by Mike Hollow
“She told you?”
“Yes, and now I’d like you to tell me.”
Hodgson sat down again and stared quietly at the floor as if composing his thoughts before speaking.
“There was nothing I could do. Cooper wanted names of other people he could use in the same way he was using me, and he said he’d pay me for them. Poor Edgar had once confided something in me that he shouldn’t have. I knew his secret, and I knew he’d do anything to stop it getting out. He’d been indiscreet, and if anyone found out, he’d be disgraced at work and with his family. I told Cooper, and from then on Edgar was at his mercy, but I was afraid of what Cooper might do to me if I didn’t cooperate.”
“What was the nature of that indiscretion?”
“It was personal, what you might call a moral issue, but I can’t tell you. Please don’t make me. I betrayed him to Cooper, and I can’t betray him to you too.”
“Very well. I won’t press you further at the moment, but I may need to later if our investigation requires it.”
“I wish I’d never met that man Cooper. He was like a snake: once he’d got hold of a victim he’d never let go. I suppose I’m ruined now, aren’t I?”
“That’ll be for the magistrates’ court to decide,” said Jago. “But I think you can expect to be on the other side of the counter at the Labour Exchange once they’ve finished with you. I would imagine your career in the civil service is over.”
Jago and Cradock’s next call was on Albert Johnson. They found him at work.
“Good afternoon, Mr Johnson,” said Jago. “I’m sorry to disturb you again, but we need to ask you a few more questions.”
Johnson was moving towards them round a wooden table, a stack of large sheets of paper draped across his arms. He held them to one side and scanned the surrounding area distractedly.
“It won’t take long, will it? You can see I’ve got my hands full. I’ve got four jobs to get out before we close this evening and I need to check these proofs.” He turned to Cradock. “Pass me that loupe, will you?”
Cradock gave a blank look and turned to Jago.
“On the desk behind you,” said Jago. “That brass thing. It’s a magnifying glass.”
“Oh,” said Cradock. He picked it up and passed it to Johnson, who laid the proofs on the table and positioned the loupe on the top sheet. He bent down and peered through it.
“What is it you want to know now?” he said, moving the glass across the page.
Jago indicated to Cradock with a nod that he should ask the questions, then crossed the room and began to peruse a shelf of files.
“Mr Johnson, does the name Cooper mean anything to you?”
Johnson stood up straight, with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Gary Cooper? I saw him in Beau Geste at the Odeon last year.”
“No, a Mr Frederick Cooper, of 467 Barking Road.”
“No, can’t say it does. Why do you want to know?”
“When Detective Inspector Jago talked to you about your trip down to Plaistow with Mr Villiers last Saturday evening, you said you had no idea who the premises you visited belonged to. Is that correct?”
“Yes, it was none of my business. If Mr Villiers chose not to tell me, that was his prerogative. I wasn’t going to start interrogating him about it.”
Johnson picked up the loupe again, and made as if to resume working on his proofs.
“Mr Frederick Cooper was the owner of those premises,” said Cradock.
“Was? You mean he’s not now?”
“I mean Mr Cooper is dead, Mr Johnson.”
Johnson froze. He replaced the loupe on the table.
“Dead? What happened to him?”
“He was murdered.”
“The poor blighter,” said Johnson, shaking his head slowly. He took a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit it.
“Mr Johnson,” said Cradock, “you say you didn’t know Cooper, but we have evidence from his wife that confirms he was receiving payments of money from you, and also that he was involved in illegal activities. Can you explain why you were paying money to a criminal you claim you’ve never heard of?”
Johnson’s shoulders sagged. He pulled a chair away from the table and sat down heavily.
“He said it would be our little secret; no one else would ever know about it. And I was fool enough to trust him. I didn’t even know he had a wife.”
He looked at the floor in silence for a few moments before speaking again.
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t told you the whole truth.”
“So you did know Cooper.”
“Yes, I did. Not well, mind you: he was more of an acquaintance. The fact of the matter is, I bought some cigarettes from him – quite a few, actually. What you might call an informal transaction. It was only two or three times, and it was months ago, but I know I shouldn’t have. I didn’t ask any questions about where he’d got them. I soon realized it was wrong, and I stopped. I swear I haven’t bought any since.”
“How did you get to know him?” said Cradock.
Johnson seemed reluctant to answer. He looked weary, as though he had been carrying a burden for too long. Eventually he spoke, in a quiet voice.
“It was through Mr Villiers. He got me involved in this extra work that no one was supposed to know about.”
“After hours?”
“Yes. He and I would stay on and do some printing in the night, in one of the buildings in the yard where we keep a couple of old presses. I think I said when you came here before that Mr Villiers wasn’t actually a printer himself. He told me he wanted me to do some extra jobs for him, print them myself. He made it clear that he wasn’t giving me a choice. What could I do? You didn’t know him, Detective Constable: he was a powerful man, with lots of connections in important places. He could have made a lot of trouble for me, and I couldn’t afford to cross him. So I said yes.”
Jago spoke from the other side of the room.
“So what was it that you were printing?”
