by Jim Kelly
Brooke glanced sideways at the bungalow and saw Mrs Fitt standing in her nightdress at the back door with a hand over her mouth. He signalled her to stay silent with a finger across his lips, and she backed away into the house.
The barn door was the sliding type which ruled out any attempt at a stealthy entrance. The lorry stood empty at the back of the yard, at the top of the slope that led up towards the woods, its tail-back down, the cab dark. From inside the barn they could hear a radio playing. There was a pungent smell on the still air, and Brooke thought of the Kilner jar in his office, the killer’s gloves within.
They took careful steps across the beaten earth of the yard, the noise partly masked by dance music. They came to a halt and an owl hooted from the woods which edged the hill.
Brooke braced himself, getting both hands on the cold metal handle, and slid it open in one move. In that first freeze-framed second he saw everything in startling detail. To one side several hundred flimsies had been stacked against the barn wall. A large metal open tank, its rim at about hip height, stood at the back, containing a livid blue liquid, which had produced a thin gas, which hovered above the surface like a sea mist.
Down the middle of the barn had been set a line of trestle tables – a makeshift production line – at which Bobbie Fitt and his father stood working, filling cans (which had presumably arrived carrying petrol) with the adulterated mixture of kerosene, using milk jugs. They both wore motorcyclist’s gauntlets, which reached to their elbows, and both had contrived home-made masks of cloth to cover their mouths, tied behind their heads bandit-style.
Bobbie Fitt stared at his father, eyes bright with fear.
‘Don’t move,’ said Brooke. Bobbie Fitt put down the flimsie he was filling, while his father raised his hands. Brooke had the distinct impression they were both waiting for something to happen.
Brooke heard a pistol being cocked and then several things happened in rapid succession: they heard the distinct sound of a handbrake being released, and then the crunch of tyres as the lorry rolled backwards across the yard, using the steep gradient of the ground.
Jack Fitt looked back at his son with a slight shake of the head.
The gunshot came from the lorry. In the desert Brooke had dodged bullets, by a yard, a foot, but never this close. He felt the air pushed aside by the trajectory of the shell, and heard the gnat-like high-pitched passage of the .25 by his ear, and only ducked when it was gone. The sound of the ricochet against the corrugated iron of the chemical tank was like a bullwhip. His legs folded and he hit the deck. He had his head on one side, facing left, and so he saw Edison follow suit, collapsing in a heap, expertly bringing both arms up as he did so to protect his head.
The driver of the lorry, judging the momentum of the vehicle perfectly, let it reach speed before turning the ignition key, the engine firing into life as he shifted into first gear and swung the vehicle round, picking up speed and scattering the cordon of officers in the road. The tyres screamed as he sped north, loosing off a Parthian shot, the tail-back slapping against the rear bumper.
Brooke, back on his feet, got an arm round Edison and hauled him up, dragging him out into the yard. Two constables had taken a glancing blow from the lorry and were laid out on the tarmac. Mrs Fitt was already kneeling by one of the injured. The house had a phone and Brooke commandeered it to call the Spinning House, ordering the duty sergeant to summon the radio car from the southern roadblock to the garage, and to warn the northern roadblock that the lorry was approaching, and that the driver was armed and had already fired twice.
The Fitts had fled through a door at the back of the barn into the woods. The bloodhound was already in pursuit, and they could hear its guttural barks within the trees. Brooke organised the remaining constables into search parties and they checked the house, the barn and a series of outbuildings, which is where they made their most significant discovery. Just beyond the first line of trees they found a dilapidated shed about thirty yards long, although the roof had been newly laid with felt and creosote, and the interior was bone dry. It was stacked with goods arranged in bays made with plywood. Clocks, linen, pieces of expensive small furniture (chairs, inlaid tables, hat racks), kitchen implements, cutlery (silver separate from EPS), pictures in frames, gilded frames, bicycles, mirrors, prams, cheap jewellery, trinkets, ornaments and much else. All the goods were in decent condition.
Edison, still brushing down his overcoat, surveyed the scene.
