No Human Enemy

by John Gardner

  Now here was Betteridge standing in front of Tommy Livermore, wraith-thin, head in the clouds and a strange expression on his pasty face. Turn sideways and he’d disappear.

  ‘Detective Constable Betteridge,’ Tommy started, formally and not unkindly because Ron Worrall was adamant that the man was an anomaly. ‘Odd, Harpic, right round the bend,’ he’d said. ‘Good at the straightforward stuff, but put him in a complex situation and he’s off with the fairies.’

  ‘Detective Constable Betteridge, I want to talk to you about these reports you made about men seen with Doris Butler during the three weeks or so before her murder.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir?’ He had a high, not unpleasant, voice stuffed full of inflections that always seemed to be asking questions.

  ‘What drew your attention to these men?’ Smile, grin, switch off.

  ‘As strangers, sir, they were a matter for consideration.’

  ‘Strangers?’

  ‘I was brought up in a village, sir. Any strangers walking into our village were considered suspicious until they was proved otherwise.’

  Tommy thought the man had finished and was about to frame another question. Wrong; Betteridge was off again. ‘My first DI understood. Like me he was always suspicious of foreigners. “Harry,” he used to say, “Harry, always remember that wogs begin at Calais.” I am even more suspicious these days, sir. Always suspicious of Johnnie Foreigner.’

  Tommy Livermore stifled another smile. Jee-rusalem. Here we are heading towards the middle of the twentieth century and we’ve got idiot policemen talking about ‘Johnnie Foreigner’.

  ‘You suspected these men because they were foreign?’

  ‘Well, two of them was, guv.’

  ‘Just because they were foreign?’

  ‘They seemed very chummy with Doris, sir.’

  ‘And what was suspicious about that?’

  ‘Sheffield was all Doris knew, Mr Livermore. She’d never been out of the country as far as I knew – except maybe a day trip to Boulogne.’

  ‘And what difference did that make?’

  ‘She was on intimate terms with these men, soon as she met them. Well, intimate talking terms that is. Possibly the other as well.’

  ‘She was an attractive girl, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Very attractive, sir. But she was married an’ all.’

  ‘Tell me about the first man.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I finally approached them – him and Mrs Butler – and he identified hisself as a Frog called Maisondel. Henri Jacques Maisondel. Said he was staying at the Butler house – that semi they had up Bluefields Road. Doris chipped in and said he was an old family friend and was staying there all above board. All proper. Said he was just down from the north and going to report to Free French Forces HQ, in Duke Street, London.’

  ‘And you still felt suspicious.’

  ‘About Maisondel? Yes, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just felt there was something not quite right, sir. Something wrong. They seemed very close, him and Doris Butler.’

  ‘You’ve agreed that Mrs Butler was a most attractive woman.’

  ‘Indeed she was, Mr Livermore. Oh yes, price above rubies. Married woman, though. Wasn’t right the way she was carrying on.’

  ‘How was she carrying on?’

  ‘All lovie-dovie like, sir. Wasn’t seemly. And in French also. Good at languages, Doris.’

  ‘So what did you do about it?’

  ‘Passed it on to the MPs at the RTO, Victoria Station. And made the report that you have there, sir.’ He leant forward pushing a finger towards the papers in front of Tommy.

  ‘That was the sum total of it?’

  ‘Sum total, guv. Yes. Oh, there was one thing. The day I first saw Maisondel with Mrs Butler?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That was the first day I became aware of Sergeant Mungo.’

  ‘Really, this was…’ Tommy turned to the top of the report. ‘This was 19th May?’

  ‘Then about a week later, round about 25th May, I seen Doris again. This time with the Pole. That is the Polish officer, Korob. They was also a bit close to one another which wasn’t right because in the intervening period her husband had been home on leave. Fact he’d only just gone back and there she was arm in arm with this Pole. Stefan Korob. So I stopped them again and she got quite snooty. “Major Korob is attached to General Maczek’s staff,” she tells me, all la-de-da and says something to him in Pole and he laughs.’

  You bet, Tommy thought, detecting a case of the green-eyed monster here. Old Betteridge had the hots for Doris back in the mixed infants, he reckoned. ‘So you followed the same course. Checked it with the MPs, wrote a report, then clocked Mungo for the second time. Looked like Mungo was carrying out his own bit of observation.’

