The Stratford Murder

by Mike Hollow

  ‘So I’m guessing when you went to that seance yesterday you weren’t expecting to be impressed?’

  ‘What do you think? Look, my dad died when I was a boy. I loved him and I still think about him every day, but I don’t believe he can speak to me through some woman in a sitting room with the lights off in Stratford. As far as I’m concerned, life is life and death is death, and never the twain shall meet.’

  Dorothy thought for a moment. ‘I don’t buy it either,’ she said. ‘But you know, Conan Doyle said something in that talk that really shocked me. He said ten members of his family went off to the Great War, and not one survived it. His own son died. I’m sure he must’ve desperately wanted to speak to his boy again, to be in contact with him, and if someone came along and said they were speaking on his behalf from beyond the grave, he’d want to believe it was true.’

  ‘People who’ve suffered want a better future,’ said Jago, ‘and some of them will believe anyone who promises it. That’s probably how even Hitler got elected.’ He paused. ‘Sobering thought, eh? Still, it’s the here and now that matters. And all things considered, I must admit it’s a whole lot more enjoyable to be here at a concert with you, eating nice moist fruit cake, than it is chasing cranks and criminals round West Ham.’

  ‘Well, congratulations on finishing the case. You must be very pleased.’

  ‘I am. But to tell you the truth, I feel a bit bad about it too. I think we did her a disservice – Joan, that is, the woman who was killed. There were things about the case that made it look as though she might’ve been involved in immoral goings-on, as they say.’

  ‘What my mother would’ve called a lady of negotiable virtue?’

  ‘Exactly. And we were quick to assume that the circumstances of her death meant she was. But she wasn’t – she was just a lonely young woman earning an honest living as a cinema usherette. Her life had got complicated, but I think that was just because she’d been disappointed in love and was trying to find the real thing.’

  ‘Like we all do.’

  Jago hesitated. The way Dorothy spoke so freely about her emotions was both enviable and disturbing.

  ‘Well, er, yes, I suppose. Her best friend said all she wanted was to have one person in the world who knew her deep down as she really was and loved her all the same. But in the end what she got was the opposite – murdered by someone who wouldn’t accept her for who she was. As far as her mother-in-law was concerned, Joan was a big disappointment – she wanted the perfect wife for her son, so she tried to control Joan and make her into something she wasn’t.’

  ‘But it’s over now. You’ve got justice for Joan.’

  ‘Maybe, but I still don’t feel like celebrating. Pretty much a whole family’s been wiped out. Joan’s dead, her husband Richard’s missing in action and very likely killed, her mother-in-law may hang for murder, and her sister-in-law’s marriage looks finished. It’s the war that’s done it, isn’t it? I mean, supposing Richard hadn’t joined the Territorials and gone off to fight in France. Would his marriage have survived? Because if it had, none of this would’ve happened. It seems unjust.’

  ‘You’re right – there’s precious little justice in war. But we have to believe we can make something better after it, otherwise we’d have nothing to hope for. It’s like Rita said, isn’t it? “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”’

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  A tall young man in army officer’s uniform strolled into the sandwich bar with a woman of similar age who was bemoaning how stuffy the gallery’s basement was. Jago himself was feeling too warm and had a sudden desire for fresh air. He also wanted to be somewhere he could talk without being overheard.

  ‘Shall we go outside?’ he said. ‘We could go and sit on the steps at St Martin-in-the-Fields.’

  They left the gallery and crossed Charing Cross Road to the neoclassical church building which had stood there since the early eighteenth century. Now a sign outside advertised a canteen it was running day and night in the crypt for members of the armed forces.

  ‘I remember they always gave a welcome here to soldiers in the last war too,’ said Jago. ‘The vicar called it “the church of the ever open door”. There’s plenty of space for us to sit out here and have a quiet chat without being bothered by anyone.’

  He took off his overcoat and spread it on the stone steps so that Dorothy could sit on it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s kind of you. Now where was I?’

  ‘You were saying something about hope deferred making the heart sick.’

  ‘Oh, yes. And having something to hope for. I just think that even when we can’t see justice anywhere, we still have to hope – perhaps that’s when we need it most of all.’

  ‘It’s easy to say that, but I saw plenty of men in the war who were full of hope – hope that they’d survive and go home. But they didn’t. You know, when we were at the Cenotaph on Monday I said those men it reminded me of were my family, but that wasn’t true. Maybe when I was first in the army it was – I did get to know the men I was serving with. But then time passed, and one by one they got killed off. Towards the end, I think I chose not to know them – to know their names, yes, but not to know them as people, in the way their real families would’ve known them, because I knew the chances were they’d soon die. And I didn’t let them know me either – because I’d probably soon be dead too. The truth is I think I didn’t want to matter to them.’

