The bobby didn’t look convinced. ‘If you’d like to telephone the director of military intelligence, or, better still my boss at the Home Office, Director Bentley, he will confirm what I have told you.’ Ena was sure Dick Bentley would back her up, but not until he’d had the request in writing - and in triplicate. She flashed her Home Office ID at him again. ‘I’m sure either high-ranking man, even though they are up to their eyes keeping our country safe, would make time to get in touch with your superior at Scotland Yard.’
The policeman looked terrified at the idea, nodded at Ena’s ID card and shouted to his fellow officers, ‘This lady has clearance.’
‘Thank you, Officer. You have done the Home Office an important service.’ Ena held up her ID card - so the policeman opposite could see it - and set off past Somerset House to the south side of Waterloo Bridge.
Until today, Waterloo Bridge had been Ena’s favourite place in London. She would often stop halfway across the bridge and look towards Westminster; to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Today she was on the north side of the bridge. As she walked she looked to the left, to Blackfriars Bridge, the City of London and St. Paul’s. The winter sun reflected off the Cathedral’s dome and ships sailed to and from the docks. Even on a day as sad as this one had become, the sight of ships and boats heading for the docks pleased her. London’s docks had been heavily bombed in the war, they seemed to be thriving now.
It was always slightly windy in the middle of the bridge at this time of year, but today the wind was fierce. It cut across the bridge causing Ena’s eyes to run.
Twenty yards short of the police cordon on the south side of the bridge she stopped and took out her identification card. She looked over the wall at the river. There was nothing to see. The tide was in. She needed to stand in the spot directly above the place where Sid’s body was found; the place where the police thought he had been standing before he fell. Not for a second did Ena believe Sid had accidently fallen from the bridge onto the riverbank. Nor did she think he was drunk.
Prepared to go through the same rigmarole as she had at the other end of Waterloo Bridge Ena held up her ID card to the approaching policeman.
‘I was expecting you, Mrs Green. Sergeant Havers,’ the policeman said, with a sideways nod to the north end of the bridge. ‘I’ll take you to where your colleague’s body was found. There isn’t anything to see now, I’m afraid,’ the sergeant said, as they reached the end of the bridge and began walking down the steep slope to the embankment. ‘Tide’s in, you see. The evidence has been washed away.’
Forcing herself not show she was upset, Ena looked over the railings. She was five feet eight inches tall and there was no way she’d be able to fall over the railing. Sid was six feet tall. But she couldn’t see how even at six feet, he would have fallen into the river from here. ‘How tall are you, Sergeant Havers?’
‘Just over six feet, Mrs Green.’
Ena took a couple of steps back to get a full picture of the sergeant and the railings. ‘How easy would it be for you to fall over this rail?’
The sergeant turned and faced the river. Ena placed her hand on his back and gently pushed. He leant forward until his chest pressed against the railings. ‘It wouldn’t be easy at all. In fact,’ he leant forward again, ‘I’d say it would be impossible.’
‘Even if you were drunk?’
‘Not even then. You’d have to be six inches taller than me to fall over this,’ he said, slapping the top of the railing with the flat of his hand.
‘Did you see Mr Parfitt’s body?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘Any marks to suggest he fell from Waterloo Bridge, and not from down here?’
‘Yes, Ma’am. Your colleague’s head was badly injured. The right side of his head and–’ Ena nodded for the sergeant to continue. ‘Half of his face had been smashed in. The kind of injuries he sustained couldn’t have been done falling from these railings. Not even if he climbed on them and threw himself off.’
Ena walked along the pavement until she came to a length of rail that had a slight dent in it. She called the sergeant. ‘There’s blood on the top of this section of railing. And this,’ Ena said, crouching until her eyes were level with the top of the rail, ‘is hair.’ She swallowed hard. ‘And skin.’
‘Over here!’ the sergeant called to two men who were taking off white coats and packing a large medical bag as if they were getting ready to leave.
‘This lady is a work colleague of the victim,’ the police sergeant said.
