Murders in the Blitz

by Julia Underwood

  She opened the door and saw before her a very young uniformed copper wearing an expression of intense embarrassment. Eve had never seen this lad before and it crossed her mind that he seemed far too young to be a policeman. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m getting old, she thought.

  ‘Hello, Constable,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’ She smiled, hoping to put the lad at his ease.

  The boy shuffled his feet and mumbled, ‘Inspector Reed’s sent me, miss. He says he wants to see you. Please,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Oh, is there a problem?’

  ‘He didn’t say, miss. Just said, could I bring you in to see him?’

  ‘I’ve only just got in from work. Did he say if it was urgent?’

  ‘No, miss. Just said to ask you if you’d come.’

  Eve glanced back into her sitting room. It wasn’t long before Pete was due to pick her up for their evening out and she really needed that cup of tea. Putting on her glad rags and trying to smooth her hair into some semblance of sophisticated waves would have to be forgotten. She sighed with resignation.

  ‘All right, Constable. Go back to the station and tell the inspector I’ll be along in about ten minutes. If you see Pete Heller, tell him I’m going to be a bit late this evening, could you?’

  ‘I will if I see him, miss.’

  The young constable left, a smug smile encircling his lips. Perhaps this is the first task that he had been asked to carry out, Eve thought. Inspector Reed had recently been trying to recruit more officers onto the local Police Force. As all the men over eighteen were now being called up he had been forced to take on untrained lads fresh out of school to take up the staffing slack. But if the war went on for much longer even those lads would be conscripted and sent to the Front. It was because of this manpower shortage that Eve worked as an occasional, and unofficial, assistant to the police. The inspector had come to value her help, especially after she had managed to bring a murderer to justice in September last year, just at the start of the Blitz.

  The inspector had proved an understanding and encouraging mentor, although Eve was sometimes annoyed by the mundane and prosaic nature of the tasks he gave her, such as searching for lost dogs or checking Identity Cards. But the absence of any female officers at this nick, since the few that had once worked there had joined what they saw as more exciting wartime units elsewhere, meant that Eve was occasionally in demand as someone to hold the hands of victims of crime. She enjoyed this work as a respite from the routine tasks at the Censor’s Department and her boss, Fred Gibbons, was willing to allow her time off to help the police. She sometimes thought that she should give up her job altogether, but Inspector Reed did not have the funds to pay her a full time salary. The existing ad hoc arrangement seemed to work well for everyone.

  Eve slurped back the tea, ran a comb through her unruly red curls and, with Jake on the lead beside her – she thought she may as well use the time to give the dog a walk – she set off across the Green. There were no street lights, but fortunately the kerbs had been painted white to guide pedestrians and keep them out of the road, but accidents still happened often. The route was familiar to Eve and she easily found her way to the gloom wrapped police station, without a chink of light showing through the blackout. Eve nearly tripped over a sand bag that had slid off the protective wall surrounding the entrance. She swore under her breath and entered the reception area.

  Bert, the duty sergeant, was behind the desk.

  ‘Evening, Eve, what can I do for you? Pete’s left already. Isn’t it Palais night?’

  ‘The Inspector’s sent for me, Bert. Is there something up?’

  ‘Not much. He’ll tell you about it. Go through to his office. Do you want me to look after Jake for you?’

  ‘Thanks, Bert, that’s a great help.’ She handed Bert the lead and Jake, familiar with these surroundings and his friend Bert, who was generous with scraps of food, settled down behind the desk. Eve walked through to the offices at the rear of the building and knocked on Inspector Reed’s office door.

  ‘Come in,’ he called.

  Eve entered the orderly room. The inspector was seated behind his desk, which held several piles of paperwork at the periphery and two black telephones within easy reach. His normally serious face creased into an affectionate smile.

  ‘Ah, Miss Duncan, I’m so pleased you could come in. I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient, but I can’t get hold of you during the day.’

