A Willing Victim (25 page)

For a moment, as she was saying this, Stratton found himself thinking that it was entirely possible she didn’t remember, but then, catching a flicker of what looked a lot like calculated vagueness, he changed his mind. ‘Mrs Aylett,’ he said, slowly and clearly, ‘is the mother of Billy, the boy you took from her in the summer of 1945. You were calling yourself Mrs Carroll at the time. We have reason to believe that she returned to Lincott this week
with the intention of reclaiming her child. We also have reason to believe that that child is now called Michael, and that he is the boy you refer to as your son.’

Mary/Ananda had turned white under the carefully applied make-up. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times, as though being worked by some hidden and external mechanism, and her eyes darted from Stratton to Ballard and back again.

‘You’re going to say it’s all my fault,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I know you are. But it wasn’t … I didn’t …’

‘How could it be your fault,’ said Stratton, blandly, ‘if you were in Wimbledon with your friend Mrs Astley?’

‘I didn’t mean that.’ Her voice had risen a semitone. ‘I meant if this Mrs … What was her name?’

‘Mrs Aylett. Rosemary. Who gave you her son when he was eight months old.’

‘Yes … Well, if she came back and somebody shot her by accident.’

‘We don’t think it was an accident, Mrs Milburn.’

‘But it must have been!’ Mary/Ananda sounded almost petulant.

‘There’s no “must” about it, I’m afraid. We’re not accusing you of anything, but we’d like you to tell us about why you wanted Mrs Aylett’s baby.’

‘It …’ Mary/Ananda paused and did a lot of stuff with eyes and hands, while Stratton watched, impassive. Seeing that no help was going to be forthcoming from either himself or Ballard, she said, finally, ‘It’s all so complicated.’

Thinking he might as well enjoy the performance – for performance it would surely be – Stratton settled back in his chair and crossed his arms. Ballard, he saw from the corner of his eye, had done likewise. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘We’ve got plenty of time. Why don’t you start at the beginning?’

‘Well … It was all
before
, you see.’

‘Before what?’

‘Before I met Mr Roth. I used to do the most terrible things.’ She spoke as if she were about to recount a series of girlish pranks played on school chums. ‘I was always telling stories, you see. Making things up. If someone had come along and told me to stop, it would have been much better, but they didn’t, you see.’

‘And Mr Roth did?’

‘Oh, no.’ Mary/Ananda looked askance. ‘I would never tell fibs to Mr Roth. He sees everything.’

‘Does he indeed?’

‘Everything.’ She nodded emphatically.

‘So you’ve told him all of this, have you?’

‘I didn’t need to. He sees right inside you.’ She leant forward dramatically. ‘Into your heart. I think.’ her eyes widened, ‘that he must know
everything
.’

‘Well,’ said Stratton shortly, ‘we don’t know everything. So perhaps you can
enlighten
us.’ As he said it, he disliked himself for the scorn in his voice, knowing that it was desire – however firmly controlled – that put it there. Mary/Ananda seemed to know it, too, because she crossed her legs with an exaggerated movement that made her skirt rise a little above one knee and smoothed the material down over her thigh with a slow, deliberate gesture before speaking.

‘My trouble started when I was four, you see. My mother left my father. He told me she’d gone away because I was naughty, and that if I was’ – here, she put on a little girl’s high voice – ‘very, very good, then she’d come back. I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle. When I asked them where my mother had gone, my aunt said the same – that I must be very, very good so that she would come back. So did my uncle. I had to be especially “good” to him,’ she added, sardonically. ‘He said, if I was good to him in secret, she would certainly come back. So I tried
to be as good as I could possibly be.’ She paused, appearing to hold her breath. ‘By the time I was eight, I realised she wasn’t ever coming back, so there was no reason to be good. And’ – here, her voice hardened into a harsh bark – ‘there was no reason to believe anything anyone said, either.’ She tilted her head to one side and gave Stratton a long, challenging stare. He crossed his legs, deliberately casual, and stared back, willing himself not to blink.

‘For a while I thought my mother must be dead, and they hadn’t wanted to tell me. Then – quite by chance, when I was about fifteen – I learnt that she had simply run away. She wasn’t dead – just vanished. And she never did come back. I knew that if I told anyone about what my uncle had done, I wouldn’t be believed. By that time, I’d started making things up myself, and people
did
believe them – or if they didn’t, they never said as much. I thought, why I shouldn’t I? Everyone else does it. I’d always liked storybooks,’ she added, wistfully. ‘They were full of wonderful things – magical things – and they always had a happy ending.’

