Petrella at 'Q' (3 page)

“Didn’t she have any friends? People who called on her? You couldn’t very easily hide a baby from someone actually in the caravan.”

The Commander said, speaking slowly and rather reluctantly, “There was one. I don’t know that you can blame the girl. Living all alone in a neck of the woods.”

“Could I have his name?”

“He’s a local farmer. I don’t think I’m going to tell you his name. I’m sorry I brought it up. It was only gossip really.”

“All right,” said Petrella. “But let’s clear up one point. Her husband was posted overseas in January last year. The baby’s said to be nine months old. Was it soon after he left that she got friendly with this man, because if it was—”

“All right,” said the Commander. “I can do sums as well as you. Yes, it was immediately he left. She was very lonely. After the child was born, she seemed to lose interest in him. Maybe the child was company for her.”

“If he existed.”

“If he existed,” agreed the Commander. “One way you could have found out would have been to have a word with our District Nurse. Only you can’t. Six months ago she drove her car over a chalk-pit in a snow storm, on her way to a confinement. Tragic thing. However, you could try the Registrar at Chatham.”

“I was planning to visit him next,” said Petrella.

From Chatham, an hour later, he telephoned Superintendent Watterson. He said, “We’d better back-pedal on this. No one here ever saw the baby. And no baby of that name was registered in the last six months of last year.”

“I’ll talk to Mrs. Morgan,” said the Superintendent grimly.

When Petrella got back, Watterson said to him, “I’ve had a word with the lady. I talked to her like a Dutch uncle.”

“Did she admit she’d been fooling everyone?”

“Not in so many words. I thought her denials were wearing a bit thin by the end. When I told her that until we had actual proof of the child’s existence we weren’t prepared to pursue the case, I thought she was pretty relieved, actually.”

Petrella said, “I shan’t be sorry, either. It isn’t as though we hadn’t got enough on our plates—”

It was at this moment that Constable Owers came into the room. He laid the evening paper on the table, folding it ostentatiously so that the headline could be seen. It said, in large black letters,

“WHERE’S THAT BABY?”

The police had been discreet. The inhabitants of Baldwin Mansions less so.

The next twenty-four hours was a period Petrella liked to forget. It wasn’t only the reporters, although they were bad enough. A missing baby is always good for a story. A missing baby which might not exist was front-page stuff. It was when District started getting round his neck that Petrella began thinking about resignation.

Watterson did his best, but Baylis, the head of No. 2 District at that time, was a bit of an old woman. To do him justice, he was probably being prodded by Central.

On the afternoon of the second day, with the temperature in the middle nineties, Petrella put his cards flat on the table. He said, “We’ve got two alternatives. We can tell the world that we don’t believe there was a baby. Or we can mount a search. I’d like to know which we’re to do.”

“So should I,” said Watterson. “I put the matter in that way to Baylis myself.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that I was the man on the spot, and in the best position to make my mind up.”

Petrella was on the point of saying something insubordinate when the Station Sergeant opened the door and ushered in a large, aggressive, red-headed man, who said, “What’s all this cock and bull about Elsie Morgan not having a baby? Certainly she had a baby. I’m his father.”

Petrella said, “Might we have your name?”

“Sam Turner.”

“And you farm near Cuxton?”

“That’s right. Someone been telling tales out of school?”

“The person who mentioned you was careful not to name anyone. He just said that someone had been friendly with Mrs. Morgan, after her husband was posted abroad—”

“Fair enough. I’m not denying anything. I was sorry for the poor kid. Dumped down in the middle of nowhere with nothing but sheep and cows to talk to. I’m not ashamed of what I did. These things happen.” He added, with a grin, “That husband of hers had been trying for five years. Perhaps he hadn’t got the knack.”

Petrella thought that there were few men whom he had disliked more on sight than Sam Turner. And he could understand and forgive Mrs. Morgan getting tired of him. But his mind was preoccupied with much colder and less comfortable thoughts.

Whilst he was working out this new line of speculation, Watterson took over. He said, “I take it you’ve actually seen this baby?”

“Seen it? Of course I’ve bloody well seen it. I’ve had it on my knee. Piddled on me more than once, messy little bastard.”

“I meant, have you seen it recently?”

