Apportionment of Blame (21 page)

Joyce bounced along beside me, her arm tucked into mine. I liked the closeness of her and couldn't help smiling at the memory of our conversation in the pub two days before, and later on my sofa. All those years wasted because I was too scared to ask and risk being let down and spoiling a friendship. But that was then. Now we had found each other and life would be altogether different.

Sitting on opposite sides of a table next to the train's window, I began to unpack two salads, a baguette filled with ham and lettuce, a packet of crisps and two bottles of Seven-Up which I had been carrying in my pockets.

“My word. You know how to give a girl a good time.”

“I'll have you know this is cordon bleu British Rail food.”

“That's an oxymoron.”

We both laughed.

I broke the baguette into two sections, opened the salads and pushed Joyce's half of the lunch across to her. For the next ten minutes we ate and hardly spoke. Then the train pulled out.

“OK,” Joyce said. “What's going on?”

“This is where I find out if I am a real detective, or just someone who keeps adding two and two together and making five.”

“Go on then.”

“Your mum said that Annie talked of visiting a friend in the Midlands. In her trunk there were pictures of a War Cemetery. This morning I've discovered that that cemetery is in the Midlands. That's where we are going.”

“To a War Cemetery?”

“Yes. I reckon that if we go through the list of people buried there, we'll find a name with a link to your grandmother. I don't know why, but I'm sure there's an answer there.”

“An answer to what?”

“To why Helen didn't get anything from the will. And perhaps to why she died.”

“Are you sure, or are you guessing?”

“I suppose it's a sort of guess, or you could call it intuition, and there are those who say we should always follow our intuition. But anyway, even if nothing comes of it, we still get most of a day together. Doesn't that make the journey worthwhile?”

She smiled and I realised again how much I loved to see that smile. It took me back to school. I was always the joker, saying anything to get a laugh, often to the annoyance of my teachers.

It was Joyce who always saw the humour in my comments. She would turn round and smile at me, even while the teacher was telling me off, and that smile, almost on its own, made the jokey comment worth making, and any punishment worth taking.

So how had I come so far through life without letting Joyce know how I felt about her? I don't know. She looked far too beautiful ever to be interested in me. At school, at parties, at discos and later on in pubs, we were part of the same group of friends who did virtually everything together. Joyce was often the centre of attention, and most of the other blokes in the group had been out with her, sometimes often. But never me.

And there we were, sitting on a train, content just to look at each other.

“Shall I come and sit next to you?”

“No,” she said. “I wouldn't be able to see you properly if you were sitting here. We can talk across the table.”

“I don't want to talk,” I told her.

“I know,” and she smiled that smile again.

When the train pulled into Stafford station we made our way, hand in hand, to the exit, looking for the taxi rank. There were two white Skoda Octavias purring at the kerb. I approached the first driver.

“Can we go to the War Cemetery at Brocton?”

“Certainly.”

“And can you wait for us there, to bring us back? We shouldn't be too long.”

“OK.”

We climbed in the back of the taxi and set off through the strange town and out into countryside. Initially we saw farmland, with dairy herds and occasional fields cleared for planting. However they soon gave way to wooded areas, and I remembered the name Cannock Chase that I'd heard in the phone call from the War Museum. It had sounded like heathland, and clearly it was.

It didn't take the taxi long to reach the place, and the driver stopped just before a corner in the lane. To our left we could see an area of gravestones with a tall cross dominating the scene. Brocton War Cemetery.

Joyce and I looked at each other.

“Can you wait, please, driver?”

“Right, guv.”

We left the vehicle and stood side by side looking at the scene.

A neat hedge at the roadside was separated by three stone flagged steps leading up to a wrought iron gateway set between brick pillars, topped with white stone. Simple, yet imposing.

Behind the entrance was an area of grass, interspersed with shrubs and trees. I recognised a rhododendron, but I am not very good at plant names and I could only describe a bush of deep red winter foliage and several slender trees.

Set back on the lawn were rows of white stone memorials, with a cross of what looked like white marble standing in the centre. The whole scene was simple yet dramatic, peaceful and moving at the same time - in fact intensely powerful.

“Why are we here?” Joyce asked me.

“We need to find the record of all those buried here. There has to be a connection with your grandmother. I suspect this may be her friend in the Midlands.”

We looked round, made enquiries and were shown to a memorial book in which were listed all the names and their causes of death. It seemed that most were young men in training, a mixture of British and New Zealanders, who died of the Spanish ‘flu. I started to search through the names.

“What are we looking for?”

“Any name linked to your family. Glenn, Lamont perhaps, anything that catches your eye.”

“Lamont?”

Her query reminded me that so far I had no proof related to Ilse's surname.

“Well, any Scottish sounding name. Annie was from Scotland, after all.”

We looked in silence through the pages recording such a tragic loss in such an unexpected way. When the ‘flu hit the camp that was there during the First World War, with so many men living in such close proximity, they wouldn't have had a chance to avoid contagion.

It's bad enough for a New Zealand parent to hear of their son's death at the battle front so many miles from home, but to come so far and die of ‘flu seemed totally unreasonable.

