by Jim Eldridge
Stark sorted through the papers in the file until he found Alice Rennick’s letter of application for charitable funding. It was brief and to the point, written in the large awkward lettering of someone who wasn’t used to writing.
Dear Sirs.
My late husband, Ted Rennick, was killed at Passchendaele while fighting for King and Country. We have two sons, John and Jeff. They are both aged seven, being twins. They are both very ill and the doctor says they need special medicines if they are to get better. We do not have the money for these medicines. The doctor says if they do not get the medicine they will die. Please can you let me have the money so we can get these medicines that will save my two sons. Their father died at Passchendaele and I know you are a Charity for people who gave their lives for this Country at Passchendaele.
Yours faithfully
Alice Rennick.
Against Alice Rennick’s name on the list was the word Rejected.
Then Stark realized that against six of the applicant’s names, that same word had been written. Out of the seven, the only application that had been granted was one from the Watling Street Memorial Committee, asking for funding towards the erection of a statue of General Sir Hubert Gough.
Gough!
As Stark read through the documents relating to the other applicants, a feeling of outrage rose inside him. As well as Alice Rennick, the other five who’d been rejected were all from individuals who had written because they were suffering hardship. There was only one other who had a connection with the Third Battle of Ypres, a man who claimed to have fought in the battle and been so badly wounded that he was unable to work. Unlike Ted Rennick, Stark didn’t recognize the name, Arnold Lane. But there had been thousands and thousands of them engaged in that battle. The casualty figures had been staggering: 310,000 Allied casualties alone at that Third Battle of Ypres, 28,000 of them at Passchendaele. It was a wonder anyone had survived.
Stark ran his finger down the list of the other rejected applicants.
The mother of a sailor who’d been killed at the Battle of Jutland.
Two separate applications from women whose husbands had been killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Remembered as the bloodiest day in British military history, reflected Stark, with 60,000 British casualties on the first day of the battle, 1st July. A bloodbath.
The final application was from the sister of a navvy who’d died while digging the tunnels at Messines.
Five women and one man had applied for money. All had been rejected.
The return of Sergeant Danvers made him look up from the papers.
‘I’ve spoken to the butler and got his statement,’ Danvers said. ‘It wasn’t easy. He’s still in a state of shock. That, coupled with the brandies, made it hard for him to focus. But I’ve got enough to confirm it’s the same bloke.’
‘Did he get a sight of the man’s face?’ asked Stark.
Danvers shook his head. ‘He said the man was wrapped up against the cold. He had a scarf pulled up.’ He gestured at the open box file. ‘Get anything, sir?’
‘Seven applications for funding were made at that August board meeting,’ said Stark. ‘Six were rejected. The only one that was accepted for financial assistance was from the Watling Street Memorial Committee, who asked for funding towards erecting a statue of General Sir Hubert Gough.’ He shook his head in obvious disgust. ‘The man was arrogant and useless. Why on earth would anyone want to erect a statue to him?’
‘He did launch the first offensive at Passchendaele, sir,’ pointed out Danvers. ‘With the Fifth Army.’
‘His attitude – his arrogance – led to the slaughter of too many British soldiers. Even Haig recognized that, which was why he had him removed from command.’
‘I didn’t realize General Gough was removed from his command,’ frowned Danvers.
‘All right, not officially,’ said Stark. ‘Haig did it by moving Gough and his Fifth Army to a lesser position and putting Plumer and the Second Army in the key offensive role.’ He let out a sigh. ‘Trust me, Sergeant. I was there.’
‘At Passchendaele?’
Stark nodded. He looked at the list of applicants. ‘All these other people who applied – families of ex-soldiers, ex-sailors, all of whom I’d bet are in desperate need – and they turn them down and give the money towards a statue of Hubert Gough!’ He shook his head. ‘Unbelievable! It’s no wonder someone shot the bastards.’
‘Sir!’ Danvers stared at his inspector, shocked.
‘You’re right, Sergeant,’ Stark apologized. ‘That remark was uncalled for and inappropriate.’
‘Anyone stand out as likely?’ asked Danvers.
