by Rennie Airth
‘This one’s Tom.’ She indicated the taller of the two figures. ‘And this here’s Sally. Say good evening to Mr Madden,’ she commanded them and they mumbled some words. ‘Our house is just down the road. I’ll have to give these two a bite of supper before I put them to bed. Then you and I can sit down together and have a quiet cup of tea.’
Her smile glinted in the darkness.
‘And maybe then you’ll tell me the real reason you came down here.’
Nelly Stover’s kitchen shone like a new pin. Though there was nothing in it – nothing Madden could see – that wasn’t old and well used, every surface from the rough pine table they were sitting at to the enamelled sink and the glass-fronted cabinet that housed Nelly’s best china showed the effects of repeated washing or polishing. Even the linoleum-clad floor had a sheen to it.
‘We bought this house twenty years ago, Bob and I,’ Nelly had told him when they came in off the street. She’d gone ahead to the kitchen, which was at the back, to fix the blackout blinds and switch on the light before inviting him to follow. ‘Lucky we didn’t lose it in the Blitz. There was three others in this street that copped it.’
Stripped of her coat and scarf and the woollen cap, her face was revealed as more bony than Madden remembered it, the craggy features accentuated by the shedding of what little surplus flesh had once covered them, and seen in repose her thrusting jaw combined with a flinty gaze gave her the look of someone to be reckoned with. But when her tight-lipped mouth broke into a smile, which it did at the sight of the crayon drawing of a cat which her little granddaughter had been clutching, waiting to show to her, her face took on a quite different aspect.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do when the war’s over,’ she had confessed to Madden while the children were out of the kitchen for a few moments washing their hands. ‘I’ve got used to taking care of these two: I won’t fancy giving them up. But I dare say Denny’ll get married again one of these days and then he’ll want a home of his own.’
Before long the smell of frying bacon filled the kitchen as Nelly bustled about preparing supper for her two charges, who on returning had been urged by their grandmother to take their seats at the table. Tommy, a wiry six-year-old with straw-coloured hair cut close to his scalp, placed himself opposite Madden, obliging his little sister, whose own fair hair hung in ringlets, to clamber on to a chair beside him, where she seemed uncomfortable, her chin barely clearing the rim of the table, until Madden, with a smile, scooped her up and placed her on his lap. ‘There – isn’t that better?’
‘Well, look at you,’ Nelly said, seeing the beaming smile on her granddaughter’s face as she brought their plates from the stove and then set about spreading margarine on the slices of bread she’d cut earlier.
When the two children had munched their way through their sandwiches, Madden reached for his shopping bag, which had been resting on the floor at his feet.
‘What’s this, then?’ Nelly demanded, her eyes sparkling, as four bars of chocolate appeared from its depths as if by magic. They were followed by a tin of biscuits and then three oranges which Madden produced from the bag one by one with the air of a conjuror drawing rabbits from a hat and laid on the table in front of them. ‘Bribery and corruption?’
She caught her granddaughter’s eye.
‘You’ve never seen an orange, have you?’
The little girl shook her head. She gazed in wonder at the fabled objects.
As her brother reached for one, Nelly checked him.
‘Not so fast.’ She seized the orange herself. ‘One’s enough for the two of you. The others’ll keep for later. But who’s going to peel it – that’s the question?’
She made a show of looking around the table.
‘I know – Mr Madden!’
She passed him the fruit, then sat back with folded arms to watch as he plucked at the rind.
‘Now you see what you’ve let yourself in for.’
Tommy, too, had been eyeing him from across the table.
‘Was you a copper once, mister?’ he asked, bolder now that he and his sister were getting used to the tall stranger’s presence.
‘Yes, I was, Tommy. But that was a long time ago. I’ve got a farm now. It’s not far from London.’ He caught Nelly’s eye. ‘You must bring them down,’ he said. When the weather gets warmer. Let them come and spend a week with us. Helen’s always saying the house seems empty without children.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see about that.’ Nelly was at pains not to show any undue pleasure at the invitation, but the flush in her cheeks betrayed her true feelings.
