No Birds Sang Read online

  On balance, if I were reporting on this man other than in the present context, I would have no hesitation in recommending him for high grade clearance.

  That was an astonishing, almost fool-hardy comment for a security man to have committed to paper.

  Kenworthy went into the kitchen, where Elspeth, having helped with the washing up, had left Diana to her mid-morning chores.

  ‘Do you have an atlas, Diana? Something with southern England and a bit of the continental coast?’

  Wiping her hands, she went to the bookcase and found him what he wanted, without making any conversation. When Elspeth came down and joined him, having rounded up their bedroom into faultless order, he was running his finger along the edge of a sheet of paper that he had laid across the map.

  ‘May I be kept abreast of developments, please?’

  ‘Just guessing.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be working with you on this case. Remember? No secrets from me on this one.’

  ‘When I’m out on a ploy, my sergeant knows better than to question me about my guesswork. It’s one of the first things he has to learn.’

  ‘I’m not a sergeant. We’re both Chief Superintendents.’

  ‘Too much rank about, for a case with only a twenty pound fine at the end of it.’

  Elspeth smiled sweetly.

  ‘Two Chief Superintendents, or no case.’

  Kenworthy pointed down at the south-west corner of his paper.

  ‘Just guessing. I must insist on that. And on the job I’m guessing all day long. Nine out of ten of my ideas are just plain barmy: but they do sometimes serve to get me going.’

  ‘Simon, I haven’t been married to you since 1941 without becoming aware of your haphazard methods.’

  ‘This,’ Kenworthy said, wriggling his finger, ‘is one of Milner’s wartime stations. In Bedfordshire. This is the area, twenty miles from home, where he crash-landed in a turnip field. This is a straight—or straightish—line from those two places, crossing the long deserted battle village of Yarrow Cross and the battle hamlet of Pegg’s Cross. Continue along the line of the sheet, not allowing too much for drift, or a dicey rudder, or one engine gone, and you’ve come out across the Dutch coast, a little north of Amsterdam. A favourite mustering point for returning sorties.’

  ‘Um. We are guessing, aren’t we?’

  ‘I said so. But it isn’t as remote as you might think, Elspeth. Look at it this way: if he wants to go to Yarrow Cross because of something someone’s told him about the place, then this theory’s plain duff. It isn’t ruled out that he might have visited rural Norfolk as a boy; but it isn’t likely that it wouldn’t have come out if he had. On the other hand, when he was stationed in the Home Counties, he must have flown operationally over the place dozens of times: a direct line to a rendezvous or dispersal point over Great Yarmouth. We have reasonable evidence that he once came in over there, low and slow.’

  ‘You do get carried away, don’t you? Is this how we solve all our cases?’

  ‘Look: all I’m giving you is a line of constructive speculation.’

  ‘I know, I know, I’m with you. Don’t you know when your leg’s being pulled?’

  ‘So when I see Master Milner—if I see Master Milner—one of the things I shall ask him, at least, I won’t ask him I’ll let him see that I presume …’

  Elspeth looked wistful.

  ‘I wish I could sit in on you and Master Milner.’

  ‘That, I’m afraid, my dear … God, I don’t know what Derek would say to that.’

  At which moment Diana came in with coffee for them, caught the last remark, and evidently put some construction on it that she did not much like. The Kenworthys saw her eyes cloud momentarily; but neither of them felt equal to the complexity of explaining to her.

  ‘You’ll excuse me for a quarter of an hour? I must pop down to the shops.’

  Kenworthy passed Elspeth the file on Milner and picked up the second one himself. It contained a pre-war map of part of the training area, six inches to the mile, and with each of the habitations neatly numbered in red ink. He had no difficulty in orientating himself from the side-road down which Derek had driven him. But it was not so easy to know which was the cottage in which Milner had been trapped by the corporal’s fire. There were noticeably more houses on the map than there had seemed to be on the ground. Presumably many had succumbed altogether to blast and direct hits. Perhaps fire had swept parts of the site more than once. One terrace of cottages was marked in a place where he remembered seeing nothing but weeds.

