by Graham Ison
‘But I have to tell you that hundreds have been reported missing since the first of July 1916 – the day the offensive started in earnest – and are continuing to remain missing. I fear that some of them will never been found. For all we know, Donnelly might’ve been lost forever in the mud of Flanders. It’s an awful and literally bloody battle.’
‘You said that Rudd’s wife was informed of his death on the fourth of July last year, Colonel,’ said Marriott. ‘Do you have an address for her?’
‘I suppose it’s in Dorset,’ muttered Hardcastle, ‘seeing as how he was in the Dorsetshire Regiment.’
Frobisher laughed. ‘That doesn’t follow at all, Inspector. The old concept of local men joining local regiments went out of the window a long time ago. Nowadays conscripts are sent to whichever regiment is short. And these days that’s all of them.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Hardcastle, remembering that Maud’s friend Lieutenant Charles Spencer had been gazetted to the North Lancashire Regiment, despite coming from Windsor.
‘However,’ continued Frobisher, glancing at his docket again, ‘the address we have for Mrs Molly Rudd is in Gresham Road, Brixton.’ He wrote the details on a slip of paper and handed it to Marriott.
‘London!’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘Thank the Lord for that,’ he muttered irreverently.
‘Fetch Wood in here,’ barked Hardcastle, when he and Marriott were back at the police station.
‘Sir?’ Wood buttoned his jacket as he entered the DDI’s office.
‘You’re to come with me to Brixton, Wood. It concerns your observation when you tracked down Wilfred Rudd. I’ll explain all about it on the way.’
The house in Gresham Road where Molly Rudd lived was three stories high with a basement area and a flight of steps leading to the front door. Pieces of concrete had broken away in places on the steps, and a ragged hedge fronted the property, the entirety of which was in poor repair. What had probably been a well-tended garden in years gone by was now covered in sodden cardboard boxes and an old mattress. The basement area had become one massive rubbish dump in which, among other things, were an old bath, a rusting bicycle frame and an abandoned bedstead.
‘Nice place,’ commented Hardcastle, as he and Marriott carefully ascended the crumbling steps.
‘Yes, watcha want?’ The grey-haired woman who opened the door in response to Hardcastle’s knock was in her fifties and was wearing a black bombazine dress and a long apron. Her lank grey hair was tied back with a grubby piece of ribbon. She wiped her hands on a tea towel and gazed suspiciously at the two detectives.
‘We’re police officers, madam,’ said Hardcastle, as he raised his hat. ‘Am I addressing Mrs Molly Rudd?’
‘No, you ain’t,’ said the woman. ‘I’m Mrs Perkins, if it’s any of your business. Watcha want, anyway?’ she asked again.
‘Strangely enough, a word with Mrs Rudd,’ snapped Hardcastle, his temper beginning to shorten quite dramatically.
‘Top floor, and mind you wipe yer feet.’ Leaving Hardcastle to close the door, Mrs Perkins disappeared into a room at the back of the house.
Hardcastle and Wood climbed the two flights of uncarpeted stairs to the top floor, the odour of boiled cabbage increasing with every upward step. The DDI tapped on a door to which was pinned a card bearing the name ‘Mrs Rudd’.
The door was opened by a careworn woman probably in her thirties, but who looked older. She had a small child in her arms.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Mrs Rudd, I’m a police officer. Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division and this is Detective Sergeant Wood.’
‘Oh, and what do the police want with me? As if I ain’t got enough trouble.’
‘It concerns your husband, Mrs Rudd. Your late husband, that is.’ Hardcastle was careful to avoid raising the woman’s hopes that Wilfred Rudd might still be alive. Since the war had begun, it was not unusual for men, originally thought to have perished, later to turn up alive and well.
‘You’d better come in, then, though I don’t know what I can tell you other than he was killed on the Somme last year.’
‘So I understand, madam.’ Hardcastle and Wood followed the woman into a sparsely furnished room. Apart from a table, two chairs, and a bed, there was little else. The floor was partially covered with a threadbare rug, leaving untreated wooden boards exposed around it. The table bore the remains of a meagre meal.
