‘Yes.’ I told Wilf how I had come to know Dave and Melissa through my work, then we made small talk about Christmas for a while. Wilf had spent the holidays with his daughter and son-in-law in Blackpool until their constant bickering had driven him back home. ‘I wouldn’t bother going at all if it wasn’t for the little ’uns,’ he said. ‘But a man can’t ignore his own grandchildren, can he?’
‘No,’ I said, feeling a bit guilty about not seeing my own grandchild this Christmas.
Someone brought Wilf another pint, and he took a long swig and wiped his lips with the back of his gnarly hand. ‘So how’s your investigation going?’
‘It’s not really an investigation,’ I said, feeling rather silly. ‘Anyway, whatever it is, it seems to have stalled.’
‘So where do you go now?’ Wilf asked.
I shook my head. ‘I’ve been reading her journal.’
‘Journal?’
‘Yes.’ I told him about Louise and Grace’s scant possessions. ‘It’s amazing, what she saw, what she did. She was everywhere.’
‘Aye,’ said Wilf. ‘We often forget what role the women played while the men were busy trying to maim and kill each other.’
‘It makes her seem less likely to have killed anyone as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Maybe it was a disgruntled patient,’ Wilf said. ‘I’ve told you what a sadistic bastard Old Foxy was.’
‘So he lacked a good bedside manner. That’s not unusual in a doctor, and it’s hardly a motive for murder.’
‘Depends what he did and to whom.’
‘I’ll take it under advisement.’ I sipped some more beer. ‘I’m still interested in that young lad in uniform who Grace had lunch with in Richmond shortly before it happened.’ I explained about how my original theory had been shot down by Louise Webster’s discoveries.
Wilf scratched his stubbly chin. ‘All this raking up the past has had me feeling quite nostalgic these past few weeks. You said you got the impression this was an old friend and that he would have been a young lad when the war started?’
‘Yes. If she’d had a child in, say, 1931, he would have been about eight then and twenty-one in 1952.’
‘But she didn’t.’
‘No. I was wrong about that.’
‘Well, there were lots of young men in uniform then. What with National Service, and the garrison being so close by.’
‘Someone from her past? Someone she met during the war, perhaps? The person who saw them mentioned that he had an odd sort of birthmark on his hairline.’
Wilf gave me sharp glance. ‘Are you sure about that? You didn’t mention that before.’
‘Is it important?’
Wilf nodded over towards Heather and Melissa. ‘I’d keep an eye on them two, if I were you. Yon Frankie Marshall’s well over the limit, and he’s moving in a bit close to Miss Wilde for comfort.’
‘They can take care of themselves. What did you mean asking me if I was sure?’
‘Billy,’ Wilf said.
‘The evacuee?’
‘That’s the one. They took him in just after the war started. The government started shipping them down from Tyneside pretty soon that September. He’d have been about seven or eight then. Stopped with the Foxes until around Christmas, then his parents took him back home again.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason. It was the “Bore War”. Not much happening. Lots of parents took their kids back. Then, of course, after April 1940, when the Germans marched on Norway and Denmark, well… things heated up again. Then there was Dunkirk. Anyway, I remember Billy because he came to our school for a while and we used to play with him sometimes. Nice enough lad, but a fish out of water. City boy. Couldn’t seem to get a grasp on our country ways. I think his dad managed a shoe shop in Newcastle High Street or something. I remember he had a Geordie accent, and most of us couldn’t understand him. Some of the kids used to tease him mercilessly, but he took it all in good sport. He was well enough built, so if he’d wanted to, he could have given one or two of the worst a good thumping, but it wasn’t as if they tried to bully him or anything. He was a quiet kid, mostly, as I remember, a bit passive. Very nice lad, though. Nicely dressed. Clean. He must have been very unhappy underneath it all.’
‘Why?’
‘The teasing, the strangeness, being so far from home – or so it must have felt – missing his mum and dad. Not that he let his feelings show. Besides, I can’t see being stuck out at Kilnsgate with old misery-guts Fox could have been a lot of fun, can you?’
‘Surely Grace would have been there? And Hetty?’
‘I suppose so. Some of the time. Still…’
‘What happened at Kilnsgate during the war? I seem to be picking up all kinds of bits and pieces, and I can’t help but find myself wondering if it had anything to do with what happened later.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just the way things seem to connect. Grace meeting this Billy shortly before her husband’s death. I mean, she probably hadn’t seen him since 1939, when he was only seven. Grace being away overseas for quite a while. You said before that the house was taken over by the military for a while, very hush-hush.’
‘Oh, aye. Off limits. You couldn’t even get through Kilnsgarthdale from one end to the other. They were tough, surly buggers, too.’
‘How do you know?’
Wilf grinned. ‘Well, you don’t think we didn’t try, do you? Most of the time if kids went prowling around, they understood it was a harmless enough game. I mean, most of the soldiers weren’t that much older. It wasn’t so long ago they’d been up to the same mischief themselves. They’d usually send you off with a few choice words and a smile on their faces. But not this lot. They were older. And harder. We found a weak spot in the barbed wire once and the sentry found us and pretty much marched us off at gunpoint. I don’t think he would have actually shot us, but it was frightening enough.’
‘Any idea who it was?’
‘No. A lot of these units were top secret. They’d come and go, and no one even knew their names, or acronyms, if they had any. As far as I know, none of them came into town to socialise like the regular troops billeted up here.’
‘But there must have been some speculation?’
‘Oh, aye. We all assumed it was Special Operations Executive. A bit James Bond. In fact, I think Ian Fleming even had something to do with them.’
That was what Ted Welland had told me, I remembered. ‘But nobody actually knew, or said that was what it was?’
‘No.’
‘And what were they doing here?’
Wilf shrugged. ‘No idea. Training. Planning. Like I said, you couldn’t get near the place.’
‘Would Billy know anything about it?’
‘I can’t imagine why. It was after Billy’s time. Tell you what, have a word with old Bert Brotherton. No, sorry, he can’t help you, he’s long gone now, along with his son Fred. Sometimes I forget. Talk to his grandson. He might know something.’
‘What are you talking about, Wilf?’
‘Your neighbours, the farm down the lane, over the hill. It’s still in the family, far as I know.’
I realised with a guilty start that I hadn’t even been and introduced myself to my neighbours yet. Still, they hadn’t come to see me, either.
‘What do they know?’
‘I’ve no idea, but it was their farm that had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth in 1942, and old Bert always blamed the folks at Kilnsgate. Still, he was a bit of a cantankerous old devil. Always going on about them. Blamed them for Nat Bunting’s disappearance, too, apparently. But that’s Bert for you.’
