by James R Benn
“There are puddles on the path along the canal,” Payne said. “Could have come from there. The ground is hardpacked, though, no footprints. So, off with you, Higgins. Lieutenant Kazimierz, perhaps you should wait outside, to keep up the appearance of a purely American involvement.”
“Excellent idea, Inspector,” Kaz said. His British uniform with the Poland shoulder patch would only raise questions we couldn’t answer. “I will wait for the coroner and search Neville’s pockets, if you don’t mind.”
“Have at him,” Payne said. “Give whatever you find to Constable Gilbert.”
“When you’re done, Kaz, take a walk along the canal and check things out. Neville and his assailant probably came from that direction.”
I followed the inspector inside. The aroma of coffee and cigarette smoke hung in the air. I entered the kitchen as Payne tromped down the hall to use the telephone.
“Sir!” A US Army Air Force buck sergeant stood to attention. His eyes were wide, his expression fearful, but his posture was good. He looked nineteen, twenty tops.
“Relax, soldier,” I said, focusing on the Millers, who sat at the kitchen table, eyeing me. “I’m Captain Billy Boyle. Would you mind answering a few more questions?”
“Yes, certainly,” George Miller said, nodding in excessive agreement. His English was good but the accent was perceptible, the same as the potbelly stretching the buttons on his vest. “Anything we can do to help. This is a terrible business.”
“Please, sit down, Captain. May I offer you coffee?” Carla Miller looked at me expectantly. Her English was also good, clipped with a British accent, either picked up here or from the person who taught her. She had a healthy look about her, ruddy cheeks, fair skin, and blonde hair shot through with strands of grey.
“Thank you, Mrs. Miller, that would be nice.” I sat, and motioned for my fellow Yank to sit as well. I wanted them at ease, and the best way to do that was to make this a social call. Coffee and chitchat about the dead guy outside.
“A terrible business,” Carla Miller said, busying herself with a cup and saucer. “Who could do such a thing to poor Mr. Neville?”
“And why, that’s what I wonder,” George Miller said. “There must be a lunatic loose. It makes no sense.” George lit a cigarette, after offering me one. A Lucky Strike. I said no, and made a mental note that Sergeant Jerome Sullivan was no dummy, bringing gifts of scarce smokes and java to his girlfriend’s parents. George shook his head sadly, blowing blue smoke in every direction.
“He was a boarder here?” I asked as Carla set a cup of steaming coffee in front of me. It would be impolite to ask for sugar with wartime rationing, unless that luxury was included among Jerome’s gifts.
“Yes. Mr. Neville has been with us over a year now,” Carla said, her accent almost musical in its cadence. “Or was.”
“Where was he employed?”
“At the Newbury Building Society, over on Bartholomew Street,” George said. “He handled mortgages and construction loans. This caused him to travel fairly often, never for long, but with little notice. It was why he liked keeping a room here.”
“You have other boarders?”
“Just one at the moment. A fellow named Nigel Morris. He is traveling on business out Bristol way, I think. He works for a firm that manufactures radios. He’s been with us only a few weeks.”
“George is fixing up our only other room, Captain,” Carla said. “He is always making improvements to the house.”
“Was Neville in his room last night?” I asked.
“His bed was not slept in, no,” Carla said. “We did not see him yesterday evening, but that was not unusual with his schedule. He would normally let us know when he expected to be here for dinner, and when we did not hear from him, we naturally thought he was away on business.”
“What about you, Sergeant Sullivan? Were you acquainted with Neville?”
“Yes, sir, I was. Can I leave now, Captain? I just came over for a quick visit, I can’t be away all day.” Sullivan looked worried, but not about a murder charge.
“Not quite yet, Sergeant. No pass?”
“No. We were supposed to have flight training this morning, but it got canceled due to cloud cover, so I came over for a quick visit. I should be back by now.”
“How much coffee did you bring? Or should I say steal?” It was time to shake things up. A man was dead and everyone was too polite for the circumstances.
