The Armada Boy (39 page)

'No. I've not got the key. It's a self-contained
flat. She values her privacy.'

'Even when she's ill and her daughter's
under the same roof? Have you got rats in the hotel, Mrs Slater?'

She glared at him, horrified. 'Rats?'

'Yeah ... nasty furry things with
four legs and a tail. Have you got any?'

'No, of course not ... why?' Her
voice was starting to sound hysterical.

'Just asking. Don't worry, we're not
the environmental health... but we can get in touch with them if you like. Are
we going to see your mother or not?'

'No.' Definite.

'Mrs Slater ...' A woman's voice
called up the stairs tentatively. The accent was local, the voice familiar.
'Mrs Slater, are you up there? I've finished in the Yanks' rooms ... do you
want me to start in the lounge?'

The voice's owner appeared: Annie
Restorick in her nylon overall of office, carrying her spray polish and duster
like an orb and sceptre. 'It's no use knocking at Mrs Challinor's door ... she's
not in. I saw her going out five minutes since.'

Wesley and Heffernan exchanged
looks. 'How did she seem?'

Heffernan asked casually.

Annie shrugged. 'Fine. Why?'

Wesley noticed that Mrs Slater's
hand had gone to her mouth as if suppressing a scream.
'Has she been ill?'

Annie shrugged again. 'Nobody's
mentioned it to me. You should ask Mrs Slater.'

Mrs Slater's eyes searched the
pattern on the carpet as if looking for inspiration. After a few moments'
consideration she looked Heffernan in the eye. 'It's not physical. Inspector.
She just gets a little... confused.'

'Don't we all. Where is she now?'

It was Annie who answered with helpful
gusto. 'I thought I saw her earlier... near your office. Mrs Slater, after we'd
been talking about.. .'

'About what?' Wesley was beginning
to feel uneasy.

'Oh. only about our Wayne ... some nonsense.'

'What was it?'

Annie looked embarrassed at
repeating her son's flights of fancy. 'He said he'd got a secret ... something
he saw when he found the Yank's body. It's only his imagination ... he likes to
feel important. He …'

Wesley interrupted. 'Was there any
way Mrs Challinor could have overheard?'

'I saw someone behind the glass...
it's that frosted stuff in the door. But it could have been anyone. I...'

By now Heffernan's brain had latched
on to the implication of Wesley's questions.

'I think we'd better get to Mrs
Restorick's collage, sir ... just check if the lad's all right'

Heffernan looked at his sergeant.
The words had been spoken calmly so as not to send Annie into a panic.

'Do you mind if I make a phone call,
Mrs Slater?' asked Wesley casually. The proprietress said he could use the
phone in her office.

Wesley dialled the number of the
incident room. It would be quicker this way: they were only a hundred yards from
Apple Cottage. It was Rachel who answered. He explained the situation.

Who am I looking out for. Sarge?' There
was excitement in Rachel's voice as she contemplated action after a morning
filled with paperwork,

'A little old lady.'

'A what?'

'A little old lady ... by the name
of Judith Challinor.'

Chapter Fourteen

I now set down the most sorrowful part
of my account. All Bereton did know the young Spaniard to be guilty of the
cruel violation and murder of Alice Vigers, and Margaret Vigers, mother to the
said Alice, did chance upon him up at the old chantry. I cannot say why she
carried the knife upon her person. I can but surmise that in her grief at the
loss of her only child, she did intend to kill herself on the spot where Alice
died. Such is the nature of human evil that it doth spread to all about it.

I can be certain, sir, of no facts in
this matter... all is surmise... but Margaret Vigers did stab the Spanish lad
in the back as he prayed by the graves of his comrades, and then did flee to
the sands, covered in the blood of her victim, where she did kneel on the shore
and turn the knife upon herself.

It was when he discovered the awful
consequences of his evil lusts that Master Mallindale did repent of his sins
and seek sanctuary in my church. I did bury the Spanish boy in the south aisle
of the church and I caused a memorial to be carved so that all my flock
should repent of their unchristian ways and embrace the words of our Saviour
regarding the forgiveness of our enemies. For the boy was truly innocent and
the guilty one will pay for his vile crimes with a lifetime of penance and
sorrow.

Extract from
the report sent by Rev. James Tracey to Master Joseph Fawley. Justice of the
Peace, September 1588

Judith Challinor was no little old
lady. She was a tall woman, well built but not fat; she held herself well. With
her white hair fashioned into a neat French pleat she looked much younger than her
seventy-five years. She was an elegant woman, sprightly and fit; strong, even,
for her age. Physically she had been fortunate, and as to that other failing of
old age. the mind, she still retained her faculties, was still as agile and
reasoned in her thought as she had been fifty years ago... whatever her
daughter might think.

It had happened nearly fifty years
ago: her life had been changed by a young American, flash and arrogant like so
many of his kind. He had killed her husband and her unborn son.

She had thought that her revenge had
not been witnessed. It had been so easy. She had recognised him ... Marion's
boyfriend.
She had known it had been him who had pulled the trigger from Charlie
Mallindale's description. She knew he had possessed a silver lighter just like
the one Charlie had described.

