The Rest is Silence (Billy Boyle World War II Mystery) (15 page)

“Don’t they grow enough food to feed themselves?” David asked.

“No,” Edgar said. “Not everywhere in India, anyway. Each province is very protective of its own food sources. The British governor of Madras banned exports of rice from his province to make sure there was enough for his own people. Then the other provinces followed suit. It was every man for himself.”

“It sounds like madness,” Kaz said.

“More than you know, Baron,” Edgar said, his eyes focusing on something far away. “I went to Bengal, to see for myself. It was ghastly. People were dropping dead in the streets, their arms outstretched as they begged to the last gasp. Those still walking about were emaciated and weak from disease. The worst part was that some speculators had kept their rice stocks locked up for so long that they had spoiled. Moldy bags ripped open by rats were stacked six feet high in one warehouse I visited.”

“Couldn’t the government have done something? Or the army?” David asked.

“The army had orders not to use their limited supply for famine relief,” Edgar said. “If they had, it would have disappeared in a matter of days. Soldiers of all ranks gave food when they could, but it only
postponed the inevitable. Others were quite callous. Bengal is mainly Muslim, and as you know Muslims do not eat pork. I saw a convoy of trucks pass through Durgapur, our soldiers throwing pieces of bacon at the starving wretches lining the road, laughing as they did so.”

“Why have we never heard of this?” Peter asked.

“Because it would reflect badly on the British government, that’s why,” Edgar said. “Are all Americans as naïve as you?”

“Don’t take it out on Peter,” I said. “There are plenty of people in this country who would never believe their government would cover up the starvation of millions.” I didn’t add that I was not one of them. My Irish ancestors had starved at the hands of the English in the last century, so dying Muslim subjects in this decade came as no surprise.

“Sorry,” Edgar said. “I sometimes lose my head over this. It was hard to leave it all behind and return to England, where people complain about rationing, for God’s sake.”

“But why
did
you return?” David asked.

“I was sacked. I’d given information to a journalist, Ian Stephens, from the Calcutta
Statesman
. He published two accounts of the famine before the censors clamped down.”

“How did they know it was you?” I asked.

“No proof, really, other than I was always out of step with the other officials. ‘In danger of going native,’ one of my colleagues said. And some of the information Stephens had could only have come from a few people, and I was the most likely candidate.”

“Meredith must not have been pleased,” David said.

“She accused me of throwing away a splendid opportunity,” Edgar said. “The Sutcliffe predilection for sacred opportunity seems to have been successfully passed down from father to daughter.” He looked into his glass, wrinkling his brow as if he was trying to figure out why it was empty. “The funny thing is, I did manage to make money there, aside from my salary. I followed Sir Rupert’s advice and contacted a businessman friend of his. I put what money I had into rice futures, not realizing what was about to happen. Made a bundle.” He held out his glass, and I filled it up.

“But not enough to live on, I assume?” David said. “Which is why you’re here.”

“Of course. Meredith insisted we give it another go with dear Papa. Useless, in my opinion, since what I did goes against everything he believes in. So, that’s our dirty little family secret.”

“What was it you told the journalist, exactly?” Kaz asked. “The information that gave you away, I mean.”

“I gave him the reply from Winston Churchill to a cable sent to him by Viceroy Wavell last year. Wavell had asked Churchill for more food to be shipped in. Churchill’s reply was, ‘If food is so scarce in India, why has Gandhi not yet died?’ He did not care one whit about starving Indians.”

“Was it really so brazen?” Peter asked. “At the risk of sounding naïve again, it seems incredible.”

“Your Canadian neighbors offered to ship one hundred thousand tons of wheat to India,” Edgar said, sitting forward in his chair, his indignation still fresh. “Churchill turned them down. He didn’t want to divert shipping from the war effort. All along I had thought saving lives was what this war was all about. So you see, my American friend, I was the most naïve of all.”

“What will you do?” I asked.