  He decided the one he was looking for was No. 27: and in the lists that were appended—the last electoral roll of the village ever to be compiled—its occupants were glossed as Carver, John and Carver, Emily Jane. That was the name that Derek had mentioned. But it was not possible, from Kenworthy’s hasty memory of the terrain, to be sure of the relationship with other dwellings.

  Some of the families were easy to spot. The vicarage was plain enough: the Rev. Wilfred Paish and his wife, with evidently his wife’s mother or an aunt, and two grown-up off-spring (minors were not included). And there was Yarrow Cross Hall: Richard John Prudhoe; no one else of the same name in the house, but several other surnames: retainers, perhaps. There were Whittles all over the place: clearly not all flint-knappers.

  And after the electoral roll there were typewritten sheets showing the immediate destinations of residents after the area had been cleared. Some attempt had been made to bring this up to date, presumably in the furore after Milner’s second offence. This time only about two thirds of the villagers seemed to have been accounted for. More than twenty of them had died; most of those who could be traced had been settled, as Derek had said, in neighbouring towns. The Prudhoes had gone to Wiltshire. Kenworthy noted their address. It might be useful for consultation.

  Elspeth looked up from her dossier.

  ‘May I start guessing, too?’

  ‘I won’t ask more questions than a well trained sergeant.’

  ‘He’s frightened of women.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘There are men like that. They seem born to be bachelors. In later middle age they become very lonely. But it isn’t that they don’t like women. My uncle, James Cobbold, was engaged for twenty-three years. It was a family joke. Everybody knew they never would get married, nobody more realistically than the poor woman herself. Uncle James’s ingenuity at putting it off was never ending. He was frightened of his own inadequacy, just couldn’t face up to it. When I see Mr Milner …’

  ‘Elspeth, we’ve got to be realistic about this. I don’t want to rattle the foundations of this partnership, but just how do you think we could arrange a session for you with Milner?’

  ‘You’re always swearing about people who have no imagination, Simon. Didn’t you say he wasn’t in prison, he’s in hospital? And don’t hospitals get a lot of casual visitors?’

  ‘He’s in hospital under pretty tight surveillance. And you couldn’t ask Derek.’

  ‘Derek won’t frustrate me. Don’t forget he is my baby brother. I was twisting him round my little finger before you’d even seen the digit.’

  ‘But darling, Derek …’

  But it seemed they could not mention the man’s name without causing Diana to materialise.

  ‘What are you laying in store for Derek now?’ she asked. She tried to sound casual about it, but only partially succeeded.

  Chapter Six

  Derek was only a quarter of an hour late for lunch. Diana said it was something to have his company at midday, anyway, on two consecutive days. She did not add that it was a pity they did not have visitors every day; there was no need for her actually to say it.

  Derek did not ask at table whether Simon had read the files. He did not keep entirely away from shop-talk, but confined himself to the morning’s lightweights: a detective-sergeant’s informant who had settled for fifty pence after asking twenty pounds for something they already knew. This led Kenworthy i
nto a reminiscence of his own, a long and reasonably funny anecdote which did at least neutralise the conversation. Diana looked as if she was going to be bored to screaming point, but eventually weighed in with a smile that could have been spontaneous.

  Derek had time for a cigar, half-an-hour’s feet up with the newspaper and a round with the lawn-mower. He had an appointment at the hospital at three.

  ‘Want to come and meet my tame head-shrinker?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Kenworthy said, and saw that Elspeth was staring meaningfully at him. God, was she taking this seriously?

  Derek saw it, too. ‘Why don’t you come for the ride? The place is set in rather splendid grounds, you could have a pleasant hour ambling round while we are talking.’

  And as he drove, he talked about his co-operative consultant.