He had got away with it ... got away
with the murder of Judith's husband and the murder of her very being. When they
had invaded Normandy she had prayed so hard for his death: not a quick death —
a bullet in the head - but a slow, painful death skewered on the end of a
German bayonet so that he would suffer as she had suffered. For nearly fifty
years she had been sure her prayers had been answered. She knew that Marion had
never heard from him again ... it was the subject of common gossip. Then she
had
seen him that night in the hotel bar. showing off the lighter. They had been
laughing, joking and drinking as though nothing they had done in that place had
brought harm to anyone.

Judith thought of the day in 1944
when she was ordered to leave the hotel: their home, hers and Arthur's. Arthur
was away fighting; she had coped with the move alone and lost the child she was
carrying. Six months pregnant - she remembered the pain of her labour and the
tiny, dead thing that had been pulled out of her ... a son.
They had had two daughters but Arthur had longed so much for this son. Not
content with killing her child they - or one of them - had murdered its father
too: her beloved Arthur, smiling, gentle Arthur.

When she had followed that man -
that evil, unlinking man - to the chapel and watched him standing there, deep
in thought, she hoped as she stuck Arthur's bayonet between his ribs that he
was thinking of the day he had shot her husband. The bayonet had gone in so
easily. Then, when he was dead, she had seen the dead rat. kicked it towards
the body and stabbed at that as well as it lay on the ground - a symbol of her
suffering.

She had washed her bloodstained
clothes carefully. soaking them in salt water as her mother had taught her, and
she had washed and cleaned Arthur's bayonet. She felt inside the plastic
carrier bag her daughter had brought home from the supermarket in Tradmouth. The
bayonet was still there, safe, comforting. She wouldn't risk discovery now. not
after everything she'd been through.. .not after fifty years of enduring the
numbing longing for vengeance.

She walked up the path to Apple
Cottage and knocked on the door. She knew where Annie was - she had heard the
hum of the vacuum cleaner in the hotel lounge when she had crept out. She knocked
again - a brisk, cheerful knock, the knock of a friend.

She heard a noise from within the
cottage - a shuffling, like a large, slow animal. The door opened an inch or
two... then wider. Wayne stood there staring at her. His eyes. blank at first,
flashed into life as he recognised her. His mum had said he wasn't to let
strange men into the house. Mrs Challinor didn't count. He opened the door
wider and asked, as he had heard his mother ask visitors, if she would like to
come in ... would like a cup of tea. Wayne could manage tea.

He reached for the carrier bag. He
must remember his manners... his mother was always reminding him. 'Let me take
your bag, Mrs Challinor.'

She looked at him strangely and held
on to the bag. Wayne was confused. Was it the bag he should take first or her
coat? Manners. Mrs Challinor owned the hotel ... he must remember his manners.
But she wasn't helping him. She was standing staring at him, clutching the
plastic carrier bag to her as if it were a baby.

Then she spoke ... softly, almost in
a whisper. 'Wayne . .. have you been telling people our secret?'

Wayne shook his head vigorously.
"No... I've not told no one. It's a secret You don't tell secrets, do you?'

'Are you sure. Wayne? Can I trust
you?'

'Yeah ..." he said uncertainly.
'It's a secret.'

She began to fumble in the carrier
bag. 'You forgot about our secret. Wayne... you've been talking to people about
our secret..."

Wayne stared at her. He had told his
mum about the secret but he hadn't told her what it was. He was confused. Had
he told his mum? He couldn't remember. The front door was still open. He must
close it. keep the warmth in ... his mum was always telling him. He started
towards the open door and was startled to see that nice policewoman running up
the path. He looked round at Mrs Challinor, unsure what to do. His mother
hadn't told him the correct procedure to be followed when two visitors arrived
at once.

The policewoman was reaching out to
him, screaming something at him. But Wayne was too puzzled to move. He stood, staring
at Rachel, not registering what she was saying.

Then he felt himself being grabbed.
The man in the leather jacket who had followed the policewoman up the path was
pulling him out of the house and down the front step.

Wayne turned, appealing to Mrs
Challinor for help. All he saw was a flash of bright metal as the policewoman
disarmed her in the narrow hallway.

'You all right, Wayne?' The man in
the leather jacket spoke quickly, roughly. Wayne couldn't answer. He didn't
know whether he was all right or not.

The nice policewoman - he'd thought
she was nice - was leading Mrs Challinor out, her arms handcuffed behind her
back. She said something like 'Get the weapon, Steve". The man left his
side and, after a few moments, stood in the open doorway of Apple Cottage
holding a plastic bag containing a thing which looked like a cross between a
knife and a sword. It was like the thing he had seen Mrs Challinor stab the
American gentleman with.

Wayne was too eaten up with
curiosity not to ask what it was.

'It's a bayonet. You had a narrow
escape there, son.' the man called Steve answered. 'You sure you're all right?'

Wayne nodded, still confused. He
didn't have the courage to ask the question that was most troubling him. Why
was Mrs Challinor from the hotel carrying a bayonet in a carrier bag?

Judith Challinor was taken to
Tradmouth for questioning. Heffernan. seeing that it was going to be a long
night, told Wesley that he had better go home for an hour to grab something to
eat and to remind his wife what he looked like. The inspector sat alone in his
office with a cellophane-wrapped sandwich: since Kathy had died he had no one
to report back to at home. Let Wesley make the most of it; life was short.