The Victory Snapshot (A Chris Tyroll Mystery Book 1)

by Barrie Roberts

  ‘Your husband used to?’ asked I, picking up the cue. ‘If it wouldn’t distress you, it’s about your husband we came to talk. You see, Sheila here — Dr McKenna — has come over from Australia to visit her grandfather, but he had died before she got here. You may have seen it in the papers, he was attacked and killed in the park.’

  The old lady nodded over her teacup. ‘Wicked,’ she said, ‘bloody wicked that kind of thing is. My family ay saints, Mr Tyroll, as nobody knows better than you, but they don’t go about hitting old men. Nor did my old man for all his faults. That was a wicked thing to do,’ and she smiled sympathetically at Sheila.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Sheila, ‘we believe my grandpa and the late Mr Cassidy knew each other. They had a meeting just before your husband died and I wondered what it was about. That’s if it doesn’t bother you to talk about it,’ she added.

  Mrs Cassidy smiled. ‘It won’t upset me, love,’ she said. ‘Francis and me was finished long ago. Divorced in ’53, we were. It would’ve been a sight earlier than that if I’d had my way, but you had to catch ’em at it in them days, didn’t you, Mr Tyroll?’

  I wasn’t even under articles when the old divorce law was changed, but I nodded, and the old lady went on.

  ‘Francis knew lots of people,’ she said. ‘What was his name, your grandpa?’

  ‘Brown,’ said Sheila. ‘Walter Brown. He used to work in the Town Hall before he retired.’

  ‘Oh, I remember him!’ exclaimed Mrs Cassidy. ‘Big Labour Party man, wasn’t he? He was really helpful to me about a council house for our June. She wouldn’t have had it but for him.’

  She shook her head slowly and went on. ‘But I don’t think he knew Francy at all. Me and him was separated by the time June wanted that house and June and me had to do it all. I don’t think Francy ever met with Mr Brown at all.’

  9

  Sheila and I stared at each other, blankly. The old lady intercepted the look and leaned over, placing a small, wrinkled hand on Sheila’s knee.

  ‘Oh no, love,’ she said. ‘Your grandpa, Mr Brown, he was a gentleman, through and through. It was me that saw him about a house for June, not Francy. And Francy wouldn’t have known him any other way. My Francy was so bent he couldn’t lie straight in his bed and all his pals was the same. He wouldn’t have gone near your grandpa, love, and your grandpa wouldn’t have touched Francy with a bargepole.’

  She sat back and it was Sheila’s turn to shake her head. ‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘My grandfather wrote to me that he was trying to set something to rights before he died. It seems it was something that went back a long way. He told his cleaning lady that he was looking for an old mate — that was your husband — and he had a meeting with him at the home, Ferngate, the day that Mr Cassidy died.’

  ‘And you thought it was about the same thing?’ said Mrs Cassidy. ‘I don’t blame you, duck. But I can’t imagine what it could have been. Them two would have been like oil and water.’

  I had been casting about in my mind for a solution to this new contradiction. I could not find one, but I was still convinced that Walter Brown’s appointment with Francy Cassidy was central to the mystery. Why else had somebody impersonated the old man and why else had Francy Cassidy died? Mrs Cassidy seemed to have nothing useful to tell us, but I was unwilling to leave till we’d tried all the angles. I looked again at the framed snapshots dotted about the room.

  ‘Mrs Cassidy,’ I said, ‘I don’t think I ever met your husband. You haven’t got a picture of him, have you?’

  ‘No, Mr Tyroll, you wouldn’t have done,’ she agreed. ‘You hadn’t started up when Francy was in and out of the courts. He used to go to Mr Graham in Bull Street, but I can show you his picture. Just let me fresh the tea up.’

  As the door closed behind the old lady, Sheila asked, ‘Are you just fishing or have you got something in mind?’

  ‘Trying to keep the conversation going,’ I said. ‘That appointment with Cassidy had to have been important and Mrs C’s our only chance at the moment. But we don’t know if she knows what we want to know, we don’t know what it is so we can’t ask her directly, and she may not even know that she knows.’

