Direct Hit

by Mike Hollow

  “It’s not true,” she said. “I don’t know these men. They broke into my house. They were threatening me.”

  “Is this true?” said Jago, directing his question to the two men. They exchanged a glance, and Johnson answered.

  “My friend just wanted to have a word with her, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean, I wanted to?” said Gray.

  “You’ll have to excuse my friend,” said Johnson to Jago. “He’s had a little too much to drink and he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Don’t take any notice of him.”

  Jago turned to Mrs Cooper.

  “In what way were they threatening you?”

  “They said they wanted my Fred’s book, and if I knew what was good for me I’d hand it over.”

  “Now that is interesting,” said Jago. “So, gentlemen, what would your interest in Mr Cooper’s little book be, I wonder?” He crossed the room to where Gray was sitting and stood over him. Gray looked up at him, bleary-eyed.

  “I’ve told you, Inspector, the man’s drunk,” said Johnson. “You won’t get any sense out of him.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Jago. “Mr Gray, I’ve come to ask you a few questions about the murder of Frederick Cooper.”

  “Who? I’ve never heard of him. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “Come, Mr Gray, you know perfectly well who he was, and he knew you, didn’t he? You can deny it, but he kept a record of his dealings with you, and that record is now in our possession. We know all about your dealings with him, and I’m afraid your time’s up.”

  “No,” said Gray, his eyes widening in panic. There was a new note of fear in his voice. A memory slipped into Jago’s mind: he was a private, in the front line for the first time. The officer blew his whistle to order an advance, and the man beside him collapsed in a kind of delirium, refusing to go over the top. Jago did not want to remember what happened next. He refocused his attention on Gray. Like a cornered dog, he thought.

  “No,” Gray was saying, “I’m not going back. You can’t make me. I don’t care if you shoot me. I’m not going.”

  Now Jago understood.

  “I see. So that’s what it’s all about. You’re a deserter, aren’t you?”

  Gray tried to compose himself.

  “No, that’s not true. I’m just having a bit more leave than I should, that’s all.”

  “So much leave that you have to kit yourself out with a false identity card, yes? That won’t wash with me. Cooper was blackmailing you, wasn’t he? Was he threatening to expose your real identity?”

  Gray looked first at Johnson and then back to Jago. He seemed bewildered.

  “Yes,” he said angrily. “He was scum, that man. They sent me to France. They should have sent him too, let him die in the dirt.”

  “And what would have happened if Cooper had exposed you?” said Jago calmly.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’d have got arrested and sent back, handed over to the Army.”

  “That’s not what you wanted, is it?”

  Gray shouted again, his voice slurred and pleading.

  “Of course not! Don’t you understand? I can’t go back. I can’t bear it; I’ve done enough. I can’t take any more.”

  He put his elbow on the arm of the chair and gripped his temples with one hand as though trying to control the pain in his head.

  Jago continued.

  “I suggest you thought the only way to be safe was to get rid of Cooper, so no one would know your secret.”

  “No!”

  “That you went down to his yard and stabbed him to death.”

  “No! It’s not true!”

  “We’ve already established you’re a liar. Why should we believe you now?”

  Gray hauled himself up from the chair and sank to his knees before Johnson.

  “Help me,” he pleaded. “Tell them, Albert, tell them. I’m not a killer!”

  Johnson prised Gray’s hands off his leg and got out of his chair. He stepped back, away from Gray, and spoke quietly.

  “But you are, Bob. You told me yourself.”

  “What?” said Gray. He cast his eyes from side to side as though he could not believe what he was hearing.

  “Surely you remember. ‘They’ve turned me into a killer,’ you said. ‘There’s no way back now.’”

  “That’s not what I meant! I was talking about killing Germans, not some bloke like Cooper.”

  Jago interrupted him with a question for Johnson.

  “Is this true?”

  “Yes, Inspector, that’s what he said.”

