Authors: Reginald Hill
'Possibly. Oh, by the way, Mr Thackeray asked me to pick up some papers for him,' said Pascoe. 'Mrs Huby's records of her researches or some such thing.'
'Yes, he said so. If you would care to follow me, I'll show you where they are.'
She rose and the two men followed, Seymour with a regretful back glance at the cream cake which his determined onslaught on the scones had so far prevented him from sampling. They went down the long hallway and entered a booklined room which was like a Disney design for the Athenaeum in that all the deep leather-bound chairs were occupied by sleeping animals. A huge black labrador stretched along a Chesterfield opened one sagacious eye, owned an inmate, and went back to sleep without disturbing the small tabby kitten snoring between his shoulder-blades.
'Here's where she kept her personal papers,' said Miss Keech, pointing to a two-drawered filing cabinet resting on a table in one corner. 'I have the key somewhere.'
Pascoe said, 'I don't think you'll need a key, Miss Keech.'
Reaching forward one finger, he pulled open the top drawer.
'Dear me,' said the woman. 'I'm sure it was locked.'
'Indeed, it probably was,' said Pascoe.
It was an old cabinet with a simple lock. A thin knife inserted between the drawer and the frame could easily push the catch aside. A couple of scratches on the edge of the drawer convinced Pascoe this was what had happened.
He said, 'When did you last look in here, Miss Keech?'
'To my knowledge, it's only been opened once since Mrs Huby's death. Mr Thackeray's clerk came to collect any financial papers relating to the estate and he wanted to see what was in here. I opened it for him, he glanced through, said there didn't seem to be anything there for the accountant, and I locked it up again.'
'I see. Seymour, still got that printing kit in the car? Good. Dust around here, will you? But wipe your fingers first. You're like an EEC butter mountain. Miss Keech, you don't have a photograph of Mrs Huby's son I could see, do you?'
'Of course, Inspector. This way.'
She led him out of the study and up the stairs.
Oh God, thought Pascoe. She's going to open up one of those rooms they have in the old movies. It'll be just like he left it all those years ago. Toys and books and teenage decoration; slippers by the bed and coverlet turned down; the only doubt is whether it will be kept scrupulously clean or thick with dust and draped with cobwebs!
So vivid was his mental picture that the reality was almost disappointing. The unlocked door opened on a smallish bedroom perfectly clean and tidy, with its sash window raised to admit a freshening draught of bright air. A faintly pathetic touch was provided by a pair of neatly folded pyjamas on the quilted counterpane. Pascoe regarded these while Miss Keech approached an old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe. It said much for the self-conditioning of his gothic anticipation that it took a good thirty seconds for him to start wondering why these putative relicts of 1944 should bear a modern brand label with a European size and the interesting information that the material was 65% polyester and 35% cotton.
He turned to discover Miss Keech mounting a chair to reach a pair of old suitcases on top of the wardrobe.
'Here,' he said. 'Let me.'
'It's the bottom one,' she said.
The top one appeared to be empty. More interestingly, it had a modern Alitalia flight label stuck to it.
Pascoe said casually, 'Miss Keech, has anyone been using this room.'
'Why yes, of course. But don't worry, he won't mind. He's such a nice boy.'
Boy?
Pascoe recollected the dead man. It had been a long time since he was a boy!
'Who is
he?'
he asked.
'I'm sorry. Didn't I say? It's Mr Lomas. Rodney Lomas.
He's appearing at the Kemble, you know, in
Romeo and Juliet.
He wanted me to go to the first night, but I don't go out much in the evenings. To be honest, I don't much care for Shakespeare either, and there was a good thriller I wanted to see on the television.'
'Yes, I know.
The Killers
,' said Pascoe sadly. 'So Mr Lomas is staying here, is he? I didn't know that. That means you needn't have relied on the animals to protect you from a prowler on Friday night. You had a young fit man to take care of you.'