  ‘Quite right, sir. Second time I noticed Mr Mungo, though I still didn’t know who he was. No idea he was in the job.’ Which was the way coppers talked about other coppers: ‘he’s in the job,’ they’d say meaning he’s a copper just like me. ‘And it was decidedly iffy, sir. I approached him…’

  ‘Mungo? You approached Mungo?’

  Betteridge nodded. ‘But he didn’t call hisself Mungo. I’d seen him lurking about and I’d had enough so I approached him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I identified myself. DC Betteridge, number, station, all that. Asked him who he was and what he was doing. Reluctant.’

  ‘Mungo was reluctant?’

  ‘Showed me his identity card, said his name was Short. Anthony James Short. Lived here in Sheffield. Said he was down the railway station waiting for a friend who had said he would be arriving soon.’

  ‘And his identity card?’

  ‘Bore it out. Anthony James Short. Address checked out an’ all. Next time I saw him he was Mungo. David Charles, on attachment to Sheffield CID. Mr Berry dead proud of him. Mystery, guv.’

  ‘You’re absolutely sure this Short was Mungo?’

  ‘Stake me life on it, sir.’

  Everybody carried an identity card or a military paybook. Blue oblong card folded over. Gave you a number: your name and address. You carried your identity card everywhere you went – coppers carried warrant cards of course, but if you weren’t in His Majesty’s Armed Forces you carried your card and had to show it if asked. Tommy thought about it for a moment. Strange bloke, Betteridge. Could have made a mistake.

  ‘Then there was a third newcomer wasn’t there?’ he asked.

  ‘There was, sir. Three days before Doris went missing, then was discovered bereft of life.’

  Bereft of life? Tommy thought. Crikey. ‘What kind of books you read, Betteridge? Poetry of Patience Strong?’

  ‘I don’t have the patience for poetry, guv.’ And Tommy wondered if the detective constable was taking the mickey.

  ‘And this third foreigner?’

  ‘Wasn’t a foreigner, guv. British through and through.’

  ‘To the core, as you might say.’

  ‘Indeed. Gittins, guv. Stanley Gittins, corporal. 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment. Returning to his unit from leave.’

  ‘Another old friend.’

  ‘Old and intimate friend of Doris Butler’s by the look of things, guv.’

  ‘Sergeant Mungo still in evidence?’

  ‘Skulking, sir. Secreting himself behind piles of luggage and in doorways.’

  ‘Secreting himself?’ Tommy wondered how that went. ‘I shall speak to Sergeant Mungo now, Ron.’ He looked up at his sergeant. ‘And we will talk again, DC Betteridge.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The DC shambled out and Tommy waited for Mungo to be brought in.

  Kenny Craig had said it all, was willing to testify in court if need be.

  That sergeant. Sergeant Dave Mungo. Seen him there with her in the buff, going at it hammer and tongs: going like a steam engine and she went off like a train whistle at the end.

  Now, Tommy thought it was time to deal with it, bring it out into the open, k
ick it around, thump it, spit on it. He told Ron they should be casual about it, tell Dave Mungo that Mr Livermore wanted to see him, not make a song and dance. So that’s what they did while Tommy waited and fumed at the thought of a DS here on attachment doing the business with Doris Butler in full view of an open window so that Ken Craig could finger him, if for no other reason than Ken Craig was a dirty little bugger.

  And what of Betteridge saying Mungo claimed to be a civilian: Short, Anthony James?

  And only a couple of nights ago, DS David Mungo had said to Tommy, ‘We should speak, sir.’ Yes, Tommy thought now. Yes, we’re going to bloody speak; and Ron brought Mungo in, Ron just behind his right shoulder, Emma Penticost on his left, a pace behind Ron, all expectant, precise, giving off the static of readiness, face eager, eyes bright.

  ‘Sit down, Mungo.’ Tommy took no notice of the sergeant’s hand coming up, reaching forward trying to be chummy. ‘Just sit down and answer my questions.’ Looked at him for the first time: looked and bored through him, po-faced, not a flicker. Mungo, light-haired, muscular, bronzed, quick deliberate movements, gave the impression that he was straight as a die.

