Dead of Winter

by Rennie Airth

  ‘Angus was grinding his teeth when I told him. He said he ought to have thought of it himself. That it was time he was put out to pasture. I tried to tell him I wasn’t claiming any credit for what he called my stroke of intuition. That it was only when you mentioned Occam’s Razor that the idea occurred to me.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s I who should get an award then.’ Helen considered the thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, I don’t want one. I’m happy enough as it is. Did I tell you Rob said they were giving him a fortnight’s leave and it might last even longer than that?’

  ‘Yes, my darling, you did.’

  ‘And they don’t know yet how long the repairs will take?’

  ‘That, too.’

  ‘Poor Rob. He was so upset. He asked me if I realized it might be weeks before the Bristol was fit for sea again and wasn’t it awful? I tried to sound sympathetic, but I don’t think he believed me.’

  Laughing, she turned back to the mirror, but after a few more strokes with the silver-backed hairbrush she set it down.

  ‘I can’t be bothered this evening.’ She stretched her arms luxuriously, then rose from the low stool she’d been sitting on and went to the window, where she drew the curtains apart a fraction and peered out into the night.

  ‘It’s still snowing. We’re going to have a white Christmas.’

  Madden had returned from London earlier that day to find his wife waiting on the platform at Highfield station for him with a smile and a look in her eyes that had told him what to expect even before she had broken the good news that their son’s ship was back in port.

  ‘Rob rang from Hull just an hour ago. They had a dreadful time coming home. They collided with one of the merchantmen they were escorting in heavy seas and started shipping water, and for a while it looked as though they might sink. It must have been horrible, but you know Rob. He’s just cross that they’re stuck in port now.’

  She had poured out the story into his ear while they embraced one another on the platform.

  ‘They docked in the early hours of this morning but he wasn’t able to ring us until now. He’ll get away as soon as he can. With any luck he’ll be home the day after tomorrow. On Christmas Eve.’

  Madden’s happiness had equalled hers, and in the short time they had spent together while Helen drove him home before leaving to carry on with her afternoon rounds, he had said nothing about his visit to Southwark, feeling his news would keep. It was too late to go to the farm, and on returning to the house he had joined Mary Morris, their maid of many years, in putting the finishing touches to the fir tree that had been installed in the drawing-room in his absence, stringing it with lights and the familiar ornaments brought out of storage each year for display on the drooping green branches. It was a ritual he had come to enjoy, being associated in his mind with past Christmases when his children had been young, and the thought that with any luck this might be the last to take place in time of war had given added meaning to the small ceremony.

  Shortly before six Helen had returned, but almost before she had had time to hang up her coat and join them in the drawing-room the doorbell had rung to signal the arrival of the Highfield church choir come to sing carols. It was the group’s habit, established by long precedent, to make the Maddens’ house the final stop on their round, and as soon as the last notes of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ died away, Helen had hustled them inside out of the snow for the hot drink she always had waiting for them. Wartime rationing had imposed its own stringencies on this pleasant occasion, but in spite of a much diminished cellar she’d been able to offer their guests mulled wine spiced with cloves, and in place of the traditional mince pies – missing that year for lack of the necessary ingredients – a tin of sweet biscuits sent to them by an old comrade-in-arms of her husband’s, a man who had served with Madden in the trenches more than twenty years before and long since emigrated to South Africa.

  Bundled up in their coats and scarves and wearing a variety of headgear, the singers had arrived looking like survivors of a long march, but familiar faces and forms soon reappeared with the shedding of these garments, among them the imposing figure of Will Stackpole, a stalwart of the choir whose rich baritone had made itself heard a little earlier outside. Not having seen Madden for several days, he had greeted him warmly.

  ‘Is it true then, sir? Is Rob’s ship back? I had it from Mrs Highway just after Miss Helen called in there.’

  Stackpole had known Madden’s wife all his life; they had played together as children, and in spite of changing customs and forms of address, to him she would always be Miss Helen.

  ‘He’ll be here for Christmas, Will. It’s the best present we could possibly have had.’

