Murders in the Blitz

by Julia Underwood

  After greeting the trio, Lady Passmore noticed Eve regarding the mass of furnishings.

  ‘I can see you’re wondering why there’s so much furniture in here, Miss Duncan. I’ll explain. When the military requisitioned the house and I moved in here, I brought most of the best pieces with me – the most valuable – we couldn’t have the Sheratons and Hepplewhite damaged by the riff raff. Of course some things were far too big and heavy to transport up here and would have looked out of place in this little cottage, so they’ve been stored in the basements of the Hall.’

  Little cottage indeed, thought Eve, this gaff’s enormous and I can see it must have at least five bedrooms as well as servants quarters. She nodded in understanding and Lady Passmore seemed satisfied with her reaction and continued with the tour. Grace and Hugh admired everything with voluble praise, causing Eve to cringe at their sycophancy, but she imagined they felt that they had to live with their neighbour and didn’t want to offend her. Eve thought the place over-furnished, over-decorated and thoroughly under-inhabited. All this space for just one woman!

  When he had the opportunity, Hugh whispered in her ear. ‘We’ve been here several times, of course. But we go through this every time, she does so love having her house admired. Noblesse oblige.’ He chuckled.

  Eventually they finished the circuit and were seated in the drawing room, overlooking a wide terrace and the garden, with a wonderful view of Passmore Hall and the countryside it presided over. Eve perched on the edge of a silk-upholstered armchair and admired the panorama. What she’d give to live in a house like this. The room, with its pale silk upholstery and huge arrangements of flowers spilling out of cut glass vases filling the air with fragrance, made Eve feel quite envious.

  The maid wheeled in a tea trolley and then brought in one of those folding cake stands with four tiers each set with a plate of various sandwiches, scones with jam and cream and the famous sponge cake. Eve hadn’t seen such an abundance of luxury food in ages and, as soon as she decently could, she tucked in, savouring every mouthful. Fortunately, the maid had furnished her with a delicate walnut side table on which to put her plate and tea cup. The task of balancing both in her hands and eating at the same time would have been beyond her. Mrs Forbes was right about the sponge cake, and the scones were delicious too.

  Hugh and Grace were chatting amiably to her ladyship. They really did seem to be quite good friends, Eve thought. Lady Passmore turned to her after a while and asked her about the bones found in the wood.

  ‘How very exciting for you, my dear,’ she said. ‘Have you heard any more about whom the body might belong to?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid we may never know. It’s a complete mystery. You see, no-one from the village is missing, everyone would know if they were.’

  ‘I expect the person’s identity will come to light in time. These things rarely remain a mystery for long.’

  ‘I am sure you’re right,’ said Eve, trying to be polite, although she didn’t hold out much hope of the identification happening while she remained in the village. She’d have to go back to London and her work soon, however much she dreaded it. Mr Gibbon had written last week begging her to return as one of his key workers had been killed by a bomb and he was understaffed. Eve couldn’t leave him struggling much longer; no more than a week at most.

  They stopped in mid-conversation when they caught sight of a phalanx of children marching in stately formation across the lawn below the terrace. The under-gardener and a soldier in uniform with a bandaged head were instructing them to swing their arms in military fashion with poles and sticks over their shoulders in place of rifles. They were all completely wrapped up in the game and didn’t notice the adults watching from the Dower House windows. Her ladyship’s two whippets and Jake danced around the parade, barking their heads off, clearly having the whale of a time.

  ‘Lovely!’ Lady Passmore turned away from the window with a smile warming her normally severe features. ‘They’re having a marvellous time. My own children used to do exactly the same thing when my husband was home. They loved parading up and down like soldiers.’ Her face saddened as she remembered that her family were all away, even though the boys were in relatively safe jobs in the bunkers of Whitehall. ‘Well, never mind that. Let’s finish our tea.’

  By half past five it was time to go. The task of herding the children together proved easier than Eve had anticipated. They’d been given a substantial meal in the kitchen of the big house and, walking home, they were full of the lavishness of the fare, which had included pork pies and fruit cake, and the generosity of the army cook. Jake, as Eve had expected, proved to be more difficult to corral and he protested at leaving his two skinny friends. But, with the help of two boys, the under gardener and Hugh rounding him up like cowboys capturing an errant steer, Eve managed to hook him on to his lead at last and they walked home.

  In spite of her earlier reservations she found that she had enjoyed the afternoon. Lady Passmore’s manner annoyed her less and she’d proved to be less formal and condescending than Eve had expected. Her ladyship’s evident concern for her absent children and husband had shown that she was a typical wife and mother, worrying and hoping that her family would keep safe through the war. Perhaps she wasn’t such a tough old bat after all.

  Chapter Nine

  Eve woke on Monday morning with a nagging feeling that there was something she should be doing. She recognised that she wasn’t at all happy with the lack of progress made by the police in finding out the identity of the body found in Barrington Wood. Eve had given the poor woman a name; she couldn’t bear to keep thinking of her merely as a bag of bones, and had started to call her Persephone, after the Queen of the Underworld. Persephone must have come from somewhere and Eve was determined to find out where if she possibly could.

