A Presumption of Death (30 page)

‘Or debts? Gambling debts?’

‘That wouldn’t have been like him.’

‘He was very good-looking,’ Peter said, picking up one of the silver-framed photographs on the mantelpiece. It showed a young airman, gazing out of the frame with a smiling, candid gaze tinted sepia.

Harriet realised suddenly that the door was standing open, framing a wan-faced young woman with dark red hair, and pale eyes, who said, ‘Mother, who are these people? Why are they asking about Alan?’

‘I don’t know why, Joan,’ said Mrs Quarley, almost whispering.

‘Alan was an orphan. And he was engaged to marry me,’ Joan Quarley said firmly, facing up to Peter. ‘Anything you want to know about him, you should ask me.’

‘They want to know if he had any enemies,’ said Mrs Quarley.

‘Ridiculous,’ said Joan. ‘Everyone loved him. But why do you want to know? And who are you?’

Peter offered his card. The effect on both women was immediate and extraordinary.

‘But I’ve heard of you!’ said Mrs Quarley. ‘You’re a private detective!’ All the colour had drained from her face, and the younger woman put her arms round her mother to steady her, and help her sit down. ‘It’s all right, Mother, it’s all right,’ said Joan. ‘It has nothing to do with us. Nothing. Don’t be upset.’

Peter said, ‘We do have news for you, Miss Quarley. Bad news, although it can’t be unexpected. That notice of missing presumed dead for Alan Brinklow can now be changed to killed in action. I’m so sorry.’

Once again the two women reacted oddly. The mother put her face in her hands; the daughter said quite coldly and calmly, ‘I told you so, Mother. Of course he was dead.’ She sounded almost triumphant.

Odd, thought Harriet, very odd.

‘Why is it you coming to tell us?’ Joan demanded. ‘What can it have to do with a private detective?’

‘There was no official note of your engagement,’ said Peter quietly. ‘Brinklow seems to have put “none” for next of kin when he joined up. But he had altered his will in your favour, so we have come looking for you.’

‘I told you so!’ said Joan, turning to her mother. ‘I said so.’

‘Yes, you did,’ said Mrs Quarley. ‘I wanted to believe you but—’

Joan Quarley broke into her mother’s wavering sentence. ‘Can you tell me what happened to Alan?’ she asked Peter.

‘Shot down over the North Sea,’ said Peter. ‘He baled out, but the water would have been very cold indeed. His body was recovered by one of our vessels. The vessel was on an extended tour of duty; the news has been a long time being reported.’

Suddenly the young woman’s self-control seemed shaken. ‘What happened to his body?’ she asked.

Peter said, after so brief a pause that surely only Harriet could have noticed it: ‘Burial at sea leaves no traces, I’m afraid. No memorial stone. Only his name on a list of honour.’

Mrs Quarley said, ‘Please go now. We don’t want to talk about it. Please go away.’

‘Of course,’ said Peter. He stepped across the room, passing Harriet, to replace the photograph on the mantelpiece. Harriet found herself the object of some kind of imploring glance from Joan Quarley.

‘We are staying at the Crewe Arms,’ she said. ‘We shall be there till tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll show you out,’ said Joan Quarley. Then at the front door she said to Peter, ‘There wouldn’t be any sort of proof, I suppose? Any sort of document to say what happened?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Peter. ‘I’ll find out for you.’

A.E. Housman,
A Shropshire Lad
, 1896

 ‘Now all that’s very strange,’ Peter said, as they walked back to the inn. ‘Didn’t you think so?’

‘Why should Mrs Quarley be so frightened at the sight of your card, you mean?’

‘Ah, you noticed too. Miss Quarley on the other hand . . .’

‘Just as one would expect: very upset, holding hard on to her feelings, but not scared.’

‘Not quite as I would expect, I think, Harriet. What was that “I told you so,” that slight note of triumph about? And if someone came and told you I was dead, would you ask for documentary proof?’

