Wesley felt a little deflated. Somehow he’d convinced himself that Mary held the key to the whole case. He sat down at his
desk and put his head in his hands. Every lead he followed seemed to end in frustration. Even Nanny Buchanan was cavorting
about in Austria instead of answering police questions. And if you couldn’t rely on good old Nanny, who could you rely on,
he thought with a bitter smile just as his phone began to ring.
It had started. The calls, relayed from the TV station switchboard, were coming in. Not exactly thick and fast but in a steady
trickle.
There were a number of calls from former evacuees and local children who’d been friends with evacuated children, saying that
they remembered a Pat or a Mabel – sometimes separately and sometimes together. But none was admitting to a connection with
Tailors Court.
Just as Wesley was starting to think the whole exercise had been a waste of time and resources, the phone rang again and he
heard a tentative female voice on the other end of the line – an elderly voice, high-pitched and slightly quivering.
‘Hello. I … I think I’m the Pat you’re looking for.’
His grip tightened on the receiver. ‘Can we start at the beginning? When you were evacuated to Devon what was the name of
the house you stayed in?’
‘I was evacuated in 1944 when the doodlebugs started and I was sent to a big house near Tradington called Tailors Court. It
belonged to a Mrs Jannings.’
Wesley felt like punching the air in triumph. He’d found the right Pat at last. He asked the next question, trying to keep
the impatience out of his voice. ‘You wrote to a lady called Mabel? A fellow evacuee?’
‘That’s right. I invited her down here. I live in Buckfastleigh.’
‘And she’s staying with you?’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘She was but she left yesterday. She wanted to see some more of the West Country. I’m just
calling to say that you don’t need to worry about her. I saw her daughter on the telly and … I’m sure Mabel didn’t mean to
cause any bother. She …’ The voice trailed off.
‘Look, Mrs …’
‘Beswick.’
‘Look, Mrs Beswick, I’d like to talk to you as soon as possible. Would it be convenient –?’
‘Why? I’ve told you Mabel’s all right. Don’t you believe me?’ The woman sounded quite affronted, as though she imagined Wesley
was accusing her of lying.
For the next few minutes he did his best to smooth the waters. Eventually he decided that the truth might just produce the
desired result.
‘This isn’t just about Mrs Cleary. The skeleton of a child was discovered at Tailors Court recently and we think the bones
date from around the time you were there. We need
to talk to anyone who might be able to confirm the identity of the dead child.’
There was a long silence before Pat Beswick spoke again. ‘I see.’
‘Do you remember a land girl called Mary?’
‘Yes.’
‘And a man called Miles Jannings?’
‘I knew who he was. He was old Mrs Jannings’s son; he married a girl called Esther then he got killed in the War. I arrived
after the others and he was dead by the time I got there.’
‘Can you remember the names of the other children you were with?’
‘Well, there was Mabel of course. And Belle.’
Wesley frowned. ‘Is that all?’
‘Yes. Just the three of us.’
‘Look, I’d like to talk to you. Would that be all right?’ Wesley spoke gently, reminding himself that this was an elderly
woman who’d probably had little to do with the police before.
She hesitated. ‘It’s getting late now. Can’t it wait till tomorrow morning?’
He looked at his watch. If he set off now it would be after nine-thirty by the time he reached her – probably past her bedtime.
‘That’s fine,’ he said after she’d given him her address. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
When she rang off he sat staring at the phone, listening to the dialling tone. Unexpectedly he felt rather excited at the
prospect of meeting one of the Tailors Court evacuees face to face. Mary Haynes, the land girl, had spent most of her waking
hours at Gorfleet Farm, working from dawn till
dusk, her mind occupied with courting the farmer’s son. She had only used Tailors Court as a place to lay her head at night
after a hard day toiling in the fields. But the children had lived, eaten, played and slept there. They would have known everything
that went on.
His mobile phone began to ring and he looked at the caller’s name. Rachel.
‘I was just going to call you,’ he said before she could speak. ‘I’ve had a call from Pat. She lives in Buckfastleigh and
Mabel’s been staying with her. If you’re still with Sandra, tell her her mum’s OK will you?’
