Authors: Barbara Cleverly
“Couldn’t be certain he’d not get away with it. He always has. This was the only sure way. I’ve had mad fantasies about this for years, sir,” he admitted with a shaky grin. “Look at it this way—if
I
hadn’t shot, Miss Dorcas would have. I could feel her hands twitching. Right now she’d be in all kinds of bother. I’m not sure she’s the kind of lady who’d get over killing a man, even a monster like that. She might have had to stand trial. Wouldn’t want that. Anyway, I’m mad. Officially mad. What are they going to do? Send me to a loony bin?”
Francis Crabbe smiled a smile of pure reason.
“Christ Almighty, Crabbe! I believe you’ve just set the waterworks on fire,” said Joe, admiring.
T
hey met for the last time in the equipment room, sitting at the table while whistling coppers cleared the place of documents and evidence boxes.
Joe looked around him with the familiar blend of regret, anxiety and triumph that always accompanied the closing of a case. Anxiety was winning the struggle for his attention. He grimaced. “Tin hat and a one-way ticket to the Riviera, I think you suggested earlier, Martin? Advice we might need to take, all four of us.”
“You’ve knocked the top off a beehive, Sandilands. And it’s
you
they’re all buzzing after. But I’ll tell you, if anyone needs watching it’s that professor we’ve got under lock and key in Tunbridge. I warn you, he’s got all sorts of mischief planned for
you
when we let him loose.”
“Let him loose? Why would you do that?”
“He seems confident he’ll get bail. Seems to think you’ll know why. Pity we couldn’t get him for the St. Magnus murders. I thought when the lid came off the Spielman coffin, we’d have it sewn up. Oh, it was all tickety-boo on the surface; death well documented and accounted for. All aboveboard. Nasty scene,” Martin confided. “Spielman blustering and claiming immunity, Madame Spielman shrieking and distraught. But—alerted—our
doc confirmed suspicious death, signs of electrodes applied under the hair.”
The inspector looked steadily across at Joe. “He’s a good bloke, that one. Came straight out and said if he hadn’t been warned to look for something a bit fishy, he’d have passed the body straight through. No question. Then we looked more carefully at the documents. And the bottom fell out of our theory. Two unknown medical signatures on the death certificate—both bona fide doctors used regularly by Chadwick. No, neither of ’em Dr. Carter. He’s well in the clear on the eugenics racket. And then we tracked the delivery van back to the Prince Albert.”
He paused to puff his pipe into life. “That was a bad hour you put us through, commissioner. You were out there on the road. We were busting a gut to get hold of you and warn you. Leaving messages here there and everywhere. The school, The Bells, the RAC patrol boys. Ringing and ringing. But you’d disappeared … gone off the dial. Blimey, I’d have—” He glanced at Dorcas and censored the soldier’s phrase which had been on the tip of his tongue, “—been extremely concerned had I know you were driving straight into that snake pit!”
“We were shitting bricks too, inspector,” Dorcas said.
“So, you’re all off this afternoon, leaving me carrying the can?” Martin concluded with affected grumpiness.
“Not all. Gosling’s staying on here for a bit.”
“Liaising with the new headmaster when he gets here,” Gosling said. “Calming things down. Providing some continuity.”
Martin expressed the hope that when the interviews took place, somebody would have the sense to check whether the applicant’s featured on the Eugenic Society list. He suggested a little blackballing might be advisable. “You know, Farman really thought we were making a silly fuss. Tried to make out he didn’t know he was sending those poor boys off to their deaths—they were just onward bound to further specialised treatment at the
parents’ request. Huh! He’s got his lawyers quite convinced he’s been misunderstood! Deluded or what?”
“Self-deluded,” Dorcas suggested. “The very best kind of liar. Like his Matron. She was just doing what the headmaster asked her to do, of course. Packing the boys’ trunks and waving them off.”
“Matron aided and abetted, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t privy to the hideous truth. Didn’t know because she didn’t ask. Well rewarded. Money closes more than mouths, it closes minds. She claims that, insofar as she had any thoughts at all, she reckoned all that discreet leaving by the back door after dark was designed to avoid any disturbance to the other boys.”
Martin sighed. “Very persuasive lady. Runs rings round the men. She’ll move on unscathed. But not unchecked.”
