A Willing Victim (20 page)

Her address turned out to be one of a row of gentrified farm workers’ cottages on the outskirts of the small town. To Ballard’s surprise, the door was answered by a youngish local policeman who, when he identified himself, had given his name as PC Carter. Carter explained with admirable succinctness that he was there because Mrs Curtin had reported her sister as missing an hour ago, but he’d only just arrived and hadn’t yet got the full details. ‘I’m here,’ said Ballard, sotto voce, ‘because we’re pretty sure we’ve found her, and I’m afraid it’s not good news. There was a body in the woods over at Lincott that matches her description, with a library card in the pocket. Death caused by a shotgun wound, but that’s as much as we know at present.’

The young policeman nodded, solemn as an undertaker, only a slight tightening of his face betraying any excitement. ‘Dreadful thing to happen, sir. Mrs Curtin’s close to her sister. Mrs Aylett only lived two doors down.’ He gestured to his left and Ballard saw, beyond the neat gardens of Mrs Curtin and her next-door neighbour, a rank and overgrown patch with a messy hedge and a clutter of unoccupied chicken coops. Following his gaze, Carter said, ‘Let the place go a bit since her husband died.’

‘Is Mr Curtin here?’ asked Ballard.

Carter shook his head. ‘Widowed, sir. Two daughters – one here, one in London – neither of them on the telephone. I did suggest getting in touch with the local one, but she keeps saying she doesn’t want to be a bother.’

‘Might be a good idea to get hold of her, once I’ve …’ Ballard paused, clearing his throat. ‘We can get the address later.’

Muriel Curtin, neat, unremarkable and, Ballard thought, about forty-five, was sitting in an equally neat and unremarkable kitchen, an untouched cup of tea on the table before her, eyes narrow and muddy with worry. Even before Ballard had finished introducing himself, she’d summed up his serious face, his suit, his whole demeanour, and, recognising him as a carrier of despair, had pushed back her chair, hands out as if trying to ward off the unspoken words. ‘You’ve found her, haven’t you? You’ve come to tell me …’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Curtin. We have found a body, and we have reason to believe that it may be that of your sister, Mrs Rosemary Aylett.

‘Oh, no, no …’ Ballard recognised that this was not a refusal to cooperate, but an automatic negation, as if mere iteration could un-happen the fact of her sister’s death.

‘I am sorry,’ he repeated helplessly.

Muriel Curtin shook her head rapidly, and he could imagine the frantic scenes whirling through her mind – Rosemary, who loved romances, broken in a ditch, hit by a car, violated by a madman. ‘Where is she? How …?’

‘She was found at Lincott, and she’s been taken to—’

‘I told her not go without me.’ Mrs Curtin buried her face in her hands, then looked up, eyes raw and face bagged with grief. ‘We had a row about it. We never argue, but we did. It was the last thing she said to me: “If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”
I should have been there, gone with her, but I didn’t. If I’d just …’ Mrs Curtin shook her head again, violently. ‘This is all my fault.’

PC Carter, who’d been standing behind Ballard, moved round the table and helped the sobbing woman back into her chair with calm, soothing movements. ‘Shall I fetch Mrs Curtin’s daughter, sir?’ he asked, over the woman’s bowed head.

‘Yes, please,’ said Ballard gratefully. ‘If you could just tell us where she lives, Mrs Curtin?’

PC Carter having departed, Muriel Curtin looked at Ballard as if seeing him for the first time, and with flustered, automatic good manners said, ‘Of course. I’m so sorry … Would you like a cup of tea? There’s some just made, and …’ She half-rose, staring round the kitchen as though looking for something she couldn’t remember, then sat back down. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t seem …’

‘That’s all right, Mrs Curtin.’ Partly of necessity, and partly for something to do in order to put off the moment of telling the woman that her sister had been shot, Ballard said, ‘Why don’t I make some fresh tea, for when your daughter gets here? I’m sure she’d like a cup.’

‘Yes … It’s all …’ She gestured towards the kettle on the hob, then shook her head again. ‘I’m sorry. It’s all …’

‘Please,’ said Ballard. ‘Let me. You’ve had a terrible shock.’ He refilled the kettle, lit the gas, found some cups and saucers in the cupboard, set them on the table. Mrs Curtin stared at them for a moment, then said, ‘That one doesn’t match. One of the saucers got broken, you see, when I was cleaning.’ She stopped in confusion. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Ballard. ‘Look, I’ve found a matching one. You’ve still got five of them. They’re very nice,’ he added, point-lessly, as if this could make up for the loss of a sister.

