Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  A conversation he’d attempted along these lines with his superior, Inspector Cornish, had been a damp squib before he’d even started. Cornish had been only too happy to remind the young sergeant that he was in the best police force in the world and if he wanted a promotion he needed to show them a good reason why he had earned one, not stand about waiting for rewards to come to him. But so long as he was kept in the office, as he had been for the previous seven months, Guy couldn’t see how he was supposed to show initiative. The policemen who brought ‘cases’ to the desk didn’t want someone like him interfering and anyone who came in of their own accord had to be assigned to another sergeant because Guy wasn’t permitted to desert his post.

  Guy smoothed his hair down and polished his glasses for the hundredth time that morning. He wondered if it was his eyesight – bad enough that he hadn’t been allowed to fight in the war – which put off his boss from assigning him to any significant cases. There had been a bit of teasing around his inability to recognise a familiar face after he’d failed to acknowledge the station’s chief inspector when he had entered through the front door out of uniform one morning. Guy had tried to protest that it wasn’t that he couldn’t see properly, it was simply that he wasn’t used to seeing him in plain clothes, but this only added fuel to the fire. How, then, they crowed, would Guy spot a known criminal if he was in disguise? Cornish had overheard the commotion, asked what was going on and ever since that day, Guy hadn’t been on the beat. At least, that was how it seemed.

  As he was debating whether to organise the outgoing post into alphabetical order or water the plant by the front door, Guy’s attention was snapped into focus by a young woman in uniform approaching the desk. The sight was a relatively rare one. There were rumoured to be just fifty of them in the entire force. A couple of years earlier, female uniforms had been given powers of arrest, which had caused quite a stir amongst the men. Even so, the women were generally sent out on the soft jobs, fetching lost children or cats. Guy had hardly even spoken to one. He had seen this one around before once or twice and certainly noticed her pretty smile, but the most noticeable thing about her today was the squirming boy she had gripped by the ear. She marched up to Guy’s desk and stood before him, breathing hard, looking both furiously determined and pleased with herself.

  ‘Caught him stealing apples off the wheelbarrow at St James’s Market,’ she said in the kind of tone Guy knew was meant to suggest she frequently brought hardened criminals to the front desk of the Vine Street police station. He decided to play along.

  ‘Bet it’s not the first time he’s done it either, is it?’

  The policewoman smiled gratefully. ‘No. Certainly not.’ She slowed her breathing, though she didn’t release her hold on his ear. The boy – he looked about fourteen years old – was small for his age and wiry but he could easily have broken away. It was likely he rather fancied a rest in a cell with some soup and bread. ‘I think perhaps we’d better get his details down and then we’ll talk to the Super about what to do next.’

  ‘Certainly, Constable,’ said Guy, which made her smile with pleasure again, something he found he rather liked. Pride lengthened his tall, narrow frame, like a cat showing off. Louisa Cannon had been the last girl to have this effect and he shook his head at the thought. Back to business, Guy took down the boy’s name and address, probably false, and summoned another constable to take him away to the cells. The policewoman was dismissed as soon as the uniform arrived and Guy saw her face fall.

  ‘You did well there,’ he said. ‘One arrest down and it’s not even lunchtime yet.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said ruefully. Guy took in her neat figure, dressed in a perfectly pressed uniform, slim legs incongruously atop solid black boots with laces. She looked around, checking no one was there to listen. ‘It’s just that…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I never get to do the proper stuff. You know, real policeman’s work. I thought they might let me take him down to the cells but I suppose they’ll let him out this afternoon, won’t they?’

  Guy shrugged and then decided he shouldn’t bat her off with patronising flannel. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘they probably will. There’s not enough to charge him with. But you still did the right thing. I’m sure he’ll think twice next time.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps he will. Thanks.’ She straightened up as if to go and then turned to Guy again. ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

  ‘Sergeant Sullivan,’ he said. And then, more softly, ‘But you can call me Guy.’

  ‘I will, she said, ‘if you call me Mary. I’m Constable Moon.’

  ‘Mary Moon?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t you even try. I’ve had all the jokes you can imagine and some more you can’t.’