“From a London perspective, Farman has been quite useless when it comes to rolling up the conspiracy. They were too smart to give away names and contacts. He received his orders by telephone. Not always the same voice. And he, in turn, rang up the Prince Albert. Chadwick & Son, your friendly family undertaking business, established 1895. Purveyors of bespoke death through two generations.”
“Christ! Why? Chadwick and Bentink—
two
butchers operating in my county? Why?” Inspector Martin’s outburst voiced everyone’s horror and disbelief. They listened in hope of enlightenment to a carefully delivered explanation by Dorcas, who was the only one prepared to take a shot at it, though Joe noted with understanding that her voice lacked its usual confidence.
They nodded in agreement with her suggestion that eugenics was a two-sided coin. One side urged the improvement of the quality of the population by breeding selectively from worthy stock, which would appear to be Bentink’s philosophy, the other side urged and attempted to licence the removal of undesirable elements, preventing them from reproducing their faulty genetic
makeup. An approach put into practice by Chadwick. The two faces, each unaware of the other, shone out from a freshly minted but utterly counterfeit coin.
“Any chance these devils were working in concert, sir?” Martin asked.
“No sign of it. I think they operated totally independently of each other, though it’s clear that at least Chadwick had some suspicion of what Bentink was up to. Both were members of the Eugenist Society through the generations. They were at least each
aware
of the other’s existence and, perhaps, proclivities. And what did our fine, idealistic Utopians do when push came to shove? Chadwick betrayed Bentink, just handed us his card. Simple as that. Distraction. Laying off the blame.”
“And successfully,” Dorcas said. “We fell for it. Well, no. It was my fault. I was only too pleased to seize the chance to hurry you along to the St. Raphael clinic, which I had decided deserved an investigation.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Martin. “If ever a place needed a light shining on it, that one did! Bentink is now busy blaming everyone he can think of and calling in favours from the greatest in the land. Think on!” the Inspector warned. “With all the discretion that bloke has guaranteed over the years for god-knows-what delicate conditions amongst the high and mighty, some of them will be only too ready to hear his pleas. The embarrassing secrets he must hold in his files! These birds’ll go to a lot of trouble to squash a revelation of anything from syphilis to face lifts.”
“Does this make us lose our faith in humanity?” Gosling wondered out loud.
“Always,” said Joe. “If we have any humanity in
us
. But then I find, in most cases, there’s usually someone quite unexpected lurking ready to pick up the torch and shine it around. I’m thinking of Adam and Francis Crabbe. Men who know what’s
right and go straight for it with no regard for their own safety and no thought of reward.”
“Reward? Farman was rather partial to a bit of that. I’ve applied to get a look at his bank statements. Should be interesting,” Martin said. “The money trail? Did you get a line on that?”
“The cheques came anonymously from a very reputable London bank, numbered account. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it was a holding account bulging with donations from a eugenic faction.”
Joe thanked Martin for all that he’d done at the Sussex end of the operation. “On the bright side, we leave you well placed for promotion on the satisfactory outcome of all this, Martin. No, it was well done, and I shall say so!” he added seriously. “If anyone’s prepared to listen to that bungler Sandilands when I get back to the Yard.”
Martin’s opinion was that the hardest part of the task awaited Joe back in London. “You’ll never get to the spider at the centre of all this. Contacts will be cut, doors will bang shut. The establishment will close ranks on you. Too many reputations at stake.”
“My own as well,” Joe admitted.
He sketched out his plans for further action on his return to London. The nine lost boys were lost no longer. Eight at least had been brought back into the light, and Joe was determined that they would be acknowledged. The parents who still remained would be confronted with whatever evidence he could get together. He realised it was too late for a lawful conclusion for most of these cases, whose trails had led to a cold gravestone at the best, but he would do what he could.
This was not a task he could delegate to one of his superintendents. Any such enquiry would spread poison, invite recrimination, risk unbalancing the status quo. It was a course of action that would wreck a police career. It was for his shoulders alone.
For the last time, Joe laid out the nine faces on the table top, and Martin, Dorcas and Gosling silently studied them.
“Farewell ceremony, sir?” Martin asked.