An odd look came into Sam Turner’s eyes. He’s caught on, thought Petrella.

“I haven’t seen it up in London, if that’s what you mean. Soon as I read the papers I came up to have things out with Elsie. There was a bobby on the door. He wouldn’t let me in. That’s why I came round here.”

“And this is the first time you’ve tried to see Mrs. Morgan since she left Cuxton?”

“Of course it’s the first time. I didn’t know where she was before, did I?”

“You mean she came up to London without telling you anything about it. That’s rather odd, if you were the father of her child, isn’t it?”

For the first time, Turner looked uncomfortable. He said, “As a matter of fact, for the last few months, we weren’t quite so friendly. It wasn’t any of my doing – but that’s the way it was. Now I want to see her and the boy, and straighten it all out. I’ve got my rights.”

“As things stand at the moment,” said Watterson coldly, “you’ve got no rights at all. If you’ll wait downstairs – the Sergeant will show you the way – I’ll see what I can do for you.”

When the door had closed behind them, he said, “What’s worrying you, Patrick?”

“It’s something that’s been bothering me all along,” said Petrella. “And I’m afraid I’ve guessed the answer.
If she wanted to keep the baby hidden, why on earth did she come up to London?
As long as she was tucked away, in a caravan, on private property, guarded by a dog of uncertain temper, the thing was easy. In a council flat in London, it must have been almost impossible.”

“All right,” said Watterson. “I can see you’ve worked it all out. You tell me.”

“I think it was because she wanted to lose the baby convincingly before her husband came home. She couldn’t stage-manage it in a field in the country. No one would have believed it.”

“That’s possible enough,” said Watterson slowly. “But if she brought the baby up with her, where is it now?”

“She didn’t bring it with her,” said Petrella. “It’s in a hole in the ground, somewhere in Kent.” He added, “Sam Turner thinks so, too. I saw him thinking it.”

There was a long silence.

“It makes sense,” said Watterson, at last. “We’d better alert the local talent. If she did it at the last moment before she came to London, the grave will still be fairly fresh. They’ve got instruments which register on freshly opened ground. They’d better get on with it.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.

Petrella said, “I wonder if I ought to have a word with Mrs. Morgan first.”

“We can’t possibly charge her.”

“
We
can’t.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I thought I might take Sam round with me. He already suspects the truth. As soon as he sees the child isn’t there, he’s going to blow his top.”

“Shock tactics?”

“It might work.”

“I can’t think of anything in Judges’ Rules against it,” said Watterson.

When Petrella arrived back at Baldwin Mansions he found the patient Constable Owers arguing with a thick-set, black-haired man wearing a dark blue suit and the unmistakable look of a sailor out of uniform.

“He says he’s this lady’s husband, sir.”

“Of course I’m her husband,” said the man in tones of deep exasperation. “Who the flaming hell d’you think I am? The Shah of Persia.”

“I expect you have some identity documents,” said Petrella pacifically.

“It’s a fine state of affairs if I need a ticket to get in to see my wife,” said the man. He produced a pay-book and other papers which identified him as Chief Petty Officer Evan Morgan. “I’ve spent fifteen flaming hours out of the last twenty in aeroplanes. Now I’ve got here, the police stop me seeing her.”

“I think we’d all three better go in,” said Petrella, with a glance at the crowd who were lapping it up. It seemed hardly the time or the place to explain who Sam Turner was.

When Mrs. Morgan opened the door to them, she took a startled look at the three men, threw her arms round her husband’s neck, and burst into tears. Somehow they got themselves into the living-room.

“What’s all this, Else,” said her husband. “I saw a lot of stuff in the papers about our baby. The Navy flew me home straight away. Where’d they dream up all that story about it not really being there at all.”

“Of course it was there,” said Turner, who had been steadily coming to the boil. “I told ‘em, I’ve had it on my knee, more than once.”

“And who the hell are you?”

“If you want the truth, you’d better have it. I’m his father.”

There was a moment of paralysed silence, and then Morgan, moving with surprising speed for a man of his bulk, had Turner by the throat. Turner grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them off. Then he changed his tactics and hit Morgan in the stomach. As Morgan dropped his hands, they broke apart and Petrella slipped between them. They were both bigger and heavier than he was. Before they could start the fight again they were interrupted. It was the thin cry of a baby, who has been woken up, and is annoyed about it.