  Eve’s boss at Mount Pleasant didn’t take kindly to people telephoning his staff “at all times of day or night”. As Eve, in common with most people, did not have a phone at home, a note or a personal message, like tonight’s, was the only way of contacting her.

  ‘No, it’s all right, sir,’ said Eve, pushing all thoughts of dancing at the Palais to the back of her mind.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long. There’s just a little investigation I’d like you to help us with. I’ll ring your Mr Gibbons tomorrow and arrange it with him. It should only take a couple of days. It’s a matter of a missing person. I need you to do your magic and talk to people who know him and may have seen him.’

  ‘Oh, who’s missing?’ Eve was well aware that, in these days of relentless bombing, people did disappear, crushed or blown up in the Blitz or sometimes, if they’d had enough and could stand the tension of imminent danger no longer, they just upped sticks and ran away to some safe haven in the country without telling anyone where they were going.

  ‘It’s a local lad. You may know him, Malcolm...er...sorry, I can’t remember his surname. He’s the milkman - young lad of twenty one. Seems to have disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘I know him by sight. He delivers my milk, so I’ve seen him when I pay him. But I can’t say I know him. When was he last seen?’

  ‘Well, he picked up his float from the dairy in Hammersmith, United Dairies that is, at dawn yesterday morning. He seems to have delivered most of his milk for the day. But his dray and horse were found in Pennard Road at about six o’clock. It seems to have created quite a stir. He wasn’t seen again at the milk depot or at his home – he lives with his mother somewhere round here - and he didn’t turn up for work this morning.’

  ‘Maybe he’s gone off with a girlfriend?’

  ‘I would normally think that was a possibility, but it seems unlikely that he would abandon his float and his horse, which I understand he was quite fond of, in the middle of his round. The animal wasn’t tethered and it created a certain amount of havoc, I understand. There have been complaints.’ The inspector grinned. ‘But you needn’t worry about that. I suggest you start at the dairy and find out what you can about Malcolm, the details of his route and then try to find out from the householders where and when he was last seen. He worked very early in the morning, so I imagine most of the residents will have been asleep when he called, especially as it was a quiet night around here for once, and everyone was sleeping in their own beds. Anyway, see what you can discover. I don’t expect you to come in here in the morning. You can go straight to the dairy when you’re ready. I’m afraid it’ll have to be early as the dairymen have finished their work before most people go to theirs. I’ll sort it out with your boss.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Eve was confident that, with his higher authority, the inspector would persuade Mr Gibbons to allow her the time off. Her staff were now well trained and the operation in the Censor’s Department worked smoothly. A day or two without her would not cause chaos. Her second in command, Elsie, took charge with admirable efficiency when she was away. ‘I’ll see you later in the day to tell you what I’ve found out.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Duncan, I knew I could rely on you.’ Inspector Reed pulled a heap of files towards him and picked up a fountain pen. Eve was dismissed.

  Chapter Three

  The muted welcome that Eve received at the dairy the next morning seemed to indicate that they weren’t happy to see her. A sharp frost the night before meant that there was still a chill
in the air at eight o’clock and the breath of the horses in their stalls fogged the air. Eve had arrived early because she hoped to catch as many of the staff as possible before they went home or to their day jobs if they had them.

  Eve drew herself up to her full five foot two inches, wishing she could stand on a chair to make herself more imposing, but feeling that this might be too much. She didn’t want to intimidate them into silence. As it was, much whispering was going on behind hands and, after she’d explained who she represented and why she was there, the dairy staff’s attitude did not improve. Within minutes Eve came to the conclusion that these people had something to hide. She had arranged for the men, and a couple of women, to gather in the manager’s cramped office.

  Eve plunged in as she did not feel that she had any alternative. Better get on with it, she thought.

  ‘When did any of you last see Malcolm?’ she asked.

