Season Of Darkness (3 page)

Tyler indicated the gun. “Whoever they are, they used a Luger.”

“Gracious me, Tom, surely you’re not suggesting we have a Jerry paratrooper prowling around?”

“Off hand, I’d say that’s very unlikely. I don’t know why Jerry would drop off a parachutist in rural Shropshire unless it was to subvert the cows. And if it was a Jerry, I’d think he’d take his gun with him. Besides which, it’s an older model. The stamp says it was manufactured in 1917. It could belong to anybody. Guns like this aren’t that difficult to obtain. A lot of soldiers brought them back from the Great War as souvenirs.”

“Quite true,” said Sir Percy. “I meself picked up a couple of cap badges.”

“If it’s a German gun you’re after, sir,” said Ellwood, “there are plenty of Krauts over in the internment camp.”

“Surely they’re all under guard?” Sir Percy wiped at his damp face. His white handkerchief would have been adequate
as a flag of surrender.

“According to what I’ve heard,” said Ellwood, “security at the camp is lax.”

Tyler knew that was true. Nobody considered the enemy aliens a serious threat to national security anymore, and the fear of invasion was abating. His own son, who had sentry duty occasionally, had remarked that the internees were mostly soft-bellied, middle-aged eggheads. But it was also true the majority were German. Like most people who were imprisoned behind barbed wire, they probably were able to maintain a brisk business in barter. A Luger for a packet of cigarettes.

He straightened up. “Who found the body?”

“I did,” answered Ellwood. “At least, that is to say, me and Private Walker did.”

Sir Percy jumped in. “Walker arrived on my doorstep, and frankly I could hardly make sense of his story because he was as hysterical as a woman. According to the corporal here, he’s suffering from shell shock, which is why he’s been assigned to the camp and not to active service. Feather bed, really.”

“He was at Dunkirk,” said Tyler.

“Quite so. Didn’t mean to imply … we have to give all those fellows some leeway then, don’t we? Although as Mr. Churchill said, a retreat isn’t going to win the war, and we mustn’t fool ourselves, Dunkirk was a defeat.”

Tyler tried not show his annoyance. It was so typical of Percy to make a tactless remark like that, the silly sod.

“Bobby Walker is a good lad,” said Tyler, keeping his voice as neutral as he could. “I’ve known him since he was a nipper. He’s a mate of my son’s. They got off the beach together. By all accounts, it was a rough time.”

Not that Jimmy had said much of anything. Neither one did, but Bobby Walker shook constantly and jumped at every
sound. A door slamming, a car backfiring, would have him on the ceiling.

Sir Percy blew his nose. “Quite so.”

“What did Private Walker say exactly?” Tyler asked.

“There’s no exactly about it. All I could get out of him was that a girl was dead. I could hardly make tops nor tails of what he was saying. I suppose I should have packed him off to do his duty. Might have put a bit of steel in his backbone if he started acting more like a soldier.”

He must have caught Tyler’s expression because he added hastily, “Frankly, I took pity on the chap and I sent him home. Then I got hold of you, Tom, and got over here post-haste.” His gaze flitted to the dead girl. “Should we cover her up, do you think?”

“I was just about to do that.”

Ellwood helped him with the tarpaulin.

“What’s our next step?” Sir Percy asked.

“We’ll have to get the body out of here and have a post-mortem done as soon as possible. I suggest we bring in Dr. Murnaghan from Whitchurch. He’s retired now but he was a highly competent coroner in his day.”

“Shall I ring him for you? You’ve got a lot to take care of here.”

“Thank you. That would speed things up considerably.”

Sir Percy took off his tweed cap and mopped at his head again. He was a year younger than Tyler, but his hair was already greying and sparse. Right now, it was sprouting from his head in tufts as if he’d neglected to comb it when he got out of bed. He hadn’t shaved and his stubble made him look grubby and down at heel. Tyler usually saw him in magistrate’s court, all shiny chin and smooth hair. This current dishevelment made him more human. That and his obvious distress. Percy wasn’t cut out to be a magistrate and lord of the manor.
All he wanted was to be left in peace to build up his prize herd of Ayrshires. Tyler felt the usual mixture of pity and exasperation towards him.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d also ring the station and have Sergeant Gough send me all available men,” said Tyler. “I don’t want people traipsing through the area until I’ve had a chance to look it over. Tell him we’ll need the police van and to bring the camera.”

