A Shadowed Livery

by Charlie Garratt

  ‘So you parted on bad terms and soon afterwards he was dead. How do you think that looks, Mr Sumner?’

  ‘I have to admit it doesn’t look good. I had been poking my nose in where it wasn’t wanted and we both said things we shouldn’t, but Tom rang me later to apologise. I did the same and we made up.’

  He confirmed no one could verify the reason for the argument, the telephone call or its outcome, because both Tom and Lady Isabelle were dead. I didn’t like Sumner but his explanations sounded plausible. He then told me that he’d been in the office all day when the murders took place, although the only person who’d be able to corroborate it was his wife. I knew she would if I asked her so it would mean very little.

  When I stood up to leave I asked him about the picture of Jerusalem.

  ‘Have you been there, Inspector?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, but it looks beautiful — at least in the painting. Have you been yourself?’

  ‘It is, and I’ve been many times. I try to make pilgrimage and pray at the Western Wall every two or three years.’

  I should have known better but I was surprised that he was Jewish. I mentioned the beatings case I’d been working on and asked if he’d had any problems.

  ‘Not so far. I think perhaps my business is a bit too big for them to get to me. Too many of my men about the place most of the time. It’s a bad affair, though; your colleague, Terry Gleeson, mentioned it to me.’

  ‘You know Inspector Gleeson?’

  ‘Oh yes, I know him very well.’ He jerked his thumb at the painting. ‘But don’t mention what I said about this to him, if you don’t mind.’

  I arrived at Warwick headquarters after lunch and asked the front desk to let me know when Dyer was back. After they rang me I gave him five minutes before dashing up to his office, before he could get embroiled in anything else.

  He looked as smart as ever I’d seen him, in his best dress uniform, patently only wheeled out when he was trying to impress. He was also not in the best of moods.

  ‘Bloody silly games these people play, James. It’s not about good policing these days, only about office politics, who can get one over on who. We’re here on the edge of a war, with the whole country on alert, and this damn meeting spends most of its time bickering and in-fighting. I felt like getting up and walking out.’

  I wasn’t sure if what I was about to tell him would put him in a better frame of mind or a worse one but I had no alternative now he’d arrived. However, he was already one jump ahead of me.

  ‘What’s this MI5 nonsense you’ve got yourself mixed up in? I’d just gone to bed when I get a call from some man — Spencer, I think he called himself — claiming to be from Special Branch and saying he’s thinking of arresting one of my officers.’

  I gave Dyer the whole story and said I was sorry he’d been put out.

  ‘What the hell do you think you were playing at? Even if the chap hadn’t been a spy you shouldn’t have been talking to a witness in a potential murder case and being pally for your own personal reasons. I should have you put on disciplinary charges, and might even do so when the case is finished.’

  I drew a deep breath. ‘It’s no longer just a potential murder...’ I went through my reasoning and thankfully he seemed to consider it accurate, even if he wasn’t entirely happy with the result.

  ‘I have to say I’m having difficulty getting this straight in my head, James. I send you down there to check a young copper’s conclusions about a particularly nasty double suicide and you’ve brought me back a triple murder — with no certainty about who the primary victim was or why they were killed. God knows what the Chief Constable will say when I pass the news on to him. He’s a friend of the family, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Speaking of friends of the family, sir, I interviewed Jack Sumner earlier. He’d had a fierce row with Tom Barleigh the day before he was shot so I thought I should see him. Didn’t like him one bit and I’m not sure I trust his alibi.’

  ‘Sure you’re not suspicious just because he’s Jewish, James? I wouldn’t have had you down as an anti-Semite.’

  ‘I’m definitely not, sir, and I resent the suggestion that I would be. I didn’t like him before I even knew he was a Jew. He’s arrogant and bad mannered to his staff. And the only one who can substantiate where he was on the morning of the murders is his wife.’

