The Reckoning (43 page)

Indeed he had. The subject had even been debated in Parliament, where the new fashion had been dismissed by a large lady of leftist sympathies as ‘the ridiculous whim of idle people' and a waste of scarce material.

‘Now, just to put you in the picture,' Lucy had said, ‘Mummy and Lady Violet think it's lovely, Angus is in two minds and Daddy simply scowls.'

‘Daddy scowls because Daddy is still wondering where you got the money to buy that, and all the other clothes you brought back with you.' Sitting beside Sinclair on a settee, Madden had displayed a broad smile that seemed to suggest a different reaction. ‘Especially since you kept telling us you were penniless.'

‘I've explained all that. I was living on a tiny budget. I practically starved.'

‘Yet you seem well fed.'

‘Don't listen to him, Billy. Just tell me what you think.' She had positioned herself in front of him. ‘I know I can count on you. How do I look?'

Under the spell of her smile – he'd succumbed to it years ago, when she was still a child – Billy hadn't needed to search for an answer. The word was already on his lips.

‘Wonderful!' he said.

‘So Alma was wounded in London? It's something I haven't liked to ask John.'

Sinclair studied the lawn at his feet.

‘She was hit in the arm,' Billy replied. They had left the others after lunch and gone for a walk in the garden. ‘It wasn't a serious wound, and when her body was examined it was found that she had disinfected and bandaged it. But she must have lost a lot of blood before she got back to that room of hers. I think she was pretty well played out by the time she arrived here. We found a conductor on the line from Waterloo who remembered seeing a woman slumped asleep in her seat. He had to wake her to tell her the train had reached Highfield. She stopped at the butcher's in the village to ask the way to the Maddens' house. The lad she spoke to said she looked ill.'

‘But how did she get downriver?' The chief inspector was frowning. ‘Was it in the boat? I thought it was seen drifting empty?'

‘It was. Or rather, it looked empty,' Billy explained. ‘We reckon she was lying down flat on the bottom and just letting it drift with the current. The constable who saw it from the bank only got a glimpse of it. Then the fog closed in. Once she was out of sight, she could have rowed down to Bermondsey, come ashore and then let the boat float on.'

‘I thought Poole heard her go into the water.'

‘She heard a splash all right. But there were lumps of rock and concrete littering the jetty where Alma had her boat moored, and I think she just rolled one of them into the water. You had to be there to see how thick the fog was, sir. I don't fault Poole at all. In fact, I've put her down for a commendation, and the chief super's approved it.'

‘That's capital news.' Sinclair beamed.

‘It'll make up for her getting that shiner, I reckon.' Billy smiled. ‘She took that hard. She had to put up with a lot of ribbing over it, especially from Joe Grace. But she got her own back. When she went to see him in hospital she took him a big bunch of flowers. Joe nearly had a fit.'

Sinclair chuckled. ‘I always knew she'd turn into a first-rate copper. Keep an eye on her, Billy.' He looked at his watch. ‘I must be getting back. Will Stackpole is coming over this afternoon to chop wood for me for the winter.'

Will was the village bobby and an old friend of Billy's.

‘He feels he's been left out of this whole Ballard business. He thinks he ought to have had a hand in it.' Sinclair smiled. ‘He tells me he'll be retiring in a year or two. He'll be the last of his kind, at least as far as Highfield is concerned. They won't send us another bobby after he's gone, more's the pity.'

Billy grunted in sympathy.

‘Everything's changing now. It's all patrol cars and fewer feet on the beat. I hope they know what they're doing.'

He remembered then.

‘By the way, Charlie sends his regards. He and his missus are coming down to spend a weekend with the Maddens quite soon, he tells me. He said he was counting on seeing you again.'

‘He didn't happen to mention King Lear, did he?'

Billy grinned. ‘I seem to remember him saying something about that to Mr Madden, but I wasn't sure what he meant.'

‘Were you not indeed?' The chief inspector's eyes glittered. ‘I was only surprised to learn that the two of them were acquainted.
You can tell him I look forward to seeing him and hope he and his lady will favour me with a visit. I might even offer them a cup of tea.'

He glanced over to a distant corner of the garden, where Madden and Helen were engaged in discussion.

‘They're debating the fate of that old beech tree,' he said. ‘I don't want to interrupt them. Will you thank them for me, Billy? Say I had to be on my way. I'll see you again soon, I hope.'

‘But it's such a lovely old tree,' Madden was saying. ‘I'd hate to lose it.'

‘So would I. But it's dying, poor thing. There's nothing we can do about it.'

‘Let's cut it back again.'

‘We did that last year, and look at the result.'

The tree in question, a weeping beech, had spread its branches like a great tent over the corner of the garden for generations. Still in its prime when they had first met, its green leaves slowly turning to russet as autumn advanced had formed an impenetrable curtain, offering cool shade even on the hottest of days. But lately the leaves had grown sparser and now its bare, drooping branches presented a sad spectacle.

‘But . . . but it's part of our history.'

Madden slipped an arm around his wife's waist. Laughing, she caught his eye.

‘Are you trying to make me blush, John Madden?'

Years ago they had sought shelter from a rainstorm under the tree's sheltering limbs. Not yet married, they had hurried home from a walk in the woods hoping to find the house empty, only to discover that Helen's father had returned earlier than expected. Seeing the lights in the house switched on, they had parted the curtain of branches and found the privacy they wanted under the great dome of leaves.

Looking up at her husband's face, Helen felt her heart lighten. The shadow that had lain there was slowly fading. She knew he would continue to go over the events of the past weeks in his mind for a while yet. He would look to see where he had failed. But in time he would come to accept what she already knew – that he had done all he could, and could have done no more – and when that day came, and it would be soon now, the ghost of Alma Ballard would finally be laid.

‘You're right,' she said. ‘It's a lovely tree. A lovely
old
tree. Let's give it another year.'

Author's Note

In November 2006 Parliament passed a law pardoning men of the British and Commonwealth armies convicted by court martial and executed during the First World War. In the course of the debate the Defence Secretary, Des Browne, said: ‘I believe it is better to acknowledge that injustices were clearly done in some cases – even if we cannot say which – and to acknowledge that all these men were victims of war. I hope that pardoning them will finally remove the stigma with which their families have lived for years.'

However, the law did not overturn the sentences, which remain in effect.

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Airth, Rennie, 1935–, author

The reckoning / Rennie Airth.

ISBN 978-0-14-319087-5 (pbk.)

I. Title.

PR9369.3.A47R42 2014          823'.914         C2014-902043-0

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