Death in a Darkening Mist Page 17

  “Thank you. Usually I’m just anxious to do my shopping and get back out here when I’m in town. Thanks again for coming all this way. Drive safely!”

  As Andrews was skidding out of her driveway in his very blue car, feeling vaguely unsatisfied with the figure he had cut during the visit, and unsure about how to make the next move, Lane was standing by the door looking through the window, her face set in a frown. What was all that in aid of? she wondered. Even though she was certain they were of an age, she could not imagine him in the role of suitor, in spite of what she felt was a rather half-hearted attempt on his part. And all that business with his mother. Or had he come out on behalf of his officious bank manager because of the sudden infusion of a large sum of money into her bank account? And now she couldn’t shake the doubt about the embezzling. That was one way clerks in lowly bank jobs might be able to afford camel coats, she thought irritably.

  She went into her room for a pullover and then put her red plaid jacket over it and climbed into her boots. She might as well not be a liar. Even though there was no lunch offer from the Armstrongs, she was pretty sure of getting something in exchange for bringing them up to date on the current murder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Near Moscow

  “WELL, HE’S BEEN MORE USEFUL than we’d hoped. That’s intriguing, yes? He doesn’t know this, of course, but this woman used to work for British Intelligence. She was sometimes at the Russian desk. She speaks Russian. In fact, she used to live in Latvia.” The two men sat in a sitting room lit by a lamp with a green shade. Two small cups of coffee and two glasses of vodka sat on the little table between them in a pool of absinthe-coloured light. A fire burned comfortingly in the grate. They were in a dacha outside of Moscow. Leaving the city early for a winter break did not mean work stopped entirely.

  “What is she doing there?” asked the second man. His companion shrugged and sipped his black coffee. “I mean,” continued the second man, “why did she leave? Was she unhappy about something? After all, she used to live here, practically speaking. Is this interesting to us?”

  “We’ve already got that idiot out there. How much more do we need? It’s like Siberia out there in the West. There’s nothing at all of interest there.”

  “No, but if we could persuade her to go back to her former bosses. Perhaps the idiot, as you call him, could see to her when he’s finished our little task.”

  “I’ll notify Aptekar. For some reason it’s in my mind that he knows something about her.”

  Finland, January, 1940

  Aptekar stamped his feet impatiently on the platform. Stanton Winslow had indicated that they should meet in Helsinki, so here he was, and not without cost. It had taken longer to get from Leningrad than it should have, and Helsinki seemed to be under some sort of deep freeze that could challenge any winter in Russia. Finally, he heard the whistle of the approaching train. It arrived in a fug of steam and black smoke. The doors opened and people stepped out slowly, as if they were just waking from some long sleep. Everyone was tentative since the war started. Aptekar began to feel cross, waiting outside like some worried father. He should have just told him they could meet inside at the restaurant. Finally, the dark figure of Winslow materialized out of the steam, and Aptekar, usually the courtly one of the pair, greeted his colleague with an impatient nod. They had known each other since 1909, and this was as impatient as he could ever remember being.

  Once inside the spacious and almost baroque station restaurant, sitting before a glass of brandy, he returned to himself. “You’re looking well, Stanton. How are things in London?”

  “Busy, as you can imagine. There’s a kind of laughable frenzy of everyone trying to guess at what the next big thing is that they . . . we . . . will need to pay attention to. Obviously Germany is everyone’s focus now. I’m just glad to be back in the field. You should know, by the way, that Russia is high on that list.”

  Aptekar smiled and lifted his glass. “Bridges to cross later, eh, my friend? We know what needs attention, but I sometimes don’t think they care very much what we in the field say. Some bureaucrat gets a bee in his bonnet, and they all go howling after what you English call the red herring. Chasing Russia just now is a waste of time, don’t you think?”

  They ate in companionable silence, studiously avoiding business, as had been their invariable habit at such meetings. “How are your daughters?” Aptekar asked over the coffee. He was being disingenuous. He already knew the elder one had been recruited by the British for intelligence work.

