by Jason De'Ath
“Has anyone used the room since?” probed Ackroyd.
“Not according to the records – no... And before that, there was no one for a week...”
“Where exactly did you find the cases?” asked Ackroyd quizzically whilst scanning the ledger.
“One was on the floor under the armchair; the other was lodged at the back of the chair behind the cushion.” “Were they obvious?”
“No, not really. I only looked under the chair because I thought it was damaged... Mrs Sanchez found the one on the chair –” then quickly added: “she didn’t touch it, though.”
Ackroyd studied the ledger entries for the bookings covering the night of the 30th and 31st of July, noting the one for John Holliday [Pederson] in Room 8 on the 30th. “I think you had better show me these rooms.” he concluded.
Inspection of Room 8 revealed little: a single bed, a wooden chair, a chest of draws and a lamp. The hotel was on three levels; Room 8 was the on the first floor – which was effectively the basement, though it actually overlooked a garden at the back. Room 26 was on the top floor and contained two single beds and a double bed; several chests of draws with lamps, a double wardrobe, a large mirror, two wooden chairs and an armchair.
“Are the rooms locked when not in use?” asked Ackroyd.
“Well, they are supposed to be.” replied Storrington, “But I wouldn’t have relied on the Jacobsens to do anything correctly.”
“Was it locked when you checked the room on Monday?”
“Yes... Actually, I’m not sure.”
“So, it is possible that anyone could have accessed Room 26 at any time?”
“Yes – I suppose so. That shouldn’t happen normally, though.”
They returned to the foyer, where Mrs Sanchez and DS Cambridge were now waiting.
“Mrs Sanchez, I presume?” posited Ackroyd, offering to shake her hand; she duly complied. “Where is your husband?”
“He asleep.” she answered in a Spanish accent, “We been working split shift since Jacobsen’s leave.” “What exactly did they do?”
“Help out; clean.” replied Mrs Sanchez a little bewildered.
“It’s okay Mrs Sanchez, you’re not in any trouble. We’re just making enquiries into a few of your guests.” explained Ackroyd, sensing Mrs Sanchez’s unease.
“Yes, I give statement already.”
“I know, but we will need to ask you to make another statement.” Mrs Sanchez glanced at Storrington momentarily looking for support, “Do you recall a Mr Holliday?” Ackroyd continued.
“Yes. He stay one night.”
“Did you actually see him?”
“Yes. In afternoon, about half past two.”
“When – on the Friday, or the Saturday?”
“Saturday, when check out.”
“So, you never saw him at any time prior to that?”
“No.”
Ackroyd looked thoughtfully at Cambridge, realising that the only witnesses that could confirm Pederson’s alibi were the extremely dubious Jacobsens and that he could have potentially left the cartridge cases in Room 26 – but of course, there was no evidence that he had ever been in Room 26.
“Teddy, get some of the boys down here to check for fingerprints in Room 26 and search this hotel from top to bottom
– with your blessing, of course, Mr Storrington?”
“Of course, of course – I’m happy to help any way I can.”
“We will need to speak with Mr Sanchez, too.” added Ackroyd with a pointed glance to Mrs Sanchez: “I wake him.” she responded, and scuttled away.
The hotel was subsequently turned upside down in the pursuance of the police search, while Storrington and the Sanchez couple were taken over their accounts several times and their statements taken in relation to the cartridge cases, the Jacobsens and Pederson. It was late in the afternoon before Ackroyd was ready to leave the Verona Hotel armed with a list of other guests who had stayed in the hotel around the 30th/31st July and the addresses they had given; they also had a lead on where the Jacobsen’s had gone: apparently, Linda Jacobsen had told Mrs Sanchez that they were going to stay with her sister-in-law in Clerkenwell (Central London), who ran a junk shop in the Clerkenwell Road. It didn’t take the detectives very long to track down the shabby little junk shop, with its accommodation above, where the Jacobsens had taken temporary refuge. The owner was Dora Maccawley who was known to the police as an occasional fence. She was not exactly overjoyed at the presence of two Metropolitan Police detectives on her property, but reluctantly showed them to the room where her in-laws were “dossing”, as she put it. Cambridge hammered purposefully on the door; Derick Jacobsen opened the door a crack and immediately recognised Ackroyd, whereupon he quickly shut the door again. A commotion was audible from outside, along with a definite hint of profanity; a moment or so later, the door swung open to reveal the Jacobsens standing just inside the door trying hard to appear angelic.