  ‘Is that still how you are now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you think we all want to be known? To be accepted by someone, even loved by them? Is it just women who feel like that, or is it possible for a man too?’

  ‘But that’s the problem. I’m not just a man. I’m a policeman, and that means if you have feelings you don’t show them. I’m expected to submit to every regulation, obey every order and never question it. When I’m on duty I’m not supposed to think about anything except that duty. One of the first things they taught us when I joined the police was that lounging about was the worst sin you could commit. They called it “gossiping”, and any officer they caught doing that was for it. And I always had to be civil and polite to the public, never get angry, listen respectfully to whatever they said.’

  ‘But you’re off duty now.’

  ‘Am I? I’m not sure I ever am.’

  Jago twisted round and looked back down Charing Cross Road to where a police constable was on point duty, directing the traffic.

  ‘You see that man down there? And that blue-and-white striped armlet on his left sleeve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that means he’s on duty. It goes back to the old days, when policemen had to wear their uniform all the time, so they put the armlet on to show they were on duty. At training school they drummed it into us right from the start that whether we were officially on duty or off, our responsibility to the public was the same – to prevent and detect crime by all possible means. In other words, I was to be a policeman twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It’s been like that for twenty years now, and I don’t feel as though I’m me any more. I’m just this detective that you see before you.’

  ‘But I don’t just see a policeman. I see John Jago, a boy who grew up and found the world was a cruel place full of bad people, but who’s done his best to be good and true. I see a man, a human being. You need people you can talk to from the heart – people who can understand you as a person, not just as a policeman.’

  Jago didn’t know how to answer her. Who did he have that kind of relationship with? The only person who came anywhere close to it within the Metropolitan Police Service was his old friend and colleague Frank Tompkins. And outside the force? Well, there was Rita. She seemed to understand him, but it wasn’t what you’d call a deep or intimate relationship. Apart from her, over all these two decades he hadn’t let anyone into his life – there was just too much risk of being hurt.

  He looked up and caught Dorothy
’s eyes. They were warm and peaceful, and yet they seemed to see straight into him. He looked away quickly. When Carol had described Joan she might just as easily have been speaking of him. He recognised the ache he’d felt inside – it was a longing for intimacy, to know just one other person and to be known truly, deeply and totally by them. The realisation sent an unexpected surge of pain through him, and he bit his lip to stop it.

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever change,’ he said.

  ‘While there’s life there’s hope – that’s what people say, isn’t it?’ said Dorothy quietly.

  ‘They do these days,’ he replied.

  ‘And I suppose you could say while there’s hope there’s life, too. That’s why it’s important to know what people’s hopes are – you need to know what they long for to understand them.’

  Jago nodded. He felt as he had when he was nine years old, standing on the edge of the swimming pool at the West Ham Municipal Baths and being told to dive in. Now, here, he realised he was staring into the distance and saying nothing.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ said Dorothy.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he replied, looking at her. ‘I was miles away. I was thinking about when we were having breakfast at Rita’s on Wednesday. You asked Rita what she hoped for.’

  ‘That’s right. She said she hoped for an end to the war and a good husband for her Emily.’

  ‘Yes. But I noticed you didn’t ask me. You didn’t ask what I hoped for.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I sensed it was maybe what Rita wanted me to ask her – or maybe what she was hoping you might ask her. But I wasn’t so sure it was a question you wanted to answer yourself. So you’re right, I didn’t ask you. But then you didn’t ask me what I hoped for either.’

  ‘I see. Yes, of course, you’re right. I’m not used to talking about things like that.’

  ‘So shall I ask you now?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘OK. What is it you hope for in your life, John Jago?’

  He immediately wished he hadn’t invited her to do this. He struggled to find the words to reply. For all these years in the police he’d been the one who asked the questions and had the right to expect answers. Intrusive probing by journalists was to be batted away. But this was not just a journalist. This was Dorothy, and the door she was knocking on was one that he knew he wanted to open. It just felt as though the hinges were rusted fast.

  Her eyes were locked on his. Again he looked away, like a guilty suspect. He wanted to escape, but even more he wanted not to. He willed himself to meet her gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t find this easy – talking about what I feel inside. I think I got out of the habit many years ago.’

  ‘I understand that,’ she replied, her voice gentle and reassuring.

  He forced himself to keep speaking. ‘It’s just that hope can be very painful, and when hopes don’t come true, sometimes all you can do is let them die – or make them die.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘No, I want you to ask. I don’t think there’s anyone else in the world who’d ask me a question like that, and I need it.’

  ‘So, John, what do you hope for?’

  He thought carefully. ‘I’m not sure I could answer a big question like that in one sentence,’ he replied. ‘It just feels so complicated. But if I have to, I think I’d say this is what I hope – that by the time I die I’ll have mattered enough to someone for them to remember me.’