“When we’ve worn out our welcome, you mean?” Edgar said. “I can probably find a job teaching again. That was the only work I actually enjoyed.”

“What did you teach?” Kaz asked.

“English literature. Elizabethan studies, that sort of thing. I’d rather read and teach Shakespeare than anything else.”

“And your wife, how does she feel about that sort of career?” I asked.

“Are you married, Captain Boyle?” Edgar asked in reply. I shook my head. “Then you wouldn’t understand,” he said.

“ ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind,’ ” Kaz said.

“Ah,
Hamlet
,” Edgar said, nodding in agreement.

He and Kaz began to talk about plays. David drifted away and Peter yawned. I went to bed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I
LAY AWAKE
, the brandy sitting dully in my gut. I hadn’t drunk enough of it to forget the foreboding I’d felt when the BBC announcer had reported the raid on the Gestapo headquarters. Or prison. One and the same, in any case.

A lot has happened to me in this war, mostly things I never would have expected. Like falling in love with an Englishwoman, for one. Lady Diana Seaton, to be exact. I often wonder what it would be like to bring an English aristocrat home to meet my Irish family in South Boston. Then I remember Diana is in the Special Operations Executive, and making it to the end of the war might not be in the cards for her. The last time I’d seen her was a few weeks ago, before she was whisked away to an SOE training camp in Scotland. Or so they told me. For all I knew, she could be parachuting into occupied France at this very moment. Maybe even in the hands of the Gestapo, or on the run from them.

Diana felt she had to do her bit, as the English are fond of saying. The only problem with that comes when you fail to realize your bit has had a good long run of luck, and nothing lasts forever. I imagined Diana in the Scottish Highlands, sleeping in a tent and being awakened before dawn by a nasty sergeant major to endure morning calisthenics in the cold rain. That made me feel better, and sleep eventually overcame worry.

I
N THE MORNING
, Kaz was irritatingly chipper. We went down to breakfast and found Peter Wiley drinking tea and eating toast. As a trained detective, I observed him rubbing his temples and deduced he had a hangover, and that he wasn’t used to drinking to excess. Good for him.

David seemed none the worse for wear, and I wondered if serious amounts of liquor on the ground were frequently deployed against the horror of combat in the air. Or if ample doses of gin helped the Guinea Pig Club face the terror of surgeries. Either way, he had an immunity that I envied on that bright and sunny morning. Meredith and Edgar were absent. When I had finished eating, having managed to do justice to eggs, toast, and heaps of marmalade, I stepped out onto the veranda to try some of that fresh air. Sir Rupert was standing on the stone steps leading down to the expansive lawn, hands stuffed in the pockets of his wool suit coat.

“Captain Boyle,” he said, turning at the sound of my footsteps. “I was about to come and seek you out. Will you take a short walk with me? The air smells wonderful today, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I said, falling in beside him and catching the aroma of lavender from the borders on either side of the gravel path. “How are you feeling, Sir Rupert?”

“Much better, Captain. I never know when that blasted fever will lay me low. The doctors say there’s nothing they can do. No cure, but at least most people don’t die of it. Some comfort, eh?”

“Is there anything I can do for you, Sir Rupert?” I knew he didn’t want to talk about breakbone fever.

“You seem like a decent man, Captain Boyle,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. I waited. “And without connections to our family, which is important. You see, there’s something I need to know, but I can’t talk to anyone else about it. Do you understand?”

“An outsider provides perspective,” I said, guessing.

“Yes, exactly. That is what I need. Perspective. You see, ever since Peter Wiley walked into the room yesterday, I’ve been haunted by something I thought I’d never confront again. Do I have your confidence, Captain? Will you keep what I say between us?”

“Kaz—the baron—and I are partners. I don’t keep secrets from my partner. But otherwise, I’ll keep what you tell me in confidence.”