‘What’s this about my Wilfred, then,’ asked the woman, settling herself on the edge of the unmade bed, ‘apart from him having got hisself killed and leaving me to bring up a child on a war widow’s pension that ain’t enough to feed a sparrow? It ain’t no wonder I has to take in washing.’
‘We have come across a man who we believe is pretending to be your husband, Mrs Rudd,’ said Hardcastle. ‘He claims to have been discharged from the Dorsetshire Regiment on the day that your husband was reported killed in action.’
‘The cheeky sod. Who is this man, then?’
‘That’s what we’re attempting find out, Mrs Rudd,’ said Wood.
‘If you have a photograph of your late husband, it would help to clear up this mystery,’ said Hardcastle.
‘Just a minute.’ Molly Rudd laid her child in the centre of the bed, and crossed to the table. Opening a drawer she took out an unframed studio portrait of a man in khaki service dress, puttees smartly wound, forage cap squarely set, and a swagger cane beneath his left arm. His right hand was resting on a torchère. ‘That’s my Wilf,’ she said, handing the picture to Hardcastle, ‘taken just before his embarkation in 1914. Three years he was out there afore he got hisself killed, and never a single day’s leave, neither.’
Hardcastle handed the photograph to Wood. ‘Is that the man you saw, Wood?’
Wood made a careful study of the photograph before giving it back to the DDI. ‘That’s definitely not the man I saw, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Rudd,’ said Hardcastle, returning the picture of Wilfred Rudd to his widow. ‘That solves the problem as far as I’m concerned.’
‘And you say you don’t know who this man is, what’s pretending to be my Wilf, Inspector.’
‘Not at the moment, Mrs Rudd, but you may rest assured, I’ll soon find out. We think he might be a deserter.’
‘A deserter is he? Well, it’s nothing but barefaced cheek if you ask me,’ exclaimed Molly Rudd disgustedly. ‘I hope he gets hisself shot at dawn. There’s my Wilf laying down his life for King and Country, and some dirty rat runs for it and then pretends to be him.’
‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Rudd,’ said Wood. ‘As soon as we find him, we’ll hand him over to the provost.’
‘I’m sorry to have bothered you with such distressing enquiries, Mrs Rudd,’ said Hardcastle, ‘and I’m sorry about your husband,’ he added in a murmur, as usual stumbling over expressing words of condolence.
‘What now, sir?’ asked Wood, once he and the DDI were in the street again.
‘Now, Wood, we find this here Mr Rudd, or whatever his name is, and we feel his collar.’
On the Thursday morning, Hardcastle decided to waste no more time in dealing with the matter of Wilfred Rudd, or whoever he was. Having cast a cursory glance over the crime book and finding nothing to arouse his immediate interest, he paused only to summon Detective Sergeant Wood. The two officers took a taxi to Waterloo railway station and thence a train to Norbiton.
‘I’ll not bother the matron again, Wood,’ said Hardcastle, who was still in awe of the great woman, and pushed open the door of the staff entrance at the Kingston Infirmary.
The doorkeeper looked up from his five-day-old copy of the Sporting Times, an enquiring look on his face.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
‘Yes, you can tell me where I can find Wilfred Rudd,’ said Hardcastle.
‘He ain’t here this morning, guv’nor. He’s on the night shift, starts at eight o’clock.’ The doorkeeper glanced at Wood, and recognition dawned. �
�Here, wasn’t you the gent what was asking about him the other day? You said as how you thought you was in the Andrew with him.’
‘That’s right,’ said Wood.
The doorkeeper chuckled. ‘Brought your father with you today to have a glim at old Wilf just to make sure, have you?’
‘I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, unless you want me to have a word with the matron,’ snapped Hardcastle. ‘Bloody cheek of the man,’ he muttered as he turned on his heel.
‘Where to now, sir?’ asked Wood, barely able to keep a straight face, and impatient to relay to his colleagues the exchange between the doorkeeper and the DDI.
‘We’ll pay him a visit at this here place of his he’s got in Queen’s Road. Any idea how we get there, Wood?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Wood had obtained the address from Marriott and looked it up on the street guide, knowing that, at some stage, Hardcastle would want to know. ‘It’s only a short stride down this road, sir, across Kingston Hill, and Queen’s Road is almost opposite.’
