Hardcastle's Soldiers

Home > Other > Hardcastle's Soldiers > Page 19
Hardcastle's Soldiers Page 19

by Graham Ison


  At three o’clock that same afternoon, Hardcastle ordered the station officer to have the anonymous prisoner brought to the interview room.

  However, Hardcastle’s attempts to discover the identity of the young man who had masqueraded as Lieutenant Mansfield, and who had shot at policemen in Francis Street the previous evening, were to no avail. The prisoner sat in the interview room, his left arm in a sling, and a disdainful expression on his face.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Hardcastle.

  ‘I’m not saying anything, copper,’ said the boy, ‘and if you’re thinking of charging me with anything, you’ll have to prove it.’

  Hardcastle noticed that the prisoner spoke with an educated voice. Although clearly not the product of a well-known public school, the DDI formed the opinion that he had probably been the beneficiary of a good grammar school education.

  ‘Won’t make any difference,’ said the frustrated Hardcastle. ‘You’ll still be taking the eight o’clock walk.’

  ‘They don’t hang people for taking a few pot shots out of a window,’ said the young man confidently. ‘Anyway, I didn’t hit anyone.’ But his confidence was belied by the change in his demeanour. Hardcastle had worried him, and it showed. ‘I’m in a good mind to sue you for shooting me,’ he added, with a show of bravado he did not feel.

  However, the DDI was determined not to charge the prisoner with two counts of murder until he had made further enquiries.

  ‘Take him back to the cells, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle irritably.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘Have you got a reason for not charging the prisoner yet, sir?’ asked Marriott, once he and Hardcastle were back in the DDI’s office.

  ‘Indeed I have, Marriott. I’ve got a shrewd suspicion that he didn’t carry out that murder on his tod. Where did he get the uniform? From Mansfield? I doubt it. And how did he know enough about the routine of the money-changing place at Victoria Station to carry out the robbery, eh? I’m sure he had someone else helping him, and I think I know who.’

  ‘So what do we do next, sir?’

  ‘We go to the Uttings’ house in Clapham and have a word with Cora Utting. But not until you’ve been to Bow Street Police Court, and sworn out a search warrant.’

  ‘On what grounds, sir?’

  ‘I should’ve thought that was obvious, Marriott. Cora Utting is Jack Utting’s sister. Then, our mystery gunman turns up in Jack Utting’s house. According to Jolly Jack, Cora is engaged to the man we’ve got in custody. In my book that makes a connection.’

  The house in Acre Lane, Clapham, in which Jack and Cora Utting’s father lived, was a drab dwelling in a road of similarly drab houses.

  ‘I’m Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott,’ said the DDI to the man who answered the door. ‘Is Cora Utting here?’

  ‘I’m William Utting, Inspector, her father. There’s no trouble, I hope.’

  ‘So you’d be the father of Jack Utting as well, would you?’

  ‘That’s me, Inspector.’ William Utting was a man of about forty-five, and as he led the two detectives into the parlour, he walked with a distinct limp. And his left sleeve was empty.

  Seeing that Hardcastle had noticed, Utting volunteered the reason. ‘I copped a Blighty one on the Somme last year,’ he said. ‘Corporal in the Durham Light Infantry, I was. A bloody toc-emma took me left arm off, and buggered up me right leg. Still, can’t complain. Most of me mates was killed.’

  ‘What the devil’s a toc-emma?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘It’s a trench mortar, but toc-emma is the signallers’ code for it, and bloody nasty things they was, too. They was always called toc-emmas by the troops who were on the receiving end of ’em, not that you heard ’em coming,’ said Utting, easing himself into an armchair and inviting the policemen to take a seat on the settee. ‘Any road, you don’t want to hear about my troubles. What was it you wanted?’

  ‘I’d like to have a talk to your daughter Cora about her fiancé.’

  ‘What, young Adrian? He’s an officer, you know.’

  ‘Is that a fact? What’s this Adrian’s surname?’ Hardcastle’s interest was suddenly aroused.

  ‘Nash,’ said Utting. ‘Why?’

  ‘In that case, I take it we’re talking about Second Lieutenant Adrian Nash of the Army Service Corps.’ Hardcastle spoke mildly, at pains to suppress his excitement.

