23. THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS

Things have become more open, and Billy Pierce records them.

THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS

23. Where Her Baby Sleeps

When Herman Schmidt met Superintendent Partridge he wasn’t impressed. He recognised the sort, more concerned with the opinions of the Chief Constable and the correct filling in of reports and forms than in what the officers in his station were really up to. And when Inspector Greengage introduced him to the deskbound Superintendent in an office where not a single sheet of paper was out of place and where he was sure not a speck of unwanted dust marred the shiny top of his polished desk the surface of which was unsullied by anything more important than his coffee cup and saucer, bone china, Wedgwood..

Inspector Greengage ushered his German guest into the office and introduced him. “Sir, this is our German colleague, Herr Schmidt. Retired, of course, and here to become acquainted with his sister, or rather half-sister, the delightful Miss Winterbotham pf Huckelberry Cottage in the woods,” he said, hating himself for using the delightful word but feeling that a little discomfort might be of some assistance to him when the truth as he saw it eventually came out.

“I was under the impression that you saw the lady as a suspect in a most confusing case,” said the Superintendent, enjoying the look of discomfort that flickered across his Inspector’s face. He turned towards Herman Schmidt. “I was told that you saw her in hospital here and I hope you had a fruitful meeting with her,” he said.

It was Herman’s turn to surprise the English detectives.

“She has a lot on her mind,” he said in his perfect English, “and a lot of pain to release before she can face up to her past.”

“Really?” asked Superintendent Partridge, raisng both eyebrows quizzically, “Inspector, you have never mentioned this to me before.”

“I … er … did... er... suggest that she was a chief suspect…” he said, “and the latest set of human remains might answer a few more of my questions. I did submit a report, sir, the baby skeleton. Forensics are looking at it, and when they have reached a conclusion I’ll know better how to proceed.”

The superintendent nodded. “What is your opinion, Herr Schmidt?” he asked.

“She’s as guilty as, what you would call hell,” replied the German, shaking his head sadly, “she may not have done anything that goes against the rules of your society, but she is very troubled none-the-less, and that fills her wit a shadow as dark as actual guilt.”

“But you say guilty?” questioned Greengage who concluded in that moment that Herr Schmidt was an all-round good egg and could be trusted in any situation.

“Yes, I do,” nodded the German, “though I have insufficient information to know what she might be guilty of. But it shines in her eyes. You must have noticed, Ricky, how she wouldn’t look me in the face even though she was told I was a long-lost brother?”

“True, very true,” nodded Inspector Greengage, fighting back an urge to tell the man that he wasn’t to use his Christian name in the police station and regretting that he actually mentioned it when they first met.

“Now you say your, what do you call them, detectorists? That they have found the remains of a young child, or baby?

“So they reported,” he acknowledged, “and they’re going to use whatever tools they have to discover the origin of that child. Apparently, it was buried in the same unofficial grave as a much older skeleton, one that they seem to think predates those of the baby considerably.”

“So the cottage garden is a veritable graveyard?” murmured the Superintendent, wondering as he spoke what the retired German police officer would have looked like had he played something like rugby in his younger days.

“I have had Miss Winterbotham brought in for questioning on the matter, sir,” he said. “She was discharged from hospital and Constable Pierce took her home in order for her to change her clothes because those she was wearing had absorbed a quantity of blood from an accident she had with a can opener, and then he’s bringing her here.”

“Would it be permitted?” asked Herman Schmidt, “I mean, I would very much like to attend the interview… after all, she is my half sister…”

“If the DNA got it right,” grumbled Greengage.

“Indeed,” smiled Schmidt, certain in his own mind that it had because he’d actually examined the DNA evidence himself and, having a scientific background before he joined the Bundespolizei, the uniformed branch of German law enforcement.

“I think it might be an excellent idea,” smiled Superintendent Partridge, “an input from someone with a different geographical perspective might be just the thing!”

“It’s okay by me,” grunted Greengage, reluctantly,

Meanwhile, Constable Billy Pierce waited at the cottage in the woods for Winifred to change out of her blood-stained clothing, and when she emerged from her room she looked very much the same as she had before she changed, but there was no longer any evidence of the unpleasant stains caused by a slipping tin-opener.

“I’m to take you to see the Inspector, Winifred,” he said.

“The nasty commandant?” she almost spat at him. “Come on, then. The nasty man won’t wait!”

As they walked down the short path from the kitchen door to where the constable had left his car she suddenly stopped and stiffened. The scientists had left the garden, though it was clear that they had far from completed their task of scanning the entire but rather small area.

Then she pointed to the excavation where the diminutive remains of a very young child had been unearthed.

“My baby!” she exclaimed, pointing, “bad men have taken my baby!”

“What baby, Winifred?” he asked, and he reached for his phone, switched it onto record and lay it on the dashboard in front of him. This might be important, he thought, and she might never say it again...

“Mine,” she said, ignoring the phone. “out of my body. It hurt. And daddy’s baby. Daddy and me made baby, and I planted him in the garden away from nasty Nazis.”

Crikey, thought Billy, If I understand her rightly this throws a different light on this woman and the things that have gone on here…

“You mean, the baby was yours?” he asked, and he helped her into his car and took his own seat behind the wheel.

“Mother said I should put him in the ground,” sighed Winifred, “Mother said I was too young to have baby, so I dug where the grandfather lay and lay my baby in the bones of his arms…”

“You’d best tell this to the Inspector,” Billy told her, “it might answer quite a lot of questions that he’s been asking.”

“It wad daddy,” she explained, “and I was young, too young, he said, to get a baby, so we played, him and me, when my mother was asleep in her bed. And the games we played, were fun, only some times they hurt real bad, and I cried.”

“What sort of games?” ventured Billy.

She looked at him with twinkling eyes that suddenly seemed to come alive. “Daddy said they were naughty games and if I told mother or anyone then the Nazi commandant would come for me in the night and lock me away for ever and a day. That’s a long time, daddy said, for ever and a day. I wouldn’t like it, he said, and we played more games because I promised.”

“Who was daddy?” asked Billy, “I mean, where did he come from?”

“Daddy came from the skies,” she smiled at him, “on metal wings. He told me, and he landed in the woods and came especially for me, to play games, to have fun.. and sometimes, to hurt me.

“Do you know how old you were?” he asked, “when you played those games with your daddy?

“I don’t understand age,” she frowned, “but he said I was twelve. That was what he called me, his special twelve year angel.”

Crikey, thought Billy, this is all too much. She was a kid if she’s got it right, only a kid, and she had a baby…

“Just twelve?” he asked, “and you had a baby?”

She nodded.

“Daddy said it was an angel from the skies because I was an angel. But it cried a little, and it died. But daddy said it was all right and I should let it sleep with grandfather in the garden, so I dug a hole down to grandather, and that’s where my baby sleeps.”

© Peter Rogerson 14.02.23

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