Walking back to the archives after his walk and lunch, he caught sight of Fiona and Matt sitting on a bench in the park their packets of sandwiches open in their laps. They were not eating but speaking intently, Matt had his hand resting lightly on Fiona's shoulder â definitely a couple.
Chapter Eleven
My Dear David,
Finally I've returned to work, albeit on light duties, and although collating statistics for the government sounds dull, it is, in fact, quite interesting. I'm based in Winchester and although it's a fairly long drive each day I'm working my own hours which means I travel at a leisurely pace. Believe it or not I avoid getting agitated at other drivers, actually keep to the speed limit and listen to classical music on the radio, arriving at the office and home again in a very peaceful frame of mind which as you know is something quite new for me!
David, the above is not just mindless chatter; it's an indication of how well I'm feeling. I'm fully recovered and light duties are just a sensible precaution taken by my superiors. I have spoken at length with your mother about how you are feeling and I want you to know that the events leading to the heart attack were almost entirely work related. I hate to think of you carrying some totally unwarranted sense of guilt over your surprise on New Year's Eve. I am delighted you have found your niche in life and, please believe me when I say you have my total and unflinching support. I know the difficulties and disappointments you faced prior to making this excellent choice and also know my being overbearing and demanding didn't help. I'm afraid these qualities go with parenthood and my intolerance is something inherent in my nature â blame Uncle Alexander and please see these failings as misplaced concern for your future!
It was wartime when I joined the navy and I should not have done so otherwise, but I was as enthusiastic and excited as you must have been. Before the war, I was at Oxford but took time off from my studies to train with a team of naval ratings who were preparing to break the record for a Channel swim. This appealed to me enormously as my Grandfather Xavier had such ambitions, he actually drowned in the sea while training and I longed to be the hero who could achieve this honour in his memory. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with the navy chaps, which is probably why I chose to join the navy later rather than the army or the airforce.
All this will seem strange to you, as my fear of water has always been something of a family joke and because I had no desire to relive the things leading to this aversion, I allowed the amusement to continue. The war interrupted the Channel swim plans but not before I'd become an extremely strong swimmer an attribute that was to save my life.
I joined my first ship in Southampton on New Year's Day 1940 and shortly afterwards married my first wife, Claudine, and Jules was born that year. It has given your mother and I such joy that the children by our previous marriages and those of our own, regard and love one another as true siblings and because of this we rarely referred to our former partners. Your mother's first marriage was a happy one but unfortunately mine was very brief and not happy. Out of respect for Jules, I will not go into details and in any case, blame cannot be apportioned to either one of us bearing in mind we were younger than you are now when, anxious not to miss any experience in what could have been a short life, we hurtled headlong into a situation neither of us was mature enough to cope with.
When Jules was a few months old the ship on which I was serving in the Atlantic was torpedoed and without warning I was transported into a vision straight from hell as the ship ground and heaved, tearing herself apart and injured and burning men died screaming on her decks. A second hit threw me into the sea and what happened next is a nightmarish blur when the dark bottomless ocean threatened to pull me into its frightful depths. I must have lost consciousness for a while because the next thing I remember was utter silence and complete darkness. The ship, the fires, the men and the noise had disappeared and I believed myself to be encased in some dark water filled compartment in the bowels of the ship. It is hard to explain how absolutely nothing can be so fearful, but I admit to you now that I screamed and screamed in abject terror.
When I could scream no more I began to swim, I kept myself going by pretending I was swimming the Channel to France where my grandparents waited for me. I couldn't let them down and so I ploughed on and on for what seemed like days but was in fact hours. Eventually, a ship picked me up and it was generally considered a miracle that I had survived so long and that a sharp-eyed sailor had spotted me, a tiny speck in the huge ocean. Here again luck was on my side; ships' captains had strict orders not to endanger the ship by stopping to pick up survivors, but the ship that rescued me had engine trouble and had to stop for a short time while repairs were carried out. They hauled me from the sea and took me back to shore with them.
I was in hospital for a while and it was there I learned I was the only survivor, all those men, friends and shipmates were lost. I was on watch at the time of the explosion and for years carried a futile guilt for what was an act of war during war but the self-doubt left its legacy and the experience my morbid dread of water. To add to my desolation Claudine was killed in an air-raid leaving me with Jules to care for and but for the support of your grandmother, Alexander, Charles and Barbara, I don't think I would have coped at all.
A humorous aside to this story is that while in hospital I was not allowed visitors and Uncle Alex got it into his head I was being ill-treated and barged in threatening the staff with all sorts of mayhem until he was allowed to see me. I feel sure they dare not do anything but admit him but, his actions were the result of scars he still carries from the First World War.
God grant that the world has learned something from the two bouts of utter madness played out in this century and you and your generation serve in peace.
It was at this time I met your godfather, Douglas Hood. He helped me more than I can tell you and impressed me so much with his bravery and compassion that I decided, with his encouragement, to become a special constable and so my police career began and then I was lucky enough to meet your mother and my life literally began again.
Perhaps I should have explained these things to you before now and having done so it may appear my collapse was caused by the sight of you in a navy uniform but please believe me when I say I'd been feeling unwell for several hours. As you know, the case I was on was a particularly unpleasant one, and before coming home I visited the young couple whose child was raped and murdered. They are a family like ours; two boys and two girls and seeing them trying to come to terms with what had happened to their child tore my heart out.
As a police officer, I'm obliged to control my emotions in public and the depression that came over me after the elation of catching Calway was probably far too much for an old man of fifty. Top that with the most wonderful surprise imaginable and large quantities of tempting food and drink and quite honestly it's no wonder I ended up in hospital.
I've been as honest as I can, David, and hope this epistle goes some way to bridge any rift between us and assures you that in no way are you responsible for what happened.
