The Shadow of the Sycamores (50 page)

Mara frowned. ‘You think those three
were
murdered?’

‘Or took their own lives … except the infant, of course.
Somebody …’ Henry’s voice tailed off, as he realised who was the most likely suspect for that.

They sat for hours, going over and over every likely solution, even not so likely solutions, but the only logical suggestion they came up with was that, when Jerry found out that he was not the baby’s father, he had gone berserk. Knowing that the natural father was a patient in what was in reality a mental institution, he could have been afraid that the child they had spawned would also be tainted. He had killed all three and enlisted in the army to escape retribution.

Henry was not entirely satisfied with this scenario. ‘The Superintendent and his wife were bound to have known what was going on. They’d have reported Jerry to the police. They couldn’t possibly have hushed it up. And, don’t forget, he came to see us the day he enlisted and was back before he was sent abroad. He never said a word about a wedding or a baby or anything else.’

Mara pulled a face. ‘I was remembering, though. It was when we were all at sixes and sevens – if you think back. Janet had died first, then Nessie, then Grandfather and I hadn’t heard from Leo for such a long time that we thought he’d been killed. Even if Jerry had wanted to tell us, he probably didn’t like to upset you more by saying he’d married one of The Sycamore’s nurses because he’d put her in the family way. Then, after it had all gone wrong, he’d been eaten up with guilt and shame at what he’d done.’

‘
If
he did it,’ Fay murmured sadly. ‘I can’t think that Jerry would have killed anybody, no matter what they’d done to him. It wasn’t in his nature. He never lost his temper, he was always quiet, placid – not like Andrew.’

‘I can’t help feeling you’re right, my Fairy,’ Henry sighed, ‘though I don’t suppose we’ll ever learn the truth of it.’ His fingers kept returning distractedly to the birth certificate and they half-detected a kind of roughness at the part which gave the mother’s occupation.

Mara was more positive. ‘And I can’t help feeling that there
is
somebody who can tell us – if we can just find him … or her.’

Henry couldn’t sleep that night. He’d had too bad a shock. Apart from learning that his son could have been a murderer, there was something about the whole situation that didn’t ring true. It had something to do with the two certificates but he just couldn’t think what. And what did it matter anyway?

Henry was glued to the wireless during the evacuation, although he had no personal reason for concern. The thing was, every poor wretch waiting on those beaches was some mother’s son or some woman’s husband and he knew what worry about a loved one could do to a person.

The miracle that was Dunkirk finally over, Fay also began to worry. London was being bombed nightly for weeks on end. ‘I pray for Maggie and Billy every minute I can,’ she told her husband one day. ‘From what they say in the papers and on the wireless, it’s a wonder anybody’s left alive.’

Although Maggie wrote as often as she could, her letters did not give much away. She made light of having to sleep, or try to, in the air raid shelter but made no mention of the devastation they saw every morning, nor of having to clear up the debris from bomb damage to their own and neighbouring houses. Henry and Fay, however, knew that the young couple, like everyone in the capital city, were under bombardments such as had never happened in Britain before yet they kept their horrified fear from each other … and from their daughter.

Mara’s mind was fully occupied in wondering who else she could contact to solve the mystery surrounding Jerry’s marriage. She was certain, beyond all doubt, that her brother was not a killer but she had to find proof of it. She had to hear the truth from someone who had been there, who knew exactly what had happened and why the manner of the three deaths had been hushed up. The best possible source would be the man who had been Superintendent of The Sycamores at the time but he and his wife seemed to have vanished into thin air.

An unexpected note from Nora Dalgarno in the autumn of
1941 gave her at least a smidgen of hope. ‘Would you believe I came across Beenie’s last letter? It had fallen down the back of the chest of drawers. I wrote asking her if she could tell us anything about what you wanted to know so she might write to you direct. If she writes to me, I will let you know what she says. Hope your mother and father are keeping well. Max is still the same as ever.’

For the next few days, Mara tried to think of some explanation to give her parents if Beenie wrote directly to her but eventually gave up, trusting that something would occur to her if and when a letter did arrive. As it happened, she need not have worried. She met the postman as she went out one morning, while her mother was attending to Laurie and her father was reading his newspaper.

