‘A vote of censure.’
‘Exactly. The navy has a hidden agenda, Mr Hennessey, and the sea service personnel are seen and see themselves as a cut above the shore-based personnel. There’s no inherent shame in being shore-based if you’re an egghead or if you have medical reasons for being unsuitable for sea service, failing eyesight is a common cause for being transferred shore to continue your service. Some personnel have been ashore all their service life and there is no shame, but to be transferred shore after an incident such as the one I described is, as you say, a vote of censure. It’s an invitation to resign. And most officers would have resigned.’
‘But not Williams?’
‘As you see, he’s still with us, and he has not achieved promotion, he’s constantly passed over. This is all off the record, you understand.’
‘Understood.’
‘Hence me being out of uniform, just to emphasize the informality of this chat.’
‘Noted.’
‘I won’t be making any sort of statement about this.’
‘Agreed.’
‘I’m doing this to cooperate. I don’t like any of my crew being looked at by the police, especially an officer. I subscribe to the view that the best course of action is to offer full cooperation in such circumstances. To do otherwise only invites suspicion.’
‘I could do with meeting more people like you in my professional capacity. Commander.’
‘So he came to us, not HMS Halley. By “us”, I mean the concrete fleet. The navy is a close-knit community, and the permanent shore-based officers all know each other and we all felt the smack of Williams being transferred shore in the circumstances that he was transferred, and none of us wanted him as part of our crew. We have a job to do. Do you know that for every sea service man or woman there’s ten people ashore? It takes ten people ashore to keep one person at sea.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘It’s true. The point is that shore-based service is vital, we are not a dumping ground for the bad apples. Such a practice destroys morale. Williams was transferred shore eight years ago, still with us, getting posted from one establishment to another. A year ago he came to the Halley, by then he was one of the oldest lieutenants in the navy.’
‘What is he like as an officer?’
‘Very repressive. A bully. He just should not have been selected, let alone identified as a fast-track-career officer. Seems to be a man who can mislead the world around him until his true nature is exposed.’
‘Repressive, you say?’
‘And very dismissive. In an unguarded moment he was overheard referring to the other ranks as “the cretins”. He openly refers to people who make mistakes as “cretins”.
‘Cretin” is a form of insult he employs, he’s fond of the word. It seems to have some significance for him.’
‘My sergeant…’ Hennessey dabbed his lips with the napkin and placed his knife and fork centrally on his plate. ‘My sergeant says that he was very upset about the leniency you showed to the young sailor who was outside the provost marshal’s office when we called the other day.’
‘Was he indeed…that’s interesting.’ Timmins too finished his meal. ‘Enjoy it?’
‘Yes…’
‘Good, isn’t it?’
‘As I said, I’ll remember this pub.’
‘But yes, that incident says a lot about Lieutenant Williams. That lad is close to his mother, there’s just the two of them. Found out she had cancer, just diagnosed - the boy asked Williams for a few days’ compassionate leave and Williams said no, on the grounds that she was not at death’s door. So he went to see her for three days anyway. I can understand that.’
‘So can I.’
‘He came back, but he shouldn’t have gone like that. There are procedures that can be used to complain, like the rating who felled Williams in the companionway of his ship…he had a legitimate complaint and had access to procedures that would have had his complaint listened to, and in circumstances like that, acted upon. So I fined him three days’ loss of pay and then told him that the navy is his home, and like a home it works for you, and gave him seven days’ compassionate and sent him back to Newcastle he’s up there now. We’ll also make sure that he doesn’t leave the UK during his mother’s last few months. But if he did go overseas, we could get him home within twenty-four hours if necessary. But Williams wanted Able Seaman Hendry flogged round the fleet…that’s the lad’s name, Hendry. Good lad…he’s got what it takes to go far, he doesn’t need an officer like Williams.’
‘Where does Williams live?’
‘Here…in this village. You can walk to his accommodation from here. You’ll meet his sister, she’s up from London to help him sort out his parents’ estate. So he told me.’
‘What little there is to sort out.’
The two men stood outside the pub, shielding their eyes against the glare of the sun.
‘Left from here,’ said Timmins. ‘Then first left again. Narrow lane. Yellow-fronted cottage.’
‘Yellow!’
‘Don’t know what they call it, “burnt sand”, I suppose, a dull, off-yellow, but it actually seems to fit quite well, since the fields are now yellow with oil seed. Hedgerows and the trees are still green, though, so all isn’t lost.’
The two men shook hands warmly.
Hennessey left his car in the car park of the Dog and Duck and walked to Williams’s rented cottage following Commander Timmins’s directions. He located it easily, the only yellow fronted cottage amid whitewashed cottages, or cottages of naked stone. He conceded Timmins was correct, the colour did work well and was not at all intrusive, possibly because it was swamped by the vast carpet of bright yellow behind it, being a field of oil seed. He walked up to the front door of the building and rapped on the metal knocker, twice, with a deliberate pause between each knock. Knock…knock.
The door was opened quickly, as if the person who opened it had been standing on the other side, immediately so. The person who opened the door was a tall, slender woman with short hair, who looked pale of complexion and a little wide eyed, as if travelling a route she had never before travelled.
She was clearly surprised to see Hennessey, as if she had flung the door wide in the full expectation of greeting a specific person. ‘Oh…’ she said.
‘You were expecting someone else?’
‘I thought it would be my brother. He said he’d try and get home early…or call in over lunch…one or the other. I’m sorry, you are?’
‘Police.’ Hennessey showed the woman his identity card. ‘Chief Inspector Hennessey.’
‘Oh!’
‘You seem bothered?’
‘No…no…I…’ But her face, already pale, had drained of what little colour it had retained. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I’d like to talk to you, if I may.’
‘About?’
‘Your parents.’
‘Have you caught the person who did it?’
‘Getting there, one or two suspects in the frame.’
‘Oh, good…good.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Sorry…yes.’ The woman stepped aside.
‘You’re Nicola Williams, I presume?’ Hennessey stepped into the cottage, finding that, just as in the Dog and Duck, he had to bow his head to avoid low beams.
‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
The cottage had a cosy but cramped feel. The floor area was taken up with large cardboard packing cases sealed with scarlet masking tape.
‘Moving home?’ asked Hennessey.
‘Well, yes…Please take a seat, you’ll bump your head if you don’t.’