The Gwynns were not the only ones to pay special attention to the articles in the Casselton Courier.
On the fifth floor of a government building in Manchester is the office of a very small but efficient department that deals entirely in reports of sightings of UFOs or any other strange phenomena that might indicate the presence of extraterrestrial beings anywhere in Britain. Other departments would also pick up this sort of information but their interests would be more pedestrian, concerned with things like air space, national defence and smuggling. Manchester’s ETD was directed entirely at the possibility that there could be intelligent beings from some other galaxy infiltrating our ecosystem.
‘This may be of interest,’ said Mrs Ames, the office secretary. In her hand she had the article that had come in the morning post. It had been sent from Casselton by one of their amateur observers: an account of the disappearance of Thomas Derwent from Casselton General Hospital.
Rupert Shawcross read the article with more than usual interest. Casselton was his home town, though his visits there over the past thirty years had been few and far between.
‘Might be worth looking into,’ he said.
‘Shall I ask Charles to go? Next week some time?’
‘No,’ said Rupert, ‘I’ll go myself. Book me in somewhere for, well, let’s say, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night. That’ll give me time to see the local police and follow up any leads.’
Mrs Ames raised her eyebrows. Rupert did not usually volunteer to do the legwork. He was more into collating and working on the computer. Pale-eyed and pale-skinned, he seldom saw the light of day. Whenever possible he would leave outside duties to his younger colleagues.
‘Not your usual method of enquiry,’ said Mrs Ames, slightly mocking, though that was something Rupert would not perceive.
‘I know the area,’ he said dryly. ‘I was born there. I might see something others could miss.’
So it was that on Thursday, the fourteenth of January, Inspector Galway and the man from the Ministry were together at Stella Dalrymple’s front door in the village of Belthorp.
Stella was expecting them and even knew the purpose of the visit. The meetings the inspector had already had with her had made him very careful to keep her properly informed. Her anger when told of Thomas’s disappearance was still only too clear in Inspector Galway’s mind! That was before he had shown her the coat, of course. Her reaction to the finding of the coat still seemed odd to him, if only because she did not seem to be quite as mystified as everybody else.
‘Come in, Inspector,’ she said, opening the door wide. ‘And you must be Mr Shawcross?’
‘Yes,’ said Rupert uncomfortably. He felt more at home dealing with pieces of paper or, better still, feeding data into a computer. After so many warnings about the lady he was about to interview, he was not sure what to expect. She looked quite normal – attractive really with that copper-coloured hair and slim figure. She was not young, but she was not old either. She was certainly no battleaxe. And really, all Inspector Galway had said was that Mrs Dalrymple was a very forthright and determined woman.
She sat them in her front room and gave them tea and biscuits.
‘Now,’ she said briskly. ‘I don’t think I can tell you anything about Thomas or Patrick that you don’t know already. But you are welcome to ask.’
‘Well,’ said the inspector, ‘I think I had better begin by revising what you do know, for Mr Shawcross’s information.’
‘Rupert,’ said Mr Shawcross, smiling in a friendly way over his cup.
‘Rupert,’ said the inspector, swallowing anxiously. How would Mrs Dalrymple respond?
‘Stella,’ she said, smiling back at the visitor. Then she turned to the inspector and said, almost mischievously, ‘So what do we call you?’
‘John,’ he said, relieved. Perhaps it was going to be less difficult than he thought. Being less formal might help to make the interview easier. Though any interview with Stella Dalrymple was bound to have its dangerous moments at this time.
‘So,’ he went on, ‘Rupert already knows that you were friend and neighbour to the Derwents for four or five years.’
‘Five,’ said Stella, ‘and not just a friend and neighbour. I was employed by Patrick to look after Thomas whilst he was at work. I did that for practically the whole of the time that they were here. They became almost family to me.’
On the last words, she felt something like a sob creep into her throat. She had been prepared for this meeting and determined to keep calm. But it was not easy.
John Galway looked at her sharply, concerned that they might be upsetting her. He knew how much she loved the boy; the little he had seen of her had made him very aware of that.
Stella caught his look and said quickly, ‘I am unhappy. But I have agreed to answer your questions, so far as I am able. So don’t worry. Life has to go on. People have to cope with whatever happens.’
‘But what did happen?’ said Rupert. ‘What do you think happened?’
