by Mike Hollow
‘So, you think you might have an IRA connection to your case,’ said Ford. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Well,’ Jago began, ‘as I said on the phone last night, it’s just a possibility. But with explosives involved, and a suspect with an unusual interest in Irish politics, I thought we should check with you. We heard a lot about the IRA bombing campaign last year, but it seems to have quietened down now.’
‘Yes, but it hasn’t stopped. I’m just thankful no more lives have been lost. We had those bomb attacks on phone boxes and cinemas in November and December, but by then the Prevention of Violence Act had come in, so we could deport suspects and stop others entering the country. And then De Valera cracked down hard in the South – he banned the IRA and interned a lot of suspects. The only incidents we’ve had since then are two shops bombed in Birmingham in February, and then a bomb in Oxford Street. No attacks in Scotland or Wales yet, because the IRA don’t want to upset the Scottish or Welsh Nationalists. The last incident we know of – because the bomb worked – was in Westminster in March.’
‘So are there still IRA cells active in England?’
‘There may be. We’re keeping an eye on known sympathisers in the London area, including on K Division, where you are – and that’s where we had our first breakthrough, the summer before last.’
‘When that car was stopped in Ilford? A random check, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, and if your chaps hadn’t taken a look in the boot and seen all that potassium chlorate, that would’ve been the end of it. I know they let them go when the men in the car produced a receipt to show the chemical wasn’t stolen, but they had the gumption to take their names and addresses. And then, thank goodness, one of your men was suspicious enough to tell his station officer, who called us.’
‘And it turned out they weren’t what they seemed?’
‘Too true. We raided one of the addresses, in Dagenham.’
‘Also on K Division.’
‘Yes, and we found a notebook full of names and addresses, and when we checked them against our files we found quite a few were IRA suspects. That was really helpful – it’s amazing how often the IRA have left incriminating documents and papers lying around for us to find. We raided the addresses in the notebook and found all sorts of things – sticks of gelignite, detonators, fuses, the lot. We made a lot of arrests too. All thanks to your men.’
‘The people you arrested – were they all Irish? The reason why I ask is that our suspects aren’t, as far as we know. They’re as English as you and me.’
‘Well, that’s an interesting point. We’ve traditionally looked out for Irishmen, but we think they’ve tried to use people born here with English accents instead, because they don’t attract the same attention. When we got the ringleader of the Liverpool bomb attacks last year it turned out he wasn’t an Irishman at all – he was a seaman from Manchester. He got twenty years’ penal servitude for conspiracy, possessing explosives, and causing an explosion.’
‘The Home Secretary said something last year about foreign involvement too. Was he talking about Germany?’
‘I think it’s generally assumed that he was. We think there’s been contact between the IRA and German military intelligence, and I suspect MI5 may know more about that than they’ve told us. Some people are worried that if the Germans took it into their heads to invade Ireland, the IRA suspects we’ve deported might act as some kind of fifth column there.’
‘That all sounds very big. Is it really possible that our three in West Ham could be mixed up in it?’
‘Anything’s possible, I suppose. Only last year we raided an address in Manor Park and found all sorts of stuff for making bombs – detonators, fuses, alarm clocks and suchlike. And that’s in East Ham, right next door to you. But on the other hand I’ve checked the names you gave me last night and they’re not on our files as sympathisers.’
‘I see. I was wondering how they’d come by their gelignite, too. Could that be through the IRA?’
‘It’s possible. We know the IRA stole gelignite from quarries in the Midlands, and when we raided a house in Birmingham we discovered a store of two-ounce sticks. They’d hidden it there and passed some on to their contacts in London. So if your chummies had links with the IRA in London they might’ve got their hands on some of that.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily make them bomb-makers, though, does it?’
‘No. And if all you have at the moment is a gelignite wrapper from a safe-breaking and a young man who’s interested in Irish politics and might’ve stayed in the Gents too long at the cinema, I don’t think you need to go in with guns blazing. I suggest you just treat it as an ordinary case of larceny but let us know if you turn up anything more telling.’
‘Thank you. There’s something else I’d like to ask you about before I go. Nothing to do with Ireland or gelignite, as far as I know.’
‘By all means.’
‘I just wondered whether you can tell me anything about an organisation called Kibbo Kift.’
‘That woodcraft lot? Oh, yes. An odd bunch, definitely. We’ve kept an eye on them since they began – the Home Office has been a bit concerned from time to time about what they might get up to.’
‘And have they got up to anything they shouldn’t have?’
‘Not really. They got going just after the war – about 1920, I believe – when people were shouting about radical change and there were all kinds of odd new movements. Quite a few prominent people supported it. They wanted to get away from industrialised society and raise up healthy leaders committed to peace and internationalism. As far as I’m aware, their activities seemed to consist mainly of rambling, hiking, arts and crafts, fancy costumes and mumbo-jumbo ritual. Dramatics, too – acting in little plays. A bit of a cult, if you ask me. In the early days I think people were worried they might be communists and linked to Moscow, but we came to the conclusion they were just a bunch of pacifist cranks. You know – enthusiastic but not dangerous, and not of any serious political significance. They saw themselves as an elite group leading society into a new future, but they were never very big – they numbered in the hundreds rather than the thousands.’