Johnson gave a sigh of resignation and turned in his chair to face him.
“They were identity cards. Fake identity cards.”
“And you were supplying them to Cooper?”
“Yes, just small runs. So as not to be conspicuous, I suppose. But I just did what Mr Villiers told me – I didn’t get any more involved than that.”
“What kind of man was Cooper?”
“He was another one like Mr Villiers in a way. A powerful man, the kind of character you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. He didn’t have all Mr Villiers’ airs and graces, of course. Quite the opposite. He seemed a real thug, violent. To be perfectly honest with you, I was afraid of him, did my best to steer clear of him. Fortunately for me, Mr Villiers handled all the business side of things with him. So if you want to know what money passed between them or what Cooper was doing with the cards, I can’t help you. I assume he was selling them on, of course. I can’t think what else you’d do with fake identity cards, and he seemed like the kind of person who’d have all the necessary contacts.”
“Was Mr Villiers paying you for the night work you were doing?”
“Yes. Not a lot, but he gave me something. He and Cooper could have been making a packet out of it, for all I knew. I was just the poor sucker in the middle who wasn’t.”
“I have to go now,” said Jago, “but I would be grateful if you would give a statement to my colleague.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Thank you. And just one last question: where were you on Wednesday between noon and eight o’clock in the evening?”
“I was here at work, then out visiting some customers. I remember there was an air raid over the docks late in the afternoon on Wednesday, and I had to take shelter, but I got home by about seven, and after that it was quiet.”
“Can anyone vouch for your movements?”
“Well, obviously there were other people present when I was here and with the customers, and
when the raid was on I was in a public shelter, so somebody there might remember me, but once I got home I was on my own. I am most evenings, really. I don’t have much of a social life, Inspector; it’s mostly just eat, work, and sleep, and even that’s not easy these days.”
Jago took the 699 trolleybus to Prince Regent Lane and walked back up the street until he found number 9. It was a small chemist’s shop with a drab window display of patent medicines and bottles of coloured liquids. To the right of the window there was a door giving access to the first-floor flat. The dark blue paint on the door was peeling, and the door knocker was blackened by age and neglect. He gave two loud raps on the door and waited. No sound came from within, and the door remained closed. He tried again. After three attempts he gave up and went into the shop. A thin, middle-aged woman with greying hair and a melancholy face stood behind the counter; there were no customers.
“Excuse me,” said Jago. “I’m looking for Mr Gray, who lives upstairs. He seems to be out, and I wondered whether you might know when I might be able to catch him.”
“I don’t think I can help you,” said the woman. She sounded bored. “He keeps himself to himself, does Mr Gray. I haven’t seen much of him lately, and of course with his own front door he comes and goes as he pleases. We let the flat to him, but he looks after himself. Well, I say looks after himself, but I don’t think he does really.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Bit of a drinker, you see, between you and me. What do you want with him?”
“I’m a police officer. I want to have a word with him.”
“In trouble with the law, is he? Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“No, he isn’t in trouble. I just need to speak to him. What does he do for a living?”
“Nothing, as far as I can see, Constable.”
“Detective Inspector.”
“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Inspector.”
“It’s of no consequence. So he doesn’t have a job?”
“Well, I don’t know for a fact, but it looks that way to me. He pays his rent, but he hasn’t been here long, so it’s too early to tell whether he’s reliable. He doesn’t go out much, from what I’ve seen, and when I’ve bumped into him he doesn’t seem to have any small talk, if you know what I mean. A bit miserable, a loner. What I call an oddball.”
“Is there a telephone in the flat?”
“No, but we’ve got one here in the shop.”
“In that case, if you see him, please ask him to give me a call on this number.” He wrote his name and the number of the police station on a scrap of paper and pushed it across the counter to her. “Or better still, if you see him coming back, give me a call, and then I’ll come round to see him.”
“Will do, Inspector. Anything to help the police, especially with a creepy character like that.”
CHAPTER 29
“This time it’s my treat,” said Jago. He had parked his car near Stratford railway station and reached it just moments before Dorothy emerged, and now he was walking her towards the High Street. He missed the warmth of the previous weekend, and the sky was greying, but at least it wasn’t raining yet. The streets were busy with women doing their Saturday morning shopping, and it was easy to spot the butcher’s and grocer’s shops because of the queues of women patiently waiting for their turn to go in and buy their rations.
“Your treat? That’s very kind of you,” said Dorothy. “Where are we eating?”
“That’ll be my little surprise. First I’ll show you the sights of Stratford.”
They turned left into Stratford Broadway, and Dorothy saw in the distance the elegant tower and spire of St John’s Church. Standing on its grassy island site, hemmed in on both sides by the busy roadway, the church seemed like a ship sailing calmly ahead – a reminder of peace amidst the frenzy of commerce and the urgent uncertainties of war.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “How old is it?”
“Only about a hundred years, I think.”
“It looks much older.”
“Just the way they built them, I suppose. If you want a really old church, you have to go down the road to the parish church, All Saints’. That’s been there about eight hundred years, I believe.”
