Authors: Barbara Cleverly
“I love Earl Grey,” he called after her. “Let me help you.”
“Gerraway with you! A gentleman in the kitchen! I wouldn’t know where to put myself!”
“I fend for myself in London, Betty. I’m an ace with a teapot. And I won’t get under your feet.”
Five minutes later Joe emerged from the kitchen carrying the tea tray and having inspected the range of kitchen knives to his satisfaction.
They drank their tea, smiling to hear the sounds of toy motor
cars revving up and brakes squealing, grunting and laughter from upstairs. Joe plunged into a conversation about the relative merits of James Cagney and Paul Muni. Neither appealed much to Betty, who disliked gangster movies. Clark Gable—now that was more like it. But she especially liked perky blondes like Jean Harlow and Carole Lombard, who talked back and got their own way. They shared a view of Greta Garbo: two yards of pump water, according to Betty; overrated and moody, according to Joe.
Dorcas came back down to the parlour at last, full of praise for Harry’s motoring knowledge.
“Oh, he sits by the roadside up on the turnpike for hours, miss. He clocks every car going up to London or coming down to The Bells. A lot of the drivers know him and give him a wave. He knows all the makes. He can do a good impression of the noises their engines make, did Mum tell you?”
“He identified it for me just now,” Dorcas said, ignoring a warning frown from Joe. “He picked it out of his lineup of models and showed me. Making the matching big-car noise. It was a Talbot. He’s seen it before on the road. He said I could bring it down to show you, Joe. And here it is.”
She held out a tin replica of an elegant car with grey and black paintwork.
“What model is it?” Joe asked. “It usually tells you underneath.”
Dorcas read out: “1926 Talbot 18/55. It’s one of those with the spare wheel over the driver’s side running board. Big cars—you can get seven passengers in there, and they have a reputation for being fast. Plush inside, too. I rode in one once. It has grey velvet upholstery, I remember, and little silver holders to put your nosegays in.”
“May I see it?” Joe took it from her hand and peered at it, then he placed it carefully on the table. “Do you recognise the type, Betty?”
Betty gave him a shy smile. “Oh, sir, I don’t know one car from another—except for a Model T Ford, perhaps. A lad I know in town—his dad’s got one of those. Lends it to Tom at the weekends sometimes.” She blushed and bit her lip. “But that one—no. Looks expensive to me. I wouldn’t be giving a car like that a second look. Harry may have seen one on the main road.”
“I expect so. Well, thank you so much for your hospitality and your information, Betty. Must be getting back. Many phone calls to make before lunch.”
“
D
ID YOU NOTICE
the marks, Joe?”
“I did. The child had done them himself, I think.”
“Yes, in indelible pencil. He’d scratched off whatever it said originally on the number plate and put his own letters on. Two of them: ‘O’ and another ‘O.’ Not much is it?”
“Considering he can only do two letters anyway, it’s next to nothing!”
“But—number plates—I wonder. Boys set much store by them, you know, Joe. I noticed other cars had had their plates painted over by an adult hand. They were the familiar cars he knows in the village. He showed me. There was a Morris, a Ford and a Riley. All with authentic Sussex numbers filled in. That Talbot means something to him. He kept pointing to it and making a noise. He was so earnest I took out a pencil and drew the letters in my notebook to show I’d got it. That calmed him down. They may be part of the registration of a car he’s seen on the road.”
“I’ll grasp at anything. I’ll pass this over to Cottingham when I get back to the telephone. He can get on to records. He’ll thank me for that on a Saturday!”
They walked back along the path bordering the muddy courtyard that linked the Bellefoys’ cottage with the school buildings
and stopped for a moment to look at the police flag marking the spot in the centre of the sodden grass where the knife had been found.
“Now, what would Rapson have been doing crossing an open area already under snow?” Joe wondered. “Wherever he was heading, he’d have stuck to the path.”
“Someone could have thrown it. Pulled it out and chucked it as far away as possible into the snow. From here.” Dorcas demonstrated. “Now, why do that?”
“I think you know. Leave a knife in the wound, and provenance can easily be established. If you have to get rid of it in a hurry, throw it into a snowdrift. Seems to have worked. It took Martin’s men two—or is it three?—days to find it.”
