Kaz to know I was joking, but I wouldn’t mind if he dug up anything on the cast of characters in that family, just for laughs.

Kaz went to check the train schedules, and I returned to the police station. I told Grange I needed to use the telephone. He probably assumed I was calling Scotland Yard, because he let me use his office, telling the switchboard operator to put my call through. The operator made the connection, and after Fraser calmed down and I explained that this was strictly off the record, he agreed to see me that afternoon.

“You’re in luck,” Kaz said as we rendezvoused at the jeep. “A ferry leaves in ten minutes, and the train stops at Hungerford. If you don’t spend too long there you can make it back this evening.” The Dartmouth ferry shuttled people across the river directly to the station at Kingswear, which cut down on travel time. I figured two hours in Hungerford would be more than enough, so Kaz planned to pick me up later that night.

I paid my fare at the Dartmouth ticket booth and half an hour later settled in to a Great Western Railways car with the local newspaper. The big news was that the British government had banned travel and communications for all neutral diplomats. No more coded messages in diplomatic pouches, no flights to other countries where secrets
could be passed on. The government had given no reason, but they didn’t have to. D-Day. No one was taking any chances on a neutral diplomat friendly to the Germans getting out with any information about where or when.

It made me feel better about our case. If Great Britain was violating centuries of international law for security purposes, then maybe identifying this corpse was worth our time. It remained to be seen whether Razor Fraser agreed.