We could find no names that told us anything. There were a few Scottish sounding names and I wrote them down, but none had a known link to Annie. I closed the book and looked at Joyce.

“I was so sure.”

“Never mind,” she said and put her arm through mine. “It was a good idea.”

We retraced our steps to the taxi and I went to speak to the driver.

“Is there anything else out here? Another cemetery perhaps, or is this the only one?”

“There is a German cemetery up there,” he said, pointing to a side road. “We do get a few German visitors who want to go up there.”

“Can you drive us up there?”

“If you like.”

We got in, he started the car again, moved off and immediately turned left to head along a narrow lane, bordered by a grass verge and quite young looking trees. Looking to right and left I could see only scrubland. They appeared to have put this German cemetery a long way along the lane, well back from the Commonwealth one. Tactfulness, I assumed.

Eventually we reached a parking area, beyond which the lane was blocked with wooden posts. But we could see a paved entrance area beyond the posts and made our way there.

The person we spoke to said that every German who died in Britain during the two world wars was eventually brought here for burial. Some from a Prisoner of War Camp, some shot down in German airships during WW1, and any others. He pointed out the separate areas for First and Second World War memorials.

We walked round for a few minutes and it was interesting, but hardly relevant to us, so I thanked the man for his help and we returned to the taxi.

“Back to the station, please.”

“What now?” Joyce said.

“I don't know. There must be something here, or your grandmother wouldn't have had photos of the place. What we don't know is the name of the person she came to see, or to remember.”

“Perhaps someone else took the pictures.”

“That's possible, of course. But why?”

I leaned forward toward the driver.

“If a person wanted an overnight break in Stafford, where would they stay? Somewhere within walking distance of the station, perhaps.”

“There's a couple of old inns there. Most of the modern places are further out, like your Travel Lodges and the like.”

“OK. Take us to one of those inns, if you would. You can leave us there.”

“Whatever you want.”

“So do I detect an unplanned dirty weekend?” Joyce said coyly. “I haven't brought anything with me, you know.”

“We could always find a chemists”

“What?” and she punched me hard on the arm.

“Just kidding.”

The driver dropped us outside the Stafford Knot and I paid him, adding a generous tip for his time.

“Thanks, guv.”

We went inside and straight up to the desk.

“I wonder if you could help us. We're looking for the place my girl friend's grandmother used to stay when she came here. She's doing her family history and we're trying to fill in as many details as we can.”

The young woman behind the desk looked from me to Joyce and back again.

“We don't usually give out the names of our guests to all and sundry.”

“Her name was Glenn. Mrs Annie Glenn.”

“Mrs Glenn?” her attitude changed immediately. “Oh, yes. We know Mrs Glenn well. How is she?”

“I'm afraid she died,” Joyce said.

“Hence the family search,” I added.

“I'm sorry to hear that.” She seemed genuinely upset at the news.

“Did she stay here often?” I asked her.

“Well, let me see, I've been working here for five, no nearly six years, and she probably came at least once a year during that time. In fact she has been more frequently recently.”

“As often as that?” Joyce's voice reflected her surprise.

“Would you like me to check the registers?”

“No, thanks. It was just the name of the hotel we wanted. We'll take a few photos outside as a record, then see what else we can discover about her.”

Then an idea struck.

“You wouldn't happen to know who Mrs Glenn visited when she stayed here. As she came so often, you would think if she had a friend in the town she would stay with them, yet she stayed here.”

“I'm afraid I have no idea.”

“If she wanted to call a taxi from here, would she use the same number each time?”

“If she asked at the desk, they would probably call Staffcabs for her. We have an arrangement with them.”

“Could you give me their number?”

“You can take one of their cards.”

“Thank you. You've been very helpful.”

“You're welcome, sir, and madam” she added.

We turned and headed back out into the street and I could not hide my elation.

“Yes!” I exclaimed and hugged Joyce.

“This calls for a celebration. The tea's on me.”

We walked off, arms around each other, looking for a teashop.

“So your grandmother did have a friend here. Perhaps it's a daughter, or niece, or someone related to a distant part of the family your mother didn't know about.”

“Seems like it,” Joyce said.

Rejecting Starbucks and similar establishments, we eventually found an elderly shop front, outside of which a blackboard enticed potential customers with words like scone, cream and jam.

We were served at our table, and soon sat surveying a pile of scones, a large bowl of double cream and two pottery containers of different jams. The tea proved to be strong and good.

“They look after you in Staffordshire, it seems.”

“I found all the people I came across in this area very friendly.”

“Oh, I forgot. You used to teach up here.”

“Not here exactly, but not far away, in Derbyshire.”

We ate and drank until I felt stuffed.

“When I first mentioned a date, I never thought it would be a teashop in Stafford.”

“That's like the questions TV interviewers ask,” Joyce said. “When you were a child, did you ever think that one day you would grow up to be a private detective?'”

She held her teaspoon across to me like a microphone.

“There are still times,” I said, “when I'm not sure if I'm justified in calling myself a private detective.”