“It was just a little gift,” Sullivan said. “I traded for it at the base, honest.”
“The sergeant has done nothing wrong,” Carla said. “He is a good boy.”
“Good boys don’t trade in black market cigarettes and coffee. I don’t think things would go well for a nice German couple to be accused of trafficking in the black market.”
“Hey, hold on, Captain,” Sullivan said.
“No, no, Jerome. Do not get yourself in trouble,” George said. “It is true, Captain Boyle, that I have a weakness for the Lucky Strike cigarettes. Jerome does not smoke, so he shares his with me. As for the coffee, on occasion he does bring some. Very often he eats with us, and brings food. Many American soldiers do so, given the rationing. You Americans have so much of everything, don’t you?” George Miller was not a man to rattle easily. Maybe opposing and then escaping the Nazis had something to do with that.
“What I have so much of right now is an American soldier at the scene of a murder. As long as he had nothing to do with it, I don’t care if he carries sacks of coffee under each arm when he comes here. So tell me now, Sergeant Sullivan. Did you and Stuart Neville ever argue about anything? Did he ask about supplies from the base, ask you to bring him anything on the side?” I fired off my questions with a practiced hard stare, looking for any sign of nervousness. A twitch or blink, any show of fear.
“No, nothing like that, Captain, really,” Sullivan said, wide-eyed with naïve innocence. “He asked me a lot about America, but then everyone does. I’m from Kansas, and he wanted to know about our farm, that sort of thing. He never asked me for anything, and we never had a beef.”
“Beef?” Carla said.
“They never argued,” I said. “Did Neville have any visitors? Did he have a girlfriend?”
“No, he was a quiet man,” she said. “He worked with numbers, financial numbers. He was quite busy with loans for all the repairs and rebuilding from the bombings. He worked long hours, and was gone two or three nights during the week.”
“He wasn’t in the service? He looked young enough.”
“Punctured eardrum, he told me,” Sullivan said.
“How do people here treat you?” I asked the Millers. “I imagine some folks don’t like having Germans in the neighborhood, no matter what your politics were.”
“It is not bad, especially after what we endured in Germany. Once the brownshirts have assaulted you, a few comments in the street are nothing. We came here before the war, you see, and that allowed us to get to know people. And they us.”
“So there’s no one with a serious grudge against you?”
“No. Do you mean I might have been the target, not poor Mr. Neville?” George looked astounded at the idea, Carla frightened.
“It’s something to think about. It was dark, he was at the rear of your house. Any idea what he was doing out there?”
“No. Perhaps he took the path along the canal and was returning from work.”
“Or from the pub,” Sullivan said. “He stopped at the Hog’s Head once in a while. I mentioned that to the inspector.”
“I’m sure he’ll check that out. Mrs. Miller, I assume Neville had given you his ration book, since he took his meals here.”
“Yes, of course. He enjoyed my cooking very much. He said it was nice to have a home-cooked meal after traveling as he did.” He was the perfect roomer. The Millers got use of his ration coupons but he ate many of his meals away.
“What about your daughter, Mr. Miller? Is she in the house?”
“Yes.
The inspector spoke to her and told her she could go about her duties. She helps us with the rooms, keeping them clean. She’s tidying up Mr. Neville’s room now.”
“Show me, please,” I said, standing up. “Have the police checked his room?”
“This way,” Carla said, taking the stairs at the back of the house. “Yes, the police went through it already. I thought we should organize things in case a relative wants his possessions.”
I bit back a comment about overly efficient Germans and followed her up to the third floor. Payne likely gave the room a thorough search, but I’d feel better if I had my own shot at it. One of my dad’s favorite sayings-and he had a lot of them-was if you wanted something done right, don’t wait for someone else to do it. And since he’d taught me everything I knew about being a cop and a homicide detective, I thought I ought to follow what advice I could remember.
“Eva, this is Captain Boyle, he’d like to look at the room,” Carla said, standing with her hand on the doorknob.