‘And they turned into the Greenshirts?’
‘Yes, that’s right – in 1931, I think. Their leader got them all wearing green shirts and berets, and marching on the streets with drums and banners. They got a bit bigger then – several thousand at one point. They blamed all our economic problems on the international bankers and reckoned they’d be able to abolish poverty, hunger and unemployment by reorganising the economy. Of course, there was concern about any political group that started parading about in uniforms, so we had men in their meetings too, keeping tabs on what they were up to. The Greenshirts reckoned they were standing up to the Bolsheviks and fascists alike, and got into fights with both. They started to attract more public attention then, because they were out on the streets instead of camping in the woods, but they only started wearing their uniform in public in about 1932, and then of course four years later the Public Order Act came along and they had to stop wearing it.’
‘I don’t suppose they were very pleased about that.’
‘No, I think it hit them pretty hard, and they’ve rather faded away since then, although they still get up to occasional stunts. In February one of them dressed up in a green jacket, shirt and tie, strolled into Downing Street and shot an arrow through a window at Number 10, with a message on it saying “Social credit the only remedy”.’
‘Ah, yes, I’ve heard a lot about social credit.’
‘You probably know more about it than I do, then. Anyway, the incident wasn’t the biggest threat to the state, although I suppose if Chamberlain had been looking out of the window at the time it could’ve been more serious.’
‘Was the archer put away?’
‘No, it turned out he’d been called up and was due to join the forces that same day. He was just charged with insulting behaviour and bound over for a y
ear.’
‘All pretty harmless, then.’
‘So it seems, yes. But we’re still watching them and preparing regular reports. We don’t regard them as a threat in the way that the Blackshirts were – or are – but they’re still an unusual bunch, with some pretty odd ideas.’
‘Odd ideas sincerely held,’ said Jago. ‘What a lot of trouble that can mean.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jago took Superintendent Ford’s advice regarding the Sullivans and decided to keep his powder dry. He’d press Martin Sullivan a little about his movements on Sunday evening first, before getting too carried away with the possibility of suspicious political leanings. He would track him down as soon as he’d kept his appointment with Hosea Evans.
At a quarter past ten on Thursday morning, therefore, after he’d briefed Cradock on some of what he’d been told at Special Branch, the two men set off from the police station for the ten-minute walk to where Evans lived. Jago had given the fireman the benefit of the doubt the previous day, and found himself hoping Mrs Evans’s testimony would bear out her husband’s claim concerning the rings. Not that he was being swayed by any sense of sympathy for Evans, he assured himself. If the man had committed a crime, he must be held to account for it, and there was something about stealing rings from a dead body that was particularly distasteful. It was dishonourable. But there was also the reputation of the fire service to consider. People had been quick to spread rumours after a number of firemen were convicted of looting from fire scenes, and he had no desire to embarrass the local Auxiliary Fire Service by prematurely arresting one of its members.
They reached the junction with Church Street, and Jago was reassured to see that the parish church of All Saints had come through another night’s bombing unscathed. For the second time in as many days a memory of sitting in its churchyard came unbidden into the forefront of his mind, this time of talking quietly with Dorothy about the stars, and war, and life. It had felt as though she were peeling away layers of the armour he’d built up to protect himself, but in a way that was only for his good. He remembered too with a pang of guilt how in that same conversation he had spoken harshly, paining her in a way that he would never have wanted.
He pushed these thoughts away as they crossed into Marcus Street. Here the scene was less tranquil: halfway down it, a bomb had left a large crater in the middle of the road, on either side of which two houses – or possibly three, it wasn’t easy to tell – had been reduced to an uneven pile of matchwood and rubble. The rescue workers were still there, but it looked as though they were packing up their trucks to go. Jago guessed that if anyone had survived the explosion they’d have been removed to a rest centre or hospital by now. He stopped to ask whether he and Cradock could lend a hand, but the answer was a polite no, with thanks.
At the end of Marcus Street they turned right into Stephen’s Road, looking for number 46, where Hosea and Amy Evans had their home. Jago had begun to count down the terraced houses from the one nearest to them, but he could soon tell that 46 was going to be in a section that was showing signs of serious damage. As they got closer to the house they could see that the glass had been blown out of all its windows, the slates had been blasted off the roof, the chimney stack had disappeared, and the front door was swinging open. Jago peered in at the door and saw wrecked furniture in the small front room that opened directly off the street. He knocked on the door and called, but there was no answer.
He turned away. The only activity he could see in the street was the relatively new sight of a small squad of Pioneer Corps soldiers shovelling the last of the debris onto the back of an army truck, in which they would presumably soon be transporting it to barges and dumping it on the Essex marshes. Any other civil defence workers who might have been there earlier had gone.
He was about to set off with Cradock in search of an ARP warden when a woman hailed them from across the street. She was middle-aged and wearing a floral-patterned cotton overall with an almost-matching turban.
‘Excuse me,’ she called as she approached them. ‘Are you looking for Mr Evans?’
