by Jim Kelly
Brooke consulted his watch. ‘I’ll make sure the local bobby checks the house tonight. We’ll apply for a warrant and go in mob-handed in the morning.’
‘You think he’s the killer?’ asked Kohler.
‘Well, he’s flogged Arthur Pollard’s silver dish. So I reckon he’s a thief – or more likely the fence. He fits in somewhere. What’s more, he lives opposite the Pollards. He was in plain sight. Maybe Peggy suspected him, and that’s why she’s dead.’
‘You said this Peggy Wylde girl was a looker?’ said Kohler, raising an eyebrow.
‘True. The sisters reckon she had a secret admirer. Miller might fit the bill. We’ll have to have a quiet word with Mrs Miller.’
Kohler lit his pipe. ‘It looks promising,’ he said.
‘Tell me about the wardens,’ said Brooke. ‘Duties, jurisdiction, the lot …’
‘Not much you don’t know. They were allocated their patches in ’39, with about five hundred civilians in each. It’s their job to know everyone, where they sleep, if they’re at home or away, where they go if they head to a shelter, if they’ve got an Anderson in the yard, if they’ve got family staying. They’ll know each family, each house, what they’ve got, where they keep it. They’ll even have a note of where they’ll go if they’re bombed out – that’s a government requirement, so we can keep track.’
Kohler sipped his whisky. ‘Only thing with the wardens is they stand out a bit. The helmet, the bluette overalls. The badge. People respect a uniform. They can hardly skulk about. And of course they live in the area. If they were spotted lifting anything they’d be caught red-handed.’
Brooke reset his hat. ‘I thought I saw other wardens in the street that night?’
‘Yes – I think most wardens would head for the bomb site once they were sure the raid was over. They help each other out. It’s a network, like so many others. You don’t think this is organised, surely?’
Brooke smiled. ‘Wouldn’t be difficult, would it? And you could slip people in. The council gives out helmets and armbands willy-nilly. It’s like Ruritania. We’ll find out the truth tomorrow. He may be a bad apple, Edmund. Let’s hope there isn’t a barrelful.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Brooke found Edison laid out on the Nile bed in his office on the third floor of the Spinning House, the slatted moonlight from the blinds defining his substantial figure, which suggested a slumbering medieval knight, except for the stockinged feet which stuck over the end and exhibited extensive darning. It may have been an illusion but his sergeant brought with him the thrill of the open road, the distinct aroma of warm tarmac, and petrol, and spark plugs. A pair of driving gauntlets lay crossed on his chest.
Brooke crept away, fetched tea from the canteen and came back to find his sergeant sitting up.
‘I am sorry, sir. I drove all day and thought you’d be along so I just lay down for a minute.’ He yawned widely until his jaw cracked.
After his tea he seemed to wake up a second time.
‘I’ve got Zeri downstairs in Cell 5, sir. He’s not happy, but he hasn’t made a fuss, so I didn’t need to arrest him. I think he understands the gravity of the situation. He’s been told by Glasgow that the Wylde girl’s dead. I have to say it seems to have affected him very badly.
‘Two issues, sir. He had £160 in five-pound and ten-pound notes on him which he insists was his old man’s savings from the safe at the restaurant. But as soon as I clapped eyes on him I saw the real problem, so I got Dr Comfort to check him out and he’s made a report …’
Edison offered a manila file.
‘What problem?’ asked Brooke, hanging up his coat and hat.
‘Best you see it first-hand, sir.’
They tramped down past the duty desk and into the narrow corkscrew stairwell which led to the old cells, which had been carved into the chalk bedrock and had once held felons and highwaymen.
Zeri heard them coming because when they unlocked the door, and light flooded the cell, he was on his feet, and Brooke saw his face, marked by wounds: a series of thin abrasions, which had drawn blood, and marked one of his cheekbones.