  With the party happily settled before the fire, Madden had drawn the constable to one side and told him briefly about his visit to Southwark and what it had yielded.

  ‘It was a stroke of luck. God knows if the police would have got on to this man Ash otherwise. He’s as slippery as an eel.’

  They were still huddled together when Helen came over to them.

  ‘You’re neglecting our guests, John. And I want to talk to Will myself. I do wish Ted was here,’ she had added, pressing the constable’s hand. ‘Rob always asks about him. It’s the first thing he’ll want to know. Whether you’ve heard from him lately? I hope they aren’t freezing in that prisoner-of-war camp.’

  In the event, and at the urging of both Helen and Madden, Stackpole had remained behind after the others had left to eat supper with them in the kitchen and to listen to the news, which that evening had brought welcome word that the fighting in Belgium was swinging the Allies’ way; that the sudden German thrust into the Ardennes had been blunted and much of their armour destroyed.

  ‘It can’t go on for much longer.’ Helen meant the war itself. ‘Surely it’ll be over soon.’

  When they had finished their meal, Stackpole took his leave, and as Madden closed the front door behind him he heard the telephone ringing. Ten minutes later he joined Helen in the drawing-room. He found her down on her knees with an armful of Christmas presents which she was starting to stack around the tree.

  ‘That was Angus …’ Madden had stood scowling into the fire. ‘I was hoping this business would be over soon. But it doesn’t look that way.’ Feeling her eyes on him, he glanced down at her. ‘There And I hope Nelly will I was in London. I haven’t had a chance to tell you about it yet.’

  The omission was soon repaired, but since Helen had wanted to know all the details, it was not until they had gone upstairs and were getting ready for bed that Madden had completed his account of his evening with Nelly Stover.

  ‘What you said made me realize we’d been overlooking the simplest explanation of how Alfie Meeks might have come to know his killer. Neither Angus nor I had imagined it might date from so far back in his life.’

  Quicker to undress than his wife, Madden had lain under the covers watching Helen make her more leisurely preparations for the night. Although he’d been away for less than a week, he had missed this moment of intimacy which dated from the earliest years of their marriage when they had set aside the last hour of each day to share with one another whatever was in their minds. Unused to such openness – he had been reserved as a boy and the habit had grown into one of silence later in life – Madden had been taught by his wife to hide nothing from her, and of the many blessings his marriage had brought him this was perhaps the most precious.

  That evening, however, their conversation had stuck to a single subject. Eager to know everything, Helen had questioned him closely, saying little herself, but shaking her head in something akin to despair when he reached the end of his story.

  ‘Poor sweet Rosa. To die at the hands of a creature like that.’

  To soften his grim tale, Madden had told her about his suggestion that Nelly send her grandchildren down to visit them.

  ‘They’re a lively pair but, knowing Nelly, probably quite well behaved.’


  ‘I don’t care how they behave. I’d love to have them.’ ‘Helen had smiled for the first time. ‘And I hope Nelly will come as well. She sounds like a caution.’

  Turning away from the window, now she shed her dressing gown and joined her husband in bed.

  ‘But you still haven’t told me what Angus had to say when he rang. Has some new problem cropped up?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Madden’s scowl had returned. ‘But their hopes of picking up Ash quickly seem to have been dashed. He left his digs a month ago. Right after he killed Rosa, in fact. He could be anywhere now. Anywhere in this country, that is.’

  ‘He can’t escape, you mean. Yes, I see …’

  Helen settled down in bed, moving closer so their bodies were touching. She slipped into the circle of his arm.

  ‘But Angus is worried, and so am I … there’s something here we don’t understand.’

  She made no response, but instead drew him down off his bank of pillows until they were lying side by side.

  ‘I don’t want to think about that,’ she said. ‘I’m too happy knowing Rob’s back safely and won’t be off again for weeks, if then.’

  She kissed him and he returned the kiss, more deeply, and took her in his arms. But his brow was still knotted in a frown and Helen saw it.

