A Presumption of Death (24 page)

There would be a man-to-man reunion between Peter and Bunter. Harriet thought she had best leave them to it. She would round up the children and take them off somewhere. It was a hot afternoon; perhaps they would like a dip in the Pag. There was a swimming hole across the meadow from Talboys with a shallow bank of gravel for the little ones to splash on if they were carefully watched. A cheerful chaos broke out in the boot room behind the kitchen and spilled into the hall while the children collected rugs and towels and drinks and biscuits.

Sitting on the river bank, keeping an eye on the children, and then in due course shedding her shoes and stockings and paddling herself, looking, under Polly’s instructions, to see her feet ‘wobble’ on the submerged shingle, and admiring one after another the pebbles chosen by the children as special, Harriet was possessed by joy. Joy and guilt. She might have been going to share the terrible pain of the bereaved, the threadbare consolations of those whose dear ones had died for their country. Peter’s name might have been destined to be written in gold in Balliol College chapel, and on the walls of the church in Denver – in blessed memory, at the going down of the sun; greater love hath no man; in proud and grateful memory – and at least for the moment he was spared, she was spared. It wasn’t fair. But how good it made the cool water, the gentle sun, the children’s laughter.

At tea-time they came trailing home through the ankle-high grasses – the hay would be ready to cut early this year – a little gaggle of them, and the children at once besieged Mrs Trapp demanding their tea. Harriet found Peter reading the letters she had written to him all about Wendy Percival.

‘Thank you, Harriet, for writing all this. It must have been frustrating to have had no reply.’

‘It kept you in mind, Peter. It helped me think.’

‘It’s invaluable now. I’ve given Bunter the afternoon off. He’s taken Hope on a walk to Broxley. I’ve asked Bungo to come up, though. And Kirk to join us. Hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course I mind. Dreadfully. But it’s quite all right. Why the awful Bungo?’

‘Is he awful? He’s a bit cheesy. But he’s very clever, Harriet. As he needs to be.’

‘Any friend of yours, my lord,’ she said. ‘Have you told Mrs Trapp about extra people for supper?’

‘She said she would contrive. Has it been difficult?’

‘Nothing to complain about really. Food has got rather boring. But I have always eaten to live rather than lived to eat. I don’t like bananas anyway.’

‘I promised myself recently,’ he said, ‘that if I got home and could be sure of a daily hunk of bread and a glass of clean water I would never complain again.’

‘Golly, Peter. You won’t be able to keep that one. And was it really that bad? You’ve no idea what it does to me to think of you hungry . . .’

‘Hunger wasn’t the worst of it,’ he said.

She shuddered, and then braced herself. ‘What was the worst?’ she asked.

He didn’t answer. ‘I don’t think I have actually thanked you, Harriet, for saving my life.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ she said. ‘It was nothing.’

‘Good God, Harriet, when I think what an incubus it was when I saved you! What a struggle it was to put that behind us and get on any sort of equal footing! What do you mean, it was nothing? I’ve been longing to get even with you!’

‘Well, there’s something about it I hadn’t previously realised. It wasn’t personal. I would have done as much for absolutely anybody, had I been in a position to. And – I’m right, aren’t I – it wasn’t personal from you, either. You would have saved any old accused standing in the dock falsely charged.’

‘Of course I would. What was personal was seeing you. Seeing at one glance that you
couldn’t
have done it. What is personal this time is your knowing what my text must have been. And of course, wanting me back.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ she said. ‘I did want you back.’

They sat in solemn conference in the dining-room. Bunter set a bottle of port on its silver coaster beside Peter at the head of the table.

‘Pull up a chair, Bunter,’ Peter said. ‘You’re in on this.’

Superintendent Kirk sat beside Harriet, and Bungo faced them, with his secretary taking minutes.

‘This is very serious, Wimsey,’ said Bungo. ‘I have had to run a security check on everyone present.’

‘I thought you would,’ said Peter. ‘How did we score?’

‘Superintendent Kirk is as clean as a whistle,’ said Bungo. ‘As is Bunter. We have been ignoring your ex-communist sister, Wimsey, as you know, but she is still in the record. Some of your wife’s old friends had better be dropped. I have clearance for this discussion, however, among these present, from the highest level. But I must warn you that this is top secret. Breach of confidence might amount to treason.’