  Straight, Tommy thought and said, ‘I’m going to put things to you straight, Sar’nt Mungo, no messing.’ Deep breath, hold it for a count of twenty. Smile. ‘I’ve a witness says he saw you with the late Doris Butler doing the horizontal tango. Saw you in her bedroom, through an open window, a week or so before she died. Lovely summer evening, he says, and you banging at the deceased like a piston engine. He’ll stand up in court and identify you. Delighted to do so, because I detect that he doesn’t much like the police. Man name of Kenneth Craig.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’ Mungo shook his head.

  If Tommy had expected a big reaction he wasn’t going to get it. Mungo didn’t flicker, didn’t wince as if socked on the jaw. Tommy had more or less expected the invisible bullet trick. This man, Mungo, so damned full of self-confidence, shook his head again. ‘Couldn’t have happened, sir.’ All suave and how’s your father.

  ‘That all you’ve got to say for yourself?’

  Mungo nodded.

  ‘What?’ Tommy yapped.

  ‘Sir, I can’t make any other comment. He couldn’t have seen me because I wasn’t posted here on attachment to Mr Berry’s CID until the day after Doris Butler was murdered. Well, the day after her body was found.’

  ‘And DC Betteridge claims you identified yourself as an Anthony James Short living here in Sheffield. What of that?’

  ‘No comment, sir.’

  ‘What are you, Mungo?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant David Mungo, Special Branch, on attachment to Sheffield CID to assist on the Doris Butler murder, sir.’

  ‘Ahhh.’ And the scales fell from his eyes, Tommy thought. Mungo of the Branch, one of Woolly Bear’s merry men.

  ‘So I suppose you know nothing about having identified yourself to DC Betteridge as one Anthony James Short?’

  ‘I’ve heard the story, sir.’

  ‘And you deny it?’

  ‘Don’t recall it, sir. Before being moved down here I was working a case concerning flashing lights off the Welsh coast.’

  ‘Not those lighted arrows the more insular Taffies pointed towards Liverpool to assist the Luftwaffe?’

  ‘That was a few years ago, sir. These were different lights.’

  ‘So you don’t know anything about a Free French soldier, a Polish officer or a man called Gittins, corporal from 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment? All friends of the late Mrs Doris Butler? Ever heard of them at all?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve read Betteridge’s reports.’

  ‘Any comment you’d like to make?’

  ‘None I can make, sir. Except you’d best talk to Chief Superintendent Bear.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Mungo. Did you follow up on Betteridge’s reports?’

  ‘I did, sir. Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I can’t talk about it, sir. But I followed it up with the MPs at the Railway Transport Officer’s department at Sheffield Victoria.’

  ‘They were forthcoming?’

  ‘To some extent, sir, but I’d prefer it if you talked to Mr Bear.’

  ‘I’ll do that, but I’d suggest you hold yourself ready to return with me to the RTO tomorrow morning. Say at 9 a.m.?’

  ‘Suits me, sir.’

  Tommy seldom swore – not what you’d call real swearing – but he broke the rule when he finally got through to Detective Chief Superintendent Bear of Special Branch. ‘Woolly, it’s Tommy Livermore. I’ve just been talking to young Dave Mungo. What the fuck’s going on with him here?’

  ‘Can’t talk about it on the telephone, Tommy,’ not a hair out of place. ‘Come down here and I’ll tell you all. But not on the telephone. No can do. Not on an open line.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The journey to Gloucester was arduous: Dennis Free driving, Shirley Cox in the back and Suzie sitting up front chattering to Dennis, talking about the nuns – ‘Fancy giving up your identity,’ Dennis said. ‘Wasted lives, I reckon.’ Suzie didn’t respond, knew what it meant to be a nun from her school days, just nodded, and glad she had not been called to that kind of life. These nuns taught, she said, so their lives were not wasted.

  ‘Well,’ Dennis smiled to himself. ‘Well, I don’t know. I don’t think I believe in God. Not a God that allows things like this bloody war to go on, people like Hitler and his terrible…’

  Suzie grunted, said the war was the fault of men and women. ‘There’s such a thing as free will,’ quite snappy. ‘God doesn’t intervene when man goes astray. Like now. Like this war. We’ve got to find our own way back.’

  ‘You mean, will we ever learn?’ Shirley Cox said from the back seat.

