“No, I’m still a bit wobbly. How about Big Mike?”
“Indeed! We shall put the fear of God into the man, and see what happens.”
After Payne and Big Mike left the room was quiet, and I enjoyed the silence with Diana in the chair beside me. No talk of dead girls or drowning. After ten minutes of peace came a knock at the door.
“Tree,” I said, surprised at the visit. “Come in.”
“There’s been trouble, Billy. Oh, sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Tree said as soon as he noticed Diana. But he was worked up, and halfway into the room.
“It’s okay,” I said. “This is Diana Seaton, the woman I told you about.”
“You’re Billy’s friend, aren’t you?” Diana said, extending her hand. “Sergeant Jackson?”
“Yes, Miss Seaton. Call me Tree if you like, everyone does.”
“You must call me Diana,” she said. “Come and sit down, tell us what has happened.”
“Billy, what’s the matter?” Tree asked as we sat. “You don’t look so good.” I filled him in on the events of the night before, and the discovery of Margaret Hibberd’s suitcase.
“I’m still a bit shaky, but I’m fine,” I said. “Now what kind of trouble?”
“There’s rumors flying all around about the girl we found. Two of our guys were changing a tire on their jeep when four white GIs jumped them. They beat them up pretty bad, told them there’d be a lynching if any more white girls were raped and murdered. We had a supply truck headed to Greenham Common today and they had to turn back when their windshield was smashed.”
“Same story?” I asked.
“Worse. GIs at the base said they heard we had a white girl held prisoner in camp, and a bunch of rednecks were going to head out tonight to rescue her. I hope they come, they’ll see how Negroes can fight, you better believe it.” I believed. I knew Tree would stand up for what he knew was right, but in this situation it was likely to get him killed.
“Jesus. Did you go to the MPs?”
“Billy, have you heard anything I’ve been telling you? I go to the MPs and I’ll get my head busted for making trouble. Just like going to the cops in Boston. A waste of time at best, dangerous most likely.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, knowing it all too well.
Diana shot me a questioning look.
“I’m sorry, Miss Seaton-Diana,” Tree said. “But it’s the truth. Seems we can’t get away from prejudice and hatred even when we’re fighting the same enemy.”
“What can you do, then?”
“I was hoping Billy was about to apprehend the real killer. That would help.”
“Not even close,” I said. “Not to who killed Neville, the guy I was sent here to investigate. Or to who killed this girl, or Constable Eastman, for that matter.”
“You’re close enough for someone to try and do you in,” Tree said.
“Yeah. A few more clues like that and I’ll wake up at the bottom of the canal. But I do know for sure that CID doesn’t have much of a case against Angry. The local constable doesn’t think it was him either. Did you know about Rosemary Adams saying she saw him that night?”
“I heard that, but didn’t believe it.” I filled Tree in on the details, and the fact that Tom Eastman’s father had been a policeman as well.
“If I have time tomorrow, I’m going to pay a visit to Rosemary and Malcolm Adams, see what they have to say. Then I want to visit that jump school at Chilton Foliat. That track to the cemetery is interesting. I’d like to know how often it’s used.”
“Tell you what, Billy. You go see the Adamses if you can. I can go to Chilton Foliat and look around. We need to map out a route for a field exercise. I can swing it as official business.”
“Okay, that’ll help. If you don’t need to get back, stay and have dinner with us. Kaz is on his way back from the boarding school in Great Shefford, where Margaret was coming from. He’s confirming it was her. And Big Mike-you haven’t met him yet-might be back from an interrogation with Inspector Payne.”
“Okay. Anything hopeful?”
“Long shot. I don’t expect much.” I was getting pretty tired of long shots. I was ready for a close shot, right to the heart of whoever tried to kill me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Five of us sat around the table in the dining room downstairs. It was odd having a friend from my Boston past here with my new friends from three nations. They were all so different. Diana, with her beauty, aristocratic airs, and passion for the truth; Kaz, with his studied nonchalance and languid manner masking an iron fierceness; Big Mike, with his working-stiff wit and dogged loyalty; Tree, with his determination to fight, his rage right beneath the surface at how hard it all had been.
And me. The parsley and potato soup came before I could figure out what I brought to the party, other than an affinity for people I could count on. I wasn’t sure what I could count on Tree for, except that something always happened with him around.
“This is the late Margaret Hibberd,” Kaz said, passing a photograph around. “Her school picture. The headmistress had notified the local police that she’d gone missing, and they had in turn called Scotland Yard. Her friends said she often talked about going home, that she missed her mother especially.” I took the photograph and studied it. It was the girl from the canal. Thin, dark hair, lost.
“Did she have anyone local she knew, might have gone to?” I asked.
“No one. She was worried that she hadn’t had a letter from her parents in quite a while. The police in Great Shefford knew about her father being killed in the bombing, but kept it from her until the mother’s death could be confirmed. They hoped she might be found in one of the hospitals.”
“It is pure chaos in some of them,” Diana said. “Records are destroyed along with buildings, patients moved about. It was worth hoping for.”
“Margaret slipped away one night,” Kaz said. “She could have walked to the Hungerford railroad station easily enough for the morning train to London.”
“We found her just east of Hungerford,” Tree said. “So she must have made it to town. The current flows east to west. She could have been dumped in Kintbury, anywhere along the canal.”
“Inspector Payne finally heard from the coroner,” Big Mike said. “She didn’t drown, but that much was obvious from the marks on her neck. The doc said she could’ve been in the water three to five days; it was cold enough to slow down decomposition.”
“I can attest to that,” I said, glad of the warm soup in my belly. “How did it go with Miller?”
“I had my suspicions when Payne asked him to come down to the station for a chat,” Big Mike said. “Mrs. Miller looked like she was about to faint.”
“Do you think she knew something?” Diana asked.
“Suspected, or was afraid maybe. But Miller himself was calm and said he’d be glad to help. We took him down to the station and went over Neville’s killing, where he was last night, and pressed him on any connection to Sophia Edwards. Came up with nothing.”
“How did he react?” I asked.
“Cooperative at first,” Big Mike reported. “Then started looking at his watch. Then he wanted to know how long it would take. Finally he asked if he was a suspect. Then he got upset. Completely normal for an innocent man or a practiced liar.”
“You certainly have a difficult profession,” Diana said. “How can you tell the two apart?”
“Keep pressing them until they break,” Big Mike said. “Kinda hard if they’re innocent, right, Billy?”
“Billy knows all about that,” Tree said. An awkward silence followed as the soup bowls were cleared. “I can tell by their faces you’ve already told your friends about how we met, Billy.”
“Part of the story, anyway,” I said. “They’re a nosy bunch.”
“We know Billy took your job,” Big Mike said. “That was a raw deal.”
“Billy did not get to the part yet where you two actually met,” Kaz said. “Tell us your side of the story.”