  “And did you take it to mean that he was talking about Germans?”

  “Well, at the time I didn’t know who he was referring to. He’d been drinking too. But now that I’ve heard what you said about him being blackmailed by Cooper, I don’t know what to think.”

  Gray struggled to his feet and stood facing Johnson.

  “But Albert, you’re my friend! Help me!”

  “I’m sorry, Bob,” said Johnson. “But it’s what you said. Don’t you remember? When I came round to your flat?”

  Gray took two steps back so that he could face Jago and Cradock while keeping a wary eye on Johnson.

  “Look, I swear I don’t know anything about Cooper being murdered. I don’t know who it was, where it was or when it was.”

  “Where were you on Wednesday between noon and eight o’clock in the evening” said Jago.

  “Is that when it happened?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  Gray backed away cautiously until he was up against the wall, then slid slowly down and slumped on the floor. He looked up at the two policemen, his eyes struggling to focus.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s when he was murdered.”

  He sat without speaking for a few seconds, lost in thought, then began to laugh, louder and louder. He thumped his hip flask down onto the linoleum.

  “I’ll tell you where I was. I was in the cells at Walthamstow police station. One of your pals claimed I was drunk and incapable in a public place. I think that’s what you call an alibi, isn’t it?”

  He gave another bitter laugh, then looked at Johnson and began to sob.

  CHAPTER 42

  “So, Mr Johnson,” said Jago, “if what your friend says is true, it would appear that killer or no killer, he did not kill Frederick Cooper. In which case, perhaps it was you who were at Cooper’s premises on Wednesday.”

  “I wasn’t,” said Johnson. “I’ve told you before, I was there last Saturday evening with Mr Villiers, but that was the only time I’ve been there, and I’ve never been inside.”

  “What does being inside have to do with it?”

  “Well, I was just assuming. You’re asking me if I was at Cooper’s place, so that presumably means that’s where he was killed, and I’m assuming if anyone did kill him it’d be inside, not out on the street. Don’t go reading too much into what I said, Inspector.”

  “But you’ll remember,” said Jago, “that originally you said you hadn’t been with Mr Villiers for the whole of that journey, and then you said you had. You said you didn’t know who those premises belonged to you and you didn’t know Cooper, but then it turned out that you did know. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t take everything you say at face value.”

  “All right. But that doesn’t alter the fact that I didn’t kill Cooper. And I’ve already told you I was out for whenever it was on Wednesday.”

  “You told us on Friday that you’d been in a public air-raid shelter and that someone might remember you, but that’s not exactly a cast-iron alibi, is it?”

  “Well, I can’t help that, can I?”

  Jago beckoned Cradock over and handed him a key.

  “I need you to get something from the car,” he said. “Bring me the package on the floor behind the driver’s seat.”

  Cradock left the room, and Jago turned back to Johnson.

  “Perhaps you can help me with so
mething else, then,” he said.

  “I’ll try,” said Johnson.

  “Very well. Do you have your gas mask with you?”

  “Yes, I always have it. I was caught out in that raid this afternoon.”

  “Then perhaps you could show it to me.”

  Johnson crossed the room to where his coat lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, and pulled a cardboard gas mask box from under its folds. He returned and handed it to Jago.

  Jago opened the box and pulled out the mask. He turned it over in his hands.

  “This is in very good condition. It looks brand new.”

  “It is,” said Johnson. “My old one got damaged, so they issued me with a new one. I only got it on Thursday.”

  “Could you provide us with the old one?”

  Johnson looked puzzled.

  “No, I lost it. What’s this got to do with anything? What’s so interesting about my gas mask?”

  “We saw you with one on Wednesday morning, when we met you on our way to the hospital. You dropped it in the street. Presumably that was your old one?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You were quick to get it replaced.”

  “Yes. If you’d seen men gassed like I did in the last war, you’d want to make sure you always had a mask with you. I don’t trust those Germans any further than I could throw them.”

