The Clockmaker

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘And Joseph Levy saw this, got off the train and went over to them?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector. That’s exactly what he did. And then the train pulled out of the station and my husband remarked that he was a young fool and that he had forgotten his suitcase. No, actually, I think we noticed a little later that he’d forgotten his suitcase. But he’s still a young fool.’

  ‘Was,’ Henry said softly.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s a shame, isn’t it? So I suppose that the one she was arguing with, and his friend, I suppose they did for him.’

  ‘Well, as yet we have no idea about that. Could you describe these two?’

  Mrs Parker huffed. ‘Just ordinary sorts, I’d have said. The one she was arguing with was taller than the girl and quite broad across the shoulders. He had dark hair and wore, I think, a dogtooth-checked jacket or something of that nature. It was quite loud. Young people today – everything has to be loud. The other was shorter and wore a flat cap. That’s all I can tell you. The train pulled out and I would have forgotten about the whole thing if it hadn’t been for the fact that the silly young fool left his suitcase behind and we had to go to the trouble of reporting it.’

  She sighed and set her teacup and saucer down on the table. There was something about her face, the expression in her eyes, that told Henry that she was more upset by this than she was letting on. Mickey seemed to be of the same mind because he waited quietly, and Mrs Parker finally said, ‘We lost so many young men of that age, didn’t we? You must both have been there. It was a waste then and it’s a waste now.’

  She seemed to gather herself then, straightening her back and smoothing her skirt. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Certainly not at the moment,’ Mickey told her. ‘Do you think your husband could add anything to your description?’

  ‘I doubt it. From where I was sitting, I could see down the length of the platform. He was sitting opposite me so could only catch a glimpse of the young man as he went by. I had the better view.’

  Telling Mrs Parker that they would telephone if they needed to speak to her again, they left shortly after. Mickey led the way down the little garden path and held the gate for Henry. Henry latched it silently, aware that Mrs Parker was watching from the window and that she would disapprove of someone who let her gate clang. Then he wished he had done it anyway, just to annoy her.

  ‘I suppose we have a little more information,’ Mickey said as they headed back towards the station. ‘We can now ask about a redheaded young woman and two young men having an argument on the station platform. It’s more likely people would have seen that than a young man simply chasing after a young woman. Most would have seen him and assumed he was just hurrying to catch the train or hurrying somewhere else.’

  ‘Progress of sorts,’ Henry agreed. ‘And it fits with the tall young man who came to fetch the girl from the public house. He stood in the doorway, so those who spotted him had a guide to how he was built. And the other to help him get the body away.’

  ‘I don’t think murder was part of the original plan.’

  ‘No, I agree. So what was the original plan? Was it that they would entice somebody to follow the girl from the train? That seems unlikely, chancy, especially as she didn’t even engage him in conversation. She did very little to attract Joseph Levy’s attention. Apart from just being there and being attractive.’

  ‘And then looking like a damsel in distress,’ Mickey agreed. ‘It seems to me that poor Joseph ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, something went very much awry and he ended up losing his life over it. We should consider those victims of crime that the railway police have recorded. See if any of those involved a young woman and two young men. My betting is they did.’

  ‘Unless,’ Henry paused, the thoughts still formulating. ‘Unless the girl was arguing because she was meant to engage with Joseph Levy. That he was an intended target.’

  ‘Possible, but a less likely scenario, I would think.’

  ‘You’ll be right, I expect,’ Henry said. ‘There is nothing to suggest that he had met this young woman previously, and if he had intended to follow her, surely he would have taken his suitcase as well as his hat.’

  TWELVE

  They arrived back in Bardney to the news that the mortuary ambulance had collected Joseph Levy’s body and was now on the way back to London. The constable, left to witness the handover, told them that the body had been wrapped in oilcloth and then deposited in a lead-lined coffin.

  ‘It was heavy, unpleasant work,’ he commented, although Henry doubted he’d actually got his hands dirty with any of it.

