The Last Mission Page 25

  The atmosphere was as hectic as a war room. At the center of a hundred air bases, it reverberated with the frantic energy of the struggle. Military cars and jeeps were at every intersection, and uniformed figures hurried back and forth through the central city. The military population added another five thousand to the city’s fifty thousand civilian souls, and filled every available room and shed.

  Angela had found one exception, again through the recommendation of a girl friend. It was an old stone house on the cobbled streets of Elm Hill that had been turned into a four-room inn. The owner, a red-faced woman in her seventies, had no use for the military and had never offered accommodations through government agencies. Instead, she prospered from a steady clientele, as anxious to find peace from the war as she was. Weekends were impossible, but with a few days’ notice we could generally get a room on a weekday. It was in one of her small, cold rooms that Angela and I fell into each other’s embrace.

  We had become very proficient in our sin. We signed “Mr. and Mrs.” in the guest book without an instant’s hesitation, smiled innocently, and were completely at ease climbing the stairs without any luggage in tow. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, so we did without a shred of privacy. Angela hung her coat, blouse, and dress in the closet and used the desk chair as a footstool while she rolled down her stockings. Her bra appeared magically from the top of her slip, as did a garter belt from beneath the hem. From outside the slip, she was able to start her pants down over her hips, and then wiggled until they fell to the floor. The slip, with its thin straps and lace hem, served as her nightgown.

  “Girls’ locker room,” she once explained in answer to my questioning glance. “At school you learn to change from jumpers into gym uniforms without ever being naked.”

  “We’re not quite so modest in boys’ locker rooms,” I laughed as I spread my clothes across the back of a soft chair. We maintained some shred of modesty by wearing her slip and my shorts until the quilt was pulled up over us. Early in our foreplay, I would drop her slip to the carpet on my side of the bed, and she would follow with my shorts on her side. We would toss and tumble against one another, make love, pause for a cigarette, share conversation, begin kissing, and then repeat the cycle all over again. Hours later, I would put on my shirt so I could poke my head out the door and make sure it was safe for Angela to dash to the bathroom.

  In one of our pauses, while I was telling her how I had been managing meetings with Detective Browning, I mentioned Roger McTiernan.

  “You think he killed Mary?” she asked, with sudden fear obvious in her voice.

  “I know he did. It all adds up.” And I took her through the evidence I had assembled.

  “But suppose you’re wrong. Not that everything you say isn’t entirely plausible. But is it proof? I mean, wouldn’t it be likely that if he found out she was cheating him that he might have become depressed? Couldn’t that be why your colonel grounded him and eventually sent him home?”

  I laughed. “Depressed? My God, we’d all have to be sent home! Everyone is depressed.”

  “Even you?”

  “Even me. Whenever I’m not with you.” And we rolled back into an embrace.

  But Angela brought the subject up again. “About your friend Roger?”

  “He’s not a friend. We may have passed by each other, but he was transferred home shortly after I got here.”

  “Well, comrade or whatever. What did the sergeant say when you told him?”

  “I didn’t tell him. I wouldn’t tell him if I had a signed confession. If he closes this case, then the only time I’ll get to see you is when the chickens stop laying eggs. And that isn’t often enough.” I punctuated the thought by sliding my hand inside her thigh and burying my face between her breasts. That launched another round of tumbling.

  During the drive home, she took me back to Roger McTiernan. Was he going to be prosecuted in America?

  It would never happen, I told her. English authorities would never see the records, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Mast would ever raise the issue with American authorities. I assumed she would think it unfair that a murderer was being let off without punishment, so I defended the colonel’s attitude. McTiernan was as much a victim as Mary Brock. No one was minimizing murder, but was it really the American’s fault? He hadn’t asked to be in England or planned on being desperately in need of someone to hold close. Would any of this have happened if he hadn’t been uprooted and hurled into a war? Wasn’t it simpler to just act as if the German bombs had actually killed Mary? Wasn’t that more charitable than ruining her reputation and his life over something that wouldn’t have happened without the war?

  To my surprise, she didn’t argue that a killer should be prosecuted. She agreed completely with me and added her own endorsement of McTiernan’s return to the States. I glanced at her in feigned suspicion. “Hey, wait a minute. You didn’t date this guy, did you?”

  She seemed shocked at the suggestion. “Of course not.”

  “I’m onto you,” I continued with mock hurt. “You had a thing for this guy.”

  “I did not. I never heard of him.” She was suddenly angry.

  “Hey, take it easy. I’m just kidding you.”

  “It’s not a nice thing to joke about. Do you think I dated every American I was introduced to?”

  “Then you were introduced to him?”

  “No, I wasn’t. I never heard of him until you mentioned his name.”

  I was laughing at her righteous attitude. “Hey, all I meant was that I wasn’t the only flyer you ever dated. I can’t be that lucky.”

  “You’re even luckier than that. You’re the only flyer I ever fell in love with.”

  She was staring straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the road. Her lips were set in a tight line. “You’re right,” I told her. “Meeting you is the luckiest thing that ever happened to an American pilot.”

