24. THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS

The story continues with questions being asked of Winifred.

THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS

24. Dirty Old Man

Inspector Greengage watched as Constable Pierce led his suspect, Winfred Winterbotham, into the Interview room. The retired German police officer, Herman Schmidt, stood just behind him, frowning.

“Why wait here, Ricky?” he asked.

“Please don’t call me that inside the station,” replied the Inspector irritably, “they know me as Inspector or Sir or maybe Boss in here, and first names are infra dig!”

“But do forgive me. I thought you said it was your forename,” murmured Herr Schmidt, aware that the Inspector was uncomfortable with what he saw as unnecessary familiarity. “You may refer to me as Herman if you like,” he added pointedly.

“Come on,” almost barked Greengage, “Let’s see what she’s got to say before I charge her.”

“You seem very certain,” said the German quietly, and he followed Greengage into the interview room where his suspect, Winifred of the cottage in the woods, was seated uncomfortably and Constable Pierce sitting between her and where the Inspector and Herman Schmidt were to sit, three sides of the table being thus occupied with Winifred opposite her questioners..

Then he took the constable’s cell phone from one pocket and placed it on the table in front of him.

“Miss Winterbotham,” he said in his most formal voice, “while you were being driven from your home to this station you had a conversation with this constable, I believe?” He indicated Billy Pierce as he spoke.

“I never said nowt…” the woman replied after a pause that was several beats too long to be convincing.

“You are sure of that?” he asked, frowning, “because Constable Pierce is quite certain the you said several things to him.”

“The Nazi scum would say that!”glowered Winifred, “making up tales to tell his boss so that he might get favours!” Her vocabulary seemed to have developed since his last interview with her, and he frowned.

“I never…” began Billy, but Greengage waved him to silence.

“There are no Nazis in Germany, not for many long years,” put in Herman quietly, “and I should know for I am German. And from what I have learned it seems your father also arrived here from Germany, but he was fleeing for his life. From Nazis, who no longer, thankfully, exist.

She glared at him. “Lies, all lies. Mother warned me of the lies they would tell in order to trap me.”

Inspector Greengage emitted a squeaky cough.

“We have a recording made during your journey!” he snapped, “and you will listen to it, Miss Winterbotham! This was made as you were driven to this police station with Constable Pierce, and your voice is quite plainly you!”

And he pressed play on the phone recorder. It began with My baby! Bad men have taken my baby!” and the voice was unmistakably that of the woman sitting opposite him.

“To précis the recording, which I will happily play in full, in this discussion with Constable Pierce you claim that your were only twelve when the man you describe as your daddy made you pregnant and you subsequently had a baby as a consequence of that liaison, a baby that you killed and buried in your garden!”

“What is this lee… what you called it, lee…”

“Liaison,” almost smirked the Inspector, “it means you had the sort of relationship with your own father, if that’s what he was, and DNA examination will prove that he was, and that was wrong. You were only a child. You said you were twelve years old and that is a very wrong thing for him to have done.”

“It’s all Nazi lies!” was all she could manage to say, though her face was screwed up with concentration as she struggled to understand what was going on and that she was being faced by three men who seemed determined to undermine her innocence. That was how she saw herself, innocent and abused and facing an enemy, and the actual fact was that for reasons she had never thought of her assessment was perfectly correct. As a twelve year old she had been innocent.

“Why didn’t your mother stop this?” asked Constable Pierce, unable to stop himself even though the Inspector had warned him to observe only.

“That’s enough, Constable,” snapped Greengage.

“But a good question none the less, don’t you think, Inspector?” asked Herman.

“I suppose so,” Greengage grudgingly admitted, “well, Miss Winterbotham? Why did your mother not stop the shenanigans? Any normal mother would, and the cottage you lived in, and still do, is hardly big enough for an affair that introduced a child into the world to not be noticed?”

“Sir,” interrupted Billy, for which he received a scowl from his superior officer, but he felt justified, “shouldn’t Winifred have a solicitor to assist her?”

“Exactly!” agreed Herman Schmidt.

Greengage shifted his eyes from scowling at Pierce to nodding at Herman.

“Quite right!” he snapped, “she does indeed need representation and I will call for the duty solicitor. He can help her when it comes to explaining the truth to us!”

Meanwhile, Superintendent Partridge was worried. He had picked up a few signals that Herman Schmidt had unconsciously dropped by way of expression and shaking of his head, and he decided to smarten the murder team up a bit before the Ger,man could say anything, and he would start with the smarmy and too pretty (and she knew it, in his opinion) Constable Felicia Denver. It had to be her, really, because the rest of the small team seemed to be elsewhere and he wasn;’t in the mood to go chasing anyone up. After all, wasn’t he the Chief Constables representative in Brumpton and wasn’t it up to others to be at his beck and call?”

And there she was in her too-short skirt and much too pretty blouse. In front of that damned computer yet again as if she actually understood the damned machine, and being a woman, could she?. And looking at her, he knew that whatever a man’s orientation (and he was always reserved about his own, having long ago convinced himself that his excitement over the sight of a good looking young man had everything to do with the absence of any such people in his bland childhood.

“Constable Denver, a word if you please,” he said, knowing she would have to stand up and walk towards him, giving him an immediate superiority. Yes, and he did like that, the idea that others must stop whatever they were doing because he asked them to.

But whatever he thought she’d do she was too engaged in it to leap up immediately.

“Just a minute, sir,” she responded, and to make everything right she flashed him her most beguiling smile, but which didn’t have the desired effect.

“Now, Constable!” He raised his voice, and she muttered inaudible mutters to herself and stood up.

“I’m sorry, sir, but that was important,” she said in the sort of semi-irritated voice designed to assure him that, far from wasting her time, she was an important part of the team involved in essential research.

“I’m sure it was, Constable, but I’m your superior officer,” he told her rather brusquely, “and that takes precedence over whatever it is the Inspector told you to do.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, peevishly.

“Now you’re an intelligent woman. I think I mentioned that the Chief Constable thinks highly of you. Tell me what you make of the German retired police officer, Herr Schmidt.”

“Well, his English is as good as yours or mine, sir, he is curious about his apparent half sister and just now I discovered that he was one of the more highly respected and decorated members of the German police force before he retired. During his time, again before he retired, he solved quite a few what we call cold cases, and that led to a couple convicted prisoners being pardoned and set free due to his proof of their innocence.”

“Oh,” Partridge hadn’t known that. And before his eyes he could see some of the Inspector’s past cases being put under a German microscope and he being made to look like a fool at the end of the day.

“But he’s straight and honest,” added Felicia, ”and not out to cause any trouble here! He’s only interested in his half sister, that’s all.”

The Superintendent sniffed. “If you think so,” he mumbled, and he couldn’t help noticing the skirt that she was wearing. “Are you courting at the moment, Constable?” he asked.

That’s nothing to do with a dirty old man like you, she thought. “I have a few fellows hanging around and looking for my hook,” she said. “You know what it’s like, sir, they ether want my body or my brain, and that’s never good enough.”

“No rugny players amongst them?” he asked with what he hoped was a fatherly smile, “no young athletes in pristine white shorts charging across the mud, looking for you?”

He wished he hadn’t thought that, he really did. But these days and at his age the only outlet his imagination had was ancient images of his rugby playing days, and Geoff, the way he had looked at him in the showers after a game, the promise in his eyes…

“That’s enough, Constable!” he snapped, “back to your duties!”

“Yes, sir,” she smirked, and, dirty old man she thought.

© Peter Rogerson, 15.02.23

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