  ‘Something like that, but we shouldn’t talk about religion or politics. Very few people can agree on both scores.’ She half turned and saw her little attaché case on the shelf behind the rear seat. She had packed it carefully: pyjamas, spare undies, schoolgirl sponge bag, and a copy of the book she was reading – Lloyd C Douglas’s The Robe, the epic inspirational novel about the effect of Christ’s robe on the Roman soldier who wins it in a dice game at the foot of the cross. She was enjoying The Robe, getting towards the end, thinking what she’d read next. Suzie was lost if she didn’t have a book on the go.

  The little case had belonged to her dad who used to carry his Masonic gear around in it. Her mum, Helen, had sold the Masonic stuff and Suzie had purloined the case.

  She had the photos in her briefcase, the one that could easily double as a school music case: had done in its time. They were all black and white of course: a glossy of Novice Mary Theresa as she was on entering the convent – fair hair falling to the collar of a white blouse, a short stylish jacket over the blouse – probably from a good suit, Suzie thought – plaid skirt, heavy and pleated with her feet in what looked like sensible brogues. The girl’s eyes seemed wide and bright, her head tilted upwards, almost arrogantly, so that the eyes seemed to be focused on you – a demanding gaze – lips parted though not in a smile. She seemed to be saying, ‘Yes it’s me and you can do what you like about it because I’m going to do what I think is best for me.’ A woman who knew her own mind: had to if she planned to be a nun, subject herself to obedience and discipline. Bride of Christ.

  On the back of the print was a typewritten slip that read: Winifred Audrey Lees-Duncan. Entered Novitiate 5/6/40 d.o.b. 6/8/13.

  Under that photograph were three others: the two novices in death, though the pictures were so cunning, you wouldn’t know. They looked to be sleeping while the man passed as being alive: a dark, unruly thatch of hair ruffled above his unlined forehead, eyes open, glinting from the light the police photographer had skilfully used; a straight, almost Roman, nose above a full mouth, closed and stilled now for ever. Square jaw, no dimple, and below it the gown they had pulled up to cover what Suzie thought of as a second smile – the cloven throat where the knife had sliced. Good, but
wouldn’t fool everybody.

  After the first few miles they didn’t talk much, certainly Suzie made it plain that she wasn’t going to argue about religion, and once out into open country she found herself thinking about how nice it would be to settle somewhere near her old childhood haunts, in the countryside near Newbury. Her mind began to revolve around idealised pictures of meadows, corn fields, brooks and streams, woods and, in particular, the copse they had called the Dingle abutting onto her family’s property, Larksbrook, where she had been so happy growing up, until her father was killed less than a hundred yards from their drive. Sometimes, living in the dirty, dusty, crowded, tired city of London, her heart longed for what she recalled as clean air, the fresh country smells and the freedom of her old home. She knew this was very much an idyllic memory, not one hundred per cent accurate, but she drew courage from the knowledge it was there, that she could, if absolutely necessary, run to it if the need arose. Lord, she had been lucky growing up with a loving mother and father, and few concerns in her safe middle-class family. Even the books she could recall from the early days featured a boy, a girl and safe-looking parents. She had been surrounded with love, her elder sister and younger brother, her daddy and mummy. Sister and father gone now. She swallowed and pulled her mind away from the unpleasant things, back to the positive memories.

  There was a small stream that widened into a pool in the Dingle and they spent hours as children playing around the water, making a raft and braving a rope swing on which she and Charlotte could traverse the pond. The rope was an odd, orange colour and there had been a terrible row which ended in painful spankings – quite right, she now thought – after they had goaded the much younger James onto the swing. Terrified, he had slipped and hurtled into the water from which her father had splashed in to rescue him, though it was Helen who had administered the punishment, much to the two sisters’ shame and chagrin at the time. Charlotte must have been twelve but that didn’t save her from her mother’s hard-backed hairbrush. But they didn’t take risks around the water again.

  They reached Oxford just before half past three and stopped for tea, fish paste sandwiches and rock cakes in a café in the Turl. On their way again by four they reached Gloucester at a little before six and took the road straight out to Churchbridge. The gravel crunched under the tyres of the crimson Railton around twenty minutes later when they turned into the drive of The Manor with its red-brick front and the wonderful cloak of Virginia creeper waterfalling down between the windows.