‘It’s a clearing house, Edison,’ said Brooke, picking through a pile of cutlery. ‘Bring the stuff in, sort it out, then off it goes for sale away in London, or another big city where we’ll never find it. The petrol’s just another scam. Come daylight, let’s go through the lot and see if we can find anything from Earl Street.’
A constable reported that the radio car had arrived.
Brooke jumped in the front, Edison in the back, and they sped north, through the woods, along the narrow winding lane, heading for the roadblock. It was the first still moment Brooke had to contemplate the single shot which had come so close: one spark from its zigzag ricochets could have ignited the barn.
‘There, sir,’ said Edison, leaning forward and pointing ahead. The lane was narrow with ditches on both sides and the dispositions had been agreed in advance: warning lanterns were to be placed across the road, two constables were to stand aside, the third to the rear of the radio car.
They could see the lanterns scattered to either side, and the lorry, off to the left in a ditch, its wheels still turning. The radio car was still across the road.
A constable ran towards them, swinging his torch.
Breathless, he came to the open driver’s window. ‘He tried to go round us but tipped it over, sir. He’s done a runner, up the hill. He fired a shot, so he got a head start, but they’ve gone after him anyway.’
The chalky ground rose sharply away from the road. After a brief climb they could see a constable silhouetted against the stars. At the crest of the rise they found themselves on the edge of a chalk quarry, the pale bowl beneath them oddly luminous in the starlight. A pair of torch beams crisscrossed in the shadows below like divers glimpsed in the ocean’s depths.
‘It’s a scree-ride down,’ said the constable.
Edison stood back, but Brooke didn’t falter, stepping over the edge, his brogues sinking in the pebbles up to his ankles. Gravity took him down the long incline although he had to work hard to keep his momentum going and avoid boulders marooned in the chalky dust. As he descended, the light from the chalk waxed so that he could see the scene below clearly: a workman’s hut in the centre of the quarry, a conveyor belt, a cluster of open trucks, a row of machine mixers.
Once or twice the scree held him fast, and he had to shake his feet free and begin a fresh descent.
At the foot the two constables had found the runaway driver. It was a man, and he’d clearly broken a leg and an arm, because they lay unnaturally at an angle to the rest of his body. He was whimpering with pain. The pistol was in his belt.
Brooke took the torch from one of the constables and shone it directly in his face.
It was Elsie Wylde’s lover, Joe Miller.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Brooke stood on the doorstep of the Wyldes’ house on Palmer Road. It was still the early hours of the morning. The all-clear had sounded at midnight, there would be no bombers tonight, and so the streets were silent. A cat mewed close by, and something like a tin can rolled in a gutter, but that could have been a mile away. Above his head the two upstairs sash windows were slightly open. The house had a knocker representing a hound’s head which he raised and tapped lightly three times. A dog barked in response close by, and then he heard a footfall on the stairs within.
‘Who is it?’ asked a voice, and he recognised Alice Wylde.
‘Inspector Brooke. I need to talk to Elsie. Can you ask her to step outside, Mrs Wylde? Can you get her up?’
The door opened a crack, and light flooded out.
Alice, a nightdress held at the throat, looked twenty years older.
‘What is it?’
‘I’ll explain to Elsie. It’s nothing to fear. But it is urgent.’
‘Wait there,’ she said, and closed the door.
Brooke lit a cigarette. Edison had driven the Wasp back to Cambridge, the head of a convoy comprising the two radio cars and an ambulance – carrying Miller, and the two injured policemen, one with a broken ankle, the other suffering from concussion. At Addenbrooke’s they’d transferred Miller to a private room, and Edison had been left on guard. The hunt for the Fitts had ended within the hour. The bloodhound had led the chase and sniffed them out in the ruins of an old sawmill, and they’d been frog-marched back to a Black Maria at the ACE garage, and were now in the cells at the Spinning House.
The door opened to reveal Elsie, on the doorstep, in her working clothes.
She looked grey, her face puffy and lifeless.
Before she closed the door she whispered up the stairs, ‘Bye, Mum, Connie. See you later. Don’t worry.’
