A Willing Victim (18 page)

‘Why did you want her to contact you?’ asked Stratton.

‘My husband said …’ She broke off, looking anxious. ‘He said I shouldn’t telephone because you might take him away, and I have to say I was in two minds myself, which is why I didn’t want to say too much when I called, but I felt we had to tell you, really.’

‘Take who away?’ asked Stratton. ‘I think,’ he added, with an encouraging smile, ‘you’d better tell me everything from the beginning.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Mrs Wheeler’s hands twisted nervously in her lap.

‘It’s all right,’ said Stratton. ‘Take your time.’

‘Yes, well … Mrs Milburn was a neighbour, you see. When we lived in Woodbridge. I don’t know if you know Suffolk at all, but that’s about twenty miles from here – we lived there after we were married, up to the middle of 1946. I never knew Mrs Milburn that well, but we’d pass the time of day, you know … Anyway, a couple of weeks after VE Day, she came to my house with the baby and asked if I’d look after him for a couple of days because she had some business to attend to. She didn’t say what it was, but her husband had died the week before so I thought it must be to do with that.’

‘Did you know the Reverend Milburn?’

Mrs Wheeler shook her head. ‘I’d only seen him once or twice. He was an invalid, hardly ever left the house. The doctor was always calling. There were some people who said he was going to see her, not her husband, that they were carrying on, but it was just gossip and I don’t think there was any truth in it.’
Clearly, thought Stratton, Mrs Wheeler was a woman with a kind and unsuspicious nature. ‘Anyway, she came along with Tom—’

‘That would be the baby, would it?’

‘That’s right. He was about eighteen months old at the time. I agreed to look after him for her, so she brought his clothes and that – my twins were just over a year at that time, so their things would have been too small – then off she went and that was the last we saw of her. We never had so much as a postcard.’

Stratton produced his photograph of Mary Milburn. ‘And it was definitely this woman who left the child, was it?’

‘Oh, yes. No question about that. Very nice-looking she was, and always well turned out. When she didn’t come back, my husband went round to her house but it was empty and the people next door hadn’t seen her for days. We went to the police, but they couldn’t find her. Then we paid a solicitor to search for her, but he didn’t do any better, so in the end we decided to treat him as a gift from God and bring him up as one of ours. We had to ask at the surgery to find out when his birthday was – Dr Slater was gone by then, of course. So I’ve got five of my own, and Tom. I’m thinking,’ she added shrewdly, ‘that you haven’t found Mrs Milburn, or you wouldn’t be here, but when you do, will we have to give him back? She never registered his birth, you see, and he’s got no idea – he thinks he belongs to us. The police said we had to go to court about it, but the magistrate said we could keep him – it’s all in the records. He was only a baby then, of course, but he’s nearly twelve now, and if he had to lose his whole family … As far as the others know, he’s their big brother. I know that would be pretty unlikely, given their ages, but they’re not old enough to understand things like that yet …’ Eyes round with distress, Mrs Wheeler put a hand to her mouth. ‘I can’t bear to think of him being taken away.’ She took a handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and began dabbing her eyes.

Stratton stared out of the window while she composed herself. Children – Mrs Wheeler was obviously minding others as well as her own – seemed to explode in all directions in a blur of muddy knees, flying wellingtons, flapping scarves and apple-red cheeks. Their excitement and glee were infectious, and Stratton found himself grinning. In the middle of the mêlée, one boy, who looked to be about ten, had upended a smaller girl and was tickling her mercilessly, so that she yelped and shrieked with laughter, and two identical tow-headed boys were helping a taller, dark-haired boy to his feet. Impressed by the evident solicitousness of the pair, Stratton, looking more closely, saw that the dark-haired boy wore a calliper on one leg.

Following the direction of his gaze, Mrs Wheeler said, ‘That’s Tom. He caught polio when he was eight. The epidemic … He was lucky, really, that it’s only down one side. We were terrified he’d end up in an iron lung.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Stratton, thinking of the monstrous metal carapaces he’d once seen on a polio ward, whooshwhooshing rhythmically as they ‘breathed’ for the poor sods incarcerated inside, only their heads visible as they’d stared, endlessly, up at the ceiling. ‘Wouldn’t wish that on your worst enemy.’

