Dead Ground in Between (30 page)

“Are there any more hideouts?” Tyler asked.

“One other, in the woods. It's not in good shape though.”

“Did the boys know about it?”

“I mentioned it but I didn't show them.”

Tyler looked over at his constable. The tip of her nose was red from the cold but she was listening intently.

“They might have gone there, sir.”

“We'll check right now.” Tyler turned back to Wickers. “Listen, son. I believe what you've told me, but there's something else I need to know. According to the chief constable there were two of you Auxiliaries in this area. One of them was discharged last year as unsuitable. Code name of Zechariah. What's his real name?”

Before Wickers could answer, Agnes Mortimer suddenly cried out, “Sir! Look. It's the
POW
.”

Tyler twirled around. Emerging from the stand of trees on the ridge was Angelo Iaquinta. He was wheeling his bicycle. His arm was around one boy, holding him on to the saddle. The other boy was sitting on the crossbar and draped over the handlebars. Iaquinta was attempting to keep him in place with his other hand. Jan and Pim.

“Come on,” said Tyler, and he set off on the run. Younger and faster, Wickers raced ahead, and Mortimer was close behind.

Angelo halted.

“Help. Please help me. The boys are sick.”

Later, Tyler would credit Sam Wickers with saving Pim. Jan was looking green around the gills but he was still conscious. Tyler got him off the bike and carried him to the side of the path. Mortimer immediately removed her own coat and put it around Jan's shoulders. In the meantime, Sam lifted the smaller boy, who was pale and unmoving, off the handlebars and laid him flat on the ground on his stomach, arms above his head. He pressed on the boy's back, then pulled up his arms. Repeat.

Barely moments later, as if on cue, the cavalry arrived in the shape of an army lorry. The half dozen soldiers crammed in the back jumped out, rifles at the ready, all focused on Angelo. Tyler yelled at them to stay where they were.

“Situation under control.”

Angelo made no attempt to get away but leaned on the bicycle watching anxiously as Wickers frantically worked.

It seemed a very long time before Pim responded but it was probably only minutes. His eyelids fluttered and a dribble of saliva came from his mouth. Wickers turned the boy's chin and he vomited yellow bile.

“Atta boy,” said Sam cheerily.

Jan tried to stand up and go to his brother. “Pim. Wake up. Wake up.”

Tyler held him back. “Take it easy, lad. Your brother's in good hands. He's going to be all right. Let the man finish his job.”

Wickers had in fact stopped the artificial respiration. He turned Pim over onto his back and pulled him into a sitting position.

“Feeling a bit better, Scout?”

“Yes, Captain,” whispered the boy.

“Keep taking some nice deep breaths for me, there's a chum,” Wickers said.

Jan pointed at the group of soldiers and at Angelo. “They're not going to arrest him, are they?”

“I'm afraid he has to go back to the camp. He's a
POW
. You were very lucky he found you.”

“A tree branch fell across the entrance. We couldn't get out. Pim started to get sick.”

“You shouldn't have been in that hideout, young Scout. I told you we abandoned it ages ago. I didn't even know there was still a heater in there, but it was probably not working properly. Those things are bloody dangerous when they're faulty.”

Nobody said, “You could both have died,” but the words hung in the air.

Tyler had Wickers and Mortimer take the boys back to the Mohan farmhouse. Wickers gave Pim a piggyback ride. The boy was still ashen but alive. Jan looked wobbly but was all right with Mortimer taking his hand.

A corporal from among the soldiers came forward to take charge of the Italian. Angelo didn't resist, and at Tyler's request, he handed over the gun he'd taken from Ned. He had a wound in his left arm, but it had stopped bleeding and didn't look too serious. As the soldiers put him in the lorry, Tyler spoke to him softly.

“I'm sorry, son. I'm truly sorry about what has happened.”

He made his way to the Mohan farm and was met at the door by Sam Wickers.

“We just got a message from the hospital. John Cartwright called. Ned died in the ambulance on the way.”

“Damn. I didn't hold out much hope, I must say.”

“Oh, and Inspector,” continued Wickers, “I never got the chance to answer your question.”

“Yes?”

“The real name of the other Auxiliary was Ned Weaver.”