She stopped again, to see how this was being received, and Stratton, who’d begun to feel sorry for her, pulled himself back abruptly and said, ‘So you carried on telling lies.’

Mary/Ananda looked hurt. ‘It was just for fun, really. And then all that business about the hauntings—’

‘Hauntings that you invented.’

‘Well, people believed me. Edward, my husband – I suppose I married him to get away from home, really – he would have believed anything I told him. And then the other people who came, and … Oh, it was all such a
muddle
. It was Edward who contacted the newspaper people, the book man, you know …’

‘Maurice Hill?’

‘Yes. He made his money all right, I can tell you, but we didn’t get anything out of it. We never had a moment’s peace.’

‘Was that why you did it?’ asked Stratton. ‘To make money?’

Evidently realising she’d made a mistake, she forced another laugh. ‘Of course not, although we were certainly not well off, and when poor Edward got ill and had to retire, it was dreadful. He was in so much pain with his arthritis, and none of the doctors could do anything.’ The way she said it made it sound as if she’d consulted every medical man in the country. ‘We were living in Woodbridge then, and he was bedridden. His hands were drawn up like claws, and I had to feed him and do everything for him.’ She inclined her head demurely in a way that recalled to Stratton the picture of the Madonna in Roth’s room at the Foundation, mimicked so exactly by Miss Kirkland.

‘So you nursed him devotedly,’ he said. ‘While at the same time pursuing an affair with an American serviceman named Carroll.’

Mary/Ananda did some more eye-and-lip work and then, seeing she was getting nowhere, spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘It was all so difficult, Inspector. Edward was so ill and the neighbours would keep spreading rumours about me—’

‘Some of the ones I’ve talked to,’ interrupted Stratton, ‘seemed to think that Edward Milburn was your father, not your husband. They also thought you’d neglected him in his last days, and that you’d carried on a sexual relationship with the doctor who attended him.’

‘Then you’ve met them!’ The eyes were huge now, imploring. ‘You know what they’re like – horrible people, the women especially. Real cats.’

‘Very possibly, but you must have done something to give them that impression, Mrs Milburn.’

‘Nothing. I swear … I nursed Edward. I’d never have … It isn’t true!’

‘But it is true that you were having an affair with this man Carroll.’

‘He was so kind to me, and it was all such a
mess
. Then Edward died. That was for the best – he was suffering so much, poor man.’ She made him sound like an elderly family pet. ‘I didn’t know what to do, and everyone was
against
me, saying these terrible things. Michael wanted to marry me, Inspector. He was going to take me back to America with him after the war, and that poor little boy needed a mother. I’d heard about him from someone in the village – that was people talking again, saying nasty things – and I felt so sorry for him. I thought he’d end up in some awful children’s home, and I suppose I felt for him because I’d been abandoned by my mother, and—’

‘You took him out of the kindness of your heart?’

‘Yes.’ Mary/Ananda nodded, eyes brimming. ‘The moment I saw him, I knew—’

‘Were you married to Mr Carroll when you took Mrs Aylett’s son?’

Mary/Ananda opened her mouth to answer, then paused, as if calculating something. ‘We can easily check,’ said Stratton, ‘so you might as well tell us the truth.’

‘We weren’t married,’ she said quietly. ‘Michael had been posted to Europe – he’d asked me to marry him, of course, and it was his suggestion I use his name because of how vile everyone was being. He thought it would make things easier for me.’

‘Was Mr Carroll aware that you already
had
a child, Mrs Milburn?’

‘I … I didn’t … I wouldn’t—’

A muffled thump from outside the door made her start. ‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing that need concern us, I don’t think,’ said Stratton, who thought he’d guessed. ‘You were telling me about your child, Tom. Born in …’ he flipped through his notebook. ‘Hard to keep track of all these dates, isn’t it? Here we are. Born the twentieth of December, 1943. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about him?

Then again,’ he added, ‘perhaps you have forgotten, because you left him with Mr and Mrs Wheeler in – let’s see – May of 1945, and never went back for him.’