  Taking a tray of tea and sandwiches, designed to fend off hunger until supper, Mickey and Henry withdrew to Henry’s room, the larger of the two. Henry removed his shoes and settled on the bed, his back against the headboard. Mickey took the easy chair and placed the tray on the bed between them.

  Henry had said little on their journey back, and Mickey guessed that he’d been processing the conversation and what they knew so far.

  Mickey had been doing some processing of his own. ‘If that trio has been active along the railway line, targeting likely passengers wherever they find them, then they could have been working anywhere between here and the capital. Back in London, most pickpockets have a patch – except on race days, of course, or during public gatherings when it becomes a free for all – but those who work the lines are a mobile lot, and if they’ve ventured south, it’s possible we have something on record.’

  ‘I think that’s a bit of over-speculation, Mickey,’ Henry commented. ‘Though, I grant you, it would be a stroke of fortune. We must speak to the railway police tomorrow and see where that takes us.’

  Henry closed his eyes for a moment. He was thinking about Abraham and about how long it would take for his nephew’s body to journey back to London. By evening, Joseph would be in the hospital mortuary, and Henry hoped that somebody would have been sent to Abraham to let him know, as he had instructed.

  His mind turned to other matters. ‘I’ve been thinking about the boy from the Elephant mob and about Atkins,’ he said.

  ‘And what about them in particular?’

  ‘What if this presages greater trouble than we first thought? Atkins hinted that although he considers himself secure, there is a state of flux and others manoeuvring for power. We could do without a resurgence of the gang violence of a few years ago when the likes of Sabini and his crew dominated.’

  ‘We all thought that Sabini had had his teeth drawn, and while it’s true he is basing his operations further south, I don’t like the fact that he’s been back up in London and that he’s a friend of Atkins any more than you do. The man to ask, of course, would be Ted Greeno. If there have been any whispers, then Ted would know.’

  ‘Greeno’s expertise is with the race gangs,’ Henry objected mildly.

  ‘And is there any gang violence that is not obliquely connected to horse racing? That’s where the money is – the big betting and the razor gangs.’

  Henry acknowledged that. ‘Greeno has been posted to the Flying Squad, I believe. I’ll send word that we could do with a meeting when we get back.’

  Mickey grinned at him. ‘You’ve no liking for the man, have you? He’s rough around the edges, but he’s a good copper. Gets results.’

  ‘And as the Flying Squad themselves admit, rounding up pickpockets on race days is like picking cherries in a cherry orchard.’ Henry paused, knowing that he was being ungenerous. Greeno, he remembered, had started out in the East End, in Whitechapel, although he was a country boy like around seventy per cent of those recruited into the Metropolitan Police. Before being seconded to the Flying Squad he’d been working out of Leman Street, and Greeno had a knowledge of those on his patch and a memory for faces that Henry knew was unmatched.

  ‘I suppose I just don’t understand why he is still in the job,’ he confessed. ‘Here is a man who, according to rumour, can make his year’s salary in a week of good bet
ting. Greeno knows his horses like he knows his criminals. If I’m honest, it baffles me that he continues to work when he could be a man of leisure. He’s one of the few men I know of who could make a comfortable living as a professional gambler.’

  ‘Most of his winnings go to pay informants,’ Mickey chuckled. ‘He has one of the biggest networks of snouts and squealers since … Well, anyway. I doubt anyone has done it as well as Ted. And as to why he stays, I think he just likes the chase.’

  ‘And the capture. He’s not above using his fists to get a confession.’

  ‘And he’s not the only one you can say that about, Henry. Like it or not, he’ll be snapping at our heels in Central Office before you or I know it, and my betting is that he’ll pass us both at a run. DS Ted Greeno has his eye on bigger prizes.’

  Henry took his cigarette case and lighter from his jacket pocket, stroking the smooth brass of the case and the even smoother silver of the lighter. The cigarette case, handmade by its original owner, had belonged to a friend, lost in the mud of 1916. The lighter was a gift from his sister and, unlike the case, was engraved with Henry’s name. ‘Eat first, then smoke,’ Mickey chided him. ‘You’ve had nothing since breakfast.’

