David Llewellyn nodded grimly and placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea in my office, eh? I’ve got a spot of brandy up there and then I’ll put you in the picture.’
Without a word we returned to his office, leaving behind my brother Paul in that small grey cell in the bowels of Scotland Yard.
Over tea, enlivened by the brandy, David explained in detail about the murder of Mary Callan, the prostitute, the discovery of Paul’s wallet in her room and how they’d picked him up at a hotel in Paddington. Apparently he’d still been too drunk to say much, but he had admitted—David used the word ‘confessed’—that he’d had sex with the girl that night.
‘But it’s all circumstantial evidence,’ I said, still trying to make sense of this whole mad scenario. ‘Just because he’d been with the girl doesn’t mean he killed her. She could have had other punters after Paul.’
‘It’s possible, but unlikely. We still have a lot of investigating to do but he’s the main bloke in the frame at the moment.’
‘But Paul wouldn’t kill anyone. He’s not…he’s not a murderer.’
‘What is he doing in London?’ It was Sergeant Sunderland who asked this.
I shook my head. ‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t know he was here.’
‘That’s not surprising,’ continued Sunderland in a smug manner. ‘It would seem that Sergeant Paul Hawke is absent without leave and has been missing from his regiment for over three weeks.’
My shock dial went up another couple of notches and I found myself repeating the phrase: ‘absent without leave’ with a growing sense of unease. My certainties were flying out of the window.
‘Fraid so Johnny,’ said David. ‘Soon as we got him back here I checked with the War Office. The night staff were remarkably efficient. Apparently Paul had been granted ten days’ leave but he didn’t return to his regiment. He’s been away almost a month.’
‘Just about the time the murders started,’ observed Sunderland.
‘This is ridiculous. It doesn’t make sense. Why would he want to kill these girls...?’
David shrugged. ‘Well, that’s a question I’ve never been able to answer about murders of this kind. There are those who kill for gain or for hate or in anger, that’s understandable I suppose, if not acceptable. But this type of murder, cold-blooded, motiveless… Who knows what’s going on in the disturbed mind of a fellow like that?’
Anger flared within him. Paul wasn’t ‘a fellow like that’. He wasn’t some homicidal maniac. There must be some mistake here. And yet what the hell was he doing in London and not contacting me? Why had he not returned to his regiment when his leave was up? That didn’t make sense either. There were too many uncomfortable questions hanging in the air.
‘Can I talk to him? Perhaps I can get some sense out of him? I’m sure there’s going to be a simple explanation for all this.’
David stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘I suppose so,’ he said at length. ‘It might help both of us see a clearer picture. But I couldn’t let you go in there alone at this stage, Johnny. I’d have to come in with you. You’re a friend, but there are procedures and this is a serious murder case.’
‘Whatever you say,’ I shrugged impatiently. ‘But can we get on with it?’
*
As the cell door opened Paul stiffened and his bleary eyes focused on the door. When he saw me his jaw dropped open. I could see that his befuddled mind was searching for a suitable emotion. His eyes flickered with uncertainty as he staggered to his feet and took a step forward. I did the rest. I hugged him tight, the way he’d hugged and comforted me all those years ago in the orphanage when I got frightened in the darkness of the night. We said nothing. Words seemed superfluous.
I felt his body shudder with emotion. How strange it was for me now to be the one who hugged more tightly, who gave the comfort.
David Llewellyn closed the cell door and stood at a distance waiting patiently while this emotional reunion ran its course.
‘Can you get me out of here, Johnny?’ Paul said at last, breaking free of my embrace.
‘It’s not going to be that easy,’ I said. ‘You’ve a lot of talking to do.’
He slumped back on to the bed. ‘I guess so. Where d’you want me to start?’
I glanced at David and he gave me the nod to go ahead. He was letting me lead with the questioning. I knew he wasn’t just being considerate. It was a wise move. Surely Paul would open up more easily to his brother than a stranger.