“
Ave atque vale
, I think Godwit would say. No sooner greeted than bidden farewell. But no longer lost,” Joe said. “Thanks to Hercules here.” He grinned at Gosling. “And thanks to Edwin Rapson. I’ve had some strange guides through my cases but never one as unlikely as Rapson: murder victim, rapist, blackmailer and would-be killer of his own flesh and blood! But it’s the thread of his researches that led us through the labyrinth.”
“You keep saying that, Joe,” Dorcas said. “Threads, knots, webs, mazes. Have you got to the middle yet? This spider Inspector Martin conjures up?”
“No.” Joe shook his head. “But I know I’m close. These lads will lead me to him. It’s not over yet.”
Gosling seemed to take this as a cue. “Sir!” he said, putting up a hand in his excitement to catch Joe’s attention. He reached out and with the gesture they’d become accustomed to, he moved the sepia print, the oldest boy who still remained nameless, to the left of the lineup. “Sir. I think I know who this is.” He took a brown file envelope from his briefcase. “Found it an hour ago. Out of place. Deliberately misplaced? Rapson ferreting about?”
Gosling, with Joe’s encouragement, had battled on with his research into Rapson’s little black book and a meticulous examination of the lower strata of the school records. Unwilling to let even one soul make the final journey unknown and unmourned, Joe guessed.
“There were three candidates with the same initials over two years, but I think I’ve got him, sir. The ninth boy.” He frowned for a moment and added: “Or should I say, the
first
boy? It’s this boy’s death that may have paved the way for all the others.”
He placed the file with quiet triumph on the table.
Dorcas and Martin looked at the name with interest, but it
was Joe who reacted strongly. He recoiled with the startled disgust and fear he might have shown if Gosling had flung a snake in front of him.
“Gosling!” Joe cleared his throat, trying for control. “This name. Have you established a connection?”
“Oh, they’re connected all right! Five or six more on the school rolls down the decades. Dedicated alumni, you might say. Keen and supportive. Generous donations. And they have,” he paused, choosing his words, “a certain presence in the upper circles of the present government. Am I right?”
This was confirmed by Martin’s low whistle. “Gawd ’elp us!” he muttered, and he reached into his pocket for the list he carried about with him. “Here he is. Listed. Eugenic Education Society, Mayfair branch.”
Martin eyed Joe with a blend of amusement and pity. “Better seek an appointment with the prime minister, Sandilands.”
T
HEY SAT ON
in silent contemplation of the task and barely noticed the hesitant tap on the door.
When it was repeated, Martin called, “Come in!”
It creaked open to reveal the small figure of Jackie Drummond.
“Oh, hello, old son! Come and join us,” Martin said cheerfully. Trembling with some emotion and clearly awed by the assembly of adults at the table, Jackie nevertheless shot into the room and ran to Joe’s side.
“Here! What’s up, old man?” Joe asked with concern. He took the boy by the shoulders and held him steadily for a moment. “Jackie, what’s the matter?”
“They told me you’d gone! They said you’d left and gone back to London, Uncle Joe. Without telling me.”
“No, no! What rubbish! We’re both here, Dorcas and I, as you see. We are leaving and pretty soon, but not without saying goodbye. Never!” Defiantly, he gave the boy a hug. Gosling and
Martin looked aside tactfully, but Dorcas grinned. “Besides, we haven’t had our talk yet. You could well be coming with us back to Aunt Lydia’s if that’s what you want. This isn’t the only school in the country. I’ve found a rather wonderful one in the north where they have a forwards-looking headmaster, the pupils choose their lessons according to their own interests and there’s no whacking allowed. We might manage to persuade your mother to send you there instead.”
Recovering fast, Jackie spoke up. “It’s not that, Uncle Joe. It’s all right here.” He flashed a shy glance at Gosling. “And I reckon if Mr. Gosling can stick it, I can. No, I wanted to say, when Mummy arrives, she’ll want to see you. I wondered if, with Easter coming up, she could bring me to Auntie Lydia’s and we could all have a talk.”
Dorcas came around the table and took his hand. “Excellent idea, Jackie!” she said. “There’s a great deal of talking to be done. I’ll bake a few extra hot cross buns. Can’t wait to meet—Nancy, is it? Now, push off, old thing, and leave us to get on with our packing up. We’ll see you again before we go. Perhaps—as there’s no headmaster to say no—we can sneak you out for supper at the roadhouse this evening? What about it?”