N
UALA INVITED
T
YLER AND
S
ERGEANT
R
OWELL TO
come over on Christmas morning.

“You've got to come early because it will be torture for the boys to have to wait too long to open their presents.”

She and Tyler had continued their relationship, but discreetly. Tyler left her bed in the middle of the night and grabbed a couple of more hours of shut-eye at home. He was starting to suffer from sleep deprivation, but so far it was worth it.

When he conveyed Nuala's invitation to Rowell, his sergeant grinned at him. “Might I suggest, sir, that you give yourself the luxury of staying through the night?”

“Hmm. I'm not ready to go public, Oliver. The boys are sure to wonder what I'm doing there.”

“They'll be more interested in seeing what Father Christmas brought them. You can fib about dropping in if you have to.”

Tyler had to admit, the idea of not having to go from Nuala's soft arms and bed into the cold night was quite appealing.

“I'll see what Nuala has to say.”

It turned out she was ecstatic. He agreed to come when the boys were asleep and put his presents underneath the tiny tree that Nuala had decorated.

“I tried to do a sort of amalgam of traditions. I got a menorah for Hanukkah, and we're calling Father Christmas Saint Nicholas, which is what he's called in Holland. I don't want the boys to lose contact with their Jewish heritage, but they are determined to ‘simulate,' as Jan calls it. So we're doing bits and pieces.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Tyler.

He'd hemmed and hawed about what to buy for Nuala and finally settled on a silver brooch in the shape of a Celtic knot. He'd bought the boys wooden toys that had been made by the Italian
POWS
. Jan's was a beautifully finished tank, and Pim's was a Viking boat. For both of them to share, he'd included a book on the English Civil War, which actually had a chapter describing coinage of the time. Their Elizabethan coin had been turned over to the local archaeologist, Mr. Reavill. The boys swore they'd found it on the road not far from the barn, and Tyler believed them. It seemed possible that Jasper had unearthed some sort of hoard in the field, but they had no way of knowing where that was. Tyler had shown the piece of paper he'd found in Jasper's box to the archaeologist, but he couldn't really help.

“It does look like directions of some kind but it could refer to absolutely anywhere. Maybe someday we'll have a way of better detecting these things, but for now we'll just have to wait around until the land yields up its secrets.”

Tyler hoped that the boys would feel compensated for the confiscation of the coin by the chocolate medallions wrapped in gold foil that he'd brought them. He'd also been able to find some oranges, one for each child and one for Nuala. Under her instruction, Tyler wrapped the toys and put them underneath the tree. He noticed as he did so that there was a rather large package with his name on it, but he kept his curiosity in check. The sweets he stuffed into two old socks to hang from the mantel.

“I do want them to have a good Christmas,” said Nuala. She shuddered. “I can hardly bear to think what a close call they had.”

The problem had indeed been the faulty kerosene heater. There was no doubt the boys would have died from carbon
monoxide poisoning if Angelo hadn't found them when he did. Tyler and Nuala talked about what to tell the boys if things went badly for Angelo, which they might.

“He's become their hero, second only to the Captain,” said Nuala.

“Ah yes, Mr. Wickers.”

As for Sam himself, after the drama of the boys' rescue he seemed a different man. He came to see them every day, even delivered some comics “from the Captain.”

To Tyler's delight, a romance seemed to be gently developing between Agnes Mortimer, of long-established gentry, and Sam Wickers, of long-established farming stock. An unlikely match, but it reminded Tyler of himself and Clare.

Angelo Iaquinta was in prison, the civil one in Shrewsbury this time. He had filled in his part of the sequence of events that had been triggered by Jasper Cartwright's wandering in the night. The old man had come into the barn in the early hours of the morning. Edie had left long before. Jasper was carrying the metal case and started to mutter about hiding it, but he'd stumbled on something and the case had fallen from his grasp. At that point, Jasper turned tail and ran from the barn. Yes, Angelo had looked inside the case, he couldn't resist the temptation. He saw the gold wedding ring. It felt like a gift from God himself, and he took it.

Yes, he was very sorry when they found the old man's body but he hadn't dared say anything about their encounter. He'd hidden the case until he could sort out what to do. It hadn't occurred to him that Jasper might be in trouble until the next afternoon, and by then it was already too late to help.