  “They’ve surprised me, actually. The youngest has gone off to South Africa, as if to distance herself from all this, but the eldest came out of her studies at Oxford and is working for us. She never struck me as the gutsy one.”

  “You must find common ground for conversation, at last.”

  “Good God, no. She doesn’t even know I know. She thinks I am still in St. Pete . . . Leningrad.”

  “I know, my friend, I have trouble with this as well. All these changes! I always thought St. Peter quite a respectable saint, but there you go. Out with the old opiates and in with the People, who are, by the way, a great deal harder to stay on the right side of than the saints. She speaks Russian, your eldest, does she not? Why do we not bring her on board?” Though they had planned this meeting to discuss communication over intelligence matters as the war deepened, this was his real objective. He wanted Winslow’s daughter on their side.

  “They both speak Russian like proper, native little Slavs. She has, however, given herself over to the French desk. I have heard they will soon be dropping these girls right into France. I never would have thought she had the stomach for it. There you are. You never know about your own children. I talked to my solicitor in London about a will. I survived the last war with minor problems, but there’s no guarantee I’ll get out of this one alive. Now who knows if she will? At least her sister will get something. Anyway, no point in talking about having her on board . . . we’re all on the same side, remember?” His long association with Aptekar notwithstanding, he felt a surprisingly paternal reluctance to expose his daughter to him.

  For how long will we be on the same side? Aptekar wondered. “I have no children,” he mused. “I can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t have anyone to worry about, so I’ll say, maybe, it is a good thing.”

  Winslow gulped back the last of his brandy. “I daresay you’re right. One worries about the strangest things. I wonder now if I might have missed something important in Lanette, that I should have been a better sort of father and paid attention. Bloody awful on a horse, but I suppose that’s not everything. I don’t think she ever recovered from her mother dying. Sucked the life out of her. Her sister was a lively little thing, but Lanette never had much to say.” He fell into silence, then pulled out his pipe and tamped at it before he lit it. “Well, enough prattle, Aptekar, let’s get this done.” He pulled from his pocket a black notebook and a fountain pen, and laid them on the table between them. Aptekar pulled his chair close, but felt a rising sense of disdain for his English colleague. You have missed a great deal indeed, he thought.

  IN HIS MOSCOW office Aptekar put the receiver back in its cradle and stretched his hand out for a meditative look at his fingers, about which he was vain. A piano player’s fingers, people said. He was chiding himself, if the truth be told. He should have acted earlier. He should have acted during the war. He had not thought about her at all since it had ended, but now he remembered that he had thought of bringing her over, even mentioned it to Stanton. He suspected that Stanton had been putting him off. But Stanton was dead. His daughter was very much alive and could be very, very useful. He called them back with instructions for their man in Canada. He would take care of this catch himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “WHAT’S NEW?” KENNY ASKED, HOLDING the screen door open for Lane. “Eleanor, it’s Lane. Put another sandwich together!”

  “Yum. What are we having?”
Lane asked, peeling off her outer layers and stacking her boots next to the others by the door. The inside of the cottage was steamy after the clean cold of the outside.

  “Hello, dearie,” said Eleanor, slicing into a loaf. “We had a nice roast of beef yesterday, so that’s what you’re getting.”

  Another place was laid at the table, and Lane settled into her usual rattan chair. “It’s awful cheek of me to come barging in at lunchtime. The truth is I was making an escape from a bore. I shouldn’t say that, poor chap. He’s really terribly nice.”

  “Who’s come all the way out here to bore you, or is it one of our local bores?” asked Kenny, turning to look at her from his work of poking the wood around in the stove.

  “He’s a very nice fellow from the bank. You know the blond, nice-looking one? He’s called Charles Andrews. He evidently has an aunt living in Balfour somewhere so he’s taken it into his head that I’m only a little further and need visiting. Funny thing, though, he was behaving oddly.”

  “Oh yes. I’ve seen him. Has a limp. War wound, I expect. I usually deal with old Featherstone. He must be sweet on you. Perhaps that’s why he was behaving oddly?”