  She had to make a start on the project and thought that the public library would be a good place, and perhaps Highston Town Hall might also yield some clues. After breakfast she told Grace her plans and got ready to meet the bus.

  ‘Are you sure you want to get involved in all this, Eve?’ her sister asked. ‘After all, you’ll be going home next weekend and then you can forget all about it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace. I can’t just forget it. That poor woman was murdered and I need to find out who she was – maybe even find out who did it.’

  Grace sighed and gave in as Eve knew she would. Eve had always been the more persuasive of the two sisters, not always with good results as she’d frequently landed Grace in trouble when they were children. Eve gave her a hug full of affection before she left the house.

  ‘You’ve no need to worry about me; I enjoy this kind of thing. Don’t work too hard. I’ll be back by teatime to help with the mob.’

  *

  Eve stood at the bus stop for what seemed ages, but the bus arrived eventually and again Eve endured the laborious journey into Highston, with the vehicle stopping every few hundred yards to pick up someone or other. The driver didn’t seem to feel it necessary to halt the bus at only the official stops; he stopped wherever a person he knew flagged him down, and that happened often. By the time they arrived in Highston, Eve was wound up with annoyance at the time that had been wasted. That sort of nonsense wouldn’t be tolerated on a bus route in London, especially with all the disruption caused by the bombing; life would be even more chaotic than it was already.

  It was now well into the morning and Eve hurried to get started in the library, situated in a street off the market square. The space available for books and local records had been reduced due to the presence of wartime government offices in the building. Books and papers were stacked haphazardly, often on the floor. Eve looked around in despair; finding what she wanted was not going to be easy. She asked for the librarian’s help.

  ‘Here are the electoral registers,’ the woman said. ‘They cover all the villages around here, and the smaller towns. The authorities don’t like people moving around too much nowadays – so they can keep
an eye on us I suppose.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Eve. ‘So these will be pretty much all the people who’ve lived round here for the last few years.’

  ‘Yes. And here are the Forces lists so you can tell who’s away in the Army, Air Force and so on. It means that the police can keep track of any strangers that turn up in the area, in case they’re German spies – you know, those fifth columnists they’re always warning us about.’

  Eve hoped that this practice of keeping extensive records also meant that if anybody disappeared without explanation that would be recorded. Persephone should be here somewhere unless she came from much further afield. The Services lists for each village eliminated a large chunk of the local population. By comparing one list with the other Eve hoped to see if anyone was unaccounted for.

  *

  After a frustrating hour or so, Eve hadn’t been able to discover anyone missing without explanation from any of the places within a twenty mile radius of Highston. No woman of any age was recorded as missing, let alone one of Persephone’s age. Perhaps she’d have to look further afield. But first, she ought to look up recorded deaths as they might give her a clue to where to start her search. It didn’t take long to find a list of women deceased within the last couple of years. If Persephone had died before then Eve wouldn’t be likely to find her now. Of course, if she’d been certified dead there would have been a funeral and she couldn’t have been the body dumped in Barrington Wood.

  Eve wished she had Inspector Reid here to ask for his advice. He always managed to point her in the right direction. She continued to study the list of recorded deaths. There were several women here; none of them from Little Barrington. It began to dawn on Eve that it wasn’t what was here that was puzzling, but the information that wasn’t recorded and should have been. She checked through the records again. No, it wasn’t here. Baffled by the absence of the information she sought, Eve decided it was time to go back to Little Barrington with the scant facts she had, even though it was mostly negative. She decided that she’d remain silent for now about what she’d found, or rather, not found. It wouldn’t do for gossip to get round the village until she’d discovered more and asked questions. She packed away the papers she’d been reading, thanked the librarian for her help and walked round to the Town Hall. The records there also failed to reveal the information she’d expected to find. It was very odd. Afterwards she found a cosy cafe in a side street for a lunch of beans on toast and a cup of tea. Her thoughts wandered around her findings as she ate her meal, considering the implications of what she suspected.

  *

  Eve arrived in the village in the late afternoon to find the house in an uproar. The children were running wild in the house and garden while Grace prepared their supper.

  ‘Oh, thank God you’re back,’ her sister said, wiping a hand across her sweating forehead, much more agitated than was usual for her and appearing limp with fatigue. ‘They’re driving me mad. Hugh’s not coming home till late tonight. He’s been at a Home Guard meeting in the Church Hall since school finished.’

  Hugh was Captain of the local Home Guard and took his duties very seriously, even if the local platoon’s lack of expertise and weaponry made it somewhat comical. As most members were over fifty and some quite infirm, Hugh despaired of their capability as a defence force.

  ‘I’m sorry. I would have come back earlier if I’d know,’ said Eve. ‘I thought he’d be here to help you when the kids came home from school. It took me longer than I thought and the bus was incredibly slow.’ She strode out into the garden. ‘Come on, you lot, that’s enough noise for now. I’ll read you a story before tea if you’ll come in and sit down quietly.’

  Some of the younger children were clearly tired after a full day at school. They began to slouch back into the house when Eve noticed that someone was absent from the throng.

  ‘Where’s Stan?’ she asked.

  ‘He was kept in, Miss. Teacher wanted him to do some extra.’

