‘Israel Vogel is being sought in connection with the murder of Bessie Drummond. The only thing I’m here for is to apprehend him. Now tell your boys to let me go or –’
‘Or what?’
‘Or I’ll arrest the lot of you.’
A broad smile stretched across his face, his lips parting to reveal uneven teeth.
‘Brave words for a man who can’t lower his arms.’
He looked to his accomplices.
‘Bring him.’
Maintaining a tight hold, the thugs twisted my arms behind my back and began pushing me towards the door. I did my best to halt their progress, but it was no good, and moments later I was being propelled into the blackness and down the stairs. I continued to struggle, fighting my captors each step of the way.
‘Relax,’ said the leader, who in honour of Leo Dryden’s characters, I’d christened Hermann. Hermann the German. ‘If we wanted to kill you, we could throw you out of the window. We just want to ask you some questions. No harm will come to you … as long as you answer them.’
I felt the strength ebbing from my muscles, the tendons in my shoulders twisting to snapping point. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘This is a bathhouse,’ said Hermann, his voice echoing in the darkness. ‘Some say the finest bathhouse in London. Don’t you want to try the facilities?’
TWENTY-NINE
The light from a candle flame reflected off black water.
The room was freezing. It might have been the one I’d passed through on my way out of the massage room or it might have been completely different. I had no idea, such was my disorientation.
The German issued a command in what I presumed was Yiddish and suddenly one of my captors had taken a hold of my hair. My head was snapped back and I was led, splashing across the tiled floor, to a water-filled trough. Behind me came measured footsteps as Hermann walked over. He was outside of my field of vision but I could feel his breath on my neck and smell its sour tang. When he spoke his voice was calm, almost reasonable.
‘What’s your name?’
There was no harm in telling him.
‘Wyndham. PC Wyndham.’ I threw in my collar number for good measure.
‘And, Constable Wyndham, how did you know Vogel was here?’
That was information I didn’t feel like revealing.
‘You’re under arrest,’ I said.
I heard him sigh. ‘Please, Constable. That statement grows tiresome. You should tell me what I wish to know.’
‘I don’t need to tell you anything.’
There was silence for a moment, then suddenly my head was rammed forwards and down into the trough. Contact with the ice-cold water felt like a thousand volts of electric current coursing through my head, the shock causing me to gasp involuntarily. My mouth and lungs filled with water. I struggled, tapping into reserves of strength I never knew I possessed, but again it was to no avail. I barely moved, the grip of my captors holding me in place like iron shackles. An eternity of seconds passed, ten, twenty, thirty, then the same again. I felt my lungs cry out for air. Another ten seconds and it would be over. Just as I was about to pass out, the hands hauled me up. I choked, fighting for breath between fits of coughing. Somewhere out of my line of sight, I could feel the presence of Israel Vogel.
Hermann was speaking again.
‘I ask you once more. How did you know of our friend’s location?’
‘Lucky guess.’
His accomplices didn’t even wait for an instruction before forcing my head back under. This time though, I was better prepared. The freezing water had lost its bite and I hardly noticed the chill. I’d learned too that struggling was not just useless but counterproductive. Instead I saved my strength and my breath. In this manner I managed to eke out what felt like an additional minute but was probably closer to an extra ten seconds before my lungs burned once more beyond the limits of endurance. Darkness began to descend until again the rough hands hauled me out, and I thanked them by way of another chorus of coughs.
Hermann stood in front of me. He clamped a hand round my jaw, pulling my face close to him.
‘I will ask you one last time: how did you know Vogel was here?’
I continued to cough the water out of my lungs.
‘You really should tell me,’ he continued. ‘I do not think you will last another dip.’
I figured he might have been right about that. I decided I had to tell him something. It might only buy me a few more minutes, but when you’re about to be drowned in a trough, every extra second of life feels precious.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you, but get your goons to let go.’
He barked an order and I felt my two captors loosen their grip.
‘Talk.’