  She smiled. ‘Trust a Pommy lawyer to find a way of making the mysterious even more complicated.’

  ‘That’s why we charge so much — expertise! No, seriously, I may not have put that very well, but we’ve got to keep her talking about the late Francy and hope that something crops up that makes some kind of sense. And I was wondering if he’s one of the men in the Victory picture.’

  Mrs Cassidy was soon back with fresh tea and slices of fruit cake, which she urged on us. While we munched she got up and opened the cabinet on which her television stood, taking out a cardboard box. She brought it back and put it on the coffee table, beside the tea tray.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘there’s photographs here going back years. I keep meaning to get one of the young ones to put them all in albums while I can still remember who they’re all of, but all they want to do when they come round here is watch Neighbours.’

  She dipped into the box and drew out a fistful of pictures of various sizes, including some in white presentation folders. Shuffling through them she separated one of the folders and opened it.

  ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘That’s me and Francy on our wedding day. 1939 that was, the summer before the war. Don’t he look handsome?’

  It was a black and white print that had been hand-tinted in peculiarly unnatural colours, and showed a bridal couple in front of a church door, surrounded by relatives. The bride was small and dark and strikingly pretty, while the groom was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, to whose pinstriped suit the colourist had applied a lurid shade of pinky brown.

  ‘That’s my Francy,’ said our hostess. ‘He looks good there, don’t he? Course, he started putting on weight after we was wed. What with his drinking and never doing a hand’s turn of work, he soon spread out.’

  She poked among the other pictures and pulled out a small unmounted print. ‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘That’s just after the war, at Rhyl. One of those photographers on the promenade took it.’

  This time it was just her and Francy. She was still trim and pretty in a bright print frock, but her husband’s habits had thickened his waist and coarsened his features. A resemblance began to nag at the back of my mind.

  ‘What did he do in the war?’ asked Sheila. ‘Was he in the forces?’

  Mrs Cassidy laughed. ‘Not him!’ she said. ‘Not my Francy. He didn’t have to go, through bad feet. They were good enough at taking him to the pub, though, and when the air raid warnings went he was downstairs like a shot.’

  ‘Did he have a civvy job?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was a lorry-driver and there was always jobs for them in the war. Course, he was in and out of jail as well, because he couldn’t keep his hands off his loads, but people was crying out for drivers and somehow he could usually find someone to set him on when he needed a job. And he was in the black market. What with everything being rationed or short, there was plenty of money to make on the black. Food, petrol, clothes, he used to flog them all. He must have made a lot of money one way and another, but what he didn’t drink he gambled away. There was never enough to spare much for me and the kids, not even when he went straight, after the war.’

  She shuffled through the photos again, silent with her reminiscences for a moment.

  ‘That’s him during the war,’ she said, pulling out an eight by ten black and white print. Both Sheila and I were delighted to see that it was a larger version of the Victory group that had been in Walter Brown’s tin box.

  Mrs Cassidy passed it across and we examined it. Now we could see that one of the seated men was Francis Cassidy and in this version the man on the left, who had been incomplete in Walter Brown’s copy, was shown in full, though neither of us recognised him.

  ‘What’s this picture of, Mrs Cassidy?’ Sheila asked.
<
br />   ‘I don’t really know,’ the old lady replied. ‘You can see I wasn’t there. He never took me boozing and that’s him and his brothers and their boozing pals.’

  ‘Is it one of the Victory days?’ I asked. ‘VE or VJ Day?’

  She nodded. ‘I expect that’s right,’ she said. ‘They’ve all got their ration books, ay they? Oh, we thought rationing was all over then. Some folk were so daft they tore up their books on VJ Day. Then they was down the Food Office having to get new ones a day or two after. Some of them had to wait and they was fair desperate.’

  ‘What did you do if you hadn’t got a ration book?’ asked Sheila, her historian’s curiosity aroused.

  ‘You went without, my duck. Or you paid for a black market book if you had the money. By the end of the war you could pay as much as eight or ten pounds for a dodgy ration book, so there wasn’t many poor people saw them. It was only folks with a bob or two could afford them and they’d have second and third books to feed their faces with.’