“Evening Mr Jacobsen; Mrs Jacobsen.” greeted Ackroyd.
“We’ve done our statements.” protested Derick.
“Yes, I know. May we come in?” requested Ackroyd politely.
“Wha’s it about, now?” Derick continued to complain.
“This is a murder enquiry, Mr Jacobsen, we have to be thorough.” interjected Cambridge firmly.
“There’s been an important development and we need to go over your accounts, again.” explained Ackroyd.
Letting the detectives in to the small bedsit, Derick scratched his head, saying: “Fing is, right, me memory’s gettin’ a bit fuzzy.”
“I see.” said Ackroyd mistrustfully, “Teddy, can you help Mr Jacobsen with that?” DS Cambridge emerged from behind
Ackroyd, his massive physical presence towering ominously over the rather scrawny Derick Jacobsen; for a moment, the Jacobsens were braced for some sort of violent exhibition of the detective’s obvious strength, before he pulled from his pocket two screwed up five pound notes, placing them down on a table beside Mrs Jacobsen. “So, Derick, can you help us out here?”
The Jacobsens were escorted to Scotland Yard to make separate statements: DC Pawson presided over Derick Jacobsen’s description of events. As Jacobsen was semi-illiterate, Pawson wrote down the statement for him.
“Yeah, um, finking back, now, me first statement might ‘ave been a bit wrong – now I’ve ‘ad a chance to fink about it an’ all.” started Derick as a way of explaining what he was now about to recall.
“So, then Mr Jacobsen, shall I say you are rescinding your original statement and replacing it with this new one?” “Eh?”
“You want to replace the original statement with a new one.” “Yeah – tha’s it.” Derick confirmed with a sniff.
“Okay, tell me what you remember about Mr Holliday’s movements on the 30th and 31st of July this year.” instructed Pawson.
It took a few seconds for this to compute, before Jacobsen launched into his account: “There was a phone call early afternoon on the Friday. A geezer callin’ ‘imself ‘Olliday wanted t’book a room for that night. But we didn’ ‘ave any singles available, so I said ‘e could ‘ave Room 26, but it’d cost ‘im £2 11s 6d unless I got anuver booking for that room – to share, like. But if a single came free, ‘e could transfer; so ‘e agreed to make a deposit of a quid and pay the rest if necessary... ‘E came in about an hour or so later to pay the deposit an’ I gave ‘im the key to number 26. Then ‘e took ‘is bag up an’ left it in the room; ‘e said ‘e would be comin’ in late, an’ if anuver room was free, t’leave a note an’ not wait up. Tha’s what we did.”
“Did another room become available?”
“Yeah: Room 8. Some woman cancelled.”
“Do you know what time Mr Holliday booked-in that night?”
“Nah. We went abed about eleven firty. Like I says before, I didn’ see ‘im ‘til about nine the nex’ mornin’...”
Linda Jacobsen’s statement essentially substantiated Derick’s – though mainly due
to its’ vagueness – and the upshot of this was that a warrant for Alfred Pederson’s [aka John Holliday] arrest was issued late that evening, together with a press release to the effect that Freddy was now the prime suspect, and most wanted – as they had not been able to trace him via his mother – which would appear in the morning editions of most of the nationals. Meanwhile, further investigations into the other guests in attendance at the Verona Hotel (during the pertinent period) were continued by Ackroyd’s team.
Detective Superintendent Roger Ackroyd went home that night feeling a fairly satisfied man: finally they had something to connect Pederson to the Marsholm Wood murder and rape; the next step would be to conduct an identity parade with Pederson, this time in front of Vera Fable.