  “I’ll thank you not to wink at me in that suggestive manner!” Lane shuddered. “He did invite me to dinner, but I demurred. It was after a fairly tiresome half-hour of hearing all about him, if you know what I mean. Though that’s unfair too. A chap who’s been through the war ought to be able to tell people about it. He just seems awfully young . . . and his mother sews his buttons on. That’s what might have been the last straw. I told him I was engaged for lunch.”

  “You will always be engaged for lunch with us, dearie,” said Eleanor, “any time you need it. But in what way did he behave strangely?”

  “He told me I was attractive and then said, and I found this a little sinister, that I should be careful.”

  “You are attractive,” Eleanor said, “and I suppose you should be as careful as any girl. But it is a strange thing to say.”

  “I’m sure it’s absolutely nothing,” Lane decided. “I do have news, though. No, not about the murder at Adderly. You can both quit looking at me like that! No. It’s about that fat letter. It was the news that my father died, but back in ’43. There was also a big cheque.”

  “Oh my dear, how dreadful! I’m so sorry!” cried Eleanor.

  “Thank you. I’m not sure how I feel, really. I hadn’t seen him in ages, and to be honest we didn’t get on. But it seems so final, doesn’t it? That death knell to ever patching things up.”

  “Well, I’m very sorry to hear it. It makes you think. I ought to go be nicer to old Harris. He is my cousin, after all. Who knows how I’d feel if he suddenly keeled over,” said Kenny.

  “You can certainly count on my Kenny for that extra sympathy,” said Eleanor with some disapproval.

  “Oh God, no, it’s quite all right. I had a bit of a breakdown in town. I went to put the cheque in the bank because I honestly couldn’t imagine it lying around the house, and I stopped by the police station. They were . . . terribly nice. They gave me a cup of tea and some lunch. I really felt much better. I mean, I’m more philosophical than sad, really. It’s exactly as you said, Kenny. I have to think about whom I need to be nicer to. In fact, maybe I should have been nicer to that unfortunate Charles Andrews!” She felt it best to skirt around the whole of the police station’s sympathy. She hadn’t come to terms with how comforted she’d felt in the arms of Inspector Darling. But the thought suddenly came to her: did she reject Charles Andrews simply because of his contrast to Darling?

  Sandwiches were consumed with cheerful updates about the locals. Alice Mather, secretly described as “Mad Mather,” had finally been sighted, walking her dog and completely unarmed. Reg must have hidden the gun, a relief to everyone. Ponting was considering going home for Christmas, but he said that every year. He wouldn’t.

  “The Hughes girls are thinking of having a little Christmas party,” said Eleanor suddenly. “No one has done that for years and years. We do see each other on Christmas Eve at the church, after all. That ought to be plenty. Tarts and cider, they said.”

  “That sounds rather nice,” Lane said, thinking that “girls” was generous when the average age of the Hughes was seventy if you counted the ancient mother.

  “It sounds nice. But will it be nice? Vicarage tea, Sunday services, harvest fest. We had lunch together just the other day. We see quite enough of each other,” opined Eleanor, who undercut the ferocity of this opinion by looking extremely pleased by the idea of a party. “I will make a Christmas cake,” she added.

  “Perhaps I should bring the drink,” mused Lane. The prospect of competing in any culinary endeavour with the ladies of King’s Cove was daunting.

  “That’s a lot of money you’ll be out. We all drink like fish,” said Kenny.

  “I’m rich now, remember? I can’t think of a better use for my inheritance.”

  “Mabel said after all that business of the summer we needed to ‘heal.’ Ma Gladys snorted at that, I can tell you. Called it ‘hogswallop’ then said she supposed she’d better get cracking on the mincemeat.” Kenny smiled at the memory and held up the teapot.

  “That lot wouldn’t do something they didn’t want to do. They are going to show off all their china and their fine ancient dining room table. They have all that gorgeous stuff that was shipped from the old country before the Great War, and they keep it tucked away under cloth, and sit around their old wooden kitchen table in their wellingtons and trousers sneaking treats to their dogs like a bunch of farmhands,” Eleanor said. “What they put out at lunch was just the half of it. They have the better stuff under wraps. What did they imagine they were going to do with all that finery out here?”