‘Five of the applicants are women; only one from a man. So, unless our killer is a crackshot woman, it’s either the one man or a close relative or friend of one of the women.’
‘Who’s the man?’ asked Danvers.
‘His name’s Arnold Lane, and according to his letter he was badly wounded at Passchendaele. Whether he’s our man or not depends on the sort of wound he suffered. If he’s missing an arm or a leg, or been blinded, we can count him out. I suggest we split the list. I’ll take three of the names, you take three. That way we can speed things up. We need to identify our killer quickly and get hold of him before he kills any more.’ He selected three letters of application, which he passed to Danvers. ‘You take these. Arnold Lane, the wounded survivor of Passchendaele, and Mrs Victoria Nelson and Mrs Ellen Gates, both of whom lost their husbands at the Somme. I’ll take the other three. You’ll find their addresses on their letters of application.’
THIRTY-FOUR
Arnold Lane and his wife, Elsie, lived in a tiny terraced house in Hoxton. Lane was in his thirties, according to his letter of application, but he looked much older. He was bald and very overweight, possibly the result of being unable to get around easily. He had one leg missing, cut off just above the knee. In no way did he resemble the description of the assassin.
‘I’m here,’ said Danvers, after he’d introduced himself to the couple, ‘to investigate recent events involving the Passchendaele Memorial Fund.’
They were sitting in the small kitchen, Lane’s chair drawn up close to the open fire.
‘Them bastards!’ spat Lane angrily.
‘Arnie!’ said his horrified wife.
‘Bunch of crooks! Arrest the lot, that’s what I say. Obtaining money under false pretences!’
‘Arnie, you ought to be careful what you say,’ cautioned his wife. ‘This is a policeman!’
‘I know he’s a policeman, which is why I say he should arrest ’em!’
‘I understand you applied for a grant from them—’
‘Applied!’ interrupted Lane, his anger clearly getting the better of him. ‘Didn’t get it! Was never going to, as I found out! Bastards!’
‘Arnie!’ his wife reprimanded him again, but he ignored her, obviously gearing up to launch into a further angry tirade to vent his fury.
‘You attended a board meeting in August …’
‘At the offices of the Bugle. It turned out that’s where they held their meetings because the editor or owner of the paper was chairman of the fake outfit.’ He spat into the grate. ‘I’ve never opened that paper since, or allowed it into this house! It was the stories they ran about that so-called charity in the paper that made me think of applying!’ He pointed at the stump that was all that was left of his right leg. ‘I lost this at Passchendaele, so when I read about the good works they were supposed to be doing, and saw what they were called, I thought: Them’s the people for me! Things have been a bit of a struggle for Elsie and me, see, since I come back from the war, what with losing me leg.
‘So I sent off a letter applying, and I got a letter back inviting me to attend this meeting at the offices of the Bugle in Fleet Street. Well, I was cock-a-hoop! But it was no easy journey, I can tell you, getting all the way there with just one leg. That crutch they gave me plays hell on me arm!’
‘It d
oes,’ agreed Elsie, deciding to add her voice to her husband’s sense of outrage.
‘I put on me best suit,’ continued Lane.
‘His only suit,’ added Elsie.
‘No need to tell the sergeant all our details, love,’ Lane reprimanded her primly. Then he continued his tale. ‘I put on me medal, the one I won at Passchendaele. I thought: That’ll clinch it.
‘Three of them, there were. And a woman keeping notes.’
‘Can you remember who they were?’ asked Danvers.
‘I’ll never forget ’em!’ snorted Lane. ‘That Lord Amersham, the one who was shot, he was there. And that MP bloke, Tobias Smith.’ He calmed a bit as he added, ‘He wasn’t too bad. Didn’t say much. It was the other two as did most of the talking. That Lord Amersham bloke, and Walter bloody Parrot.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Someone shot that Smith bloke as well, didn’t they?’
‘They did,’ nodded Danvers.
‘Well, if you ask me, they shot the wrong person. The one who deserved shooting was that Walter Parrot! Bastard! It was his name on the letter that got me to go all the way over there, and finally, at the end, they said no.’ He shook his head in disbelief.