‘Sandy Berman, Police Surgeon.’ The older man put out his hand and Ena shook it. ‘And my assistant, Dan Peters.’ The younger man nodded.
‘Ena Green.’ Ena moved out of the way to let the men see the railing.
‘Good God!’ Sandy Berman said, scraping dried blood and skin from the handrail with a piece of equipment that looked like a narrow cake knife and putting it into a small white envelope. ‘Thank God you spotted this blood, Mrs Green.’ Sandy Berman looked embarrassed. ‘I’m ashamed to say we didn’t look this far along the railings. We didn’t think it possible for anyone with that kind of head injury to move after they’d fallen–’ He looked up at the bridge.
Ena followed his eyeline. Sandy Berman didn’t believe Sid fell from the embankment railings either. No, it wouldn’t have been possible, she thought. Someone must have moved Sid’s body. It was the only explanation. Ena shivered. If the blood on the railings was Sid’s, she had earlier been standing where he had stood before he jumped, or was pushed. Convinced it was the latter, she looked along the path, and again at the bridge. If Sid had fallen from that height onto concrete, even if his fall had been broken by the railings, there was no way on earth he would have survived. No one would have.
‘I need to get back to my office, write a report on what I know about my colleague’s death. Thank you for bringing me down to the scene of the–’ she was about to say crime, but since the police were adamant Sid’s death was a drunken accident, she said, ‘accident.’
Both medical men looked at her, their brows lined with worry.
‘My report won’t say anything about the police investigation or missed evidence, but it will conflict with the police report in the respect that I believe my colleague’s death was caused by falling off Waterloo Bridge onto these railings, not from falling over them on the embankment. Now,’ Ena looked from the Police Surgeon to his assistant, ‘I think your findings will support that.’
‘Odd that he wasn’t wearing any shoes,’ Sergeant Havers said.
Ena spun round. ‘What did you say?’ her eyes wide and questioning.
‘Your colleague wasn’t wearing his shoes when he was found.’
‘His shoes were ten yards further along the embankment,’ Sandy Berman said. ‘It looked to us as if he had decided to end his life, taken off his shoes, and thrown them over the bridge first.’
‘Why would a man with suicide on his mind take off his shoes?’ Ena looked from one medical man to the other.
‘Maybe he didn’t. Maybe someone pushed him off the bridge,’ the assistant said, ‘and threw the shoes after him?’
‘Why would they do that?’ the police sergeant asked.
Unless Sid had something hidden in the heel of his shoes, Ena thought. Or whoever pushed him off Waterloo Bridge thought he had something in his shoes and made him take them off. If they didn’t find anything, they might have thrown them after Sid in frustration. ‘Where is Mr Parfitt now?’
‘St. Thomas’s morgue,’ Sandy Berman said.
‘And that’s where his shoes will be?’
‘No, Ma’am,’ the police sergeant cut in. ‘Detective Inspector Powell took his shoes. They’ll be at Bow Street. If they’re not, the inspector will know where they are.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ena walked back across Waterloo Bridge. For the first time since she had lived in London, she did not stop halfway across the bridge to marvel at the view. At Aldwych she decided against ge
tting a cab; she needed to walk, to think. Twenty minutes more or less wasn’t going to be enough time to write a report for Director Bentley. Besides, out of respect for Sid, Ena wanted to tell the director what she had learned about their colleague’s death in person. She also wanted to tell him about the file Sid was desperate to find. A file that would help in the Freda Voight investigation. Which, in Ena’s opinion, would be the only reason for Sid returning to the office last night, if indeed he did. And the reason he was killed.
Approaching Bow Street police station, Ena couldn’t help but wonder why Sid wasn’t wearing shoes when he was found. It could only mean he’d put something important in one of them, or in one of the heels. Was it a message? A name perhaps? And did his killer find it? Her gut feeling was they hadn’t, and they had thrown the shoes in frustration.
Sloppy work, she thought. If Sid’s killer had put his shoes back on him after finding nothing in them, Sid’s death would have looked even more like a suicide. Ena wondered why they hadn’t. She needed to see Sid’s shoes and there was only one way she was going to do that.
