A Willing Victim (26 page)

‘As I was saying,’ continued Stratton, ‘we do have some more questions for Mrs Milburn, although,’ he looked at Mary/Ananda, ‘strictly speaking, I suppose I really ought to be addressing you as Mrs Carroll. You did marry him at some stage, I take it?’

‘Now, wait a minute—’ began Tynan, but Mary/Ananda cut across him.

‘No,’ she said in a small, clear voice. ‘We were never married. Michael was killed in a car accident in Berlin after the war ended. I didn’t hear about it for several months afterwards.’

The incomprehension on Tynan’s face confirmed Stratton’s view that all of this was news to him. Rallying, he said, ‘If you’re going to carry on with this, I’m staying here. And if there’s any more of this sort of bullying and accusation, I shall report you to your superiors.’

It was an empty threat, and the novelist knew it. ‘Very well, sir.’ Stratton spoke with exaggerated courtesy. ‘By all means stay, if you’d like – provided, of course,’ he turned to Mary/Ananda, ‘that Mrs Milburn agrees.’

She was staring at him with – for the first time, he thought – real fear in her eyes. She knows Tynan was listening, thought Stratton, and that there’s more to come out that she doesn’t want him to know. She was already imagining the questions afterwards, from Tynan and from Roth, and what they might mean for her future at the Foundation, and Billy/Michael’s. Evidently realising that Tynan was prepared to stand, or rather, sit, his ground, and that if ejected he’d only go as far as the other side
of the door anyway, she closed her eyes tightly for a moment, opened them again, and said, ‘Yes.’

‘Very well,’ said Stratton. ‘I assume, Mrs Milburn, that you are already aware of this, but, for the record, Rosemary Aylett’s son Billy, who was born on the twenty-first of December 1944, is the illegitimate child of a American serviceman named …’ he paused to consult his notebook, ‘Patrick Brennan. When Mrs Aylett’s husband was demobbed and discovered that there was, so to speak, a cuckoo in the nest, he made it a condition of the marriage continuing that she give the child away, which she duly did – to you, Mrs Milburn.’

Mary/Ananda, who now seemed to be clinging to the brandy glass for dear life, nodded dumbly, her head jerking up and down with exaggerated movements. Beside her, Tynan had withdrawn his arm and was now sitting hunched forward, pink forehead corrugated in a deep frown. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and then closed it again when Stratton held up a warning hand.

‘Why did you go back to the Old Rectory, Mrs Milburn?’

Mary/Ananda looked wildly about the room as if some answer might be hidden amongst the antique weapons and expensive
objects d’art
, then said, ‘I hardly know. I suppose because it was my old home, and I had some idea … Mr Roth was so kind to me. He said I was meant to return, so I knew it was right, that we were in the right place …’

‘But you didn’t know that when you went there, did you? You just said you didn’t know what you were doing. Did you even know about Mr Roth and the Foundation?’

‘Someone had told me. Someone I met in London.’

‘Who?’

‘I can’t remember his name, but he told me about the Foundation and then he said how much Mr Roth had helped him, so I thought … I …’

‘You thought you’d see if Mr Roth could help you, too?’

‘Yes.’ Mary/Ananda looked relieved. ‘Yes, I’d had a sort of breakdown after I discovered Michael had died – I’d had months of not knowing, not hearing from him, and … I was so confused. I didn’t really know what I was doing.’

‘But you told us that Michael Carroll died “after the war ended” and you didn’t discover that until some months later – so that would have been when, exactly?’

‘I can’t really remember … It was all so dreadful …’

Stratton noticed that Tynan had rearranged his position, leaning back now and inclined slightly away from Mary/Ananda, resting his elbow on the arm of the sofa. Leaning forward himself, elbows on knees, he looked intently into her face. ‘Try.’

Mary/Ananda stared into the middle distance for a moment, then said, ‘It’s no good …’

You didn’t give a damn about Michael Carroll, thought Stratton. If anyone had asked him the date of Jenny’s death, he wouldn’t have hesitated for even a second.

‘I think,’ she said, after a pause, ‘that it was near the end of the year. I found out from another man who’d been on the same base. It was winter time – very cold.’

‘So, that would be November or December of 1945?’

‘About that time, yes.’

‘And you had a nervous breakdown which lasted until the beginning of 1948? That’s a pretty long time, Mrs Milburn.’

‘Well …’ Mary/Ananda hesitated, chewing her lip. ‘I was all right at first, I think, but then with the baby and everything, it all got too much.’

