by Jim Kelly
‘One thing,’ said Brooke. ‘This bike, there wasn’t a bag, or a holdall, or a pannier, you know, like a basket?’
Jack nodded. ‘A wicker one – and it had a can in it.’
‘What kind of can?’
Jack pointed to the water dowser in the street.
‘Like Mrs Clarke’s,’ he said.
A woman was at the tap drawing water. She had an army-issue container. Everyone called them ‘flimsies’. In the desert, General Allenby’s troops had used them for water, but mostly they were used for petrol.
Edison patted him on the head. ‘Well done, lad. You’d make a good copper.’
The constable said he’d write out a statement and led Jack away.
Brooke took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. So that’s another possible link in the chain, he thought: the spill in the river, the gloves, and now the can in the bicycle pannier. Why did the thief need to carry petrol – if it was petrol?
He lit a cigarette. ‘So now we’re reduced to trying to track down a bicycle in Cambridge, Sergeant. Some chance.’
Edison led the way to the Wellington Arms, where the snug bar, at the far end of the building, had been deemed safe, despite the fact that the ceiling looked like a cracked egg. A woman sat on a wooden settle beside a female police constable.
‘This is Alice Wylde, Nora and Arthur’s daughter,’ said the constable.
‘Could I have a drink?’ asked Alice, before she’d let go of Brooke’s hand. ‘Just water. I don’t hold with beer or spirits.’
She straightened her back. Brooke guessed she’d stand tall, and he could see she had large bones, and a slightly brittle, joyless manner. She was about sixty years of age, with a fine head of grey hair, tied with a black velvet band. But she might be much younger, because the war seemed to have aged everyone, anxiety and the night raids combining to line faces and dim the eye.
The publican, cleaning up debris behind the bar, produced one of the flimsies and poured a glass.
She took a gulp. ‘Sorry. It’s the shock. We weren’t really close. We fell out over money, and my girls … We only live a few streets away but we hardly visit.’
She kept picking at the high neck of her cardigan, as if it was stopping her drawing breath.
‘Dad was a drunk, everyone knew, so that didn’t help.’ She looked quickly around the pub, squinting at the greasy unwashed windows, the cheap furniture. ‘He was in the last lot but he didn’t lift a finger this time. Least I turn out for the WRVS – pour a few cups of tea. Mum spent half her life in ’ere as well. We’re chapel – at least my Peter was. But he’s long dead. Still, blood’s thicker than water, I suppose.’
She examined her glass and took a second gulp. Again he noted the extent to which the war had torn down barriers. Everyone seemed happy to share their most intimate family stories.
‘Dad loved that dog. Never without it. He used to kiss it for a joke.’
He let her talk herself into a silence, doubting that the family history would help them catch a skulking thief, but recognising that letting her ramble on was probably doing her good.
She said she had three daughters, all in work, which was a blessing because they were still short of cash, what with the rent to pay and no man to bring home a decent wage.
‘Mind you, Mum and Dad never went short. They owned their house.’
With this final shot she seemed to run out of bitterness.
Brooke wondered whether she was regretting the family feud, because they’d never be able to make it up now.
‘Mrs Wylde, I’m afraid there have been some thefts from the house and we’re trying to track down what’s missing. I wondered if you could help make a list?’
‘Someone robbed them? When they were dead?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
‘I can try to make a list. Like I say I didn’t go round that much. The girls did, Mum spoilt ’em, so they were always there. It was no palace but there’s a few bits and bobs which would sell.’
Brooke stood up. ‘When you feel up to it can you go with my sergeant and have a look at everything they’ve brought out of the house? Then see if you think anything valuable is missing. The structure is unsafe so you can’t go in – not at the moment anyway. Can you do that?’
She nodded.
‘Mrs Wylde, one thing we do think the thieves took is your mother’s rings.’ Brooke hoped she wouldn’t ask how he knew they’d taken them, otherwise he’d have to claim they’d seen the marks on her fingers.
She said that rings had been her mother’s pride and joy. She looked Brooke in the face for the first time. He took off his tinted glasses so that she could see his blue eyes.
‘Did they take the whole box?’ she said.
‘There was a box?’