‘I should imagine,’ said Harriet, ‘just guessing, of course, that people have been smothering her with well-meaning comfort; you know the sort of thing, Peter, telling her all about pilots missing presumed dead who have popped up again alive and well weeks later, and trying to keep her hoping, and not facing the worst. And she on the other hand has been trying to face up to the worst, and so has been saying of course he’s dead, don’t distract me with silly pretences, and now she says, “I told you so.”’

‘If you’re right,’ he said, ‘then “missing presumed dead” would be the hardest news of all. Worse in a way than “killed in action”.’

‘Much worse,’ she said. ‘I do have to say, Peter, that I think there was considerable cruelty in not letting Brinklow’s friends know, once anyone knew, that he had been killed.’

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘War blunts our feelings, I suppose.’

‘It would leave someone who loved him, like that poor young woman tugged towards facing the worst, and pulling back from it, in a pitiable state, Peter. Have you ever had vertigo? You know how the brink almost pulls you over, how you are drawn to it, and shrinking back from it simultaneously? I think it would be like that.’

‘That isn’t quite how you felt when I was away, though, is it?’

‘Yes, it is; oh, yes! The mind has mountains – hold them cheap may who ne’er hung there . . .’

‘But you kept clear of the brink; you didn’t open my letter.’

‘Being married to you, having your sons and your name, having had great happiness with you put me in an infinitely stronger position than that of that unfortunate young woman. She can’t have had more than a scrambled week or two with her sweetheart.’

‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘I wonder how long they did have? I wonder if that explains things.’

‘I tell you something else odd, Peter. I only got a sideways squint at that photograph you remarked on, but I thought it looked a bit like the mysterious Mike Newcastle.’

‘Did it, though?’ he said. ‘Hmm. I rather doubt if we would be welcome making a return visit to the house with auxiliary questions.’

‘I think Joan Quarley may come to find us,’ said Harriet. ‘I got the impression she might want to talk.’

‘Well, there was that odd feeling that she and her mother were jumping different ways,’ said Peter. ‘It all felt pretty tense. If she does make contact, Harriet, I shall make myself scarce, and leave it to you. I think this might be a matter for the National Union of Women.’

Harriet thought about it. There was indeed such a thing; a wide swathe of life that women of every kind had in common. One could always talk to another woman; love, men, rationing, children, running a household, the servant problem, the problem of working as a servant, the list was endless.

‘Is there a national union of men?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Peter. ‘Cars, horses and guns. I noticed you committed us to staying another night. What shall we do with the afternoon? Shall we find a hill to climb? See the coloured counties?’

Joan Quarley was lingering in the lane as they returned. It was a lovely fine evening, still light. She said to Harriet, ‘I wondered if you would like to see the church.’

Peter said, ‘You go, Harriet. I’ve got a thing or two to do before dinner.’ And he set off rapidly towards the inn.

The two women crossed the churchyard and entered the church. It was the usual mix, a piecemeal stylistic record of five hundred years or so, nothing extraordinary.

To break the ice, Harriet said, ‘I think we may have an acquaintance in common. Mike Newcastle?’

‘Sorry, no,’ said Joan. ‘I don’t know anyone of that name.’

Their walk down the nave had brought them to stand in front of a rather fine memorial tablet to an Elizabethan worthy, shown surrounded by kneeling children and the effigies of two wives. The slab declared:

‘And sometimes it’s the misery and sometimes the glory that we feel,’ said Harriet, trying again to make some kind of opening.

‘What do I call you?’ said Joan Quarley abruptly. ‘Lady something?’

‘Just Harriet.’

‘Harriet, I can’t help wondering if you met Alan. If you knew him at all. Otherwise I can’t for the life of me see what brings you here. Or perhaps your husband knew him.’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t know him. And nor did Peter, I think. But something top secret that Peter was doing made him aware of what had happened to your Alan. And that’s all I can tell you. As you know, we mustn’t ask. I’m so sorry. I suppose you were wanting to talk about him a bit?’

