Dead of Winter

by Rennie Airth

  ‘He’d have been a fool not to volunteer for something, and we know he’s no fool,’ he had told Billy on issuing his orders. ‘If you draw a blank there try the Fire Brigade and the railways. They would all have been taking on older men at the start of the war. Filling the gaps.’

  In the event, Ash’s name had come to light in less than an hour. Billy, with both Cook and Grace in tow, had brought the news to the chief inspector’s office.

  ‘His name’s on the list of fire-watchers in Wandsworth. He was one of a team of volunteers that stood duty in the Blitz and through 1942 on top of a waterworks near the river, and he stayed on their reserve roll when the service was reduced. They’ve got his home address. It’s a street off Wandsworth Common.’

  ‘Are we sure he’s our man?’ Sinclair had asked. ‘The Raymond Ash we want.’

  ‘It sounds like it, sir,’ Billy had told him. ‘I rang the Civil Defence headquarters there and spoke to someone who told me that the Ash he had known spoke French. They’d had to get him to interpret once when they had a Frenchy who’d volunteered for duty but couldn’t speak English.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He said he remembered the blokes who served with this Ash saying that although they usually went for a drink after their spell of duty he never would. He’d buzz off home once they were done. Never talked much to anyone.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me.’ Sinclair had hesitated no longer. ‘Unless or until proved otherwise, we’ll assume it’s him. Find out if he has a job. I want him picked up at once. We can’t charge him as yet, but we’ll detain him on suspicion. I’ll arrange for a search warrant. I want his flat or wherever he lives turned upside down. Look for the tools of his trade; a gun perhaps, or a length of wire. I doubt we’ll get much by questioning him, but if we find those diamonds we can hold him for the Sobel robbery while we build a case against him over here.’

  It was an aspect of the investigation he had not given much thought to previously, but one that now increasingly occupied his mind, as he confessed to Bennett when he went to the assistant commissioner’s office later for their morning conference.

  ‘We’ve been so bent on finding this man we’ve forgotten how difficult it’s going to be to bring him to court. Grotesque though it seems, we’ve no evidence against him. There’s not a single witness living who can place him at the scene of any crime, either here or in France. As things stand, the most we could come up with is hearsay evidence twice removed that he once claimed to have topped a villain called Jonah Meeks thirty years ago. Some case that would make.’

  ‘Isn’t it curious though how he boasted about that?’ The assistant commissioner had been listening closely. It seems out of character.’

  ‘I’m not sure “boasting” is the right word, sir.’ Sinclair was dubious. If Nelly Stover’s story is to be believed, he had to convince Slattery of what he’d done before he could collect the reward. And it was the only time he spoke out of turn, so far as we know. But you’ve got a point: that may have been one of the reasons he never returned to England after the war. He’d left himself at risk with that little prank. There was no saying it might not come back to haunt him one day. As indeed it has. He may have decided at that early stage to make his career elsewhere, and under another name.’

  ‘His career …’ Bennett had brooded on the words. ‘So you think he actually chose his profession? Sat down one day and said to himself: “This is what I’m best at?”’

  The chief inspector shrugged. ‘Who knows? Perhaps he fell into it by chance. But he seems to have opted for a criminal life early on. I’m not talking of Jonah Meeks now. You might just argue that was an aberration. I’m thinking of the curriculum vitae the French sent us. What took him to the Balkans, do you imagine? Could it possibly have been because law and order had broken down there and he saw a chance to exercise his talents? And why would that gang have taken him on unless he had something special to offer? He was always a killer, if you want my opinion, and I think Nelly Stover would say the same.’

  His meeting with Bennett was still going on when the first results of the enquiries he had set in motion reached him. They brought no comfort.

  ‘Bad news, sir. He’s hopped it.’

  Billy Styles had rung the assistant commissioner from his own desk and Bennett had handed Sinclair the receiver.