‘On her dressing table, large as life. I bet that’s gone. Not just rings, but fancy stuff. Earrings, bracelets, the lot. Most of it was tat, mind you. Mum didn’t have much taste as long as it looked shiny.’
‘Can you describe the rings?’
Alice wasn’t listening. ‘She had cash too. When I was a kid she hid it in a tin in the loo cistern. She was always going on about her “nest egg” – my guess is it was five bob and a few buttons, but there we are.’
Edison made a fresh note.
Alice was nodding, catching up with the questions. ‘Three rings. She wore three rings. All her life …’
She covered her mouth with her hand at what she’d said – all her life.
‘She always said she scrubbed up well,’ she added, recovering herself. ‘When she went out there was a lot of sparkle in Mum, like I said. But not much class.’
She held out her own fingers, pointing. ‘Wedding ring – plain band – on the ring finger. Below that her engagement ring, which was Dad’s mum’s. Typical, that. Mind you, it was gorgeous. Silver, with three little rubies. Peggy, my eldest, loved that ring when she was a kiddie. She’d talk Mum into taking it off and she’d wear it, dressing up and that. She’s all grown up now.’
‘And the third ring?’ asked Edison.
‘That was a “moving feast” – that’s what Mum said. But always on the middle finger. She’d had all sorts over the years. When she’d done with them she kept them in the box …’
Edison asked if she knew which one her mother had been wearing recently.
‘Last time I saw her she had on a Victorian one she’d picked up at Newmarket. Three shillings, she paid. They call ’em poison rings – there’s a little lid and it pops up if you press your fingers together, then you slip the arsenic in the drink when nobody’s looking.’
She laughed briefly, finishing off the water. ‘Maybe she had Dad in mind. She didn’t need to bother, did she?’
It was a bitter thing to say and Alice set her jaw, as though resisting the urge to take it back, to say sorry.
CHAPTER TEN
Back at his desk after lunch, Brooke found a single sheet of typed paper on his blotter. The shoring squad at Earl Street had brought out what they could from number 36 and Alice Wylde had given them a list of what appeared to be missing, other than Nora Pollard’s three rings.
Wedgwood plate. Wall mounted. Six inches diameter approx.
Pistol. Great War issue. Arthur Pollard’s.
Fish knives and forks in box. Electro-plated steel.
Jewellery box. Bangles, rings, earrings etc.
Silver salver from Great Eastern Railway. Engraved to mark the retirement of Arthur Pollard.
Cut glass decanter. Silver stopper missing.
Framed picture. Moulin Rouge.
A football trophy. Possibly silver. Awarded to Crusaders FC Under-12s.
A fur stole with a fox’s head.
Brooke felt that their best chance was the salver, so he’d rung the railway office to trace the silversmith and get an outline of the design and wording, which apparently included Arthur’s full name, and the date. Descriptions of all the stolen goods were sent by motorcycle messenger to Norwich, Peterborough
, King’s Lynn and Bedford, and added to the Spinning House’s own register, but with little hope of success.
The most disturbing discovery was made by one of the shoring squad, who finally managed to remove the rubble in the back yard and drag out the toilet cistern. The tin containing Nora Pollard’s ‘nest egg’ was inside, but empty. Which strongly suggested the thief had inside knowledge, or ample time to check out likely hiding places, although young Jack’s testimony suggested the culprit may have been inside just a few minutes.
They’d send the tin up to County to brush for fingerprints but to Brooke’s eye it looked as clean as a whistle.
Tracking down the Lucifer bicycle seemed equally daunting.
Over lunch at the British Restaurant on Peas Hill with Edison he discussed the case with little enthusiasm. The menu, set by the government and relentlessly hearty, offered a dubious shepherd’s pie and a choice between kale and cabbage, with mashed potato. The thin gravy made everything watery and insipid. A former Masonic Hall, the building itself usually inspired Brooke, with its intricate plaster work depicting compasses and moons, starbursts and hammers. Today the images seemed to mock him.
