To All Eternity by Christopher Nicole

Author:Christopher Nicole [Nicole, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Offer

“Gone?” Berkeley asked, incredulously. “Disappeared? What the devil are you talking about, Harry? How can she have disappeared?”

“Well, sir, after Mrs Townsend came to visit you this morning, she returned to the house and said that she wished to go into Northampton. I drove her in myself. I was to return to collect her at four o’clock, sir, under the clock tower. Well, I did that, sir, but she wasn’t there.”

“Let me get this straight,” Berkeley said. “You took my wife into Northampton, and left her there? Why didn’t you stay with her?”

“Well, sir, she didn’t want me to. That was the third time.”

“The third time?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs Townsend has been into town twice before, since you were hit. I suggested I stay with her, knowing her English isn’t that good, but she sent me home. The arrangement was always the same: the clock-tower at four o’clock. And both the previous times she’d been there. Today she wasn’t. And no one had seen her. So I returned home, in case she had caught a lift with someone else, but she hadn’t been home either. Mrs Townsend – I mean your mother, sir – went up to your room, and could find nothing. I mean, all Mrs Townsend junior’s clothes were there, but she wasn’t. Quite agitated your ma and pa were, sir. So they told me to come over here and ask you if you wished them to inform the police.”

Berkeley tried to think. “She must be found.”

“Well, sir, if she planned to leave, it could have been when I first dropped her in Northampton, at eleven this morning. That’s seven hours ago. She could have reached the south coast by now.”

Planned to leave, Berkeley thought grimly. Obviously she had been meeting someone almost every day. Someone – his would-be assassin? “She must be traced. It can’t be that difficult. She is exceptionally good-looking, and she speaks broken English. Get hold of Inspector Watt and ask him to come and see me.”

“Yes, sir,” Lockwood said doubtfully.

He went off, leaving Berkeley to some very disturbing reflections.

His father came to see him that night. “This is a terribly upsetting business,” John Townsend said.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Berkeley said.

“Do you suppose Caterina is all right?”

“I would say she is.”

“But she’s left you. Just like that. Without a word to a soul. I wonder if there are certain things you haven’t told me, Berkeley.”

Berkeley sighed. “Yes, Dad. There are some things I haven’t told you. And I can’t tell you now.”

“Because they are military secrets?”

“Partly. And partly because it would be safer for you not to know.”

“Then you will have to allow me to draw my own conclusions. I don’t believe in coincidences. You have just returned from the Balkans, with a most attractive but you’ll have to admit somewhat unusual young lady as your wife. On the day you got home you were shot by an unknown man of foreign extraction. A couple of days ago the Austrians occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina. And on the day that news is made public your wife disappears.

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