  Reluctantly, Henry selected a sandwich and bit into it.

  ‘Ham and English mustard,’ Mickey told him. ‘Not too bad at all, though I do rather fancy a pie and a pint just now. I hope supper will meet my needs on that score.’

  For a while they ate in silence. ‘The boy who got hurt,’ Henry said, and it took Mickey a moment to realize he had returned to the subject of the kid from the Elephant mob. ‘He’d been cut with a razor. Swore blind he’d just fallen through a window, but once you’ve seen those wounds, you always recognize them.’

  ‘Not so unusual for the victim to be in denial, though. And, of course, he’d claim to have no idea who’d done it.’

  ‘Oh, none at all,’ Henry agreed. ‘But I never reckoned on it being Clem Atkins’ style.’

  ‘Does he have a style? In my book, he’s still figuring all that out. He may have taken over from Josiah Bailey and the transition might have been smoother than most such takeovers, but he’s still on probation, still got to make his mark.’ Mickey barked with laughter at the unconscious half-joke, then helped himself to another sandwich.

  Henry nodded thoughtfully. Straight razors were the weapon of choice for some, but they killed too easily. Most of the razor boys embedded a blade in a thick piece of rubber. This not only made the blade easier to handle but limited the depth of strike, making it less likely to kill. Men wounded by the razor gangs were left with a criss-cross of scars, most often on the face – scars they were never able to hide. Marked for life, unwilling to talk but still able to earn – and therefore to pay protection or to serve as an example to others. A dead man was an unprofitable one. A dead man was more likely to lead to the hangman’s noose because the full force of law was brought to bear in a murder case. The walking wounded refused to speak, often reluctant even to report the attack, often just nursed at home, so the first the police knew of it was when the half-healed man returned to the streets or to the track, denying there was anything wrong. Denying anything worse than a minor accident.

  Such incidents had become less common of late, and Henry very much wished to keep it that way.

  ‘Have you ever attended a Jewish funeral?’ Mickey asked him.

  ‘No, and I don’t plan on actually attending this one. Being there, yes, but where we can observe. I’ve no wish to intrude further on the family’s grief.’

  ‘Not to mention your dislike of religious services.’

  ‘I go at Christmas.’

  ‘Because Cynthia likes the carol service.’

  ‘You only attend when Belle is home,’ Henry returned.

  ‘True. When is Cynthia coming back?’

  Henry paused, finally lighting his cigarette. ‘I don’t know. I think she’s trying to keep Albert from gambling away what parts of the family fortune he can still get his hands on. He’s not as astute as Ted Greeno.’

  ‘Maybe Ted should try the stock market.’

  ‘I think he likes to see the flesh he’s betting on. See the way it moves,’ Henry suggested. ‘But I don’t think he could do worse than Albert.’

  Mickey helped himself to one of Henry’s cigarettes and lit it with his own lighter. ‘You’re really worried about this?’

  ‘I know Cynthia is. Albert is a good man and he’s an astute businessman in those areas he understands – manufacturing, markets, production of commodities – but he’s also easily flattered and, like most of us, I suppose, reluctant to lose face, so he tends to take risks, to believe in the get-rich-quick blags. It’s too easy to end up in queer street.’

  ‘Your sister will sort him out,’ Mickey said complacently. ‘What did you make of Mrs Parker?’

  ‘I’d be interested to know how much Mr Parker actually noticed. I would make a bet that it was far more than his wife thinks or chooses to think, at any rate. But I doubt they can be more help to us.’

  ‘So Joseph takes a fancy to the young woman, sees her in trouble and decides to play gallant knight. Assumes he will have time to get back on to the train – hence he leaves his bag behind – but falls foul of the young man or men she is arguing with.’

  ‘And so was the argument staged?’

