Eileen Barrett regarded Eve with tear-washed eyes and an expression that said she must be mad to think it was that simple. It took a few more moments of sobbing before it dawned on the woman that Eve’s suggestion might be a good policy and she stood up, patted her hair and started to walk towards the door.
‘I still think you shouldn’t have interfered, we was getting back to normal again. He was even letting me go to the Palais now and then. Now you’ve put the kibosh on it all. He’ll never let me enjoy myself again.’
Eve found it difficult to imagine that the weedy Stan Barrett could stand up against the mighty temper of Eileen, let alone prevent her from doing anything she wanted. But she supposed that every couple found a suitable way of conducting their lives. She wondered how long this particular marriage would last. Eve did not doubt that Eileen would find it difficult to remain faithful for long.
‘So long, Eileen, good luck,’
Eve waved her off from the steps of the police station. Then she returned to the lobby and addressed the sergeant.
‘I have to get home for Jake, Bert, he’ll need a walk. Is the inspector in? I could give him a quick report.’
‘No he’s out, Eve. He’ll be back in the morning. Why don’t you come and see him then?’
Eve agreed, thinking she had probably done enough for one day. She said goodnight to Bert and walked home, searching the darkening sky for signs of aircraft, but so far nothing ominous blighted the evening and the siren was silent. Soon the searchlights would be crisscrossing the night sky and the anti-aircraft gun crews, ever vigilant, would be scanning the horizons for the enemy. Perhaps they’d be lucky and the Germans would leave them alone tonight.
Chapter Eleven
The following morning the wireless told Eve that the Luftwaffe had not bombed London the previous night, but Liverpool and Southampton had both been heavily attacked. A night of respite meant that Londoners around Shepherd’s Bush were more cheerful, briskly going about their business, many with smiles on their faces. What a difference a stress-free night’s sleep made.
Eve reported to Inspector Reed and he told her to pursue the questioning of residents on the milk round until it was completed.
‘You may still find out something from one of them. Perhaps as it’s a Saturday there’ll be someone who wasn’t in when you called the other day. Sorry, Miss Duncan, I know it’s tedious, but we have to keep trying.’
‘That’s all right, Inspector, I don’t mind.’
‘Glad to be away from Mr Gibbon, I expect.’
‘A bit of that,’ she replied wryly, appreciating his insight, ‘and it’s wonderful to be out in the fresh air.’
‘Well, off you go and let me know what you discover.’
‘Is there any news about Miss Broadbent? Have we found out anything more about her or who may have killed her?’
‘No. Don’t you worry about that, I still think it’s a robbery gone wrong. We’ll pick him up eventually. No, you concentrate on the milkman; you’re much more likely to hear something about that crime. I’ll see you later. Send in Sergeant Banks on your way out, he’s waiting outside.’
Eve left the office and Banks went in, his head low as if he expected a telling off from his boss. Eve couldn’t believe that the benevolent inspector would give him too much of a hard time.
Back on the streets Eve continued to ring doorbells, asking the same questions when someone answered, noting anything of interest, and moving on. Towards the end of Malcolm’s round she found that the milk delivery on Monday morning had become more and more haphazard. People who did not normally get milk through the dairy found a pint or two on their doorstep and, further along, those who had ordered milk did not receive it. Some residents were irate, but most were resigned and only mildly surprised at the inconvenience. Nothing much fazed the people of London in these times and the mere failure of a milk delivery was the least of their concerns. There was a war on after all.
Well before lunchtime Eve had finished the task of visiting everyone on Malcolm’s route. She was interested to note that it was towards the Uxbridge Road end of his round that things had begun to go wrong. The deliveries did not end abruptly, but continued right to the end even though they were not entirely correct. It occurred to Eve that the round must have been concluded by someone other than Malcolm; someone who didn’t know exactly who his customers were. Clever, she thought, because it made it impossible for her to work out precisely where Malcolm stopped delivering personally; the spot where he must have lost his life, or at least been carried off to be killed.