  ‘Did you say this was Francy and all his pals?’ said I, trying to keep the conversation on course.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they’re all there. All his special mates.’

  She took the photo back and pointed to each figure in turn. ‘There’s Francy,’ she said, ‘and that’s his brother Bernard. He never went straight. He stayed a villain all his days and he died in Armley Prison in his sixties. That’s the other brother, Martin. He was the youngest. He used to go mates with Francy when he had driving jobs. Even when they was bent ones.’

  She chuckled inwardly at a recollection. ‘Do you know how Francy paid for us wedding?’ she asked. ‘He had a driving job for a gang from Brum. With the factories getting ready for the war there was a lot of metal about and they’d heard that Bennetts had a big load of copper they could pinch. Well, they wanted a man as knew the back ways round Belston to drive the lorry, so they asked Francy. He wouldn’t do it just for cash, he stuck out for a share and they give him one, but then it went wrong.’

  ‘How was that?’ asked I.

  ‘Somebody must have talked in the wrong place, I don’t know, but the police got to hear about it before they did it. Well, old Sergeant Reynolds, he come to Francy and questioned him about what he knew about it. Well, Francy wasn’t going to cross up the Brummies, they had a name for being a bit handy with a razor in them days. He just told the sergeant as he day know anything about it. ‘You be sure you don’t,’ says Reynolds, ‘’cos I shall be watching you.’’

  She chuckled again. ‘And he was,’ she said. ‘He put a man on our street day and night. Poor old Francy couldn’t go and put a bet on with Bert at the corner without the copper writing it down in his little black book. But they done it — they had that metal away from Bennetts’ compound and Francy drove the lorry. Old Reynolds came round after, he was spitting blood. ‘We know you done it,’ he said to Francy. Francy just said, ‘If yo knows I done it, I daresay yo’ll be able to prove it then,’ and old Reynolds he went bright red and stormed off.’

  She paused and looked at the wedding photograph. ‘We went to Blackpool after the wedding,’ she said, ‘and it was there Francy told me how he had paid the wedding bills and why we was having a late honeymoon. Well, I used to try not to encourage his thieving and that, but I couldn’t help laughing at the way they did it.’

  ‘How did they do it?’ I asked.

  ‘Francy sat upstairs, at the front window, every night, with the gas off, watching the copper across the street. Course, he was a plainclothes bobby and every night, after the first couple of nights, he’d pop round the corner about nine o’clock and settle in the snug at the Engineers Arms. Well, once Francy was sure of his man, he told the Brummies to come round with their lorry at the back just at nine one night. Soon as the copper went for his pint, Francy was out the back, into the lorry, and they had the job done and Francy back home before the pub shut. That was what made old Reynolds so mad — he knew how they’d done it, but he couldn’t put his hands on Francy without having the story come out.’

  She looked again at the wedding picture, and there was a trace of softness in her smile when she said, ‘And that’s how he paid the wedding bills and our honeymoon. Now he’s gone and Sergeant Reynolds has had the last laugh.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ said I.

  ‘How do I mean? Well, old Reynolds is still about, isn’t he? He lives in Lime Avenue, with his daughter-in-law. He must be nearly a hundred years old by now.’

  This time Sheila tried to steer the conversation. ‘You were telling us about the blokes in the Victory photo,’ she said.

  ‘So I was.’ The little hands picked up the picture again. ‘There’s Francy and Bernard and Martin, like I said. On the left there is Norman Berry, see how sharp he’s dressed. He was all black market, he was. He made pots of money on the black. I calls him Lord Muckamuck, ’cos he always tried to make out he was better than everyone else. Still, he put Francy into a job at Kerrenwood’s and it was the making of him in one way. He give up the drinking and gambling, and he had money — good money. But then he started after women. He wasn’t half the man he’d been when we wed, but he had the money to pull them then and I got sick of it. So we split up, and he bought me out, as you might say. He got me this house and made an allowance for the girls and that was it.’