The windows above were left open and Brooke wanted some privacy. ‘We could walk,’ he offered.
They turned left, walking away from Parker’s Piece, deeper into the Kite. The air was still tainted by the ash from the bombs which had fallen the night before.
‘Sorry to wake you up,’ said Brooke.
‘You didn’t. Mum’s been crying so I was with her. Connie’s in our room, she’ll be sound asleep. Ollie’s given up on the old sofa and moved into the Anderson. We were all in there earlier with the siren. It’s a bloody tight fit, whatever Mum says,’ she laughed, offering Brooke a cigarette as he ditched his own.
‘So what’s this about?’ said Elsie.
‘It’s your man, Joe Miller. He’s alright – but he’s in Addenbrooke’s. He’s in a bad way, a broken leg and a broken arm, but he’ll recover. That’s not really the problem. The problem is he’s been running stolen goods, Elsie. I’m sorry, there is absolutely no doubt.’
She blinked slowly, and Brooke wondered if she’d always known it would come to this: that she’d fooled herself, but that at some level she’d always known he was a crook.
‘He’s part of a blackout gang. They’ve been using a village garage out in the sticks. They’re flogging stolen petrol and fencing stolen goods from looted homes. The war’s been good for crime. My guess is he’s got a lock-up somewhere where he keeps his lorry and any stolen goods that need storing overnight. The house is clean – but that’s just a cover. Sorry, Elsie – it’s best you know.’
She leant her back against the cold bricks of a terraced house. ‘He told me he’d stopped. He’s good at what he does – buying and selling. And he’s good with people. They trust him. It’s just been a temptation. The war’s changed everything.’
Brooke took off his hat, running a hand back through the black hair.
‘Elsie. We’re not talking about a good honest thief here. He had a gun, and he made a run for it. He put a bullet through a metal shed in which they stored something like three hundred gallons of petrol – plus a few drums of kerosene. One spark, Elsie, and I wouldn’t be here now. There were two men in the shed; they wouldn’t have found their bodies beyond some charred bone.’
‘Christ,’ she said, looking away. ‘What a mess.’
They’d reached the corner of Salisbury Street, and they could see Ollie Fox’s bombed-out house, the facade now replaced by a tarpaulin. It was a depressing sight, and Elsie looked suddenly overwhelmed, her eyes flooding.
‘You can see Joe, if you want to see him, later today,’ said Brooke. ‘He’ll be fine, as I said. But you don’t have to see him.’
‘He’ll go to gaol, won’t he?’ she said, and he wondered if she was thinking about standing by her lover.
‘This is desperate stuff, Elsie. It’s not my decision, but that gunshot could amount to attempted murder. Most judges would make an example of him.’
They walked on towards the railyards.
‘And we have to consider other crimes,’ said Brooke. He checked his watch. ‘When Joe’s better he’s going to have to answer questions. About Nora’s house. That was looting, Elsie, and the house is right opposite Joe’s. He’s got his ARP uniform – nobody sees him come and go, he’s just doing his job. And then there’s Peggy. You might not have guessed what he was up to, but maybe she did. If he could do what he did tonight, Elsie, he could have killed Peggy. Were they close?’
It was a careful question, but Elsie took it in her stride.
‘You get used to it – being the plain Jane. Joe fancied Peggy like they all do – and maybe he took me out to see how close he could get. It happens: three sisters, one a looker. But Joe wasn’t her type and Peggy didn’t muck about. She told him straight—’
Brooke held up a hand to stop her talking: he’d heard the dull thud of a timber falling, a rattle of spilling bricks. The sound came from the next street. They walked to the corner and saw a police constable emerging from a house that had taken a hit in one of the first raids of the war.
Something of the night, a movement of the air, the constable’s agitated waving arms, made Brooke’s skin creep.
The constable was twenty yards away, brushing dust off his uniform.
‘Constable. It’s Inspector Brooke,’ he said, advancing into the light.
‘SC 015, sir.’ SC was the designation for special constable – a volunteer recruited to allow the Borough to at least give the impression that the law still patrolled the streets. He looked less than twenty years of age, and he was out of breath, or panicking.