‘Yes, we are,’ said Jago. ‘We’re police officers.’
‘Come with me, then. He’s in my front room. I’m a few doors further up and missed the worst of it.’
She took them into her house, which indeed seemed to have got off lightly in comparison with number 46 and its immediate neighbours. They found Evans sitting in an armchair with his head in his hands. Beneath the overcoat he was wearing, which like his hair was covered in grey plaster dust, his legs appeared to be clad in pyjamas. He looked up as they entered.
‘Mr Evans?’ said Jago.
Evans responded with a blank gaze that seemed to go straight through him and out to the street beyond.
‘Mr Evans,’ Jago repeated, his voice subdued. ‘Your house has been hit?’
‘Not my house,’ said Evans in a flat monotone. ‘My Amy.’
He closed his eyes, and the tears began to course down his cheeks and drop onto his coat.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jago, squatting down on the floor beside the chair.
‘She came home yesterday afternoon after you’d gone,’ Evans whispered. ‘Said she’d decided I was right, she should try it again for a night, sleeping at home. Said if it was my night off she’d have me there to look after her, and it wouldn’t be as bad as when I was out on duty.’
‘But—’ Cradock began, but Jago hushed him.
‘We went to bed in the Anderson shelter in the back yard, and she wasn’t too bad at first, but then when the anti-aircraft guns started up she got very jittery – held on to me and wouldn’t let go. I said I’d go and get her some cotton wool so she could stick it in her ears and keep some of the noise out, and I’d fetch her a nice tot of whisky to help her sleep. So I went into the house. I was only gone a few minutes.’
His voice broke. Jago put an arm round Evans’s shoulders as the fireman struggled to regain his self-control.
‘I’d just gone upstairs into the front bedroom to find some cotton wool when there was this almighty bang behind the house, half the ceiling fell in on me, and I could see stars where the roof should’ve been. I knew what must’ve happened. I got down the stairs as quick as I could and out the back door, and then I saw it. The bomb had landed right on our Anderson shelter. There was nothing left. Nothing. She’s not there any more. We hadn’t even said goodbye.’ His voice trailed away into a quiet sob.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Evans,’ said Jago.
Evans nodded his thanks.
‘Have you got somewhere to go?’ Jago asked. ‘You can’t stay in your house if it’s got no roof.’
‘The station officer’s been round already,’ Evans replied, his voice flat. ‘Our fire station’s only just down the road and it’s got a dormitory, so he said I can stay there until I get myself sorted out.’
He looked up, as if he’d just remembered who his visitors were.
‘But that’s not why you came here, is it?’ he said sadly. ‘You were going to ask my Amy about those rings, weren’t you?’
‘I was,’ Jago replied.
‘Well, I don’t care any more. I don’t care about anything. You know I wasn’t telling the truth, don’t you, about being on duty last night. How come my Amy said she was going to stay at home with me because I could look after her all night if I was on duty? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’
Jago nodded.
‘Well, I was lying, wasn’t I? I said I was going to be on duty just to get you off my back long enough for me to tell Amy what to say. She’s always been a better person than me. I didn’t deserve her, and I was going to make her lie for me.’
Evans stood up, wrapping his coat round himself. He looked Jago in the eye.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said. ‘Those rings belonged to that woman who was murdered in her flat. She didn’t need them any more, and I did. Life doesn’t get any cheaper just because one day you get a job as a fireman – a ra
sher of bacon costs the same, and you still have to find the rent. I know what I did was wrong, but we were in a bit of a sticky patch moneywise, and when I saw those rings it was just a temptation I couldn’t resist. I thought no one would know, and we’d get a bit of cash to tide us over. I reckoned if I didn’t sell them but just pawned them, I’d be able to get them back, and then perhaps I could’ve returned them to that poor woman’s family, if she had one. But now I suppose I’ll never know. Does this mean I’ll go to prison, Inspector? I’ve never been in trouble before.’
‘That’s out of my hands, Mr Evans. If you’ve been a man of good character up to now, you must hope the court will take that into consideration. The only thing you need to know right now is you’re under arrest.’
Jago heard his own words as though they were spoken by someone else, but in his stomach he felt something like a shard of ice biting into him. It was a deep, cold anger at the death of this woman Amy Evans. Whether it was directed at the man who’d dropped the bomb from the sky, the dictator who’d commanded the action, the God who’d allowed it to happen, or the universe for being a place where such things occurred, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was the intense disgust that gripped him, the sense of futility that he’d known as a young man in the trenches. He wanted to scream his rage, but he remained outwardly silent, emotionless. He was certain of only one thing. The law must take its course in respect of Hosea Evans, but the real crime was not a weak man’s theft of a dead woman’s rings. It was the pointless killing of a frightened woman who wanted to stay by her husband.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
With Evans locked in a cell at West Ham police station, it was time to pursue Martin Sullivan. Jago didn’t know what kind of job the young man did, if indeed he had one, nor why he seemed not yet to have been caught up in the net of conscription to the armed forces, so he and Cradock set off for the flat in Windmill Lane, hoping to find him at home. This time they took the car: Jago had a feeling that this was going to be a busy day.