'Oh no,' she said, as if put out by the implication that she needed taking care of. 'Rod wasn't here on Friday.'
'You mean, he didn't move in till later?' said Pascoe, recalling seeing the young man in the Black Bull on - when was it? - Thursday lunch-time.
'No. He came last Wednesday. But he rang me up on Friday night to say he was spending the night with a friend.'
'Locally, would that be?' inquired Pascoe casually.
'He didn't say, but in Leeds I presumed. The silly boy ran out of change and had to reverse the charge, and the operator said Leeds.'
Pascoe digested this as he opened the old case.
'Why did you put Mr Lomas in this room, Miss Keech?' he wondered.
'Why? Well, simply because it was the only bedroom in the house which has been kept cleaned and aired and fit for instant occupation. He arrived unexpectedly and I saw no reason not to use it.'
'Surely Mrs Huby's old room . . .' murmured Pascoe.
'I have moved in there myself, Mr Pascoe,' she said briskly. 'My own bedroom I now use as a dressing-room. I am not a sentimentalist, nor do I believe in ghosts. The old clothes belonging to both Mrs Huby and her son I have cleared out and donated to the WVS for charitable distribution. Some photographs and other memorabilia which were kept in this room I put into that case.'
It was a collection pathetic in every sense. Christening mug, baby bootees, school reports, a school cap, examination certificates - all the mileposts of childhood were here. Also there were photographs, framed, loose and in an album, plus several cardboard cylinders containing yards of schoolboys in tiers outside a grey castellated building. Here it was then, a record for all who cared to view it, of the progress of Alexander Lomas Huby from the comfort of the cradle to the edge of the grave.
Such was Pascoe's grim thought as he looked at the last of the photographs which showed a young man in a subaltern's dress uniform, smiling, half-embarrassed, at the camera. There was an echo of someone there.
Suddenly he caught it clear. The little girl in Thackery's office; something about the eyes and the shape of the head; but above all the same quality of uncertain reserve.
But there was no way of translating these young features into that waxen mask lying in the mortuary.
'I'll hang on to this photograph if I may,' said Pascoe. 'Shall we go down?'
Seymour had finished his dusting and had found a couple of good prints on the cabinet where a man might rest his left hand while sliding a knife into the gap with his right.
'Miss Keech, would you mind letting my constable take your prints just for elimination purposes?' inquired Pascoe.
'My fingerprints? How exciting. I've seen them do it on the television. Would you like to come through to the drawing-room, young man? We'll be more comfortable there.'
She looked sternly at the animals who had clearly decided the newcomers were harmless and continued to sleep soundly in their chairs.
'And Seymour,' Pascoe added softly as Miss Keech left the room, 'pop upstairs afterwards, second bedroom on the left, dust around in there. Don't leave any traces, though.'
'Right on,' said Seymour ethnically.
Alone, Pascoe started to examine the contents of the filing cabinet. There were a number of cardboard wallets each marked with a year starting at 1959, and three older-looking undated wallets. Pascoe started with these and found, as he had guessed, the record of Alexander Huby's death, starting with the telegram which regretted that he was reported missing in action.
Slowly he pieced the story together. Early in 1944 Huby had joined his unit in Palermo, Sicily. The Allies were making slow progress north against heavy German resistance on the mainland, but by May, the enemy were falling back from the Gustav Line, south of Rome, to the Gothic Line from Pisa to Rimini. Huby was put in charge of a four-man team whose job it was to land on the Tuscan coast north of Leghorn, make contact with local partisans, send back surveillance reports on German troop movement, and be picked up five days later. A corvette dropped them in heavy seas at the appointed time and that was the last that was seen of them.
There was no radio contact, they failed to make their pick-up rendezvous, and a leaking and capsized dinghy of the type used in the operation was spotted floating in the sea some thirty miles away.