‘Have you got a horse, mister?’ Tommy had been paying close attention.
Madden nodded. ‘An old mare called Daisy. I use her for getting about the farm.’
‘Can I ride ‘er?’
‘You certainly can.’ He nudged the small figure on his lap. ‘What about you, Sally? Do you want a ride on Daisy?’
She shook her head, still too shy to speak.
‘We’ve got other animals. Rabbits and dogs and cats …’
‘What about piglets?’ She spoke up at last.
‘Oh, we’ve got lots of those.’
His task complete, Madden divided the orange in two and handed half to Tommy. Then he began to separate the other half into individual lobes, popping them one at a time into Sally’s open mouth. She chewed luxuriously, oblivious of the juice running down her chin. Nelly watched for a minute, shaking her head, then got up and went to the sink, returning with a damp cloth which she handed to Madden.
‘Here – you’re going to need this.’
She studied him while he mopped the little girl’s face and then took care of her hands, one finger at a time.
‘You’ve done this sort of thing before, Officer Madden.’
‘We’ve got two of our own, Nelly. They’re grown-up now. Rob’s in the navy. He’s serving on a destroyer. Lucy joined the Wrens this year.’
Madden bent his head to look at the small face below his.
‘There now. Is that better?’
Nelly guffawed. She clapped her hands.
‘Right, now. Off to bed, the two of you. I’ll be up in a minute to say goodnight and if you’re good there’ll be a piece of chocolate for each of you.’
Tommy scampered off obediently, but Sally lingered on, leaning back against Madden’s chest, head tilted to look up at him.
‘She wants you to carry her upstairs. That’s what her dad always does when he’s here.’
Madden rose at once and, hoisting his small giggling burden on to his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, he bore her up the narrow stairway to the children’s room at the top of the house, which he found papered with daffodils and decorated with a poster of a Spitfire speeding through a sky darkened by the smoke of exploding anti-aircraft shells, its guns blazing. Tommy had already slipped into his pyjamas – he was lying beneath the bedclothes – but it quickly became apparent that the process would take longer with his little sister, who was in no hurry to dispense with the services of the willing slave she’d acquired.
‘What? Not in bed yet, young lady?’
Nelly had dallied in the kitchen to clear the table before coming up. She stood in the doorway now with a fierce frown.
‘Someone doesn’t want their bit of chocolate.’
Sobered by the threat, Sally abandoned her delaying tactics and, helped by Madden, who was sitting beside her on the bed, struggled to push her hands through the narrow sleeves of her flannel pyjamas.
‘Come on,’ he coaxed her, as he’d once coaxed Lucy when she’d been little. ‘Let the dog see the rabbit.’
‘What rabbit?’ Tommy shot up in bed.
‘Now see what you’ve started.’
Laughing, Nelly shooed him out, and a few minutes later she joined him in the kitchen downstairs.
‘They’ll be looking for that rabbit all night.’
In her absence Madden had emptied his bag on to the table.
‘That’s a bit of home-made cheese, Nelly, and some butter, too. And I can vouch for this pork pie. Nobody makes a better one than May Burrows.’
Nelly Stover ran her hands over the greaseproof-paper parcels. She sighed.
‘I reckon it’s time we had that cup of tea.’
Silence fell between them as she busied herself with the kettle. At the table, Madden sat lost in thought. Nelly glanced at him over her shoulder.
‘I used to wonder what happened to you,’ she said. ‘After you left Bethnal Green. After I heard you’d quit the force. I’ve never forgotten what you did for my Jack. It might have seemed a small thing to you, bringing him home to me instead of taking him down to the station. But it’s small things like that can make a difference to a boy’s life.’
She poured boiling water into a teapot, emptied it, spooned tea-leaves into the heated interior and then refilled the pot.
‘Take Alfie Meeks now. He never had a chance, poor lad. Not with a father like that. Jonah used to hit him with his belt, and he made a point of using the buckle end. You could hear Alfie yelling up and down the street. But Vera couldn’t do nothing. She was too scared.’