  ‘That’s him. But how did you know?’

  ‘Where’s he stationed?’ asked Hardcastle, answering Utting’s question with one of his own.

  ‘Hounslow, I think he said, but I’m not sure. Young Cora will be able to tell you more about him. I think she’s upstairs, Inspector. Hang on, and I’ll give her a shout.’ William Utting, who did not seem at all disturbed that the police had arrived wishing to interview his daughter about her fiancé, stood up and limped to the door. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he bellowed his daughter’s name.

  The young woman who entered the room looked to be older than the eighteen years of age that Hardcastle knew she was. She carried herself well, and her hair, worn up in the prevailing fashion, was immaculate. She seated herself sedately in an armchair, folding her hands in her lap, and looking the picture of a demure young lady. It was a pose destined not to last long.

  ‘This is Cora, Inspector,’ said Utting, his face radiating pride. ‘These gentlemen are police officers, Cora, love.’

  ‘Police?’ Cora seemed to be unsettled by that information. ‘What’s wrong? It’s not Adrian, is it?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened to him, miss.’ Marriott made that monumental understatement with no indication that it was far from the truth. But he had assumed that the girl thought that her fiancé had perhaps fallen in battle.

  ‘I can’t wait to walk her down the aisle when she weds young Adrian.’ Utting glanced at his daughter with obvious pride.

  Hardcastle decided that he would not spoil William Utting’s ambitious plans. At least, not yet.

  ‘How long have you known Adrian Nash, Miss Utting?’ asked Hardcastle.

  A further mention of her fiancé’s name disconcerted the young woman even more. ‘Er, why d’you want to know?’ she asked.

  ‘Perhaps you’d just answer the question.’

  ‘About six months, I suppose.’

  ‘Would that have been just before he went into the army?’

  ‘Yes, it was, as a matter of fact. We met at a tennis club dance. But once he joined up, he’d travel up from Aldershot at the weekends. That’s where he was doing his officer training.’ Cora Utting almost glowed with pride. ‘He’s going to wear his officer’s uniform when we get married.’

  ‘And he’s in the Army Service Corps, is he not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hardcastle knew that Nash had not ‘joined up’ but was one of Lord Derby’s reluctant recruits. His face took on a grave expression, and he decided it was time to tell the young woman the truth about her fiancé. ‘I’m afraid that it’s unlikely there’ll be a wedding, Miss Utting,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Adrian Nash is in custody at Cannon Row Police Station, and will shortly be charged with two counts of murder, and another of attempted murder.’

  With a gasp, Cora Utting’s head fell forward, and she swooned from the chair in which she was sitting, and fell to the floor.

  ‘Ye Gods!’ exclaimed her father. He stood up and attempted to pick up his daughter, but, having only one arm, was unable to be of any assistance. ‘There must be some mistake,’ he said, turning to Hardcastle with an anguished expression on his face.

  Marriott leaped across the room and scooped the slender young woman into his arms and laid her gently on the settee on which he and Hardcastle had been sitting.

  ‘Perhaps you’d get a glass of water, Mr Utting,’ said Hardcastle.

  By the time that William Utting returned, Cora had partially recovered.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to break t
he news to your daughter like that, Mr Utting,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but there was no other way.’

  ‘It’s all this bloody war,’ said William Utting, a sad expression on his face. ‘The world’ll never be the same again, Inspector.’

  ‘I fear you might be right, Mr Utting,’ said Hardcastle, who had expressed the same view many times himself.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me straight away, instead of letting me carry on like that?’ demanded Cora, dabbing at her tears with a lacy handkerchief.

  Hardcastle ignored the question. ‘When did Adrian shave off his moustache?’ he asked.

  ‘What a funny question,’ said Cora. ‘He hasn’t, as far as I know.’

  ‘When did you last see him, Miss Utting?’ asked Marriott.

  Cora paused in thought for a few moments. ‘It must’ve been about three weeks ago, I suppose. He told me he’d be away on some special training.’ Although the girl gave the impression of being still in a state of shock, she was doing her best to put a brave face on the news she had just received. ‘It looks as though I’ll be a war widow before I was even wed,’ she said sadly. Albeit a contradiction in terms, it was a remarkably mature comment for an eighteen-year-old to have made.