“Should we notify the war office … in case there are parachutists?”

“Let’s investigate a little further before we do that. We don’t want to distract those blokes from fighting a war, do we?”

“Quite so. I’ll hoof it back to the manor, then, and make those telephone calls. And I’ll notify the camp that Corporal Ellwood is delayed.”

“Thank you.”

“Good, excellent. I will wait for your further report.” He dithered. “I was planning to take a run up to Edinburgh on urgent business … a rather splendid bull I’ve been told about. I’m afraid I’ll be incommunicado for a few days. That is, unless you need me here.”

“That’s all right. This is
my
job.”

“Quite so.” The magistrate’s relief was palpable. He gave Tyler another hurried handshake and went back to his Bentley. With a hiss of tires, he backed up and drove away.

Tyler turned to the corporal. “Ron, give me your version, for God’s sake.”

L
IKE MANY LOCAL MEN WHO WERE TOO OLD FOR ACTIVE
service but were still reservists, Ron Ellwood, a veteran of the Great War, had been enlisted as a guard at the camp on Prees Heath. There were over a thousand men incarcerated there, most of them classified as enemy aliens. As Jimmy had said, they were typically German intellectuals and professional men living in England who hadn’t got their nationalization papers in order. They had been swept up in the fear of invasion that gripped the country after Dunkirk.

Tyler liked and respected Ellwood. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one. Ellwood leaned his rifle against a tree and accepted gratefully.

“I picked up Bobby Walker about six-thirty. He lives on Green Lane, and we always take the Alkington Road to the camp because it’s faster. We’d just reached the crossroads where we turn when we encountered one of them Land Army girls. She was walking along the road, pushing a bicycle. She said her friend was their forewoman, and she was more than a half-hour late getting to the hostel where she’s supposed to pick them up.”

“They’re the girls who’ve been billeted in Beeton Manor, aren’t they?”

“That’s it. I was surprised Sir P. didn’t recognize the dead girl right off the bat. But then I didn’t either, did I, although I must have seen her in town.” Ellwood chewed on his lip. “It was the shock I suppose, and the mess the bullet had made of her face.” He drew in a lungful of smoke. “Well, the girl
said as how she thought the lorry might have broken down seeing as it had done that before, and she was on her way to find out. She’d started off on her bike but she had a flat tire. She asked if we could give her a lift up the road a ways to see. We had a bit of extra time, so I said as how we could do that.” Another deep draw on the cigarette.

“What’s the girl’s name, by the way?”

“Rose, Rose Watkins. A little bit of a thing she is. You’d think she was no more than thirteen to look at her.”

“That’s not her bike, is it?” A maroon-coloured woman’s bicycle was lying by the hedge a few feet away.

“No, it isn’t. That one was there when we come up. We put Rose’s in the back of the lorry.”

Tyler went to have a look. “This one is certainly a good one. Not an official government issue like most of the girls have to ride. The back light is cracked, but other than that, it’s in good shape.” The cloud of flies was getting more dense and a few curious birds had hopped closer.

“Did Rose see the body?”

“She did. Me, I knew right off something serious had happened.” He gave a little cough. “I seen action in the last war, as you know, Tom, and there’s a stillness to a dead body that is unmistakable. I told Rose to stand back while Bobby and me checked, but she wouldn’t. She came right up. Course, she turned white as a sheet when she saw all the blood. I was afraid she was going to faint on us. But she’s tough for all she’s small. She’s a Londoner.”

“Did she say anything?”

“She just sort of cried out, ‘Oh no, Elsie. I warned you.’ ”

“Warned her about what?” Tyler asked.

“I don’t know, Tom. She never said. Bobby had got into quite a state, shaking like a leaf. Like I said, this wasn’t the first time I seen a dead body and I was thinking more clearly.
Not that it wasn’t a shock, it certainly was, young girl like that. I thought at least we could get Sir Percy, seeing as he’s a magistrate, and he’d be likely to be on the telephone. Somebody had to stay here and I thought it best be me, so I bundled Bobby into our lorry, telling him to take the lassie back to the billet. I ordered her not to talk to anybody. Just to say there’d been an accident. No sense in upsetting everybody until we know exactly what’s happened here.”