‘They’ve always looked out for him,’ said Mrs Wheeler. ‘Ever since he got ill – Johnny, my youngest, was only three at the time, but even he knew he had to be gentle. I was always worried about him getting knocked over, because they don’t half tear about, but they’re very careful. And,’ she nodded in Tom’s direction, ‘if he does fall down, they help him back on his feet.’

‘I’d like to meet him,’ said Stratton. Mrs Wheeler looked at him fearfully. ‘It’s all right,’ he reassured her. ‘I’m not going to take him away.’

Mollified, Mrs Wheeler opened the window and shouted for Tom to wipe his feet and come inside.

Pale-faced and freckled, with dark brown hair flopping over his brow, Tom was as neat featured as the woman who’d given birth to him, but without either Michael’s breathtaking good looks, or his air of solemnity. His damaged right leg gave him a curious rolling gait and up close, Stratton could see that his right shoulder was lower and narrower than his left, and his right arm, unmuscled, hung limply. Not wishing to embarrass him, Stratton held out his left hand. Tom looked at it for a moment as if puzzled, and then, at a nudge from Mrs Wheeler, wiped his grubby left hand on his shorts and held it out to be shaken, with a diffidence that reminded Stratton of Pete at the same age.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Stratton,’ he said. ‘How do you do?’

‘I …’ Panic leapt in Tom’s brown eyes. ‘I …’ He turned to his mother with a speed that made him lurch, off balance. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘Honestly, I haven’t.’

‘I know that,’ said Stratton. ‘I was paying a call on your mother, and I wanted to meet you, that’s all. That’s not so terrible, is it?’

Tom ducked his head and blushed a delicate shade of pink that made Stratton think of strawberry ice. He was clearly of a similar age to Michael – could Mary have had twins? – but he had none of the sophistication and polish. He was a nice, ordinary kid. Stratton found himself thinking that, despite the handicap, Tom might well have been dealt a better hand in life than the boy who was, presumably, his brother.

When he’d returned to the garden, Mrs Wheeler turned to Stratton. ‘Why are you trying to find Mrs Milburn? Has she done something wrong?’

‘We’re not sure yet, but we are concerned about her safety.’

‘Do you need to tell Tom about her? That he’s not ours, I mean. Even if she doesn’t want him—’

‘Even if she did,’ said Stratton, ‘I very much doubt that any court would give a child back to a woman who’d abandoned him as she did, especially when he already has a good home.’
Especially, he added silently, one who’d very likely murdered the kid’s father and then blackmailed the family doctor into falsifying the death certificate. ‘And I don’t think you need tell him.’ At least, he thought, not for the moment. ‘I can see,’ he added, ‘that he’s very happy here.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Mrs Wheeler nodded vigorously. ‘He is. And what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, can it? My husband – he’s out at work – he’ll be ever so pleased. He’s a blacksmith, though it’s more fancy ironwork than horseshoes nowadays. We’re not rich – can’t be rich with six children, can you? – but we get by.’

Stratton smiled at her. ‘Looks to me as if you do rather better than that. Tell me, when Mrs Milburn came to your house with Tom, did she have another baby with her?’

Mrs Wheeler shook her head. ‘Just him.’

‘Did you ever see her with two babies?’

‘No. She only had the one child, I’m sure of it. I never heard anything about a brother or sister. She didn’t leave another child with someone else, did she?’

‘Not as far as we know,’ said Stratton, thinking that if she had he wouldn’t be surprised. ‘When’s Tom’s birthday?’

‘Twentieth of December. He was born in 1943.’

‘And you’re sure he didn’t have a twin?’

‘Sure as I can be,’ said Mrs Wheeler. ‘I mean, he might have had a twin who died – it happens sometimes – but I never heard of it. They didn’t mention it when we asked at the doctor’s surgery about Tom. I suppose there’s no reason why they should have told me, but all the same …’

Stratton returned to his car and sat staring out at the slate-grey sea, washing down the fish-paste sandwiches he’d brought for lunch with cold tea from his thermos flask. Then he took out his notebook and flipped through it until he found the notes he’d taken when Ballard reported his interview with Dr Slater.
The doctor’s account tallied with Mrs Wheeler’s, and there was no reason to believe that either one of them was lying. Dr Slater had said that Mary’s child was ‘little more than a baby’ when the Reverend Milburn died in May 1945. A child of eighteen months, which Mrs Wheeler had said was Tom’s age when Mary’d left him with her, was almost a toddler. That could mean ‘little more than a baby’ couldn’t it? And Ballard had said Slater had been pretty clear that the kid’s name wasn’t Michael. Perhaps his impression that Michael was about twelve had been wrong. Perhaps he was younger – tall for his age – and Mary had had him the following year. Or Michael was Tom’s twin – they weren’t always identical – and Mary had, for some reason, kept him hidden. But why? It wasn’t something a normal mother would do, but Mary, as was becoming increasingly evident, was anything
but
normal, not only as a mother, but as a human being.

