Eve joined Charlie in the front room and they began to look through the sideboard drawers. These revealed a selection of cutlery and table linen. The bottom drawer of the three was more interesting. It contained the usual documents, birth and marriage certificates, for Malcolm and Dot and also for earlier Millers who were probably all deceased. Eve had noticed that no-one could ever throw away these important pieces of paper. After all, in time they were the only evidence that the people concerned had ever existed. Eve put the relevant documents to one side; they would probably be needed by the coroner or someone official. And Dot Miller would need to have her birth certificate. Eve would see that it was sent to Northampton for her.
A small shoebox that had probably once held a child’s footwear, housed a collection of fading photographs, their deckled edges curling up with age, showing elderly couples in their best Edwardian going-to-church outfits, looking sheepish for the camera, obviously longing to escape its scrutiny. There were also pictures of what was probably Malcolm as a baby, grinning jovially in his mother’s arms. A man appeared in some. That must be Malcolm’s deceased father, thought Eve.
At the bottom of the drawer, underneath the box of photos and a few other souvenirs, postcards from seaside resorts and the like, was a foolscap size brown envelope with a cardboard back that contained a collection of school photographs. Ellerslie Road Elementary School 1931, it said across the top of the first image of a couple of hundred children and several adults, their teachers presumably. The children at the back must have been standing on chairs and the little ones at the front were seated on the ground. The children looked as if they were aged between six and ten or eleven. Eve scrutinised the innocent young faces brimming with promise. Some had cheeky confident grins, shy ones had downcast eyes, good looking ones had knowing expressions, aware of their power.
‘Oh, look, Charlie, Malcolm’s school photo in 1931. I wonder which one is him.’
They scanned the picture more closely and could just discern a faint pencil mark like an arrow over one of the taller boys standing at the back.
‘That must be him. He was tall even then. Ten years ago, so he must have been eleven.’ Eve stared at the photograph, saddened by the fact that the lad in the photograph was now dead, his life snuffed out so young. She felt more determined than ever to find his killer.
The remainder of the school photographs were from a later era, when Malcolm was at Secondary School. He seemed not to have bothered to get one every year and they showed just the one class, not the whole school.
Having exhausted the contents of the sitting room, Eve and Charlie went upstairs. What was obviously Mrs Miller’s room, judging by the few feminine touches, was almost completely empty except for the furniture. An oak bedstead took up most of the space and someone had stripped it and rolled up the mattress, exposing the springs. A matching wardrobe stood against the opposite wall and a table with a mirror on top acted as a dressing table at the window. The curtains were firmly drawn as if whoever had cleared the room had felt that it should remain blacked out. Mrs Miller must have taken all her portable possessions with her to St. Barnabas as nothing personal remained.
The cottage had no bathroom, in common with many of the older houses in the area. A privy stood in the back yard and the little family would have used the kitchen sink to wash and shave. A galvanised tin bath hung on the wall out in the yard to be brought in on bath nights, where it would be stood in front of the sitting room fire and laboriously filled with water heated on the stove. Eve had never thought of her rooms as luxurious, but at least she had fixed plumbing, mains drainage and an inside toilet.
Charlie found Malcolm’s bedroom more interesting than the rest of the house even though it yielded little in the way of evidence. It seemed that Malcolm still clung to his boyhood hobbies and several carefully constructed balsa wood aeroplanes hung from strings attached to the ceiling. Perhaps his father had helped Malcolm to make them before he met his death.
Malcolm’s personal habits had not been very hygienic and dirty clothes were strewn around the room and across the floor. The chest of drawers held hardly any clothes and the wardrobe housed only a cheap grey suit and a pair of polished black shoes. His Sunday best, thought Eve. There were no books, photographs or anything to indicate what Malcolm did when he was not working or chasing girls. His bedside table drawer revealed a few ticket stubs from football matches and the dogs as well as the remains of some betting slips. Perhaps they should pay a visit to White City stadium and see if anyone there knew the young milkman. Eve knew that the criminal element, as well as using the pubs to meet, also gathered at football matches and race meetings. That line of enquiry might lead to something.
