Dead of Winter

by Rennie Airth

  ‘He what—?’

  ‘He said it sounded like this man, whoever he was, might be on the lookout for places to rob. How do they put it in American films? Casing the joint?’

  Mary had started laughing even before she finished speaking.

  ‘Well, if he thinks the Grange is worth casing, he must be even dimmer than he sounds.’

  Mary herself had been combing the house for anything that looked remotely saleable since coming to live there, but her rewards had been scant. On the same day the greasy little man had appeared she’d gone to Petersfield with the last of her gleanings: two gilded picture frames discovered in the cellar and an old set of cutlery missing only a carving knife and fork. She’d returned with a sweater and gloves for Evie, some boots for Hodge, whose own were now past mending, six pork chops slipped to her surreptitiously (and quite literally) under a table, and, best of all, a set of lead soldiers of the Napoleonic era complete in number and only slightly damaged.

  ‘The odd lance is bent and some of the shakos have lost their plumes,’ she’d told Bess, who, ever reliable, had been waiting at the station with Pickles and her trap to take them home. ‘But Freddy will love them. He’s become very martial of late. I was beginning to despair of finding him anything for Christmas.’

  All in all the expedition had been a triumph. But Mary’s elation had been short-lived when she’d discovered on returning to the Grange what had happened in her absence. Evie had been so upset by the experience that Mary had asked Bess the following day to find out all she could about the incident.

  ‘Well, at least I can tell her it’s got nothing to do with the police,’ she said now. ‘Poor Evie. She worries enough as it is.’ One of the reasons Mary had felt drawn to the girl – why she’d employed her in the first place – was that they both shared the same anxieties. Mary’s husband Peter had been posted with his regiment to North Africa in 1942 and was now in Italy. Evie’s was serving with the Allied forces in France.

  ‘It was all right when he was in hospital over here. But he was returned to his unit last week, so she’ll have to start worrying all over again. She’s such a dear girl. And a great help to me. I don’t want her upset. Not when things are going so well.’

  She smiled at Bess.

  ‘We’ve settled down at last. I’ve never seen Freddy so happy. He simply loves it here. He wouldn’t be back in London for anything. And it’s all thanks to you, dear Bess.’

  ‘Oh, good Lord! Don’t exaggerate.’

  Bess snorted. Scowling, she buried her nose in her teacup. Mary regarded her with affection. Though they’d known each other for only a few months it had taken less time than that to discover that her new friend’s gruff manner was little more than a mask; that her generosity was in fact limitless. Nor, in consequence, had it surprised her to learn later that Bess had spent the better part of her life ministering to others: first as an ambulance driver during the First World War; later as a Red Cross worker in distant parts of the world, a career that had been cut short when her mother had fallen seriously ill and she had had to return to England to nurse her. The old lady, bedridden in her last years, had finally passed away the previous Christmas, at which point Bess, looking around as always to see where else she might be needed, had answered a call for a volunteer to deliver post in the Liphook area.

  ‘Mind you, I did worry when you first arrived,’ she allowed, running her fingers through her cropped hair, scrunching up her face into a frown that no self-respecting bear would be ashamed of – or so Mary told herself. ‘You’d had your whole life turned upside down, and it’s not easy getting over that sort of thing.’

  What Bess was referring to had happened six months earlier when Mary’s house in London – the home she and her husband had bought in Maida Vale when they’d got married – had been destroyed by a V-bomb. Terrible though the event had been, however, it paled beside another memory of that day which continued to haunt Mary’s dreams.

  After they had moved into the Grange and she and Bess had got to know each other, she had told her the whole story. How she had left Freddy with his nanny for the afternoon and gone out to keep a dental appointment and how, while travelling on a bus to Portland Road, she had heard the sound of a distant explosion and wondered, with the other passengers, whether it was one of the new flying bombs the newspapers were talking about. And how, an hour later, coming home, she had turned into her street to find a fire engine blocking her way and the road full of men in uniform: air-raid wardens, firemen, police officers. Still vivid in Mary’s recollection had been the sight of the hoses extended like black snakes along the length of the pavement and the smell hanging in the air, which she hadn’t recognized at first but then realized was the scent of freshly turned soil.