Robina Sangster, as she signed herself, was sorry that she didn’t really know anything, just the rumours that were going round the district at the time. ‘I never knew your brother,’ the letter went on, ‘but, knowing your father, I can’t think his son had anything to do with the deaths. It was a queer business altogether. The news just sort of leaked out and nobody knew which death came first – or them that did wouldn’t say. They had been sworn to silence.’

Mara stuffed the letter into her coat pocket to answer later. She was disappointed but not truly downhearted. Something would turn up yet.

It was two days later when something occurred to her that eased her mind a little. Apparently no one had seen any bodies or any funerals, so … what if the baby was still alive? Had somebody taken it in hand to look after him while Jerry was fighting for his country? If so, they must have been left waiting for him to come back – they wouldn’t know he’d been killed in action. The War Office wouldn’t have notified them. So, Mara thought triumphantly, there could be a twenty-five-year-old man somewhere who was quite unaware that he had two grandparents and an aunt. Her heart slowed down. Where? – that was the question.

Laurie had been fretting – girny, as Henry put it – for a day and a half when Fay decided to call in the doctor. If he had been her own child, she would probably have waited for another day – children went up and down like quicksilver – but he wasn’t her own and she was accountable to Maggie for his good health until he could be safely taken to London.

Doctor Bell gave him a thorough examination, sounding his chest, checking his heartbeats, prodding him in a dozen different places to find out if he was in any pain but nothing showed up. ‘I just can’t think what it is,’ the man said, sitting down at the boy’s bedside, but keeping his eyes on him. ‘He’s as healthy a child as I’ve seen in a long time.’

‘But he’s not usually as pale as this,’ Fay pointed out, ‘and he’s not one for lying in bed.’

‘Mmmphm.’ Bell screwed up his nose. ‘Well, keep him there meantime. I’ll look in tomorrow to see how he is but call me if he gets any worse.’

To save her elderly parents, Mara offered to sit up with Laurie all night but Henry insisted that he wasn’t an old man yet and sent both his women-folk to bed.

After the first half-hour, time seemed to take spasms of practically standing still or whizzing past. He would look at the clock and, what felt like an hour later, the hands had only moved a couple of minutes; or else they had moved an hour in what seemed to him to be five minutes. He realised, of course, that he had dozed off for that hour. It was getting more and more difficult for him to keep his eyes open and his mouth was getting as dry as a bone. He stood up to stretch his arms, then, remembering that Mara usually kept a few wrapped boiled sweets in the pocket of her coat to produce to Laurie, he crept into the lobby. He had been half-afraid that Mara had taken her coat into her bedroom, as she sometimes did, but it was hanging on the hallstand as was more often the case.

There were no sweets, unfortunately, but there was an envelope. He wouldn’t normally have read anyone else’s mail but he had the feeling that this letter was of vital importance
… to him. Removing it, he took it back to Laurie’s room to read and was puzzled by the signature of the sender. Robina Sangster? The name meant nothing to him but, when he read what she had written, he found that the sender was the girl he had known as Beenie Dickie, young Beenie who had helped Max and Nora to rescue Janet so many years before. But why would Beenie write to Mara? They had never met. They were total strangers.

Henry was wide-awake now, alert to the fact that something was going on that he hadn’t been told about. It was clear that Mara was still trying to learn the truth about what had happened to Jerry but how had she got hold of Beenie? In any case, Beenie would know nothing – she had left The Sycamores long before the time … of the tragedy.

He spent the next hour and a half mulling over this, going down one avenue and up another, all to no avail, but he was brought out of the past by young Laurie’s voice. ‘Papa Henry, I’m thirsty and I’m hungry and why are you sitting there?’

Discovering that his dearly loved boy was on the road to recovery, Henry heaved a deep sigh of relief. ‘Right then, lad, just you lie there and I’ll go and start making breakfast.’

Laurie, however, had no wish to remain in bed and accompanied him to the kitchen. It was a joyous meal, all four eating more than they had done for a couple of days, then Henry said, ‘I’ll walk along to your office wi’ you, Mara. I need to stretch my legs.’