Mary/Ananda looked at him as if he’d just slapped her in the face – which, he supposed, he had. ‘You see, Mrs Milburn,’ he continued, ‘I don’t think that Mr Carroll
did
ask you to marry him. I think you’d told him you were pregnant so that he would marry you when he came back, and then,’ Stratton knew he was skating on the perilously thin ice of partial knowledge and conjecture, but, sensing victory, pressed on, ‘when you realised that he wouldn’t be back in time to get married and for you to have a convenient “miscarriage” afterwards, you realised you’d have to produce a baby from somewhere. Tom, of course, was too old for your purposes by this time, so you managed to get hold of Billy – that was the child’s original name, in case you’ve forgotten that, too – and you thoughtfully renamed him Michael, after the man who thought he was his father. And, for some reason which we have not yet been able to establish, you and Billy – now, of course, Michael – turned up at your former home, the Old Rectory in Lincott in the early months of 1948 and were taken in by Mr Roth. That’s what happened, wasn’t it?’

‘No!’ Mary/Ananda leapt to her feet. ‘It wasn’t like that! None of it! I won’t … You can’t …’ Sobbing, she fled to the door and throwing it open ran straight into the arms of Tynan, who was not only right outside but, judging by his incredulous expression, had heard every single word.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Tynan’s jowls were vibrating with indignation, and his face had turned an alarming shade of puce. Mary/Ananda was crying hysterically into his chest, her whole body convulsing against him. ‘What have you been doing to her?’

‘Just asking some questions.’ Stratton and Ballard, who had risen from their armchairs, now stood on either side of the coffee table.

‘You’re behaving like the Gestapo.’

‘I can assure you we aren’t, sir. We should, by rights, have conducted this interview down at the local station,’ said Stratton, ‘but,’ he lied, ‘we elected to do it here because we thought it would be more comfortable for Mrs Milburn.’

‘Comfortable! When you’re accusing her of …’ He stopped, realising what he’d been about to say would be tantamount to confessing he’d eavesdropped. ‘Of God knows what.’ He patted the still heaving Mary/Ananda on the back and she lifted her head and gazed up at him. ‘I’ll get you a drink, my dear,’ he said. ‘It’s obviously all been too much for you.’ Glaring at Stratton, he deposited her on a sofa and, crossing the room to where a row of decanters stood on a large and elaborately decorated sideboard,
poured a hefty measure of what Stratton assumed to be brandy into the largest balloon glass he’d ever seen.

Mary/Ananda took it in both hands – the thing was so big she could hardly have done otherwise without dropping it – and sipped delicately. Stratton saw that, despite the storm of tears, her eyes looked only slightly pink. Catching a tiny chinking noise, he realised that despite the blaze in the vast, carved fireplace her teeth were chattering. Shock, thought Stratton – and it was clear that, for all his bluster and indignation, Tynan, too, was shocked. As the novelist sat down beside her and placed a thick tweed arm protectively around her slender shoulders, Stratton thought, you didn’t know about any of this, did you, Sunny Jim?

By mutual unspoken consent, Stratton and Ballard resumed their seats. Tynan, looking as though he would dearly have liked not only to throw them out but to set the dogs on them, said, ‘You’re not thinking of continuing this interrogation, are you?’

‘I’m afraid we are, sir.’

‘But it’s all nonsense!’ Dropping the pretence that he hadn’t been listening, Tynan said, ‘All this business about having children and leaving them and getting them from people – it’s rubbish, plain and simple, and, what’s more, it’s slander.’

‘You heard what Mrs Milburn’s been saying, sir.’

‘Because you bullied her into it. It can’t be true, it’s just malicious claptrap, and I’m not having it.’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t claptrap,’ said Stratton, ‘malicious or otherwise.’

‘Of course it is!’ He gave Mary/Ananda’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. ‘There isn’t a word of truth in it, is there?’

Mary/Ananda stared straight ahead of her, wearing an expression Stratton had seen a thousand times in the interview rooms at West End Central – that of a person who knows that her past, like an avalanche, has not only caught up with her, but is about to overtake her.

Gently, Tynan took her chin in his hand and turned her face to his. ‘Ananda? Tell me it isn’t true, my dear.’

Mary/Ananda said nothing. Tynan may not have been as familiar with the expression on her face as Stratton was, but he understood what it meant, all right. Withdrawing his arm, he flopped back on the sofa, defeated.