  As they were both laughing at this, another sergeant came up to the desk, on Guy’s side this time. ‘If you two haven’t got anything better to do than stand about giggling, you can come to the briefing room. Cornish is summoning anyone who hasn’t been assigned a beat duty today.’ He strode off and cornered someone else.

  Mary’s face brightened even more at this and she started to head off straight away, then stopped and looked back. ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Guy, ‘I’m not allowed to leave the desk.’

  ‘Just for five minutes?’

  Guy shook his head, feeling like a fool.

  Mary walked back. ‘Tell you what – you go, and I’ll stand by the desk. I’m sure I can manage for a bit.’

  ‘But what about…?’

  ‘They won’t let me do anything proper anyway. You go and tell me about it.’

  Guy tried to hesitate a little longer to show her she didn’t have to if she didn’t want to, but it was no good. He was desperate for this chance.

  * * *

  The briefing room was packed and Inspector Cornish was at the front, already addressing the keen policemen. Guy sneaked in and stood by the wall, ears practically flapping with eagerness to hear. Cornish had a reputation for being a bully but one who brought results, so his coarse turn of phrase was tolerated and plenty found it apt for the business in hand. ‘If you can’t take it, what are you doing in the Force?’ was a phrase Guy had heard a few times, though thankfully never directed at him. Cornish’s suit was better tailored than you might expect of an inspector and he was known to drive a beautiful new Chrysler which also seemed somewhat surprising for a man on his wages. There were rumours of backhanders and bribes, but nothing that had stuck, and there was a certain insouciant shrug that Guy had often seen accompany the telling of these rumours, a sort of ‘why not?’ refrain that had always seemed depressing. But after three years in London’s police force, he hadn’t seen much to recommend the good nature of men.

  ‘You lot think Christmas means a fat man climbing down your chimney to bring you mittens,’ Cornish was barking, ‘or an extra large turkey with stuffing for Tiny Tim’ – he paused to guffaw at his own joke – ‘but for these lowlifes out there, it’s all about taking, not giving. And they don’t wait for the first door on the advent calendar.’ A few policemen tittered politely as if encouraging a music hall act on his opening night. ‘Now, we have reason to believe that Miss Alice Diamond is out in full strength and operating her Forty Thieves on Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street. In the last year or two, she’s been feeling the heat from our lot and worked the provinces and regional cities instead. But it seems that she’s come back home for Christmas and we need to widen our net this time to catch her. So I want as many of you as possible out there, reporting back to me at the end of every shift. Got that?’ He leered at the crowd. ‘Good. Line up, and Sergeant Cluttock here will give you your assignment. You need to work in pairs and in plain clothes.’ With a final squint at the straight-backed men he left the room.

  Guy looked around the room helplessly. Everyone was quick to find the other half to their pair, sometimes with as little as a wink or nod to acknowledge firm partnerships. Guy felt a pang for
his former comrade, Harry, but although he had carried on working for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Police after Guy had been moved to the Met, he had quit even that job a few months ago so that he could work as a musician in the new jazz nightclubs springing up in the city. It wasn’t that Guy hadn’t friends, or at least friendly acquaintances at the station, but this wasn’t about someone amiable to sit next to in the canteen while you ate your pie and mash. This was about who would help you bring in a haul for the attention of Cornish, a partner who would bring you acclaim, praise and promotion. Seven months at the front desk had not advertised Guy as a policeman who would sleuth and stalk with success. He watched, paralysed, as the room emptied two by two, like the animals triumphantly boarding Noah’s Ark. When the last had left, rather resembling a pair of laughing hyenas, Sergeant Cluttock started shuffling his papers together and getting ready to go. Guy approached his desk and started to speak, though his mouth was dry and it came out as a croak.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  Cluttock looked at him and his moustache glistened. ‘What?’

  ‘I wondered if I might have an assignment, sir?’

  Cluttock made an exaggerated movement with his head towards the four corners of the room. ‘I don’t see anyone with you. You heard the boss. You need to work in pairs.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve got a partner it’s just that she…’ He stopped and thought for less than a fraction of a second. ‘They’re out on another task at present. But back shortly and we could go out on the assignation then.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Mine, sir?’

