The Reckoning (25 page)

‘I have patients who do that, and it's usually because they've spent too much time in the pub. That can hardly be Maud's problem. No, I'm afraid it's just as I thought. She's plotting to keep you there. If this goes on much longer I shall come up to London myself and tell her I want my husband back.'

She caught his eye and smiled in turn. It was short of eight o'clock, but Madden had an early appointment in London and Helen was driving him to the station. The day was misty, the cloud cover low; at breakfast a little earlier they had heard a forecast on the wireless that warned of heavy fog later in the week.

‘It won't take long now to finish the work,' he said. ‘And if
there are any more delays, we can send Lucy up to London. She and Maud are as thick as thieves.'

The Maddens' daughter had finally announced via a telephone call from Paris the day before that her return was now imminent, prompting Helen to wonder how she might best be occupied when she got home. The answer seemed obvious, and she had rung Violet Tremayne at once to suggest that Lucy help her in clearing up the Hall.

‘It should keep her busy for weeks,' Helen had told her husband, ‘though I'm beginning to regret the impulse. The first thing Violet said was, “Ooh, we must have a party for her. I'll invite some suitable young men down from London.” I told her if there was one thing in life my daughter didn't lack, it was young men – suitable or otherwise. And that I'd much rather see her down on her knees at the Hall, scrubbing a floor. I don't think Violet was listening.'

Tempted to ask his wife how she herself had behaved at that age, Madden wisely held his tongue. Having bequeathed her beauty to her daughter, Helen had seemingly forgotten the time when she too had a string of admirers. Or so the late Lord Stratton had once assured Madden, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘When she and Violet were girls, they went to every party in London and there was no end to the trail of broken hearts that Helen left behind her. Some of these young men used to come down here in search of her, and it was left to Violet to explain to the poor wretches that their journey had been in vain. Then, all of a sudden, Helen decided to chuck the social whirl and settled down to study medicine. Violet never got over it. She said it was worse than finding religion.'

Seeing her husband smile now, Helen was pleased. Aware of the burden of worry that he bore, she had been trying to distract him with other matters. The winding lane they were driving along was cloaked with early morning mist and her concentration had been on the road. But as they entered the
village, where the lights in some shops were already switched on, she took his hand in hers.

‘I do wish this business was over. I feel dogged by it. I thought we'd put that war and all its horrors behind us. Now I wonder if there'll ever be an end to it.'

There was little Madden could do except press her hand in response: the same sense of a lingering curse had been with him since the day Oswald Gibson's diary had yielded up its secrets and he had been drawn back into a past all but consigned to the vaults of memory. Although he knew he bore no responsibility for the fate that had overtaken James Ballard, there was a sense in which he could never forgive himself for his failure to save the unlucky soldier's life.

If Ballard's death had been fore-ordained, he had still been forced to play the role of cat's paw – a helpless witness to the ritual slaying of a young man who had never failed in courage, but whose mind had simply relinquished the struggle. He had tried to explain his reaction to Helen. He felt as if fate had stretched out its hand and touched him on the shoulder, he told her. ‘This time do better,' it seemed to say.

‘But do what?' she had asked. They had talked the matter over late into the night on the evening Madden had returned from London. ‘You can't right a wrong. Not now. Not after all these years.'

‘I know. It's far too late for that.'

‘Well then?'

‘I just want the killing to stop.'

He could think of no other answer.

Nor was it the last discussion he had had on the subject. On Saturday evening Angus Sinclair had walked up from his cottage to have supper with them, and to receive from Madden's lips a first-hand account of the latest developments. The news that a woman, yet to be identified, was now known to be involved in the case had stirred the chief inspector's memory.

‘Thinking back to my trip to Ballater, I can see now how she found out what she needed to, when she visited Drummond in his rooms. There was a photograph of him and some other men in military uniform, hanging on the wall of his surgery. I didn't mention it at the time because it didn't seem relevant. But it occurs to me now that it would have given her the opportunity to bring up the subject of the war with him.'

‘She used the same excuse with Singleton.' Madden had listened to his old colleague with a frown. ‘But it was different with Gibson. Although he also had a picture of himself up, it was at the other end of his study and, since she was probably facing him at the desk, she wouldn't have seen it. She had to question him – at least that's what it sounded like – and whatever she said obviously upset him so much that he started to write that letter to the commissioner. But what part she's playing in all this is still a mystery to me. Chubb and Billy believe she's working with the killer. But, if so, how did that come about? Charlie thinks they might both be related to Ballard. But that's only a guess at best.'

The puzzle had continued to trouble him all weekend, but he had come no closer to solving it.

Late on Sunday, after an afternoon spent at the farm catching up on business, he had returned home to find that Billy had called with the news that their appointment for the following day was set.

‘With yet another spinster lady, I gather. You'd better not mention it to Maud. She might get jealous,' Helen had teased him. ‘Billy said he'd done what you asked and fixed it for first thing in the morning, so you'll have to leave at the crack of dawn.'

22

‘I
DIDN
'
T TELL HER
much when we spoke. I just said Hazel Ballard's was one of the names that had come up in an investigation that the Yard was conducting. I didn't say anything about the court martial. I thought it would be better to wait and see if she refers to it herself.'

Billy kept pace with his companion's longer stride as they walked up the crowded platform together. Madden's train had been on time for once and Waterloo station was busy with commuters arriving from the suburbs.

‘Judging by what we know of her, I'd be surprised if Hazel told her about it. But you never know.'

‘How did you explain my presence?' Madden glanced at him.

‘I told her the inquiry went back many years and that you used to work at the Yard. I said your name had come up in a curious context, and that you were trying to help us get to the bottom of it.'

‘You didn't say I'd once known Ballard: that he was in my company?'