‘Yes, aren’t they?’ Mrs Curtin put out her hand to one of the
cups and turned it gently round, staring at it. ‘They were a wedding present – that’s why I was so sorry. They don’t make this line any more, so it can’t be replaced …’ She looked up at Ballard, who was waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘How did she die, Inspector?’

‘I’m afraid …’ Ballard swallowed. ‘It was a gunshot wound. We think it might have been an accident, but obviously we need to—’

‘Someone shot her?’ Mrs Curtin’s mouth gaped.

‘Yes. But it would have been very quick. She wouldn’t have suffered.’

‘But what was she doing?’ Mrs Curtin looked bewildered. ‘I mean, where …?’

‘She was found in the woods.’

‘But what was she
doing
there? That wasn’t … Oh, I
knew
I should have stopped her.’ Her voice rose in a wail.

‘Why did Rosemary go to Lincott, Mrs Curtin?’

‘She wanted to find her boy.’

‘Her boy? Do you mean her son?’

‘Yes – Billy, his name was.’

‘And he was lost? Had he run away?’

‘No, no … Oh, it’s all so complicated. I told her not to, I told her …’

‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, Mrs Curtin. Why did you tell her not to?’

‘Because she didn’t even know if it was him. It was some stupid letter.’

‘A letter from her son?’ asked Ballard, thoroughly confused.

‘No, we don’t know who it was from, that was the trouble. You see, she gave Billy away. When he was a baby.’

The kettle began to hiss and clatter, and as Ballard got up to make the tea, PC Carter returned with Mrs Curtin’s daughter Mrs Allardyce, a small, shrill woman in her early twenties, who exploded through the door, arms outstretched, and rushed to her mother’s side. ‘The policeman told me what happened, Mum. I’m so sorry. You should have come round to me if you thought Aunt Rosemary was missing. We could have …’ She stopped, evidently not knowing what they could have, but glaring at Ballard as if it would have been a lot better than anything he or Carter could have. ‘What was she doing in Lincott, anyway?’ she demanded. ‘It’s miles away!’

Ballard wondered fleetingly if Muriel Curtin hadn’t wanted Carter to fetch her daughter when she thought her sister had disappeared not because it would be a bother, but because she was clearly someone who was only ever an instant away from pop-eyed indignation. ‘Detective Inspector Ballard,’ he said, repressively. ‘Please sit down.’

Jennifer Allardyce allowed herself to be steered to a chair by Carter, who looked cowed, presumably because he’d had a strip torn off him already, and sat down, staring at Ballard with an outraged expression, as though the whole thing were his fault.

‘Now,’ said Ballard, ‘I think we should all have a cup of tea – if you wouldn’t mind, Carter?’

In the brief interval while the young policeman poured and handed round the sugar, before retreating to stand in the doorway, he noticed that Muriel Curtin had put a placating hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘Your mother,’ he told her, ‘was just explaining why Mrs Aylett went to Lincott.’

‘Yes …’ Mrs Curtin glanced nervously at her daughter. ‘You know about some of this, dear, but not everything. It’s about Rosemary’s son Billy.’

Jennifer Allardyce frowned, and Ballard could see the aggression, which had subsided, shooting back. ‘I don’t see why you need to go into all that, Mum. If it was an accident—’

‘They don’t know that it was an accident yet, dear,’ said Mrs Curtin, wearily. ‘Besides, Billy was the reason why Rosemary went to Lincott. She was trying to find him.’

‘But why on earth would he be in Lincott? I thought—’

‘Mrs Allardyce.’ Ballard held up a hand for silence. ‘Please, Mrs Curtin … Just take your time.’

‘Well,’ said Muriel Curtin, ‘we’ve always been close, Rosemary and I. Her husband died about six months ago, and since then she’s been more … well, reliant, I suppose, on me. She’s not a weak person,’ she added quickly, ‘but it was quite a wrench after so many years – not that it was ever easy, what with the …’ She stopped, wet-eyed and blinking rapidly, to dab at her eyes with a scrap of lacy hankie pulled from the sleeve of her cardigan.

Seeing, or possibly just sensing, that her daughter, who’d leant forward, was about to launch into a tirade against Ballard, Mrs Curtin hesitated for a second and then, drawing breath and bunching her shoulders like a swimmer about to take a dive, plunged into speech. ‘It all happened a long time ago – during the war, in fact. Bert – that’s Rosemary’s husband – was away in the forces, and she … well, you know how things happened then,
things that wouldn’t have happened if the men were here …’ She paused, shaking her head at what was evidently a well-remembered tangle of loneliness, uncertainty, confusion and moral imperatives. Her daughter, who by Ballard’s calculation would have been about ten at the time, sat back in her chair with lips pursed and arms crossed in condemnation.