  And just like that, Angela began to cry. I put a hand on her shoulder, and when that didn’t seem to bring her any comfort I touched the back of my fingers against her cheek. She took my hand and pressed it against her face, but still she sobbed. Finally, I pulled the car over, even though the road was dangerously narrow. I took her in my arms and rocked her like a baby.

  “Oh, Jim, I love you so much,” she said between shortened breaths.

  “And I love you. So why are we sad?”

  “I’m afraid you’re not as lucky as you think.”

  When I dropped her off, it was after midnight. Her parents were up, but neither of them came to the door. I took the car back to the garage and changed back into uniform. Then I walked a block to the center of the town and thumbed a ride back to the base with the MPs.

  Tossing that night in my bunk, I convinced myself that her crying was the emotion of our constant separation and had nothing to do with my jokes about her dating. But now, after reading all of Browning’s records, I know it was something else. I had said that our meeting was the luckiest of chances. Angela knew that it wasn’t lucky at all. The sergeant had set it all up, and she didn’t know how she was ever going to tell me.

  Now

  It’s almost nine in the morning when I wake up from a fitful sleep. For a second I’m confused, wondering just what it is that I have to get up for. Then I remember the letter I want to add to Browning’s file. The Mary Brock case can’t be closed until the killer is named.

  I paper clip my letter onto the envelope that holds Browning’s memoirs, then I stop at the front desk, where I have them make an additional copy of the letter that I slip inside the envelope. Now, if the sergeant’s son wants to, he can finish the memoirs of a small-town policeman. I doubt that Martin Browning will ever get around to it.

  Arthur isn’t waiting in the lobby, so I assume that he and his friend Herbert have had their fill of me. I’m sure they were counting on me to do something dramatic, but there are no amazing revelations in the files, and there is no reason for me to look up the woman I loved and then
deserted. There is no ending—either happy or sad.

  I try a transatlantic call to Todd, only to reach a surly machine that tells me to leave a message that Todd might or might not answer, depending on how he feels. I call Kit and hear a cheery voice that swears she has only turned her back for a second and that she will call back in an instant. “It’s just me, in England, trying to find out how Todd is doing. I’ll be out for a while, but I’ll try you again later.” Then I go in to breakfast, only to find that Arthur and Herbert are already into their runny eggs and soft bacon.

  “A bad night, Mr. Marron?” Herbert Little asks with his usual giggle.

  “Do I look that bad?”

  I wave to the waitress, who fills my coffee cup. “I didn’t sleep very well,” I explain, and bend my face into the steaming brew.

  Arthur Lyons is frustrated. “You never should have gone back into the files, Yank. You knew it could only break your heart.”

  “And the record doesn’t come right out and say that the lady was planted on you,” Herbert chimes in. “It could be that she agreed to meet you just that one time. Everything else that happened between you might have been as genuine as Romeo and Juliet.”

  I sputter into my coffee and then begin to laugh. “Did you two practice ganging up on me?”

  “Well, you won’t know anything for sure unless you see the lady and talk with her,” Arthur Lyons says. He glances toward Herbert, who is nodding vigorously in agreement.

  I set my cup down with the authority of a judge tapping his gavel. “No, I don’t think a meeting will do either of us any good. But I want you both to know that I’m grateful for your concern. I’m just now realizing that I may never have had two closer friends.”

  “But Mr. Marron…” Herbert Little starts, and I cut him off with a gesture.

  “The young lady and I had a wonderful relationship,” I concede, “but it began with a lie and it ended with a lie. The first one was hers, and the second one was mine. It would be hard enough for me to face her, and I think it might be just as difficult for her to face me. There’s just no point in causing one another embarrassment or pain.”

  “But Yank…” and I shake my head to tell Arthur that I don’t want to continue the discussion.

  “I’ve thought about it, Arthur. Even when I was trying to convince myself that she wasn’t the reason I had come back, I was thinking about it. Now I’ve stopped thinking about it. I’ve made up my mind.”

  I stand, slowly looking from one to the other. Neither offers a word of protest.

  “I’m going up to the hall of records to put this letter in the Mary Brock file, then my work here will be finished.”

  “We’ll go with you,” Arthur volunteers.

  “No, please. I’d like one last look at some of the places I remember. I think I’d like to be alone.”

  Arthur and Herbert were both lifting up from their chairs. They both settle back in defeat. I know I can’t end it this way. “But it would be my pleasure to stand for a few rounds of drinks tonight. How about nine, at the far end of the bar?”

  They nod separately, glance at one another, then nod in unison.

  “Nine it is,” I say, trying to sound pleased. “Till then!”

  An hour later I’m standing in front of Andrew Barnes’s desk. He seems genuinely happy to see me. “Having another go at it, Mr. Marron?”

  “No, Mr. Barnes. I just want to add one piece of information to the Mary Brock file, then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Add to the file? Without cataloging the entry?”

  “Oh, it’s not that important. Just a small gesture to the memory of the detective who headed up the case.”

  “But…you can’t. We have to catalog pages in the central register before we can put them in the files. Imagine the chaos if we just stuffed documents willy-nilly into our official records.”

