Truth Dare kill

TWENTY SIX

I’ve always liked trains and boats. My dad took me by train to Millport on the Ayrshire coast one day. He let me stick my head out the window. I got off with my face speckled with black measles and my nostrils filled with the smell of the steam. As if that hadn’t been the best trip of my young life, I nearly exploded with excitement when we walked on board the SS Waverley, a great white paddle-steamer. I ran up and down every ladder on the boat, as tireless as a yo-yo. We sailed down the Clyde estuary like kings, the wind whipping my face and the sun burning my bare arms and legs. A cloud of greedy gulls hovered over our wake, raucous courtiers to our royal passage.

Today the Channel winds tossed spume against my face as I stood on the prow. And later I sat sedately in my window seat as we chugged through the French countryside towards Paris. I changed at Gare du Nord and found I’d forgotten all my French; either that or everyone was talking faster here in the capital. I resisted the temptation to become a tourist in Paris, even though the April weather tried to woo me; a day like this in Glasgow would be counted as a heatwave.

I had a funny moment at the south-bound Gare d’Austerlitz. It was the noise and the steam and the whistles of the guards sending trains off into the southern sunshine. The queuing people sprang yellow diamonds on their chests and arms, and the porters and guards took on grey coats and rifles. For a daft moment I thought they were going to herd me back into the cattle truck. I stopped and smoked a fag till the panic attack was over. Doc Thompson said there could be more to come.

I’d seen him twice since Caldwell’s death. I was still getting the headaches, but they weren’t lasting as long or coming as often. Resolution he called it.

And the memories that I was left with after each episode seemed to be infilling rather than pivotal. Like discovering an old reel of film and playing it and finding holes in it, but not enough to obscure the story.

The Doc had all sorts of explanations for what had happened but I know what I saw. Though I’m not sure what Caldwell saw. After only three months, the fog of that night was beginning to blur the memory of it.

I bought a paper at Austerlitz and waited till we were chugging out of Paris before opening it. I could understand the written word better than the jabbering back at the station. It seemed they were facing the same aftermath as us: lack of food, coal and work. But from what I could see, Paris had hardly lost a chimney pot during the war. And there was no sign of gratitude from De Gaulle for what we’d done for them.

I thought of the papers at home, in the week after that night. I went from villain to hero in five days. Despite what they found on the bomb site – Caldwell’s hand was stiff round his gun by the time they arrived – and despite Kate supporting my version of events, I was hauled off as the Ripper and the attempted murderer of a brave policeman, injured in the line of duty. It was my second time in the cells in a month. This time they treated me with kid gloves.

Wilson, the said brave policeman – damn his black heart, I should have let him bleed to death – survived his encounter with the chair leg, though minus a kidney. But to show his spleen was still in good order, he accused me from his hospital bed of trying to kill him. Fortunately he was too ill to come and beat a confession out of me, and gradually something of the true picture began to emerge as Kate, Liza and I stuck to our story. Of course, we didn’t tell the boys in blue everything. Who needed to know about Kate’s little stint as a Soho tart for example? Or the first murder in France. And I decided not to reveal her knowledge of the London murders. What was the point? To see her pretty neck stretched on the gallows? Though in truth, with what I saw in her eyes, hanging might have been a mercy.

I’d left Kate in her car while I walked off to find a phone box and call the police. They took a while, long enough for us to hammer out our script.

Eventually, even the papers managed to get a fairly consistent version of the same tale we’d spun. That war hero Caldwell had come back changed from his harrowing experiences working with the Resistance. That he’d begun killing while the state of his mind was unbalanced. That he’d tried to blame it on me, his old comrade-in-arms, until in a showdown he’d admitted his guilt and had taken his own life in remorse for his terrible deeds.

Though Kate still didn’t understand exactly what had happened to Tony at the end, our views were close enough, she and I agreed. Especially when she confessed over a shared cigarette while we waited for the police, that she’d set Tony up.

“I didn’t want this to happen, you know.”

“But you set me loose, Kate. In my office, that first night.”

“You knew?”

“Your show of concern was unconvincing. And when I told you Tony was dead, you didn’t even pretend to be sorry. You meant me to come after him.”

Her bleak eyes searched some inner distance. She nodded, reluctantly. “I didn’t know how to stop the game. You did.”

“You must have known something like this would happen?”

“But not to end like…” She shivered and waved her hand at her brother’s body lying on the cold ground.