Since he had been sitting all night, Fay took his remark at face value but his daughter looked at him apprehensively. ‘What is it, Father?’ she asked as soon as they were outside.

He did not hold back. ‘Why did Beenie write to you?’

Somewhat disappointed that he had found out, Mara told him what she had done and why. She also told him her latest thoughts on the matter.

‘So you think Jerry’s son’s still alive?’ His faded eyes had brightened.

‘I can’t be sure, of course, but he could be. He’d be about twenty-five.’

‘Aye.’ He pursed his lips for a moment, then burst out, ‘If it’s true, Mara, I’d be the happiest man alive.’

‘I can’t think of anybody else that might know anything, though. Can you?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘No …’ but, brightening again, he said, ‘But I’ll keep on thinking. I might come up with somebody.’

When they reached the solicitor’s office, Mara went inside while Henry kept on walking. He had much to think about and he needed to be on his own. His mind returned to his time at The Sycamores, conjuring up pictures of the people who had worked there, the gardeners, the groom, the stable lad. Then his thoughts turned to the female staff, the maids, the nurses. None of them, male or female, would still have been there when Jerry started … except Dod Lumsden but Mara had learned that he had died.

Hearing a horn tooting behind him, he realised that he was walking in the middle of the road. He stepped out of the way with a smile but the driver of the butcher’s van drew up alongside him. ‘Are you wanting a lift, Mr Rae? I’m going as far as The Sycamores if that’s any use. The head chef gets all their meat from us and old Pete’s fair delighted. The best customer he’s ever had.’

‘Thanks, Robbie.’ With no thought to what his wife would do when he didn’t go home for dinner, Henry took advantage of the offer. It seemed providential that he would be taken to the exact spot where all the trouble had been, where his thoughts had been centred for some weeks. He had no chance to plan what he would do when he got there because the young man at his side, whom he had known since he was a wee laddie, never stopped talking.

‘I’ll drop you at the gate if that’s OK?’

‘That’s just fine,’ Henry smiled, adding, in case Robbie wondered what he was doing there, ‘I’m going to see an old friend I used to work with.’

‘Did you work here at one time? Afore you was Town Officer?’

‘That’s right – a long, long time ago.’

He watched the van as it turned into the driveway, recalling the day he had seen these gates for the first time with the big brass plaque on them. ‘THE SYCAMORES’, it had said and, underneath, in much smaller letters, ‘Home for the Mentally and Physically Disabled’. It felt like another lifetime. It was another lifetime. The small plate had been replaced by a huge sign saying, ‘The Sycamores ***** AA and RAC Recommended’.

Apart from that, little else had changed. The sycamores that still lined the way in, the carpet of their samaras at their feet, had grown a bit taller and thicker and were obscuring most of what lay beyond them. With a sigh, he swivelled round, pleased to see the view was the same as it used to be. The little groups of cottages, built for the people who had worked for the original owners of the estate, were still dotted here and there; the two low hills in the forefront of the white-capped mountains far beyond them; the three willow trees a few hundred yards to the left, their branches arching gracefully towards the stream; the row of stately oaks away to the right, planted there in the dim and distant past by the owner of the time.

He stood for a few moments trying to remember who had stayed in which cottage at the time. He had been the youngest person there, of course, so all the men he had known would likely have passed away.

‘Your father hasn’t come home yet,’ Fay told her daughter at lunchtime. ‘I’m getting a wee bit worried.’

‘I think he went for a walk,’ Mara smiled. ‘He’s likely met somebody and been taken in for a fly cup. Then he’ll have kept sitting and you know how he forgets about time when he’s having a good gossip with one of his friends.’ She was doing her best to allay her mother’s fears but she, herself, was actually more worried. Where could he have got to? What was he doing? Surely he hadn’t tried to walk to The Sycamores to try to get at the truth? He was seventy years old, for goodness sake! The old saying was true, right enough. There’s no fool like an old fool.

*    *    *

As he walked to the nearest house, Henry prepared the questions he would ask.

1.    Do you know where the Superintendent and his wife went when the army took over The Sycamores?