Stephen shuddered again at the thought of Lily’s blank-faced stare at his sleeping mother, at Nanny Janes.
“I went into every room,” Lily said in a vague frightening sing-song voice. “I looked under the beds and in the wardrobes. No-one stirred. They were all dead. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find him. Then I looked in the garden. I’ve searched everywhere, Stephen. Where is he?”
Stephen put a firm arm around her shoulders and marched her towards the steps. He forced her up them, into the dining room and thrust her into a dining chair. He poured her a glass of brandy and made her drink it. When two red spots appeared in her white cheeks, he had one himself, and took the chair opposite her and held her hands.
“You must try and be brave, darling,” he said with infinite patience. “You really must try and get a grip of yourself or you’ll crack up, Lily. I know, I’ve seen it happen. It’s true. Christopher’s been kidnapped and Charlie’s arrested for the crime. The inspector said to tell you that he’s doing the best he can to find Christopher. The very best he can.”
Lily’s face showed no expression. Her hands clasped his lightly in return, but huge tears gathered constantly in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks until her face was wet and the table between her hands was splashed. Stephen watched with a disbelieving curiosity. He had not known that a woman could grieve so much. He had not known that a human being could feel so much. The trenches had hardened him so swiftly that he felt pain only in his dreams. Now he watched his wife’s silent, unstoppable tears, and knew that she had loved Christopher in a way that he could not begin to understand.
“Time for bed,” he said gently.
He took her up the stairs and she went obediently, like a little girl. He mixed her another of the doctor’s sleeping draughts and she sipped at it. But still the big tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped to the sheet. She did not seem to notice.
Stephen arranged the pillows behind her and she lay back. When she closed her eyes as she was bidden, the tears still welled up underneath the closed eyelids and trickled down each side of her face. Stephen put out the bedside light on her side, but kept his own switched on, so that he could watch her as she fell asleep. She lay very still as the drug took effect but even when she was breathing regularly, and was deeply asleep, she still wept. Stephen, locking their bedroom door to prevent her sleepwalking again, wondered if she would cry in her sleep, in silence, all night. Cry and cry for the loss of her baby, without knowing where he might be.
40
STEPHEN WAS PREPARED TO BE TENDER with Lily in the morning, but she was no longer the weeping wraith who had haunted the moonlit garden. She awoke brittle and irritable. She took only twenty minutes to dress in a long navy skirt, a blue blouse and an unflattering long navy cardigan. She would have no breakfast but a cup of black coffee. She asked Coventry to drive her to the police station. She was going to see the inspector.
Muriel, tested to the very edge of good manners, said that Lily had much better stay at home, see the doctor, who would be calling soon, and wait for news.
Lily looked at her with hard blue eyes. “Christ only knows what they think they’re playing at,” she said blasphemously. “I’m going down there to find out.”
Muriel looked to Stephen.
“I’ll come too if you insist,” he said. “You’d much better stay at home, Lily. Mother’s right.”
“My baby has disappeared. My best friend is arrested for his kidnap. No-one knows where my baby is. What the hell d’you think I’m going to do? Take up embroidery like your mother?”
“Lily!” Stephen exclaimed. “There’s nothing to be gained by being rude to Mother!”
Lily shot a swift mutinous look at him, and did not apologize. She went quickly to the front door and opened it. Coventry had the car outside. She went down the steps and sat in the front seat, beside him. She was not wearing hat or gloves. She looked like a common woman hitching a lift.
“Really!” Muriel exploded and then compressed her lips. She said nothing more.
“I suppose I’ll have to go too,” Stephen said. He called to Coventry to wait and then picked up his hat and ran down the steps and opened the front car door. “Come and get in the back, Lily,” he said. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
“Can we just go?” she demanded.
Coventry slipped the car into gear and drove them to the police station. Lily rode in angry silence. As soon as the car stopped she strode into the police station and demanded to see Inspector Walker.