She opened the door of the police station and went to the enquiries window. ‘Would you tell Detective Inspector Powell that Ena Green would like to speak to him?’
‘If you’d like to wait over there, Mrs Green.’ The desk sergeant pointed to a row of chairs lined up along the far wall. Ena walked over and sat down on the only vacant seat.
It was a sparsely furnished lobby-type entrance. Except for the chairs where she was sitting there was no other furniture. But then, a police station was not the place where most of the characters brought in would want to stay. Not for long anyway. There was a glass panel on the right of the enquires window. Ena could see doors to the interview rooms and stairs leading to the first floor. If Detective Inspector Powell had time to see her he would probably come from that direction.
The man on her left nudged her. Ena turned to face him and he gave her a toothless grin. She could smell the stale earthy odour of clothes that were wet and had started to dry. Her neighbour, a man-of-the-road, had probably come into the station to get warm. Ena smiled at him and his face, weather-beaten and so dirty she was unable to tell his age, softened into deep brown creases. When he smiled his old rheumy eyes lit up. He chuntered to himself. Ena didn’t catch what he was saying, then he turned to her again. ‘They said the war was a war to end all wars. But it weren’t. They made us go through it again, in this last lot.’ He shook his head and nudged Ena a second time. ‘And that Yank and my Sheila walking out together.’ He lifted his arm and wiped the sleeve of his coat across his face. ‘It weren’t right,’ he said, sniffing. ‘Did you hear what I said, woman? I said, it weren’t right.’
‘No,’ Ena said, sympathetically, ‘it wasn’t.’
The girl on the other side of the man giggled. Ena gave her a critical look, which clearly went over the girl’s head because she put her hand up to her face and pinched her nose. Ena gave a slight nod to let her know she knew the man smelled and hoped that would be the end of the girl’s antics. It wasn’t. The girl giggled again.
‘Mrs Green?’
Hearing her name, Ena stood up. Detective Inspector Powell was walking across the room. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Can we speak in private?’
‘Of course.’ Ena heard the sound of surprise in his voice. ‘This way,’ he said, opening the door leading to the interview rooms. The DI opened the door to room one and ushered Ena in. Shutting the door he motioned to her to sit down.
‘I’ve just come from Waterloo Bridge,’ Ena said.
The inspector half smiled. ‘Well?’
‘Well, drunk or not - and I don’t believe Mr Parfitt was drunk - it wouldn’t have been possible to fall over the embankment railings and do that amount of damage. It’s obvious that he fell from the bridge.’
‘Fall or jump, the outcome is the same.’
‘I don’t believe he jumped either. I don’t think his death was an accident.’
DI Powell took a box of Senior Service and a lighter from his jacket pocket. He offered Ena a cigarette. She took one and he lit it. Taking a cigarette for himself the inspector walked over to the window before lighting it.
Deep in thought he smoked his cigarette looking into the busy street. Ena wondered what he was thinking. The inspector took the last drag, inhaled deeply, and stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray on the windowsill that was overflowing with dog-ends.
‘I don’t think he fell off the bridge either,’ the inspector said. Turning, he leant against the wall, one leg bent behind him with his foot on the wall to keep his balance, and faced Ena. ‘Someone was looking for something they thought your colleague had. They’d pat him down and look in his pockets and wallet.’
‘And his shoes,’ Ena added. ‘And when they didn’t find what they were looking for they pushed him off the bridge.’
‘Or they killed him on the bridge, searched him, and threw his body off to make it look like he was drunk and fell, or committed suicide.’
‘If they were trying to make it look like suicide, why didn’t they put his shoes back on him. Why throw them after him? And why so far away from his body?’
‘That’s what I’ve been asking myself,’ DI Powell said.
‘And that’s why I came to see you, Inspector.’
‘To ask if you could see Mr Parfitt’s shoes?’ DI Powell pushed himself off the wall. ‘His shoes are in my office,’ he said, striding across the room and opening the door. He held it for Ena and followed her out. ‘Upstairs,’ he said, ‘end of the corridor.’