‘I’ll tell her. You sure the call was genuine?’
‘Yes. She knew all about Tailors Court. Mabel moved on yesterday to do some sightseeing but I’m going to see Pat tomorrow
morning.’ He paused. ‘Come with me if you like.’
‘I might just do that. Look, Wes, I know I said I’d report on it tomorrow morning but I thought you’d want to know about my
visit to Mary Haynes. Is the boss still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think I’ve got a name for the victim at Tailors Court. An evacuee vanished in 1943.’
‘Was he called Charlie by any chance?’
‘How did you know?’
‘Mabel Cleary’s reminiscences mention a kid called Charlie arriving at Tailors Court with a wooden car.’
‘But Mary said he went to another billet. He came down to Devon from London with his cousin – a girl named Belle who was slightly
older than him. She said he’d been unhappy and found a billet in another village but …’
‘His own cousin wouldn’t lie about something like that surely?’
‘That’s what everyone thought at the time, but around
the time Charlie disappeared Mary said John Haynes found a bloodstained knife and saw Miles with blood all over his hands.’
‘It’s a farming area. He could have been gutting a chicken or skinning a rabbit. There’s nothing to suggest the blood was
human.’
There was a long silence before Rachel spoke again. ‘If anyone’s in the frame for murdering that child surely it’s Miles.
He was seriously disturbed and Mary said he was obsessed with scientific experiments. I really don’t think we need look any
further. I think the bones must be Charlie’s. He didn’t go away like his cousin, Belle, said. But why should she lie?’
‘Because she was involved somehow?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s talk about it tomorrow, eh?’
Wesley said goodbye and put the phone down.
Pat Beswick had never had anything to do with the police before and she’d found it a disturbing experience.
She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Then she breathed deeply. Getting worked up about it wasn’t going to help
the situation.
She turned to face her companion and saw that Mabel was shaking. ‘What will happen, do you think?’
Pat gave her a weak smile. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we shouldn’t have done it.’
‘But I had to get away. I couldn’t stand it any longer.’ Pat saw Mabel’s eyes filling with tears. ‘What a mess,’ she said
with a sob. ‘Do you think … do you think they’ll put us in prison?’
‘I don’t know, Mabel. I really don’t.’
Transcript of recording made by Mrs Mabel Cleary (née Fallon) – Home Counties Library Service Living History Project: Reminiscences
of a wartime evacuee.One day in the summer Charlie went but we weren’t told where or why. He just vanished one day with that toy car he always
carried: Belle said it was the only thing he’d rescued from his house when it was bombed. She said Charlie had found another
billet but I wasn’t particularly bothered. He was a strange boy, not the sort I wanted as a friend – not like Otto.Otto kept asking where Charlie had gone and Belle was quite nasty to him, calling him the usual names. But we hadn’t time
to think about Charlie for long because there was a wedding at Tailors Court. Miles and Ugly Esther decided to tie the knot
before he went back to his unit. Not that it was a big affair and Esther didn’t bother much with
clothes so there was no big white dress made of parachute silk. But everyone saved their coupons so we had a good spread and
Mr Haynes at Gorfleet Farm donated some of the cider he’d made. Mary got quite drunk and she was sick, but John Haynes looked
after her.Then Miles left and a couple of weeks later the telegram arrived saying he’d been killed in action. Why was there so much
death around?
When Wesley eventually arrived home Pam met him in the hall, eager to know why he’d wanted Nanny Buchanan’s details. When
he told her, she stood there deep in thought.
‘Surely someone in her position would have told the police everything they knew at the time,’ she said.
Wesley knew this made sense but there was a nagging doubt in the back of his mind that wouldn’t go away. ‘If she didn’t know
that something she witnessed or overheard was important she might not have mentioned it.’
Pam shrugged and he put his arms around her waist. The children were in bed already and, for once they were alone. At least
until her mother Della decided to inevitably put in an appearance. Time to tell her about his day and the incident at Dalcott’s
cottage.
When he’d finished she broke away from him with a vexed look on her face. ‘You shouldn’t have gone there alone. You could
have been killed. The killer has a gun, remember.’