‘Let’s talk upstairs,’ said Brooke, standing back. Watching his prisoner climb the corkscrew steps he recalled Dr Comfort’s observations of Peggy Wylde’s corpse. The bruising to the hands suggested she’d hit out at her assailant. Unlike her aged grandmother she was fit and well, and could have injured the killer.
They sat in the canteen, deserted now that the night shift was out on the streets. The cook, closing up, made Zeri a fried egg sandwich and left a pot of tea. Zeri turned down a cigarette, but took tea and ate the sandwich in half a dozen bites. He’d only said a few words but the Italian accent was pronounced, and Brooke recalled that while he’d been born in Cambridge he’d spent most of his life on a farm in Italy with his grandparents.
Brooke smoked, reminding himself that the guilty rarely exhibit a healthy appetite. Zeri was an Italian from central casting: black slicked hair, olive skin, and the eyes – which dominated – were the colour of the river in flood: a deep, limpid brown. Tall, willowy, but with bony fists, which must have impressed the boys at Ollie Fox’s boxing club. Brooke could see now why he’d idolised the Italian: he was everything he wasn’t – tall, good-looking, at ease. A father figure, perhaps, for the orphan boy.
They let him finish, and he finally accepted a cigarette.
‘Bruno. Listen,’ said Brooke. ‘This is a very important interview, do you understand? You were the last person to see Peggy alive. She’s been murdered, and we need to find her killer.’
Brooke leant back in his chair. ‘The general view, at least initially, was that you killed her. Did you?’
He splayed his hand against his chest. ‘No. No – never. I love Peggy very much. I see her this last time by the river … I never hurt her.’ He was half on his feet, and so Edison leant over and gently applied some weight to his shoulder until he sat back.
Zeri’s eyes flooded, but he went on speaking quite calmly, the tears running down his face freely. Edison fussed over pouring tea, while Brooke reminded himself that tears could tell many stories.
‘I meet her outside the airfield that day, I have to tell her what has happened, that my father is in his hospital – yes? That I must go to him. But I did not say these things there, in the street. I tell her we must go to our place by the river; there is a field, very quiet, beyond the place where the rich boys dive.’
Edison took a note, while Brooke leant back, encouraging Zeri to tell his story in his own way.
‘We go there before, it is very beautiful.’ His eyes lit up. ‘Romantic. I say then I must go …’ He held out his hands, playing out the role. ‘But that I will be back. Our plans do not change. We will marry, and I will be a father.’
‘It was your child?’
‘Yes. This is why the field is our special place.’
‘And you didn’t fight with Peggy? Isn’t that how you got those cuts?’
‘No, never. I never touch her if she does not want to be touched.’
Brooke lit a Black Russian while there were more tears. He decided he’d come back to the cuts and abrasions on Zeri’s face later. For now he’d try to establish the facts.
‘Let’s go back to the start. Tell me about the night the bomb fell. You were at the Roma?’
He held up his hands. ‘Certo. The bomb woke me up, I went out into the street, and then I go out into the park and watch, and there are no more bombs, and I think I don’t like the shelter, so I go back to bed.’
‘You weren’t worried about Peggy?’
‘I see the fires, they are far away, on the other side of the Kite. I know she is safe. Per favore – again, please?’ he said, pointing at the cigarette. He took it carefully, but with the same easy grace with which he’d sipped his tea, the same measured confidence.
‘So next day – what happened?’
‘I find in the paper the story, this reporter says a man is alive after the sh
ip is sunk – yes?’
‘The Arandora Star,’ said Brooke.
‘Sì. He is in coma. They do not know his name. But he has a medallion …’
He unbuttoned his overalls at the neck to reveal a gold chain, with a medal, identical to the description in The Times: a green tree, against a red sky, a crown above, and white zigzag mountains.
He took it off and laid it on the tabletop.
‘So I think it must be my father, and that I must go to him because my mother cannot because she is held in the camp and I cannot talk to her. So I ring family – yes? In Manchester – an uncle, my cousins – and they have been told of this man and they give me the name of the hospital but it is a long way and I must start the journey. First, I must tell Peggy.’
