He wondered if Linda Szymborska and Tom Whittington had been lovers, and decided that they probably had.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
And where were the bodies now?
Not in a fine and private place. That much was certain.
But wherever they were, he would be one of the people who would be looking for them.
âIt's a crappy job, but you expect to be given crappy jobs when you're working for a crappy boss, don't you?' Detective Sergeant Walker had asked him over the phone.
But Crane didn't see it like that at all. Finding Linda and Tom might not provide the solution to the case, but there would at least be some satisfaction in knowing that he would be bringing two people who died for their love a little closer to their final dignified rest.
He slammed the book shut, suddenly angry with himself.
Two people who died for love!
He was just as bad as his old friends at university, he told himself. The only difference between them was that while they spouted
political
claptrap,
his
claptrap was romantic.
Died for love!
How did he know they had even
been
in love? What gave him the right to automatically think of them as âstar-crossed lovers'?
It could have been no more than
lust
that held them together â the hot and gasping coupling of two people who couldn't stand each other personally, but formed a perfect union in the bedroom.
âMaybe I shouldn't be a policeman at all,' he said, still angry with himself. âMaybe I should catch tuberculosis and become a poet!'
âI'm not complaining about having to look after your mother, Colin,' said Mrs Taylor, in a voice thoroughly drenched with complaint, âbut I was under the impression that you were putting her into residential care today.'
âYes, I was going to,' Colin Beresford admitted. âBut then something went wrong.'
âWent wrong? What do you mean?'
He couldn't bring himself to tell her that he'd forgotten â couldn't admit that, but for his oversight, Mrs Taylor would have had the afternoon and early evening to herself.
âI think it must have been some sort of administrative mistake at the home,' he said.
âWell, they'd better get it fixed soon, whatever it is,' Mrs Taylor told him, severely. âBecause looking after your mother is like looking after a child â
worse
than looking after a child.'
And as she spoke, she glanced across at the subject of this conversation, who was sitting on the edge of the sofa, drooling down her blouse and gazing blankly into space.
âI'll ring them first thing in the morning, and tell them to hurry the process along,' Beresford promised.
Mrs Taylor's eyes filled with suspicion. âAre you sure you really
want
to put her in a home?' she said.
âShe
needs
to be in a home,' Beresford replied.
âThat's not what I asked you, Colin, and you know it. Do you
want
to put her in a home?'
Of course he didn't. She was his mother â or, at least, what was
left
of his mother. And despite all the evidence to the contrary, he kept hoping that if he tried just a little bit harder, she would show some signs of being her old self again.
âI know you never expected to be looking after her today, so I'm more than willing to pay you a bit more than usual,' Beresford said weakly.
âIt's not a question of money, Colin,' Mrs Taylor said. âIt's a question of what looking after your mother
involves
. I'm not a trained nurse, you know. I used to be a hairdresser, which â unlike this one â is a very
clean
job.'
âI know,' Beresford said.
âAnd I'll tell you this much for nothing, Colin,' Mrs Beresford continued unrelentingly, âI'm not prepared to keep being her nursemaid for much longer.'
âI know. I can understand that.'
âAnd it's not just me. Nobody on the street is willing to do it â however much you offer to pay them!'
Beresford turned towards his mother.
âSave yourself, Mother!' he pleaded silently. âDo something â just
one
thing â to show that there's a little of your old spark left!'
His mother looked vaguely in his direction â though he had no evidence she was actually looking at
him
â and replied with a loud bodily noise.
âShe's messed herself again,' Mrs Taylor said, not quite hiding her disgust. âShe's doing it more and more often now. She's got to go, Colin â there's no two ways about it.'
âYes, she has,' Beresford said, as he felt a tear run down his cheek.
TWELVE
S
ergeant Ted Walker looked, with disgust, around the tiny living room of his tiny rented flat.
It was a shithole, he told himself, not for the first time â a real honest-to-God
shithole
.
The wallpaper was faded and peeling off the wall, the carpet was frayed at the edges, the window leaked when it rained, the cold-water tap in the kitchen dripped persistently. And while he knew that all these things could be easily fixed, he didn't really see the point in bothering, because that would just make the place an
improved
shithole.
He had had a nice home once â a pleasant semi-detached in a quiet cul-de-sac. And then his wife â the ungrateful bitch that she was! â had run away with a door-to-door insurance salesman called Byron Jones.
A door-to-door insurance salesman! A
Welsh
door-to-door salesman!
Not a fighter pilot or a heavyweight boxer â that, at least, he could have understood â but a weedy little bastard who tramped the streets, collecting a pound here and one pound fifty there.
His mates â when he had still had some â had really been very good about the whole thing.
âYou're better off without her,' they'd told him.
âShe must have been mad to leave you for that little creep,' they'd said consolingly.
âWouldn't be surprised if she didn't come crawling back on her hands and knees any day now,' they prophesied.
Yes, the men had been good.
But not the women!
Not the wives of those mates of his!
They
had looked on him with contempt â which was bad.
Or as if he had become nothing more than a figure of fun â which was even worse.
He didn't know exactly
what
had brought about this change in their attitude.
Perhaps Doris had said something to them herself, before she ran away with the weed.
Perhaps they had needed no encouragement, but had cooked it up all by themselves â in their own nasty, poisonous little minds.
But however it had got there, he'd known what they were thinking â because he could see it in their eyes.
