Two Storm Wood, page 19
‘Do you?’
‘I pity her girls. I’m not sure what I think about her.’
‘Good enough.’
Amy shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. This is not my affair. I don’t want—’
‘Something like this is everyone’s affair. It’s murder, isn’t it? That’s what your Inspector Westbrook would say.’
Amy could not answer. If the dead men at Two Storm Wood deserved justice, then so did the interpreter.
‘I need to know what this man was doing,’ Westbrook said. ‘I need to understand why he died, and why now.’
Amy knew she had no choice. ‘What do you want me to ask?’
Twenty-four
Amy found Madame Chastain in a bedroom at the top of the house. She had expected the decor to be luxurious, louche, befitting a purveyor of vice, but the room was cramped, the ceiling low. A vase of dead flowers stood on the windowsill opposite an iron bed. This must have been servants’ quarters before the war.
Madame Chastain rose to meet her, a small firearm in her hand. ‘What do you want?’
‘I didn’t mean to …’ Amy felt as if something had been pulled tight inside her, so tight it might snap. ‘I need to ask you some questions. It’s important.’
The rain beat steadily on the roof.
‘Des questions sur quoi? ’
‘About the man in the stables. Please put down the pistol, Madame.’
The older woman hesitated, then placed the weapon on a dressing table, the drawers of which were open. A suitcase lay on the bed.
‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘My sister in Abbeville, she is ill. Vraiment, Mademoiselle, I have nothing to tell you.’ She went back to packing, throwing items onto the bed with little regard for order.
Amy noticed a clutter of framed photographs on the narrow mantelpiece. One was of a young girl, six or seven years old, with ribbons in her hair. The resemblance to Madame Chastain was unmistakable. The girl had her arms around a cat. The animal must have moved during the exposure, because its head was a blur. Where was the child now, Amy wondered? What did she make of her mother’s line of business? Where was her father?
‘The dead man, I saw him talking to you last night.’
Madame Chastain did not reply. She was struggling with one of the catches on the suitcase.
‘He gave you something. Was it opium? Laudanum perhaps?’
Madame Chastain forced open the catch. ‘Et alors? It was what he wanted, your … beau.’
Her beau, her handsome one. Was the choice of words deliberately cruel?
‘Major Westbrook is not my beau. My beau – my fiancé – he was missing in action, a few miles from here.’
Madame Chastain hesitated. ‘He is dead then.’
‘It seems so, yes.’
‘Seems? You had hopes to find him alive?’
It took Amy a moment to answer, to find the words. ‘Hope is hard to give up, Madame. Harder than anything.’
The older woman sniffed and went on packing her suitcase. ‘It will die too, in the end, have no fear.’
‘Perhaps it will.’
‘And until then you must search, non?’ Madame Chastain shook her head pitifully. ‘But this is impossible. You will find nothing here, nothing for your comfort. Your dreams, they will grow darker, that is all. Je suis désolée.’
Voices echoed in the yard outside. Lieutenant Sloan and some of his men were carrying away the body of the interpreter. It was already wrapped in canvas, ready for burial.
‘The dead man, did you know him?’
‘Liu. Liu Dianzhen.’
‘How long have you been buying opium from him?’
It was one of the questions Westbrook wanted Amy to ask.
‘C’est pour les clients. The clients. Like your—’
‘How long, Madame?’
‘One month, two.’
‘And before that? Who did you buy from then?’
‘Les chinois, they are always near. Since two years. Someone always comes, though it is dearer now. Très cher.’
Madame Chastain’s house had become known among the traffickers as a place where they could do business. Westbrook had suspected as much. ‘Who killed him, Madame?’
‘Liu Dianzhen? I do not know.’
‘Then why are you leaving?’
‘I told you, my—’
‘Do you really have a sister in Abbeville?’
One of the girls was watching them from the corridor.
Amy closed the door. ‘You’re afraid you might be next, is that it?’