  Hardcastle and Marriott glanced at each other. The period of time since Cora had last seen her fiancé was significant. If she was telling the truth, the last occasion they had met was just before the Victoria Station murder.

  But the DDI was not wholly convinced. She had made a very quick recovery from her fainting fit, and was once again bright and cogent. All of which made him wonder if she had been putting on an act, and knew all along what Adrian Nash had been doing. She might even have worked out that it had been her fiancé who was involved in what the press had called the ‘siege of Francis Street’. The early editions of today’s Star had carried lurid accounts of the shooting although no mention was made of Nash; even the police had not known who he was until now.

  ‘Mr Utting,’ said Hardcastle, ‘I have a warrant to search this house in connection with the murder of Herbert Somers at Victoria Station on the eleventh of this month.’

  Utting’s face expressed astonishment. ‘What on earth makes you think that anything in this house is connected with that, Inspector?’

  ‘I have not only arrested Adrian Nash, Mr Utting,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but I’ve also arrested your son Jack in connection with the same murder.’

  ‘My God!’ exclaimed Utting, sitting down suddenly. ‘I don’t believe any of this, Inspector.’ He was clearly taken aback by Hardcastle’s latest announcement, coming so quickly after news of his prospective son-in-law’s arrest. ‘You’d better do what you have to do, then,’ he said, in a voice that had taken on a pitch of despair, as though he was unable to grasp the extent of the crisis that had suddenly beset his family, or the reasons for it. ‘I don’t know what you expect to find.’

  ‘We’ll start upstairs, perhaps with your room,’ said Hardcastle to Cora Utting. He noticed that she seemed quite nervous at the prospect.

  ‘Let me go and tidy it up first,’ said Cora, swinging her legs off the settee and standing up. ‘It’s in a bit of a mess.’ She seemed fully recovered.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Miss Utting,’ said Marriott, as he followed the DDI out of the room. ‘But it might be as well if you came with us.’

  It was a small bedroom at the back of the house. A crucifix hung over the single bed, and far from being untidy, as Cora Utting had implied, it was clean and orderly. A hairbrush and comb were neatly arranged on the dressing table, and there was a woman’s magazine on a small table next to the bed.

  Hardcastle looked around, as if trying to decide where to start. He moved towards the small wardrobe and opened the door. Inside was an army uniform. The DDI took it out and laid it on the bed.

  ‘What d’you know about that, Marriott?’ When it came to military matters, Hardcastle always deferred to his sergeant.

  ‘The collar badges are the North Staffordshire Regiment, sir. You can’t mistake the Staffordshire knot.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Hardcastle, as he looked closer and examined the two Bath stars on each of the shoulder straps. He turned to Cora Utting. ‘And who does this belong to, miss?’

  ‘It’s my fiancé’s.’ But from the hesitant way in which she replied, it was obvious that Cora was lying, or at least uncertain.

  ‘But I thought you agreed that he was in the Army Service Corps, miss.’ Hardcastle gave a masterful performance of being completely puzzled by the whole thing. ‘Or has he transferred to another regiment of late? And been promoted?’

  Cora Utting blushed scarlet, and spread her hand across her neck. ‘I don’t know anything about the army,’ she said. ‘All I can tell you is that Adrian said it was his spare uniform, and he wanted to keep it here ready for the wedding.’

  ‘Really?’ Hardcastle sounded surprised.

  ‘Your brother Jack is married to a woman called Nancy, isn’t he?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And Nancy Utting’s brother is Lieutenant Geoffrey Mansfield, of the North Staffordshire Regiment. So I would suggest, Miss Utting, that this is his uniform.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, I don’t know what Adrian was doing with it. Perhaps he’s looking after it for this …’ Cora paused. ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘It won’t do, Miss Utting,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of being an accessory to the murder of Herbert Somers. I shall now take you to Cannon Row Police Station.’

  Predictably, Cora Utting burst in to tears. But her father, who had been standing on the landing during this exchange, exploded with fury.