“Yes, Mother,” Eva said, bundling up sheets stripped from the bed in her arms. She was fair-haired, with a spread of freckles across her face. A bit on the short side, with an intelligent look in her eyes, even as they avoided my gaze. And her mother’s. She stared down at the floor, in sadness or obedience, perhaps.
“Hello, Eva,” I said, trying to ease the tension.
“Hello, Captain. Are you going to find who killed Mr. Neville?”
“I hope so. I’m sure Inspector Payne is working as hard as he can on it. I’m here to help.”
“The police can use the help,” Eva said. “There’s some girl gone missing and most of them are out looking for her. I think they’d rather find her than look for whoever murdered Mr. Neville.”
“Eva, don’t say such a thing,” her mother said.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Eva had no trace of a German accent. Her voice was pure English schoolgirl. “If there’s a chance of finding that poor girl alive, why wouldn’t they send all their men out to look for her? Mr. Neville is dead already.”
“Finding whoever killed him is important too,” I said, although I liked her logic. “Especially if we can stop him from killing again. Do you know the missing girl?”
“No, I only heard about it at school yesterday. She’s one of the evacuees living in that manor house outside Kintbury.”
“There are several large houses in the area where the children were put up,” Carla said. “They were evacuated from London when the Blitz was at its worst. Some have gone back to the city now that the bombing has lessened. Perhaps the poor dear tried to find her way home.”
“Oh no, she wasn’t from London,” Eva said. “She was with that group from Guernsey. She had no place to go back to.” Guernsey was one of the Channel Islands occupied by the Germans. When the war began, many of the children were brought to the mainland in case the Germans took the islands, which they had done with ease.
“Be that as it may,” Carla said firmly, “take the washing down and let Captain Boyle look at what he wants.”
“Has anything else been removed?” I asked.
“No, I just hung up a shirt that was on the chair, and cleaned up a bit. In case any relatives come for his things, I wanted it to look nice,” Eva said.
“Was Mr. Neville a nice man? I mean the friendly sort.”
“A bit reserved, wouldn’t you say, dear?” Carla said. “Like most of the English.”
“Perhaps,” Eva said. “But he didn’t talk to me like most adults. Treating me like a little kid, I mean. I am eighteen years old, you know.”
“Just last week, you were,” her mother said with a smile, ushering her daughter out. “Don’t rush things, Eva.”
They left me alone in Neville’s room. Searching a dead man’s place was never a favorite pastime. It didn’t bother some guys, but the little things people left behind always got to me. Change on the dresser. An unfinished book. All the possessions we think will be waiting when we return but only point to the uncertainty of life and the sureness of death.
The room was long and narrow, with a dresser on the wall to the left of the door. Next to it was an armchair, a bit worse for wear, but well placed. It faced the double windows on the opposite wall, which had an excellent view of the canal and the town beyond it. A church steeple crept above the rooftops, barely above the chimneys spouting grimy coal smoke. I watched a rowboat in the canal, the rower paddling idly as the current took him. A bed stood by the other wall, with a nightstand and lamp. Past the bed was a closet, and I opened the door to find a pair of shoes, slippers, and old boots. Neville had two suits hanging neatly, next to a few shirts and a couple of pairs of older trousers. A raincoat and a heavy winter overcoat filled out his wardrobe. After several years of strict clothes rationing, most Englishmen were making do as Neville obviously was. The suits were well-worn, a few faint stains and patches showing their age. I went through the pockets and found nothing but lint and a ticket stub for the Great Western Railway, Newbury to Cheltenham. Made sense, from what I knew of his job.
The book on his nightstand was Pied Piper, by Nevil Shute. Kaz had a copy in his suite at the Dorchester, and I’d started it myself a few days ago. It was about an English gent stuck in France at the beginning of the war, trying to get himself and a bunch of kids safely to England. Neville had gotten farther than I had, but I had a better shot at finishing it. I hoped.