‘You should think about yourself, Mademoiselle.’ Madame Chastain opened another drawer, fretting as she searched through her garments. ‘You know nothing of this place.’
‘If you’re afraid, then help us. If anyone can find this madman, it’s Major Westbrook.’
‘Find him?’ Madame Chastain shook her head pitifully. ‘To find him will not be enough, I think.’
‘You’re wrong. Major Westbrook knows his job. He was a detective before the war, at Scotland Yard. Murderers are his business.’
‘Murderers?’ Madame Chastain was still for a moment. ‘Then he will be busy here, n’est-ce pas?’
‘He can protect you.’
‘He is sick. You cannot see it?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Who killed the interpreter?’
‘I cannot help you.’
‘You’re hiding something.’ Amy took Madame Chastain by the arm. ‘Tell me what you know.’
‘Je ne sais rien. Ask les Chinois.’
‘The Chinese? What would they say?’
Madame Chastain regarded Amy steadily. Her eyes were pale, like stone. Out of nowhere, Amy felt an urge to hurt her.
‘Maybe they will say Liu was killed by a demon. Because they are savage, non? Primitifs.’ Madame Chastain shook herself free. ‘How else to explain that he is not taken? How else to explain that the British Army cannot stop him?’
Hurried footsteps echoed on the cobbles outside. The rain was coming down in squalls, pushing against the thin glass of the casement window.
All at once Amy understood. ‘There were others, weren’t there? Other killings.’ Madame Chastain said nothing. ‘When? Before the Armistice?’
Reluctantly the older woman nodded.
‘How many?’
‘In Acheux? One I know of. Another … Il a disparu. There were more, I think, in other places.’
‘Who were they?’
‘A man called Chen Te-shan. He came here one time, with another.’
‘To sell opium?’
‘Silk. Some of my girls bought … les foulards.’
‘Scarves?’
‘They found him in a wood – what remained. He had been … Like Liu. His friend they never find: his name was Zheng Tao.’
Amy’s mind was racing. Westbrook did not understand why his superiors had sent him, but here was a reason: because they feared the killings would go on. If she was right, it meant they had information they had not been prepared to share, even with the provost marshal.
Amy felt sick. Westbrook’s investigation was drawing her in, coiling itself around her, like the tattooed monsters she had seen on the dead men’s arms.
‘What makes you think Zheng Tao was killed too? Maybe he just ran away.’
Madame Chastain shook her head. ‘Marie-France, one of my girls, she and Zheng were friends.’
‘Friends?’
‘They made plans to leave, for Boulogne, after his contract was finished. He save his money for her.’
The prostitute and the coolie, their bodies both put to the service of an insatiable war. In spite of their differences, Amy could see how the two might come together.
‘When was this?’
‘In the summer.’
‘In August?’
‘I think so.’
‘Where is Marie-France now?’
‘She was afraid. She left here. She thinks Zheng was dead because of her.’
‘Because of her? Why? Why would she think that?’
Madame Chastain frowned, as if the question were too obvious to need an answer. ‘Marie-France was of the white race, Mademoiselle,’ she said.
Twenty-five
Coming down from the top of the house, Amy was struck by the silence. The last of the girls had left. The salon where she had spent the previous evening was empty, cold daylight spilling through the half-drawn curtains onto empty tables and vacant chairs. She went to the window and looked out at the gate. She had seen someone down there, but who? Why would he want to follow her, or Major Westbrook for that matter? She tried to recall some impression of the man’s face, his posture, his build. Was there something familiar about them? All that came back to her was a sense of his presence, his intent – things that might all have been in her mind.
A draught was blowing through the ground floor. Someone had left the back door ajar. It bumped against the frame, rattling the latch.
‘Major?’
There was a kitchen leading off the back of the hall. A pan of scorched milk lay on the stove. On the table sat a joint of meat, covered with a cloth, a carving knife beside it. Amy lifted the cloth. It was a ham, most of the meat already pared off, inches of yellow bone showing through the dark flesh.