‘There was an American base near here then,’ said Mrs Curtin, ‘and Rosemary became friendly with one of the airmen. Not a pilot,’ she added, in a bid, Ballard thought, to demonstrate that her sister wasn’t a silly girl who’d simply fallen for some glamorously heroic fighter-boy and his promises of nylons and candy. ‘He was older. One of the ground crew – looking after the planes and what not.’

Ballard nodded slowly, to show he understood her need for elaboration. ‘What happened?’

‘The usual thing, I’m afraid. She became pregnant and had a son. She found out she was pregnant in 1944 – Billy was born in December, a few days before Christmas. We didn’t tell Bert. Rosemary couldn’t face it – he’d have known immediately that the child couldn’t possibly be his. I tried to persuade her to tell him, but in the end it was her decision, not mine, and I’d never have gone behind her back. My husband was away too, in the navy. I think if he’d have been here he’d have pretty well
made
her write to Bert. He took Bert’s part afterwards – not that I blame him for that. Anyway, when Bert was demobbed, well … I should think all the neighbours must have heard the shouting. They knew, of course – they could add up as well as anybody – but they had their own troubles, and … Well, you know how it was, everybody trying to readjust and get on with their lives. Except that Bert couldn’t accept the child as his. They’d no children of their own – never did have, more’s the pity – and he said that he wouldn’t have this … cuckoo … in the nest, that he’d leave Rosemary if she didn’t get rid of it. Of course, he didn’t
mean anything
bad
by that, just that she must find a home for this baby. There was a fair old to-do over that, of course, but in the end she agreed, as long as Billy didn’t end up in a children’s home. I wanted to take him myself, but my husband wouldn’t hear of it. He and Bert were quite firm that the baby couldn’t stay nearby – out of sight, out of mind, I suppose – and besides, we had two of our own by then, and that was a struggle because money was tight …’ Mrs Curtin shook her head, blinking away tears.

‘Come on, Mum.’ Jennifer Allardyce murmured, reaching out to give her mother’s arm a little shake. ‘It’s all right.’

‘But it wasn’t all right!’ Mrs Curtin rounded on her, yanking her arm away. ‘It wasn’t all right at all!’ Jennifer recoiled, as affronted as if she’d been hit, as her mother turned back to Ballard. ‘My daughter’s too young to understand, Inspector. She doesn’t remember what it was like. In the end, Rosemary and I agreed to find someone who’d adopt Billy. We were going to ask the district nurse how to go about it, but then this woman just turned up on the doorstep, out of the blue. Very smart, well-dressed – beautiful-looking. She said she knew about Billy – well, that wasn’t surprising, because people do talk, whether you like it or not – and she desperately wanted a baby and couldn’t have one of her own. Her name was Mrs Carroll, and she told us she was married to an American soldier and was going back to the States with him. Well, we thought this would be a solution – Billy was bound to have a good life in America, especially as she’d told us her husband’s family were wealthy people – and it was certainly far enough away … Rosemary didn’t like that so much, but she wanted to stay with Bert, and how could she bring up Billy by herself with no work?’

‘And Mrs Carroll took the baby, did she?’

‘Yes. She took him …’ Mrs Curtin’s lip trembled. ‘Took him away.’

‘When was this?’

‘I can’t remember the exact date, but it was the summer of 1945.’

About six months old, thought Ballard, so he’d be almost twelve now. ‘And Mrs Carroll adopted him, did she?’

Mrs Curtin shook her head. ‘It wasn’t done formally. We saw her several times, of course, and she was very good with Billy. You could see that. We both liked her. It should have been done properly – of course it should – but Bert kept on at Rosemary, he wanted the baby out, gone, and if she didn’t hurry up and do it, he’d leave … It was a terrible time, Mr Ballard. Rosemary was desperate, and this woman seemed like the answer to our prayers. We never met the husband – she said he was already back in the States, and their army would make the arrangements for her and Billy to join him.’

‘But how could she, Mum?’ This was clearly a bit of the story that Mrs Allardyce didn’t know, and curiosity had obviously triumphed over moral high ground. ‘If she had no papers for Billy?’

‘Well, there was a birth certificate. She had that. She said we weren’t to worry because she could do the rest.’