  The men shuffled their booted feet and rubbed their hands together to ward off the cold. Some folded their hands across their chests, still wearing their long white milkmen’s aprons, clearly wishing to fend off this stranger’s questions. A malodorous and ineffective paraffin stove spewed fumes but little heat into the restricted space. No-one answered Eve’s question. She noticed that many of the men were over forty at least and no longer liable for military service; at twenty-one Malcolm must have been the youngest of them. The two women were probably unmarried and this was their contribution to the war effort. Everyone was expected to do something to help.

  ‘You do know that he hasn’t been seen since early yesterday morning, don’t you? He abandoned his float in the street and disappeared.’ Eve had a feeling that she wasn’t going to get much out of this lot.

  ‘Maybe someone’s finally got the little toe rag,’ a gloomy voice from the back of the room suggested.

  ‘Perhaps someone’s topped him,’ said another.

  ‘Good bloody riddance,’ was another vehement comment.

  An atmosphere of malevolence tainted the room.

  ‘We don’t know that Malcolm’s dead,’ said Eve. ‘He’s just down as a missing person. I’m trying to find him. I thought one of you might have an idea of what’s happened to him.’

  The manager came to her aid. ‘I don’t think any of the men have seen him since he came to get his horse and milk early yesterday and loaded up. It was bloody parky so everyone was working fast to get away. That would be at about half past two – a.m. that is.’

  Eve shuddered at the thought of such an early, cold start to the working day.

  ‘We all go in different directions then you see, miss, so we only speak to each other when we come back to the depot after our deliveries and see to the horses before going home. Malcolm often comes in later than the rest of us. He has other fish to fry.’

  This information was greeted with subdued laughter and glances full of meaning and malice. It was clear to Eve that Malcolm was not popular with his work mates and she wondered what he had done to upset them all. She doubted if he had a friend amongst this disgruntled crowd. Still, she didn’t think she’d have a very good temper if she had to get up so early every morning.

  ‘He was probably held up by his sugar delivery,’ a voice piped up.

  ‘Ssh!’ said another. ‘Don’t tell her that.’

  Eve couldn’t see who had spoken, but this nugget of intelligence was just the sort of thing she was looking for.

  ‘What sugar delivery? Was Malcolm selling sugar?’

  ‘Now you’ve done it, Fred. The young lady’s from the cops don’t forget.’

  The manager looked embarrassed and as if he wished the speaker had not mentioned the sugar. It looked to Eve as if nefarious dealings were going on amongst the local milkmen. The selling of rationed goods to residents at inflated prices had gathered momentum recently, since shortages began to bite. Sugar, along with bacon and butter had been rationed since January of 1940, over a year now. Food stores were often broken into and sugar waiting for despatch to the shops was stolen from warehouses. A vigorous black market economy had sprung up and people desperate for scarce commodities were prepared to pay over the odds for them. A milkman would be ideally placed to distribute goods to his customers as he visited their homes on a regular basis. In some ways Eve couldn’t help admiring Malcolm’s enterprise, even though the activity was illegal, probably traitorous, and carried a heavy fine or even imprisonment if he was caught. I wonder where he got his supplies from, thought Eve. She had better find out more details.

  ‘Was Malcolm selling black market sugar?’ A direct question seemed the best approach.

  ‘Yes, miss. Well, it’s no secret now is it? Might as well tell her,’ the man excused himself to his mates. ‘He’s been doing it for some time now – makes a bit of extra that way.’

  ‘He’s probably saving to get a little home of his own.’

  ‘Where does he live now?’ asked Eve. ‘I’ll have to go round and see if he’s been home.’

  ‘He lives with his mum. He doesn’t need his own place, he’s got hers. She’s ill – handicapped in some way. That’s his excuse for not being in the Army, compassionate grounds they call it – said he had to stay to look after her.’

  ‘Yeah, but now the little bastard’s put her in a home, ain’t he? No excuse now not to be at the Front, strapping lad like him. His dad died years ago. He would never have stood for it.’