She couldn’t help herself. Her hunger was sudden and overwhelming. She picked up the knife and sawed at the meat, her only thought: to eat.
Amy stuffed the meat into her mouth. It was chewy and badly cured, with a texture like raw bacon – not of a quality to grace their tables at home. But it didn’t matter. The meat would give her back her strength. It would keep her alive.
She was cutting another slice when she heard a footstep behind her – as if the stranger had walked right out of her thoughts. She spun round, raising the knife high, steeling herself to strike.
It was Westbrook. He was dressed now, though still unshaven. He did not flinch. Instead he made a tutting sound, as if disappointed. ‘Use a knife like that and you’ll only cut yourself.’ He brought a hand up under hers. ‘No cross-guard here, you see?’ His fingertips teased at the edge of the blade. ‘Without one, you’d lose your grip on the handle as soon as you hit cartilage or bone. Your fingers would slip down onto the blade, unless you let go.’ He stepped back. ‘It’s useless for combat, unless you catch your man from behind.’
Amy pictured the knuckle-knife she had seen for sale in Amiens, the woman who had tried to sell it to her, as if it were the only natural choice.
She dropped the carving knife onto the table. ‘You startled me. I thought—’
‘I’m sorry. One is meant to cough, I suppose.’ Westbrook regarded the flayed remains of the ham bone. ‘Good to see you haven’t lost your appetite.’
Amy turned away, wiping her mouth on her hands. She was ashamed: stealing food, devouring it like an animal, yards from where a man had been butchered. The meat had left behind a fatty carrion taste on her tongue. She hoped she was not going to be sick.
‘Are you all right?’
She braced herself against the sink. What she needed was to cry, to give some voice to the shock and revulsion inside her. But no tears came.
‘Do you get used to this?’ she said at last. ‘All this death – all this …? Does it become normal for you?’
‘Normal?’ Westbrook repeated the word as if it were unfamiliar to him. ‘I suppose if it were normal, I wouldn’t have been sent here.’
‘You don’t know why you were sent. Why should Whitehall care about a few dead Chinamen? Isn’t that what you said?’
‘They sent me to gather the facts. My feelings aren’t important, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
Westbrook dragged a chair out from under the table. She heard him pick up the carving knife.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Amy said. ‘All this tolerance, this keeping up appearances. Like it’s all a game. Where’s the outrage? Can’t you feel it any more?’
Westbrook sighed. ‘In the face of extreme violence, men either become resolute or they submit. They master their dread – feed on it – or it breaks them. Moral outrage is quite useless, I’m afraid.’
He was digging at the meat, tracing the lines of sinew with the tip of the knife.
‘And then there are some kinds of men for whom violence brings clarity. They embrace the elemental force of it. Rules and other abstractions … Well, I couldn’t expect you to understand.’
‘I don’t. I don’t want to understand.’
‘Why should you?’
Amy turned away again. ‘The things I’ve seen … they’re unforgivable. Who could live with the guilt?’
‘Not all men fear judgement, Miss Vanneck. Not yours or mine, and not God’s, either.’
Amy nodded. ‘That must be true. Their existence must be lonely then.’
Westbrook put down the carving knife and pushed the plate of meat away. ‘Suppose you tell me about Madame Chastain.’
Amy knew she had no right to pick on the provost marshal. He was not to blame for the violence – he was a victim of it, all too clearly. And weren’t his reasons for being there as good as her own: a desire to understand; distaste perhaps at the idea of simply walking away? In any case, how would it help her find Edward? Moral outrage was useless.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You must think me very naïve.’
‘Frank, perhaps,’ Westbrook said. ‘Not a bad quality, in my book. Now tell me: what did the woman say?’
Sitting at the table, Amy shared what she had learned while Westbrook made notes. She had the impression he was satisfied, even pleased with her information. It was something, to know that she had been of some use.