‘And where were you living at this time?’

‘In London. A rented room.’

‘And you met someone who told you about Mr Roth and you decided to come to the Foundation.’

‘Yes, that’s what happened.’

Tynan was now staring at her with undisguised hostility, nostrils flared and mouth slightly open, his lower teeth on view. Stratton could imagine what was going through his mind – the Maitreya was an Irish-American soldier’s bastard, given to Mary/Ananda by his mother in order to placate her husband. Not exactly the nativity scene you imagined, was it, chum?

‘Did anyone at the Foundation know that Billy – or rather Michael – wasn’t your son, Mrs Milburn?’

Mary/Ananda shook her head.

‘Not even Mr Roth?’

‘No.’ The word, whispered into her brandy, was barely audible. Tynan looked as if he wanted to grab the glass from her and dash the contents into her face.

‘Did anyone else know? Apart from Mrs Aylett and her family, I mean.’

‘No. I never told anybody.’

‘The reason Mrs Aylett was on her way to the Foundation when she was killed was that someone had sent her an anonymous letter telling her that her son was there. Do you have any idea who that could have been?’

‘No! I promise, I …’ Tailing off, Mary/Ananda turned to appeal to Tynan, and recoiling at the look on his face, seemed to shrink into herself.

Ballard, who’d had been so still throughout this that Stratton had almost forgotten he was there, cleared his throat. ‘Do you still have Billy’s birth certificate? Mrs Aylett’s sister told us it had been given to you.’

‘Yes. I keep it in one of my suitcases. I’ve thought for ages that I ought to get rid of it – burn it or something – but I never got round to doing it. So many people about … To be honest, I’d rather forgotten about it. I suppose it must be still there.’

‘Where do you keep the suitcase?’ asked Ballard.

‘That one’s in my room at the Rectory.’

‘That would be the one on top of the wardrobe, would it?’

Mary/Ananda stared at him. ‘How do you know?’

‘We searched your room this morning, Mrs Milburn. The suitcase was empty.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t see it if you just opened it up. I made a little cut in the lining and put it in and stitched it up again afterwards.’

‘I think,’ Ballard looked at Stratton, ‘that we ought to see if the certificate is still there. I could ask PC Jackson to take a look.’

‘Yes. Mr Tynan, do you mind if we use your telephone?’

‘Of course.’ Tynan rose, his sagging shoulders a definite contrast to his earlier demeanour.

‘No need, sir.’ Ballard put out a restraining hand. ‘I know where it is. I took a call from the local station the last time I was here.’

‘So you did.’ Instead of sitting down, Tynan went over to the sideboard and poured himself a large measure of something golden-brown and expensive-looking, returning the decanter to the silver tray with a unsteady clang. He didn’t offer Stratton anything – not that he could have accepted but it would, he thought, have been nice to be
asked
. Instead, Tynan took a large swig, bringing the glass to his mouth with an urgency that made Stratton think it was taking him quite a bit of willpower not to down the thing in one. He didn’t return to his place on the sofa but instead, keeping his face averted from Mary/Ananda, slouched up and down in front of the fire, head lowered, like some huge animal trapped in a cage.

When Stratton turned back to Mary/Ananda, he saw she’d put her glass down on the coffee table and was picking at an invisible spot of lint on her jumper. Catching his eye, she arched her back very slightly, accentuating her breasts. A reflex, he thought, nothing more – the assured sexiness was gone, leaving in its wake a distinct and ugly twang of desperation. He, too, averted his face and in the lengthening silence wandered over to one of the cabinets and began examining the photographs propped on the top. A photograph of Tynan with Winston Churchill stood in pride of place, flanked by pictures of the novelist, cigar in
hand, in the company of dinner-suited men with the assured expressions of the rich and powerful; Tynan with his arm round a pretty actress whose name Stratton couldn’t remember, surrounded by the debris of an expensive meal; Tynan leaning against a Bentley, with Stewart Granger grinning back at him from the other side of the bonnet; Tynan alone at his desk, resplendent in a velvet smoking jacket … On one side of this group, placed slightly apart, was a picture of a diminutive, haughty-looking woman in a hunting outfit, perched on top of an equally haughty-looking black horse. Stratton wondered if she was Tynan’s wife, the Honourable Somebody-or-other, who according to Diana had died about six months previously. What had she made of the Foundation, Stratton wondered, idly. Had she been an initiate, too?