  ‘No, the king of England’s shoeshine boy. Yes, your name.’

  ‘Sergeant Sullivan, sir. And my partner’s is Constable Moon.’

  Cluttock looked down his list. ‘You can go to Great Marlborough Street. Smaller shops there, not so likely to be targeted but you never know. Report back at six o’clock sharp. Obviously make a note of anything suspicious, talk to the shopgirls and so on. You know the form.’ He raised an eyebrow and looked at Guy. ‘You do know the form?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir.’ Guy was grinning as if he’d just opened his Christmas stocking and found it contained real gold coins instead of chocolate ones. He stopped and realised Cluttock was staring at him. ‘I’m still here, aren’t I, sir?’

  ‘Seems you are, Sergeant Sullivan.’

  ‘Not for long, sir.’ Guy ran out of the room and back to the front desk.

  * * *

  Mary performed tiny hops of glee when Guy told her the news. ‘You gave him my name?’ she asked for the third time. ‘And he didn’t say I couldn’t do it?’

  Guy reassured her once more. ‘Yes, I did. And no, he didn’t. But there’s another problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be working at the front desk.’

  ‘Well … why don’t you tell whoever organises the rota that you’ve been assigned on special duties? They’ll have to find someone else then.’ She deliberately widened her eyes and clasped her hands in prayer. ‘Please try. This is my one chance to prove myself. I’ve got to do it.’

  If nothing else, Guy knew how she felt. He nodded and walked off, quickly, before his nerve could fail him. To his pleasant surprise, his superior agreed without asking too many questions. Word must have got around that all hands were needed on deck to find Alice Diamond and the Forty Thieves. In what felt like record time, Guy and Mary had each gone home to change out of their uniforms into plain clothes and were heading towards Great Marlborough Street in pursuit of one of the country’s most notorious female criminals and her gang.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After the party, Nancy, Pamela and Louisa had returned to Iris Mitford’s flat in Elvaston Place. Their late hour was betrayed by a long lie-in the next morning and slow responses to Iris’s inquisition over a late luncheon. Louisa had helped them pack and accompanied the sisters to Paddington station where they caught the train home in time for supper. Louisa was then free to keep her appointment with the maid from the night before, Dulcie Long.

  Louisa had arranged some time before to remain in London for the evening, telling Lady Redesdale that she would like to see a cousin though, truthfully, she had no real family to speak of. Her father had died several years before, her mother had moved from London to Suffolk and her uncle Stephen had joined the army and never been heard from since – and glad of that she was, too. She was an only child and had worked since leaving school at fourteen. When she began working for the Mitfords, far from the Peabody Estate she had grown up in, she’d pretty much lost touch with everyone. Her oldest friend, Jennie, moved in different circles thanks to her cut-glass beauty, though Louisa knew Jennie would always be happy to see her. But the opportunity to combine a trip to London with her monthly Sunday off had been too good to pass up. As much as anything, she wanted to breathe the city air again. After weeks of mud in the country, a stretch of pavement felt almost medicinal. The sour mix of fog and soot might appal Lord Redesdale’s bucolic instincts but was as nostalgic a pleasure for Louisa as a slice of her mother’s Guinness cake.

  At one point she had thought she might meet up with Guy Sullivan but made no fixed plan. Then, at the Curtis house, as Nancy and Pamela were safely sitting down to supper, she had fallen into conversation with the maid who had opened the door.

  Perhaps she had been drawn by the girl’s London accent, invoking a sisterly feeling. Or it might have been the vanity of liking someone because they were the mirror image of oneself. Louisa’s instinct had been close to the mark: Dulcie, like her, worked as both maid and chaperone, to Miss Charlotte. As the two young women assisted the cook with the dinner, they exchanged snippets of gossip and stories of their family’s demands and eccentricities. They’d admitted, too, to similar pasts that their employers neither knew nor would understand. It had felt more like coming home than the annual week at her mother’s Hadleigh cottage ever had.