  ‘My heart stopped, Bess. I couldn’t breathe.’

  A glance had been all it took her to see that her house had disappeared: the slate roof and the chimney that leaned to one side and the window boxes she had bought that spring and filled with geraniums. All had vanished. In their place was a pile of smoking rubble, and as she’d stood there unable to move, an icy calm had descended on her like a shroud.

  ‘Then I saw them, Freddy and Evie. They were standing on the pavement hand in hand looking at this awful heap of bricks and plaster.’

  Later she had learned that his nanny had taken her son out for a walk only minutes before the bomb had landed. They had gone down to the canal to feed the ducks and had seen the cigar-shaped craft, its tail glowing brightly, pass by overhead.

  ‘Only minutes, Bess …’

  Although it had been days before Mary had been able to think clearly, their move to Hampshire had been inevitable in the circumstances and dictated by logic. Short of looking for a flat in London to rent, the Grange had offered the only roof immediately available to her. An old stone mansion situated a mile or two from the village of Liphook, it had belonged to a bachelor uncle of hers and been left to her in his will when he died at the end of 1938. Something of a white elephant – it was too big for a weekend retreat – the house had remained empty during the war apart from a brief spell in 1942 when it had been occupied by a company of sappers on a training exercise. All but settled on the idea of selling it, Mary and her husband had put off a final decision until after the war and in the meantime had arranged with an estate agent in Petersfield to keep an eye on the property, which was left in the day-to-day care of an elderly couple named Hodge who had worked for Mary’s uncle for many years and had a cottage nearby.

  A week after losing her home, Mary had taken the train down to Liphook with Freddy and his nanny. Weighed down by suitcases – she and Evie had spent hours picking through the rubble salvaging what they could – they had clambered off the train to find Liphook’s only taxi already commandeered and were sitting in the station waiting for it to return, Freddy growing more fractious by the minute, when the door had opened and a large woman wearing an old army greatcoat and a fur-lined cap with earflaps had put her head in.

  ‘I’m told you want to go to the Grange,’ she had growled at them. Her heavy frown had seemed to dispel any idea that she might be doing them a favour. ‘I’m headed that way myself. Can I give you a lift?’

  Only later had Mary realized that Bess had not been going in their direction at all. She’d finished her round for the day and was about to return home in her trap when she’d heard from the station-master, Mr Walton, that a party from London was camped in the waiting room looking lost.

  ‘I thought for a moment you were refugees,’ she’d confessed long afterwards, weeks later. ‘You looked so forlorn sitting there with your suitcases.’

  15

  ‘COME NOW, ANGUS. It’s no use getting upset. These things take time. We must be patient.’

  Bennett removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Paris was an occupied city until a few months ago. Heaven only knows what the police are having to deal with there. Apart from anything else there’s the matter
of wartime collaborators. From what I hear, a lot of private justice is being exacted. It’s not something they can turn a blind eye to. I’m sure they’ll get around to our problem in due course.’

  ‘No doubt they will, sir. But it matters how long they take. It’s vital to know who we’re chasing, and time isn’t on our side. It’s already been a week since the Wapping shooting and we’ve had ample evidence that he’s bent on covering his tracks. I only hope by the time we hear from Paris there’s still a trail left to follow.’

  Sinclair sat scowling. He knew he was being unreasonable: barely four days had passed since his message had been dispatched to the Sûreté. But his gout had chosen that morning to return with particular venom and he sat shifting miserably in his chair, his toe throbbing.

  ‘Is there anything more we can do from this side now? Have we exhausted all avenues?’

  Fully cognizant of his colleague’s discomfort – and equally aware that he would not wish it referred to – the assistant commissioner sought to be sympathetic.

