The Rest is Silence (Billy Boyle World War II Mystery) Read Online Free Page A

We drove out of Stokenham in silence, until Quick got back to Kaz’s question.
    “I think it likely he was up to no good,” he went on. “We had no missing persons who matched the general description, and I talked to some fishermen over in Paignton who said they hadn’t heard of anyone lost in the Channel.”
    “We spoke to some in Kingsbridge who told us the same,” Kaz said.
    “Good,” Quick said. “Plus there’s the bullet wounds. Looked to me like a small caliber. What did Verniquet say?”
    “Same thing,” I said. “Probably a pistol, certainly nothing like a machine gun.”
    “Right. So I’m thinking a dispute between black marketers. This fellow’s on the losing end of the argument and gets tossed overboard or off the end of a dock, and the tides keep him out in the Channel waters for weeks. Here, we’re close now,” Quick said. “Bear right.”
    We drove along a body of water to our left, a series of small,despoiled cottages to our right. At one time, it must have been a beautiful spot. On the other side of the water, low hills rolled across the horizon. The smell of salt air was sharp on the wind. As the road curved, we saw the long beach beyond the hills and a large beachfront hotel that had certainly seen better days. Gaping holes showed in the masonry, and smoking craters dotted the grounds.
    “That’s what the P-47s were aiming at,” Quick said. “It was scheduled for demolition but kept in place for target practice. This stretch of beach is Slapton Sands; the water on the other side is called Slapton Ley. A few miles up the beach is the village of Slapton itself.”
    Several LCIs—Landing Craft Infantry—sat on the beach disgorging GIs. These weren’t the small Higgins assault craft, but much larger vessels that could carry over two hundred men and deposit them on the far shore, with dry feet, via gangways on either side of the bow. They were designed as follow-up craft, so the good news was that if you were on one of these, you wouldn’t be charging across the beach into machine-gun fire. Or at least, that was the plan.
    GIs wandered about, clustered in small groups, smoking and chatting as if on holiday. A few officers yelled and hollered as they pushed the men off the beach and up the road we’d driven in on. If this was training for D-Day, no one was taking it seriously.
    Quick directed us past the bombed-out hotel to the shingle beach, the pebbles making a continuous click clack sound as the waves washed over them, drawing them back into the deep. We left the jeep and walked a few yards as Quick got his bearings. The wind off the water was cold, and I buttoned up my trench coat as it flapped around me.
    “Here, I’d wager, or close to it,” he said. Slapton Sands was long and straight, hardly a curve or landmark in sight.
    “He had petroleum in his hair,” I said. “Have any ships sunk along this stretch of Channel?”
    “Not for a while, no,” Quick said. “Although there has been a lot of traffic. Landing craft, destroyers, escort and smoke-laying vessels, all sorts. Any of them could have leaked oil.”
    “Was anyone else around when you found him?” I asked.
    “No, I was alone,” Quick said. “It was one of the few days nolandings were scheduled. I patrolled the village and walked down to the hotel, to make sure no one was about. That’s when I found him. When the MPs came to fetch me, they called for a lorry to take him to Kingsbridge. They wanted nothing to do with it beyond getting him out of the area.”
    “So black market is your best guess?” I said, gazing out to the Channel. A destroyer moved offshore, one of the old four-stackers from the last war. It almost looked peaceful.
    “It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Quick said. “It explains why no one reported him missing. He probably wasn’t local, maybe part of a gang moving in. We have so many Yanks quartered in Devon these days that it’s black-market heaven.”
    “Did you question any of the