  Out of this easy chatter, they had arranged to meet by the lions at Trafalgar Square at six o’clock the following night. The meeting point had been Dulcie’s idea and Louisa had nearly asked to change it and then told herself not to be so asinine. She shied from the memory of the last time she had been there, with Nancy, right after they had run out of the dance at the Savoy, frightened that there was a man there who might have revealed Louisa’s whereabouts to her uncle Stephen. It had caused a row between the two of them when Louisa had tried to tell Nancy that she could not return to the party but then they had bumped into a man who claimed his name was Roland Lucknor. It had marked the start of what had turned out to be a long and tumultuous time between the three of them, involving Guy and the murder of a nurse, Florence Nightingale Shore.

  In the years since, while Louisa enjoyed her work for the most part, she missed her friendship with Nancy and felt jealous of her easy move into adulthood. Nancy no longer even slept in the nursery but had moved to the main wing of the house and spent her weekends with friends in Oxford and London, coming home with tales of pranks and parties.

  Nor had Louisa seen much of Guy, though they wrote to each other and she enjoyed his funny letters, in which he would write about the mad, bad and dangerous people he came across now he was working for the Met Police. She could see, reading between the lines, that his encounters were rather more fleeting than if he were the arresting officer, but he had never shown any pity for himself in the telling of his stories and she thought that admirable. If not terribly thrilling.

  * * *

  Some ten minutes after six o’clock, Louisa was still standing by the stone lions in her best dress, a navy blue hand-me-down from Nancy that she’d adjusted to fit. Fashionable men and women rushed past on their way to evenings out and Louisa started to fidget, wondering if this had been a good idea after all. Then round the corner came Dulcie, waving to catch her attention.

  ‘Sorry I’m a bit late,’ said Dulcie, rushing up with a smile. ‘Madame Charlotte couldn’t find her gar
net brooch and as that was the only one that would do I had to go on a search with her…’ She stopped to share a knowing look with Louisa and they both giggled. Goodness, it was nice to be able to do this. ‘We’re getting the number 36 bus,’ Dulcie continued. ‘Takes us all the way to my old pub. I know we can have a good time in there, have a drink and a knees-up without getting bothered by anyone. Not like round here – it’s all hoity-toity types or men asking if they can look up your skirt for a halfpenny, isn’t it? Yes, you know I’m right. Come along, girl.’

  She started marching off. Louisa took a breath and followed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  An hour later they were sitting behind a table in the Elephant and Castle in Southwark, on the corner of a busy junction. This part of London may only have been the other side of the River Thames but it was like a foreign country. The street lamps were fewer and not yet converted from gas to electricity. Everything seemed rougher, darker and slower. There weren’t so many motor cars as horses pulling carts; young children streaked along pavements, brushing past – even through – legs, their blurred shapes chased by an irate ‘Oi!’. The women hurried along or, if waiting for a bus, talked constantly to each other in an accent that sat vowels at either end of a see-saw. Men walked in long, purposeful strides, heads dipped, cigarettes in the corners of their mouths. Buses rattled past, filled to bursting like canned worms, at least five grubs precariously hanging on the corner pole.

  The pub felt no less busy than the street outside but it was brightly lit. Brass fixtures gleamed and the wood on the bar was polished to a high shine. Doubtless the heavily patterned carpet disguised a multitude of past sins but to the naked eye this inn was proudly kept and the punters were dressed in what Louisa’s mother would have called their best bib and tucker. There were a few men dotted around, older gents, quietly nursing their pints or playing cards. But most of the customers were women and Louisa noticed with fascination that they were buying their own drinks, sometimes several, and she even saw a pitcher of ale sent over to one of the men, who raised his glass and nodded his whiskery chin in gratitude. The women were young, too, about Louisa’s age. You’d know they weren’t from Mayfair – their clothes weren’t fashionable or sumptuous enough for that – but there was something in the way they carried themselves that gave them an air of confidence to match a millionaire’s wife. They weren’t downtrodden; they were in charge. She didn’t know how that could be when surely they led the same life of drudgery as the women Louisa had grown up around.