A Silent Way to Die (A Kember and Hayes Mystery) Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2022 by N. R. Daws

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542031059

  ISBN-10: 1542031052

  Cover design by Ghost Design

  For my wonderful wife, Jane, and our beautiful daughters, Laura and Holly.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  She wielded her shepherd’s crook with elegant sweeps as she coaxed the recalcitrant ewes along the cold-hardened track. Her thick smock buttoned high around her neck against December’s bite, she felt the burn of icy air in her lungs from the harsh morning frost. Reaching a break in the hedgerow, she leant against a five-bar gate to rest. Maybe half an hour to get the stray ewes back to the flock, then she would have her breakfast.

  She caught her breath and stopped as a match scraped into life nearby. It flared briefly in a bloom of smoke and the end of a cigarette caught and glowed. The smoker exhaled a white cloud.

  ‘You startled me,’ she said, her heart racing as an officer in a long coat and peaked cap stepped from the shadows, putting himself between her and the purple-pink glow of sunrise.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ A young man’s voice. He picked a piece of tobacco from his tongue and smiled. ‘I was watching, fascinated by how you manipulate your crook to keep your sheep on the straight and narrow.’

  She squinted, trying to see the face still concealed by partial shadow, the rising sun behind him giving the fields a sheen of ever-changing hues.

  ‘You’re not from the countryside?’ She thought everyone was familiar with shepherding.

  The man gave a short, staccato laugh. ‘Not at all. Born and bred in the smoke of Manchester but I move about a lot. The war.’ He shrugged and sucked on his cigarette.

  ‘Ah, you’re—?’

  ‘Out for a stroll.’ Sunrise-tinged smoke drifted away. ‘Couldn’t sleep. You know how it is?’

  Something about his polite, open manner and almost musical voice put her at ease. ‘Not much hustle and bustle in my line of work,’ she said. ‘Unless these girls kick up a fuss, of course.’

  ‘Do you enjoy it? Tending sheep, I mean.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s all right. I’d rather work in a shop, perhaps one of those fancy department stores in London, but my brothers have joined up and Dad needs me on the farm.’

  The man smiled gently. ‘All the men gone off to war, to have all the adventures.’

  She nodded. That one sentence contained all the truth about her life at that moment and she had a sense that this man knew exactly what she was feeling. The disappointment and frustration of being thought of as ‘just a girl’ weighed heavily.

  ‘Look.’ The man tapped a packet of Craven A cigarettes. ‘I know you’ve work to do but would you like a crafty one before you go? I’m enjoying talking to you.’

  She hesitated, looking at the proffered packet. ‘I don’t. My dad . . .’ But she was mesmerised by the protruding white stick.

  ‘You ever try one?’

  She looked around with a pang of guilt, feeling suddenly stupid at the thought that her father might be within earshot.

  He smiled and held the packet higher, conspiratorially, encouraging her to take one. She put the end between her lips with shaking fingers, felt her pulse quicken and her breath become a notch shallower.

  ‘When I light the match, put the end of the cigarette to the flame, and suck with your mouth but don’t breathe in until your mouth is full of smoke.’

  She watched intently, bending forward, awaiting the striking of the match. With the ewes becoming restless, baaing and bumping, the match still unlit, she became distracted, enough to be spun around and gripped across the throat by a strong forearm.

  A hand covered her mouth, stifling any cry, the smell and taste of raw tobacco in her nose and mouth as the unlit cigarette crushed into her face.

  She kicked her legs as the grip tightened. The hand didn’t move, holding her breath in its power. She tried to kick harder, but she could feel her strength already beginning to ebb away, her fight already gone. She felt herself deflate like a punctured barrage balloon and crumpled to a soft bundle on the rough ground, still held in the suffocating embrace. A pulsing roar filled her ears but was gone as quickly as it had come. She thought she knew what was happening but didn’t understand why. What had she done to deserve this? I’m sorry Dad, she said in her head.

  As her lungs burned for want of oxygen rather than because of frosty air, orange tones coloured the sky but her eyes, full of shadows, found it increasingly difficult to focus. Her mind fogged but no longer cared as she caught the last words she would ever hear.

  ‘Sorry, but you really are so beautiful.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  Detective Inspector Jonathan Kember of the Kent County Constabulary put down his bone-handled knife and fork and looked up with enquiring eyes.

  The merest smearing remained on the plate after his meal of sardine fritters, meant as a lunch but much delayed by his chasing of ever-elusive black-marketeers. On his day off too. Never mind it being nearly the shortest day of the year, it had been his shortest day off of the year.

  Alice Brannan, joint licensee of the Castle pub in Scotney village with her brother Leslie, a pinafore tied around her slim waist and tight, blonde curls contained beneath a scarf tied in a turban, reached forward to take his plate. ‘Would you like some pudding, duck?’