Good luck in your career, son. Remember always that your mother and I love you unconditionally and wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you are constantly in our thoughts.
Yours aye,
Dad
Sarah's lips trembled. “Of course, it's all right Max. It's wonderful and exactly what he needs to know and what I needed to know too, I just wish you'd told me sooner.”
“I know,” said Max, “perhaps I should have done but after the war we agreed to make a new start. We were trying to forget and put it behind us and get on with life denied to so many others, so I locked it away.” Momentarily he closed his eyes and pictured himself standing on a trapdoor that was pushing open beneath his feet. There were other demons trying to escape, but he intended to see they did not. He opened his eyes and looked at Sarah, “I was once told me these things would come back to haunt me in my old age.”
Chapter Twelve
Mildred Jefferson, another prostitute, was the third victim of the wartime killer. In her early forties, she was older than the previous victims and her body was found two months subsequent to that of Paula James, after one of the worst of the nightly raids on 29 December, 1940. The date established the first possibly recognisable pattern, each killing occurring at the end of a month suggesting that perhaps the killer was only in London at that time.
Darrington wondered about November. Was Mildred Jefferson really the next victim or the next to be discovered? With air-raids almost every night any number of women could have been slain, their bodies crushed by falling debris and all evidence of the crime destroyed in the unchecked fires burning for hours. They would have been added to the mounting number of air-raid casualties or missing persons and with no official warning about a possible serial killer on the loose, those dealing with the dead were not looking for anything suspicious.
Many of the witnesses who had seen Mildred Jefferson on the night she died knew her and how she earned her living; she worked a regular beat along the riverbank or on colder nights around the railway stations. She was seen with a man in the early evening. But as it was already dark, descriptions of him varied from middle-aged and well-built to young, tall and slightly built, dressed in a dark uniform possibly naval, a dark civilian suit, a police uniform or a light grey jacket. The only thing, upon which they all agreed was he did not wear a hat
Obviously Mildred Jefferson was a familiar sight often seen plying her trade and heading off with any number of men and at least some of the witnesses would have mistaken the date. Her body was found under a pile of rubble that had once been a row of shops with flats above them. A large concrete block had come to rest on the remains of a wall and in the space beneath, the body lay intact apart from injuries inflicted by the killer. An autopsy revealed she'd had intercourse prior to death, she had VD, and liver damage probably due to alcoholism and died from shock and loss of blood caused by a wound to the throat, damage to the face was again post-mortem.
The scant police report gave no details of any further enquiries and once again Darrington sensed procedures had either been interrupted or taken over by some other authority before the normal police routine was complete. It was a hunch, he had no proof and, against his unproven unease, had to weigh the fact that in war time London procedures might well have been ignored by untrained special constables like himself or exhausted officers, working incredibly long hours and more interested in protecting the living than spending time on dead prostitutes.
Placing the file of Mildred Jefferson with those he had already read, Darrington left his office and set off once more on his lunchtime excursion. Protected from the elements underground he was surprised to find the day had turned cold and it was starting to rain. Forgoing his walk, he headed straight to the tea room where he was becoming a regular and ordered tea and a sandwich.
Through the tearoom window, he watched pedestrians fighting with umbrellas in the blustery wind and hurrying to get out of the rain. Faces that had been bright and cheerful yesterday were today stern, irritable and bent against the inclement weather. People scurried about hardly looking at one another or exchanging a word, he wondered if those living in sunnier climates were happier and friendlier.
The waitress and Fiona arrived at his table at the same time. “Your tea and sandwich sir,” the waitress said as she frowned at Fiona and looked pointedly at the vacant tables.
“May I join you?” Fiona asked smirking at the waitress when Darrington nodded to a chair opposite. The waitress moved off huffily. “She probably thinks I'm trying to pick you up,” said Fiona removing her wet, shiny red PVC coat and hanging it on the back of her chair, then dropping her red matching umbrella into a nearby stand.
Darrington raised his eyebrows, “That's very flattering, Fiona. Would you like me to order you some tea or something to eat?” She settled for a cup of tea that he ordered from the sulky waitress. “I haven't seen you in here before,” he said noticing her smudged eye makeup and guessing she had been crying.
“No, I usually have lunch with Matt but we've sort of fallen out.” She suddenly looked straight into his eyes. “Look, I can't go on calling you Chief Inspector Darrington or Sir. I will in the office of course, but can I use your first name whatever that is,” she chuckled, “always assuming Chief Inspectors do have first names.”
Darrington smiled, “Well I certainly do; in fact I have four, Michael Alexander Xavier Charles, more commonly known as Max, which is what you may call me.”
Fiona's eyes widened over her teacup, “Great names! How come you have so many? You should use Xavier it's very stylish and unusual, perhaps that's what I should call you.” She pulled a face when he shook his head, “Okay, Max it is.”
“So why have you and Matt fallen out?” She hesitated and he realised he was prying, a policeman's habit. “Sorry, I don't mean to be nosey Fiona, I just thought I might help but please don't feel you have to tell me.”
“No, you're right, I should get a second opinion.”
Having reared daughters of his own, Darrington recognised Fiona as the epitome of a 1960s girl. She embraced every facet of the latest fashion in haircuts, footwear, make-up and clothes and it would be easy to mistake her for a dumb blonde but she certainly wasn't that. Fiona Derbyshire was very intelligent young woman. Why, he wondered, did she try to disguise the fact?
“No-one knows this Max but Matt and I have been having an affair.” She bit down on her lip. “He's married, of course, with a family, but he was going to leave his wife because they're dreadfully unhappy but now he says he can't because one of the children is sick.” Her large eyes appealed to him, “I mean it's nothing too serious only a grumbling appendix but there's a waiting list to get her into hospital and he says he'll have to stay until it's over and he's certain she's okay.”