Lack of any report of contact from the partisans, or of prisoners being taken from the Red Cross, made it almost certain that the five men had died before reaching the shore. Huby's CO wrote consolingly if conventionally, and as far as the army was concerned, that was that.
Pascoe looked at the silver-framed photograph he had placed before him. The young soldier smiled uncertainly back. Anything less like the deadly commando of Pascoe's boyhood comics was hard to imagine. Perhaps - in fact, certainly - appearances deceived. He must have volunteered for the job, met the selection criteria, and passed the doubtless extremely rugged training course.
'Here's looking at you, kid,' said Pascoe.
Next followed correspondence between Mrs Huby and the War Office, the Red Cross, the War Graves Commission, the American Occupation Authority in western Italy, her local Member of Parliament, and a host of other individuals and bodies whom the desperate woman saw as straws to grab at. It was repetitiously pathetic on her side, politely formal on theirs.
Pascoe skipped on through the files, came across a reference to 'the enclosed photograph', tracked back a couple of bundles and came across the original.
It was from a 1945
Picture Post
and showed Allied troops driving through the city of Florence to the ecstatic greeting of its citizens. Among the crowd lining the pavement, someone (Mrs Huby presumably) had ringed a single face. It was ill-defined and slightly out of focus; a man, pensive and watchful rather than joyously enthusiastic, though this might have been an effect of light, shadow and distance rather than a reflection of his feelings; a face which in shape and proportions bore some resemblance to the face in the silver frame and in which love and loss could very easily trace the exact lineaments of Alexander Lomas Huby.
There were letters to the editor of
Picture Post
and, once discovered, to the photographer who supplied the picture. There were letters to the authorities, military and civil, in Florence. And finally, in 1946 there were letters to the main newspapers in Italy instructing them to place the enclosed advertisement in their personal columns in both Italian and English. It was a simple appeal for Alexander Huby or anyone knowing his whereabouts to get in touch with his mother at Troy House, Greendale, Mid-Yorkshire, UK. There was a reward.
Here the early files ended. Pascoe could have guessed what had happened even without Eden Thackeray's confirming testimony. By 1946 Sam Huby's little store of hope was utterly depleted. His son was dead. His wife's desperate belief he tolerated till she placed these advertisements. Doubtless the promise of reward had brought replies, most of them blatantly fraudulent - probably
all
of them, in his eyes. Enough was enough. He had said
No more!
And his will had been strong enough to hold sway, or at least drive her underground, for the next thirteen years till his death.
Once Sam Huby was safely interred, the old obsession so long repressed burst out with renewed vigour. This was where the regular yearly files began. The spate of letters recommenced, coupled now with personal visits both to the relevant offices in London and to Italy. Investigation agencies, both English and Italian were employed. Pascoe read a selection of their reports which appeared scrupulous in their detailed nil-returns and ultimately in their blunt assertion that they doubted if they could hope to achieve anything in this matter.
The woman's dogged refusal to accept the obvious was both heroic and lunatic. The
Picture Post
photograph apart, there was not in forty years a single scrap of anything resembling evidence that her son had survived, unless you counted (as she did) reports from assorted 'sensitives' that they could find no trace of him 'on the other side' but that they had strong visions of someone very like him working in an olive grove, or that their divining pendulums always swung violently across the map of Europe towards Tuscany.
There was a tapping at the door. Pascoe put the papers he was studying back in the file and called, 'Come in!'
Miss Keech appeared with a tray newly replenished with tea and toasted muffins. Pascoe wanted neither but, guessing that Seymour had devised the task as a means of keeping the woman out of his hair while he worked upstairs, he thanked her kindly and did not demur when she offered to pour his tea and butter his muffin.
As he chewed at the luscious dough, he said butterily, 'Did you assist Mrs Huby in her investigations, Miss Keech?'
'Directly, only by typing and ordering her correspondence,' she replied, indirectly, by remaining here and taking care of the animals while she was pursuing her researches elsewhere.'