  ‘He’s done us a good turn more than once in the last ten years. There’s no head-in-the-clouds about Menschel. He recognises that not so deep under the psychologist’s jargon there does sometimes lie something as simple as a straight-forward wrong’un. And a villain on Menschel’s patch doesn’t get an all-purpose Freudian permit to operate. “This man knows right from wrong,” I’ve heard him say. “And he’s opted for wrong because he’s gambling on quick returns. Therefore he belongs to you and not to me.” It’ll be interesting to see what he’s made of Milner.’

  Menschel was a slightly built, nimble Central European Jew in his late thirties. On his desk was a framed photograph of his family, as well as a folded stethoscope. Derek went straight to what was evidently their key phrase.

  ‘Well? Is he yours or mine?’

  ‘Neither.’ Menschel had an impish smile that concealed a strong will. ‘He has committed an amoral and calculated misdemeanour. But as to mind and emotion, he is as soundly in control as you or I.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Menschel’s accent bore slight traces of his polyglot origins. It came out most strongly when he was being consciously colloquial.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind giving him the benefit of our hotel facilities for a day or two. Let him rest up after a harrowing experience. Likewise your extremely keen day- and night-watchmen: they look as if they could do with a break. But I don’t know why you’re wasting man-power like this. Why not just get him to give you his word? He’s far too sentimental to break it. Anyway, another day, two more perhaps, but there can be no question of our keeping him here indefinitely, or even for very long.’

  ‘I see. Well I don’t think that need give us any problem. He can pay his fine and go home. Just so long as I can write in a satisfactory explanation of the fatal attraction of Yarrow Cross Heath.’

  ‘I doubt very much whether you’ll be able to do that.’

  ‘Surely that’s the key to his personal difficulties?’

  ‘Personal difficulties? I’m not particularly impressed by his personal difficulties. They’re no greater than my own, or even yours, probably. He has his uncertainties, if you like, but who hasn’t? If Milner were God Almighty in his Heaven, there are certain things about him that he’d order rather differently. But he has no difficulty in facing up to things as they are. In fact, I’d say he’s coping rather magnificently. Oh, Mr Kenworthy, please do smoke if you want to.’

  He had spotted that Kenworthy’s hand was fidgeting in the direction of his jacket pocket.

  ‘What you’re saying,’ Derek said, ‘is that you have indeed found something out, and that you’re not going to tell us?’

  Menschel thought very carefully about his words. ‘Yes: I think that is a fair statement of the situation.’

  ‘Professional ethics? You’re throwing the book at us? I have to respect you, of course, but you haven’t always been so insistent.’

  ‘It isn’t a question of professional ethics. You know me, Chief Inspector. I try to do what seems right in the individual instance.’

  He followed this by a short silence. Kenworthy could see that the man’s decision was firm, and he hoped that Derek was not going to waste time and effort on it.

  Derek, however, seemed to be of the same mind. He simply nodded. ‘I’m beaten, then.’

  ‘Not at all. All you have to do is go away and forget all about Edward Milner. Believe me, I know all about him, at least I know about all that concerns these unfortunate episodes on the battle range. And I can give you my assurance there is nothing there that need concern you.’

  ‘That’s all very well from my point of view. I have no difficulty in believing you. But it won’t do for the machine I work for.’

  ‘Oh, blast the machine you work for!’ Menschel’s accent came over very strongly indeed.

  ‘And blast the machine you work for, Doctor.’

  Menschel smiled. ‘It isn’t a machine. I am working for Edward Milner. And if I betray him to you—this is not being sententious, I think it is the right word in the circumstances—he would have no more confidence in my profession for the rest of his life. And that would be a pity. Perhaps even, if ever he needed our help, a very real danger.’

  ‘But why will he tell you and not me?’

  ‘Because he is a shy man, and does not expect you to make allowances for him. Because, like so many shy men, he will put a great deal of energy into defending some very simple stance. Because he does not care to look foolish. And you would think him very foolish, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘I think he’s a pestilential nuisance.’