“Very well,” he said as the path descended to the river below. “I leave it up to you, but I ask that you do not repeat this to the baron unless you feel it absolutely necessary, and in that event, you caution him to keep it confidential.” I nodded my agreement, and we strolled, more slowly now, as I waited for him to continue.

“It was during the last war,” he finally said. “I served in France with the army and was wounded. Shrapnel in my legs and back. The doctors left some in. Too close to nerves to remove, they said. I was at home, recuperating. Meredith was a young child and Helen not yet born. Meredith’s birth was difficult, and Louise—my wife—took quite a while to recover. Physically and otherwise.” I could see his face redden, although he kept staring at the ground.

“I understand, sir.”

“Yes, well, the thing of it is, Julia Greenshaw, the maid who went to America. She and I became close.” Even with my cobwebbed mind, I understood. “Once I had recovered, I found work with the Foreign Office in London. Upon my return to Ashcroft, I found that Julia had been sent away, along with Ted Wiley, our groundskeeper. Louise said she knew all about my indiscretion, and had paid Julia to go to America. She claimed Ted had always cared for Julia, and had proposed as soon as he learned she was leaving. I was distraught, ashamed, and had no idea what to do next.”

“Did you try and get in touch with her?” I asked.

“I would have, but no one had an address. So I put her out of my mind, as best I could.”

“Until Peter Wiley walked into your house, wearing that ring,” I said.

“Yes! You can see now why it affected me so. I was shocked to see that ring, in particular.”

“Why?”

“It was Louise’s, of course, being from the Pemberton family.”

“Could Julia have stolen it? Or Ted Wiley?” I asked. “To get back at Louise, I mean, not for the value of it.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Sir Rupert said. “Julia was not the type of woman to steal, especially not from the house that employed her. No.”

“What is it exactly you want me to do, Sir Rupert?”

He turned and faced me, this time looking straight into my eyes. “I want you to find out if Peter Wiley is my son.”

“How can I do that?” I asked. “Julia and Ted Wiley are both dead. Who would know?”

“I don’t know how, Captain. You’re the investigator. I assume General Eisenhower has you on staff because you know your business. Investigate, ask people. Please,” he added, changing his tone when he seemed to remember he was asking for a favor, not issuing orders.

“Have you thought about asking Peter directly?” I said.

“I have,” he said with a sigh, resuming our walk along the path. “But he might not know. And I would be accusing his mother of an affair, not to mention coming off as a cad myself, which is not far from the truth.”

“What would you have done if she hadn’t left?”

“Good God, that’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times.” He stopped again, looking across Bow Creek at the small stone cottages on the opposite shore. “Julia and I were happy. I know it was wrong, but it wasn’t a cheap, sordid affair, the landowner chasing the maid sort of thing.”

“Did you and she talk about a future together?” Until a moment ago, that would have been none of my business. But if I was going to look into the paternity of Peter Wiley, now it was my business.

“Yes, but it never amounted to anything. Louise was depressed, and I was worried about her. A divorce might have pushed her over the edge. Julia and I did speak of going off together, since divorce would have been such a scandal, but it was only a daydream. We cared about each other, which is why it was such a shock when I learned she’d left. Now I think I understand. Louise gave her a way out. Bearing a bastard child would have ruined her.”

“You think Louise bribed her to leave? And Ted Wiley?”

“Sadly, I think that might have been the case. Perhaps Wiley did have feelings for her, and took his chance at happiness, even knowing
who the father was. It might not have been a bad match, at that. Please, Captain Boyle, I have to know. Will you do what you can?”

Sir Rupert looked as down as a grown man could without shedding tears. The past can rip you apart: the missed chances, the lost loves, the joys that never were—things that gleam like silver in comparison with the daily grind of today, the
now
in which this thickset, grey, middle-aged Rupert Sutcliffe found himself. Youthful daydreams are best forgotten, but his had just walked in on him, and he couldn’t give up hope that something was left of those magical days of secret love. A son.