  “And yet you lost it that very day?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how – it just got lost somehow.”

  “Could someone have stolen it?”

  Johnson’s voice began to rise in anger.

  “No. I tell you I just lost it.”

  Cradock came back into the room and handed a package to Jago.

  Jago opened it and handed a gas mask to Johnson.

  “Is this your old one?”

  Johnson took it from Jago and looked at it warily.

  “How am I supposed to know? There are millions of these things. They all look the same.”

  “When they’re new they do, but this one isn’t new. Look at that eye panel: you can see there’s a crack in it. A crack like that would leak and let gas in. You didn’t want to take that risk, did you? You can see there that someone’s tried to mend it. That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not mine. There must be some mistake.”

  “Would it help to jog your memory if I told you we found it in the same room as Cooper’s body?”

  “No: I wasn’t there. I’ve told you. It’s someone else’s.”

  “Mr Johnson, you were worried when you found this crack, weren’t you? You’d seen what gas can do to a man, and you didn’t want to take a chance. I’d be the same myself. You followed the correct procedure and reported it to your local air-raid warden.”

  Johnson shook his head slowly from side to side but did not speak. He lit a cigarette and began to smoke it in short puffs.

  “This morning I visited a number of air-raid wardens,” said Jago. “They are all responsible for sectors where certain people live – people with whom we’ve had contact as a result of this case. I asked them if they’d had anyone reporting a damaged gas mask this week. One of them was your local warden. I showed him this mask, and he confirmed it was the one you showed him on Wednesday. He said he’d told you he’d get you a new one and you’d be able to exchange it on Thursday.”

  “No, no, it’s a mistake.”

  “The only mistake is yours, Mr Johnson. You went out on Wednesday night with murder in your mind, but you cared enough about your own skin to try a temporary repair on this mask. Something happened that night that caused you to lose your mask, and the circumstances were such that you had to flee without it. Either that or you were in such an extreme situation that you didn’t notice you’d left without it.”

  Johnson looked helpless. He seemed to be mouthing words, but his voice was inaudible. Jago continued.

  “Those circumstances were that you were killing Cooper in cold blood. You were there, weren’t you? You killed him.”

  Gray was still sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, but now he seemed to come back to life. He started to laugh.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” he said to Johnson, almost shouting. “They’ve got you, mate.”

  “Shut up, you fool,” said Johnson. “You’re drunk!”

  “Ha! I’ve had a couple of nips, yes, but not so many that I can’t tell a liar and traitor when I see one. Get him, Inspector.”

  “Well?” said Jago. “Did you do it?”

  Johnson scanned the room, as if looking for help or a way out, but Cradock was again barring the room’s only door. He fell silent and sat heavily on a chair, then spoke in a barely audible whisper.

  “Yes.”

  Jago took the gas mask from Johnson’s hands and handed it to Cradock.

  “There’s something else I want to ask you, and this time I want an honest answer. We have evidence that Cooper was running a racket that involved getting men’s call-up papers lost in the system, and one of the names connected with that was a George Johnson. Is he any relation to you?”

  Johnson’s confident manner had crumpled. He looked defeated, and his voice was again little more than a whisper.

  “Yes.”

  “What relation is he?”

  “Not is: was. He was my son.”

  “So he didn’t want to be in the armed forces?”

  “No, and I didn’t want him to be either. That crook Cooper said he could see to it that my George’s call-up papers would disappear. Said he had a contact in the ministry who owed him a favour, and he could get it done for me, as long as I paid up.”

  “So when you told us that story about paying Cooper for cigarettes, that wasn’t true, was it?”

  “No.”

  “You gave him money to enable your son to avoid military service?”

  “Yes, I did. Cooper said he’d fix it, and I paid him, but then he wanted more money – more than I could afford. I thought I could persuade him to leave me alone. After all, I’d paid what he asked. But he double-crossed me, said he needed to make an example to his other clients.”