“Some other time, perhaps. I think it’s going to rain.”
They crossed the road and entered the narrow churchyard that surrounded the building. Dorothy strode over to a large stone column topped with a needle-shaped spire and walked slowly round it.
“Look at this,” she said. She began to read the inscriptions. “Oh, my word. Elizabeth Warne, a widow and gentlewoman, taken at a prayer meeting and burned to death at Stratford-le-Bow in 1556.”
“Yes,” said Jago, walking over to join her. “It’s called the Martyrs’ Memorial. I think about twenty of them were burned.”
“It’s hard to imagine that kind of thing really happened, isn’t it? Just an ordinary woman who believed something other people didn’t want her to believe. And it says round here that there were twenty thousand people watching. How cruel those days were.”
“I suppose we’ve made some kind of progress since then,” said Jago. “Nowadays most people couldn’t care less what anyone else believes. Mind you, there’s still plenty that like to gang up on anyone who’s a bit different, like the Jews. I’ve heard people spreading all sorts of malicious tales about them. They say the Jews always go into the public shelters early in the day so they can hog the best places. It’s spiteful, but I suppose the fact that people are talking like that shows how this bombing’s pushing everyone over the edge. We like to believe we’re civilized compared with the past, but I sometimes think it’s a very thin veneer. Underneath we’re still animals.”
He wasn’t sure whether Dorothy was listening. She was still looking at the inscriptions on the monument.
“I wonder whether that woman all those years ago knew her life was at risk,” she said. “She must have, mustn’t she? They all must have known they could be taken and killed at any moment. That’s something that hasn’t changed much. I remember a woman I saw in Poland, three days after the Germans had invaded. She was sitting alone, crying. She wasn’t moving, she wasn’t making a sound, but I could see the tears streaming down her face, as if they’d never stop. I couldn’t imagine what she might have seen in those three days and what she might be thinking about the future. Her whole world must have been turned upside down.”
“And now it’s happening all over again here, isn’t it?” said Jago.
“Yes, or something very like it. Listen, can we sit down for a moment?”
They walked to the side of the churchyard and sat side by side on a wooden bench. It was shielded from the road by a spreading yew tree, but the noise of the traffic was still close.
“You know,” said Dorothy, “the first war I covered was the civil war in Spain. Being a journalist meant I was able to visit the front line. I met a British professor out there, name of Haldane.”
“J. B. S. Haldane?”
“That’s the one. Is he famous here?”
“Quite well known, yes. Very involved with the communists. He’s been in the news recently for telling the government it ought to build deep air-raid shelters, but it hasn’t come to anything.”
“Right, well he was out in Spain in 1937, advising the government on antidotes for poison gas, and I ran into him. He took me up to the front – he said in the Great War women weren’t allowed within six miles of the front lines, so I ought to be grateful for the privilege. We joined the Republican soldiers in the trenches: some of them looked only sixteen or seventeen. I saw dead bodies lying in no man’s land and heard the shells whooshing over our heads. The noise of the machine guns was terrible, and I couldn’t imagine how anyone could get used to it.”
“So you’ve seen more of war than most women.”
“Yes. I know it’s nothing compared to what you went through, but I hope you’ll see I understand a little bit what it must have been like. I wasn’t there for lon
g, but I saw enough to know war is like a kind of unleashing of everything that’s evil and mad in the world.”
She fell silent, and Jago noticed she was tracing patterns in the dust on the path with her right foot. It was a while before she continued speaking.
“Before I went to Spain I thought it would be exciting, like a cowboy movie, the goodies against the baddies. And it was exciting, in a way. But when I saw it close up, whichever side I visited, the Republicans or the Nationalists, the left or the right, I found the brutality was pretty much the same. I came across soldiers who’d been maimed and killed, civilians dead in the street, prisoners tried by kangaroo courts and executed. I realized life is cheap in war, and that we’re never such fools as when we think we’ll live for ever.”
Jago nodded thoughtfully. He would talk about the war from time to time with other men who’d served at the front, like Frank Tompkins, but this was the first time he could remember having such a conversation with a woman who seemed to understand it, even if only in part.
“There were many days in France when I didn’t know whether I’d live to see the sun go down,” he said. “Death was so random and so inevitable that it seemed pointless to care. But then suddenly one day it was all over, the guns had stopped, and everything was quiet. We could all go home and be normal again, if we could remember what normal was. I think every single day since then has been a bonus for me, another day of life instead of death.”
“You must think about those who didn’t go home.”
“Every day. The men who’d been my friends through thick and thin, and the boys who arrived fresh at the front and were killed before I’d got to know their names. Now it feels like my duty to take each day as a gift and not to leave to tomorrow what I can do today.”
He was standing beside her, and now turned to face her.
“Look, there’s something I want to tell you.”
“Yes?”
“I just want to say I’ve been wrong about you. I’ve known it for some time, but I want you to know it too. I jumped to conclusions about you, because you’re American and a woman. But I of all people should have judged by the evidence, not by my own preconceptions, and the evidence has proved me wrong.”