The best lies are those built around a kernel of truth. The less you make up, the better the chances your lie will pass scrutiny.
‘We received a tip-off.’
Rivulets of water dripped down my face.
‘From who?’
‘From a source. A Jew.’
The German took a step back.
‘You’re lying,’ he said, but from his face, I knew he wasn’t sure.
That was the other thing about a good lie. It’s best if it’s something the recipient already wants to believe. Rebecca had been right. Vogel had found sanctuary with a gang of communists or anarchists, and most of these outfits were ridiculous amateurs, playing at revolution. They’d always been easy to infiltrate, and as a result, if there was one thing these groups excelled in, it was paranoia. I guessed the German already suspected his group had a turncoat. All I did was confirm his suspicions.
‘What is his name?’
‘I don’t know. He’s not my snitch. He’s in the pocket of my sergeant.’
‘You’ve seen him, though?’
‘Once. A while ago.’
‘Describe him.’
‘Black hair, medium height … thin. It was dark, I didn’t get a good look at him.’
Hermann reflected on the story I’d spun, but didn’t look convinced.
‘If he is your sergeant’s snitch, then where is he? Why are you here, alone?’
‘There’s a raid scheduled here,’ I said. ‘I thought I’d get here first, catch Vogel single-handed. Maybe earn myself a promotion. Have you tried living on a constable’s wage? It’s not easy.’
That earned me a slap.
The leader turned to one his of compatriots and uttered something, not in Yiddish this time, but in another language: German. Even though I was possibly minutes from death, it still struck me as odd. Why the sudden change of language?
‘You are lying,’ he repeated.
A fear began to form in the pit of my stomach.
‘It’s true,’ I said, the panic rising in my voice. ‘You have a traitor, a police informer. That’s how we knew about Vogel.’
‘Oh, I believe that,’ he said, with an almost studied nonchalance, ‘but you’re lying when you say you don’t know his identity. This story of him being your sergeant’s man, this is, how you say, a fairy tale. If that was the case, your sergeant would be here. No. You are here, the man is your informer. Now I ask you again, who is he?’
Before I could respond, I felt the hands tightening once more and again I was pushed head first into the trough. I realised I had to come up with something quickly. My lie, it seemed, had been too successful. The German had not only believed it, he was now pursuing it with malice. If I didn’t give him a name, I was finished, but of course, I didn’t know anyone in his gang. Then it struck me. The change of language. Maybe I didn’t need a name? Maybe I just needed a sacrificial lamb.
This time, the dousing lasted only thirty or forty seconds before I was pulled out. Hermann was obviously keen for me not to drown before revealing the identity of his mole.
‘This is your last chance. The next time they push you under, you will not be coming up again, so I urge you to tell me now, who is your informer?’
> ‘It’s him,’ I said, gesturing with a nod over my shoulder to the man who held my left arm, the one whom Hermann hadn’t addressed when he changed from Yiddish to German. I guessed he was probably Russian and possibly less trusted by Hermann because of it.
All hell broke loose. I felt my captors release me and I fell to my knees. There were shouts in some foreign language and no doubt protestations of innocence, and then they were at each other’s throats. I looked around for Vogel. He’d backed into the shadows but made no attempt to run. Meanwhile the two German speakers were laying into their erstwhile comrade with fists and boots. The man was still trying to reason with them but it was difficult with his front teeth knocked out.
Suddenly there came a crash from the hall outside followed by the sound of hobnail boots and English voices.
‘Police!’ shouted a familiar voice.
In front of me, the fight stopped instantly. Hermann and his accomplice looked at each other, then with a final boot to the ribs of their former ally, they ran. Vogel made to follow them, but with what strength I had left, I lunged forward, tackled him around the legs and brought him to the ground, chin first.
‘In here!’ I shouted, and moments later, the size-twelve boots of Sergeant Whitelaw hoved into view.
‘Bloody hell, Wyndham,’ he said. ‘Bit late in the evening for a bath, don’t you think?’