‘What was your response?’ asked Danvers.
‘What d’you think it was!’ burst out Lane. ‘I was gutted! “Why?” I asked ’em. “I was at Passchendaele. I lost me leg there. I won a medal there!”’
‘Careful, Arnie, you’ll give yourself one of your attacks,’ warned his wife.
Lane nodded and stopped, then began breathing in deeply to calm himself down.
‘What did they say to that?’ asked Danvers.
‘They said the fund was about raising money to put up memorials to commemorate the war. Plaques on walls. Statues. War memorials. So I said if that was the case, why did they drag me all the way there when they knew the answer was gonna be no? Then this bloke Parrot says it was because they had to be seen to be fair.’ He let out a laugh that was a mixture of outrage and incredulity. ‘“Fair!” I said to him. “What’s fair about making a man with one leg suffer the pain of coming all the way here to be spat at like this!” I told ’em: I said the biggest memorials were the people who’d come home without legs and arms, or blind. That’s where the money should be going!’
Stark sat in the front room of the neat little house in Holloway, within the shadow of the prison. It was in a poor area, but the house had been kept spotless by Beatrice Plum, the sister of Fred Plum, the navvy who’d died digging tunnels at Messines.
‘Do you know about the mines of Messines?’
‘I was there,’ said Stark.
She looked at him, astonished. ‘At Messines?’
‘I was nine miles away when they went off.’
Near enough to be thrown to the ground and deafened for hours after by the biggest explosion ever, so loud it was heard a hundred miles away in London. Six hundred tons of explosives spread across twenty tunnels, dug out of the Flanders clay by hand, by miners and navvies, deep beneath the German front line. It was reckoned that 10,000 German soldiers had died instantly as the explosives were detonated beneath them.
‘Fred, my brother, was a navvy. He’d worked on the London underground railway, digging tunnels out of London clay, deep down, so he knew what he was doing. Anyway, if you was there, you know they sent as many diggers over to France as they could to dig those tunnels. Miners. Navvies. All blokes who were used to digging underground. And because the Germans were above ’em, they had to do it all by hand, because if they’d used machines the Germans would have heard.’
Stark nodded, the memories coming back. The sight of hundreds of men, armed with picks and shovels, wheeling barrels of clay out of the tunnels. Thousands and thousands of tons of the stuff, wet and heavy and stinking.
Six shillings a day, the diggers were paid. When news of their wages spread among the troops, the soldiers were outraged, because the soldiers were paid just one shilling a day. There was even talk of mutiny unless the soldiers were paid the same rate. Some soldiers offered to be diggers instead of carrying on the fighting, but that sort of talk died down, especially after some of the tunnels collapsed, burying the diggers, suffocating them alive.
‘Fred was one of the first to go out there, in February 1917,’ continued Miss Plum. ‘He was there right up until just the day before they went off on the second of June, digging the whole time.’ She stopped and her face clouded over as the bitter memory came back. ‘The telegram said he’d been killed on the first of June. Some of his mates told us later the tunnel he’d been working on had collapsed. The struts had sunk in the clay and the roof had come down. They said it was because they was working fast near the end, because they had to get all the tunnels finished on time for the big attack, and maybe someone wasn’t doing their job properly of checking the struts.
‘Anyway, Fred died. He was one of ten who died in that particular roof cave-in. Without him and what he did, we wouldn’t have won the war.’ She shook her head. ‘We deserved that money to help us. I still don’t know why we got turned down.’
The tale that Mrs Victoria Nelson told Danvers was depressingly similar to that he’d heard from Arnold Lane. She’d applied because money was so tight that sometimes she went for three days without eating, unable to afford food. Once she’d fainted in the street, right in front of her neighbour’s front door. After the embarrassment of trying to pretend to her neighbour, Mrs Fox, that she was just ill, Mrs Fox had discovered her larder was bare and had persuaded her to apply to the charity for help.
‘That’s what they’re there for, Mrs Nelson,’ Mrs Fox had said. ‘After all, your Horace gave his life for this country.’