  ‘Well, he’d not be alone in that now, would he? If that was the only thing we had to rely on then half the male population would be on the list of suspects. I don’t like Sumner myself very much but I can’t see him being a murderer.’

  I decided to chance my arm about the next steps and asked Dyer for more time to follow up my suspicions. He considered for a second or two then shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘What else can I do, James? I’ll give you a few more days but no more manpower. You can hang on to Sawyer, but that’s it until you find something more conclusive.’

  Dyer began to leaf through the letters waiting for him on his desk. This meeting was over. As I stood up and headed for the door, he gave me his ultimatum.

  ‘Wrap this up quickly, Inspector. I’ll cut you as much slack as I can but this can’t go on much longer. And if upstairs says it has to stop, then it has to stop. Understand? Besides, I want you back on the beatings. Gleeson’s getting nowhere and his latest cock-up is beginning to make me look incompetent.’

  ‘What’s happened, sir? I haven’t heard anything.’

  Dyer told me there’d been a raid on a club the night before. A tip-off had been received that several of the key suspects would be on the premises and they’d have evidence with them on their next plans.

  ‘Gleeson charged in with all guns blazing, so to speak. You could hear the police car bells from miles away. Needless to say, the club was deserted when they arrived. I need him off the case and you back in charge.’

  I nodded my agreement and told him I’d passed some information from my London contact on to Gleeson then I left. There was no point in being annoyed at Dyer about the time limit. He’d already explained the office politics he had to play and I was sure he’d do everything he could to support me. My difficulty now was to pull all the pieces together as quickly as possible, with only Sawyer to help with the legwork.

  I decided there would be no point going back to Grovestock House that afternoon and I could work as easily at a spare desk in the canteen as at the station in Kenilworth. I wrote up a few notes, rang Sawyer with Agnes Black’s address and spent another two or three hours scribbling various ideas and possibilities in my notebook until my pen ran out of ink. I checked the drawers of the desk but could only find a couple of empty bottles so nipped to Gleeson’s office to see if he had any. He, showing his usual dedication to duty, had left the station dead on five o’clock but his door wasn’t locked so I went in anyway. His desk top was completely clear. In fact, the entire office was spotless with not a paper out of place.

  I opened his top drawer and laughed to see it as neat as the room. Someone had once said to me that a tidy desk is the sign of a sick mind and it now became clear what he was talking about. I couldn’t help thinking how much fun it would be to rearrange the drawer and watch Gleeson’s reaction next morning. I even took a first step towards this prank by picking up his notebook with view to leaving it open so it would be the first change he’d see. As I leafed through it I noticed my name in the pages towards the back. Alongside each entry was a date and a brief note. At the head of the section were a name and a telephone number. Several were those of suspects I’d have known in the beatings case, others I didn’t recognise. One was dated the morning after my trip to Birmingham.

  I returned home and walked over to draw the curtain across the window. The sun was setting over the fields beyond the castle, highlighting the sandstone ruins with a red blaze. How magnificent the scene must have looked on an evening like this, when Robert Dudley wooed Elizabeth I, lavishing entertainments worth a King’s ransom on her during her visit in 1575.
/>   I was glad I’d found my way here after I returned to England, and even happier I’d found this cottage where I could set up an office in an upstairs room that captured the evening sun. It isn’t a large room and the ceiling is low. Still, I’ve managed to fit in a table to serve as a desk, a couple of bookcases and a small wooden filing cabinet I rescued from my father’s workshop when he was going to throw it out. I usually prefer to work at my desk — I find it keeps my mind focused — but occasionally I’ll take to the armchair in the corner if I need to read or ruminate over information I’ve gathered.

  This armchair is a great luxury and helps me avoid working in the rest of my home. It’s the curse of the detective, especially when working on complex cases, as I do. I have no control over my thoughts. They turn round and round in my head day and night, slotting this piece here and that piece there until the picture emerges. Or at least until it’s clear there are no pieces missing. So it’s not really possible to limit my thinking to one room, but I try. I’d go quite mad if I didn’t.