“Good thinking, Ron. You kept a cool head. What time was it when you found her?”

“It was about ten to seven. I’d say death had definitely occurred within the previous hour. She were still warm but the blood was no longer flowing.”

Suddenly, there was a frantic flapping of wings and loud cawing as a flight of rooks flew out of the trees. Tyler jumped, aware his nerves were on edge. Ellwood tensed as well.

“That’s probably Dr. Murnaghan coming, but I don’t want anybody else driving through here. There’s some police tape in my car. We can use that to create a barrier across the road. We’ll stay here until reinforcements arrive.”

He held out his hand to pull Ellwood to his feet.

“I don’t remember anything like this happening here since Mrs. Evans clobbered her husband with a plank,” said the corporal.

Tyler gave him a grim smile. “Rhys Evans was a miserable bastard who deserved what he got. It’s hard to see Elsie Bates deserving this.”

D
R
. M
URNAGHAN ARRIVED SO QUICKLY THAT
T
YLER
wondered if the coroner had been sitting by his telephone waiting for a call, any call. He examined the body, made the official declaration of death, and concurred with Tyler that Elsie had been moved and had not committed suicide. He promised an immediate post-mortem. “Corpses aren’t exactly stacking up outside my door,” he said.

Sergeant Gough had rounded up six constables, and they arrived a few minutes later. Three older men, three young fellows, all looking apprehensive. The body was transferred to the police van, and with orders to return, one of the older ones drove off. The coroner followed in his own car.

Tyler organized the remaining men.

“We’re looking for anything and everything. Use your noggins but let me be the judge of what’s important and what isn’t. Maybe our killer dropped his identification card to make our life easier, but I wouldn’t count on it. If you see any kind of tire tracks, put in a marker. Let’s put tape around the pass-by and the spot where she was shot. I want one of you to concentrate on that area. We’ve got the casing, but there should be a bullet somewhere. It may have ricocheted off the rocks so look carefully.”

One of the young constables was carrying the camera.

Tyler addressed him. “Collis, I want pictures of every inch of the surrounding area. If you’re going to toss your biscuits, give the job to somebody else. If you’re going to continue in the police force, do it yourself.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

“What would you like me to do, Tom?” asked Ellwood.

“Best thing is probably to get over to the camp. Make sure Percy delivered the news like he said. You can use one of the men’s bicycles. I’ll be there later.”

He beckoned to one of the constables.

“Come with me.”

Constable Eagleton was young, pink-cheeked, and enthusiastic. He had joined the police department when he’d been turned down by the war office because of his flat feet. He was smart and hard working and had soon earned the nickname of Eager. Tyler walked with him along the road to where the lorry that he’d passed on the way in was parked.

“Do you know anything about engines, Eager?”

“A bit, sir.”

Tyler handed him the key he’d found in Elsie’s pocket. Initially, the engine turned over feebly, but Eagleton managed to coax it into life.

“I think it was just flooded, sir.”

Tyler walked around the lorry, examining it carefully. He could see nothing amiss. The same was true of the interior. Clumps of mud dotted the floor, but otherwise it was bare.

“We’ll give it a more thorough going-over later,” he said to Eagleton. “I don’t think we’re going to find much. I’m guessing it conked out on Elsie, she flooded the engine trying to get it restarted, decided to leave it, and took off from here on her bicycle. Unfortunately to her death.… All right, let’s get back. Do you have a handkerchief with you, lad?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it clean?”

“Yes, sir. Fresh today.”

“Good. Don’t blow your nose or wipe your face. There are some items at the crime scene that we will have to have
examined. I’ve wrapped the gun. Whatever you do, don’t touch it. Keep it in the handkerchief. The flowers and the items that were in Miss Bates’s pocket should also be given to the sergeant. You can wrap them in your handkerchief in the same way.”

Finally, everything was underway and Tyler left them to their tasks. He set off for Beeton Manor, not relishing his own task ahead.

At the beginning of the summer, the War Ministry had expropriated the dower house at Beeton Manor to billet Land Army girls. Lady Somerville, grumbling, had been forced to move in with her son. Percy was a confirmed bachelor, and although by most standards he was rattling around in such a large house, gossip had it that neither he nor his mother were too happy with this new, closer arrangement. He got away as frequently as he could.