Hardcastle set off at a brisk pace, determined to waste as little time as possible on someone who would probably turn out to be a deserter and nothing more. Nevertheless, he did not lose sight of the fact that Rudd might be Ronald Parker’s murderer.
The house where, according to the matron, Rudd had rooms, was a large dwelling.
Quickly ascending the steps, Hardcastle rapped on the front door. Eventually, it was opened by a woman who regarded the two men on the doorstep with undisguised disdain.
‘Whatever it is you’re selling, I don’t want it. And if you’ve come here to read me bits out of the Bible, I don’t want to hear it. I give up religion after my Tom was killed on the Somme.’ And with that short tirade, she made to close the door.
But Hardcastle placed a firm hand on the door and held it ajar. ‘We’re police officers, madam,’ he said. ‘And I want to see Wilfred Rudd who, I’m told, lives here.’
‘How do I know you’re rozzers?’ demanded the woman, unimpressed by Hardcastle’s announcement. ‘For all I know you might be some of them walk-in burglars what you reads about in the paper.’
The DDI produced his warrant card, and the woman appeared satisfied.
‘I take it you’re the landlady,’ said Hardcastle.
‘Indeed I am, and this is a respectable house. Up one flight, first door on the right,’ said the woman, ‘but he’s probably sleeping on account of him working nights across at the infirmary.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Hardcastle, ‘we’ll wake him up.’
When they reached Rudd’s room, Hardcastle pushed open the door without bothering to knock, so hard that it crashed against the wall.
‘Here, who the hell are you?’ The man in the bed was obviously awake, but had not, so far, risen.
‘Eric Donnelly?’ asked Hardcastle, taking a chance on using the name that Colonel Frobisher had suggested might be that of a deserter.
The man acted with lightning speed. Twisting his body, his hand went under his pillow and he produced a revolver.
But Hardcastle did not hesitate. With no concern for his personal safety, he launched himself at the man, flattening him on to the bed and seizing his right wrist. There was a loud explosion as the revolver was discharged, but the bullet missed Hardcastle and flew into the ceiling. After a second or so, a piece of ornamental moulding crashed to the floor.
Wood leaped to the DDI’s assistance, grabbing the revolver and wrenching it from the man’s hand. He dropped the weapon on the floor, kicking it out of harm’s way, and produced a set of handcuffs.
‘I took the precaution of drawing these from the nick before we left, sir,’ he said breathlessly, as he quickly shackled one of the man’s hands to the railed bedhead. ‘Just in case.’
‘Very thoughtful of you, Wood,’ said Hardcastle mildly, as he stood up and smoothed his jacket.
‘What on earth’s happened?’ The woman who had admitted the two detectives now stood in the doorway of Rudd’s room.
‘Nothing to worry about, madam,’ said Hardcastle. ‘This chap just tried to murder me, that’s all. Do you possess a telephone, by any chance?’
‘Yes, we are connected,’ said the landlady, and glanced at the ceiling where the bullet had struck, and then at the sizeable piece of plaster on the floor. ‘And who’s going to pay for that, might I make so bold as to ask?’
‘I dare say the Commissioner of Police will,’ said Hardcastle. ‘In due course,’ he added, well aware that such claims often took months to be settled. ‘Wood, borrow this lady’s telephone contraption and ask the local station to send a conveyance for our prisoner.’
‘Perhaps you’d show me where the instrument is, madam,’ said Wood.
‘Come this way,’ said the landlady. ‘And I hope you’re going to pay for the call.’
‘Now then,’ said Hardcastle, picking up the revolver and removing the remaining rounds from the chamber, ‘I’m a police officer. Are you Eric Donnelly?’
‘I’m Wilfred Rudd.’
‘Is that a fact?’ But it was clear to Hardcastle that his question had unnerved Rudd. He sat down on the only chair in the room and fixed his prisoner with a steely gaze. ‘In that case, tell me why a hospital porter needs to keep a loaded firearm under his pillow.’
‘For protection,’ said Rudd churlishly. ‘I never knew who you was, coming barging in here without so much as a by-your-leave.’
