Fallen Skies Read online

  Stephen shuddered again at the thought of Lily’s blank-faced stare at his sleeping mother, at Nanny Janes.

  “I went into every room,” Lily said in a vague frightening sing-song voice. “I looked under the beds and in the wardrobes. No-one stirred. They were all dead. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find him. Then I looked in the garden. I’ve searched everywhere, Stephen. Where is he?”

  Stephen put a firm arm around her shoulders and marched her towards the steps. He forced her up them, into the dining room and thrust her into a dining chair. He poured her a glass of brandy and made her drink it. When two red spots appeared in her white cheeks, he had one himself, and took the chair opposite her and held her hands.

  “You must try and be brave, darling,” he said with infinite patience. “You really must try and get a grip of yourself or you’ll crack up, Lily. I know, I’ve seen it happen. It’s true. Christopher’s been kidnapped and Charlie’s arrested for the crime. The inspector said to tell you that he’s doing the best he can to find Christopher. The very best he can.”

  Lily’s face showed no expression. Her hands clasped his lightly in return, but huge tears gathered constantly in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks until her face was wet and the table between her hands was splashed. Stephen watched with a disbelieving curiosity. He had not known that a woman could grieve so much. He had not known that a human being could feel so much. The trenches had hardened him so swiftly that he felt pain only in his dreams. Now he watched his wife’s silent, unstoppable tears, and knew that she had loved Christopher in a way that he could not begin to understand.

  “Time for bed,” he said gently.

  He took her up the stairs and she went obediently, like a little girl. He mixed her another of the doctor’s sleeping draughts and she sipped at it. But still the big tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped to the sheet. She did not seem to notice.

  Stephen arranged the pillows behind her and she lay back. When she closed her eyes as she was bidden, the tears still welled up underneath the closed eyelids and trickled down each side of her face. Stephen put out the bedside light on her side, but kept his own switched on, so that he could watch her as she fell asleep. She lay very still as the drug took effect but even when she was breathing regularly, and was deeply asleep, she still wept. Stephen, locking their bedroom door to prevent her sleepwalking again, wondered if she would cry in her sleep, in silence, all night. Cry and cry for the loss of her baby, without knowing where he might be.

  40

  STEPHEN WAS PREPARED TO BE TENDER with Lily in the morning, but she was no longer the weeping wraith who had haunted the moonlit garden. She awoke brittle and irritable. She took only twenty minutes to dress in a long navy skirt, a blue blouse and an unflattering long navy cardigan. She would have no breakfast but a cup of black coffee. She asked Coventry to drive her to the police station. She was going to see the inspector.

  Muriel, tested to the very edge of good manners, said that Lily had much better stay at home, see the doctor, who would be calling soon, and wait for news.

  Lily looked at her with hard blue eyes. “Christ only knows what they think they’re playing at,” she said blasphemously. “I’m going down there to find out.”

  Muriel looked to Stephen.

  “I’ll come too if you insist,” he said. “You’d much better stay at home, Lily. Mother’s right.”

  “My baby has disappeared. My best friend is arrested for his kidnap. No-one knows where my baby is. What the hell d’you think I’m going to do? Take up embroidery like your mother?”

  “Lily!” Stephen exclaimed. “There’s nothing to be gained by being rude to Mother!”

  Lily shot a swift mutinous look at him, and did not apologize. She went quickly to the front door and opened it. Coventry had the car outside. She went down the steps and sat in the front seat, beside him. She was not wearing hat or gloves. She looked like a common woman hitching a lift.

  “Really!” Muriel exploded and then compressed her lips. She said nothing more.

  “I suppose I’ll have to go too,” Stephen said. He called to Coventry to wait and then picked up his hat and ran down the steps and opened the front car door. “Come and get in the back, Lily,” he said. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

  “Can we just go?” she demanded.

  Coventry slipped the car into gear and drove them to the police station. Lily rode in angry silence. As soon as the car stopped she strode into the police station and demanded to see Inspector Walker.

  He came from a back room to greet them at the desk. “I was coming out to your house a little later,” he said. “I’m afraid we have no idea yet where your son is being kept.”

  “Is Charlie here?” Lily demanded.

  “He’s under arrest, yes. We’ve been questioning him most of the night.”

  “Are you going to release him?”

  “Not yet,” the inspector said cautiously.

  “You’ve got the wrong man,” Lily said baldly. “And while you’re bothering with him, Christopher is with someone else. They might even be getting away with him.”

  “I don’t think so,” the inspector said. “I know he’s your friend, Mrs. Winters. But I think we have the right man here. Why should anyone else take your baby? How could a stranger steal a child from a walled garden? It has to be someone who is close to you and your family. It’s an unpalatable fact, but you have to face it. If it is not Mr. Smith, then it is certainly another friend or a faithful servant. All the circumstances point to it being someone who knew the routine of the house. Someone who even knew that you were inside on the telephone.”

  Lily shook her head. Stephen made a soft exclamation.

  “Would you step into my office, Mrs. Winters?” the inspector asked. As Stephen moved forwards too, the inspector made a little gesture. “In private, if you don’t mind, Mr. Winters.”

  “Right-ho—I’ll wait here, shall I?”

  They nodded at each other, as men who understand that women have to be managed, then Lily followed the inspector into his office.

  “Firstly I have a message for you from Mr. Smith,” the inspector said, taking his seat behind his desk.

  Lily looked at him and the clutter on his desk. She took in the dark green filing cabinet in the corner full of records of dreary crimes, the clouded glass of the window behind his head and the stale smell of an overused office.

  “He asked me to tell you that he was thinking of you all the time, that you are in his heart,” the inspector said.

  Lily did not even blush. “Yes,” she said. Her voice was firm.

  “You asked me why I think Mr. Smith took your baby,” the inspector said quietly. “I did not want to tell you in front of your husband, but I must ask you to deal with this calmly and sensibly.”

  “Yes,” Lily said flatly.

  He hesitated. The doubt that a young mother could take anything calmly and sensibly was written on his face. But he went on. “I believe that Mr. Smith hoped to persuade you to leave your husband by taking your baby away. I think he hoped that you would then join him and the baby, and start divorce proceedings against Mr. Winters.”

  Lily’s angry glare could not have been assumed for effect. “This is ridiculous,” she said.

  “We know that he spoke of divorce to you,” the inspector said patiently. “We know that he was anxious that you should leave Mr. Winters. We know that he is in love with you.”

  Lily never wavered. “All that’s true,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean that he would take Christopher. Where would he take him? How could he take him while he was talking on the telephone to me? Why haven’t you found Christopher if you’ve got Charlie?”

  “We believe he has a confederate who has the baby in hiding,” the inspector suggested.

  Lily was watching him intently. “Another kidnapper?” she asked.

  The inspector nodded. “There are women who would do it for money,” he said. “If there was enough mon