Fallen Skies Read online

  “Off Palmerston Road,” Lily said. “Excuse me, Sir, but are there men looking for Christopher, now?”

  He nodded. “Yes, there are,” he said. “What I have to do is to see if you, or anyone in this house, can think of any reason why your child should have been taken. That’s my job and you can help me do it.”

  Lily frowned in concentration. “I can’t think of anyone,” she said. “I really can’t.”

  “Is there any member of staff that you don’t get on well with?” the inspector asked. “This is your husband’s family, isn’t it? Anyone you wouldn’t employ if you had the choice?”

  “Only the nanny,” Lily said very quietly.

  “Oh?”

  “My husband insisted we had a nanny. I never wanted one. She knows I don’t like her. I’m sure she doesn’t like me. But she was upstairs all the time. She couldn’t have had anything to do with it.”

  “Did she have proper references? D’you know where she came from?”

  “Oh yes, all of that. But the children she was caring for before she came to us had died. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like her.”

  “Are you saying she is negligent?”

  Lily shook her head. “No. It was an accident. I just think she is . . .” She searched for the right word. “Cold,” she said. “Uncaring.”

  The inspector nodded. “Was it her job to supervise the baby?”

  Lily thought for a moment. “I’m not really supposed to be in the garden with him,” she said honestly. “Nanny is supposed to have him all day and I am only supposed to see him at tea time. But she knows I go out to see him, and Rory, my father-in-law, often has him brought to us so I can see him during the day, or walk with him in the afternoon.”

  The inspector frowned. “You’re not supposed to see him during the day?” he repeated.

  Lily looked embarrassed. “They think I spoil him,” she said. “He’s to be brought up by the nanny. I’m only allowed to see him at set times.”

  “So the child was her responsibility at the time he was taken?”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “Yes he was, really. She watches him from the window as she tidies the nursery.”

  The inspector nodded. “I think that’s all for now then, Mrs. Winters. I would prefer it if you did not answer the phone for today, even if it is a friend asking to speak to you. If the people who have taken your son get in touch we want to make sure that we handle the phone call in the right way.”

  “D’you think they might telephone to give him back?” Lily’s pale face was suddenly alive with hope.

  “They might very well, or they might write a note asking for money. Either way, this should be handled by the constable or by your husband. Please let your husband open all your letters, and don’t take any phone calls today.”

  Lily nodded. “I should like to speak to Charlie when he rings,” she said. Her mouth quivered slightly. “I need to speak to him.”

  “Would you object to my listening to the call?”

  Lily looked surprised. “No.”

  “Do you expect him to telephone again today?”

  “He’ll phone from London, to tell me if he gets the job.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  Inspector Walker nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s just routine. We always monitor all telephone calls in these circumstances.”

  “Does this happen often then?” Lily asked. “Someone takes a baby and then brings it back?”

  “Sometimes,” the inspector said. The hope in Lily’s face made him uncomfortable.

  The clock on the mantelpiece chimed twelve. Lily looked up and got to her feet, thinking of Christopher’s lunch. Then the sudden realization that he was not in the house hit her like a blow and she staggered.

  “I suggest you have a lie down, Mrs. Winters,” the inspector said gently. “If you think of anything you want to tell me I shall be here all day. I will keep you in touch with whatever happens.”

  “Thank you,” Lily said stiffly. She went slowly from the room, walking awkwardly, as if her feet hurt. The two men were silent until the door closed behind her.

  The sergeant turned the page and looked at the inspector.

  “A little list,” the inspector suggested. “Just a little provisional list, and then we’ll interview everyone else in the house.”

  The sergeant waited, pen poised.

  “The nanny, whom the mother dislikes. The nanny’s previous employer—whoever that is—the mother whose child died. Mrs. Stephen Winters herself—to get the nanny sacked. Mr. Charlie Smith—for interest’s sake, his name seems to come up first. Any girlfriends of Mr. Winters the husband. Any men from his platoon. Wasn’t he in some forlorn hope and got half of them killed? What about the dead men’s families? Anyone from his work. Any unhappy clients.” He paused. “That’s all I can think of, for now.”

  “Not a lot of love lost between the mother-in-law and the young Mrs. Winters,” the sergeant observed.

  “Not a lot of love lost between any of them,” the inspector said grimly. “But still, I wouldn’t know. Perhaps they feel it, but don’t show it. That’s what they say, isn’t it? The stiff upper lip and all that?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Who next?”

  “The loving mother-in-law: Mrs. Winters.”

  38

  MURIEL TOOK INTERROGATION as an affront. She had moved the inspector’s headquarters from the dining room to Stephen’s study, so that the dining room table could be laid for lunch; but then found she was offended at the man taking the chair behind the desk and leaving her to sit before him, like an applicant parlourmaid.

  Inspector Walker took her through the short list of all her friends who regularly called at the house, and through her acquaintances among the neighbours. If he thought Muriel’s life sounded lonely and barren there was no sign of it on his face. He noted the unspoken depth of her feeling for her grandson, and her coolness towards her daughter-in-law and invalid husband. He asked her about the staff of the house and she spoke of them with unflinching confidence. Most of them had been with her since Stephen was a small boy.

  “And what about Mrs. Winters’s friends?” he asked easily. “A wide circle of friends she has, I see.”

  “My daughter-in-law was a professional singer before her marriage. Many of her friends still visit us,” Muriel said.

  The inspector noted a slight tightening around the woman’s neck and shoulders.

  “Especially Mr. Smith,” he prompted gently. “She tells me.”

  Muriel stiffened. “He teaches her the piano, he is her accompanist and a friend of the family,” she said firmly. “I am not sure that your questions are relevant.”

  “I’m just trying to get an overall picture of the household. Your daily routine and so on. Mrs. Winters spends every afternoon with Mr. Smith, does she not?”

  Muriel looked at him frostily. “She practises her music every afternoon, yes.”

  “And he is fond of the child?”

  “I have no idea.”

  There was a brief silence. “Mr. Winters now, Mr. Stephen Winters, does he work late?”

  “My son is always home for dinner at seven.”

  “He’s very close to his child, I assume? Spends a lot of time with him when he can?”

  “Yes.”

  “Takes him out at the weekend, pushes the pram along the seafront, that sort of thing?”

  Muriel sighed and then spoke very carefully. “We have a fully trained nanny who works every day except for Thursday afternoons. There is no need for Stephen to push a pram.”

  “And, forgive me, Mr. and Mrs. Winters, newly married, they’re perfectly happy, are they? No stress and strain, very common with young couples?”

  “Of course not,” Muriel said, at her most icy.

  The inspector nodded. Muriel’s face was pale with indignation but there was something about her eyes, the tiniest quiver at her eyelid, that made him disbelieve her. “A normal