  When Jago got home that evening the light was fading. He knew that Dorothy had said goodbye on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields and returned to her hotel to write about the National Gallery concerts for her readers in America, while he had returned to his own world at West Ham police station. He also knew he’d spent the afternoon in the CID office waiting for an order to search that was now promised for the morning, but by the time he got home that evening the rest was a blur.

  He let himself into the house, more conscious than usual of its emptiness, and switched on the wireless to break the cold silence, but the talk in progress was earnest and depressingly dull. He snapped the broadcast off with a flick of his wrist. Soon the sirens would go, he thought. He should put the kettle on and make a flask of tea to keep him warm in the shelter that night. But he felt listless and turned instead to the cupboard where he kept his Scotch. He took out the bottle and a glass, poured himself a tot and sat down in his favourite armchair. Not for the first time, he thought of the night to come and whether he would see the day that followed.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and felt a piece of paper. Pulling it out, he recognised the old handbill that Greville Ballantyne had given him. It was crumpled. He rested it on his thigh and tried to smooth it with his hand.

  The image of Ballantyne’s face as he’d last seen it rose like a ghost in his mind. How will that poor man remember me, he thought. I’m the one who took his wife away, who stole all that was precious in his life to destroy it. I’m the law, I’m the bringer of vengeance and death. If he remembers me now, it’ll only be to hate me.

  He looked down at the handbill and ran his finger gently along his father’s name. His father’s memorial. Will there be someone who sits down one day and remembers me like this, he thought, or will I just be forgotten? The words were captive in his mind, and the silence of the room remained unbroken. He felt his eyes moisten as he raised his glass to the handbill and took a sip.

  He thought of the question Dorothy had asked him, and wondered what she’d made of his answer. To be remembered. Was that a strange thing to hope for? He didn’t know, but he had a feeling she would understand. There was only one person in the world that he wanted to be remembered by, and her name was on his lips as the darkness slowly fell.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As in all the Blitz Detective novels, some of the events in this story really happened. A bomb did explode in the middle of Beethoven’s Razumovsky String Quartet during a lunchtime concert at the National Gallery, London, in October 1940, although I have taken the liberty of moving its date by a day or two. I’d like to thank Zara Moran and her colleagues in the National Gallery Research Centre for letting me consult their archived materials on this explosion and also the Myra Hess lunchtime concerts, and for their efforts to find answers to my questions. Thanks are due also to my old friends Tim and Janet Griffiths for their expert counsel on Beethoven and Brahms.

  A Tube station named Trafalgar Square may sound fictional to the modern reader, but in 1940 it was fact (nowadays it’s part of Charing Cross station), and a bomb really did hit it in October of that year, causing extensive damage and taking the lives of ten people who were sheltering at the bottom of the escalator. I’m thankful to Nick Cooper, author of London Underground at War, for his help in providing me with details of this incident. Sadly, it was just one of many instances during the Blitz when people seeking a refuge from the bombing, whether in a Tube station or an Anderson shelter, were killed when bombs landed not on their home but on their supposed place of safety.

  The bombing of St Thomas’s Hospital in 1940 also took place as described in the book – and lest anyone be troubled by my version of the name, I plead that I have relied on E. M. McInnes’s 1963 history of the hospital, which says that the name St Thomas’ Hospital was officially adopted in 1948 but traditionally the more usual form before that was St Thomas’s.

  Other real-life events inspired elements of the story, all of them occurring on K Division of the Metropolitan Police, where Detective Inspector Jago is based. Three men were arrested and tried for explosives offences after police raided a house in Manor Park (part of the County Borough of East Ham) in 1939 and found various items of bomb-making equipment, while significant breakthroughs in the prevention of terrorist bomb attacks were made in Ilford and Dagenham.

  It’s worth noting too, for any readers wondering, that the Kibbo Kift, the Social Credit Party and the Greenshirts were all real organisations.

&nb
sp; I’m indebted to Frank Chester, who served in the Royal Navy as a lieutenant on the Arctic convoys and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Frank’s pin-sharp memories of life in London before the war and at sea during it were of great help, and to me all the more remarkable given that when he shared them with me he had already celebrated his hundredth birthday.

  As always I’m grateful to Roy Ingleton for his help on police matters, and as always too I could not have got to the end of another book without the constant support and encouragement of my wife, Margaret, and my children, Catherine and David.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mike Hollow was born in West Ham, on the eastern edge of London, and grew up in Romford, Essex. He studied Russian and French at the University of Cambridge and then worked for the BBC and later Tearfund. In 2002 he went freelance as a copywriter, journalist, editor and translator, but now gives all his time to writing the Blitz Detective books.

  blitzdetective.com @MikeHollowBlitz

  By Mike Hollow

  The Blitz Detective series