‘Well, for a kick-off, I’m arresting you for attempted murder, Rudd, or whoever you are. And I rather fancy that that’ll only be the start.’
‘I wasn’t never going to kill you,’ said Rudd lamely. ‘Like I said, I never knew who you was.’
‘You’ll have a chance to explain that to a jury at the Old Bailey,’ said Hardcastle, as Wood came back into the room. ‘Well?’
‘They’re sending a van, sir.’
‘Very kind of ‘em,’ muttered Hardcastle. ‘Get this man what calls himself Rudd downstairs.’
TEN
Detective Sergeant Wood and a local constable had accompanied Rudd to Kingston police station. Deeming it not to be his function to accompany prisoners unless absolutely necessary, Hardcastle walked back to Kingston Hill where he hailed a cab to take him.
‘I’m DDI Hardcastle of A,’ he announced to the sergeant on station duty when he arrived at the police station in London Road.
‘All correct, sir,’ said the station officer.
‘That’s as maybe,’ muttered Hardcastle. ‘Where’s my prisoner? The man who calls himself Rudd.’
‘In the charge room, sir,’ said the sergeant, as though that was the logical place for Rudd to be.
Still handcuffed, Rudd was seated on one of the benches in the charge room. He glanced at Hardcastle with a surly expression, but said nothing.
‘I’m told you were in the Dorsetshire Regiment, Rudd.’ Hardcastle took a seat on the opposite side of the room.
‘So, what if I was?’
‘And you told the infirmary authorities that you were discharged as unfit for active service on the twenty-ninth of June last year.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, now, that’s a very strange thing.’ Hardcastle took out his pipe and began to fill it.
‘What’s strange about it, copper?’ snarled Rudd.
‘Because according to the military police Private Wilfred Rudd was killed on that day, and his grieving wife was sent a telegram to that effect. We know that because we’ve seen her.’
Rudd was momentarily taken aback by the DDI’s statement, but quickly recovered.
‘They must’ve got it wrong. There’s always a hell of a mix-up after a battle. No one knows who’s dead, who’s missing, or who’s done a runner.’
‘So if we get Mrs Rudd here, she’ll recognize you, will she?’
‘I’ve changed a lot. The war does that to people.’ Rudd stared defiantly at the DDI.
‘What’s your regimental number, then?’ asked Hardcastl
e suddenly.
‘I can’t rightly remember, what with the gassing and that. It affects your memory, you know,’ said Rudd, making a vain attempt to hide the fact that he did not know the real Rudd’s number.
‘I was always told that soldiers never forget their regimental number,’ commented Hardcastle mildly.
‘Never mind all that. I tell you, I’m Wilfred Rudd, and I’m no deserter. You can’t keep me here.’
‘Can’t I? You seem to have overlooked the fact,’ said Hardcastle, applying a match to his pipe, ‘that I’ve arrested you for attempted murder and unlawful possession of a firearm.’
‘I was issued with it,’ muttered Rudd, ‘so it ain’t unlawful.’
‘I doubt that an infantryman would’ve been issued with a revolver,’ observed Hardcastle. ‘More likely to have been a Lee-Metford rifle or something similar, I’d’ve thought. So where did you get the revolver? Nick it off a dead officer, did you?’
‘I ain’t saying nothing,’ said Rudd.
‘Anyway, even if you were issued with it, you’re not entitled to keep it once the army has discharged you. It doesn’t entitle you to attempt to kill me with it, either.’
‘Well, like I said, I never meant to kill you. You scared the living daylights out me, barging in like what you did.’
‘Really?’ said Hardcastle, standing up. ‘Well, just so that we can clear up the question of who you really are, I shall have you transferred to my police station in London and get the provost to come and take a gander at you.’ He paused at the door. ‘What’s your wife’s name, Rudd?’
‘I can’t rightly remember. Like I said, the gas does strange things to the brain. There’s a lot of things I can’t remember.’
‘Well, that don’t somehow come as a surprise,’ said Hardcastle. Leaving the man who called himself Rudd in the charge room, he found DS Wood in the front office.
‘Wood, get on that telephone thing and ask Sergeant Marriott to arrange an escort to bring Rudd up to Cannon Row.’