Fallen Skies Read online

  The doorbell rang, and they fell silent, waiting for Browning to answer it. She put her head around the drawing room door and spoke to Muriel. “It’s that police inspector again,” she said. “Am I to show him into the study?”

  “Yes please, Browning,” Muriel said. “Mr. Winters will come to him at once.”

  Stephen got wearily to his feet. “Just a minute, old man,” Dr. Mobey said gently. “Permit the family doctor and an old friend to delay you a moment?”

  Stephen smiled patiently. “Yes, Dr. Mobey?”

  “Take a cup of your mother’s excellent coffee, and a drop of brandy in it, and a couple of these biscuits. The body is an engine, remember. It needs stoking if you’re going to make it overwork.”

  Stephen smiled. “A superannuated boiler this morning,” he said. He rang the bell for the brandy decanter and took a generous measure in his coffee cup. He paused to eat the biscuits and then he went from the room.

  At the study door he hesitated. The inspector was not alone. He could hear Lily’s high strained voice through the wood of the door. She must have seen the police car draw up and pattered downstairs and slipped into the study before Browning had even opened the front door.

  “I’ve been thinking and thinking,” he heard her say. “I can’t get it straight in my head. Will you tell me again, how it happened?”

  Stephen opened the door a crack, the well-oiled hinges making no sound.

  “I think it was someone who knew the baby was put out at nine every day, someone like Mr. Charles Smith,” the inspector said slowly and patiently. “I think someone else, an accomplice, was waiting and watching the garden. When they saw you go in for the telephone call—or when they knew the telephone call would come—they slipped in the garden gate, they wheeled the pram out of the garden, and then they walked quickly north up the road, away from the sea. By the time you were back out in the garden, they were several roads away. By the time you had called the police and we had started searching they were in hiding.”

  “I heard a car,” Lily said suddenly.

  The inspector said nothing.

  “I heard a car,” Lily said again.

  “When was this?” His voice was suddenly sharp and interested.

  “When I was in the hall. Mrs. Winters had asked me to take her into Southsea. I heard a car drawing away. The noise that a car makes in first gear. It went”—Lily gestured southwards, to the sea, with her hand—“that way.”

  “Perhaps a delivery van, a baker’s van, calling at the kitchen.”

  “No.” Her voice was suddenly sure. “It was a car, a car like ours. It made the same sort of noise as our Argyll. It was a limousine engine. I heard the car door slam and it drove away, it paused at the junction and drove off.”

  Stephen went swiftly into the room. “Good morning again, Inspector,” he said pleasantly.

  Lily turned a white face towards him. Her hair was unkempt and ragged, her eyes were rubbed and red. The navy blue cardigan was half-off one shoulder. She looked distraught, like a drunk or a madwoman.

  “I heard a car,” she said.

  “Just now?” Stephen asked kindly. “Yes. That was the inspector coming to see me. You heard his car and you came downstairs, didn’t you? You were quite right. That was his car.”

  Lily frowned. “Not then,” she said. “When Christopher was taken. I heard a car.”

  Stephen hid a little sigh and kept his face gentle. “Well, tell the inspector anything you want to, darling,” he said. “And then you’d better go back to your room. Browning was going to bring you some cinnamon milk.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Lily said warningly. “I won’t be given anything to make me sleep.”

  Stephen shook his head reassuringly. “You shall have nothing that you don’t want,” he said kindly. “Do you want to go up now? While I see what the inspector has to say?”

  Lily turned again to Inspector Walker. “I did hear a car,” she said. “They took him in a car.”

  The inspector nodded. “I’ll check on that, Mrs. Winters,” he promised. The sergeant made a note in his little book. “I’ll check on it without fail. No-one saw the pram and that may be why. It could have been loaded into a car. I’ll check on it, don’t worry.”

  “You don’t know where he is?” Lily asked. Her eyes, fixed on the inspector, were huge and black in her pale face. “You still don’t know?”

  “We still don’t know,” he said. “But I promise you we are looking all the time for him.”

  Lily nodded and went from the room. Stephen watched her go up the stairs to her bedroom and then went back to the inspector and closed the door.

  “I’m afraid she’s taking this very badly,” he said. Unconsciously he touched the scratch on the side of his face. “Our family doctor thinks that she should go to a convalescent home for nervous women until this is all over. He thinks we cannot care for her properly here.”

  “Did you have a quarrel?” the inspector asked, thinking of Charlie Smith’s allegations that Stephen was violent to his wife.

  Stephen shook his head. “Hardly!” he said. “I’m not the man to take out my worries on my wife. She got hysterical and slapped my face because I was trying to stop her telephoning every one of her friends, and every one of my mother’s friends, to interrogate them. She seems to think that we are all in a conspiracy to kidnap Christopher. She cannot accept that Charlie is responsible. My mother has told me that Lily was encouraging him. I’m afraid they were having an affair and it’s got out of hand. I think Lily cannot bear her guilt.”

  “No car then?” the inspector queried.

  Stephen raised his shoulders. “How can one tell? Charlie Smith doesn’t have a car, and I don’t believe he has any friends with limousines! If Lily can make herself believe she heard a big car drive off, and if she can persuade us all that the pram was loaded into a car, then she can go on believing in Charlie’s innocence. I can see that she’d rather think it was a strange kidnapper in a big car, than believe it was a friend of Charlie’s hiding and waiting, and Charlie getting her to the telephone on purpose.”

  The inspector shook his head sympathetically, one eye on Stephen. “A terrible mess,” he said.

  Stephen shrugged, his face bitter. “I’d be more shocked about the affair if it were not for the baby being missing,” he said. “With Christopher gone—” He broke off. “Nothing else matters right now. That’s the most important.” He shrugged. “We’re expecting another doctor to come during the morning to see Lily. An expert on nervous diseases. He won’t disturb you. He just needs to see her.”

  The inspector nodded. “Are they going to certify your wife, Mr. Winters?” he asked curiously.

  Stephen flushed. “No!” he exclaimed. “Of course not. Nothing like that! It’s just that you need the opinion of two doctors to send her to this rest home.”

  “Will Mrs. Winters consent to go—while her baby is still missing?”

  “I think she must,” Stephen said frankly. “She flew at me this morning, she insisted on having my mother’s address book. She was sleepwalking last night, and she got hysterical during the day. I think she must get some help. I’ve seen chaps in the trenches crack up, and they were in better shape than she is now. Whether she wants to go or not, I think we have to take the medical advice.”

  The inspector nodded. “I am very sorry,” he said. “This must be an unbearable strain for her.”

  “Yes. And since she is partly responsible . . .”

  The inspector nodded. “Perhaps it would be better if she had some professional care,” he said.

  • • •

  The inspector had a list of Charlie’s friends and contacts in Portsmouth, and throughout the morning the police constables on the team turned in brief reports on the whereabouts of every single one for the crucial hour around ten o’clock. Inspector Walker and his sergeant sat at Stephen’s desk at number two, The Parade and classified each report into a pile of those with a foolproof al