‘You know about your husband’s affair with Miss Tcnnent?’
‘We went through a bad patch about eighteen months ago and Eddie left me for a bit. I know it was her he lived with. People aren’t slow to tell you things like that in this town. But he came back to me, and we’ve been back together for nearly six months. He knew it was best for Lee if he came back. Eddie is very fond of his lad. So it’s all sorted out now.’
‘Nearly six months?’
‘Last July.’
Fry and Cooper both watched Mrs Kemp. She stared at them curiously, until a slow realization came over her face. ‘You reckon that Eddie is the baby’s father? Is that what you mean?’
‘It seems a possibility,’ said Cooper.
‘The bastard,’ she said. ‘He never told me anything like that.’
‘Has he never mentioned a baby? Have you seen no signs of a baby?’
‘Not here,’ said Mrs Kemp. ‘He never brought it here. Eddie? Why would he?’
‘If the child was his …’
‘Not here,’ said Mrs Kemp firmly. ‘I’d soon have shown him the door again. Believe me on that.’
‘We’re going to have to take a look in the house/
‘I suppose so.’
‘And arc you sure you’ve no idea where your husband has gone?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Is there anywhere you might expect him to go? To a friend’s? A relative’s?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
194
‘And who did he go with?’
‘It would be one of his friends,’ she said, ‘lie went down to the pub to meet them. The Vine, that’s where they all go. Kill not telling you any more.’
‘He’s in breach of hail, Mrs Kemp. Are you sure you can’t give us the names of any of his friends?’
Mrs Kemp paused, maybe picturing Marie Tcnnent and the missing Baby Chloe. I’ll think about it,’ she said.
Within a few minutes, Dianc Fry began to get restless as she watched the uniformed officers examining the Kemps’ house and garden. Vicky Kemp showed no interest in the proceedings, except to follow round straightening cushions and rubbing invisible fingerprints off cupboard doors. Fry gestured Hen Cooper outside the house, while she phoned in and reported Kddic Kemp’s breach of bail conditions. He was supposed to reside at his home address so that they could find him easily when they wanted him. Now, he would be arrested again when he was found.
‘Ren,’ she said. ‘Do you know of an aircraft museum at a place called Leadenhall?’
Cooper was startled. ‘Where did you say?’
‘Leadenhall.’
‘Leadenhall?’ he said.
‘Are you going deaf or something? Has the snow got in your ears? Apparently, there was an old RAF station in Nottinghamshire called Leadenhall, but now it’s an aircraft museum.’
‘I only heard of it for the first time recently,’ said Cooper. ‘Not the museum, but the airfield.’
‘Oh? Heard of it in connection with what?’
‘It was where Sugar Uncle Victor was based. The aircraft flown by Pilot Officer Danny McTeague and his crew.’
‘Ah. You’re talking about Miss Alison Morrissey again,’ said Fry.
7 )
Yes.
‘I can’t believe this. Why docs everything seem to come hack to that in your mind?’
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‘I can’t help it. You asked me about Leadenhall, and that’s where I heard of it, from Alison Morrissev and her journalist friend, Frank Baine. McTeague’s Lancaster bomber was flying from Leadenhall to an airfield in Lancashire when it crashed on Irontongue Hill.’
‘Ben, I’m working on a line of enquiry which relates to an aircraft museum. I’m talking about here and now, not something that happened half a century ago. You’re obsessed with the past.’
‘Surely that’s what a museum is all about — the past? Anyway, don’t forget the baby. The fact it was found at the crash site makes a connection worth considering, doesn’t it?’
She sighed. ‘All right. Where is this Leadenhall place? I expect you’ve located it precisely, with your usual attention to detail when something interests you. You can probably give me the exact map co-ordinates and the course directions your World War Two pilot was supposed to be following.’
‘It’s near Newark, in the Trent Valley area of Nottinghamshire.’
‘Think you can find it?’
‘Of course. Why?’
‘That’s where we’re going this afternoon.’
‘What about Eddie Kemp and the baby?’
‘Gavin and the search team can cope here. It’s obvious they’re not going to find Baby Chloe being cared for by Vicky Kemp. Her darling husband will be picked up somewhere in due course. You know there’s no point in us