âYou'd have thought he was quite good in bed, wouldn't you? But he can't have been, or she'd never have left him.'
âThere mustn't be much lead in
his
pencil.'
âI doubt he can even get it up at all.'
âWell, you were all wrong, you bloody cows!' he shouted now, his voice bouncing off the walls of his shithole living room. âYou couldn't have been more wrong.'
Of course he could bloody get it up! Any time he wanted to! It was just that in the last couple of years with Doris, he hadn't got it up very often.
He shouldn't have been surprised that the women had turned on him like that, he told himself. What else should he have expected?
Because all women â women everywhere, and women throughout time â had always taken pleasure in crushing men's balls. They loved it. It was what they lived for.
And Chief Inspector Monika Paniatowski â with her tight figure and her superior bloody attitude â was a world-champion ball-crusher if he'd ever seen one.
But she'd taken on more than she could handle this time. He wasn't some whining little puppy, like Beresford, lying at her feet and yearning for a pat on the head or a few words of encouragement. He was a
real
man, and he wouldn't be pushed around.
Oh, yes, indeed, Doris would soon learn that it had been a big mistake to tangle with Sergeant Ted . . .
âI didn't mean Doris,' he told the wall. âI meant Monika. That's who I meant â
bloody
Monika!'
It was almost midnight. Stan Szymborska was asleep, but not at rest. He twisted and turned, and sometimes he emitted a soft groan. If Linda had been there beside him, she would have known what was happening â would have understood that he was having
the
dream again.
But Linda was
not
there â nor ever would be again.
In his dream, Stan is back in the prisoner-of-war camp. In German, it is called a
stalag luft
â which means that it is reserved exclusively for airmen â and it is divided into four sections, one for the British, one for the Canadians, one for the Americans and one for the Poles.
The British, Canadian and American prisoners are fed an adequate if monotonous diet, and sometimes there is a Red Cross parcel to add a little variety. They are allowed to âassociate in all kinds of ways', and so there are football matches and educational lectures, bridge tournaments and chess knockouts. And though these prisoners feel it is their duty to escape â and will do so whenever the opportunity presents itself â they are willing to admit their life in the camp is boring, rather than difficult.
It is different for the Poles. They are regarded by the Nazis â and especially by Colonel Schiller, the camp commandant â as being less than human. Their section of the camp is dirtier and meaner than the rest of the complex. Like all the other prisoners, they are not â in accordance with the Geneva Convention â made to work, but unlike the rest, they are not allowed to play, either.
When the other prisoners are given potatoes, they are given potato peelings. When the Red Cross parcels arrive, none of them finds its way across the wire to the Polish section. And when winter comes, and the other prisoners are issued with fuel for the pot-bellied stoves which dominate their huts, the Poles miss out again, though even if they
were
given fuel, they would have nothing to burn it in â because they are not allowed stoves, either.
Stan, who has been in this camp for six months, sometimes catches himself wondering whether conditions are any better for the Poles in other camps. But when this happens, he quickly tells himself that such speculation is pointless. It doesn't matter how Poles are treated elsewhere. He must deal with conditions as he finds them â and try to survive if he can.
Despite the difficulties â or perhaps because of them â morale is high in the Polish âghetto'. What little the prisoners have, they share, and when one man is weakened through illness, the others give him a portion of their own meagre rations, in the hope that, with more food, he will become strong again.
It is early in the seventh month of Stan's confinement that things start to go wrong.
One night, Józef outlines a plan he has thought up for their escape. It is a good plan, and it might just work, but it is never implemented, because the next day the guards come and take him away, and he is never seen again.
Another night, Piotr â drunk on the vodka they have managed to produce from their potato peelings â amuses the whole hut by telling scurrilous stories about Hitler's sexual failure with women. And the next day, he is gone too.
Stefan, the unofficial leader of the hut, calls a meeting.
âThere is a traitor in our midst,' he says gravely.
Most of the others nod in agreement, because it is a conclusion they have already reached themselves.
Only Tadeujz â thin, nervous, Tadeujz, who has bulging eyes like a wild hare's â seems uncertain.
âWe must find this traitor,' Stefan says.
âAnd how . . . how will we do that?' Tadeujz wonders.
âHe will not have betrayed us unless there was something in it for him,' Stefan says. âLike Judas in the Bible, he will have been given his thirty pieces of silver. And he will have stored his blood-money in this hut, for where else could he have put it?'
âPerhaps they have not paid him at all,' Tadeujz says. âPerhaps he will get his reward later.'
âPerhaps that is so,' Stefan agrees. âBut you will all consent to a search of your personal possessions anyway.'
âMaybe the Germans used hidden microphones to hear what we have been talking about,' Tadeujz says, almost frantic now. âWe should search the rafters for microphones.'
âEach man will submit to the search, while the others look on,' Stefan says undeterred.
âNot me!' Tadeujz protests. âI refuse.'
âAnd we will start with Tadeujz,' Stefan says coldly.
They find half a chocolate bar hidden in his bedding.
It is not much in the way of evidence, but since none of the other fliers have seen a chocolate bar since before they were shot down, it is more than enough to convict him in their eyes.
âIt's been planted on me!' Tadeujz screams. âIt must have been put there by the real spy.'
âSo now you think there's a spy after all, do you?' Stefan asks.
âYes! But it isn't me. I swear it isn't me.'