Taking what useful material they had found, the documents, the photographs, the ticket stubs and betting slips, Charlie and Eve left the house feeling that they had learned little.
They had been back in the police station only a few minutes when they realised that something was going on. Eve deposited the bundle of papers, now in a paper bag, and left it with the desk Sergeant. Pete Heller, Eve’s boyfriend, saw them in the lobby and came over. He bubbled with excitement, in a rush to leave on some mission.
‘Hello, you two. I don’t think you’ll be able to see the inspector right now. There’s been another murder.’
Chapter Nine
‘Where is it? Can we come with you?’ Eve started to follow him through the door of the police station. ‘Who is it, Pete? Someone we know?’
‘Not so many questions, Miss Duncan,’ Pete teased. ‘I suppose you can tag along if you like. The inspector seems to like you getting involved in these cases, especially dealing with the families, though I don’t think there is one in this case.’
Intrigued, Eve grabbed Charlie’s hand and pulled him through the door behind her. He followed obediently; not that he had much choice. Eve was silent as they followed Pete across the Green to a block of flats standing back from the road, just a few doors along from the three storey Victorian mansion that housed the Polish Refugee Centre, which had been involved in Eve’s previous encounter with murder last September. The apartment block had an air of sober respectability. Solid and imposing, its red brick walls were sandwiched between white stucco and mullioned windows. These sorts of flats were known as ‘mansion flats’ for some reason, and usually occupied by the professional classes.
‘Is this where the victim was found?’ she asked Pete, unable to restrain her curiosity any longer, as they entered under the portico.
‘No,’ he said. ‘She was found on the Green, sitting on one of the benches like she was still alive, relaxing, watching the birds or enjoying the fresh air. It wasn’t till a tramp sat down beside her and she practically slumped into his lap that anyone realised she was dead. Gave the poor chap a hell of a fright I can tell you. He probably thought he’d finally got the Delirium Tremens.’
Eve went straight to the salient points of this speech. ‘Oh, so it was a woman. Was she young?’
‘No, she’s an old biddy, dressed up all respectable for a morning stroll, top coat, sensible shoes and a hat. Her handbag was on the ground beside her, so it wasn’t difficult to find out where she lived. There was no money in it, or ration book, but her ID card was still there, and her keys. We’re going up to her flat now. The inspector’s already there.’
They crossed the wide hallway and stepped into the cage-like lift which took them on a rattly journey to the third floor. The door of one of the flats at this level stood ajar and the three walked in. Inspector Reed was talking to other members of his team, but he came forward to meet the little group as they entered.
‘Ah, Sergeant Heller, good, we could do with another pair of hands. And I see you’ve brought Miss Duncan with you. Well, I’m sure she can do something to help too. Cast a feminine eye over the premises and see if she can spot anything that might help us find out who could have done this to such a harmless, respectable old lady.’
‘Who was she, sir?’ asked Charlie.
Pete came forward, excited with information. ‘I know her, sir. Knew her, I mean. She taught at Ellerslie Road Elementary. I was in her class.’
‘Well done, Heller. Maybe you can tell us something about her.’
‘I don’t know about that, sir. It was a long time ago. I haven’t seen her for a good eighteen years. She seemed really old to us even then. But she taught my class at Ellerslie throughout our time there. You used to keep the same teacher all through in them days.’
Pete was 29 so, as he said, it was a long time since he left elementary school. His memory of the woman was unlikely to be clear, thought Eve. He wasn’t much good with details at the best of times and she didn’t suppose he paid much attention at school.
‘I remember she was a good teacher,’ continued Pete. ‘Strict, but fair and she could be fun, like when we played number games at the end of term and such. She supported the less clever kids and everyone in her class could do sums and read and write by the time they were eight. We were glad we’d been in her class when we moved up to the big school, where it was more difficult.’
‘Who would want to kill a retired schoolmarm?’ asked Eve. ‘Surely she was completely harmless.’