‘Bungo, I think you and I are the only ones who know what this is about,’ said Peter. ‘Shall I explain, or will you?’

‘Oh, you do the necessary, old man,’ said Bungo. ‘You’re the detective round here.’

‘Right,’ said Peter, ‘here goes. Superintendent, when you turned up to tell Harriet you had found Brinklow—’

‘You knew right away he was dead!’ exclaimed Kirk. ‘Before I told you. And as far as I can see you shouldn’t have known, and I haven’t had an explanation.’

‘I recognised the name,’ said Peter. ‘It was mentioned to me – as a successful counter-intelligence move – while I was being debriefed from my recent expedition.’

‘Keep closely to the point, Wimsey,’ said Bungo.

‘This is what I think happened,’ said Peter. ‘Bungo will correct me if my impression is wrong. Alan Brinklow was a reconnaissance pilot, a skilled and brave one. His plane was shot down over the North Sea, and he baled out, but he died of exposure from hours in the water. He was fished out by one of our patrol boats, on a secret mission. All his identity papers were in his pockets, he was as found, downed and drowned, and there was something – don’t worry, Bungo, I’m not going to say what – something of very high importance going on over which we wanted to mislead the enemy. The patrol boat captain decided to plant some extra papers in Brinklow’s pockets. They weren’t very sophisticated, because they had to be mocked up quickly on board ship, so they just took the form of crudely coded letters, instructing Brinklow to parachute into an occupied country, and go somewhere with orders for somebody. Okay so far, Bungo?’

Bungo nodded and Peter went on. ‘The patrol boat went close inshore, and pushed the body overboard, hoping it would be washed up on a handy beach. And it worked. The Germans did react to the phoney orders Brinklow was carrying. Everyone congratulated themselves and the patrol boat captain on a nice piece of dirty trickery. And now . . . You can see why I was thunderstruck to be told not only that Superintendent Kirk had been looking for Brinklow, but that he had been found interred in Paggleham. You know, Harriet,’ he added peevishly, ‘I’m afraid we may have to move to a remote island of the Hebrides and live on a solitary rock. We seem to cause our neighbours to be beset by bodies.’

‘So let me get this straight,’ said Superintendent Kirk. ‘You are saying that the fellow who has been living in Paggleham with a broken ankle all this while wasn’t the real Brinklow?’

‘Can’t have been, no,’ said Bungo.

‘Then would somebody tell me who the hell it was?’ cried Kirk. ‘I’ve got the wrong body, is what you’re saying. What do I do now?’

‘That’s what we’re here to work out, old chap,’ said Peter. ‘What happened about his papers?’

‘I brought them, as you asked, my lord.’ Kirk produced a file from his briefcase, and tipped the little clutch of documents on to the table. ‘I must ask you not to touch anything,’ he said. ‘Fingerprints.’

‘Bunter, do we still have a little cache of cotton gloves?’ Peter asked.

‘I will go and see, my lord. We did before we left.’

They sat round staring at the contents of Brinklow’s pockets. Harriet was looking at a little brick-coloured fibre-board disc on a string stamped with name, number and ‘RC’. That’s why we didn’t see him in church, she thought.

There was an identity card of some kind – headed RAF 1250.

Bunter, returning and putting a pair of white gloves on the table, said quietly to Harriet, ‘Lord St George has arrived, my lady. Shall I ask him to wait in the study?’

‘Yes, he’d better,’ said Harriet.

‘Where’s Brinklow’s pay-book?’ asked Bungo. ‘Where’s his ration-book?’

‘His ration-book,’ said Harriet, ‘is on the mantelpiece in his cottage.’

‘Yes,’ said Kirk. ‘He had registered it with the village shop, and with Wagget the butcher.’

‘Yes, but who had?’ asked Harriet. ‘I’m getting confused. What I meant to say is, surely airmen don’t have their ration-books in their pockets when they fly missions?’

‘That’s a good question,’ said Peter. ‘Perhaps Jerry can help us after all. Ask him to step in will you, Bunter.’

A burst of laughter from the hall where Jerry was obviously playing with the children was followed swiftly by Lord St George in person, very ruffled, collar undone, and slightly out of breath. ‘What’s up?’ he said pleasantly. Then, as he looked round the table, he said, ‘Gosh,’ and subsided into the chair that Bunter drew back for him.