  “Double-crossed you? How?”

  “He did the opposite of what he’d said he’d do. He made sure George was put back into the system and didn’t even tell me. George got called up, and there was nothing I could do about it. He ended up being sent to France not long before it fell. He was killed on the beach at Dunkirk, waiting to be taken off. Those boys didn’t stand a chance. Cooper killed my son, Mr Jago. It may have been a German bullet that took him, but it was Cooper and his greed that put him there.”

  “So you decided to take revenge on Cooper.”

  “Yes. I killed him, but I don’t regret it. He was the scum of the earth. He deserved it.”

  Jago turned to Gray, who appeared to have been shocked into silence.

  “And do you have any connection with George Johnson?”

  “Yes,” said Gray. “He was my friend, my best friend, and he died beside me on that beach.”

  “And it was because of your friendship with his son that Johnson here asked you to provide him with an alibi for the night Villiers died? I advise you to answer truthfully.”

  Gray hesitated and exchanged a glance with Johnson.

  “Go on,” said Johnson. “Tell him. It won’t make any difference now.”

  Gray cleared his throat nervously.

  “Yes, you’re right. Albert wasn’t with me all the time I said he was. He arrived at my house later, about a quarter past nine.”

  “Tell us what happened, Johnson,” said Jago.

  “Can I have a drink first?”

  Jago asked Mrs Cooper to fetch some water. She returned with a jug and poured some into a glass. Johnson sipped it, then put the glass down slowly on the table. The room was silent until he spoke.

  “It was in the war,” he said. “The last war. My mate Tom was with me in the trenches: we were in the Essex Regiment, in the West Ham Pals Battalion. We’d bo
th volunteered in 1915. Both from the same area, though we didn’t know each other before the war. I was a bachelor, but he was married with a baby son. It was 1917, and we were in the Arras offensive, the usual bloodbath. We’d been through two years of hell, and we’d become best friends. I always thought Tom was braver than me, but it got to the point where he couldn’t cope any more. One day we got the whistle to go over the top and he just stood there in the trench, paralysed, staring straight ahead. He had his hands over his ears and was saying, ‘The noise, I can’t bear the noise.’ I tried to drag him with me but he wouldn’t go. I went over without him. Next day we were back where we’d started, but Tom had been arrested.”

  Johnson’s voice had begun to shake. He took a sip of water.

  “Go on,” said Jago.

  “There was a court-martial and Tom was sentenced to death for cowardice. We had this officer, a new one and a real swine, always throwing his weight about. He’d just been transferred into the regiment, to our battalion. He put me in the firing party. I was never certain whether he knew I was Tom’s friend and did it deliberately or whether it was just one of those things, but it was the same either way. Making us shoot one of our own. It was just… I can’t find words for it. Just so cruel. We were there to shoot Germans, not our own mates. But he seemed to think nothing of it. Heartless, he was.

  “There was one blank round, so none of the six of us would know who’d killed him, but it made no difference to me. I did my best to miss him, and maybe the others did too, because after we’d fired we could see he’d been hit but he wasn’t dead. So the captain stepped up and finished him off with his revolver. I felt sick to my guts. I was nothing to that officer – he wasn’t the type who cared for the men – and I knew he’d forget my face the next day, but his always stayed in my mind, and his name too.”

  “I think I know what that name is,” said Jago quietly, “but tell me anyway.”

  “It was Captain Charles Villiers.”

  “So how did you come to be working for him all these years later?”

  “After the war I went into the print trade, then one day a couple of years back I saw a photo of a Captain Villiers in the paper and recognized him. It said he was a businessman and a JP, so he’d obviously done all right for himself – not like some of my old mates who ended up busking on one leg. I found out a bit more about him and discovered he owned a print business in West Ham, so I thought I’d see if I could go and work for him. In the summer of 1938 I applied for a job with him, and I was right: he had no idea who I was.”