  Now that they had started the men seemed unable to stop talking and were now bombarding Eve with information about Malcolm, most of it negative.

  ‘And what about you now, Jack?’ one of the men turned to another, a burly taciturn chap at the back. ‘You’ve had problems with him, ain’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that, thank you, Dave. It’s not something to discuss in front of everyone.’

  Eve made a mental note to question Jack when everyone else was out of the way. He clearly knew something that did not put Malcolm in a good light; she needed to get to the bottom of it. Perhaps it would be better for her to talk to some of them individually; she might get more out of them that way. So far it seemed that Malcolm was not the cheerful, obliging chap that she had been led to believe. Several people here obviously had grudges against him.

  ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. There are a few more questions I have for you. If you don’t mind, I’ll get your names and addresses from your manager and I may come to talk to you at home.’

  The milkmen murmured assent as they wandered away from the office to feed and tend their horses before leaving for the day. Later the animals would be released to graze in the meadow down by the river. Eve thanked the manager for his help, saying that she would be back when she had made further enquiries at Malcolm’s home. Putting the list of employees’ names and addresses into her handbag, she returned to Shepherd’s Bush.

  *

  Malcolm’s mum rented a two up - one down terraced cottage in Arminger Road. The exterior woodwork was in dire need of a lick of paint. That was unlikely to happen for a while because decent paint was already in short supply and reserved for essential work connected with the War. With houses being demolished by bombs almost on a daily basis it hardly seemed worthwhile to maintain intact property that could be destroyed at any time.

  Eve tapped on the door using the tarnished knocker fashioned in the shape of a lion’s head. When there was no reply she banged on the door panels with more force and shouted through the letterbox. The neighbour must have heard her bellowing because a woman in a floral wraparound pinafore came to her front door and addressed Eve in quelling tones.

  ‘There’s no-one in, you know. She’s gone. Taken to the workhouse to die,’ she said with dark relish. ‘That son of hers got rid of her as soon as he could and now he’s gorn off.’

  ‘Oh, I thought she was in some sort of nursing home.’

  ‘Hmm. That’s as maybe. Gone to die anyway, I shouldn’t wonder. Poor Dot.’

  ‘I’m looking for Malcolm, her son.’

/>   ‘Not seen him for days; hardly ever do. He’s a bit of a dark horse, that one. Always off all times of day and night. Mighty strange I call it.’

  ‘Well, he is a milkman, Mrs ...?’

  ‘Williams. Possibly, but he comes in late too. All hours I’ve seen him coming home. Not always alone, neither.’ She gave a meaningful nod, full of insinuation and spite.

  Eve saw no reason to continue discussing Malcolm’s movements with this woman. She obviously hadn’t seen Malcolm since he last left for his milk round. ‘Well, thank you Mrs. Williams. You’ve been most helpful,’ she said with as much sincerity as she could muster while she prepared to move away.

  ‘And who might you be, miss? Snooping around like this, asking questions.’

  Eve decided not to give her the satisfaction of further information. ‘I’m here on official business, Mrs Williams.’

  ‘Ooh,’ said the woman, her eyes lighting up with curiosity. ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘Nothing I can talk about,’ said Eve. Let her make what she likes of that, she thought with an inward chuckle as she turned to leave for the police station to report to Inspector Reed. She thought how unsatisfactory it was to have gleaned so little useful information, except for the black market sugar, of course, that was something new. She hoped the Inspector wouldn’t be disappointed.

  Chapter Four

  As it turned out Inspector Reed wasn’t at all surprised by her lack of progress when Eve managed to see him later that afternoon, after going home for a lunch of beans on toast and a quick dash round the block with Jake.

  ‘Don’t worry Miss Duncan, we often find that in cases like this the missing person has just gone off somewhere with a girlfriend.’ His breezy tone implied that he wasn’t too concerned about Malcolm.

  ‘But it seems strange that he would go off in the middle of his milk round.’