‘Take a seat,’ the DI said when they were in his office. He pulled open a metal four drawer cabinet, took out a pair of men’s shoes and put them on the desk in front of Ena.
‘They are Sid’s shoes. He was wearing them the last time I saw him.’ Tears came into the corners of Ena’s eyes. She cleared her throat. ‘Have you got a sixpence?’
The DI looked surprised by Ena’s request, but he didn’t question her. He put his hand in his trousers pocket and took out a handful of change. He dropped a sixpence onto the desk.
‘Thanks.’ She picked up Sid’s left shoe and tapped the heel. ‘Hollow.’ She laid the shoe upside down on the desk and took the sixpence between her forefinger and thumb. Carefully she pushed the side of the coin into a minute gap between the sole and the heel and twisted it. The heel separated from the sole to reveal a cavity. ‘Nothing. There won’t be anything in the other heel either, but I’ll look anyway.’ Ena did the same to Sid’s other shoe. Nothing there either. ‘Where are his clothes?’
‘On his body the last time I saw them. They’ll be at the mortuary.’
Ena looked at the inspector and bit her bottom lip. ‘Could I see them?’
DI Powell picked up the telephone on his desk and asked for Sergeant Thompson. After holding for a minute, he told the sergeant to bring the car round, they were going to St. Thomas’s.
Inspector Powell led Ena down two flights of stairs to the mortuary. She immediately noticed a difference in temperature. Neither the cold air, the atmosphere, or the décor was welcoming. The walls had been whitewashed over bare bricks. The room looked more like a public lavatory than a pathologist’s laboratory, Ena thought, as they passed through it.
In the adjoining room, there was a large square stone sink on the right with one dripping tap, and one with a green hose attached to it. On the far side of the room was a row of three stainless steel tables. Two with empty trolleys at their side and one displaying an assortment of surgical instruments.
The pathologist was bending over the third table attending to a body partially covered by a white sheet. He had a scalpel in his hand. Ena caught her breath. He was performing an autopsy on her friend Sid. She was near to tears. Suddenly, as if he had only just realised someone had entered the room, he lifted his head. He peered at the newcomers over the top of his glasses and wiped his bloodstained hands down his white apron. Ena wasn’t squeamish, bu
t the thought that the man being cut open beneath the sheet was Sid brought the toast she’d eaten at breakfast into her throat.
She turned away. Only the hair on the dead man’s head was visible, but from the description the police sergeant on the embankment had given her, the man on the stainless steel table in the cold sterile room could only be her friend and colleague, Sid Parfitt.
‘His clothes are in my office,’ the pathologist said, drawing the white sheet over Sid’s head. ‘They’re all yours if you want them. I’ve finished with them.’
The inspector steered Ena out of the mortuary and into the pathologist’s office.
Ena went to the portable clothes rail where Sid’s clothes hung. She didn’t expect to find anything of interest in any of the pockets. She looked anyway. She took down his overcoat, turned it inside out, and laid it across the table. Taking a narrow blade from a tray on the desk she slid the point between the silk lining and the coat’s woollen fabric. There was nothing hidden in the lining. She did the same to the sleeves of the coat and the same to Sid’s suit jacket and trousers. ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘nothing at all.’
Emotionally exhausted, Ena flopped into a chair. ‘It looks like whoever killed Sid found what they were looking for.’
‘Or your colleague didn’t have what they were looking for.’
‘In which case he died for nothing,’ Ena said, putting her head in her hands.
Suddenly the door flew open and a voice boomed, ‘Found something that might interest you.’
Ena looked up to see the pathologist beaming her a smile. ‘This was in the fellow’s cheek. Didn’t notice it before. Trapped in his smashed jaw, stuck behind teeth that had been–’
‘Thank you!’ Inspector Powell interrupted. ‘Mrs Green doesn’t need to know the ins-and-outs of your findings in graphic detail.’ The inspector took the tiny square of paper, protected by an equally small piece of glassine out of the pathologist’s hand.
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