He found her concern rather gratifying and he didn’t spoil things by mentioning his assignation with Nuala Johns – although
he rather feared that Neil might do the job for him.
The peace of the evening was shattered, however, when Della turned up at ten bewailing the fact that the latest man in her
life had turned out to be a liar. He’d told her he was an unemployed musician but really he’d falsified his qualifications
on his CV and lost his job in an insurance office and now he was expecting to move in with Della so she could keep them both.
Pam told her to put her foot down. But by the end of the evening a large quantity of wine had made that foot rather unsteady
so she ended up staying in the spare room.
During the long evening, Wesley had taken refuge from Della’s dramatic revelations in the dining room, reading and re-reading
the transcript of George Clipton’s trial. The case against the doctor seemed watertight in every way but he still felt uneasy.
He needed to reassure himself that the jury had reached the right conclusion. He needed to talk to Enid Buchanan and the locum,
Dr Liam Cheshlare. He had asked Trish Walton to trace Cheshlare’s whereabouts – if he was still alive – but she hadn’t got
back to him yet.
When he finally went to bed his mind was too active for sleep. He kept seeing James Dalcott’s dead, staring, startled eyes
and he kept thinking of Tailors Court and its strange history. Flesh Tailor’s Court – the home of Simon Garchard, the self-styled
physician, who had been so anxious to push the boundaries of knowledge that he’d resorted to murder and was hanged for his
crime, as James Dalcott’s father, George Clipton, had been.
He awoke on Friday morning, his head spinning with tiredness. Pam was already up, getting the children dressed and preparing
herself for the day ahead. They were starting rehearsals for the Christmas nativity play next week,
she told him over a strong coffee. Michael had landed the role of a sheep – not quite Joseph, but teachers’ children can be
shown no favours in the world of modern education.
Della staggered off to work on a strong black coffee and Wesley was the last to leave the house. He sat in the car for a while
before starting the engine. He needed time to think.
Gerry was still working on the theory that Dalcott’s shooting had something to do with the events at the Podingham Clinic
– either the drug trial that had ended so disastrously for Carl Utley, or Oscar Powell’s blatantly unethical conduct. There
was also the possibility that Adam Tey and Charleen Anstice might have lashed out at the doctor they blamed for the loss of
their child. But Wesley thought this unlikely, especially as Charleen was now pregnant again. Also, of course, they couldn’t
forget that Dalcott’s death had come at rather a convenient time for his estranged wife and Harry Parker.
The person who’d locked him in that room at Dalcott’s house had, presumably, gone there to look for something. Perhaps Roz
was afraid that her estranged husband had already made a new will and had hidden it somewhere in the house without informing
his solicitor. Or maybe the incident had something to do with the folder and the photograph hidden under Dalcott’s bed. Wesley
still couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was some connection between George Clipton’s crime and the death of his son.
He drove to Neston, his mind only half on the traffic. The folder he’d found in Dalcott’s house was open on the passenger
seat beside him and when he stopped at the
traffic lights he glanced over and saw that photograph: George and Isabelle Dalcott with the young locum, Dr Cheshlare, smiling
in the background. Why did Cheshlare seem so familiar? Perhaps one day soon it would come to him.
Trish Walton greeted him when he reached the incident room and, from the keen expression on her face, he guessed that she
had good news for him. But he was wrong. She’d been doing her best to find out what had become of Dr Liam Cheshlare, contacting
professional bodies both in the UK and abroad in an attempt to discover where he’d gone after leaving George Clipton’s practice,
but she’d had no luck. Dr Cheshlare had disappeared off the face of the earth, Trish said in dramatic tones.
Wesley thought for a while before he spoke. ‘Perhaps he gave up medicine. See if the name comes up anywhere else. Marriages
or deaths. Criminal records.’
‘If he changed his name, we’re snookered.’ It wasn’t like Trish to be so pessimistic but Wesley knew she was right.
‘He might have changed it because he thought being involved in the Clipton case would damage him professionally. He might
have taken his mother’s maiden name.’