A Medal For Murder (41 page)

‘Who was in charge of the camp?’

‘The senior officer of course . . .’

‘You?’

He hesitated before answering. ‘Yes.’

I gazed at him steadily. If I were right and he were an impostor, what a strain it must have been all these years, waking every day, wondering would he be found out.

‘Did Mrs Bindeman have a son?’

‘She had children. I remember that.’

‘A son?’

‘Do you know, I think she did. Two of her children died. I felt sorry for her. And there was a boy. I remember because the schoolteacher made something of a pet of him. Took him to Cape Town when the camp closed.’

A piece of the jigsaw fell into place. For the captain,
also. His breathing became more rapid. He wiped a hand across his forehead.

‘You have it, Mrs Shackleton. Root was too good to be true. The perfect tenant. Polite, rent on time, walking Lucy home from rehearsals. And all the while . . .’

All the while what, I wondered. What wrong had Milner done to this young man? What puzzled me was that if Dan Root had arrived in Harrogate intending harm to Milner and the captain, he had taken a long time about it.

‘You had better tell me everything, Captain. So far I’ve had less than half a story from you. I’ve had to work out a great deal for myself.’

‘What are you hinting at? I’ve been entirely candid, madam.’ His voice carried no conviction. He knew the game was up.

I wanted to know the connection between him and Milner. I wanted to test my hunch that the man opposite me, his hand trembling slightly, was not who he claimed to be.

‘Who came to Harrogate first?’ I asked in a light, conversational tone. ‘You or Mr Milner?’

‘I did.’

‘Milner & Son. That sort of company would require capital. Where did he get the money to start his business?’

The captain took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. Clearly, he did not intend to answer.

‘Will you let me ask a different question, Captain?’

‘Very well. Only because you have brought Lucy back.’ He was trying to put on a brave face, but I felt sure would have ordered me out if he felt secure enough to do so.

‘Did Mr Milner come to Harrogate because you were here?’

‘Yes, if you must know.’

I barked out one more question. ‘Army number.’

He rattled off his number.

‘Thank you, Sergeant Lampton.’ It was not quite a shot in the dark, but my jab hit home. The captain would never turn pale, but a little colour drained from his round, ruddy cheeks.

‘What are you driving at?’

‘That you impersonated the captain and took over this house, and his inheritance.’

He seemed to weigh up what I had said, looking me in the eye. ‘You won’t be able to prove it.’

‘Perhaps, perhaps not.’

‘You are too clever for your own good.’ He lowered his head. ‘Only one other person knew.’

‘Two people knew: Mr Milner, who blackmailed you, and Dan Root whom I suspect became very confused when he came to find the captain, and found you.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, and bit his lip. This is the moment he must have dreaded, ever since he claimed another man’s inheritance, another man’s life. ‘How did you work it out?’ he asked quietly.

‘You gave lots of hints yourself.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Never did.’

It seemed an incongruous conversation to be having at a kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon. ‘When you told me about the war, and your part in it, you said, “That was all so long ago. I was a different person then.” You really were. A different man. And your photographs confirmed it for me. I never have understood
why some chaps have prominent Adam’s apple and others none at all, just one of nature’s little variations. I saw a photograph of Miss Wolfendale’s nephew as a young man. His throat was smooth as a girl’s.’

His hand went to his throat. ‘That’s nothing to go on.’ He looked slightly sick, and uncertain. I guessed that he had forgotten how to be his old self.

‘Young Rowland Wolfendale had a longish face, like his aunt. Miss Fell has a photograph. You have – or had until your bonfire yesterday – a photograph of the two of you together, wearing your caps and badges. Side by side, it is very clear who is the captain, and who is the sergeant.’

He wet his lips, and for a moment looked as though he would protest. When he did not, I continued. ‘Two uniforms in your room upstairs, one with a captain’s pips, the other with a sergeant’s stripes. Two sets of discharge papers. I wasn’t able to learn anything of the batman’s service record, but Wolfendale was not married. And army tittle-tattle names him as a ladies’ man.’

He gave a bitter sound that could be taken as a laugh. ‘Oh he was that all right.’

‘Unlike you. You confessed you were at a loss in dealing with women and girls. Besides, not many officers would admit that their batman should have received the honour of a VC. But of course, you
were
the batman, Mr Lampton. Or would you prefer I continue to call you Captain?’

He stood up quickly, holding onto the back of the chair. ‘I must lock the front door. If Root killed Milner, I could be next. If this is some vendetta . . .’

I walked out of the kitchen with him, and along the hall.

‘Captain, what wrong did Milner do to Mrs Bindeman that her son would want to murder him?’

‘None that I know of.’

‘When Dan listened in, would he have discovered that Milner was blackmailing you, had blackmailed you out of everything you falsely inherited?’

He hesitated. ‘You can’t prove anything.’

‘No. You made sure of that when you destroyed your papers and photographs. But you and Lucy could be in danger. Please tell me the truth.’

A shudder went through his frame. Just as yesterday, he seemed on the point of suffering a seizure. I moved a hand to touch him, to steady him, but he shook me off. ‘If you are right, and he listened in to what passed between me and Milner, he would know that Milner came to Harrogate to bleed me dry. And that having taken every penny, he wanted Lucy.’

‘And what is Lucy to you? Is she really your granddaughter, Mr Lampton?’