Chapter Thirteen
(13 August 1965)
Friday the 13th for the superstitious is not generally considered to be the most auspicious of days; fortunately, Ackroyd was not prone to such irrationality. The previous day he had attended Gregg Mason’s funeral at St. Mary’s Church in Marlow (just outside Maidenhead) – Marlow was Gregg’s place of birth. It had been a quiet affair: the event had been kept a close secret with the press having not been informed. Vera was not considered well enough to attend, though she was making excellent progress; however, it would be a while yet before an identity parade would be allowed at the hospital.
The cartridge cases discovered at the Verona Hotel had been forensically analysed and confirmed to have come from the murder weapon, (though no identifiable fingerprints could be found). Armed with this evidence and the new statements by the Jacobsens, Alfred Pederson had become public enemy number one, but had yet to surface. In the meantime, the other guests who had been resident at the Verona during the pertinent period were being investigated. Most had now been traced and eliminated from the enquiry; there was one notable exception, that being the guest who had been the occupant of Room 26 (where the cartridge cases were found) on night of the 29th July, the day prior to the inception of the crime. That individual had given his name as ‘A. Johnson’; the address given was supposed to be in Harrow, but had proved not to exist. Therefore, this mystery person was of considerable interest to the investigation. The probablyfalse name had not thus far yielded any connection to any known person, so that avenue of enquiry was currently a dead end.
The witness who had been the ESSO garage attendant in Staines had finally been traced, but could not recall noticing anyone sitting in the back of the car. Several witnesses had reported sightings of the Singer on the Saturday morning in the Mortlake and Fulham areas and noted that it was being driven erratically; several of those witnesses had fleeting glances of the driver, enabling them to provide descriptions – these roughly tallied with Vera’s. The Italian woman who had been serving in the chip shop had still not been traced: they were beginning to suspect she was an illegal immigrant and may not have even left the country, but had now gone into hiding. The garage attendant at the Esher service station hadn’t noticed anything suspicious, so had nothing of use to offer the police. It was still unclear whether they had stopped for petrol anywhere else. In essence, Vera was still the only valuable witness, yet remained frustratingly out of reach, such that they had been unable to glean any further information from her.
In the absence of the prime suspect, Ackroyd decided to bring in Mrs Pederson – Freddy’s mother – for an interview, to determine whether she knew anything that might be of use to the enquiry. She was collected by DS Cambridge and brought to Scotland Yard at just after 2 PM. Ackroyd wanted to speak to her himself, first priming her with a nice cup of tea. When she was nicely settled, he began his subtle interrogation.
“Mrs Pederson...” started Ackroyd.
“Josephine – call me Josephine.” she sweetly insisted.
“Yes, right, Josephine. I’d like to talk to you about your son, Alfred. You know that we are trying to trace him in connection with the Marsholm murder...”
“Freddy wouldn’t do anything like that.” she interrupted.
“Well, that’s what we need to find out, and I need your help.”
“I know he’s been in trouble before, but it’s just other people getting him into trouble: they’re jealous, you see.”
“Freddy has convictions for theft, fraud and for causing a public nuisance. He’s been to prison a number of times, hasn’t he?”
“Horrible people lead him astray; he’s too trusting. But he’s going to be a priest.” “A priest?” challenged Ackroyd, somewhat sceptical.
“He’s going to study theology.”
“Right, yes, he’s mentioned this. Has he actually got a place at a college?”
“Oooh I don’t know.” she replied uncertainly, “He’s very academic, you know. Theology, philosophy, poetry – he’s very clever. He’s got lots of books.”
“How old is Freddy?” asked Ackroyd in an attempt to move the dialogue away from Mrs Pederson’s proclivity to adulation of her son.
“He’s thirty. The third of March 1935 – such a lovely baby...”
“Where is your husband?”
“Ernst died during the war, Mr Ackroyd.” she said solemnly.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Josephine. Was he killed in action?”
“No, he was killed in the blitz.”
“I see. Was Freddy close to his father?”
“Oh yes. He misses him terribly. I think that’s what made him mix with the wrong crowd.”