  ‘For the time being, yes. What we’re doing now is waiting on Paris, hoping they can tell us first whether or not this is Marko we’re dealing with and if so, what they know about his movements before the outbreak of war. They would surely have stayed on his trail as long as they could.’

  The chief inspector sought to control his impatience. While awaiting a reply from Paris he had used the time to pursue what few leads seemed to offer any prospect of progress, and it was their failure to produce even a gleam of light that he’d been recounting to Bennett that morning, and which had contributed to his gloomy mood.

  ‘There were two areas I wanted covered,’ he’d declared. ‘The first was to do with Alfie Meeks. We’re still faced with the mystery of how he came into contact with this man, and I’ve had detectives scouring the market at Southwark trying to find someone who might know – or have spotted – something that would be of use to us. Styles and Grace have been organizing that with the help of the Southwark police, and between them they must have talked to every stallholder there as well as a lot of the customers. But all to no effect: it was the same story wherever they went. One day he simply packed up and disappeared. His stall was only a folding table and his goods fitted into a suitcase. He asked one of the other traders to look after them for him and she put them with her stuff in a shed she uses for storage. They’ve been lying there ever since.’

  Sinclair had ground his teeth in frustration.

  ‘His landlady was no help, either, other than telling us that Meeks had been able to pay the rent he owed her and seemed pleased with himself. It’s clear this man put money in his pocket. But he doesn’t seem to have had any friends, not close ones, anyway. Just people he would chat to when he went to the pub. We asked there, naturally, but no one could tell us anything; nor at the café he frequented. Just that he hadn’t been in for a while. He’d vanished.’

  Bennett had listened to him in silence. Then he, too, had shrugged.

  ‘That sounds like a dead end. Two areas, you said?’

  Sinclair nodded. ‘I decided to approach Mrs Laski again. She rang up a week ago to say she had read through Rosa Nowak’s diaries and there was nothing in them that would help us. As she’d suspected they weren’t a record of Rosa’s life, as such, or of the people she’d met. Just a young girl’s thoughts and dreams. Upsetting for her aunt, poor woman, but she did it, and I thought we might ask for her help again.’

  The chief inspector had paused, frowning.

  ‘Unfortunately, we learned yesterday she’d been admitted into University College Hospital with severe bronchitis. She can’t clear her lungs. It’s a common cause of death among the old at this time of year, and according to the hospital she’s in poor health anyway and unlikely to recover. I don’t want to bother her again, particularly with a subject that’s bound to upset her.’

  ‘What did you want to ask her exactly?’

  ‘Whether she knows anything about the time Rosa spent in France. This is all very speculative, but it springs from John Madden’s idea that there might have been some prior encounter between Rosa and this man – something that prompted him to kill her – and in view of what we now know about him we wondered whether that might have occurred in France. At present our only information on that score comes from a conversation Helen had with the girl. Rosa told her she’d got there shortly before the war started and stayed with a friend of her father’s in Tours. However, she did visit Paris shortly before the Germans invaded France and it was from there that she left to go to England.’

  ‘Madden’s wife told you this?’

  Sinclair nodded. ‘That was the time of the “phoney war”, and from what Rosa said, Helen gathered she was hoping like others that things would be resolved; that there might be peace after all and she would be reunited with her family. The girl had some contacts in Paris among the Polish community, and she went there to talk to them, and perhaps get some news of home. In the event, the Germans invaded soon after her arrival and then it was a matter of getting out of France herself. At some point she’d joined up with a friend, a young Pole she knew, but they left it late, apparently, and in the end had to escape via Spain. They managed to get passage on a boat from Lisbon. Unfortunately this young man’s not available for questioning; he enlisted in the army soon after they got here and was killed in action. That’s all I remember of what Helen told me, but I’m seeing Madden later – he’s up in London for a day or two – and I’ll check with him in case I’ve forgotten anything.’

  The chief inspector shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Sighing audibly, he assembled his papers and prepared to depart. Bennett eyed him.