  Kember smiled up at Alice’s expectant face, her cheeks ruddy and eyes bright.

  ‘It’s stewed rhubarb,’ she said. ‘The Taplow sisters had a bumper crop this year so we bought and bottled some to tide us over the cold months.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ Kember said, struggling to keep his smile fixed in place and not wishing to seem ungrateful. Stewed fruit had never been his dessert of choice but rationing had rather reduced everyone’s choices.
Except for the rich, of course.

  ‘I’ll fetch you some,’ Alice said, leaving Kember alone in the empty saloon bar. He could just see through to where Les Brannan was locking the door of the public bar as the last customer left on the stroke of the two o’clock closing time.

  At the mention of their names, Kember’s thoughts had turned to Elsie and Annie Taplow, who ran a bed and breakfast establishment at the northern end of Scotney village. They had experienced the horror five months before of renting one of their rooms to a woman pilot from the Air Transport Auxiliary who had become the first victim of the Scotney Ripper, as he had been named. That had been the day his serial-adulterer wife had thrown him unceremoniously and humiliatingly out of his own house in Tonbridge in order to install her latest lover. He had stayed at the Castle during the murder investigation before enduring a few weeks in Pembury Hospital, recovering from an injury to his leg from an exploding grenade as the killer had tried, but failed, to flee from justice. The doctors had removed all the shrapnel but he often fancied he could feel something still in there.

  Kember felt bitter about being suspended over his handling of the investigation, a decision he had brooded over in hospital, giving his doctor the erroneous impression that he was suffering from mild depression. A shortage of policemen at Tonbridge, combined with his status as a seconded Scotland Yard detective, meant his discharge from hospital had coincided conveniently with his reinstatement. Kember had almost laughed at the absurdity. Almost. With no home left in Tonbridge, he had taken up the Brannans’ offer of a reduced rental for one of their rooms. He’d offered the full rate but they’d insisted, stating the gratitude of the villagers for his work in making Scotney safe again.

  But it hadn’t all been down to him.

  Alice returned with the warm dessert and spooned a dollop of mock clotted cream over the rhubarb, which immediately started to separate as the margarine melted.

  Even though Alice was a couple of years younger than him, Kember felt like he’d returned home to his parents. She fussed, clucked and smothered, and he let her, enjoying being looked after at the end of increasingly difficult days working out of Tonbridge Police Station. For an extra fee, she washed and ironed his clothes and had proven a dab hand as a barber, offering to give him the occasional trim, for another fee. He’d have to get another place of his own, sooner rather than later, but the arrangement suited him, for now.

  She was still apologising for the lack of real cream when someone rapped on the door of the saloon bar.

  A chill draught sliced into the pub like a shard of ice as Alice answered the door.

  ‘Good afternoon, Alice. Is the inspector at home?’

  Kember recognised the voice of the village policeman, Sergeant Dennis Wright, and was already standing when Alice brought him through.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,’ Wright said, his large frame and neatly trimmed beard appearing around a glazed partition. He held his helmet under one arm. ‘You’re needed at the station.’

  Kember sighed. And there goes my afternoon, he thought. Many believed their time off should be sacrosanct but his chosen career, and especially the war, had taught him that crimes and criminals followed no rules. ‘Is it something you can deal with? Can’t it wait until Monday?’

  ‘The duty sergeant at Tonbridge asked me to pass on a message.’ Wright raised his chin to stretch his neck muscles and flicked a glance at Alice. ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  Kember’s left eyebrow raised questioningly and he reached for his grey raincoat. ‘All right, Sergeant. Let’s go.’

  ‘You want to put some Brylcreem on that before you go,’ Alice said.

  Kember looked back and saw Alice touching the back of her head. He ran his hand over his own head, trying to smooth down the hairs of his double crown that sprouted like weeds.

  ‘I hate the stuff, I’m afraid,’ Kember said, donning his dark-grey, short-brimmed fedora. ‘Sorry Alice, duty calls.’

  As soon as they were outside and striding towards the police station, Wright said, ‘Chief Inspector Hartson has requested your attention regarding two incidents, sir.’

  ‘Incidents?’ Kember said.

  ‘I’ve been making enquiries about a local Scotney man, a labourer aged fifty-five who disappeared last night, and a respectable young lady aged twenty-one, from Tonbridge, who failed to return home from Paddock Wood last night.’

  ‘Please tell me there’s a simple explanation. Caught in last night’s air raid, perhaps?’

  ‘A few stray bombs did fall south of the railway line but the main raid wasn’t in our neck of the woods, sir.’ Wright continued to stare ahead. ‘Jettisoned on the way home, I’d say.’

  ‘Any indication of eloping? It isn’t uncommon when there’s a significant age gap or when one party is from a class different to the other, as your descriptions implied.’