“Tell you something else, Joe. Bit odd. Betty is the only wage earner in that household, isn’t she?”
“The only one, yes. The cottage is a tied one, of course, so they pay no rent. All the same it must be hard to manage. They seem to do all right.”
“Careful management and no frills, that’s evident. The women don’t indulge themselves but—you must have noticed—they
do
indulge that boy. His set of cars, Joe, was rather special. The box it came in was still there being used as a garage. By mail order from the Gamages catalogue. I remember Orlando making a fuss about the cost when my brother asked for a tin car. Just one. Harry has thirty. They’re really collectors’ models and must have cost a month of Betty’s wages.
“But there’s more. His room was kitted out in—oh, not extravagant—but good-quality furnishings. His bed is a sort of heavy-duty large-sized cot with sides you can put up. Perhaps he falls out of bed still? Specially made to order, I’d say, supplied by Heals on the Tottenham Court Road. And, tucked up in this splendid little bed, there’s a teddy bear. Not just any bear, one of those new continental ones by Steiff. Soft carpet. Thick curtains,
good fire going and a full coal scuttle. The rest of the house—well, you saw for yourself—is on the edge of poverty.”
“With all that cosseting and attention, I’m thinking young Harry is one lucky little monkey!”
“Yes, I’d say they spend every penny they have on that boy.”
“Penny? Would you say—penny?” Joe asked thoughtfully.
“I
mmediately after surgery? Will that do? I finish at twelve noon. Do you know where to find me? High Street, the double-fronted Georgian next to the iron-monger’s. I look forwards to meeting you, Assistant Commissioner Sandilands.”
Dr. Carter put down the receiver and muttered, “Curse you!” In truth, he’d just said goodbye to the last of his patients for the day, but he needed some time to think about things. So. It had come to this. Was there any point in arguing, remonstrating, self-justification? Yes, there bloody well was! He felt no guilt. Whatever he’d done, he’d done it out of principle. For easement in a harsh world. To improve the lot of the unfortunates who were powerless to do it for themselves. But how had the buggers arrived at his name? Who had mentioned it in connection with the removals?
Inspector Martin, the local man, was a good chap—he’d understand if the circumstances and the benefits were explained to him. Might even be persuaded to look the other way. Perhaps he should have taken the officer into his confidence earlier? Involved him? But then, individual placeholders came and went, the office remained and was never more congenial than the man occupying it. That had been his reasoning. And now he had this Sandilands buzzing round. The man who’d just been on the phone was an unknown quantity. Metropolitan CID officer. He’d throw
the book at him without a qualm. Or make Martin do it. By the time the coppers had trawled through the records they’d have enough to get him struck off the medical register at the very least.
Sighing, he went to his filing cabinet, extracted one file, checked the name on the spine, and grimaced. Who’d have thought this innocent would have brought about his downfall? He placed it on his desk. It would be a mistake to make them search for it. Everything aboveboard—that was the tone to take.
Donald Carter poured himself a much-needed tumbler of whisky and waited.
“
Y
OU DON’T OBJECT
if I bring my colleague Inspector Martin, do you, doctor? I believe you two know each other?”
“We do! Always a pleasure, Martin. Assistant Commissioner, how do you do?” Dr. Carter shook the firm hand offered him and pulled up another chair. “Sit down, both of you, and tell me how I can help you.”
“By revealing the contents of one—or two, possibly three—of your files. Patients’ records. Inspector Martin has obtained the requisite authorisation from the local magistrate. A search warrant, Carter.” Sandilands slid a folded document on to the desk. The doctor’s eyes, reading upside down, took in the chiseled script of the headed sheet:
His Majesty’s Metropolitan Police
. He gulped. “We could, using this, look into anything in here that takes our fancy.” The icy grey eyes surveyed the room, calculating and commanding and taking it all, lock stock and filing cabinet, under his authority.
Sandilands waited for the doctor’s nod and his murmured: “I understand that,” then he turned a less stern gaze on Carter. “But I’d much rather do this neatly and quickly by dipping into your
mental
filing cabinet. You agree?” he suggested.
The doctor nodded again and put a hand on the file sitting at the ready on the desk before him. “I may need to check dates and so on, but I’m ready to speak to you.”
“The Bellefoy family up at the school—”
“The Bellefoys?”