The part following Angelo's escape from the camp Tyler already knew. Angelo had immediately made his way back to the farm so he could see Edie. They were embracing in the barn when Ned burst in with a revolver in his hand. Ned fired
at him and Edie right away. No warning. Nothing. To Angelo's mind, Ned looked as if he had lost his mind. The first bullet grazed Angelo's arm. Edie tried to save her lover, to shield him with her own body. Angelo pushed her aside. Ned fired again and the second bullet struck the post, knocking off a big splinter of wood, which hit Edie directly in the head. When he related this to Tyler, Angelo wept. “I ran at him and tried to get the gun. It went off into his chest. I did not intentionally hurt him, even though he caused the death of my dearest love.”

As Ned Weaver could neither confirm nor deny Angelo's version of events, Tyler examined the scene very carefully for as much evidence as he could find. Dr. Murnaghan confirmed that Edie had indeed been killed by a piece from the wooden pillar splintering off. Ned's wound was also consistent with Angelo's version of what had happened.

“What do you think will happen?” Nuala asked Tyler. “Surely they'll let him go.”

“I'll testify for him, and Captain Beattie is prepared to go to bat about his good character, but who knows? We'll have to see how the prosecutor feels about the Italians.”

Also working in Angelo's favour was Tyler's conviction that Weaver was the one who had stabbed Jasper and taken him to die in the bunker. They'd found a commando knife in his room, which Dr. Murnaghan was certain was the same one that had been used on Jasper. His gun was also army issue. The sad thing was that Ned, like Jasper, had his own stash of treasures. Dozens of toy soldiers.

It was Wickers who'd told them more about Ned's history.

“He seriously hurt his training sergeant. Wasn't even under enemy action. Apparently the sarge was a right wanker and kept riding Ned. One day, Weaver exploded and picked up a brick and slugged him. All swept under the carpet – didn't look good for the army. But Weaver was desperate to do his bit for
the war effort. Took it hard being chucked out like that. He managed to get accepted by the Auxiliaries. He was healthy enough, physically, lived in the area. But he couldn't take that training either. Flew off the handle at the least problem. So he was set loose. Bit late, I thought. Weaver already knew the whereabouts of the hideouts.”

Tyler had delivered the information to the Cartwrights. Once again they had gathered at the kitchen table. It was a painful session. Susan broke down and confessed that, in truth, she had heard her father-in-law leave the house shortly before dawn.

“I was so angry with him, I thought, ‘Let him go. He'll soon be back when he realizes what the weather is like.' ” She halted, swallowing back her tears. John said nothing.

“Did he come back?” Tyler asked.

“Yes. He pounded on the door. It wasn't locked but it stuck sometimes and he must have thought it was.”

That accounts for the bruises on his knuckles
, thought Tyler.

“I should have got up, I know I should, but I was so tired,” continued Susan, her voice almost inaudible now. “And I knew he could get in if he wanted to.” She stopped, obviously hoping for a response from her husband. None was forthcoming. “I fell asleep again,” she went on. “Then I woke up because I heard somebody coming in. I assumed it was Jasper. My conscience was clear.”

“But it wasn't your father-in-law. It was your son.”

“It must have been,” she whispered.

“Why do you think he went out at that time of the morning?” Tyler asked.

Her face was desolate. “I'm guessing he heard the knocking as well. Ned was always on the lookout for an opportunity to prove he was a soldier. He wanted an enemy he could defeat, a damsel he could save. He probably didn't even realize it was
Jasper. I think what he was saying in the kitchen that time was really about himself, not Angelo. Jasper in his madness went to attack him, and my son acted in self-defence.”

They'd never know for sure, but what she said made sense given the nature of Jasper's wound. Weaver had probably panicked when he realized what he'd done, and he'd taken him to the one place he thought the body wouldn't be found. At least not for a long time. He hadn't counted on the boys.

The “if only”s filled the room. If only Jasper hadn't gone out to hide his treasure in such a storm. If only Susan had got up to let him in when she heard him knocking. If only John had heard him. If only Ned had got help immediately for the old man he'd only wounded.

Tyler felt that John Cartwright was also thinking these things. He felt sorry for the couple and the future of their marriage.