‘Do you think she told you everything?’ he asked when she had finished.
‘I think so. She’s frightened, but I don’t see why she’d lie. I found her packing. She said she was leaving for Abbeville.’
‘She’s just a customer. I doubt she has much to fear.’
‘You think that poor man was killed because of opium?’
‘Opium or money. That’s all your Chinaman’s here for – not King and Country anyway. I expect the interpreter trespassed on someone else’s patch, or stole from the wrong people. Something like that.’
Westbrook’s confidence struck Amy as brittle. It was as if he were trying to convince himself. ‘You said the killing was a message. What if the message was meant for one of us?’
Westbrook looked up. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘It happened here, as we were sleeping,’ Amy said. ‘We were sure to find it. Maybe that was the idea.’
The notion had already hardened in her mind that Westbrook’s mission, his digging and probing, had awoken a pitiless malevolence in the old battlefields, and now its focus was on him.
Westbrook closed the notebook. ‘We must hope you’re wrong.’
Flies had descended on the uncovered meat. Amy threw the cloth back over it. ‘What will you do now?’
‘Contact the Chinese base depot. As far as Two Storm Wood’s concerned, they should be able to identify the dead, once I’ve given them a date. Their records may tell us how their men fell into enemy hands. There’s no telling what information they might have.’
‘So what happened here, it doesn’t change anything?’
‘I don’t know. Should it?’
Amy frowned. ‘The victims were Chinese in both cases.’
‘All but one.’
‘And the way they died …’
‘I told you: this was an imitation, designed to exploit a fear that already exists.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, I’m not.’ Westbrook put down the carving knife and got up. ‘But I didn’t come here to police the Labour Corps. My orders were quite explicit on that point.’
Something felt wrong. Detective Inspector Westbrook, as portrayed in the newspapers, had been tenacious, meticulous, implacable – a man famous for leaving no stone unturned. And yet here was a stone he preferred to leave to others, on the hunch that it was of no value.
An idea came to her, a possibility that Westbrook had seemingly overlooked. ‘Yesterday, at Two Storm Wood, you said the evidence contradicted itself. You couldn’t see a logical chain of events, leading up to the massacre.’
‘Not where the Huns are concerned, no. I can’t make it fit, can you?’
Twenty-six
They found Captain Mackenzie with one of his squads on the far side of the Serre Ridge. He watched them as they climbed down from the wagon and picked their way across the stony ground. Nothing in his demeanour suggested that he was pleased to see them, or that Amy being in the provost marshal’s company met with his approval.
At Mackenzie’s feet stood a burial pit at least twenty yards long. His men were still toiling with spades and shovels, searching for the end of it. Along the bottom, a few feet down, lay a carpet of cloth and bones. Gaping jaws and half-submerged craniums betrayed their origins as human.
‘There must be fifty men down there,’ Westbrook said.
‘More than that.’ Mackenzie offered a perfunctory salute. ‘Miss Vanneck.’
Unlike the last time, he made no attempt to hide the nature of his work, to cover the remains with tarpaulins or usher her from the graveside. By now he would have heard about Mailly-Maillet and her presence at the exhumations. In his eyes, she supposed, her innocence was lost.
‘Are they German?’ Westbrook asked.
‘So far. A hasty burial, by the looks of it. We were after Kiwis. Found this lot instead.’
‘How long have they been here?’
‘Two years – three at most. Someone’ll have to move them. They can’t stay here.’
Amy felt cold. Westbrook had told her to keep quiet about the killing at Madame Chastain’s, for the time being. He did not say why.
‘So what can I do for you, Major?’ Mackenzie said. ‘I’ve already told you what I know.’
‘I need to see the burial records for this area.’
‘Burial records?’
‘Miss Vanneck’s idea. She thinks we may have missed something.’
Mackenzie regarded her coolly. ‘Miss Vanneck is full of surprises. I’d never have guessed she’d show up at Two Storm Wood, for instance, not after our last conversation.’