He came from a back room to greet them at the desk. “I was coming out to your house a little later,” he said. “I’m afraid we have no idea yet where your son is being kept.”
“Is Charlie here?” Lily demanded.
“He’s under arrest, yes. We’ve been questioning him most of the night.”
“Are you going to release him?”
“Not yet,” the inspector said cautiously.
“You’ve got the wrong man,” Lily said baldly. “And while you’re bothering with him, Christopher is with someone else. They might even be getting away with him.”
“I don’t think so,” the inspector said. “I know he’s your friend, Mrs. Winters. But I think we have the right man here. Why should anyone else take your baby? How could a stranger steal a child from a walled garden? It has to be someone who is close to you and your family. It’s an unpalatable fact, but you have to face it. If it is not Mr. Smith, then it is certainly another friend or a faithful servant. All the circumstances point to it being someone who knew the routine of the house. Someone who even knew that you were inside on the telephone.”
Lily shook her head. Stephen made a soft exclamation.
“Would you step into my office, Mrs. Winters?” the inspector asked. As Stephen moved forwards too, the inspector made a little gesture. “In private, if you don’t mind, Mr. Winters.”
“Right-ho—I’ll wait here, shall I?”
They nodded at each other, as men who understand that women have to be managed, then Lily followed the inspector into his office.
“Firstly I have a message for you from Mr. Smith,” the inspector said, taking his seat behind his desk.
Lily looked at him and the clutter on his desk. She took in the dark green filing cabinet in the corner full of records of dreary crimes, the clouded glass of the window behind his head and the stale smell of an overused office.
“He asked me to tell you that he was thinking of you all the time, that you are in his heart,” the inspector said.
Lily did not even blush. “Yes,” she said. Her voice was firm.
“You asked me why I think Mr. Smith took your baby,” the inspector said quietly. “I did not want to tell you in front of your husband, but I must ask you to deal with this calmly and sensibly.”
“Yes,” Lily said flatly.
He hesitated. The doubt that a young mother could take anything calmly and sensibly was written on his face. But he went on. “I believe that Mr. Smith hoped to persuade you to leave your husband by taking your baby away. I think he hoped that you would then join him and the baby, and start divorce proceedings against Mr. Winters.”
Lily’s angry glare could not have been assumed for effect. “This is ridiculous,” she said.
“We know that he spoke of divorce to you,” the inspector said patiently. “We know that he was anxious that you should leave Mr. Winters. We know that he is in love with you.”
Lily never wavered. “All that’s true,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean that he would take Christopher. Where would he take him? How could he take him while he was talking on the telephone to me? Why haven’t you found Christopher if you’ve got Charlie?”
“We believe he has a confederate who has the baby in hiding,” the inspector suggested.
Lily was watching him intently. “Another kidnapper?” she asked.
The inspector nodded. “There are women who would do it for money,” he said. “If there was enough mon
ey on offer. Someone who had been hired to enter the garden when you were on the telephone to Mr. Smith, who knew that he could keep you on the phone for those important minutes. She takes the baby, she hides the baby, and when Mr. Smith comes home from London he tells you what he has done and he persuades you to run away with him to rejoin your child.”
Lily was frowning, following the plan. “Run where?”
The inspector shrugged. “Couldn’t the two of you get work in America? Or Europe?”
Lily nodded. “Yes, we could. But that doesn’t explain where Christopher is now? Who the second kidnapper is? Why Charlie would put me through such agony? Now that he’s arrested, he would surely tell you where my baby is?”
“You could ask him yourself,” the inspector suggested. “He won’t tell us. We’ve checked his story—he did go to London, but we don’t know which train he caught. He was there by midday, but that leaves plenty of time to get his confederate into hiding and to confirm that his plan had worked. He won’t betray his partner to us. But he might tell you.”
“Of course I’ll see him,” Lily said.
The inspector pressed a button on his desk, the door to the next office opened and Charlie came in.