The Earl Street case left him feeling overwhelmed by profound frustration. Petty theft was common because it was random, so that no logical trail presented itself to trace the crook. Even the suggestion of inside knowledge on the part of the thief served only to reduce the possible suspect list to friends, neighbours and family. But the thief could easily have guessed that the cistern was a safe hiding place. It was hardly novel.
Edison did have a theory concerning the petrol can. ‘I reckon chummy’s out to nick a car, sir. There’s been a spate in the blackout. A lot of vehicles are either low on fuel or pretty much empty. The coupons run out fast, and you only get new ones at the end of the month. So maybe he’s got fuel in the can so he can drive them off.’
They agreed, somewhat forlornly, to press on with house-to-house enquiries and circulating descriptions of the stolen goods.
Back at his desk, Brooke turned his attention to his in-tray: reports on half a dozen burglaries, several cases of actual bodily harm related to fights in the city’s pubs, three incidents of domestic violence, over forty notifications of criminal damage and eight cases of vehicle theft. Public nuisance reports ran to over fifty.
By mid-afternoon the sensation that he was merely going through the motions was debilitating. The Borough’s investigative resources were meagre. There was a crushing sense that out on the streets, and in the houses and shops, crime was rife but largely unreported. There was no doubt that the war had provoked a crime wave of unprecedented proportions, particularly juvenile crime, and that the inability of the police to respond was now simply a recognised fact of life.
The wartime black market was thriving. Rationing had created shortages, and shortages boosted prices. A cash-based economy was developing quickly, bypassing regulations and official scrutiny. There had also been a marked change in moral outlook. Brooke felt that normally law-abiding citizens now felt that, given the sacrifices being made and the hardships endured, there was nothing wrong with a bit of casual crime. He’d even read a piece in The Times which blamed the lowered cultural tone on Hollywood – gangster movies were popular and tough guys were heroes, especially junior tough guys, like the ones in Crime School and Angels with Dirty Faces. And then there was prostitution: organised, informal or casual. It was a scandal that the authorities were trying hard to ignore, although the public health issues were alarming: the ‘clinic’ at the hospital was wildly oversubscribed.
By five o’clock Brooke had had enough. Besides, he had a regular appointment to keep.
He doffed his hat to the duty sergeant and checked his pigeonhole. There were several notes, which he stuffed into his pocket, because at this point in the day he had decided many years ago that for an hour at least he would let the Borough run itself. He strode out into St Andrew’s Street, zigzagging by alleyways to the locked door of the Michaelhouse wharf, where his old college kept its punts. Here, in a hidden corner, he retrieved his bathing shorts from their wooden box, replaced them with his clothes and slipped into the river.
He struck out south, a gentle front crawl, under Silver Street Bridge, into the braided streams which trickled across Coe Fen, until he got to Newnham Pool, his nose at water level, trying to catch a ghost of the chemical and its related gas, but there was nothing. As Brooke trod water he could hear the sound – the unmistakable sound – of children in the water ahead, swimming in the Snobs.
As he entered the shallow channel he could see a scramble of youngsters playing in the blinding light of sunset. White water shot here and there, and out of the shadows on the bank a child came running, launching himself into the melee, limbs flailing. Two or three adults sat on the bank smoking cheerfully.
Brooke hauled himself up onto the bank, letting the water drain from his shorts, before padding over the grass towards the high banks which ran up to the main river. Here, in a shaded spot, stood Hodson’s Folly, a miniature flight of fancy in the shape of a classical temple, just big enough for a small family picnic. According to the story related by his father, Hodson had been an enterprising college butler who’d run a fishery at the spot, and liked to sit and watch over his daughter when she swam in the river, from the splendour of his miniature palace.
Claire was already there. It was a favourite meeting spot because she could slip away from the hospital, which stood beyond the walls of Peterhouse college, only a minute’s walk away. She’d brought bread and cheese and a bottle of beer, and a towel from the children’s ward.
‘It’s not going to cover much,’ she said, handing it over.
Over the years the romance of the spot had been overwhelming, and they’d sneaked off into the long grass of the Fen meadow. But tonight the howling boys were everywhere.