  My reverie over the sunlit scene was soon broken when the telephone rang on my desk. It was the Special Branch officer, Spencer.

  ‘How did you get this number?’

  ‘Come, come, Inspector, don’t be so naïve. You know the times we’re in — all I have to do is utter the word “spy” and I can get almost anything I want. Besides, your Superintendent Dyer still isn’t happy about you chatting to a possible suspect, supposedly for personal reasons. He’s not at all convinced you’re not a threat to the realm. Are you sure he doesn’t know your background?’

  I almost slammed the phone down on him, but thought better of it. If he, and Dyer, still had suspicions it was better to try to clear them up without antagonising him too much. It wouldn’t take a great deal for him to implicate me in Haleson’s little game if he decided I wasn’t being sufficiently co-operative.

  ‘Understood, Mr Spencer, it’s been a long day and I’m a little sensitive about who has my home number. What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s rather the other way round, old man. Haleson is here and he wants a word. Already spilled the beans to us, and verse. Names, dates, the lot. Seems like you’re in the clear so there’s no harm in him talking to you and I’ve said he can.’

  Before he put Haleson on I asked Spencer if they’d made any more arrests.

  ‘Only small fry really, just the messengers, he’s the really important one. Frightening how much access he had to top level information. Anyway, I’ll hand you over. As I said, you appear to be blameless in all of this but I’ll be listening in on the line, just in case.’

  Alan Haleson sounded like a broken man. His breathing was laboured and his voice trembled as he spoke. He told me he’d been able to make some enquiries on my behalf between our meeting in Birmingham and being picked up by Spencer’s crowd.

  ‘But why are you trying to get this for me now?’

  ‘I just want to try to make things right, Mr Given. Tom was my best friend and I’d never have done anything to hurt him, Jenny or his mother. They were like my own family.’

  I could have told him it wouldn’t be the first time families had fallen out with it ending in bloodshed, but I’d had doubts about his involvement right from the start. He was under enough pressure without me adding to it. Instead, I told him his denials meant very little to me and it was the evidence which would count in the end. I also said I had no influence whatsoever on Spencer or Mitchell, so not to think I’d be able to do any pleading for leniency on his behalf. I sensed Spencer himself chuckling on the other extension at my admission of his power.

  ‘Of course, I understand all that, Mr Given, but I feel a need to make amends where I can. I’m afraid I didn’t turn up anything specific on your Uncle Gideon or his whereabouts before they pulled me in but I’d urge you to contact him in any way you can. All of our intelligence in the Foreign Office leads us to believe Hitler is about to orchestrate a big show against the Jews. We don’t know what it is yet but it’s going to be widespread — national — and aimed at all of the Jewish shops and small businesses. I’m assuming your uncle is Jewish, isn’t he?’

  This was one more person who knew something of my past I’d rather wasn’t too public, though I had little choice but to confirm what he’d said.

  ‘Hitler will want this to look like a popular demonstration against the Jews, rather than coming from his direction, so he’s had his henchmen meeting for weeks in secret up and down the country. We think something’s likely to happen in the next fortnight so anyone who can get out, should get out.’

  At this point the phone was taken away from Haleson and Spencer broke in.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s bordering on the hush-hush, Inspector, so I’m going to need to stop it there. I’ll say goodnight now.’

  The line went dead and my mind began to race. How could I get word to my uncle that he and his family are in even more danger than they suspected? I hadn’t a clue where they were, and even if I had, I’d no way of getting a message to them.

  I glanced at the clock to check if it was too late to telephone my father. As I reached out to pick up the receiver the telephone rang again.

  ‘Hello again, Inspector.’ It was Spencer. It was barely five minutes since our previous conversation had ended.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Spencer. To what do I owe the pleasure of another call so soon? Actually, before you answer, thanks for letting Haleson speak to me. He didn’t have much information but at least it was something. And forewarned is forearmed, so I’m grateful to you.’

