The Armada Boy (40 page)

Pam looked nervous when she greeted
Wesley in the hall. She smiled and kissed his cheek but he knew there was
something amiss... and it didn't take a CID officer to guess what it was. She took
his hand and led him into the living room, all the time smiling
nervously, her free hand on her swollen abdomen. Jim was sitting on the sofa
beside his wife while their baby crawled happily up to the table and hauled
himself up, dislodging
several of Pain's school books as he did so and sending them toppling on to the
carpet.

Jim stood up. embarrassed. 'Hello,
Wesley... er... I hope you don't mind about this ...'

"The bastards have been this morning
and taken the keys.' said Pam. 'The furniture's in storage. It's only for a
week ... I said you wouldn't mind.'

Wesley looked round at the
encroaching chaos caused by a small child and two extra adults. Cases, bags and
baby equipment were strewn across the floor. A cereal-encrusted highchair was already
installed next to the dining table.

Wesley took Pam's hand and led her
out into the hall where they couldn't be heard. 'It's too much for you, Pam ...
with the baby on the way…'

'You mean it's too much for you? I'm
fine.. . never felt better."

Wesley looked down, uneasy. Nobody
wanted to be thought of as mean-spirited but he felt he had to be honest about
his feelings. It was his home, but if what Pam had said was true ... if it was only
for a week ... He returned to the living room.

' Where will you go?' he asked Jim.
trying to sound casual.

'We've been allocated a maisonette
in Dukesbridge but it isn't available for another week. I'm really sorry about
this, Wesley. I know it's an imposition and we'll find somewhere else if...'

The week's limit had set Wesley's
mind at rest. 'Don't worry about it. Jim. Glad to help out.'

"That's what I said.' Pam chipped
in as she rescued another exercise book from the baby's exploring hands. 'We've
all got to help out in a crisis. You should read what happened in the war when
everyone was evacuated ... we've been doing it at school.
At least it's not as bad as that." she continued cheerfully. 'They didn't
know what was going to happen to them.'

'Too right,' said Wesley with
feeling. 'Far worse things happened in the war." He put his arm around
Pam's shoulders and gave her a kiss.

Wesley switched on the tape recorder
and said the required words. The police surgeon had examined Mrs Challinor and pronounced
her fit to be questioned. Heffernan had been careful to do everything by the
book ... the hatchet-faced solicitor sent for by Dorothy Slater would give him
no choice.

The inspector asked the questions
quietly and gently, suppressing his own personality, listening carefully to the
mumbled answers.

Norman's lighter.. . that was what
had condemned him. Judith Challinor had walked through the bar with, her
daughter when he was showing it off to one of his friends and saying loudly and
cheerfully how it had seen him through the war. No remorse ...no mention of how
he had lit a cigarette with it before he killed her husband. She had watched
him, followed him when he went out for a walk alone. She had taken the bayonet
from the trunk in the attic and hidden it beneath her coat. It was only right
that he should die that way .. . justice.

She had seen a dead rat at the
chapel... it had probably been poisoned by some farmer and crawled there to
die. She had kicked it next to the body and stabbed at it. It was a symbol, she
said. When she had returned to her hotel after the war. widowed with two small
daughters, the place had been battered by shelling and overrun with rats. The
things were everywhere. The killer of her husband had brought them to her home:
rats, eating the very fabric of the place, gnawing at her broken heart. The rat
had been an appropriate embellishment to Norman Openheim's execution.
That was how she referred to it... his execution.

As for Wayne, he had been watching,
had witnessed it all. She had made him promise to keep her secret, saying she
had rid the world of a very bad man ... a murderer who had killed her husband and
baby. He had promised to keep silent but he couldn't be trusted. That was why
Wayne had to die.

The subject of executions gave Gerry
Heffernan his cue. 'Do you know one of the reasons why we don't hang people any
more, Judith?'

She shook her head. Heffernan
continued, 'Sometimes they'd find out years later that they'd hanged the wrong
person...and the guilty one had got away with it,'

Judith Challinor looked down and
said nothing.

'I can understand your feelings.
Judith, but Norman Openheim had nothing to do with your husband's death.
Another man confessed to his murder... blamed Openheim because he'd taken a
girl he fancied - blamed him out of spite.'

Judith Challinor's eyes widened. She
stood up and the plastic chair toppled backward with a crash. 'You're lying.'
Hysteria was rising in her voice. 'You're lying... you must be.'

The solicitor, a middle-aged female,
took Judith's hand and suggested calmly that she sit down. Judith shook her
off.

'I really think you should terminate
the interview now, Inspector. My client is distressed and….'

Heffernan ignored her. 'I'm not
lying. Judith. Charles Mallindale confessed to shooting your husband because he
refused to lend him money. He wrote it all down before he died. I've got a copy
here." He waved a photocopy of Mallindale's confession in front of her.
She snatched at it, tearing it into pieces before she collapsed, sobbing, on to
her knees.

Wesley terminated the interview and
told the WPC sitting near the door to take Mrs Challinor back down to the cells
and get the police surgeon to have another look at her.