‘Did she know then about the Earl Street bomb – that her grandparents were dead?’
He shook his head. ‘She hear gossip – she is worried – there are people killed, and there is looting. But there are no names, no street. She says she will cycle there now, to be double sure, but I say we must go to our place because I have something to tell her. Something very important. And so she comes with me …’
‘Then what?’
‘She cries that I am going, and says maybe I do not come back. I promise, I promise I come back to her. But I must hurry, so I leave to pack my bag. I leave her on the bench by the river. She needs time – yes? Time to mend her face. Then she will go to the Kite.’
‘You cycled back to the Roma?’
‘Certo.’
‘And took money from the safe? It’s a lot of money. Everyone says you were in debt, that times were hard, but this is a fortune.’
‘This is my father’s money. It is mine to keep safe. I think he may need it now, in Glasgow.’
‘You didn’t steal it from Nora’s house on Earl Street? You knew she had savings hidden in the house – did Peggy tell you that?’
‘Yes. I like Nora – she enjoy life. But I don’t take her money.’
Zeri licked his lips and, sickeningly, Brooke knew then that he was lying.
He let the silence stretch out.
‘Why hitch a ride when you had money for the train?’ asked Edison. His normal calm voice held an edge, and Brooke wondered if he too had sensed they were being told less than the whole truth.
‘The trains do not run because of the bombs. Only beyond Birmingham.’
‘But you went to the station to check?’
‘Sì.’
‘On your bike?’ asked Brooke.
‘No. I cannot take it with me so I walk, then when I find it all closed down I walk out of the city until I get lift.’
‘What was the model of the bike?’ asked Brooke.
Zeri’s eyes searched the room, as if the machine was with them, and perhaps sensing a trap.
‘It is black. Very old. No value. It has a bell marked with a red star. Otherwise, I do not know this model.’
‘And you left it in the yard at the restaurant?’
‘Certo, certo.’
‘It’s not there now, Bruno. Why is that?’
He shrugged. ‘It is stolen.’
‘An old battered bike from a back yard which is of no value?’
Zeri stubbed out the cigarette and slid his hands out of sight.
Brooke cut to the issue. ‘The injuries to your face, Bruno. Can you explain them?’
He nodded, his heavy, jet-black hair flopping down. His eyes rarely rested anywhere in the room, but flitted from Brooke to Edison, and then to the door, and the high barred window.
‘I get a lift on the Great North Road – a lorry, with two men. They friendly, but when they hear my voice they throw me out, in a ditch, and this is how they say goodbye.’ He used the back of his hand to wipe his lips.
‘Did you report the incident?’
‘Sì. I walk on road at night and a police car, it stop. They see the blood and so I tell them the story. The lorry, it has a big name …’
He waved a hand to indicate the width of the branding.
‘It say PEACOCK – like the bird.’
‘Did they take you to the station?’
‘No. I say I must go. They say I must report this but I say no. They take me to night garage – there are lights, and tea. They drive away.’
‘Where was this?’ asked Edison, making a note.
‘The Great North Road – a place called Scottish Corner?’
‘Scotch Corner,’ said Edison, nodding.
Zeri smiled, grateful for the help, suddenly calm, and Brooke recalled the shy, inarticulate man who’d served his mother that night before the Great War. There was a fleeting likeness, a glimpse of a softer, generous nature.
Edison asked more routine questions about the men who’d attacked him on the open road. Brooke assessed the suspect: he’d fled to his father’s bedside, had used his real name, and made no effort to avoid the police. Could it be an elaborate double bluff? Might he be their killer after all? Was the child really his, or had the news sparked a passionate argument?
Brooke poured more stewed tea from the pot.
‘Did you know Tim Vale?’ he asked.
‘He is the hero, the brave pilot, but he is not gentleman. He takes Peggy out into the country, to a beauty spot, but he is no gentleman.’
‘He tried to force himself on her?’
‘He is too fast. He only wants this one thing. Peggy is afraid.’