  ‘There’s no suggestion that they knew each other. They had different reasons for being out and about, and they disappeared at different times in different places. Not so simple, I’d say.’

  Kember pinched the bridge of his nose with forefinger and thumb. With crime figures up all over the country, even in Tonbridge and its environs, and last year’s multiple killings in Scotney still fresh in their minds, the last thing they needed was another murderer. Chief Inspector Hartson would be particularly thrilled when he realised New Scotland Yard would be swarming all over his patch again. The Yard had sent a team earlier in the year to investigate a triple murder at nearby Brenchley which was why Kember had found himself leading the Scotney Ripper investigation. It had all been a matter of resources.

  ‘Are Tonbridge sending anyone down?’

  ‘I did have a quick word with the duty sergeant, but at this time on a Friday afternoon, I was whistling in the wind. And the chief did ask for you to look into both cases personally.’

  Kember groaned inwardly. Force Headquarters at Maidstone would be equally uninterested in dispatching anyone at this time and at least twenty-four hours would elapse before New Scotland Yard came sniffing. Being just before the start of the weekend, especially the last one before Christmas, Kember knew he had no hope of any assistance until well into Monday morning at the earliest. In truth, he suspected help during Christmas week would be as rare as sightings of Santa and might not arrive until the new year. All the initial legwork and paperwork would fall to him, the interesting work to Maidstone and glory to the Yard.

  As the highest-ranking police officer nearest to the incident of the missing man, Kember understood it made sense for him to respond. But he wasn’t the duty detective inspector so didn’t understand the reasoning behind giving him the Paddock Wood case as well. It did not make his already disrupted day off any more joyous.

  ‘There’s one more thing, sir,’ Wright said, with a sideways glance at Kember.

  Kember steeled himself. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The missing young lady . . . is the chief inspector’s niece.’

  Lizzie Hayes, wearing the wings of the Air Transport Auxiliary on her Sidcot flight suit, hands steady on the control column, urged the twin-engine Avro Anson into a long, sweeping curve.

  She had her lips pursed, not under any pressure from flying, because she revelled in being a pilot, but with the effort of crafting a civil response to a recently posed, stupid question from the RAF Scotney control tower.

  ‘Thank you so much for your concern, Cuckoo.’ Lizzie spoke into the radio’s mouthpiece, almost spitting out the air station’s call-sign. ‘Apart from being a highly trained pilot perfectly capable of landing this aircraft on my own, I’ve probably been flying for longer than you’ve been out of short trousers. Lost Child out.’

  Lizzie grimaced at the patronising call-sign of the ATA that they were forced to use and glanced at her co-pilot sitting to her left listening to the exchange on her headphones. Felicity ‘Fizz’ Mitchell, a Scot whose default was to not suffer fools gladly no matter who they were, glanced back, her eyes narrowed to slits amid a t
hunderous expression. Lizzie shook her head in warning for Fizz to not respond and returned her attention to bringing the Anson back to level flight, all the while searching the sky for any sign of bandits.

  Taking her turn as pilot of the Number Thirteen Ferry Pool’s air taxi, Lizzie’s objective right at that moment was to land safely at RAF Scotney in Kent. They had first called this place home a few months ago at the start of what was to become the Battle of Britain. Then the Luftwaffe had changed its strategy to the relentless day and night Blitz of London at the start of September, eventually concentrating mainly on the night bombing of Britain’s cities. That was not to say daylight hours were safe from fast raiding parties and Lizzie was mindful of the need to get her aircraft down in one piece. After receiving devastating news earlier in the day about the death of a friend at Duxford, what she didn’t need was some bloke, probably a spotty kid straight from school, sitting in the comfort of the control tower, warning how dangerous things were and telling her how to fly.

  The Anson pulled into a tighter bank as Lizzie dropped the port wing even further and it seemed to her that the whole of south-east England lay below. The day was cold but mostly clear and the main street of Scotney village, with its Norman church marking the northern end and the railway station crossing to the south, cut a swathe through the monochrome, wintery patchwork of fields and woodland. The silver thread of the River Glassen meandered to the east while a mile north of the village sprawled the extensive manorial estate of Scotney, with its white, stuccoed manor house, requisitioned and turned into an air station by the RAF.

  While Fizz began cranking the landing-gear handle, Lizzie glanced over her shoulder at the shriek of laughter slicing through the engine noise. The Anson’s current payload consisted of the two pilots and their five passengers. Three of them, including Fizz, were women from the original ATA detachment posted with Lizzie over five months earlier, just as hostilities had escalated in July. They had spent today ferrying warplanes around the country for the RAF. Another two women, new recruits, sat smiling at something the only male passenger on board had said. The laughter had sounded a little forced, perhaps slightly too hearty. With her main attention on flying, Lizzie couldn’t tell who had laughed but suspected it hadn’t been one of her friends.