THIRTY
Vogel spent the night on a thin mattress in a basement cell at Leman Street. I know because I passed most of the time seated on a chair outside it.
Events had moved rapidly after the arrival at the bathhouse of Whitelaw and his officers. Vogel had been taken into custody, as had the other man left behind, the one I’d fingered falsely as a police informer and who’d quickly been identified as one Yakov Bielski, a member of an anarchist sect led by a German émigré by the name of Rudy Roker, which spent most of its time radicalising the factory workers of the East End. I assumed that the man who’d interrogated me had been Roker himself, but I couldn’t be sure because he and his German-speaking colleague had escaped, out through a back window, and into the night.
I’d spent a frantic few minutes looking for the revolver I’d dropped, finding it under a table, close to the sill of the window I’d fallen through while entering the building.
Whitelaw had urged me to head home and catch up on some sleep, but I’d declined, preferring to accompany Vogel back to the station and changing into uniform before keeping vigil outside his steel door.
I’d slept fitfully, though probably better than Vogel, and a few minutes before seven, having waited for the duty officer on guard to step out for a moment to answer a call of nature, I slipped the keys off his desk and let myself into Vogel’s cell.
The sound of the key in the lock must have alerted him, and as I entered he was in the process of raising himself from the cot. He betrayed little surprise at seeing me. I guessed he’d had no prior experience of a police station, at least not a British one, otherwise he might have questioned the actions of a junior constable creeping into his cell first thing in the morning. But there was method to my actions. I’d be lucky if Inspector Gooch let me sit in when he questioned Vogel. I certainly wouldn’t be afforded the opportunity to interrogate him myself, and in any case, I had some questions that I wasn’t keen for either Gooch or Whitelaw to hear.
‘My name’s Wyndham,’ I said. ‘You might remember that from last night.’
Vogel didn’t reply. He simply sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the floor.
‘You said you didn’t kill her.’
He looked up. ‘That’s right.’
‘Then who did?’
Vogel’s shrug was pitiable. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Two nights earlier, you attacked her in Grey Eagle Street. I chased after you myself.’
He shook his head vehemently. ‘I was protecting her!’
‘From who?’
‘I don’t know.’
A forlorn look fell over his face.
‘What were you doing there anyway?’ I asked. ‘Were you following her?’
‘She asked me to.’
‘Why?’
‘She was meeting a man, she did not tell me who, only that she did not trust him. He is the one who attacked her.’
It all seemed rather far-fetched.
‘You expect me to believe she had an assignation with a man whom she thought might attack her, and asked you along as protection? Why would she do that? Why not ask her husband?’
Vogel let out a bitter laugh. ‘You have met her husband, yes? He cared only for her money.’
‘But why ask the lodger upstairs?’
‘I have told you already. She did not tell me why.’
‘And you didn’t ask?’
There was silence. Outside the cell I heard the duty officer’s voice. He’d discovered his keys were missing.
‘What was your relationship with Bessie Drummond?’ I asked.
‘It is not what you think,’ said Vogel. ‘She was intelligent girl. She help me, with English and with papers and forms. We become friends.’
I was out of time. I could hear the constable’s boots running towards the cell. I gave Vogel a nod, opened the door and walked out into the path of the oncoming officer, rubbing the knuckles of my right hand.
‘The prisoner wanted to know when he could expect breakfast,’ I said by way of explanation. ‘I just explained to him that this ain’t Claridge’s.’
The duty officer grinned. ‘Bloody Yid bastard deserves more than just a smack in the mouth.’
Inspector Gooch arrived just before half past nine, began by congratulating me and then progressed to asking the same questions that Sergeant Whitelaw had the previous night: namely how I’d uncovered Vogel’s location, and why I’d been stupid enough to try and capture him on my own. The former, I told him, was down to a tip-off from the nightwatchman across the road, and the latter I put down to the exuberance of youth. His desire to get on and interview Vogel meant he didn’t enquire further.