Brooke, half dry, sat close. They shared the beer from the bottle. They had not seen each other to talk to properly for several days. Domestic news led them to Ben, their son-in-law, and the fact there was still no word, and then to the baby, of which there was much: gripe and colic, eyes turning green, Joy struggling with shifts and worrying about leaving Iris with Mrs Mullins, a woman who took in babies to mind for working mothers. With so many men gone to the war Joy said the poor woman was overwhelmed, and that Iris might be neglected, but that she couldn’t face not working, and being left alone with the child at home. And finally there was their son, Luke, of whom there was also no news, although he’d gone north to his posting and was therefore presumably perfectly safe.
‘Come wintertime we’ll leave the windows open and I bet Iris will sleep like a log,’ said Claire. ‘Luke did. It’s a primeval reaction, to shut down and preserve heat. So I told Joy it’s not an open-ended sentence, and that Mrs Mullins is diligent and honest, and that we couldn’t ask for more.’
Brooke offered a résumé of his day, outlining the case of Nora Pollard and Carnegie-Brown’s suggestion that they withhold the details of her injuries in order to avoid a bureaucratic reaction from London. He admitted that catching the thief was going to be a tall order unless they had some luck. The really depressing thought was that hardly anyone else in authority seemed to care whether the culprit was brought to book.
Then he told her about the chemical in the river catching fire, and the sample he’d given to Grandcourt – who’d left a message to say he’d found someone to analyse it but it would take twenty-four hours. Then he outlined his trip to Barnwell Pumping Station, but left out any mention of the rats. Claire, who never exhibited any signs of squeamishness, was nonetheless terrified of rodents of all kinds.
They fell into a shared silence. The dusk was deepening rapidly, the shadows shading to purple, like bruises. Brooke rubbed his arms for warmth. Nightrise, which was edging over them from the east, had brought out a star. ‘The water’s crystal-clear tonight,’ he said. ‘You’ve not seen anything up at the hospital, I suppose – no swimmers getting a mouthful
of chemicals, skin burns, that kind of thing?’
Claire packed away the bread, brushing crumbs off her uniform.
‘Nothing. We’ve had a spate of children with nasty stomach complaints but they were all from Romsey Town and the culprit was easy to find. I think we had four in and they told the same story: they’d all had chips. The Guildhall reckons it’s contaminated cooking fat. Nasty, actually: swollen lips, raking coughs. They’ve closed the chippie down.’
They watched a barge slide past laden with firewood.
‘We did have a swimmer in – from Byron’s Pool,’ said Claire.
‘I thought they’d put a stop to that?’
‘Looks like they’re turning a blind eye.’
Byron’s Pool lay south of the city, in the foothills of the chalk downs which fed the river. It was deep, and a wooden floating dock encouraged divers to the spot. Long before the poet had made it famous, students had indulged in a dangerous sport. Items of dubious value – old coins, a discarded cut glass, a silver dish, a tankard – were thrown into the pool. Retrieving the treasures required skill and courage. Children and the foolhardy were also tempted: there’d been accidents, and a distant fatality at the turn of the century. The college authorities had cracked down and the sport had died away, only, it seemed, to reappear now.
‘You’d think people had enough danger in their lives,’ said Brooke.
‘They brought in a student. He’d passed out coming up. Hardly worth it for a battered old pewter cup. And there’s weeds, and tree roots, and mud, and I bet it’s nearly dark at the bottom. What makes them do it?’
‘Glory,’ said Brooke, which gave him an idea, like a flash of lightning in the dark, in which he saw a way of tracking down the elusive Lucifer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Swimming back down the river in the dusk, he heard the air raid siren as he approached his secret steps: the heart-stopping wail carrying easily on the breeze from the Guildhall. Changing quickly he locked the gate and raced along the narrow alleyways towards King’s Parade. The siren was early, and there was an evolving tradition that it could be ignored, but last night’s lethal bomb had been a reminder that the city was still a target. The pavements were crowded with pedestrians hurrying towards the shelters, lugging bedding and suitcases. He’d once asked Grandcourt if they ever opened the cases when they got to the shelters. He said he’d seen a few, and spotted documents, guessing they were deeds, wills and share certificates. Brooke had never stopped to think how afraid people must be that they might lose everything if a bomb struck: not just their homes, but their pensions, or their savings.