  ‘Now look here, Inspector,’ protested William Utting, ‘my daughter had nothing to do with this awful business. To suggest that she was somehow involved is outrageous.’

  ‘If she wasn’t involved, Mr Utting, she has nothing to worry about,’ said Hardcastle. ‘But I have to say that there appears to be no reasonable explanation for her possession of a uniform that may have been used in a murder.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to search the rest of the house, then?’ asked Utting sarcastically.

  ‘Not at this stage,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I’ve found what I was looking for.’ He glanced at his sergeant. ‘We’ll take that uniform with us, Marriott. There may be blood stains on it.’

  ‘Bloody marvellous, isn’t it? There’s me risking life and limb fighting on the Western Front, and damned near getting killed, and all you people can do is make a young woman’s life a misery. I don’t know why I bothered. I should have joined your lot when I had my health.’

  And with that caustic tirade following them, Hardcastle and Marriott escorted Cora Utting out to the street.

  Hardcastle’s ‘unknown’ prisoner affected the same surly countenance when, once again, he was escorted into the interview room. He flopped into one of the chairs and took out a packet of Capstan cigarettes.

  ‘Well, Second Lieutenant Adrian Nash of the Army Service Corps,’ said Hardcastle, ‘I’ve just found something else to charge you with. Desertion. And I understand that you’ll likely get shot at dawn for that.’

  Nash jerked upright, almost as if he were a marionette whose strings had been suddenly tightened. ‘Not me,’ he protested.

  ‘Furthermore,’ Hardcastle continued, ‘I shall charge you with unlawful possession of an officer’s uniform, and wearing the ribbon of the Military Cross to which you weren’t entitled.’ Not that the DDI was going to bother with either of those summary offences, given that Nash was facing two charges of murder.

  ‘If, as you say, I am an officer,’ sneered Nash, ‘how can I be in unlawful possession of an officer’s uniform?’

  ‘Because it’s a uniform of an officer in the North Staffordshire Regiment.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never had such a uniform. What would I be doing with a North Staffs officer’s uniform?’

&
nbsp; ‘Do you deny ever possessing it, then?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘Of course I do.’ But Nash was nowhere near as confident as when he had entered the interview room, and his hands had started twitching on the table.

  ‘In that case,’ said Marriott mildly, ‘we’ll have to charge your fiancée with its possession. We found it in her wardrobe at her father’s house in Acre Lane.’

  ‘What fiancée?’

  ‘The young lady we’ve got locked up here,’ said Hardcastle. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, Nash, her name’s Cora Utting, and I’m about to charge her with being an accessory to the murder of Herbert Somers.’

  Nash’s face drained of colour. ‘You leave her out of this. She had nothing to with it.’

  ‘Nothing to do with what?’ Hardcastle asked the question gently, rather like a skilled fisherman reeling in a prize salmon.

  ‘She had nothing to do with any murder, and neither did I.’

  Hardcastle leaned back in his chair and studied the young renegade officer. ‘I am going to charge you with the murder of Herbert Somers at Victoria Station. That was when you cunningly thought to deflect any suspicion from yourself by pretending to be Lieutenant Geoffrey Mansfield, and telling me all about the soldier who didn’t salute you, and who ran away. And, on behalf of another police officer, namely Divisional Detective Inspector Arthur Fitnam of the Wandsworth Division, I shall likely be charging you with the murder of a prostitute, Ivy Huggins, at Kingston upon Thames. Mr Fitnam will probably charge you with stealing a motor van as well.’ Hardcastle did not think that Arthur Fitnam would bother with that, but, as with the question of the uniform and the medal ribbon, he never avoided putting such psychological pressure on a prisoner.

  ‘I had nothing to do with any of that,’ said Nash lamely, but his protestation carried no conviction.

  ‘You see, Nash, your fingerprints were on the revolver which you used to club Somers to death.’ Hardcastle spoke as though Nash had not denied any involvement. ‘And they were also on the knife with which you stabbed Ivy Huggins, and they were all over the van you stole from the lock-up at the baker’s shop in Cowleaze Road, Kingston upon Thames.’

 

‹ Prev