He was dressed in shirtsleeves and trousers. They had taken his shoes away and he had only socks on his feet. He looked tired and there was dark stubble on his chin. When he saw Lily he put out his hands as if to hold her, but she stayed back, scrutinizing him as if she were seeing him for the very first time. “Did you take Christopher?” she asked baldly. “Like they say you did?”
Charlie recoiled from the question and then gave her his old crooked smile which hid his hurt. “Come on, Lil,” he said. “Use your brains. Of course I didn’t.”
For a moment she hesitated, then she smiled at him and suddenly the inspector saw, for the first time, that she was a beautiful woman. Her smile came out like sunlight. “No,” she said. “Of course you didn’t.”
She turned to the inspector and he saw the joy in her face drain away. “Then where is he?” she asked. “You’re spending all your time on Charlie. You’re not hunting for Christopher. You’ve got it all wrong. Christopher is somewhere out there, without even a change of clothing, and nothing for breakfast, and you’re not even looking for him.”
Charlie was watching her, his face dark. “Bear up, Lil,” he said very low. “Use your brains for Christ’s sake. Someone you know has got him. The inspector’s right. It’s someone who knows you. You must think!”
“That’ll do,” Inspector Walker said. He nodded to the constable, who took Charlie by the arm.
“I’m coming,” Charlie said shortly. “Keep your chin up, Lil. Break a leg.”
The door was shut behind him before she could say goodbye. Pale with anger, she turned to the inspector.
“I’m going home,” she said. “I’m going to go through every single person I can think of until I find my son.”
The inspector put a hand out to her. “Don’t take my word for it,” he said. “Think of Mr. Smith’s friends. Think if anyone would do this for him—perhaps even without him knowing. If you trust him so much, just think if someone would do this for the two of you, without your knowledge or consent. The key to this is in your hand, Mrs. Winters. Don’t let your anger cloud your judgement. You think what Mr. Smith would gain if you left Mr. Winters. You think who might help him, or who might do it for him.”
Lily paused for a moment. “I’ll think,” she promised. “Do you have men out looking now, looking for his pram?”
The man nodded. “All the men I can,” he said. “This is a top-level inquiry. But don’t forget, Mrs. Winters, if it was a kidnap for money you would have had a ransom note by now. It’s not a passing opportunist kidnap. A chance kidnap doesn’t take a baby from a walled garden, hidden from the road. It’s someone who knew the routine of the house. Someone who knew the baby would be out there on his own. Someone you know.”
Lily nodded, her face bleak. “Then I’ll find them,” she said.
Stephen was waiting on the bench outside, smoking a cigarette in defiance of the regulations. He stood when Lily came out, pale and determined, ugly in her dark navy skirt. He gave a resigned sigh.
Lily walked past him and out to the car. The inspector laid a gentle hand on Stephen’s sleeve. “A quiet word,” he said.
Stephen paused.
“She confronted Mr. Smith and he persists in his denial,” the inspector said. “She accepts that it must be someone who knows the routine of the house. I have to warn you, Sir, that I am feeling very anxious about the baby’s safety.”
Stephen’s eyes narrowed and he took a draw on the cigarette. Ahead of them, Lily got into the car. The two men looked towards her. She was out of earshot.
“It is possible that Mr. Smith’s accomplice took the baby and murdered it,” the inspector said quietly. “You have to prepare yourself for the very worst, Mr. Winters.”
Stephen nodded. “I was at Ypres,” he said shortly. “You got used to the worst, there.”
The inspector nodded. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “That’s why I thought I’d tell you now. So that you can prepare Mrs. Winters.”
They glanced at the car again. Lily was leaning back against the seat, her eyes shut. She looked utterly exhausted. She looked old.
“Why would Charlie Smith do such a thing?” Stephen asked. “He’d have to be mad to even think of it.”
“I think he was more attached to your wife than she knows,” the inspector said. He had a sense of having to tread very carefully. “He may have thought that with no baby to keep her, he might have been able to persuade her to leave you.”