  She ran a finger over the picture again. ‘There’s George Watson,’ she said. ‘He was a bookie’s runner since before he left school, then he started into thievery. That one at the back, that’s Freddy Thompson. He had a shop, a grocer’s shop, but there was more went under his counter than over. He moved away after the war, so did George. I don’t know where they went, up north I heard. That one there, that’s young Alan Thorpe. He wasn’t such a bad sort, just wild and daft he was. He used to go along with Francy and them just for a laugh. He’s gone, too. He was always one for the girls and they found him dead one morning, in the gulley behind the Belston Arms. He’d been stabbed. They reckoned someone’s husband or boyfriend had laid for him when he came out and settled a score with him.’

  She laid the picture down and I picked it up. ‘Is Martin still alive?’ I enquired.

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He bought a car when the war ended. For a bit he had some kind of chauffeur business, but he never seemed to work at it. Still, he always had money in his pocket and he moved out to Kerrenwood Village. But the car was his end. He went in the canal driving home one Christmas Eve when he’d had too much. But you can’t grieve for them. They was a bad lot who never did anyone but themselves any good, except by accident.’

  She fell silent and I signalled Sheila and stood up. ‘We’ve taken up a lot of your time, Mrs Cassidy,’ I said, ‘and we’re very grateful. There’s just one thing. Do you think I could borrow this picture of the Victory party long enough to get it copied? You can have it back tomorrow.’

  ‘Take it, chuck,’ she said. ‘I don’t need no reminders of that lot. Wrong uns, every one. If it helps you, you take it.’

  She got up and saw us to the door. ‘I’m only sorry I wasn’t more help,’ she said. ‘But I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t reckon your grandpa could have had any doings with Francy and his lot.’

  I had taken a liking to the warm, bright-eyed little woman and, as we walked away, I hoped her dismissals of her former husband had been genuine and would stand her in good stead when she was told that he had been murdered.

  10

  We sat in the Rendezvous, sipping tea and staring at the Victory photo. The two versions lay side by side on the table between us.

  ‘Well,’ said Sheila, ‘you tell me, Chris. Does anything she said make any sense?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m not even sure I can remember all of it.’

  ‘No problems, counsellor,’ she said, brightly, and delved into her capacious shoulder bag. After a quick rummage she pulled out a small black case and put it on the table. ‘There you are,’ she announced tr
iumphantly. ‘The wonders of micro technology. All on tape.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s come to a pretty pass,’ I declared, ‘when little old ladies can’t take tea with a passing historian without being covertly taped. What else have you got in that bag? A brace of six-shooters? A spy camera? Pair of handcuffs?’

  ‘I’d heard you Poms were into kinky sex,’ she said. ‘Just drink your tea and try to keep calm. The old dilly bag is for emergencies — like when people get put off by notebooks and start acting when they can see your tape recorder. You ought to be grateful.’

  ‘Oh, I am, I am,’ I assured her and called to Ruby for some scrap paper. She brought me a six-page letter from the local Health Department and another round of teas.

  Together Sheila and I went through the tape, trying to summarise what Mrs Cassidy had told us. After an hour and more tea we had two pages of notes on the back of Ruby’s correspondence:

  Francis Cassidy

  Married Mrs C in summer 1939 Late honeymoon & wedding pd. for by share of Bennetts’ loot — put it over Sgt Reynolds on Bennetts’ job.

  Wartime: straight & bent driving jobs in and out of jail black market, thieving, gambling young brother Martin as mate on some driving jobs

  At least one big job for a Brummy gang (Bennetts’ copper)

  Post-war: Holiday at Rhyl

  Steady job at Kerrenwood’s (fixed by Norman Berry)

  Good money, womanising

  Divorced 1950s

  Bought Mrs C house in Wellwich, allowance for daughters

  Victory piccy: Francy C

  brother Bernard (died in Armley nick)

  Young brother Martin, had some kind of chauffeur business but didn’t really work at it — drowned in canal

  George Watson (bookie/thief)

  Freddy Thompson (bent grocer)

  Alan Thorpe (‘wild’ — womaniser) stabbed in gulley by B. Arms (when?) vengeful hubby/boyfriend?