The Black Mile
Page 32
Regards, etc,
Tom
14th June
Police Gazette, 2nd July:
DECORATED OFFICER RETIRES
Chief Constable William Murphy has announced his retirement. He said that, at nearly 62, the time was right to call it a day on a glittering career. “I’ve had a good run and I’ve enjoyed my time,” he said. “There have been many highlights and I’d recommend the force to any young man looking for an interesting and fulfilling career.”
EPILOGUE
–– May 1941 ––
FRIDAY, 16th MAY 1941
69
FRANK MURPHY PAID THE RENT. He said it was blood money that needed to be put to good use. The building was just off Seven Dials––Henry could hear the cries of the stallholders on Covent Garden market from the window. He hadn’t left the office for three days straight––he worked until he fell asleep at the desk, woke with the scrape of the barrows each morning, started working again. A single room with a desk, a chair and a narrow sofa. No-one knew where he was. Murphy had warned him to be careful. What he was doing was dangerous. He hadn’t needed telling twice.
Boxes full of Ripper case notes were stacked on the floor, five high, filling the space. Murphy had taken them out of the archive for him.
Documents blurred into one another.
It was a goldmine.
The Ripper files, alone, would have been enough. Weeks worth of stories. A four-page exposé with follow-ups until Christmas.
Hanged for Crime He Didn’t Commit.
Black-Out Ripper Uncaught.
Maniac Still on London’s Streets.
Angles he never would have dreamed of.
But Murphy gave him more.
He had searched the houses of Regan and Timms.
Buried in Timms’ back garden: £4,943, a shotgun, two revolvers, ammunition.
In Regan’s cellar: eight pounds of marijuana, fifteen boxes of smut, £5,434.
Blackmail photographs:
The Commissioner.
An Assistant Commissioner.
Two Chief Constables.
A government minister.
The great and the good, frozen in shameful black and white glossies.
The pictures alone were a story a week for the rest of his career.
The investigation went deeper.
Regan’s wife, Martha, was found dead in her bath. The Coroner ruled suicide by way of morphine overdose.
Pearl Timms was arrested at Liverpool docks, £2,173 and a cross-Atlantic ticket to Canada in her purse. She turned King’s Evidence in exchange for leniency––a thirty-page affidavit saying her husband had been on the take for years bought her six months inside.
Another East End warehouse burned to the ground ––charred pornographic magazines were discovered in the embers. The Luftwaffe was overhead the night of the fire––a harried fire service chalked it up to a German bomb and closed the file. Henry dug. Land Registry records showed the warehouse was owned by George Regan.
Gregory Butters was arrested and interrogated. Murphy scared him silly but he didn’t know anything else, and was released. Two weeks later he was found face down in the Thames, his throat slit ear-to-ear.
Loose ends were being tied.
o o o
HENRY STARED THROUGH THE GARRET WINDOW. The world carried on outside. Yugoslavia and Greece had surrendered to the Germans. Rommel was pushing Montgomery back to the Egyptian border.
Things looked bleak.
He lit up a cigarette and blew smoke.
He rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter and grasped for the right words.
Things looked bleak and he didn’t care.
There was a lot to do.
Stories he needed to write.
He would begin with William Murphy.