  ‘I spoke to the commissioner yesterday. He’s been pressing me on the Wapping shooting. Wants it cleared up quickly. Well, don’t we all? I was able to tell him of the possible link we’ve made to those French murders, and how it came about. He allowed that he was impressed.’

  ‘You mentioned Poole’s name?’ For the first time that morning a smile crossed Sinclair’s lips.

  ‘I did more than that. I told him exactly how she’d unearthed the IPC message; the hours of work she’d put in. He still wants that report in writing from you. But you might put a different slant on it now. He’s in a receptive mood.’

  Bennett, too, was smiling.

  ‘Cheer up, Angus. I’m sure we’ll get a response from Paris soon. What do you hear from the Military Police? When do they expect another pouch?’

  ‘There was one due this afternoon, but it goes to the Military Police headquarters in Chichester first. If there’s anything in it for us it’ll be sent up to London by courier tomorrow. We can only wait and see.’

  ‘Still, we’d better be prepared. The reply will be in French. Have a word with Registry. Make sure they have one of their people on hand who can do whatever translation’s needed. We don’t want to waste any time.’

  He watched as the chief inspector gathered himself.

  ‘You say Madden’s up in London. See if you can persuade him to pay us a visit. It’s been a while since I saw him last and I’d be interested to hear his views on all this.’

  The suggestion was one Sinclair had already acted on, though for a different reason. Knowing that Madden would like to see him while he was in town, he had invited Billy Styles to join them for lunch, and it had been agreed they would all gather at the Yard before setting off.

  ‘We might look in on Bennett afterwards,’ he said when his former colleague appeared shortly after midday, having been escorted upstairs to the chief inspector’s office by one of the commissionaires. ‘That is, if you can tear yourself away from Aunt Maud’s boiler.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that.’ Madden looked wry. ‘The matter’s out of my hands. Lucy’s taken charge. I think her mother underestimates her. But as for her comings and goings – I’m supposed to enquire into them – well, they’re a complete mystery.’

  ‘Ah, the joys of fatherhood!’ Sinclair chuckled heartle
ssly.‘Well, here’s another one for you. We’ve got a little time to waste. You might care to cast an eye on it.’

  He tossed Madden the file, and he was still leafing through its pages, his brow creased in a familiar scowl, when Billy knocked on the door and came in.

  ‘I’ve been reading about your exploits, Inspector.’ Madden rose with a smile to greet him. ‘That was a nasty business at Wapping; you must tell me all about it. Something else, too.’ He tapped the file with his finger. ‘I’ve spotted a familiar name, someone I want to ask you about. But it’ll keep till lunch.’

  The restaurant Sinclair had chosen was in Westminster, within walking distance, and on the way over he warned his guests not to get their hopes up.

  ‘It used to be a decent place. But the food’s appalling wherever you go now. One can only pray for a miracle.’

  In vain, as it turned out. The fish pie they chose from the menu materialized as glistening, whitish lumps, barely edible, and the chief inspector was the first to push his plate away.

  ‘I was given an American magazine the other day,’ he said gloomily. It was the issue before Thanksgiving and the cover had a picture of a table groaning with food. Turkey, ham, pumpkin pie; fruit and nuts. I tell you I was close to tears.’

  Billy caught Madden’s eye. A name you said, sir?’

  ‘That’s right. I spotted it when I was going through the statements you took down in Southwark. Nelly Stover … ?’

  ‘Oh, her?’ Billy emptied his glass of beer. ‘She’s a tough old bird. I interviewed her myself. She’s got a stall in that market where Alfie Meeks worked. Claims she knew him. She was the one he asked to look after his stuff when he went off.’

  ‘Knew him? From before he came to the market?’

  ‘She said she’d remembered him from when he was a kid. Over in Bethnal Green. That’s where Alfie grew up.’ Billy cocked an eye at his old mentor. ‘Is that where you knew her, sir?’