I sat in his chair. I looked out the window, then at the one picture on the wall, a standard country scene. The wood floors were polished and clean, no dust anywhere. It looked like it would take about ten minutes to move Neville’s stuff out and get the place ready for a new tenant. I got up and checked the dresser drawers. Nothing but clothing. Stuart Neville appeared to be a man with few needs. He had a job, a room with a pleasant view, and friendly housekeepers. No pictures of family, no smokes, none of the debris of everyday life a working man might pick up and leave behind. I wondered what his office was like, and what he kept there. I checked the closet one more time, and noticed a clothes hanger had fallen on the floor. It seemed oddly out of place, which made me think.
I took the stairs quietly and darted into the scullery, which opened onto the backyard. Eva was pouring hot water into a dolly tub, a big metal-rimmed tub for doing laundry. The bed sheets were in the tub, but hanging from a peg was a blue serge suit.
“Oh, Captain,” Eva said, stepping in front of the clothing as if I might not notice.
“Did you take anything else?” I asked. “I don’t care about the suit, although his relatives may.”
“No,” she said, her eyes downcast. “Just this. I thought I might take it out a bit and it would fit Father nicely. He’s had nothing new since the rationing, and Mr. Neville told me he had no close relatives. I was worried the police would take everything away. I’m sorry.” That last bit was drawn out as if she was talking to an idiot, which meant she wasn’t sorry at all, and that I should stop being so mean.
“Don’t worry,” I said, going through the pockets and coming up empty. “Did Mr. Neville tell you anything else that you forgot to mention?”
“Yes. To be careful and not go out at night alone. He said the world was a dangerous place, and that I should watch out for myself. He was very serious about it. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mama, it would only worry her.”
“He was right about the world,” I said. “It was good advice.”
“What should I do with the suit?”
“I’m not your conscience, kid. Do whatever you can live with.”
CHAPTER NINE
It wasn’t like I was a stranger to valuables vanishing from a crime scene. I’d never take a treasured family possession, but I do recall nicking a smoked ham once, from the house of a guy who’d taken two slugs to the back of the head. He was a mobster, lived alone, and I figured no one would mind since he had about a dozen of them hanging down in the cellar. Depending on the circumstances, I could live with certain small appliances, f
oodstuff, clothing and whatnot walking away. One suit from a guy who either had no family or didn’t care about them was a long way from crossing my line. I’d admired Eva’s initiative, but felt like I had to play the tough guy.
I wasn’t feeling so tough as I looked for Sergeant Sullivan, given that I was investigating a murder and had instead uncovered a kid pinching a dead man’s suit for her paunchy old man. I found Sullivan in the parlor, leafing through a copy of a film magazine with David Niven on the cover.
“It’s Eva’s,” he said, tossing it aside. “She loves the moving pictures. We’re supposed to see The Way Ahead, the new David Niven film, tonight. But I’ll be in Dutch with my CO for not getting back on time.”
“Yeah, you got it rough, Sullivan. Tell me, how’d you get along with Neville?”
“Everyone calls me Sully, Captain.”
“Okay, Sully. What did Neville call you?”
“We hardly exchanged a dozen words. I’m here to see Eva, so I stay in the kitchen most times. I had dinner with the family once when he was here, but he mainly talked with Mr. Miller. He was okay, I guess.”
“He ever give Eva a hard time?”
“You mean come on to her? Hell, Captain, he was an older guy. Forty, maybe.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Eva’s a pretty gal. You certain she never said anything?”
“No, she didn’t. What, do you think he pulled a fast one and she … oh, wait, I get it. You think I clobbered him, huh?”
“You’d have every right to be mad about a guy making a move on your girl. Him living under the same roof and all.”
“No, he didn’t pull anything. And you got a suspicious mind, Captain.”
“Goes with the territory. Anything out of the ordinary happen around here lately? Break-ins, strangers prowling around?”
“No, just that missing girl they’re all looking for. It’s the talk of the town.”
“Did Neville ever go out boating on the canal?”
“Jeez, Captain, I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping tabs on the guy.”