‘Vera—?’
‘His step-mum. Jonah used to beat her too. I’d see her down the high street often enough with a black eye or a cut lip. Once he broke her arm. It all came back to me when I heard about Alfie and that business at Wapping. I couldn’t understand what he was doing there. A bloke who never amounted to nothing. Scared of his own shadow, he was. Mixing with the likes of Benny Costa. It didn’t make sense.’
She brought the teapot over to the table and sat down. Madden waited while she filled their cups.
‘The police thought the same,’ he said. ‘They’ve been wondering how Alfie came to be there. Who got him involved.’
He was watching her expression closely. But she seemed to take no special note of what he’d said.
‘And what about you, then?’ she asked. ‘What are you doing down here? You still haven’t said.’ She peered at him over the rim of her teacup. ‘Did the Old Bill ask you to come and talk to me? If so, you’re wasting your time. Like I said, I told that other copper everything I know. I hadn’t seen Alfie for years till he turned up at the market that day. I’d forgotten he even existed.’
Madden sipped his tea. He hesitated, choosing his words.
‘I came on my own account, Nelly. I wanted to talk to you. But not about Alfie. Not directly, anyway.’
‘Oh … ?’ She sounded wary. ‘What then?’
‘I’ve got a question for you. It’s about something that happened thirty years ago, and I’m not even sure you know the answer. But if you do you’re going to have to decide …’
‘Decide what?’ She paused with her cup at her lips.
‘Whether or not to tell me.’
He met her gaze with his own steady glance.
‘Go on then,’ she said.
‘Who was it cracked Jonah Meeks’s skull and pushed him into that tank? That’s what I want to know. Who murdered Alfie’s father?’
‘Crikey!’
She stared at him.
‘You’re asking me that?’
Madden nodded.
‘Now? After all this time?’ She seemed bemused. ‘Why?’
‘There’s a killer loose in London. He’s murdered several people: not just Alfie and those others at Wapping. Two women besides. I think it may be the same man.’
‘Same bloke as murdered Jonah?’
‘So you know about that?’
‘I didn’t say so.’
Nelly scowled and Madden saw he’d caught her off balance. She sat staring at the cup which was clutched in her fingers. He spoke again:
‘Nelly, I think you know the answer.’ He paused. ‘Won’t you tell me?’
She kept her eyes from his, refusing to meet his gaze.
‘I seem to recall the law saying it was an accident,’ she muttered.
‘That was how it looked at the time. But I’ve begun to wonder. And remember …’
‘Remember what?’
‘How the people down there behaved afterwards, some of them. Ones I talked to. Oh, they didn’t say anything, but I saw it in their faces.’
‘Saw what?’
‘Satisfaction. Only I didn’t know then what it meant. I thought they were just pleased to have seen the last of Jonah. But now I’m not so sure. I think they knew something. Or they’d heard it … a story maybe … ?’
Madden cocked his head to peer at her.
‘A story … ?’ She laughed harshly. ‘Well, you hear plenty of those.’
‘Yes, but did you hear the one about Jonah?’
There was a long pause. Then at last she looked up.
‘I might have …’
Madden warmed his hands on his teacup. He saw from her face that she was still undecided and he waited patiently.
‘This feller … the one you say topped Jonah. What makes you think it’s the same bloke as killed Alfie?’
Her flinty gaze had hardened; she challenged him to reply.
‘We know Alfie was working for someone; that’s why he quit his stall at the market. He had money in his pocket when the police found his body and with no explanation of how it had got there. Even before he went down to Wapping that night he was in deep, and that could only have happened through someone he was familiar with. Someone he trusted, perhaps. Someone who was also a killer.’
‘Which didn’t leave too many possibilities. Is that what you’re saying?’ Her voice was toneless and Madden nodded.
‘There’s nothing in Alfie’s record to suggest he’d ever mixed with violent criminals; that he was acquainted with anyone like that. You said yourself he was a nobody. So it had to be someone from his past … his childhood even.’