Eve joined Charlie for a mid-morning cup of milky coffee in Gladys’s cafe, when he could get away from the Saturday crowds in the market. She then returned to the police station only to find that the inspector was absent again. She was seated at a desk, going over her notes, trying to get them into some sort of order, names and addresses carefully noted, comments written down, when two eager police constables, one of them the young lad who had summoned her to the station on Monday morning, dashed in, full of news.
‘This girl was attacked, Sarge,’ the lad told the Custody Sergeant. ‘In broad daylight, by the shops. Knocked over the head. There were crowds of people around, but no-one saw who did it.’
Eve listened attentively. Someone else attacked? Unusual in Shepherd’s Bush; so much violent crime in less than a week.
‘Poor kid, she’s expecting a baby too. The ambulance’s taken her to Fulham Hospital.’
Eve piped up, not able to resist, ‘Is she all right?’
‘She caught a nasty bump on the head, miss,’ said Eve’s messenger, ‘she was unconscious when they put her into the ambulance. Someone in the crowd reported that she said something before she went out. But it didn’t make much sense.’
‘What was it she said?’ asked Eve.
‘Something like, “he wasn’t there”.’
‘No, what she said was, “it wasn’t him. Billy, it wasn’t him”,’ said the other man.
‘That’s intriguing,’ said Eve. ‘I wonder what she meant.’
‘I expect someone will go and talk to her when she comes round. Maybe that’ll make it clear.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Eve. She hoped Inspector Reed would let her speak to the girl when she recovered consciousness. Perhaps he would let her talk to the family too. Something compelled her to find out more about this latest casualty.
She finished working on her notes and handed them to Bert to give to the Inspector when he returned. She thought she would go down to the hospital anyway and try to see this poor girl.
A trolley bus ride into Fulham took her to the hospital. It had been emptied of patients last August, before the Blitz started, in preparation for the anticipated influx, and was now full of victims of the bombing, some of them terribly injured. The staff were buzzing around, far too busy to take any notice of Eve. They probably thought she was visiting a relative and nobody asked what she was doing there. She imagined the girl would be in the women’s ward and, with a minimum of detective work, she found her way there.
She asked the ward sister about a girl who had come in with a head injury and the woman barely looked up from her paperwork, pointing to a bed in the corner that was shielded by curtains. Eve made her way there. The still figure of the girl lay with her head liberally bandaged and a drip on a stand beside her pumping fluid into her arm. Her face, pale, almost transparent, had bruises around the eyes. The sheets and a thin cotton blanket were tucked tightly around her body so that the gentle bump that was her baby rose in a poignant curve. She looked incredibly young and fragile.
Without a qualm Eve reached for clipboard that held the girl’s notes. Amy Pugh, aged 21, it said, 25 weeks pregnant, maiden name Grainger. Eve spotted a thin gold wedding band on Amy’s left hand. Her husband must have been on leave when she got pregnant six months ago. Poor kid, she thought, to have him away from home and probably in danger, whilst she went through her pregnancy alone.
Eve’s though
ts were interrupted by a man’s harsh voice behind her.
‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’
Eve turned to find a middle-aged couple watching her; their faces showed alarm and annoyance in equal measure. The situation called for a bit of fast thinking. Eve took a gamble, guessing that these were Amy’s parents. She stuck out her right hand.
‘Hello, Mr and Mrs Grainger? I’m Eve Duncan. I work for the police in a family liaison capacity, talking to the victims of crime and their relatives,’ Eve invented rapidly, thinking as she did so that this was almost true and hoping Inspector Reed wouldn’t be too angry if he found out.
Amy’s father’s stern features relaxed perceptively as he shook Eve’s proffered hand. The mother took the seat by the bed and stroked her daughter’s arm.
‘I hope you can find out who did this to our Amy. What a wicked thing, attacking her like in broad daylight, in the street and her expecting and all.’
‘Is the baby going to be all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Grainger, ‘it’s a tough little thing the doctor said. Tougher than Amy’s poor head.’