And he had. Horace Nelson had been one of those 60,000 British casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916.
Like Arnold Lane, she’d trudged across London, on foot because she was unable to afford the bus fare, and faced the panel.
‘And they turned me down, Sergeant,’ she said, her voice plaintive and still puzzled. ‘That’s what I thought was cruel. Making me go all the way there just to turn me down. They could have written a letter saying no, couldn’t they? It would have saved me a lot of bother.’
‘Our son, Bill, was killed on the Chester at Jutland,’ Mrs Conway told Stark, sitting in the front room of her small house in Leytonstone. ‘He was part of a gun crew. The thing that got us was all we had was this telegram telling us he’d died, but no one told us about how, or what happened at the battle. It was only after the war we found out. There was nothing in the papers at the time, nothing. Not till they had that big funeral for Jack Cornwell.’
Jack Cornwell VC, at sixteen the youngest winner of the Victoria Cross, and a member of one of the gun crews on the Chester, the same ship Bill Conway had served on. Stark wondered if Bill Conway and Jack Cornwell might have both been part of the same gun crew.
‘My Ernie said afterwards it was because so many were killed, if people found out they might lose their … their … something …’ She struggled for the right word.
‘Morale,’ prompted Stark gently.
‘Yes, that was it. Lose their morale.’ She shook her head. ‘People were more concerned about losing the ones they loved.’
Stark remembered the details. The Battle of Jutland in 1916 had been the biggest sea battle ever. Bigger than Trafalgar, bigger than the Spanish Armada. And with it came the massive loss of life. Six thousand British sailors killed. Hundreds wounded. Three British battlecruisers sunk, along with three armoured cruisers and eight destroyers. Two and a half thousand German sailors dead, hundreds wounded. The Germans had lost one dreadnought, one battlecruiser, four light cruisers and five torpedo boats. On paper, comparing the losses, it had been a German victory. But after the battle the German navy had retreated back to German waters and stayed there for the rest of the war. So, a British victory, but at enormous cost.
‘Where’s Ernie?’ enquired Stark.
She dropped her head. ‘He
died,’ she said. ‘He was never right after he came back from the war. His lungs, you see. He was gassed. He died last year.’
‘How did you find out about the Passchendaele Memorial Fund?’
‘It was my friend, Muriel. She gets the Bugle and she’d read in there about this charity and what good work they were doing, and she said I ought to ask for help, having lost both my husband and my son to the war.’ She looked appealingly at Stark as she added, ‘Things haven’t been good, and a war widow’s pension doesn’t stretch far.’
‘No,’ said Stark sympathetically.
It was the same story he’d heard time and time again since coming back from the war. Widows bringing up children alone, with very little money, and the children getting into trouble with the police for crimes such as theft, shoplifting, burglary.
‘You must have felt very angry when they turned you down,’ said Stark.
‘That’s what Muriel said,’ sighed Mrs Conway. ‘But I didn’t. It’s what I’ve come to expect. You don’t get anything in this life. Nothing good, anyway.’
‘If I had my way, I’d castrate them!’ snarled Mrs Gates to Danvers.
After the quiet resignation of Mrs Nelson, Mrs Gates was as angry as Arnold Lane had been. No, angrier.
‘Shoot the bastards? That’s what you’re here to find out, isn’t it?’
‘Well …’ began Danvers awkwardly.
She didn’t let him get any further. ‘Not only would I have shot the bastards, I’d have castrated ’em and cut ’em up like a butcher’s shop! And danced on the pieces! My Joe died at the Somme, gave his life so them pieces of shit could wallow in luxury! When I read in the paper they’d been shot, I cheered! If I could, I’d shake the hand of the person who shot them!’
It was Stark’s last call, the one he’d been putting off, but the one he knew that he had to make rather than give it to Danvers.
He knocked at the door of the tiny terraced house in Bethnal Green. The door opened and he looked down at the face of Mrs Rennick, the widowed mother of Alf and Ted. It had been two years since he’d last knocked at this same door. She’d looked old then, aged by the news of the death of her youngest son. The intervening years had aged her even further.