‘Someone who only had to lift a finger for him to come running? Is that what you mean?’ She looked at him bleakly
‘I suppose so.’ Madden shrugged, and as he did so saw a shadow pass across her rugged features.
‘Someone like his brother?’
‘Alfie Meeks had a brother?’
Madden was thunderstruck.
‘Not really, no.’ Nelly grimaced. ‘Not a proper brother. He was Vera’s son by some other bloke. She had him before she married Jonah.’
‘So he was Alfie’s stepbrother?’
‘I suppose …’ She shrugged. ‘But he only lived with them, with Jonah and her, for a little while. Then Vera had to send him away. She parked him with a sister of hers who lived out Romford way.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Raymond. Ray, Vera called him.’
‘Ray … ?’ Madden scowled. ‘I don’t recall ever hearing that name.’
‘No reason you should have.’ Nelly smiled bleakly. ‘Especially after Jonah copped it. Anyone who knew what had happened wasn’t going to breathe a word. Like you said, they was all that pleased to see the last of him.’
Still shaken by the revelation, Madden paused for a moment to order his thoughts.
‘You said Vera had to send him away. Why? Jonah must have known she had a child when he married her.’
‘Oh, he knew, all right. I told you: at first Ray lived with them. Alfie’s mum had died a year or so before – pneumonia it was – and Vera took care of them both. But it didn’t last. After a few months she had to send Ray away. Vera told me herself. It was when I had that fish-and-chip shop. She used to come in of an evening to get their supper. She said those two – Ray and Jonah – they couldn’t live under the same roof. Jonah had started out trying to treat him the way he treated Alfie; knocking him about when he felt like it; clipping him round the ear. But that soon stopped. Ray wasn’t the sort you could do that to. Once when Jonah hit him he grabbed a kitchen knife and went for him, Vera said. Jonah threatened to wring his neck, but that was just bluff, she reckoned. The fact was he was scared and so was she. She was afraid Ray would take a knife to Jonah one night when he was asleep. Cut h
is throat maybe. That’s what she told me.’
‘Good God!’ Madden was appalled. ‘How old was he then?’
‘Ray?’ Nelly screwed up her face as she searched her memory. ‘Thirteen, fourteen … ? I couldn’t say for sure. A couple of years older than Alfie, anyway.’
‘You’re telling me Jonah Meeks was afraid of a fourteen-year-old boy?’ Madden shook his head in wonder.
‘All I’m telling you is what his mum told me. Mind you, if you’d met that boy you might think different. Sometimes he’d come over from Romford when Jonah was away; when he was off working on the coal barges, which was the closest thing he ever had to a job. I was there once or twice when Ray turned up – by then he was older, sixteen maybe – and I remember how he’d sit in Vera’s kitchen, not saying a word while she kept chattering on; smiling to himself as if there was some joke only he could see. Thinking his own thoughts. He had this way of staring at you, staring through you, like you weren’t there. It gave me the shivers.’
‘Would Alfie have been present?’
‘Oh, yes. He was there, looking at Ray with these big eyes. I reckon Ray was who he wanted to be himself. Someone who wasn’t afraid. Not of Jonah, not of anything.’
‘He hero-worshipped him? Is that what you thought?’
‘Maybe.’ Nelly shrugged. ‘But what he couldn’t see was that Ray didn’t care for him one bit. He didn’t care for anyone. Not even his own mum. She knew it, Vera did, poor soul. I reckon it broke her heart.’
Nelly shuddered involuntarily. Clasping her elbows, she hugged herself tight.
‘Still, if Ray had suddenly turned up now, after all these years, Alfie might have been pleased to see him?’
‘He might.’ Again she shrugged. ‘Like I said, he never understood the sort of bloke Ray was. Mind you, he’d have been surprised. We all thought he was dead.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, he went off to the war, didn’t he, like all the other lads?’ Nelly gestured with her hands. ‘That was the last I heard of him. Mind you, by then Vera had moved away – she went to live with her sister in Romford after Jonah copped it – so we didn’t know for sure what had happened to Ray. Only that he never came back.’