  Menschel laughed. ‘Aren’t we all, to someone?’

  ‘May I talk to him, discreetly?’

  ‘Of course. Though I have to make a condition.’

  ‘You’d want one of your colleagues present?’

  ‘Not that. I would trust you, Mr Stammers, of course I would trust you. But there is one topic I would ask you not to mention.’

  ‘The one I’ve come to mention, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t mean that one, Mr Stammers. A man is dead. You are very sorry about that, and angry. I am sorry about it, too, but not angry, because I am at a stage more remote than you from what was after all an accident. Edward Milner is sorry and very angry with himself. He does not yet see it as an accident. But he is beginning to already, which may save him from a very harmful guilt-complex. I am not interested in the morals of this issue, merely in its avoidable effects on an individual. So please don’t try to use it as an emotional lever to make him talk about other things. Edward Milner will for the rest of his life be sorry for what he caused. But he has to try to accommodate it as a hard fact. It would be a pity if you started playing devil’s advocate with his conscience at this delicate juncture. You’ll find him somewhere in the grounds, Mr Stammers, and your day-watchman hovering on his horizon. We haven’t put either of them in a padded cell.’

  Kenworthy and Stammers climbed from the slow crunch of a gravelled drive to the swell of a closely mown bank. Rhododendrons were in full flower. The garden behind the main body of the hospital wound away into an oblivion of vegetation that looked almost dark in its distant shadows.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ Derek asked.

  ‘I think Menschel’s right,’ Kenworthy said. ‘All along the line he’s frustratingly right. I can talk as serenely as that about it because this isn’t my case. If it were, I’d be fuming.’

  ‘I suppose …’ Derek hesitated.

  ‘You were going to ask me something?’

  ‘You wouldn’t care to have a go at Milner?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Any approach I make is buggered from the start by last time’s failure. Plus the fact that he’ll connect me with another round of rough stuff.’

  ‘We’ve got to find him first.’

  The grounds were not perhaps as extensive as they seemed at first sight: perhaps about five acres in all, but given a magic dimension by the variety of the landscaping and by the contours that led seemingly endlessly from one surprising vista to another.

  ‘Could do with a spell in here myself,’ Kenworthy said.

  They came upon Miln
er and Elspeth sitting together on a bench under a Lebanon cedar, a tree so old that its lower branches, extending almost to ground level, were propped up by old railway sleepers. Quite forty yards away, on another bench, a plain-clothes man was reading a paperback. Simon and Derek approached them obliquely from behind.

  ‘I think I’ll saunter back through the woods, Simon. I’ve got some paperwork in the car I can be getting on with. Don’t hurry.’

  Kenworthy went on alone: and after only a few more yards across the springy turf, he emerged from the couple’s blind spot. Milner sprang up at once when he saw him.

  It was obvious immediately that though they could not have been talking for much more than half-an-hour, Elspeth and Milner had taken to each other. He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday: immaculate. Somebody must have worked hard on his white nylon shirt. And there was a much smaller strip of plaster, a mere speck, on his cheek instead of the rough old length that some medical orderly had bill-posted on him yesterday. He was smiling: Elspeth had a way with shy people, if she liked them, which she usually did. She said that reserve usually concealed something worth finding.

  Elspeth was smiling, too, and looking very smart. That was another thing that holidays were for—noticing what your wife was wearing. It was her first summery costume after the winter, though not in the print-dress stage yet: there was still too much threat of chilliness in the season. A two-piece in powder-blue that did justice to her figure; she did not look a day older than thirty-five. And she, too, stood up as Simon approached and formally introduced the two men. Kenworthy reflected that he had made initial approaches to suspected persons in a variety of ways: but this made history.

  Milner knew him as the subject of newspaper reports, of course, and made the right sort of remark, without being fulsome or—as was more usually the case—painfully comic. And then he looked at Elspeth as if asking for guidance as to how the conversation ought to continue.