  ‘You’re not giving this your attention, John Madden,’ she teased him, running her fingers through his hair, drawing her hand down over his old scar, smoothing out the deep grooves in his forehead. ‘I can see we’ll have to get this settled before we proceed. What is it you don’t understand?’

  Smiling himself now, Madden kissed her.

  ‘No, tell me first,’ she insisted.

  ‘Well, by rights he shouldn’t be on the run, this Ash. He ought to feel he’s in the clear. He killed the only witness to the murder he committed in Paris and covered his tracks by getting rid of that French girl as well.’

  ‘But the police know who he is now. Mightn’t he have guessed that?’

  ‘He might. But I doubt it.’ Madden’s brow had darkened again. ‘It’s possible he’s guessed they’re looking for Marko, especially now that Paris has been liberated, but not Raymond Ash, surely. Yet the opposite seems to be the case. He’s pulled up stakes and gone on the run. So what does he know that we don’t? What have we missed?’

  22

  IT WAS AFTER NINE when Fred Poole got home – more than two hours later than he was supposed to knock off – and he was pleased to find Lily working with her Aunt Betty in the kitchen getting things ready for their Christmas dinner in two days’ time. He knew their niece was going to stay with them over the holidays, but hadn’t been sure whether Lily would arrive that evening or the following morning.

  ‘Blimey, what a night!’ he exclaimed when he came through the front door still shaking the snow off his heavy policeman’s cape. ‘Thought I’d never get away.’

  ‘What was the trouble?’ Lily asked as she gave him a hug. She’d come from the kitchen at the back of the small house wearing an apron over her policewoman’s skirt, and Fred grinned at the sight.

  ‘Don’t often see you in one of those,’ he remarked as he shed cape and helmet and then produced an object wrapped in newspaper from under his arm, which proved on inspection to be a bottle of sherry. ‘Won it in a raffle at the station,’ he announced with a wink when he saw Lily’s questioning glance.

  Back in the kitchen Aunt Betty was still busy with the prune pudding she and Lily had been making when her husband arrived. Though she was no cook herself, Lily was happy to take orders from her aunt and under her direction had earlier removed the stones from a packet of prunes that Aunt Betty had managed to lay hands on in lieu of the dried fruit she would have liked to have had.

  ‘There’ll be no Christmas pudding this year,’ she had told her niece when Lily had arrived straight from the Yard after work earlier that evening. ‘We’ll have to make do with these.’

  And a little imagination, as Lily found out when she’d watched her aunt simmer the fruit in a mixture of water flavoured with golden syrup and cinnamon before blending cornflour into the mixture and then pouring it into a damp mould.

  ‘There now, that’ll set well. And I’ll make a nice custard to go with it, though it’ll have to be with powdered eggs.’

  A motherly woman who’d been unable to have children of her own, Betty Poole harboured the hope that the cooking lessons she gave her much loved niece whenever the opportunity presented itself would one day take, like a vaccination, and Lily would suddenly blossom into a home-loving body like herself; and once this transformation had been achieved, the acquisition of a suitable young man to go with it would not lag far behind.

  Fred Poole himself wisely declined to offer any opinion when these pipe-dreams were aired, as they were quite frequently, and particularly as the end of another year approached. He reckoned he knew their niece better than his wife did, and as soon as he’d poured them all a drink he turned to a subject he knew would seize her interest.

  ‘I’ve been doing door-to-door, that’s why I’m late. Me and half a dozen of the lads. Up and down Praed Street.’ He saw the gleam in Lily’s eye. ‘It’ll be on your crime sheet at the Yard tomorrow,’ he went on. ‘Matter of fact he’s an old friend of ours. Remember Horace Quill?’

  ‘That little rodent?’ Lily was all ears. ‘I thought you put him away. Two years, wasn’t it? What’s he been up to now?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ Fred gave his wife a placatory smile. He knew she didn’t like hearing him talk about his work; not the gory details, anyway. ‘Fact is, he got himself topped last night.’