‘It’s so hard him not having parents. I could have gone and found them.’

‘Your own mother must have known him?’

‘I don’t know what’s come over her,’ said Joan. ‘She was absolutely wonderful to us. Incredible. And very kind to me when the missing notice came through. It was only the next day; and then suddenly weeks later it all seems too much for her, and she’s very jumpy, and worried about the disgrace, and she doesn’t want me to mention Alan; it makes her jump out of her skin, and I don’t know where to turn. So here I am talking to a stranger who didn’t even know him.’

‘When you said it was only the next day . . .?’

‘After we got engaged. I had known him as one of the crowd for a while; the pilots used to come drinking at the Crewe Arms, fooling around and sweet-talking the girls. My friend Brenda said it was war work to dance with pilots on Saturday night, when there was a hop in the Village Hall. Alan was rather quiet, so I didn’t notice him at first. Then he took a room in our house, and he joined me on a couple of evening walks. And then – it was so sudden, Harriet, it was like being knocked over by a runaway cart or something . . .’

‘It’s always
falling
in love,’ said Harriet gently. ‘Never jumping in love, or running, or advancing; it always knocks you over.’

‘He just brought me back from a walk, and he said to Mother, “If I come back from the next mission, Mrs Quarley, I’m going to marry your daughter.” And Mother looked at me, and I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Joan, I haven’t asked you directly, because what I have to do is very, very dangerous, and I really might not come back, and I’ll ask you properly if I do.” And I said, “Never mind about asking properly, it’s yes.” And then Mother asked him when this dangerous mission was to be, and he said dawn the next day. He was sort of shaking a bit. And Mother said to me, “Come upstairs, Joan.” And she took me upstairs and we put the best sheets on the double bed in her room, and she said she was going to sleep in my room instead.’

‘What a mother!’ said Harriet.

‘I said something like that,’ Joan remarked. ‘I was dazed, really. She said she could see it on my face. She said, “Take your chances, girl.” So I took them.’

‘I simply cannot imagine my own mother . . .’ said Harriet.

‘I think she regrets it now,’ said Joan Quarley. ‘I can’t talk to her now. Anyone would think she blames Alan for getting himself killed. Of course I am in a jam. There’s the disgrace. Villagers sniggering behind their hands. I don’t care about that, but perhaps she does.’

Harriet said, ‘Joan, I found that disgrace can be faced down. Even very public disgrace, as long as you don’t in any way collaborate with it. As long as you don’t flinch. You stand your ground, and stare it down. Then at last it is shamed into looking away, and the shame is not yours.’

‘It bides its time to go name-calling after the child,’ said Joan bitterly. ‘Alan’s child.’

‘You could put a ring on your finger and go and live somewhere else,’ said Harriet. ‘There will be a lot of young women in your position; widows and sweethearts, raising children.’

‘When Mother calms down perhaps,’ said Joan. ‘All I can think of is that she thinks this is her fault for helping us. As if that makes sense. Does she think I regret it?’

‘I think,’ said Harriet, ‘one seldom regrets something one has done as much as one regrets what one might have done, and did not.’

‘I don’t regret anything!’ said Joan. ‘Look, I brought this to show you: Alan wrote this.’ She produced from her bag a carefully folded piece of paper with a few lines on it. Harriet took it, and read:

Joan said, ‘And I am supposed to believe that the man who wrote that suddenly decided to behave like a cad, a coward and a low seducer?’

‘Who asked you to think that of him?’ asked Harriet.

Joan said, ‘Better not say.’

They had moved out of the church into the graveyard now. The conversation felt over. Flashes of intimacy between strangers, potent and dangerous as they are, do not bear much extension. Harriet saw a leaning headstone laconically carved, with a memorial date, the words:
‘Aet. Sua, 16 ann.’
. And
‘Carpe Diem’
.

‘That’s an eternally good piece of advice,’ she said.