He must find out Michael’s age – but first, he’d stop off in Woodbridge and question Mary’s former neighbours. There were bound to be one or two who remembered her. Whether it had any reference to Lloyd, he wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling that Mary was, whether directly or indirectly, a key part of the whole thing, and, in any case, it was the only lead he had. Remembering Ballard’s ‘give me a decent villain any day’, he set off wishing, not for the first time, that he didn’t feel quite so adrift in a sea of Christ only knew what.

In Woodbridge, those neighbours who remembered Mary Milburn took a dim view of her goings-on. There were several disparaging mentions of her and Dr Slater – the general consensus seemed to be that she’d ‘led the poor man on’ – and several more about her treatment of the Reverend Milburn, who, they felt, had been neglected. At least two of the people Stratton spoke to thought that Milburn was Mary’s father, not her husband, and that the baby (always one infant, never two) was the offspring of a spouse who was away fighting (or in one case, missing presumed dead). What they all agreed on, however, was that Mary often went to dances at the nearby American airbase, ‘carried on’ with one or more of the men stationed there, and danced the hokey-cokey in platform shoes night after night when she should have been at home with her family.

By contrast, their memories of Mrs Wheeler were positive. The consensus confirmed Stratton’s impression – that she was a good neighbour and a kind woman who’d taken in Mary’s child and ‘done her best’ despite having little money and a large family of her own. He’d also shown around the photographs of Lloyd, just to be on the safe side, but was met with an entirely and, he thought, genuinely, blank response.

He drove to Lincott with the phrase ‘no better than she should be’ ringing in his ears. It was, he thought, a pretty stupid expression – how good should anyone be? Were some people supposed to be better than others? But if it meant that the neighbours hadn’t expected Mary to behave well in the first place and she’d lived up to their expectations, then he had to agree with it. And why had she told some people, or led them to believe, that Milburn was her father? What with the haunted house business, the picture he was getting was of a compulsive liar who told stories for the hell of it, manipulated everyone she met, and had little feeling for others, including, apparently, her own child.

He’d agreed to meet Ballard in the George and Dragon, where he’d booked a room for the night. By a quarter to nine, he’d had a bath and a meal of watery soup which tasted primarily of salt, and a stew consisting of a lot of potatoes garnished with scraps of grey meat, and the pair of them were comfortably ensconced, pints to hand. It being Guy Fawkes’ night, most of the village was attending the bonfire on the green, so the place was – for the time being, at least – practically empty but for a few thickset, ruddy-faced farm workers who clustered about the bar, ignoring them.

‘But why would anyone dump a child like that?’ said Ballard, when Stratton had told him about his visit to Mrs Wheeler. ‘I mean, it wasn’t as if the boy was illegitimate.’

‘As far as we know,’ said Stratton.

‘No, but what I mean is, she’d had a husband, hadn’t she? She was a perfectly respectable widow. All right,’ he added, ‘maybe not respectable according to the neighbours in Woodbridge, but the kid had a name, didn’t he? And as far as the world knew …’ Ballard shook his head. ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘Me neither,’ said Stratton. ‘And as for what it might have to do with Lloyd … I mean, I know he’d kept the photographs, but …’

‘It’s got to be to do with that Foundation place, hasn’t it? I can’t believe that somebody there doesn’t know
something
.’

‘Fair enough, but—’ Stratton got no further because at that moment a policeman – who he assumed from the sudden hush that had fallen on the few other people in the place must be the village constable – appeared. As he made his way across to them, the drinkers edged away as if in danger of contamination.

‘I need to speak to you outside, sir,’ he said to Ballard. ‘Got a message.’

‘DI Stratton is a colleague, Parsons. You can tell me here.’

‘Rather go outside, sir.’ Parsons stood by the table, his stolid form shifting uncomfortably, aware of the small knot of rustics at the bar, alert, with sausage-like fingers clamped round now-forgotten pints of beer. ‘Very well.’ Ballard inclined his head, indicating that Stratton should follow.