  I smile, but stop short of laughing out loud. Andrew Barnes is completely serious. Like he says, a civilization is nothing more than the sum of its records. “Mr. Barnes, I think if you check on the last time the Mary Brock file was accessed by anyone—for any reason—you’ll find it was in 1947. At least that’s what the file entry form says.”

  “That may be true, but totally irrelevant. No matter how unlikely that anyone would want to read your addition to the file, we still have to make sure that a written path to the information is available.” He distances himself from me by climbing up on his high horse.

  “But there is no path to the file itself. Remember, you didn’t think anyone would be able to find it. Margaret Thatcher’s fault, you told me.”

  “But there will be some day, so we have to follow the procedure. Your paper goes into the pending-additions file. Then when we catalog the file, we’ll make the addition in the proper fashion.”

  I can see I’m not going to get anywhere, and I can understand why Colonel Mast’s greatest fear was having an English civil servant going through his records. Barnes has been kind to me, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. “I see your point, Mr. Barnes.” I put my letter on the counter and ask, “Could we make this a pending addition to the Mary Brock case file?”

  He smiles victoriously, reaches under the counter, and comes up with an official form. “Just fill this out and we’ll attach it to your letter. That’s all there is to it.”

  I stare dumbly at the form. It’s like the application for a driver’s license, with dozens of boxes that I either must write in or must not write in under any circumstances. I look up at him with the eyes of a hungry puppy hoping to be fed.

  “Of course,” Barnes allows, “if this were something that you had inadvertently taken from the file, then I would have to demand that you replace it at once.”

  “Is that a shorter form?”

  “No form of ours. It’s a criminal offense to tamper with official records, so it would involve a police form.” He gestures upward, indicating the police station that is directly overhead.

  “I wonder if just this once you’d let me put it back without involving the police?”

  Barnes smiles and leans forward. “Damned if I’ll help them with their records. Have they ever helped me with mine?”

  I go down to the subbasement, find the file, and slip my letter in behind the last page. As I’m leaving, I pause to shake Barnes’s hand. “Pretty silly of me, I guess, to want to complete a record that no one is ever going to read, but I appreciate your help.”

  “Good luck, Mr. Marron. I’m glad I could be of some service.”

  I hadn’t thought of it before, but there’s something wonderful in the notion that these polite clerks and shopkeepers kicked the tar out of the prancing, jackbooted fascists.

  I leave the car at the police station, walk through the town, and then up the gentle slope that in East Anglia qualifies as a hill. Elm Hill is still beautiful, with its cobbled streets, but the historic homes have all been redone in periodic costume. I remember it, but it’s nothing at all like I remember. I walk up to the iron railing that keeps the street from intruding on the house where Angela and I made love so shamelessly, except now it’s two houses. Our bedroom wing has been enlarged and turned into a separate home. Now it has heat and probably air conditioning, and I’ll bet the bathroom is no longer at the end of the hall.

  “At least talk to her,” Arthur Lyons had advised. As I stand here, my head flooding with memories, it’s tempting to try to recapture at least a split second of what I felt for her. But it can’t be recaptured, only remembered. The players are very different now. The stand-ins for the two young lovers are both in their seventies, their faces worn like the lettering on gravestones, and the setting has been remodeled and updated. There probably is no iron bed with a thick, stuffed quilt.

  I reclaim the car and drive back to Martin Browning’s house, taking a chance that the sergeant’s son will be at home. I ring and he answers, wiping his hands on an apron. He invites me in and leaves me in the sitting room while he sheds the apron. When he joins me, he is
carrying a tray with a tea service.

  “Were the notes helpful?” he asks while he pours.

  “Very helpful. They gave me leads I hadn’t considered.” I think of Arthur’s admonition that they were leads better left uninvestigated.

  “Then you’ve completed your work?” He sits across from me, with his cup on his knee.

  I go into the details of my story and explain the awkward conflict I felt between my duty to the Army Air Force and my duty to his father, then I ease the letter out of the large envelope that holds the borrowed autobiography. “I wrote this when I left England. I meant to mail it to your father, but I got caught up in events back in America and never sent it.” I tell him that I have just come from the police department, where I put a copy into the file, and I remind him that if anyone does want to publish the memoirs, they now have the answer to the case.

  “What does it say?”

  I could suggest that he read it after I’m gone, but he seems to think it’s something we should share. I get out my glasses, set my cup down, and open the letter.

  My dear Sergeant Browning,

  I’m sorry to have abandoned our investigation so abruptly but as you may have heard, I have been wounded and sent home to convalesce. I intend to return, and will certainly look you up in the hope of renewing our friendship. But in case events should intervene, I think you are entitled to have this information.

  The “Rog” who was seen with Mary Brock is an American first lieutenant named Roger McTiernan. He fits the profile of Mary’s killer in that he had made her beneficiary of his insurance, and then took her off the policy in the days between her death and the discovery of her body. Records show that he was off the base on an overnight pass on two occasions around the time of her murder, so he had opportunity as well as motive.