Standing alone on a cabinet a couple of feet away was a photograph of Tynan standing next to Roth and Miss Kirkland in front of Eros in Piccadilly. There were Christmas decorations in the shop windows behind the statue, and all three were clad in heavy winter coats. Both men were looking directly into the camera with the graciously benevolent smiles of visiting royalty, but Miss Kirkland was gazing up at Roth with what could only be described as adoration. When Stratton picked up the photograph for a closer look he saw, to the left of the statue, the end of a banner which had obviously been strung across the front of a building. The thick band of cloth had sagged slightly, but he was able to make out the words ‘-EST OF 1947!’

Interesting, he thought. When they’d interviewed Miss Kirkland, she’d told them she’d arrived at the Foundation
after
Mary/Ananda, who, according to Tynan, had gone there in 1948. What she hadn’t said was that she’d known Roth before that – and quite well, judging by the photograph. Tynan had called Mary/Ananda Roth’s ‘right-hand woman’ – which was exactly Miss Kirkland’s position in the photograph. Had she, too, felt supplanted?

After some minutes, during which the silence seemed to open as wide as a chasm, Ballard put his head round the door and beckoned Stratton outside. As they crossed the grand and now dimly lit hall, Ballard shook his head and, when they’d reached a safe distance from the room, said, ‘PC Jackson says it’s gone, sir. And it was all stitched up again. Very neat, he said, both times. Blink and you’d miss it – which we did, of course.’

‘Blow that,’ murmured Stratton. ‘It was your idea – well done.’

‘Think Lloyd took it?’

‘Him or one of the others, having a snoop around. Whatever they say or don’t say, I’m not sure Mrs Milburn is all that popular at the Foundation. Not with the women, anyway, at least, not judging by what I saw of Miss Kirkland’s reaction when she was mentioned – and presumably not with Lloyd, either, if he thought that her son was taking his place as favourite.’

‘Do you think we should tell her and Tynan?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Stratton. ‘I mean, it’s all got to come out. Whoever took it must have told Mrs Aylett where her son was – or told someone else who told Mrs Aylett, so either way … don’t you think?’

‘I agree.’

‘Here we go, then.’

They entered the room to find Mary/Ananda still on the sofa, nose buried in a handkerchief, and Tynan staring into the fireplace, jaw clenched, gripping his glass with a white-knuckled hand. Neither turned to look at them, and Stratton had the impression that they had not spoken to each other in his absence.

‘Well,’ he said, making no move to sit down, ‘it’s gone. Do you – either of you – have any idea who took it?’

Mary/Ananda raised her head and turned to glare at them with reddened eyes. ‘It was Jeremy,’ she said. ‘He never liked me, or Michael. He was jealous. But I didn’t kill him.’

‘So you say,’ said Stratton. ‘Any ideas, Mr Tynan?’

As Tynan turned, Stratton saw that the man’s normally ruddy face was the colour of lemonade. He’s not just angry and puzzled, thought Stratton – he’s worried. Very worried, by the looks of it.

Tynan gave him a weary shake of the head. ‘If what she’ – he indicated Mary/Ananda with a quick gesture of disgust, as if though she’d been a dog turd in the middle of one of his fine rugs – ‘what she said about Lloyd taking the birth certificate was correct, and his death was connected with it, then I can assure you that both of us were at the cinema, and that we returned here afterwards. My staff will be able to confirm it.’

‘We’ll be asking them to do that, sir. And you’re quite sure, are you, that none of your guns are missing?’

‘We’ve been through that,’ said Tynan impatiently. ‘They’re all here.’

‘Good. Just one further question – for you, Mrs Milburn.’ Mary/Ananda looked up at him warily. ‘When you first arrived at the Foundation, in 1948, was Miss Kirkland already there?’

‘Yes.’ Puzzlement mingled with relief. ‘Yes, she was.’

‘Thank you. Well, I think that’s all for the time being.’ He glanced at Ballard, who nodded in confirmation. ‘We’ll be taking our leave now, but I must ask you – both of you – not to
go anywhere. I presume, Mr Tynan, that Mrs Milburn can stay here?’

Tynan stared at him for a moment as if he’d made some outlandish and revolting request before giving a grunt of assent, and beginning to move towards the door.

‘No need,’ said Stratton. ‘We can see ourselves out. Goodnight, and thank you both for your cooperation.’

‘Blimey,’ said Ballard, when they were in the car and heading back towards the village, ‘they’re going to have a lot to talk about, aren’t they?’