  ‘We got the name of his landlady from the Wandsworth police. She owns the house where he had his flat. I’ve just spoken to her. She said he left nearly a month ago. That would have been right after Rosa Nowak was murdered. He told her he had a new job and was moving to Manchester. We got the name of his employers in London from her: they’re a City firm dealing in office supplies and Lofty’s spoken to them. Ash was one of their travelling salesmen. He’d had the job for three years, but he resigned a month ago; same time as he left his flat. But he gave them a slightly different story. Said his mother had died unexpectedly and his father who was ill himself had been left on his own. He said he had to go up to Manchester to take care of him. I reckon he made that up because he wanted to quit right away and not work out his notice. They weren’t best pleased, his employers, but they let him go.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate.’

  Sinclair had caught Bennett’s eye and grimaced.

  ‘Lofty’s gone over to talk to them to see what else he can find out.’ Billy had continued with his recital. I’ll take Grace to Wandsworth with me. We’ll have a word with the landlady and look at his flat. It’s not rented yet. He may have left something there. And we’ll take a forensic team with us and dust the place for prints. They could come in handy later.’

  Before Billy rang off, he and Sinclair had agreed that while the Manchester police would have to be alerted to the possibility that Ash might be there – remote though it seemed – the search should be concentrated on London for the time being, and it was decided that Ash’s name should be circulated to all stations in the Metropolitan area and a systematic search made of lists of guests and tenants at hotels and boarding houses.

  ‘When all’s said and done, and in spite of his wanderings these past twenty years, he’s still a Londoner,’ Sinclair had told Bennett after he’d hung up. ‘He’d be more at home here than anywhere else. Less noticeable, too.’

  He had sat silent then, staring out of the window, until the assistant commissioner had interrupted his reverie.

  ‘What’s the matter, Angus? Why so down in the mouth? It would have been nice if he’d fallen into our hands like a ripe apple, but that was probably expecting too much. We’ve picked up his tracks now. Sooner or later we’ll catch up with him.’

  ‘I do hope so, sir. What puzzles me, though, is why he’s acted this way. Quit his job and moved out.’

  ‘Surely it’s obvious. He’s on the run.’

  ‘Yes, but why? What’s he afraid of?’

  The chief inspector had turned his gaze away from the leaden sky outside.

  ‘He can’t know we’re searching for him. For Marko, I mean. Or Raymond Ash. There’s been nothing in the papers. Yet he acted as if we were already hot on his trail. Madden made the same point, but in a different context. He wondered why he’d set up the Wapping robbery in such haste. We still don’t know the answer to these questions, and that worries me.’

  Later that same day the chief inspector paid a second visit to Bennett’s office, taking Billy with him and bringing a sheaf of typewritten reports compiled by the various detectives in the course of the day. The sketchy accounts of Ash’s life in London obtained earlier had been amplified by means of extended interviews with his landlady in Wandsworth, a widow named Mrs Fairweather, and the office manager of the company he’d worked for, an old-established firm called Beddoes and Watson. In addition enquiries had been made with the Home Office in the hope that a passport might have been issued to Ash at some time in the past. This proved to be the case. Records showed that he had applied for and received a travel document in the summer of 1919, but that the pass
port had never been renewed thereafter.

  ‘So he did come home after the war, but didn’t take the trouble to visit his mother,’ Sinclair had observed. ‘He must have set out on his travels after that. But there’s no record of a Raymond Ash returning here in 1940. It would certainly have been noted if his passport had expired. So he must have done what we supposed – got some French fisherman to ferry him across the Channel and not bothered to inform the authorities.’

  On a more positive note, the Home Office had been able to supply Scotland Yard with a copy of the photograph affixed to Ash’s original passport, and this had been sent up to the photographic department.

  ‘We’re distributing copies of this to all police stations in London for a start,’ the chief inspector said after he’d shown one of the prints to Bennett. ‘Then we’ll extend it nationwide. He could be anywhere. But what we have to decide is whether to issue it to the press as well. As you can see, he was in his early twenties when it was taken. I dare say he’s changed somewhat.’