‘Do they know how long she’s going to be unconscious?’
‘There’s no way of telling, apparently, sometimes it’s days, sometimes weeks,’ Mr Grainger gazed down at his daughter. ‘I hope she comes round soon so that I can find out who did this to her and go and sort the bastard out.’
‘You can’t take the law into your own hands, Mr Grainger. Leave it to the police, they will find him and see that he is punished. It may not have been someone whom Amy knew; she may not have recognised him.’
‘Be that as it may,’ he replied, ‘I want to make sure that he suffers.’
Such vindictive ambitions were only to be expected from a man whose daughter had been attacked in such a way, but Eve hoped that she would be able to dissuade him from any action. Not that he could do anything until they found the culprit.
‘Do you have any idea where Amy was going when she went out today?’
‘She’s living with us while Johnnie’s at sea,’ Mrs Grainger piped up from the chair. ‘The baby will be born before he gets back from his tour of duty.’
‘She didn’t say exactly where she was going,’ said Mr Grainger, ‘just said she was going to visit a school friend. I thought she meant one of the girls, Barbara or Patricia, one of them. But they haven’t seen her and weren’t expecting her.’
Mr Grainger’s remarks piqued Eve’s attention. She was going to visit a school friend.
‘How old is Amy, Mr Grainger?’
‘21. 21 when last Johnnie was on leave. We had a little party for her. Mother made a cake out of some of the last dried fruit. We had to save up the eggs for it.’
Eve was even more intrigued. ‘Tell me, Mr Grainger, what school did Amy go to?’
‘Well, she started at Ellerslie Road Elementary; all the kids from round here did. And later she went to the big secondary school in Acton.’
‘Was she in Miss Broadbent’s class at Ellerslie Road by any chance?’ Eve asked, her breath coming faster, her hands beginning to feel clammy with excitement.
Mrs Grainger answered her. ‘Yes, that was it. Miss Broadbent, Amy was always talking about her. Such a lovely teacher she was, all the kids loved her.’
Eve snatched up her bag and gas mask, which she had placed at the foot of the bed.
‘Thank you both very much,’ she said. ‘You have been extremely helpful. I’m sorry, I’ve got to dash.’ She turned out of the cubicle, away from the bed and made to leave the ward.
Mr Grainger called after her, ‘What do you mean? Have you got an idea? Tell me if you know who did this to Amy.’
‘Try not to worry. I’ll do what I can.’ Eve called back, and waved at the anxious parents, but ignored their anxious questions as she left the hospital and made her way back to the police station. She urgently needed to speak to Inspector Reed. She was convinced that she had found the link between the attacks, even if she had no idea who had carried them out or why.
Chapter Twelve
Eve rushed back to the police station and found that Inspector Reed had returned. She would brook no hindrance from Bert who tried to stop her from seeing him.
‘No, Bert, this is important. I have to see him right away.’
She stormed through to the offices at the back of the building and, with no more than a tap on his door she confronted the inspector, who was standing at the filing cabinet withdrawing papers. Words began to stream out of her mouth in an uncontrolled rush.
‘I think I’ve found it, sir, the link. It’s nothing to do with the dairy or the black market or those women. The two murders are connected, and the attack on Amy Grainger. It’s definitely got something to do with the school.’
‘Hold on a moment, Miss Duncan,’ the Inspector interrupted, ‘who the hell’s Amy Grainger?’
‘Oh, haven’t you heard, sir? She was attacked in the street this morning – in Uxbridge Road. She’s in the hospital, unconscious. She’d told her parents that she was going to see a school friend, just like Malcolm said. He’d told Katya he was going to see a school friend too. And Miss Broadbent, she was their teacher when they were at Ellerslie Road.’
Inspector Reed walked to his desk and sat, regarding Eve with a quizzical look.
‘I take it you have talked to this Amy Grainger’s parents, Miss Duncan?’