  Eve had heard that Stan’s reading wasn’t up to scratch and presumed his teacher was helping him catch up with the others.

  ‘All right. I’m sure he’ll be back in time for tea.’

  Eve sent June’s girls home – let her calm them down, she thought − and managed to get the rest of the children to sit in a quiet circle in the sitting room. She’d read several chapters of ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ before Grace summoned them to the kitchen. Just as Eve was putting the book away, Stan dashed in through the French windows from the garden, out of breath as he’d plainly been running hard. His school tie was missing, his blazer smirched with mud and his socks hung down round his ankles.

  ‘You look a dreadful mess, Stan. Go and get tidied up now, love, we’re going to eat in a minute.’

  ‘But, M-miss...’ Stan stammered, a frown on his pale brow and Eve thought he was about to protest.

  ‘Not now, Stan, no arguing, there isn’t time. Go and get ready for tea, Aunty Grace is waiting for us.’

  With a reluctant shrug, as if he had a lot more to say, Stan turned and dragged his feet upstairs to pull a comb through his curls, wash his hands and take off his blazer. When he sat at the kitchen table with the others he was unusually taciturn and thoughtful and didn’t eat much supper. Eve supposed he was sulking because she’d told him off. But she knew Stan’s sulks didn’t last long and he’d be bouncing around as usual by bedtime. She had her own concerns. She had to find a way to ask some pertinent questions and didn’t know how. She wasn’t an acknowledged part of the police force as she was in Shepherds Bush. Here she’d have to take a more subtle approach and it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Occupied with thinking and clearing up the supper, she didn’t notice that Stan’s bad mood and silence continued until bedtime. When she went to turn out the light in the boys’ room she didn’t see that Stan had turned his pale face to the wall, his eyes wide open, staring at the whitewashed plaster with dread.

  Chapter Ten

  Bright and early, the morning clearer than they’d seen in weeks, Eve walked down the hill, taking the children to school, enjoying the sunshine and the scent of flowers. Most mornings they let the children walk on their own, but today Eve took them because Stan had begged her to and the weather was good. After breakfast he’d grabbed her hand and gazed into her face with an unusually serious air.

  ‘Will you take us to school today, Miss?’ he asked. ‘Please.’

  Eve looked at him in surprise. ‘Are you in trouble, Stan? Do you want me to talk to your teacher, or Uncle Hugh?’

  ‘No, it’s not that, Miss. I...’

  One of the girls, who need her hair plaiting, took Eve’s attention away from the worried little boy and she didn’t hear the rest of what he had to say.

  She enjoyed walking with the children on such a lovely morning. She noticed that Stan ran on ahead, keeping close to the other boys, especially his brother Albert. He seems all right now, she thought. I expect he’ll be his usual happy self by this afternoon; he likes school. She waved the children into the building.

  ‘Enjoy your day,’ she called as she turned for home. ‘Be good.’

  Any concerns Eve may have had about Stan’s odd behaviour were overwhelmed a few moments later, when she was halfway up the hill and Mrs Gough dashed on to the pavement ahead of her, arms waving frantically and an expression of horror on her face, as she tried to articulate the terror that stuck in her throat. She seemed to have burst out of the Gossard twins’ cottage.

  ‘Oh, Miss Duncan!’ she cried. ‘Thank goodness. Please, go inside and help Emily. I must go to the phone box and call the police.’ Mabel turned away, up the hill, before Eve had a chance to find out what had happened, but she could tell it was nothing good. From inside the cottage she could hear a horrible wailing that sent tremors of fear up her spine. She pushed open the gate, thrusting aside the hollyhocks, sunflowers and fragrant lavender fronds, and dashed into the house.

  The cruel sound came from the kitchen, which w
as flooded with morning sunlight so vivid that the tableau Eve saw from the doorway was brilliantly lit in all its horror. Eve had to steady herself against the doorframe as shock hit her like a blow.

  Emily Gossard, her blue frock smeared with scarlet, was kneeling on the floor over the body of her sister Vera. Vera lay on her back near the door to the garden, a long carving knife protruding from her chest. Her inert body was covered in copious amounts of blood which had merged with the red of her dress in deeper patches. A lake of blood encircled her; shiny and crimson on the lino floor.

  The scene was so dreadful that Eve felt faint for a moment. She had seen bodies before, but none so brutally exposed in death as this one. She pulled herself together, knowing that her compassion was better directed towards the living than the departed. Eve could see that Vera was beyond help, but Emily needed immediate aid. She went to the stricken woman holding her sister’s head in her lap, and took her by the shoulders from behind, coaxing her to rise.

  ‘Come, Emily,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing you can do for Vera now. Come into the sitting room, away from here. Come on, dear, you need to sit down.’

  Reluctantly, Emily stumbled to her feet, still sobbing loudly, but the shrill wailing had ceased for the moment. She allowed Eve to guide her into the front parlour, a gloomier room that the sunshine in the kitchen didn’t reach, and Emily sat on the solid sofa, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth in helpless, constant motion. Eve turned on the light and put a match to the coals laid ready in the grate. The day might be warm, but Emily needed the comfort of a fire.