  ‘Stage an argument just on the off chance that some young man, who might have some money, will leave the train to go to the girl’s rescue? No. In my book, that’s as unlikely as to be a write-off. It also seems so damnably foolish. The train halts at Bardney to drop off and pick up – a matter of minutes. Had he decided to rush to someone’s aid, then any sensible person would have grabbed their suitcase and taken it with them, dealt with the incident and caught the next train.’

  ‘Perhaps Joseph Levy was not a sensible young man. Perhaps – just perhaps – he had more emotional investment than we credit. We don’t know that this is the first time he’d laid eyes on this young woman. He’d made the journey several times before. It’s possible that so had she.’

  ‘Mrs Parker didn’t seem to think they knew one another,’ Mickey objected mildly.

  ‘No, but if I had been trying to keep a relationship secret, I would certainly have been careful around a woman like Mrs Parker. Even if she did look as though she had her nose stuck in a book.’

  Mickey helped himself to the last sandwich and leaned back in his chair, gazing out of the window at the darkening sky. ‘I’m not a fan of this time of year,’ he said. ‘It’s damp and it’s muddy and it can’t make up its mind what it’s going to do half the time.’

  Henry laughed. ‘Well, there is little more we can do tonight,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow we speak to the railway police and we look at the records they’ve identified for us of the victims of pickpockets. And we will see if any of these incidents involved a redheaded girl. Or a girl with hair of any other colour, for that matter. Wigs and hair dye are easy enough to obtain. And then it’s on to speak to the fiancée’s family. See if Joseph Levy and his young woman were as close and as content as his uncle would have us believe.’

  THIRTEEN

  There had been specialist police forces on the canals, docklands and railways for almost as long as a police force had existed, and in the early days of the railway police the duties had extended to being pointsmen or signalmen as well as their wider remit to ensure the safety of railway travel.

  Sergeant Terry, however, was more concerned with the safety of individuals and he laid before them a stack of neatly typewritten pages and three handwritten logbooks. ‘This represents the last six months,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure what you actually needed and collated everything I could that relates to robberies, both in transit and at the stations. These documents, gentlemen, cover the main line between Lincoln and Peterborough and the Witham Loop. I can allocate a constable to assist you …’

  Mickey eyed the stack of paper dubiously. He wasn’t sure if Sergeant Terry was gen
uinely trying to be of assistance or equally genuinely just trying to pass on his problems elsewhere.

  ‘I would welcome an overview,’ Henry said. ‘You mentioned three cases in particular. Do any of the gentlemen involved remember a red-haired woman as part of the gang?’

  Terry pursed his lips and separated out a number of pages from the top of the stack. ‘These are the ones I mentioned to you, and these three gentlemen have agreed to be interviewed. I must tell you, Inspector, there are others, but our victims are very reluctant to come forward in the first place and extremely reluctant to make formal statements. Anyone can have their pockets picked. But when there are extenuating circumstances, embarrassment overcomes good sense.’

  Henry waited while the younger officer ordered his thoughts.

  ‘An older gentleman, approached by an attractive young woman, gets into conversation and is, shall we say, distracted and finds himself jostled as he gets off the train or as he walks across the station platform. When he turns to look, the woman in question is gone, and so is his wallet. You’ll find within these records several such incidents, but the three gentlemen I have here don’t mention any such distraction. Which isn’t to say that it didn’t exist.

  ‘So, you understand why I have put together such a daunting-looking …’ He faltered and gestured at the stack. ‘There may well be other cases, but these seem most like the one you asked me to think about. To be truthful, the evidence in most of these is scanty and ill written, taken by constables or station masters, or in some cases by guards on the train. They took details of what was stolen and the names and addresses of the victim and a line or two of detail of what led up to the misadventure. Some complainants were angry; many were distressed, and that distress is exacerbated by embarrassment either at having been taken for a fool or at having to deal with making a report. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, Inspector, that the general public is glad we are around but they don’t want to come within an arm’s length of a uniformed officer. They feel it reflects badly on them.’