  “Have a Christmas party in 1946,” said Lane. “They’ve been building up to it! Will Harris come out of his self-imposed exile and attend? Will Mad Mather leave her gun at home? Will Angela and David’s little boys behave? I am rather looking forward to it! I think the whole thing will be very healing, especially with lots of brandy!”

  INTO A LULL after this declaration, Lane said, “I do have some news, I suppose, about the Adderly business.” She had wondered if it was appropriate for her to share what she knew, but then decided it would be harmless, and it would give her someone to think out loud with. Kenny often asked exactly the right questions, because they were the hardest to answer.

  She brought them up to date with the suitcase, the likely model of the weapon, the fact that the victim appeared to be a Soviet citizen, and even the latest theory that perhaps it was more likely that a Canadian agent of some sort had killed him.

  “You could be giving us the plot of a spy novel. Surely all that international intrigue cannot possibly be going on in our tiny and very unremarkable corner of the world!” cried Eleanor. Her expression hovered between incredulity and delight.

  Kenny leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, plucking at his neck in a thoughtful manner. “It’s all very well, all that big stuff . . . who he was, where he came from, why he might have come here . . . international assassins. But you still have to get down to the basics, don’t you? Someone, on a winter’s day, followed him to Adderly, killed him, got away, and disappeared. How? How did he follow him? In a car? Or did he know that’s where the man would be? If so, how? Then where did he go? For a very quiet neighbourhood, with a snow storm coming on, that’s pretty busy.”

  There it was, thought Lane. The basics. How on earth did the assassin know to go to the hot springs, why turn over the body (her own unanswered question), and where did he get to? She herself had stood outside waiting for the doctor and aside from him, and eventually the police, she could swear that nothing had moved along that snowy road below the parking area. The boys saw a man walking along the walkway towards the dressing room, shrouded in black. No one saw him leave, though Darling obviously suspected that ungainly slipping down the frozen hill under the stilts of the building. Where was his c
ar? The police must have driven right past him on the way up.

  FEATHERSTONE WAS SITTING in his corner armchair, as he had been only six weeks before. Then he’d been relaxed, reading. Tonight there was no book, only his hands clutching the arms of his chair, as if to dribble out the tension the memory engendered.

  On that night he little suspected the hell that was about to open up for him. He’d had a history of the Boer War on his lap, the standing reading lamp had cast a circle of yellow light that illuminated the pages. Beside him, his round occasional table with his pipe on its side in a green glass ashtray and an empty sherry glass. When his phone had rung he had jerked in surprise, then waited, as if challenging it to ring again before he could accept the nearly unheard of idea that someone would telephone him at home in the evening. The second ring had made him get up, cross the room, and pick up the instrument. There may have been a break-in at the bank, after all. He remembered every word of the conversation as if it had been burned into his brain.

  “Yes?” he’d said, frowning.

  “Is this Arthur Featherstone?” It had been a man’s voice, young, he would have said. Featherstone had not recognized it.

  “Yes. Who is this? What do you want?”

  There had been a long silence. Assailed by a growing sense of irritated anxiety, Featherstone had tried to decide if he should hang up or challenge the caller again when the stranger spoke at last.

  “I wondered what you’d sound like.”

  “Who is this? You’ve no business ringing me. I shall contact the police.”

  “Really?” the voice had said, almost drawling now, as if its owner had gained an edge somehow. “I don’t think you will, actually.”

  It had been easy the first time. He had wired money to an address in Vancouver after being assured that he would not hear from the man again. It was absurd, of course. He had no son. He’d made sure of that. And yet, here was this man, claiming to be his progeny. Featherstone shuddered with real distaste at the memory of the whole thing. He could not now imagine his younger self coming home from the war that, if truth be told, he had loved. He had learned of his own fearlessness, of his resourcefulness. He had gloried in the clean, masculine comradeship of the other sappers and the incandescent danger they faced together every day.