Wilson backed off, though I heard he was still angry at me, despite saving his worthless life. Seems the lack of a kidney had put an end to his drinking. But as his booze-soaked brain began to dry out, he began to see it was in his own interests to run with my version of events. Especially as it kept his own rancid involvement with Caldwell out of it.

Doc Thompson was asked to add his pennyworth to the profile the police had of me. I doubt if it was very flattering but at least it didn’t condemn me. When I caught up with him, he was even more excited than usual about my case. It was as though he couldn’t wait to write up the paper on me for the Psychologists Monthly or whatever these characters read for fun.

“It was a cathartic experience, Danny. Like the equivalent of a bloodletting for you.”

“That’s not a helpful image Doc, if you don’t mind.”

He seemed pretty pleased with his idea. “No, no, you see your brain has been healing from the physical trauma for a year now. Maybe assisted by the EST. The severed synapses will have been trying to re-lay themselves. Like roads washed away in a flood. All the memories you had were still there. But cut off. Now they’re reconnecting.”

“You’re saying the brain re-grows?”

“We’re not sure, to be honest. But it seems remarkably resilient. Even if there’s no new growth, it seems capable of some re-routing.”

“So. I’m back to normal, am I, Doc?”

I wished he hadn’t hesitated. “As normal as me. Hah, hah, hah.”

There was no real answer to that. I raised the big question. “What about Valerie? How do you account for that?”

“Tell me, Danny, on all the occasions you think you saw Valerie, can you recall anyone else seeing her talking to you? “Why sure. The first night we were in a pub celebrating New Year’s Eve. There were masses of folk around us…” My voice trailed away. Did the two of us have a conversation with anyone? I thought of our day out in the park; people were looking at us, amused at the sight of lovers, weren’t they? Maybe all they saw was a demented man talking to himself, sucking his own fingers and drinking two cups of tea.

“Did you ever touch her? Kiss her?”

“She was shy, going through a tough time with a bloke. It wasn’t that sort of relationship.” I shrugged helplessly.

He waved his hand and went all hearty on me, so I knew he was making it up.

“Very normal, Danny. The mind tries to deal with something shocking and finds a way of rationalising it. Children often have imaginary friends. Particularly if they are imaginative and lack real friends.”

So he saw me as a lonely kid. Terrific. He went on hurriedly.

“But in adults, we see the same symptoms and call it schizophrenia. In your case, while you are evincing all the classical signs of schizoid delusions, I think they have been caused by actual physical damage to the brain. Which is remarkable. It confirms the growing view that brain chemistry and make-up are the defining factors in perception. Rather than some non-physical mental flaws.”

“Should I feel better or worse at that?”

“Oh, better! Your delusion has gone, now the threat has gone.”

“So what did Caldwell see?”

He laughed. He was very bad at it. He needed more practice.

“Fascinating, simply fascinating. You’ve said it was a foggy night. So that gives us the starting point if you like.”

“It wasn’t fog. Valerie wasn’t fog.”

“No, no, quite,” he said trying to humour me. “This is a well-recognised syndrome. Remember Macbeth? The ghost of Banquo? What Caldwell saw was his own guilt, if you like. It was clearly eating away at him. You forced him to confront it and it overwhelmed him. He “saw” a manifestation of his guilt, in the form of one of the women he murdered.”

It sounded plausible. If you hadn’t been there.

I fell asleep in the wagon-lit rocked by the steady click-clack and swaying of the train.

Hard light filtered through the blinds and warmed my sheets. I peeped out. The flat landscape of north France had been replaced by green hills and woods.

Vineyards sprawled across the slopes. Rows of short black stubs were already filling out with new leaves, like markers on pauper’s graves. It was such a thrilling contrast to the war-damaged streets of London that if the train had stopped or even slowed down enough I might have run off into the rolling hills and never gone home.

I washed and got dressed in time for the chug into Lyon. Another change of train took me onward into the south and to Avignon. But now, the thought of the reception I might get was beginning to weigh on me. Major Cassells had become wonderfully pally once matters had been cleared up. He’d been in touch with the Resistance fighters in Avignon he said. Telegrams had been flying and the old radio sets had been wheeled back out to give me safe passage. But they were a tough bunch, unforgiving, suspicious, and as likely to fight each other as the Germans. So it was anyone’s guess how I’d be received.

