“She’s married,” I explained. “Her husband is missing. That’s all I know.”
“He feels guilty?” Daphne asked.
I thought about that. There was guilt, and then there was a deeper layer, when you felt guilty that you didn’t feel guilty about something bad you did. The remnant of conscience, I remember Dad telling me. It was a few days after the argument with Basher, when he threw away that package. I came home from the evening shift to find him sitting out on the front stoop, smoking. He had started sitting on the stoop instead of up in his study for some reason, which was nice. It meant we could relax and talk. It was a fall evening and I unbuttoned my coat as we sat there, watching the cars drive slowly by and the front-porch lights wink out, one by one. Dad started to tell me about an interrogation he had run, and how he had to get at that remnant of conscience, to get a guy to show his remorse at his lack of remorse. To crack him open, he said, and start leading him down the road to confession. I remember all that he said, but what always stuck in my mind was just how nice it was sitting out there, shooting the breeze with my old man, and wondering what had led him out of his study and down to the front steps.
But that was then, and now I had to answer Daphne. Jens didn’t strike me as the strictly guilty type, but he did have a certain sadness to him, as if he had disappointed himself. Remorse could fester into guilt, especially when there was a woman involved. And a war.
“He or she or both. All I know is that she might have seen something. Jens says it’s complicated, and I can’t disagree. I asked Cosgrove to find out who on the staff might have a MIA or POW husband.”
“Maybe that’s why the girls wouldn’t tell me anything about her,” Daphne said. “They must feel sorry for her. If they disapproved, they would’ve offered her up on a plate of gossip.”
It made sense. Complicated, like Jens said.
“Did you find out what Cosgrove and Skak were doing on their walk?” Kaz asked.
“Skak takes a walk every morning at six. A man of precise habits, he says. Cosgrove, whom I don’t see as the walking type, supposedly asked to go along to talk about Skak’s plans for the underground. When I asked Cosgrove about it, he politely told me that it was a matter of security and to butt out.”
“So we found out nothing today,” Daphne said sadly.
“Something else happened.” I gestured for them to lean in closer and whispered to them about the maps. Their eyes widened in surprise. It felt good to impart something new, even if it didn’t help to figure out who the spy or the killer was.
“Who do you think-,” Kaz asked before I cut him off.
“We shouldn’t talk anymore about it here,” I whispered. “But there’s something else. It hit me today that the live round fired during the exercise wasn’t aimed at me. It was a near miss, aimed at Birkeland.”
“That means it was a planned murder,” Kaz said thoughtfully. “The killer missed Birkeland at the exercise, so he got him in his room.”
“In both cases, he went to great lengths to cover his tracks. If that bullet had hit Birkeland, there wouldn’t have been any suspicion at all. It would’ve been just a tragic accident,” I said. “But once you see both events as connected, then it’s obvious it was premeditated murder.”
“Murder? Or assassination?” Daphne asked in a low voice. “Are the maps and his death connected?”
“Connected, maybe, but I can’t really see the same person at work on both. What’s the advantage to the Germans of killing Birkeland? He was an important member of government, but what effect would his death have on the war?”
“None, really,” shrugged Kaz.
“That’s awfully callous, darling,” responded Daphne.
“Yes, it is. But detectives must be objective and dispassionate, yes, Billy?”
“That’s a good place to start, Kaz. But it usually gets complicated, much more complicated than you ever bargained for.”
I thought about Jens again, and how he had described his relationship with the mystery woman. Complicated, but how complicated? Just how deep had he gotten himself? Were we sure the spy was a man? I drained my glass and went to the bar. This was thirsty work. Robert pulled another pint for me and I returned to my seat.
“Daphne,” I asked as I sat down, “what do you know about Major Cosgrove?”
“He seems very well connected to intelligence circles. We think he works for MI-5, British military intelligence. But he claims to be just a liaison from the British General Staff, which fits in with his role here, so maybe our imaginations are overactive. Why? You don’t suspect him of anything, do you?”
“Before we got here, did either of you ever tell him anything about me?” Kaz and Daphne looked at each other, maybe thinking I had drunk my limit. They each shrugged.
“No,” Kaz answered. “We hadn’t seen Major Cosgrove since a week before you got here. Why?”
I leaned in and whispered again. This was getting to be a habit.
“When we first got here, and Cosgrove walked in on us, he said two things about me. First, in Harding’s room, he said he doubted a lieutenant fresh from the States could find a spy when MI-5 had failed.”
“So?” Daphne asked.
“So how did he know I was fresh from the States? I could’ve been here for months.”
“Well,” said Kaz, “most Americans are here fresh from the States. It could have just been an informed guess.”
“Could have,” I agreed. “But I doubt he could have guessed I was from Boston.”
“What do you mean?” Kaz asked.
“Later, at lunch, when I said I hadn’t heard about the gold being smuggled out of Norway, he got snotty and asked if they didn’t report the war news in Boston. It didn’t strike me until later, but then I asked myself-how did he know those two things-that I was new here and from Boston?”
“You do have a distinctive accent, Billy,” Kaz said, thinking it through. “You tend to drop your r’s at the end of a word. It’s noticeable, but then I’m a student of language. Is that a purely Boston accent?”
“Yeah, I guess so. But would an Englishman know what a Boston accent sounded like? Not a Beacon Hill accent, but a real Irish South Boston delivery?”
“No,” said Daphne. “You do sound terribly American, but I wouldn’t know a New York accent from a Boston one unless you pointed out the difference. I doubt Major Cosgrove would either. He’s not very fond of Americans, you know, thinks them brash and arrogant. He’d think it beneath him to discern any difference.”
“What do you think,” I asked her, “about Americans?”
“You are brash and arrogant, or at least more so than we English. We could use more brashness and you a bit less. But, back to Cosgrove. What do you think it means, if he knows more about you than he lets on?”
“I think it means he can’t be trusted.”
“Here you are, my dears!” Mildred’s singsong voice interrupted us as she laid down three steaming plates of fish and chips. “You tuck into that now!”
I inhaled the delicious aroma of the fried fish. I glanced up at Daphne and Kaz, who were looking at each other in stunned silence, taking in what it might mean not to be able to trust a representative of the General Staff, if that was what he really was. Kaz’s glasses steamed up, and I thought, Right, that’s just how I feel. Can’t see a damned thing and no clue as to what the hell is going on.
“Not trust him? What does that mean?” asked Daphne, as she absorbed the implications. “Why would the major hide the fact that he knows something about you? There must be a reasonable explanation.”
“Yes, what purpose would it serve?” Kaz asked as he wiped his glasses.
“Excellent questions. I mean to pursue them tomorrow, among other things. Right now I intend to demolish this plate of food.”
I tried to sound confident and upbeat. In charge. Three pints later I almost believed it myself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“No, Boyle, you cannot question the king!”