As for the interview itself, Vogel was brought to a frostbitten interview room on the stroke of ten and left there to fester for forty minutes. When the inspector finally decided to commence proceedings, there was, as I’d feared, no room for me. Gooch handled it with Sergeant Whitelaw, while I cooled my heels in the corridor outside, hoping to feed on whatever scraps of conversation that filtered through the door. In the end, all I heard were Gooch’s questions and Whitelaw’s ever louder interjections. As for Vogel, other than once, when he raised his voice in a flat denial of involvement, his answers came through as nothing more than an indistinct mutter.
After an hour, the door flew open and the heavy frame of Sergeant Whitelaw lumbered out, his face red from exertion.
‘Wyndham. Take him back to the cells.’
Vogel, head bowed, said nothing on the way back, not that I asked him anything. The route to the cells passed through busy corridors, and it seemed everyone in the building had turned out for a glimpse of the Jew who’d murdered an Englishwoman.
I waited till the duty officer had locked the cell door before heading back to Gooch’s commandeered office. I knocked, then entered to find him seated behind his desk, Sergeant Whitelaw standing opposite with his hands behind his back. Both glanced at me though neither deigned to speak. Instead, Gooch sat sucking on a Navy Cut while Whitelaw’s pallor gradually returned to its normal shade of grey.
‘I take it he didn’t confess.’
‘Stupid bastard denied the whole thing,’ said Whitelaw. ‘Claims he left the building some time round nine and was out all morning buying supplies for his business. When he got back, there was a copper at the door and a crowd at the entrance. Someone told him a woman had been murdered. Says he took fright and scarpered, then took refuge with a bunch of anarchists.’
‘What about the murder weapon?’
‘We showed him the hammer. He says it’s not his. Claims he’s never seen it before.’
&n
bsp; ‘D’you think he’s telling the truth?’
The sergeant stared at me as if I’d gone mad. ‘Of course not. He’s lying through his teeth. Tom Drummond told us Vogel had a thing for Bessie; her door was locked from the inside and the only feasible exit was out her window and up the drainpipe to Vogel’s room, which also just happens to be where the murder weapon was found. And Vogel, instead of giving himself up and pleading his case, makes a run for it and goes into hiding.’ He counted off each detail on his fingers as though each was a nail in the coffin of the Jew’s defence.
I could have added that Vogel had been the man I’d chased from Grey Eagle Street to Shoreditch a few nights prior, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe there were just too many loose ends for me to be certain of Vogel’s guilt. Or maybe it was my own guilt? For if Vogel had murdered Bessie, then he’d only managed it because I’d let him escape two nights earlier. It was something I’d find hard to live with.
‘Does he have an alibi?’
It was Gooch’s turn to pipe up. ‘He says he passed several people in the street, and that the shop assistant whom he bought the nitric acid from might remember him, but it’s a moot point. He claims he left the house round nine and didn’t see anyone before that. The last person to see Bessie alive was Tom Drummond, who left her at around half eight. There’s at least half an hour in which Vogel admits he was on the premises and for which he has no alibi. That’s more than enough time to have committed the crime, made his way back to his room and hidden the murder weapon.’
I felt sick. The facts seemed damning, and yet there were still questions. Who was the other man in Grey Eagle Street, the one who Vogel claimed had attacked Bessie? Why had Bessie been so tight-lipped about the whole thing when we’d questioned her? And if it had been Vogel who’d attacked her that night, why hadn’t she cried bloody murder, especially if, as Tom Drummond had claimed, Vogel had been harassing her for some time? Then there was the change in her emotional state in the weeks following the death of her mistress, Mrs Caine, something that both Rebecca Kravitz and the maid, Lily Adams, had attested to? Finally there was Vogel’s demeanour. He just didn’t strike me as a killer. He’d had the opportunity to stick a knife through me last night but hadn’t taken it. Instead he’d dropped the blade and surrendered. We were missing something.
Death in the East Page 19