Mrs. Morgan darted from the room, and came back, carrying a fat, sleepy-looking child. It had a surprising amount of hair for its age, and it was already quite undeniably russet, if not yet red colour.

“Look at him,” said Turner. “Look at his hair. Look at his eyes.”

“My grandfather had red hair,” said Morgan. “The child’s thrown back to him.”

Turner growled, and sidled forward, but Petrella had had enough. He said, “If you start rough-housing again, I’ll have you run in.” He signalled from the window to Sergeant Blencowe, who came at the double.

“Take this man back to the car,” he said, “and keep him there.”

Turner looked as if he would have wished to argue, but Sergeant Blencowe had played rugby for the London Welsh, in the second row of the scrum, and very few people argued with him.

When Turner had gone, Petrella said to Morgan, “I want to talk to you. Alone.”

“We could go in the kitchen.”

As they were going, the baby, who had been regarding Chief Petty Officer Morgan with a fixed, if slightly unfocused stare, suddenly smiled and said, “Da”.

“There,” said Morgan. “You see.
He
knows.”

It hardly seemed to Petrella to be conclusive evidence of paternity, but it cheered up both the Morgans enormously.

Petrella said, “It’s pretty clear, now, what happened. She was afraid you might disown the child.”

“Why ever should I do that? We’ve been trying for one for six years.”

“Quite so,” said Petrella. “But she wasn’t sure you’d take such a sensible attitude. And there’s no doubt she’d been a bit indiscreet with that chap Turner.”

“That red-headed turd. If he makes any trouble I’ll fix him properly. Just tell me one thing. That child belongs to me. Right?”

“The child,” said Petrella slowly, “quite definitely belongs to you. You’re Mrs. Morgan’s husband. It was born, I gather, ten months after you left England, but that’s by no means exceptional.”

“Right,” said Chief Petty Officer Morgan. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

Petrella left the three of them together. They seemed to have arrived at a perfect understanding.

“Lucky his grandfather had red hair,” said Chief Superintendent Watterson that evening. “I still don’t understand what the hell she was playing at.”

“I think I do,” said Petrella. “She was nervous that as soon as her husband saw the child, he’d assume she’d been fooling round with Sam Turner. Which, of course, she had. She therefore, decided to ditch the child. But she couldn’t bring herself to hurt it. She staged what she thought would be a convincing child stealing here in London. A black-haired, blue-eyed baby, remember? Just like his dad. As soon as the fuss died down I imagine she was going to deposit the child, warmly wrapped up, on the steps of the Town Hall. No one would have associated it with her. What she underestimated was the Press coverage. It brought Sam Turner running.”

“What she underestimated,” said Watterson, “was her husband’s ambition to have a child, and to wipe Sam Turner’s eye—”

The telephone interrupted him.

It was a fire. A garage in Banting Street.

When Petrella arrived, Banting Street was blocked by a line of fire engines and fire tenders. Some way ahead of him, he could see a column of billowing smoke, white where the spotlights from the tenders hit it, shot through at the base with spiteful little tongues of orange flame. Over all hung the sharp, ozone smell of the foam extinguishers; and, as he found when he put up his hand to wipe his face, a steady drizzle of black smuts.

He pushed through the crowd and ran into Bill Brewer, the Borough Fire Officer. Brewer said, “Lucky we got here as quick as we did. With this wind it could have taken out half the street. I reckon we’ve got it under control now.”

“What is it?”

“Garage and workshop. Won’t be much of it left by the time we’re through.” This was punctuated by a crash of falling timbers and a firework display of sparks.

“Any ideas—?”

“I’ll give you my ideas in the morning,” said Brewer, and hurried off. It was evident, even to Petrella’s inexpert eyes, that the fire was subsiding. He went home to bed.

When he got to Patton Street next morning, he found on his desk a copy of the report, which had gone to Superintendent Berriman, the head of the uniformed branch. It said that the Premier Garage in Banting Street belonged to William Cookson, who had acquired it three years before. There was a workshop, which formed the whole of the ground floor, and had working space for two cars. There was a yard at the back with a small office and lean-to accommodation for four more cars, which was approached from Kentledge Road and Banting Passage. There was living accommodation over the workshop.