It was mid-afternoon when I stood down from the train and stretched my limbs. My gammy leg was aching and swollen from so little exercise. I looked round the station. It was a different place to the one I left so unceremoniously, so recently. Yet it was hauntingly familiar. I was in fairly bad shape the last time I came through; only one eye working and strung between two German soldiers. The memory was lopsided and splintered, but I remembered the big clock with its gilded cherubim. And back then, it was freezing. Or maybe I was. Today it was so warm that I took off my jacket and slung it over my arm.

“Captain McRae?”

I turned and peered into the sun, using my hat as a shield. The squat little figure was unmistakable especially in silhouette.

“Gregor? Is it you?”

He came closer and moved so the sun was on his side. I made out the huge black moustache that had always seemed too big for his moon face, but compensated for his sparse hair. He was grinning as though a giant wedge of Gouda had got stuck in his mouth.

“Hello, Daniel.”

I dropped my jacket and suitcase and we embraced. As usual, he reeked of tobacco and sweat, but to me, today, it was Chanel No 5.

“You got the telegrams, Gregor?”

“Yes, Daniel. We got them. It settled a lot of things here, I can tell you. I never doubted you.” He held my gaze and I believed him.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you, Gregor. For a while there I even doubted myself.”

He grinned and then he reached out and touched the scar. “Does it hurt?”

I shook my head. “Not any more. Not much.”

“Bastards.” Suddenly he was all action. He grabbed my case with one hand and my arm with the other. “Come, my friend, there are people waiting for you.”

I hoped it wasn’t a firing squad. Outside, in the station courtyard was a familiar sight.

“Still got the truck, Gregor. She looks magnificent!” And she did. The battered old vehicle gleamed in its newly painted coat of green. We hadn’t cared much what she looked like on those midnight runs to collect a weapons drop.

Gregor swelled with pride. He’d coaxed it like a lover to perform even in the harshest conditions, trundling across muddy fields and down farm tracks where trees lashed the windscreen and the sides like flails. It fired first time – always a matter of honour to Gregor – and we revved off into the town.

I recognised the cafй in the centre, but I kept expecting German soldiers to be strolling past flirting with the girls and humbling the men. Instead there were market stalls spilling over with early season greens and people back at their sniffing of vegetables and haggling over prices and quality.

They were waiting for me inside. The sound of Gregor’s truck is recognisable for miles. I counted six of them, before they hit me.

They hit me with hugs and kisses and a fuselage of warm words. I found I could tune in better to their more nasal, earthy French than their Parisian brethren, and once the first passions had died they spoke slowly enough for me to stay with it. The wine seemed to help, or maybe I stopped caring.

We talked long into the evening and drank too much and ate too much. They told me how they’d exploded in rebellion when the Normandy landings had begun, and how at first it had seemed they’d been too soon; the Germans had driven them into the hills. But there had been no reprisals this time, and soon a great Nazi convoy had formed and set off north to join up with their beleaguered battalions defending against the Allies.

That’s when the plans we’d laid came into their own. The Maquis had hit them from every side. They’d blown up bridges and railway lines in front of their advance, eating up precious days. It was a well-known story now, but these men relived it for me over the wine and the cognac as though they’d just walked in from the last raid.

I wish I’d been there to lead them. I waited till the last of them had embraced me and gone off into the now quiet streets before sitting down over a cigarette and a coffee with Gregor. I was drunk but not so drunk that I couldn’t make out the pain and bitterness in his eyes when I asked about Lili.

“She was a fine woman, Daniel.”

“A fine soldier, you mean.”

“That too.”

We toasted her memory and I went to bed.

The morning was still warm but clouds scudded across the blue backcloth heralding rain. Gregor came for me at a decent hour after breakfast. I had him stop once in the market on our way. We drove up to the gates on the edge of town. Long lines of poplars swayed behind the low walls. We pushed the gates open and walked down the gravel path past the great slabs and the stone angels.

It was in a quiet corner of the grounds. The grass was neatly trimmed and a few more stones had been stood next to hers, with newer dates. Gregor left me alone and walked away and lit a cigarette.

I stood, trying to remember her as she was before I found her. Tried to find a way of seeing her smile. Tried to wipe the last image of horror from her young face.

I laid the flowers on her grave. Brave yellow daffodils. I stood and read the inscription.

To “Lili”

A soldier of France

Who died for her country

In memory of

Valerie le Brun

1920 – 1944

Rest in peace, Val. Rest in peace.