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘Up in that rat hole of an office he kept off Praed Street. It must have happened last night, but the body wasn’t found till late this morning when a cleaning woman went up. He only had her in once a week, so that was lucky.’

  ‘How’d he cop it?’ Lily asked, forgetting for a moment that her aunt was standing beside her.

  ‘Had his head bashed in.’ Fred coughed, as if the noise might somehow distract Aunt Betty from the disapproval she was now starting to display. Busy with a sage and onion stuffing, she was stirring the bowl with unusual vigour. ‘There was a big brass urn with a plant in it lying next to the body. I heard them talking about it at the station. Gawd knows where it came from; probably nicked off a bomb site, knowing Horace. Anyway, that was the weapon used. They could tell from the blood.’

  ‘Now that’s quite enough of that.’ Driven beyond endurance, Aunt Betty tried to put her foot down. But to no avail.

  ‘Any idea who did it?’ her niece asked eagerly.

  ‘Not a clue. Not as yet.’ Fred tossed off his sherry and poured himself another.

  ‘Mind you, with a bloke like that, it could be almost anyone. You could never tell what Quill was up to, except it was likely against the law.’

  ‘He was sent up for selling forged identity cards, wasn’t he?’ Lily asked.

  ‘That and dodgy ration books and petrol coupons. He and his partners. They had a nice little business going. But he swore when he came out that he wasn’t going to touch it again. Said he was going to stick to his profession from now on. At least that’s what I heard.’

  ‘His profession?’ Lily scoffed. ‘He couldn’t even do that straight. You remember when he got had up for planting evidence in that divorce case? They should have put him away then.’

  She shook her head in disgust. Horace Quill’s was a name she remembered only too well from her years at Paddington. A private enquiry agent – so-called – he had dabbled in all kinds of other businesses, including at least one that had caused their paths to cross.

  ‘I had to speak to him more than once,’ she recalled now. ‘It was about that girl of his, the one he used to send out on the street when he was short of cash. Molly was her name. Molly Minter. A couple of times he knocked her about so bad she had to go to St Mary’s. She wouldn’t lay a charge, but I warned him if I ever caught him at it I’d see him put away.�
� Lily shook her head. One of her duties at Paddington had been to keep an eye on the tarts, of whom there was no shortage around the big railway station. ‘Silly cow. She thought Quill was going to marry her one day. That’s what she told me. Can you imagine – getting spliced to an oily little reptile like that?’

  Her words brought a muttered but inaudible remark from Aunt Betty, who was still labouring over her stuffing.

  ‘The trouble is,’ she said, speaking aloud now, ‘oily little reptiles is the only kind of men you’re going to meet, my girl, if you stay at that job of yours.’

  ‘Now that’s not true, love.’ Fred put an arm around his wife’s waist, winking at Lily as he did so. ‘’s a nice strapping young copper somewhere just waiting for our Lil to come along.’

  His sally brought a snort of disbelief from Aunt Betty which was echoed by her niece.

  ‘That’s enough out of you, Fred Poole,’ she declared. ‘Your supper’s been warming in the oven all evening and if you want it you’d better look lively.’ To Lily she said, ‘I’m almost done here. Why not go up to your room and get into your pyjamas? Then we can all sit by the fire for a spell before you go to bed.’

  It was two years since Lily had moved out. Reckoning it was time she left the nest, she had found a place to rent in St Pancras which was nearer to Bow Street, her new place of work. But Aunt Betty had never accepted the move and kept Lily’s room as it was, believing that her niece was bound to return one of these days.

  Lily took off her apron. But her curiosity wasn’t satisfied yet.

  ‘So they don’t know why he was murdered?’ she asked Fred, who had fetched his plate from the oven while they were talking and was sitting at the kitchen table, eating.

  ‘Horace, you mean?’ Fred shrugged. He was making short work of the sausage and mash Aunt Betty had left for him, chewing steadily. ‘Like I said, could be any of a number of things. They’ve been asking around, trying to find out what he’s been up to lately. What he’s been doing that might make someone want to kill him.’