After an endless pause, he sighed. ‘She is nothing to me, and she is everything. She is Captain Wolfendale’s illegitimate daughter, by a schoolteacher, Miss Marshall, born on the crossing from Cape Town.’

Another part of the puzzle fell into place. ‘Is this the same schoolteacher you spoke of, who made a pet of young Bindeman, or Dan Root?’

‘She must have been his starting point for tracing me.’ It wasn’t so much fear in his eyes, as some emotion I could not quite fathom. He looked like a man whose chickens have all come home to roost at once, and have dropped a message he does not understand slap bang on the smooth crown of his head. Finally, he said, ‘Young Dan Bindeman was orphaned. His father killed in the
war, his mother died in the punishment cage. Put there by . . . by Captain Wolfendale. The schoolteacher planned to adopt the boy. The poor fool, she thought Wolfendale would marry her.’

So Dan Root was the nearest Lucy had to a brother. Had he come to Harrogate out of love, or hate? Or both?

 
 

I walked down the front steps of 29 St Clement’s Road, ready to fulfil my obligation to Inspector Charles, and tell him that Miss Wolfendale was at home and available for interview.

After that, I would banish all thoughts of crime and detection and escape to the hotel, to meet my mother.

It was not to be. Or at least, not yet.

When I went outside, Dan Root was sitting in the driving seat of my Jowett.

In a flat, matter-of-fact voice, as if he jumped into other people’s cars all the time, he said, ‘I would very much like to go for a drive.’

Was this an admirer’s opening gambit, or was he trying to prevent me from telling Inspector Charles about Lucy?

‘Some other time, perhaps.’

He slid across to the passenger seat. ‘Will you give me a lift to police headquarters?’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re going there I think. And wouldn’t you like the notoriety of delivering up Milner’s killer?
After all, you found the body. It would be a nice touch of symmetry.’

Put like that, it was difficult to refuse. But I hesitated. What kind of trick was he pulling?

‘Come, Mrs Shackleton. I’m sure you heard me confess when you arrived at the tower.’

‘No.’ I said too quickly.

He smiled sweetly, held out empty hands, and made a fist of turning out his pockets, to show he carried no weapons. ‘You’re not afraid of me are you?’

‘Of course not,’ I lied. ‘Push up a bit.’ I climbed into the car, next to someone who was cold-bloodedly sane, or barking mad. Which?

‘To whom am I giving a lift? Dan Root, or Dan Bindeman?’

‘You’re clever, Mrs Shackleton, or nosy.’

‘Both I’d have said. Like you.’

‘Root was the name Miss Marshall gave me. She was the schoolteacher who adopted me. She thought I would put down roots in England.’

‘And do you think you ever will?’

‘Not now. Not after having killed Lawrence Milner.’

Everything was so Sunday-afternoon normal. A nursemaid wheeled a pram in the direction of the little park. A young couple with a child and a dog in tow strolled arm in arm.

‘How did you find your way to Harrogate, Dan?’ I asked in a conversational tone as I turned the motor around and drove along St Clement’s Road.

‘It took some doing. I found out from Miss Marshall that the captain was in London, and then that he’d gone to Harrogate. It took a lot of searching, asking questions, making up stories to get information.’

‘Why did you come here?’

‘I wanted to kill the captain, to avenge my mother. I’d vowed to do it as a boy, that I would remember his face, that he would die for what he did. Of course, he was already dead, and Lampton wore his shoes.’ He took out a cigarette. Shielding it from the breeze, he struck a couple of matches and lit it on the second attempt. ‘Don’t ask me too many questions. Let me have a pleasant last drive at least. It’s not you I’m confessing to.’

Dan took out his watch for a quick glance. I wondered had he decided on a time limit, that he would make his confession to murder by a certain hour? He returned the watch to his waistcoat pocket and sat back in a relaxed manner, looking all around him, as though savouring his last moments of freedom.

As luck would have it, we found ourselves on the Leeds Road behind a Boys’ Brigade brass band, who were playing
Look for the Silver Lining.

‘I could turn off and do a detour,’ I said, thinking aloud.

‘No it’s all right.’ Dan puffed on his cigarette and spoke almost cheerfully. ‘This is an important journey for me. My last as a free man. I like the idea of its being something of an occasion, serenaded down the road in good company.’

The band marched onto West Park, and then onto The Stray. I parked on the corner, opposite the Prince of Wales Hotel.

Dan stepped out slowly, as though suddenly having second thoughts. He took a deep breath and threw back his shoulders.

The Boys’ Brigade Band had two collectors, one in
the front and one pulling up the rear. Dan slid a hand in his pocket and brought out a coin. It jingled as it fell into the box. I wanted to speak, but could not find words.

He said, ‘There’s no need for you to come any further. Thank you for bringing me. I should have been sorry to hang without ever having ridden in a motor car.’

He shook my hand solemnly, and then crossed the road, almost ending his life there and then as a horse drawn carriage was overtaken by one of those eight-horse-power Coventry Premiers.

I waited, and then followed at a discreet distance.

In the hotel, head high, Dan spoke briefly to the doorman, and then walked up the stairs and along the corridor hung with its pictures of old Harrogate. He did not see me as he opened the door and turned into the room with trestle tables.

I walked along the same corridor, glancing at the old coach-house scenes on the walls, wondering what it is that makes us look over our shoulders all the time, as though we are caught with invisible threads to a past that never quite was what it should have been, and we would like to try again.