********

The investigation into how Judith
Challinor, a woman of seventy- five, had hanged herself with her tights in a
cell in Tradmouth police station made the front pages of the local papers and
the middle pages of the national broadsheets.

Detective Inspector Heffernan had
given evidence at the inquest and the inquiry that followed; so had Detective
Sergeant Peterson. The police were cleared of blame but, it was said, lessons
could be learned from the case.

Gerry Heffernan had been subdued
since. He took the Rosie May out on the river alone at every opportunity, and
his usual wisecracks were few and far between. The tragedy of Judith Challinor
had affected him more than he was willing to admit.

Wesley knew he had to say something.
He felt for the man - felt his doubts and his guilt... was even starting to ask
himself the eternal question: if they had done things differently could the tragedy
have been avoided? He came to the conclusion that the answer was probably no.
He went into Heffernan's office and closed the door behind him.

"Can I have a word, sir?"

'Sure. Wes. Sit yourself down."
He sounded distracted, his thoughts far away.

'It's not your fault, sir.'

Heffernan sat forward. 'I didn't
have to tell her about Charles Mallindale. did I? If I didn't she'd be alive
today.'

'She would have found out some time
... when the case came to court,'

The inspector shook his head. 'I
suppose you're right.'

'If anyone in the force is to blame
it's that inspector in charge of the case in 1944. If he hadn't been so ready
to take the easy way out and blame the Americans ... The calibre of the bullets
would have been different... he just took Mallindale's word for everything. Never
even bothered to check."

'If he hadn't been so bone idle and
incompetent, you mean?'

'Exactly.'

For the first time in a fortnight
Wesley saw Heffernan's familiar grin again.

'I think what really gets to me. Wes.
is that Charles Mallindale got away with it all.. killed his mate, abused his
daughter, screwed up Judith Challinor's life, caused Norman Openheim's death
...and he got clean away with it. Do you believe in hell, Wes?'

'I was brought up to.. . come from a
very God-fearing family.'

He smiled. 'Well. I just hope they're right'

Wesley thought of the account of
Matthew Mallindale's sanctuary back in 1588. the anguish and regret that
Charles's ancestor had gone through. 'The fact that he experienced the urge to
leave a confession for June means he must have felt something.'

'Fat lot of good it did Judith
Challinor." was Heffernan's only comment. But he knew Wesley could be
right. He changed the subject. 'Is Pam okay? How long is it now?'

'Three weeks ... but the midwife at
the hospital says it could be any time.'

Heffernan sat back, his chair
tilting precariously. 'They change your life forever, kids.'

The phone rang. Heffernan signalled
Wesley to pick it up. He covered the mouthpiece and whispered. 'It's for you,
sir. Fern Ferrars.'

'I'm not here,' mouthed the inspector
before sitting back and staring into space.

'Sorry. Ms Ferrars. he's not available
right now. Can I take a message?'

He put the phone down.

'What did she say?' Heffernan tried
his best not to sound interested.

'She just said to ask if she was right
about the Armada boy. Was she?'

'Hate to admit it. Wes. but I mink I
owe her a phone call... she was spot on.'

Epilogue

The little group gathered around the
large open grave in Bereton churchyard. The bright May sunshine glinted on the
sexton's shovel as the vicar recited the words of the burial service.

The boxes containing the bones of
the seventeen Spanish sailors dug up in the excavation of Bereton chantry were
lowered reverently into the English earth. They had undergone examination at
the university laboratory and they had now come to their
final resting place amongst the villagers who had been their enemies.

Wesley looked around me assembled
faces; suitably solemn, but none bearing the marks of tears. Nobody cried for
you after four hundred years.

No sooner had he had this thought
than the tiny bundle in Pam's arms let forth a whimper which, in spite of Pam's
rocking and crooning, gradually built up into a full-blown howl. Pam left the circle
and strolled off towards the church porch to give him a
discreet feed. Hunger had a terrible urgency when you were only ten days old
and young Michael Peterson was a better baby than most... or so Pam assured his
bleary-eyed father.

Wesley stayed put, studying his
fellow mourners. Dr Parsons was there, her head draped in a black silky shawl,
showing proper respect for the bodies she had handled and studied. Neil and his
colleagues had taken time off from the continuing excavation of
the chantry college buildings. Gerry Heffernan had been keen to come when
Wesley had told him about the service. He stood with his head bowed. He hadn't mentioned
the case recently but Wesley knew that he was thinking of Judith Challinor.

Ed Johnson had come along with
Sally. His old comrades had long since returned to Buffalo and their everyday
lives. They stood, hand in hand, looking into the grave. They had told Wesley before
the service that they were settling in Devon: Sally would be
coming home to see out her days in the land of her birth.

A solitary woman stood, apart from
the rest, dressed in unadorned black. Only her shining gilt hair relieved the
gloom of her appearance. Wesley had been wrong about the tears. There were some
rolling down June Mallindale's face.

The vicar finished and the final
amen was said with feeling. As the sexton began his work, Wesley strolled
towards the porch to see how his family were faring: he was still a new enough
father for the novelty not to have worn off, and he had even found himself
changing nappies... something, his mother had told him. his father would never
have done.