‘Well, yes, sir. I went to the hospital. I had to find out what had happened. I’ve had this feeling all along that it was all part of the same thing. That it was all linked. I hope you’re not cross with me, sir,’ she ended weakly.
His stern features, which he was obviously trying to arrange into a frown of admonition, were defeated and creased into a smile. ‘There’s no keeping you down is there, Eve? You’re quite right, of course, you should not have gone to the hospital without my authority, especially as I had asked you concentrate on the Malcolm Miller murder. But it seems that you may be on to something. The trouble is it brings us no nearer to a solution to what is now a body of three crimes. Who in the world would want to kill and injure these people? Can you think of a motive for it?’
Eve subsided into the chair on her side of the desk. ‘No, sir. Offhand I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do it. But I will try to find out. I thought I would start by tracking down everyone who was in Miss Broadbent’s class at Ellerslie Road Elementary. It may have been one of them.’
‘But...’ interrupted the Inspector.
‘I know, sir. I have absolutely no idea why one of them would want to.’
‘You’d better get on with it then. I suggest you start at the school and get a list of the names and addresses of the pupils who were in Miss Broadbent’s class. It was more than ten years’ ago, so it may not be easy, but it’s a place to start. Tell anyone who asks, as usual, that you have my authority to make these enquiries. Good luck.’
Eve almost skipped down the corridor away from the office, a spring in her step, eager to get on with her task to find the killer.
She was only a short way from the police station when something strange happened. A sharp-looking man suddenly materialised at her elbow and thrust a heavy brown paper bag into her hand. Eve thought she recognised him as one of the black market traders that she had seen in the pub.
‘This is for you, Miss Duncan,’ his face contorted into a broad wink. ‘Don’t be too sorry at that Malcolm’s death, he’s no loss, blackmailing little shit. We’re all well shot of him.’
With these cryptic remarks the man slunk off leaving Eve gazing down at a good couple of pounds of black market sugar that she slid into her bag hurriedly, hoping that no-one had seen the exchange. So, she thought, Malcolm was a blackmailer too. He was probably getting his sugar cheap by threatening to expose the dealers to the police. No wonder they were glad he was permanently removed from the scene.
It was a short walk from the police station to Ellerslie Road. She passed the shops along Uxbridge Road, past
Frithville and Stanlake Roads and up Loftus Road, then turned left into Ellerslie Road. A crowd was beginning to gather to go to a football match at the club situated behind the school. Eve pushed her way through the throng and up to the gates of the school only to be brought up short. The gates were firmly locked with a large padlock.
Saturday. Eve had completely forgotten that it was Saturday and the school would be closed. She should have remembered when she saw the football crowd. She turned away from the gates, wondering what to do next. She wasn’t going to get very far without the co-operation of someone at the school who could give her the information she needed about the former pupils. She grabbed the frame of the gate and shook it in frustration.
‘Oi!’ a voice called from behind her. ‘What the’ell do you think you’re doing?’
A stocky, middle-aged man in a brown overall was approaching her, his hands full with a ladder and a canvas bag that appeared to be full of painting equipment.
Eve stepped back from the gates, unable to restrain the frisson of guilt that passed through her at the voice of authority. It reminded her of her own schooldays in Wembley when she was forever in trouble.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, trembling, ‘I need to speak to someone at the school, urgently. I’d completely forgotten it was Saturday and that it would be closed.’
‘Well it is, so you’d better come back on Monday hadn’t you?’
The man began to unlock the padlock on the gate and go inside.
‘Perhaps it’s something you could help me with,’ Eve tried not to wheedle, but she felt compelled to try to persuade the man to let her in. He sighed and leant his ladder against the fence.
‘What’s it about then, this thing that’s so urgent?’
‘I work with the police, you see. There’s been two murders and one attack in the last week and they seem to be connected to the school. I need to find out the names and addresses of children who were attending the school in 1931.’
‘That’s ten years ago.’
‘I know, but I thought someone might know, or that there’d still be some records.’
Murders in the Blitz Page 16