‘They tell me that you’re absent without leave.’
‘I don’t know what’s happened to me. I just…I just couldn’t take it anymore. I lost friends…Oh I don’t know. It all seemed so futile. Day after day of it. I just needed to get away. To escape. I had leave…I thought that would help, but when it was over I just couldn’t face going back. I just couldn’t. I was sick, physically sick at the thought of it. I wanted to lose myself…’
This wasn’t the strong, confident and resolute brother I knew. I had never seen him like this before.
‘Why on earth didn’t you get in touch with me?’ I asked gently.
‘What could I say to you? How could you help? The trouble was inside of me. In here.’ He tapped his forehead.
‘Where did you go? What did you do?’
Paul ruffled his hair and put his head in his hands. ‘I don’t know. Can’t remember now.’
I glanced at David who rolled his eyes at me. He had been right. This wasn’t going to be so simple. Even in the short time I’d spent with Paul I realised that I didn’t know him now. In fact it seemed that he didn’t really know himself. I felt the cold clammy hand of truth rest heavily on my shoulder. Seeing my brother in this confused condition, I no longer felt confident in my assertion that he could not have committed these murders. He was obviously very disturbed and in a state of mental instability. Who knew what he was capable of?
‘How long have you been in London?’ It was David who asked this question. He saw that I was lost for words.
‘A few days I think. I’m…I’m just a bit confused. I had a lot to drink last night. I need to rest…I just want to sleep. It will be better when I’ve had some sleep.’
‘Sure lad, we’ll let you rest. There’ll be plenty of time for questions later but before we go, just tell us about Mary.’
Paul turned his bleary eyes to us. ‘Mary?’
‘The girl you went with last night.’
‘Mary…yes. Mary.’ His brow contracted as he desperately tried to bring the events of previous evening into focus.
‘Where did you meet her?’ continued David.
‘In a pub.’
‘Which one?’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t know. Never been there before.’
‘You picked the girl up.’
‘I suppose so. I think it was more the other way around.’
‘You knew she was a prostitute?’
‘Well, yes. I saw her with another customer.’
‘When? When was this?’ I snapped. I wanted to shake him. Shake him soundly until he pulled himself together, flipped out of this crazy act.
‘I was at the bar. Someone came up to her…but she was with me. I think she liked me. She told him she was busy…’
‘And you went back to her place for sex?’
‘Yes.’
David moved forward and crouched down by Paul so that their faces were on a level.
‘And that’s where you killed her.’
For a moment Paul stared dreamily at David. And then shook his head. ‘Kill her? No. I didn’t kill her. Surely…I didn’t kill her. Did I?’
I leaned sideways pressing my forehead on to the cold grey wall and moaned softly.
26
‘Don’t tell me the love-boat, she hit the rocks already.’ Benny stood by my table, frowning at me and flapping a damp tea-towel like it was a cat o’ nine tails and he was about to administer some medieval punishment.
‘Look, the love-boat never
got launched. It’s all in your romantic imagination.’
‘You can’t kid me, Mr Johnny One Eye. The way you looked at that young lady with the bumpity-bump of the heart.’
‘Bumpity-bump of the heart! You should write lyrics. Jack Hilton could use you.’
‘Don’t try to change the subject. What have you done to that lovely girl…that lovely Jewish girl?’
‘I’ve done nothing to her…’
Benny nodded in what I assumed he regarded was a wise and perceptive fashion. ‘That’s maybe the trouble.’
‘Look,’ I said, lowering my voice, not wanting my private life to provide a floor show for Benny’s early diners, ‘the girl is a client. Just a client. She got herself into a bit of trouble and I’m sorting it out for her. That’s all there is to it. No romance, no engagement-ring, no church service.’
‘A client? No romance?’
‘That’s it. No romance.’
Benny wrinkled his nose. ‘There should be. You’d be a mug to pass up on such a looker.’
‘No romance,’ I repeated emphatically, hoping to close down this particular topic of conversation.