‘I have come to learn over the years that people have the most bizarre reasons for killing others. Often as not there’s money involved, or sex,’ said Inspector Reed, ‘You would have thought that with Jerry trying to kill us on a daily basis that people would stop murdering each other. But there always seems to be someone out there at it. We’ve had two murders in the space of a week. You wouldn’t have thought it possible would you?’
‘Suppose the murders are linked,’ said Charlie. ‘Whoever killed Malcolm may have killed the old dear too.’
‘I hardly think so, Spalding. What could possibly be the connection?’ the inspector said. ‘I think this may simply be a petty theft that went wrong. Someone tried to relieve her of her cash whilst she was out for her walk, held her up with a knife and when she resisted, he stabbed her.’
‘Oh, she was stabbed, like Malcolm?’ asked Eve.
‘Yes, but it was a much shorter knife and there was very little blood. He struck a lucky blow, or rather, unlucky for Miss Broadbent, and it went straight into her heart. She died instantly, the doc says.’
‘Well, that’s a good thing,’ said Eve, a remark that immediately struck her as ridiculously callous. She felt sorry for the old lady whose life had been dedicated to the education of children. What had she done to deserve such a fate?
Whilst talking they wandered around the flat’s spacious rooms. From the drawing room at the front Miss Broadbent had had a splendid view of Shepherd’s Bush Green; the leaves of the nearby plane trees almost caressing the windows. Two bedrooms and a well-appointed kitchen and bathroom completed the apartment. The kitchen even had a refrigerator, something that Eve hankered after to keep her food fresh, but they were too expensive for her. The rooms were linked by a wide carpeted corridor along which Miss Broadbent had hung an array of framed school photographs, in date order and each headed Ellerslie Road Elementary School, just like the one Charlie and Eve had seen at the Miller’s cottage. The pictures stretched from one end of the corridor to the other, ending in 1936, when she must have retired. Light from a window in the opposite wall lit the memorial.
‘Look, Charlie,’ said Eve. ‘Here’s the one for 1931 and there’s Malcolm at the back.’
‘Well, he would be, you dope, it’s the same photo.’
‘I know, but it’s funny isn’t it, that they knew each other. Perhaps this is the link between the murders.’
‘Don’t be daft. She taught him when he was a kid, like lots of other children round here, that’s all. What other connection could there be between a nasty piece of work like Malcolm and a harmless old lady like Miss Broadbent?’
Pete came over and joined them in their scrutiny of the group photos.
‘Are you in any of these, Pete?’ asked Charlie. ‘What did you look like as a kid?’
‘Oh, mine’ll be miles back along the wall somewhere. I left Ellerslie in 1924 to go up to secondary school.’
‘Golly,’ said Eve, ‘that seems a million years ago.’
‘All right, madam, enough of taking the mickey. You two are older than me. You must have left your first school about 1922.’
Eve and Charlie contemplated this depressing truth gloomily. Was it that long ago that they were eleven? How frightening that so many years had passed. They were now standing by the earlier school photograph and Pete pointed out his round cheerful face, with ears sticking out like flags.
‘There I am,’ he said.
‘Well,’ laughed Eve, ‘at least you’ve grown into the ears.’
Pete was punching them playfully when Inspector Reed recalled them to the seriousness of the occasion and why they were in Miss Broadbent’s flat.
‘A little respect, if you young people don’t mind,’ he said without rancour. ‘Look around, would you, see if you can find anything that might indicate if the lady had any problems that have come back to bite her. Debts, perhaps, or a relative after an inheritance. This flat must be worth a few bob. Maybe there’s a will somewhere. See what you can find. I’m going back to the station.’
The inspector left the flat after taking leave of the technical team. Eve wandered into the lounge and found a roll-top desk and started searching its drawers and cubbyholes, hoping she would find papers that would help their enquiry. Charlie was lounging on Miss Broadbent’s deeply cushioned blue velvet settee going through photograph albums he had found on the bookshelves, whilst Pete had started to investigate the cupboards and drawers in the main bedroom.