“Yes, all three of them. Tell us a little about young Harry and his problems.”
“Oh, very well. He’s five years old. I don’t need to check his birthdate because I was present at the event, and it was Christmas Day 1927. I registered his mother as Clara Bellefoy and his father: unknown.
“The child was born slightly prematurely, and possibly this affected his development, both physical and mental. He’s quite a strong boy but somehow badly wired up. Clumsy. Uncoordinated. He was late to crawl and late to walk. But his mother and sister take such good care of him his condition improves by leaps and bounds. They spoil him of course. I’ve had to speak to them. Not that they take any notice. Harry’s mentally defective, you’ll have realised if you’ve seen him. You have? Poor speech and reasoning. I’ve had him tested, and he’s two years behind on the scale we use. But again—those women are working wonders.”
The policemen had listened quietly, giving nothing away.
“And Betty Bellefoy? If I were to look, what, I wonder, would your file reveal about any broken limbs in December 1927?” This question came from Inspector Martin. The CID man blinked, pursed his lips, and kept silent.
Ah. Well, it had been worth a try. Seeing no way out of this, the doctor got up and went to his cabinet. “Here you are. Bellefoy, Elizabeth. Born 1913.”
“In your own words, doctor,” Martin encouraged. “It’s all right, man. It’s only us. The boy’s in no trouble. We’ve got a puzzle that needs clearing up, that’s all.”
“You’ll find Betty suffered a broken ankle falling out of an apple tree—the Bath Beauty at the bottom of their garden, on … December 24th, 1927. Multiple fracture—it was the devil to set. That what you want?”
“So—not Clara at all? It wasn’t Clara who threw herself out of the tree to dislodge an unwanted child from the womb?”
“No, it was little Betty. And not the first time she’d tried. I suppose it was the extra weight this time that did it.”
The doctor’s head went up, he sniffed, tooted into a large handkerchief, and glared back at them.
“I was called in. They’d hidden the pregnancy under layers of pinnies, as women do, and the girl had gone on skivvying at the school, condition unnoticed. They were planning to deliver the child in secrecy if it couldn’t be got rid of, but what with the ankle and all and Betty in double agony, Clara gave in and summoned me. The poor child, in her pregnant state, must have been exposed every day of her hard life to the sight of the man who’d brought it about. The man who, the previous March, had raped her. She was only just fourteen, gentlemen.”
“And Betty’s baby became officially Clara’s,” Martin said heavily. “Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. If a mother’s young enough not to stretch belief beyond bounds, she’ll sometimes take the blame. ‘Afterthoughts’ they’re sometimes called, these children. It happens that an auntie takes a child in with nothing said. It’s better than the alternative: the orphanage. Or the loony bin. But it’s the criminal father I’d like to get my hands on, doctor. Did the Bellefoy women ever tell you his name?”
“No. They never did. Just ‘a man at the school.’ It could have been anyone from the headmaster—well, perhaps not him—down to one of the school stewards. Randy lot, some of those boys. Get up to all sorts of mischief in the summertime with the girls from the village. Those old cart sheds are nothing but an invitation to cider-fueled bucolic debauchery.”
“And young Betty had got involved with some lad who’d not known when to stop?”
“That sort of scene. Not in the least unusual—it’s the way most marriages start, officer, and no one bats an eyelid. I think
Clara had some scheme of her own that she didn’t want me to be a party to. ‘Just leave it to me, doctor,’ she’d say. ‘I know what I’m doing, and you can be sure it’ll be the best for Harry.’ She’s a determined woman. Resourceful. And she loves that child dearly.”
Dr. Carter fell into deep thought and was left untroubled by the pair of police officers while he pondered.
“I say—could these questions have anything to do with the murder that’s taken place up at the school just the other day?”
Martin replied. “We believe they are connected, doctor.”
“If they are, then you must have guessed the identity of the father and possibly the reason for his killing? Oh, no! How sickening! I don’t want to contemplate such a horror! Him? That man? Rapson? Surely not! There are rumours that he.… Oh, that can’t be! But if it is—”
The officers looked steadily at Carter, allowing him time to absorb the unpleasant idea. When he could stop spluttering, he said urgently, “Look, you’re powerful men! Can’t you do something to avert another tragedy? Because that’s what you’ll bring about. You’ll wreck three lives.”