‘So why d’you look as though you’re carrying the world on your shoulders this morning?’
I grimaced. ‘Ah…I got a few problems. Things on my mind. Life is a little…grubby just now.’
‘You want to tell me about it?’
I summoned a grin. I didn’t want to hurt the nosy old beggar’s feelings, he only meant well. At times I really appreciated his mother-hen concerns for my welfare but at present I was not in the mood to spill the beans about my brother being arrested for murder or to discuss my role as cheerleader for the Britannia Club hoodlums. ‘What I really want,’ I said conspiratorially, ‘is to have a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich.’
Benny curled his nose up. ‘OK. I can take a hint. Anything else?’
‘A little peace and quiet?’
‘There will come a time when you’ll be more than happy to bend old Benny’s ear. But don’t be so sure that he will be so obliging.’
My reserves of bonhomie were running on empty that morning. I could hardly produce a thin smile to placate my old friend, so I just nodded.
Benny frowned and leaned in close. ‘Say, you are down in the dumps today.’
I nodded again. Benny gave me a gentle pat on the back and disappeared into the kitchen.
I glanced at my watch; it was just creeping up to 8 a.m. I felt tired and miserable and at a loss for what to do. Tea and a bacon sandwich might help. It was too early for whisky.
David had agreed to let Paul have a good eight hours’ kip before interviewing him again. At least then he’d be fairly fresh and alcohol free and, it was to be hoped, he would make more sense. But I was worried. Even allowing for the tiredness and the booze, brother Paul now seemed a stranger to me. I felt fear. Deep down in the pit of my stomach, I felt fear. Could he really have killed all these women? Surely not? Not my big brother. But if he’d had some kind of mental breakdown...? There was no certainty anymore.
What the hell was I going to do?
Absentmindedly I poured some grains of sugar on to the table-top and chased them around with my finger. I trapped the grains by the sauce-bottle and pressed down on them until they had stuck to my finger, then gently I sucked at the sweetness.
Benny returned with my tea and sandwich and plonked them down before me.
‘There we are, Mr Detectiveman. Enjoy.’
I looked up at him and suddenly smiled. Trust Benny—he’d hit the proverbial nail on the head. ‘Thank you,’ I said with warmth.
‘What did I do?’ he asked, somewhat surprised.
‘You answered my question.’
‘What question?’
‘It doesn’t matter, but thanks.’
‘Any time,’ he said with a bewildered shrug, before leaving me to my breakfast.
Mr Detectiveman took a satisfying gulp of hot tea.
Mr Detectiveman, that’s me, I thought to myself, that’s what I do. And that’s what I’ll have to do, if I’m going to find out the truth about brother Paul.
*
I spent the rest of the morning visiting the little hotel where Paul had been staying when he was arrested. The place was run by an elderly couple called Parkinson who were reluctant to talk to me. I learned very little from them, mainly because there was very little to learn. Paul had only booked into the place the day before and had paid for two nights. He seemed a normal, quiet sort of a chap, but they realised how wrong they’d been when the police knocked them up in the middle of the night to cart him away. Where Paul had been before that remained a mystery. The police had taken all his belongings to Scotland Yard so there was no chance of my examining them.
As I travelled back to Hawke Towers on the tube I tried not to be too disheartened by my lack of success. There was so much I didn’t know yet but I did think that it was significant that Paul had given his real name to the Parkinsons, which was not the action of a soldier on the run or, indeed, a murderer. A trawl of the public houses in the vicinity where Mary Callan had lived and operated was probably my next move, but before I could do that I had an appointment with a pretty girl. One that Benny would never forgive me for missing.
On arriving back at the office I shaved and tidied myself and the place up a bit. I was expecting Barbara at one o’clock and although there was no romance, as I’d told Benny, I didn’t want her to get the impression that I was an untidy slob.