Miss Broadbent had been an extremely organised woman, Eve was pleased to discover. She supposed that this was only to be expected of someone who had been in a position of responsibility all her working life. Everything had a place. Her bills were filed in date order in one drawer; her important documents, birth certificate and so on, in another. Amongst the papers in this drawer, Eve found Miss Broadbent’s will.
‘I’ve found her will, Charlie,’ she said.
‘Bring it here. Let’s have a butcher’s.’
The document consisted of only one page. The bequests were extremely simple, all her assets were to be disposed of on her death and given to Ellerslie Road School, the place, it said, to which she had devoted her life and to whom she wished to leave this legacy with affection and good wishes for the future. Eve sniffed back a tear. How lovely, she thought, what a generous old thing she was. There were no other bequests.
‘Well, it looks as if she didn’t have any relatives to leave her money to. The will doesn’t give us a clue to who could have killed her.’
‘Unless the present headmaster did her in to get hold of the money,’ suggested Charlie.
‘Give over, Charlie, as if he would. I think she’s been very generous. They’ll be ever so grateful when they hear about this.’
‘Let’s hope someone from the school turns up for the funeral.’
Eve vowed that she would do her utmost to make sure that they did.
Further poking around the flat revealed nothing more than that Emily Broadbent had been a sober, disciplined member of society with no secrets. A fading photograph of a handsome young man in uniform on her bedside table was the only sign that Miss Broadbent had ever had an emotional life.
‘Oh, look Charlie. Do you think this may have been her fiancé who died in the Great War?’
‘Could’ve been her brother,’ replied Charlie.
Eve chose to believe that this had been the man that Emily had loved, lost in the massacre of the First World War like many young men of that generation, leaving behind sweethearts who remained grieving spinsters forever. The sadness of it made Eve’s eyes fill with tears.
When they had finished, having turned over every item of possible interest
in the flat, they left together. Pete returned to the police station and Charlie made his way back to the market and an afternoon of entertaining housewives from the vegetable stall.
‘I’ll see you later, Evie. Let me know if you find anything else.’
Eve waved goodbye and, as she was so near, she decided to visit a friend.
Chapter Ten
Eve strolled past the few doors along the edge of the Green to the tall white stucco building that housed the Polish Refugee Centre. A window at the front had been damaged in a raid and was boarded up and a chunk had been gouged out of one of the white pillars holding up the portico over the front door. Since the murder of the Polish refugee, Zoya, last year, Eve had been a regular visitor to the house. The people living there may have changed, indeed there was a constant turnover of personnel, but the housekeeper, Katya, still ran the kitchen and she and Eve had become friends.
As was customary Eve walked straight in through the front door, which was almost always unlocked, passed the offices, the main staircase and, using the creaking steps that led to the basement, she went into the kitchen.
‘Hello, Katya, it’s me,’ she called out as she arrived.
The figure at the stove turned towards her. ‘My dear Eve, how lovely to see you. You haven’t been around for a while and certainly not in the daytime. Does this mean you have another case?’
How shrewd she was, thought Eve. Katya remembered that she would normally be at work at Mount Pleasant at this time of day. She went up to her friend and gave her a quick hug, avoiding the thick dusting of flour that coated Katya’s apron and hands.
‘Sit. Sit,’ the Polish woman said. ‘I will make tea, or would you prefer cocoa?’
‘You’ve got cocoa? Oh, yes please.’ It was warm in the kitchen so Eve removed her coat, hung it over the back of a chair and sat at the scrubbed pine table that could seat twelve. Spotless as always, the kitchen smelled deliciously of the food that Katya was preparing for the residents. She worked miracles with the rations and managed to feed the inmates several substantial, nourishing meals every day. There were always about a dozen young Polish men and women living in the building, which served as a hostel for refugees needing a place to stay before they went off to work elsewhere or, in the case of servicemen, back to their units after a spell of leave.
Murders in the Blitz Page 14