Billy shook his head. ‘I thought it better not to, sir. I'd rather wait and see how the interview plays out.'

‘How did she react?'

‘She was surprised when I rang, naturally. She couldn't
imagine why the police should be interested in Hazel. But she said she'd help if she could.'

They had emerged from the concourse into the early morning bustle of taxicabs and buses. Billy looked around for his car and driver.

‘By the way, Mr Sinclair sends his regards,' Madden said. ‘He came to supper yesterday and we talked about the case. He wondered how you were going about finding this mystery woman.'

‘We're doing what we can, but it's not much. We've circulated the description we got from Mrs Singleton, along with the names Horton and Oakes and copies of those two sketches we told you about, the ones made at Oxford and Lewes. They reached the Yard on Saturday.'

Catching sight of their car parked across the forecourt, Billy signalled to the driver.

‘I'm going to show them to Miss Dauncey.' He pulled out two sheets of paper from his pocket and handed them to Madden. ‘The trouble is they don't really match. If it was the same person, she obviously went to some trouble to change her looks.'

Madden studied the drawings. Neither of the faces pictured was remarkable, nor were they much alike, at least to his eyes. The woman in the Oxford sketch wore a smart cloche-type hat, which (together with her plucked eyebrows) hinted at a degree of sophistication. The other, by contrast, seemed careless of her appearance. Her dark hair looked uncombed and the glasses she was wearing sat awkwardly on the bridge of her nose.

‘Based on those, I reckon we'll be lucky if we get a bite.'

Their car had drawn up while he was talking.

‘And she may not look like either of them now. I think if we catch up with her at all, it'll be through the names. She doesn't know we're on to her yet, and I'm hoping she's still using those cards. Joe Grace has been busy chasing up our snouts to see if we can find the bloke who sold them to her. We don't know
where she's holed up, but it could be London, and the chief super has ordered a check to be made on all hotels and boarding houses in the metropolitan area.'

‘Any word yet on that officer – the major I told you about?' Madden looked at him.

Billy shook his head. ‘I'm still waiting to hear back from Woolwich.'

‘I'm consumed with curiosity, Inspector. I was going to say this was the first time I had ever had any dealings with the police, but that's not strictly true. When I taught art at St Mary's, here in Richmond, we had a burglary one summer term and I gave a statement to a detective. But I can't imagine why you want to talk to me now – and particularly about poor Hazel.'

Amanda Dauncey offered them a sunny smile. Well into middle age, she was a large woman with a friendly face, somewhat weathered, and thick grey hair cut in a bob. To reach her house, a bungalow overlooking the mist-shrouded Thames, they had had to drive through the town of Richmond (now a suburb of London) almost to its outskirts, and had found her dressed in rough clothes and working in her terraced garden. Pausing only to rinse her hands under a tap, she had led them inside, pointing to the adjoining house as she did so.

‘That's where Hazel lived. She arrived here in 1930, so we were neighbours for more than fifteen years. And good friends, too, I should add.'

Guiding her visitors to a living room carelessly furnished and hung with a variety of paintings, old and new, including some canvases so amateurish it seemed they could only have come from the brushes of her former pupils, she had seated them together on a settee before taking her own place in a well-worn armchair facing them.

‘Before we begin, I would like to know a little more about
the reason for your visit.' She directed the question at Billy. ‘You have said you want to ask me some questions about Hazel. Could you be more specific?'

‘I'll do my best.' Billy smiled. ‘Unfortunately my hands are tied to some extent. This is an unusually sensitive inquiry – it involves matters of state – and I'm under orders not to reveal too much about it.'

‘Matters of state?' Their hostess looked uneasy. ‘Oh dear, that does sound ominous.'

‘I'd ask you to accept that, without further elaboration, and also my assurance that although Mrs Ballard's name has come up in this investigation, it doesn't mean we suspect her of any wrongdoing: quite the reverse, in fact.'

Billy had given some thought to his opening remarks.

‘She's only involved indirectly. We're trying to trace two people, a man and a woman, who may have been known to her. We have reason to think they might be related to her husband, James Ballard, or have some other connection to him.'

‘James Ballard!' Miss Dauncey's eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘But the poor man's been dead for years.'

‘We're aware of that. Nevertheless, it seems this investigation we're engaged in may be linked to him in some way, just as it is to Mr Madden, who used to work at Scotland Yard and has offered to help us in this inquiry. Before we go any further I'd like you to look at these two drawings to see if you recognize either face. They were made by police artists, from descriptions given to them.'

While he was speaking Billy had taken the sketches from his pocket and he handed them to their hostess. She studied the pencilled portraits, frowning.

‘In a funny sort of way they're almost familiar. The one on the left with the plucked eyebrows, for example – she looks a bit like a niece of mine; and I saw a woman very like the other one in a bookshop the other day.'

She continued to examine them, peering first at one, then the other.

‘I can see it's the same person.'

‘Can you?' Madden spoke for the first time. ‘That's interesting. I couldn't spot the resemblance myself.'

She looked up to meet his glance. She had made no comment when Billy had introduced them earlier. Now she seemed to take him in for the first time.

‘It's the shape of the face,' she explained. ‘The way the cheekbones are set. I mean no offence, but I don't think your artists have caught it very well, though that's not surprising. I should tell you that I taught art for many years, and facial structure is a subject I'm familiar with. This is the kind of face that's particularly hard to get right, hence the problem your witnesses must have had in describing it – and the artists in getting it down on paper. It lacks distinctive characteristics. It could fit, or
seem
to fit, any number of women.'

‘But you definitely don't recognize her?'

‘I'm afraid not.' She handed the drawings back. ‘Even if she walked into the room now, I might not know her from these. All I can tell you is she probably has features that don't leave a strong impression.'