One o’clock, the time she was due to arrive, came and went. I smoked a couple of cigarettes, paced the floor and waited. Then it was two o’clock but still no show. The girl wasn’t coming. At first I was puzzled, then apprehensive, and finally worried. At 2.30, I slipped on my coat and hat and decided to investigate. If she wasn’t coming to my place I’d go to hers.
I hadn’t been in the East End for some time and I was shocked to see how much damage the Luftwaffe had done to the area. Great acres of land lay waste where rows of small terrace homes had been reduced to piles of grey doll’s-house bricks. It was an alien landscape conjured up by a twentieth century Brueghel. Children were playing, clambering over the rubble of what had once been someone’s front parlour or back kitchen. Their incongruous innocent cries of joy made the scene all the more poignant.
Barbara lived somewhere in this no man’s land, in Balaclava Street, in one of the remaining clutch of surviving districts south of Aldgate. Balaclava Street was a dreary anonymous thoroughfare embedded in a section of similar streets built in the early part of the nineteenth century for the influx of workers who flocked to London at that time. Cheap, cramped houses where the swinging of the proverbial cat was impossible. There were rows upon rows of these houses, identical, featureless and impoverished. Fagin would have felt at home here.
Barbara had given me her address as 34. I walked slowly down this dreary street, checking off the numbers as I went. Eventually I reached number 34.
It was still smouldering.
Wisps of smoke were escaping through the darkened apertures where the lower ground windows had been. Blackened net curtains flapped gently outwards into the daylight and the stench of damp ash filled the air.
The charred front door was ajar. As I stepped forward a thin harsh voice assailed my ear.
‘There’s nobody at home, mister,’ it cackled with barbed sarcasm.
I turned and saw an old crone standing in the doorway of the house next door. Her arms were folded across her thin chest in an aggressive manner and her dark brown eyes, set in her gaunt wrinkled face, viewed me with a mixture of suspicion and aggression.
‘What happened?’ I asked, letting my hand travel gently down the blistered wood of the front door.
‘What’s it look like? There was a fire, wasn’t there?’
‘How?’
‘Well, it weren’t the Jerries this time. Petrol bomb through the window. I saw the geezer running off.’
I felt sick. My stomach lurched as I r
ealised with a cruel clarity the implication of what had happened. It was revenge. Of course it was. The damned Britannia Club. Their thugs had done this. I took a step forward and pushed open the blackened front door. It was like staring into a large ashtray.
‘I shouldn’t go in there, mister,’ the crone advised. ‘It’s not safe.’
She was right, of course, and there was no point in my trying anyway. ‘What about the family?’ I asked, turning to face the old woman.
She shook her head and suddenly the taut, harsh features softened and the eyes moistened. ‘Poor Mrs Cogan…caught upstairs. Not a hope. I heard her screams. Rotten it was. The young lass was rushed off to hospital but...’ She shook her head again. ‘She looked bad. Not much hope.’
‘Which hospital?’
‘St Bart’s I think I heard the ambulance man say. Who are you anyway?’
‘A friend.’
‘Never seen you before round here.’
‘No…but a friend none the less.’
‘You got a fag, then?’
I passed her one and lit it for her.
‘Ta,’ she said, her face disappearing briefly in a cloud of smoke. ‘It was those bleeding fascists if you ask me. They’ve caused trouble round here before. As if we ain’t got enough trouble with bleedin’ Hitler trying to bomb us to bits…’
The fascists it was. I should have realised that they wouldn’t let Barbara return to her normal life after she had rippled their deep waters. They weren’t going to let her get off that lightly. The Jewish bitch! They intended to make her pay. A red-hot wave of anger swept over me. If I could have got my hands on Guy Cooper or Sir Howard McLean at that moment I would have beaten their brains in with my bare hands.
‘The bastards,’ I barked, thumping the wall of the house in angry frustration.
‘You said it, mister,’ said the woman. ‘You said it: bastards.’ And then she closed her door, shutting out me and the desolate, threatening world beyond the confines of her little house.
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