I walked over to the chest of drawers and began to pull them out one by one. In the second, on top of a slim photo album, I found the missing pictures. But the black edging had been removed.
I started to flick through the album. There were no wedding photos; perhaps they were bound separately? Then, on a page all by themselves were three photos of Kate Graveney. One was hand-tinted and she smiled out at me in a way I could only dream about. Without thinking what I was doing, I unpicked it from its corners and slipped it into my inside pocket. Every soldier needs a pin-up.
I kept turning the pages and found myself time-travelling. There were no captions, just dates under some of them. Tony and Liza grew steadily younger; they were children and sometimes they were with Liza’s mother and twice with a man whom I assumed was the father. But of whom? I’d heard of childhood sweethearts getting married but this was carrying it too far.
I glanced at my watch and saw with a jolt that my hour was almost up. Sometimes she took less. I slammed the album shut and slipped out of the room, casting it back into impenetrable dark. I got as far as the door when I heard the footsteps coming up the path. I froze; my heart stopped. I began stepping backwards away from the door. Footsteps climbed the stairs. I saw the shadow of a head and shoulders through the frosted glass. I would make a run for it out the back. I prayed the scullery door had its key in it.
I’d reached the end of the hall when the letterbox crashed and I heard the sound of envelopes hitting the floor.
I slumped to the ground and waited for the nausea to pass. I wanted a cigarette, badly, and gave myself a shake. There was no time left. I turned over and crawled to the door. I picked up the two letters and saw they were addressed to Caldwell all right: a Miss Caldwell. I dropped them, got to my feet and opened the door. I listened for a second, heard nothing and walked brazenly out, pulling the door behind me. I couldn’t afford the time to relock the big bolt;
Miss Liza Caldwell would have to believe she forgot to lock it on her way out.
I walked back down Willow Road towards the Heath, in the opposite direction to where she’d be coming from, cut off on to the path and up into the trees, whistling like I’d lost my dog. When I was far enough away I found a log and sat on it and smoked till my hands stopped shaking. I made a very long detour through the woods until I could pick up the High Street.
As the underground rocked me south I sprawled in my seat, emotionally and physically drained. I chain-smoked all the way. I’d gone one step forward and two back. I took out Kate’s photo and stared at the daring eyes looking for answers. I rehearsed what I’d found: people wrote to Liza as Miss. Widows don’t call themselves miss, or if they did, they’d revert to their maiden name.
Tony and Liza had known each other since they were children. They might or might not be married. If they were, it looked like a marriage of convenience to cover up an arrangement between Tony and Kate. But why would they want to hide it? Yet the top floor bedroom – boudoir more like – was furnished for a couple. An intimate couple. Catriona/Kate was named next of kin in Tony’s SOE file, and Kate and Liza were much too pally for women who should have been rivals – even if the man was dead.
And that’s what I kept coming back to: if nothing else was what it seemed, was Major Tony bloody Caldwell really dead?
I picked up a bottle on my way home. I wondered if Val would come by, and had a bit of bread and jam to see me through for a while. Kate’s photo I carefully placed in her file in my drawer.
I turned on the radio and was in time to hear the six o’clock news. I wished I hadn’t. The first item was the discovery of a fourth body in Soho. The killing had taken place in the last three days; it was hard for the police to give an exact time and day, as the victim had lived alone after separation from her husband. She’d taken in callers to make ends meet. At first, because she wasn’t a known prostitute, the police had discounted the connection. But the method of killing was consistent with the other three murders: bloody, brutal, wounds to head and body.
All during the last three days – when I’d been here, incapacitated, but wandering around in my delirium…
Val found me later with the bottle at my feet. It was as good as empty. She made me stick my fingers down my throat until I brought most of it up in the sink. I felt like death, wanted death. All Wilson’s innuendo and Doc Thompson’s guarded analysis, all my own visions of hell, added up to one thing: my blackout two days ago had coincided with the murder of this young woman. I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to find a pattern of such coincidences stretching back over the three other killings. I was Mr Hyde. Maybe Scotch was my secret potion.
“Why do you do this, Danny?” She pointed at the bottle.
It was a good question. And the usual flip answer “to forget” rang a bit hollow in the circumstances. I had no problems on that score.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do. I can take it. Is it about something you’ve remembered?” Her dark eyes looked huge in the flickering light. She sat in her usual place, hunkered down in front of the flames.
I shook my head. “You know I get these blackouts. I don’t know where I go or what I do during them. I thought I just collapsed. Went to bed. Had bad dreams and came out of it feeling like shit. But I think… I think I sometimes go out.
And it scares me to death!”
She must have seen the terror in my face for she scuttled over and knelt at my feet. She gazed up at me. “I’ve been here once, when, you know, you had a funny turn. And that’s all you did; you went to bed. You were tossing and turning and carrying on, but you weren’t in any state to be out wandering the streets.”
That gave me hope. But I wasn’t convinced, no matter how much I wanted to be.
“Val, Valerie. These murders. The ones in the paper. Wilson came round accusing me of them. He raided my office. He found my clippings – the articles in the newspapers – I don’t know why I keep them. But he found out about the girl who was murdered in France. And he’s putting two and two together. And so am I!”
“But you didn’t! You couldn’t! You’re not like that, Danny!”
“I wish I had your faith! Look, my doctor at the hospital told me that he wasn’t sure who I was. All he saw was the man with the bashed-in brain and that could be affecting my whole personality, making me different from what I was before.
Before France. There’s no saying if I had it in me. He said it was possible for someone to…” I didn’t want to go on. This was surely losing her. I looked away.
“Possible to what?”
I brought my eyes back round to hers. “Possible to get a taste for it. To do it again, and again. The last killing was a couple of days ago. When I had an episode. It fits, Val. It all fits.”
My voice was flat but my head was bursting with the pressure. She said nothing.
She searched my eyes like she was looking for signs of the criminal in me. She shoved her hair behind her ears. I wanted to breathe her hair.
“I don’t believe it, Danny McRae. That isn’t you. Do you hear me? It isn’t you.”
I cupped my hands and sunk my face into them. “But what if it is? What if you’re sitting here with a madman who’s lost a year of his life? A psychopath who has blackouts and can’t remember what he does during them? What if, Val?!”
For a moment her eyes flickered then she shook her head. “You didn’t do it.”
Her certainty steadied me. Amazed me. “How do I prove it?”
“You’re the detective, Danny.” Her face broke into a grin. “You’ll find a way.
And I thought you were going to check out Miss Toffee-nose?”
“Kate Graveney? I haven’t told you, have I?”
The thought of the tangled little web that Kate, Liza and Tony had spun fired up the professional in me. Even in the darkest times, if I have a plan, an objective, something to drag myself towards, I can carry on. I got up – a bit woozy – and fished in my jacket. I came back and showed Val the photo.