  The assistant commissioner had gazed for a full minute in apparent fascination at the face portrayed in the grainy print. As Sinclair had said, the features were those of a young man, but beyond that there was little to remark in them. Raymond Ash’s dark hair was cut short and neatly combed on either side of a straight parting. His brow in the snapshot was pale, as were his slightly sunken cheeks. He had been snapped with his head raised a fraction – perhaps the photographer had told him to look up just then – with the result that the lids of his dark eyes were lowered, giving him a wary look.

  ‘Is there any reason we shouldn’t publish it?’ Bennett had asked.

  ‘Well, if it’s not a good likeness of him now it won’t help with the search. What it will do is alert him. Even if we make no reference to Wapping, just say we want to speak to this man, he’ll know we’re after him.’

  ‘But judging by what you said this morning, he seems to know that already,’ Bennett had pointed out.

  ‘True …’

  The chief inspector had glanced at Billy, who was seated by his side.

  ‘What’s your opinion, Inspector?’

  ‘I think we should use it, sir.’ Having had time to think about what he was going to say, Billy replied at once. Even if he’s changed, there must be some resemblance. We’ll show it to Mrs Fairweather and to Ash’s fire-watching team and at his place of work and see what they say. Grace could get cracking on that right away.’

  ‘Do it then.’ With a glance at Bennett, Sinclair had given his consent.

  The assistant commissioner had wanted to know what else had been discovered in the course of the day, and Billy had responded with a brief summary of all they had learned.

  ‘Basically, it’s what we expected, sir. He was a lone wolf. Didn’t mix with others. No friends. Mrs Fairweather told me he never had visitors. She lived on the ground floor, below his flat. He’d come and go pretty well to a fixed pattern. Off to work in the mornings and then back at night. Not always at the same time. It would depend on where his work had taken him during the day. We know from the office manager at Beddoes and Watson, a bloke called Badham, that his routes were all in an area south of London. In Kent and Sussex and Surrey. He’d visit customers they had or hoped to get in various towns, taking samples with him. Pens, pencils, paper clips, what have you. That’s what he would have had in his sample case, the one Florrie Desmoulins said he was carrying. The day Rosa Nowak was murdered he was visiting a firm down in Guildford. Badham checked it for us. The train Rosa caught would have stopped there. Ash spotted her either on the train, or later when they got to Waterloo.’

  ‘He’d obviously decided to lie low during the war and he’d found a job that suited him.’ Sinclair had let his younger colleague speak uninterrupted before offering his own view. ‘ was on his own all day. He didn’t have to mix with others. He’s not at ease in company. That seems to be the lesson of his years in Amsterdam and it was no different here. I wonder what he did about women, though. You might put out a query, Inspector. Ask the various divisions to check with the ladies on their books, particularly the ones who cater to deviant tastes. We know what his are and one or more of them may be able to help us with a lead.’

  Billy had also been able to tell them about a further avenue of information that was being pursued. Earlier that day he had telephoned the War Office with a request for information about Raymond Ash’s military career, and been told by an official in the records department that a man of that name had served with the West Kent Regiment from March 1916 until the end of the Great War.

  ‘I got Lofty to ring the regimental headquarters for more information and we struck lucky,’ he told his two superiors. ‘ of the officers at the depot, a major, actually remembers Ash. He was his commanding officer for a short spell in 1917 before he got wounded and sent home.’

  ‘And he can remember one soldier in particular after all these years?’ Sinclair had been impressed.

  ‘He remembers Ash all right.’ Billy had looked grim. ‘According to Lofty he reacted to the name at once. Asked what had become of him, “What’s he been up to now?” were his actual words, and when Lofty asked him why he had put it like that, he said Ash had been a bad lot. “A cold-hearted devil” was how he described him. He said he knew almost for a fact that he’d murdered three German prisoners.’

