“We’ve covered every inch of this place,” Big Mike said.
“Except,” said Kaz, “for one thing. The dustbin. It was by the back door.”
We hauled the garbage can into the back hall, and dumped the contents out onto newspapers spread on the floor. It didn’t look or smell pretty. They’d dined on fish and chips not too long ago-Eddie’s last supper maybe? The cut end of the small cake she’d fed to Eddie. Damp tea leaves, moldy crusts of bread, a broken glass, crumpled newspaper, and various indistinguishable globs made up the rest. With rationing, not much in England went into the dustbin.
“What’s this?” Big Mike said, holding out a small stained and wet piece of paper. It was dark green, and looked as if it had been ripped in half. A number was at the top and bottom. It was hard to read, but the printed words said Railway, along with some smudged ink stains that had once been handwriting. I ran my fingers through the garbage again, thinking how often I heard that a detective’s life must be glamorous.
“Here!” Kaz said, shaking out the newspapers. He held the other half, this one dry and intact. Southern Railway. Ticket number 4882. London to Shepherdswell, via Canterbury. Third class, round-trip.
“Who went to Shepherdswell, wherever the hell that is?” Big Mike said. “Eddie or Sheila?”
“Impossible to say, but the Southern Railway goes to the channel coast. Canterbury is southeast of here, so it should be a simple matter to find Shepherdswell along the line,” Kaz said. “We could ask around. If it’s a small town, someone may have noticed one of them.”
“That’s on the way to Dover, isn’t it?” I said.
“Ah, the ever-elusive Dover. Yes, it is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Early morning found us on the road to Canterbury. We’d used the rear entrance of the Dorchester, since Inspector Scutt was on the lookout for Kaz. The blackout curtains had come in handy, and the kitchen had fixed us up with a thermos of coffee and cheese sandwiches for our predawn departure.
Crossing the River Medway at Rochester, we heard the heavy drone of engines behind us, and soon the sky was filled with B-17 bombers, hundreds of them, heading into the eastern dawn. It was a solid stream of aircraft, bomber squadrons forming up from bases all over southern England, coming together above us, painting the sky white with contrails and vibrating the air with their thousand-horsepower engines. Big Mike pulled the jeep over by the embankment, and we craned our necks to watch the air show.
“You’re not from around here then.” The voice came from the sidewalk, where an elderly gent rested his hands on his cane, a playful smile on his face.
“Don’t tell me you get used to this?” I asked him.
“You never get used to Jerry coming over, and he used to, you know, day and night. Hit the airfield outside of town and us, too, for good measure. Now, at least if I hear airplanes during the day, I know it’s you Yanks flying them. Makes a fella feel good not to have to look up. Safe and secure, like.”
“You take any hits recently, with the new raids?” I asked.
“No, just some fields plowed up with those Jerries what got shot down, and them releasing their bomb loads. Sometimes the Home Guard has to round up the aircrew, or collect the bodies. Seems like every airplane in this war flies over us, going or coming from bombing poor souls somewhere. Better them than us, that’s what I say. But I’ll tell you, boys, I will look up when them B-17s come home.”
“Why?”
“Not all of them make it. I’ve seen one try to land, smoke spewing out from two engines. They crashed, poor lads. Tore up a barn, too. You’ve got to watch out in the afternoon, but morning time, I go for my walk, and enjoy the sound they make. Different at night, though. Could be our own Lancasters or Jerry coming over, can’t really tell. Anyway, I hope your boys knock Adolf for a loop. Good day, lads.” He tapped his fingers to his forehead in a salute of sorts, and continued his constitutional. As we pulled away, I looked back, and saw him give a quick glance skyward.
“That’s what comes of living in Bomb Alley,” Kaz said. “Good advice about the afternoon, though.”
“I think he was laughing at us, the old coot,” Big Mike said.
“What he’s lived through, I’ll let him have a chuckle,” I said. “No way to live out your old age, with the Luftwaffe bombing your hometown, and then both sides crash-landing around you for the rest of the war.”
We drove on, watching the contrails disappear off to our left, as I wondered what the formations would look like coming back, and what the old man would think and feel as he watched them. He looked like someone who’d worked all his life, and probably served in the last war. These should be his golden years, and instead of tending roses, he was walking under a cloud of bombers, looking over his shoulder every day for the debris of war to fall from the sky. There were all sorts of victims in this war, in every war, and for certain there were plenty of people who’d do anything to be in his shoes. Still, it bothered me. I thought of my own father, another veteran of the last war, and a guy who worked harder than anyone on the force. I always imagined him going fishing and chewing the fat with his pals at Kirby’s after he retired. What specter would he glimpse over his shoulder?
The countryside opened up after Rochester-low, rolling hills, farmland with fields marked off by stone walls and shrubs. The ground was bare, plowed over after the fall harvest, except for the apple orchards, with their neat lines of trees, branches pruned and ready for the spring. It was a pleasant drive, until we came to a crossroads outside of Sittingbourne. A military convoy had the right of way, and we sat, watching the parade of heavy trucks cross the roadway.
“Perhaps we should tell stories,” Kaz said, after ten minutes of monotony. “We are headed toward Canterbury, after all.”
“So?” Big Mike said, looking at me. I shrugged.
“Geoffrey Chaucer? The Canterbury Tales? Surely they teach Chaucer in American schools?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Big Mike said. “I left after the eighth grade to work at a gas station, on account of my old man kicking the bucket. Maybe they mentioned him in the ninth grade.”
“The name rings a bell,” I said. “But I never paid a lot of attention in class. What are they? Stories about Canterbury?”
“Do you want to hear about him?” Kaz said, from his perch in the rear seat.
“We ain’t going nowhere soon,” Big Mike said, gesturing at the line of stationary traffic in front of us.
“Well,” Kaz began, warming to the lesson and a willing audience, “Chaucer lived in the fourteenth century. He was originally from London, but the story goes that he was peripherally involved in a power struggle between a group of powerful barons and King Richard II. He and his friends backed the king, and the king lost. Chaucer’s friends lost their heads, so he wisely retired to the countryside, in Kent.”
“Those barons, they knock off the king?” Big Mike asked.
“No, they kept him as a figurehead, but eliminated all his advisers. The parliamentary session after they took over was called the Merciless Parliament, since the death sentence was imposed on all the nobles who had supported the king’s cause. Chaucer had been a soldier and a diplomat for King Richard II, but he was not highly born and probably would have been left alone, but he took no chances.”
“Smart guy,” Big Mike said. “Like after a Mob war. The ones who come out on top watch for any threat, and eliminate it. So Chaucer went on the lam?”
“Not in hiding, just out of the way, until Richard regained control, insuring a royal position and pension.”
“Exactly like a Mob war,” Big Mike said, bridging the gap between centuries with his common-sense analysis. “What did he do, bring in some muscle from out of town?”
“Exactly,” Kaz said. “The king’s uncle, John of Gaunt, returned with his forces from a war in Spain.”
“And they put Richard back in power, and Chaucer got his cut for staying loyal, and alive,” Big Mike said.
“Yes, quite. He wrote one of the great works of the English language while living here in Kent, presumably near Canterbury. It begins with a group of travelers setting out on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, to visit the cathedral. It is a long walk, so they agree to tell stories on the way there and back. At the end of the trip, the person who has told the best story will have their dinner paid for by the others.”
“I get it,” I said. “Since we’re on the road from London to Canterbury…”
“I’m in,” Big Mike said. “Kaz, you tell us some of those old Chaucer stories, and we’ll see how they stack up