Stephen shot him a swift incredulous look. “Have you told Lily this?” he asked.
“Just now.”
“Did she deny it?”
“She doesn’t believe him guilty.”
There was a brief silence. Stephen pinched out the ember of the cigarette and dropped it to the ground.
“May I ask what you think of my theory?”
Stephen shook his head, a man bewildered. “I suppose so,” he said hesitantly. “I suppose it might be so.”
“You think Mr. Smith capable of kidnap, or even murder, to obtain your wife?” the inspector confirmed.
Stephen’s mouth closed on a hard, sad line. He looked the inspector straight in the face. “I knew he loved her,” he said. “But I thought he knew it was impossible. I accepted their friendship—I’m a modern man, I wanted Lily to be happy with her friends around her. There’s a streak of ruthlessness in him, I was aware of that. He got himself out of the war, you know. He never speaks of it. I knew he wasn’t top drawer, not quite the gentleman he makes himself out to be. But murder . . .”
There was a short silence.
“D’you think he could do such a thing?”
Stephen’s face was shocked. He nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose he could,” he said. “I really fear that he could.”
• • •
Lily opened her eyes as Stephen got in the car and Coventry started the engine. “What was he saying to you, all that while?”
Stephen shook his head. “He was telling me his suspicions of Charlie. I can hardly take it all in.”
“He’s got the wrong end of the stick,” Lily said abruptly. “Charlie couldn’t hurt Christopher. Not if his own life depended on it. He’s got the wrong end of the stick altogether.”
Stephen looked at Lily thoughtfully. “Or else you have.”
They drew up outside the house. Lily got out of the car without waiting for Coventry to open her door. She marched up the steps and leaned on the doorbell. It pealed insistently inside the house, but Lily did not take her finger from the button. Sally threw the door open, wiping her hands on her apron. Muriel was hurrying down the stairs.
“Lily! What on earth! Is the bell stuck?”
“No,” Lily said shortly. “I just wanted to come in. I’m in a hurry.”
Muriel shot one
swift anguished look at Stephen. “Well, really! Did the inspector upset you? Is that what the matter is?”
“No,” Lily said. “I’m busy. Muriel, I need your address book. I need to talk to some of your friends. May I have it?”
“I hardly think . . .” Muriel began.
“What is this all about?” Stephen demanded. “What’s wrong with you, Lily? What did the inspector say?”
“He said nothing!” Lily said impatiently. “He said nothing which made any sense at all. It was what Charlie said that struck me. He said that I must know the real kidnapper. So I’m going to go through all our friends, all of them, until I know who it is.”
Muriel flapped an angry hand at Sally. “Don’t you have something to do, Sally? Standing around in the hall all day with your mouth open?”
Lily went to the telephone and pulled out her address book which she kept in the drawer of the little table. “Can I have your address book, please, Muriel?” she repeated.
Muriel glared at Stephen. “I’ll go upstairs to fetch it,” she said slowly. “Meanwhile, perhaps you two should have a little talk.”
She went briskly up the stairs and Stephen and Lily were left in silence in the shadowy hall.
“Now look here, Lily,” Stephen said. “You’re upsetting Mother, and you’re upsetting yourself. You’re doing no good to anyone. The police have it all in hand. If they want your address book, or Mother’s address book, they only have to ask. What d’you imagine you can do—trying to do their job for them? You’ll only put people’s backs up, and upset yourself. Now calm down and come into the drawing room and we’ll have some coffee and sandwiches. You didn’t have any breakfast, and you didn’t have any dinner last night either. You’ll be ill if you carry on like this.”
Lily lifted the earpiece and held the telephone to her mouth. She gave a local number to the operator and looked up at Stephen while the telephone clicked through to a connection. “I’m going to find Christopher,” she said. “You go and have coffee and sandwiches, if you want. I’m going to find my baby.”