  ‘He what—?’ Bennett had been shocked into silence.

  ‘He said although it happened after he’d been invalided home, he’d got the details later from the bloke who succeeded him as Ash’s company commander. It was near the end of the war and the Allied side had made an advance and captured some German trenches. Ash was detailed to take these three prisoners back to his own lines, but when he got there he reported they’d tried to escape and he’d had to shoot them. His commanding officer didn’t believe him and he tried to have him court-martialled. But they couldn’t get the evidence they needed. While he was supposed to be bringing the fellows back, the Jerry artillery got going again, and what with the shelling no one could say for sure what happened. Lofty asked why he thought Ash had done it, killed those men, and this major said he’d put the same question to the officer who told him the story, and this bloke had said most likely for convenience’s sake.’

  ‘Convenience …?’ Bennett had found it difficult to comprehend what he was hearing.

  ‘He reckoned Ash couldn’t be bothered bringing the men back through the shellfire. It was easier to shoot them.’

  Billy had closed his file.

  ‘One last thing, sir. Cook asked what sort of soldier Ash had been, and this major said he was the sort you didn’t want in your company. Not a troublemaker, but someone the other men didn’t like. A cat who walked by himself, was how he put it, but there was one thing he was good for; something he even seemed to enjoy.’

  ‘And that was … ?’

  Billy had shrugged.

  ‘Seems he was always ready to volunteer whenever there was a night raid into no-man’s-land. A party would slip out of the trench and crawl across to the German lines. The idea was to spy out their positions and take a prisoner if they could. Sometimes they had to deal with sentries, and that’s where Ash came in. It was his speciality; he could do it quicker and quieter than anyone else. And he always did it the same way.’

  Billy saw the question in Bennett’s eyes.

  ‘Yes, always with a garrotte.’

  Recalling now the look of distaste that had appeared on his superior’s face at that moment, Sinclair prepared to rise.

  ‘So here’s where we stand, sir, if the commissioner should ask. We’re still checking hotels and boarding houses in the capital and the same process will be extended to the rest of the country shortly.’

  ‘You’re looking for a “Raymond Ash”, are you?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And if he’s changed his name? Got himself a new identity card?’

  ‘Then there’s still this photograph of him which wil
l appear in the national press tomorrow morning. Some of the people we’ve shown it to say there is a resemblance to Ash as he is now. But only a resemblance. Whether anyone else could pick him out from it only time will tell. We must just hope someone spots him.’

  The chief inspector got slowly to his feet. His earlier, halfjocular remark to the effect that he was getting too old for the demands that a major police investigation made both in time and energy were starting to sound hollow in his own ears.

  ‘But if it would help to pacify the commissioner, you might explain to him some of the difficulties we’re facing. Normally a criminal like Ash would be tracked down through his associates. But it seems he has none. He’s a cat who walks by himself, as that army officer so picturesquely put it, and all places are alike to him. He’ll adapt to his new circumstances. Change his name; change his appearance. He’s done it before. That’s why he’s never been caught. But he’s still in a trap and as long as the war goes on he can’t escape it – he can’t leave the country – and there are all sorts of tripwires that exist now, thanks to the emergency regulations.’

  ‘So you believe that we’ll get him.’ Bennett looked keenly at his colleague. ‘I can tell the commissioner that.’

  ‘Indeed you can, sir.’ Sinclair nodded to Billy, who had also risen to his feet. ‘But what I can’t say is when.’

  21

  ‘SO ALL IN ALL you’re the hero of the hour! I’m surprised they haven’t given you a medal. Or something to hang round your neck.’

  Helen directed a fond smile over her shoulder at her husband, who was lying in bed in his pyjamas, propped up by pillows piled against the bedstead. She had not yet joined him and was sitting at her dressing table brushing her thick, still golden hair.