“I was more of the impression he was a loner. All his convictions are for offences committed alone; no one else has been connected to any of his crimes.”
“They lead him on, Mr Ackroyd; then let him carry the can.”
“Right... Has Freddy ever had a job?”
“Yes, he was an accounts clerk at Bertram’s. I was very proud of that.”
“Bertram’s? Oh, yes, that’s where he defrauded £357 in 1960.” stated Ackroyd reading through the notes his team had provided. Mrs Pederson chose to ignore that piece of fact. Ackroyd continued on this tack: “He hasn’t worked since that spell in prison, has he?” Mrs Pederson seemed to have closed her ears to the truth about her son, so Ackroyd decided to focus on Freddy’s movements at the end of July. “Tell me, Josephine, do you know what Freddy was doing on Thursday the 29th of July?”
“Oh, well, let me think... He came home for tea, I think.”
“Did he stay with you that night?”
“No. He went out about eight; he said he was meeting a friend. I didn’t see him again until Saturday night. I think something upset him, you know: he was very quiet.”
“Saturday night?” enquired Ackroyd, seeking clarification.
“Yes. He stayed that night. He said he needed some money, so I gave him £20, then he left – he hasn’t been back, since. He does that, though...”
“When did he leave your house?”
“On the Sunday. He’s quite a free spirit, you know.”
“Twenty pounds is quite a lot of money, Josephine?”
“I know, but he seemed worried. I thought he might be in trouble with a landlord, or something.”
“What do you know about his movements in the week leading up to the 29th of July?”
“I think he might have found some work. I saw him on the Monday and he said something about ‘a nice job’ he’d been given. Easy money, he said.”
“I don’t suppose he said what type of job?”
“No. He does like to be secretive.” she announced with a laugh.
“Okay, Josephine, thank you for your time. I will need to detain you a little longer, though. One of my constables will take a formal statement regarding what you know of your son’s movements between the 26th July and the 1st of August.
Just tell him exactly what you’ve just told me – okay?”
“Yes, if you say so Mr Ackroyd.” she agreed, somewhat oblivious of what all the fuss was about.
Ackroyd found Cambridge in the corridor and took him to one side, so as to avoid any possibility of M
rs Pederson over-hearing him: “Teddy, can you get one of your boys to take Mrs Pederson’s statement regarding her son’s movements between 26th July and 1st of August... I don’t think she’s quite living in the real world. Poor woman seems to think Freddy’s a repentant fallen angel, or something. Anyway, she did say some interesting things. We need to find him – quick.”
“Yes, sir. While you were interviewing Mrs Pederson, we got an anonymous call identifying a possible suspect: the name he gave was Arthur Jameson.”
“Doesn’t mean anything.” said Ackroyd somewhat unconvinced.
“No, but he did say something odd: he said ‘he’s gone off the rails and lost the plot’. He came across like he knew a lot more.”
“Okay, Teddy. Look in to it – find out who this Jameson character is. I don’t suppose he said where to find him?”
“Not exactly. But he did say he’s back in London.”
“Well, I guess that narrows it down a bit!”
Late that afternoon, a doctor from Guy’s Hospital rang Ackroyd to tell him that Vera was improving exceptionally well and that they would be happy for him to speak to her again whenever he wanted; he decided to visit her that evening, before going home. When Ackroyd entered the private side-room in which Vera had been placed, she immediately sat up and smiled; she appeared to be genuinely pleased to see him. He pretended not to notice that the bed covers betrayed the loss of her left leg.
“Hello Vera. How are you doing?” asked Ackroyd softly, as he sat down.
“Well, I’ve been better.” she said with a laugh. “I’m glad you’re in good spirits, anyway.” “Must be the drugs.” she quipped.
“The public support for you is absolutely incredible.”
“Yes, I know: I’ve had lots of lovely letters... and flowers.”
“Yes, I can see.” he exclaimed looking around at the floral diorama, “How are you finding it here at Guy’s?” “It’s lovely. I just wished I had better reason for being here.” she replied wistfully.