‘Yes. But your name, Constable …’
‘Root, sir. There’s something in the house.’ He shone the torch beam wildly in the direction of the blackened building. ‘I should go for help.’
‘What is it?’ asked Brooke.
He looked at Elsie. ‘I don’t think it’s for the young lady, sir.’
‘Don’t worry about her. Show me,’ he said. ‘Stay here,’ he said to Elsie. ‘It’ll be rats. We won’t be long.’
Brooke stepped within a yard of the young constable. ‘Remember, Root. Never exhibit signs of panic or confusion. What is it, man?’
SC Root held up his hand. Brooke could see it was covered in what looked like sticky black paint, until the constable used his other hand to turn the light onto his fingers. It was blood, partly congealed.
‘There’s a hole in the floor of the front room, sir. So you can see down,’ he said.
‘Go ahead,’ said Brooke. ‘Walk slowly, Constable.’
The front door was off its hinges, and the hallway beyond in ruins, so that they could see the whole ground floor, strewn with rubble, and bricks, and roof tiles and rafters.
The jagged hole was in the front room, and out of it rose a thin cloud of dust, as if the bomb had only recently plummeted down through the floorboards.
‘The neighbours rang the station about an hour ago saying they’d heard something and thought it was looters. I reckon someone was chucking stuff down into the cellar. I was going to use the box on Parker’s Piece to get help.’
‘Because of the blood?’ asked Brooke.
Root nodded. ‘Best I show you, sir. Follow me. The cellar stairs are safe,’ he said.
The constable forced the cellar door open but stood back at the last moment, letting Brooke go first, then following.
‘Give me the torch,’ said Brooke.
As he dropped down the brick steps he saw a basement, swept and clean, but for a pyramid of rubble under the jagged hole. A smashed toilet constituted a pinnacle to the ruins, which included a length of bannister and a hat stand, a water tank and some heavy beams. Dust rose up from the pile, and motes hung in the air, and clogged the beam of the torch. Brooke got out a handkerchief and held it to his mouth.
‘It’s moving,’ said Root, pointing at the floor.
The brick floor was covered in an old lino. Efforts had been made to clear up after the bomb, which had fallen
earlier that summer, and the floor had been swept clean, and in one corner bricks had been piled neatly. Across this floor lay a pool of black liquid, which had its source beneath the pile of masonry.
Brooke knelt down and touched his finger in the liquid and held it up to the light. The vivid, arterial red was unmistakable, but he held it to his nose nonetheless and caught the distinct metallic tang of blood.
Standing up, he edged his boot to within an inch of the boundary of the blood. It was moving, very slowly, and Brooke imagined a heart, pounding, so that the spreading liquid had a pulse of its own, but he knew even then it was a faint hope.
‘Let’s move as quickly as we can,’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t we get help? Preserve the scene?’ offered Root.
‘There’s a chance we can preserve life, Constable. Let’s make that effort.’
They heard footsteps and looking up saw Elsie had come into the front room and was peering down into the cellar.
‘Stay back,’ said Brooke. ‘It’s dangerous. Can you get help, Elsie? Go to a neighbour and tell them to request an ambulance.’
They took off their coats and started hauling the biggest items first: the water tank, and two roof beams. Then they ferried bricks. After ten minutes Brooke called a halt and asked for the torch.
There was a fissure in the rubble, and a few feet down the light caught a pale glimpse of skin. He reached down and pulled a brick to one side and saw what looked like an ankle. From the position of the foot Brooke calculated the location of the head. Kneeling, he lifted aside a shattered window frame, and a roll of carpet. The last item shielding the face was a broken mantelpiece clock.
‘Christ,’ he said, closing his eyes. The face, as such, had been destroyed by a series of blows, to such an extent that Brooke suspected a concerted attack, rather than the random wounds inflicted by the falling masonry.
Even in that chaos of blood and bone he saw the ghost of a likeness he recognised. He inveigled his hand around the skull and felt for a pulse in the neck, but there was nothing, although the skin was warm and yielding.