Unlike the inspector, Rupert was very much the man from the Ministry, anxious to find out what he needed to know. Even the bonhomie and the first-name terms were artificial; they served a purpose. Given the choice, Rupert would happily have dispensed with the flummery and got straight to the point.
Stella looked at him and knew his true worth. His eyes lacked warmth.
‘Patrick disappeared after a crash on Walgate Hill in Casselton,’ she said. ‘The drivers of the brewery tanker involved in the crash thought they had run him over. But the only trace of him was a strip torn from his sheepskin coat that they found stuck to one of the wheels.’
John Galway appreciated Stella’s control and knew that Rupert’s visit would get him nowhere unless the lady decided that it would. He himself suspected that Stella knew more than she would ever say. Though how much more was imponderable.
‘And the boy – his son?’ said Rupert.
‘They took him to Casselton General, suffering from what they believed to be traumatic amnesia caused by his witnessing the crash.’
‘Do you believe it was?’
‘I am no medical expert,’ said Stella. ‘I have no beliefs one way or the other.’
‘Then what?’ said Rupert, pressing on.
‘I visited. I tried to bring him home to Belthorp for Christmas, but he wasn’t well enough to come.’
‘In what way was he not well enough?’
Stella remembered the strange words Thomas had screamed at her, and the strange voice that appeared to possess him like some sort of alien spirit. She shivered inwardly.
‘I do not know why he was not well enough,’ she said with apparent calm. ‘As I said, I have no medical knowledge whatsoever. You should go and see Dr Ramsay.’
‘We already have done,’ said the inspector. ‘He has, as you will appreciate, been interviewed several times by various people. It was from his care that Thomas was apparently taken in the middle of the night.’
‘And his father’s sheepskin coat was left behind on the bed,’ said Rupert. ‘We know it was the same coat as that from which the strip on the tanker’s wheel was torn. That is a firm connection.’
‘Yes,’ said Stella. ‘I thought that was odd too.’
She expected to be asked her opinion again and was rather taken aback by Rupert’s next line of questioning.
‘On this Monday morning after the boy disappeared, you came to the hospital to see him. You were shocked when they showed you the coat and told you what had happened?’
‘Yes,’ said Stella guardedly. ‘I was. Anybody would be.’
She looked hard at Inspector Galway and said pointedly, ‘I was also amazed that the hospital failed to inform me of the situation when I rang the ward on Sunday.’
Rupert was impatient to return to his own line of questioning. He ignored Stella’s barbed complaint. After all, it was of no concern to him.
‘But the words you were heard to say then were a puzzle,’ he said.
‘I don’t remember what I said,’ said Stella, but she was lying.
The man from the Ministry looked at his notebook.
‘We have witnesses who heard you say, and I quote, “My God, it must all have been true.” What did you mean by that?’
Stella took a deep breath and fixed her interlocutor with a penetrating gaze. Her amber eyes darkened as the pupils dilated.
‘I cannot remember saying those words; so I cannot possibly tell you what they mean. I must have been misheard, or perhaps I was simply confused.’
Both men knew that she was not speaking the truth. But there was nothing they could do about it. And one of them was really rather pleased, even if it did mean that the mystery was nowhere nearer to being solved.
‘So what do you think happened to the boy and his father?’ persisted Rupert.
‘They went out of my life,’ said Stella sharply. ‘When my husband died, I thought I could never be hurt again. What happened just three weeks ago is like another bereavement. Please give me leave to mourn.’
John Galway leant over and put one hand gently on her arm.
‘What did you do after you left the hospital that day?’ said Rupert, ignoring her last answer entirely. The inspector looked across at him, appalled at such callousness.
‘I went into St Mary’s,’ said Stella coldly.
‘The cathedral?’
‘It is where I go when I am at a loss for an answer. There is someone there that I can talk to.’
‘A priest?’ said Rupert, biro poised ready to write down a name.
John Galway suppressed a laugh.
Even Stella was drawn to smile.
‘Someone rather more important than that,’ she said.
Rupert flushed as he realized what she meant.
‘And did you get an answer?’ he said rather spitefully.
Inspector Galway stood up abruptly, appalled at the man’s rudeness and determined to dissociate himself from it. It was surely time to go!
Stella smiled faintly.
‘Life’s not a textbook with all the answers in the back,’ she said. ‘I think you probably know that.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Rupert, putting his pen and book away in his breast pocket. The interview was clearly over.