‘She said that?’
‘Sì. And he spends too much money, which makes her feel cheap, like she is kept woman – they say this? He buys presents and he drives the sporting car. Driving miles, picking up packages – this is a mystery too.’
‘What kind of packages?’
‘Brown paper. She asks but he won’t tell. And the miles he drives, where does he get the coupons? There is no answer to this. And always the wallet is full – five pounds, ten pounds, even she say a fifty-pound note. This I have never seen.’
‘Where does he pick up these packages?’
‘Hospitals.’
‘Which hospitals?’
‘Here – in Cambridge. And then out … to the north, to the west. I do not know the names.’
Edison’s pencil scratched away.
Brooke changed tack. ‘You visited Earl Street – Peggy’s grandparents. Did you meet a man called Miller – he lives opposite, an ARP warden?’
‘He buys and sells goods,’ added Edison.
‘Sì. He is the trafficone – the spiv. He drinks in the pub on the corner and they all like him to his face but then they say he is a cheat when he is not there. Then he buys a round of drinks and they all forget again,’ he added, shaking his head.
‘Did he buy Peggy a drink?’
Zeri nodded slowly. ‘Many times. Nora says his wife run away, yes? So – what do they say? He sniffs around, yes. Like a dog. No one trusts this man once his back is turned.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
They locked Zeri up again in Cell 5, telling him that they had to check his statement, and that in particular they needed to track down the police officers who’d dropped him at Scotch Corner. Then Edison fled to his bed at home, and Brooke took to the Nile cot in his office, watching the slatted moonlight creep across the walls, in a state of exhaustion, but robbed of even the prospect of sleep. The light caught the Kilner jar on the top shelf, the killer’s petrol-soaked glove within. Spectral figures seemed to wax and wane in the half-light: Alice Wylde turning her face to the wall, Tim Vale at the wheel of his sky-blue MG ferrying mysterious packages, and ARP warden Joe Miller, directing sightseers back behind the barricade on Earl Street the night the bomb dropped. In the morning they’d raid his house: was he the key to the case, the fence who’d slipped the Pollards’ treasures into the wider black market?
The puzzle defied him, so he grabbed his hat and clattered down the stairs, acknowledging a brief salute from the duty sergeant before he was out in the empty street, striding south into town. Crossing the river at the Great Bridge
, he climbed Castle Hill, pausing at the summit to look back over the sleeping city, the skyline punctuated by spires and barrage balloons. There’d been no siren, and so it looked as if Tim Vale’s entry into battle would be delayed, if only for a few precious hours. Turning his back on the panorama, he set off down Huntingdon Road – a leafy boulevard of Edwardian villas, leading out into open hill country. After a half mile he turned down a rough track that led to a small Victorian chapel of ease, which stood guard over a crowded burial ground.
His father, Sir John Brooke, had stipulated in his will that he should be buried here, with a plain stone, stipulating his vital dates and the award of the Nobel Prize for medicine. The purpose of the graveyard was to offer a place of rest for those doubtful of the claims of any religion. Brooke was always surprised by the degree to which this lonely spot radiated a spiritual presence, despite the absence of angels, crosses and scripture.
The light here consisted of two lamp posts, set either side of the chapel, so that the graveyard was a cat’s cradle of shadows thrown by headstones, and trees, and a few monuments to the once famous. Many of the inscriptions on the stones, weathered by the passing years, defied interpretation now, like hieroglyphs on an ancient hillside.
He walked to his father’s grave and felt what he always felt, a sense of disconnection and lost time. He set a small blue stone, fished out of the Cam, on the top edge of the stone, touched his hat and walked on.
There was a bench by the far wall that gave a view over open fields. In the very first light of dawn he could see the landscape emerging, gentle hills and full-leafed trees, which looked like a woodcut in black and white. It was a favourite spot to sit, and it meant he could contemplate the headstone he had actually walked out of the city to visit.
DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR
FRANK D. EDWARDES