  ‘Good of you to say so, Inspector, especially taking into account our earlier meeting.’

  I told him I knew he had a job to do. What I didn’t say was I wished he hadn’t pursued it with such relish. There’s a very fine line between putting on an aggressive act to browbeat a suspect and in letting your feelings of disgust get the better of you. I still wasn’t sure if Spencer was a consummate actor or simply a bully boy.

  ‘Contrary to what passed between you, me and Mr Mitchell, Inspector, I’m not an anti-Semite, my wife is Jewish and her family are in the same boat as yours. I just have to put on this little show sometimes when interrogating people. Adolph Hitler needs to be stopped. He has it in for the Jews and there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, going to be hurt. If I can help just one of them in some way I hope I’ll have done my bit.’ He paused, and I could imagine him looking around before he continued. ‘Mitchell has chaps all over Germany working underground. I dare say if they can’t find your uncle no-one can. If it’s all right with you I’ll ask him if he’d mind putting the word out to see what they can come up with. I can’t promise anything, old man, but at least we can have a go.’

  I thanked him profusely, almost embarrassingly so, before he agreed to get back to me as soon as he could and we finally said our goodbyes.

  It was now almost dark. I looked up at the photograph above my desk and lifted the receiver again to telephone my father.

  Fifteen

  Blue gingham tablecloths, each topped with a neatly typed menu card, glass and chromium cruet set, willow pattern jam pot, complete with spoon, and neat place settings, made Martha’s Tearoom look like every other one I’d been in. Martha’s name was picked out in bold maroon letters on the front window, the bottom half covered by a net curtain, affording customers privacy from prying eyes in the street. I smiled as it occurred to me this flimsy screen would provide no protection whatsoever from the gossip machine which chugs and churns in every small town and village. My life would be so much more difficult without it.

  A young waitress with shockingly red hair tumbling from a starched white cap wandered over to take my order.

  ‘Tea for one, is it, sir?’

  ‘Please.’

  I returned to reading my papers but the girl stood there until I looked up.

  ‘Anything else, sir? We’ve some lovely scones, freshly baked. Or perhaps an iced bun? They’re my favourite.’

  He
r smile was so engaging as she pointed over to the rack of cakes in the counter-top glass display I was almost tempted to order something.

  ‘No thanks, just the tea. Trying to lose some weight, you know, and I don’t think they’d help much, would they?’

  Her smile turned into a good-natured laugh as she placed her pad and pencil back into her apron pocket.

  ‘I expect not, sir. Tea it is, then. I’ll be back in a jiffy.’

  In the few minutes I was waiting for her to come back, my mind wandered. Thoughts of Elizabeth, and what I was going to do about her, crept in. Should I say I was sorry for suspecting her brother and hope we could get back on good terms? Did I want this? Truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted. Elizabeth had hurt me a lot when she’d left the first time but I’d now realised I still had strong feelings for her.

  True to her word the waitress emerged from the kitchen with a steaming teapot in the same blue and white as the crockery already adorning the table top. I scrambled to move my documents to make space but, without waiting, she leaned past me to place the pot down and several drops of hot brown liquid splashed from the spout on to my open notebook. The girl’s eyes widened and she gasped as the ink blotched and ran. Before I could say or do anything she’d whipped her tea-towel from her waistband and was flapping at my pile of papers. Inevitably this made things worse and was only brought to an abrupt halt when this over-vigorous flailing resulted in half of them falling to the floor. The waitress, now a half-mad thing, fell to her knees and attempted to scoop everything up. I had to stop her, to save my own sanity as much as hers.

  ‘Please leave them,’ I said, ‘just leave them alone. They’ll be fine. I’ll pick them up myself.’

  With this, she stopped and looked up at me, her eyes brimming.