‘The question is, Jerry, and you are sworn to secrecy – this conversation never took place, and nobody here was here – what papers might we expect to find in an airman’s pockets? We need to know if anything that ought to be here is missing.’ Peter gestured towards the documents lying on the table. ‘Don’t touch,’ he added as Lord St George bent forward to look.

‘Well, this chap’s been a bit careless,’ said Lord St George.

‘What’s missing?’ asked Kirk.

‘Oh, it’s the other way round. We’re supposed to take the absolute minimum when flying operationally. No papers, nothing, just the dog-tag. But of course it’s an awful nuisance; you need the 1250 to go on and off the base, and you would have your pay-book, and you tend to have snapshots and letters from home and stuff in your pockets, and when you scramble suddenly you are probably waiting in the dispersal tents, right down the field, and you can’t go back to your lockers and unload everything, so it’s easy to have things on you you’re not supposed to have.’

By way of demonstration Jerry began unloading his pockets on to the table in front of him. There were several toffee papers stuck to his pay-book. Two snapshots of pretty girls. A lot of betting slips and IOUs. His disc, Harriet noticed, said C of E. He followed her gaze.

‘Oh, that, Aunt Harriet,’ he said, bestowing one of his most ravishing smiles on her. ‘Well, it should say “none” really, but they make such a fuss when you try it. Someone’s got to bury you, they say. And “none” would upset the pater fearfully.’

‘But so far from there being anything missing from this man’s pockets, you think there’s a lot too much,’ said Peter.

‘I suppose the poor devil got pranged,’ said Jerry. ‘Well, say a prayer for him when you’ve done picking him over. It’s a bit of a warning, I suppose. As you see, if I went into the drink there’d be quite a bit of stuff in my pockets I wouldn’t want the pater to see.’

‘Shouldn’t there be a pay-book?’ Kirk asked.

‘I’d look in his locker for that,’ said Jerry. ‘If you’re downed it might get incinerated, and it’s got a will form in the back. You’d try to leave that in a place of safety, especially if you’ve got a liaison of some kind your people don’t know about. But come to think of it a flight lieutenant wouldn’t have a pay-book,’ he added. ‘Officers are paid directly to their banks by Cox and Kings. RAF agents in London.’

‘I take it we can check if any money has been drawn from Brinklow’s account in the last three months?’ said Peter.

‘Yes, I can do that,’ said Kirk.

‘Is that all you need me for, Uncle Peter?’ asked Jerry. ‘Only we’ve got a game of sardines going out there.’ He swept his own stuff into his pockets.

‘Thanks, Jerry, yes,’ said Peter.

‘Would you start again,’ said Superintendent Kirk. ‘Run me through all this again.’

‘Well, we know Alan Brinklow was killed in action. Months ago. We know the Germans picked up his body, because they took the misguided action we hoped they would take,’ said Bungo. ‘But it would seem that there was something we didn’t think of: they had got a body with a rank, a uniform, valid papers, a complete identity. I suppose they thought we would not be certain, since he had been lost at sea, what had happened to him. From our point of view Brinklow was posted missing, presumed dead. But sometimes people turn up again. Very occasionally they turn up alive. Taken prisoner, perhaps.’

‘So you think,’ said Peter, ‘that perhaps the German secret service inserted someone into the convenient persona we had presented them with, and sent him over here to impersonate Brinklow.’

‘It’s a good cover story, really,’ said Kirk slowly. ‘A man who has baled out and broken an ankle, and recuperating; nobody will have thought to check up on him. I didn’t, certainly. It never entered my mind to wonder if he had reported to his base, or anything like that.’

‘Peter, he spoke flawless English,’ said Harriet.

‘That’s possible,’ said Peter. ‘There were some upper-crust Prussian boys at school with me. There are quite a lot of connections between us and Germany.’

‘So the long and the short of it is,’ said Kirk, ‘that you think what I’ve got in the morgue with its throat cut isn’t a British airman, it’s a German spy.’

‘It seems we can be fairly certain of that,’ said Bungo. ‘And that leads us into a very great difficulty. Because we don’t know what he was doing. We have cottoned on to him too late.’

‘What would have happened to him if you had blown his cover in time?’ asked Harriet.

‘He would have been taken to a certain secret establishment and invited to reveal all, and if he seemed up to it, to “turn” and serve as a double agent.’

‘If he wouldn’t tell? If he wouldn’t turn?’