Hardcastle's Secret Agent

by Graham Ison

  It had been the previous Friday night when Shaw had ventured out to his fictitious masonic meeting, and Hardcastle doubted that he would go out again as soon as this evening. However, if Shaw did go out, Hardcastle had taken a gamble on him doing so not long after he returned home from work, and he told the two officers to take up the observation at six o’clock that evening. His gamble paid off and Davis and Taylor saw their target leave his house at half past six.

  To the surprise of the two officers, Shaw set off at a fast pace, finally leading them into Kingston town centre, a distance of about a mile and a half. Without a backward glance at any point since leaving his house, he entered the Griffin Hotel, close by the market place.

  ‘Is it all right for us to go into licensed premises while we’re on duty, Jim?’ As a probationer, June Taylor was mindful that breaching one of the many regulations under which police operated might blight her career.

  ‘Of course it is, June. This is part of our duty. It’s why we’re here.’ Davis pushed open the door to allow his colleague to enter first. He crossed to the bar, positioning himself as near to Shaw as he could without raising suspicion. He was in the act of ordering drinks for himself and Taylor when a smartly dressed woman crossed the room from a table in the corner and embraced Shaw.

  ‘Did you get a visit from the police, Gillian?’ asked Shaw.

  Gillian Flint laughed. ‘Yes, I did, darling, and they told me you were married.’

  Davis could not remain where he was without arousing suspicion. Reluctantly, he picked up his drinks and crossed to a table where June Taylor was sitting.

  ‘I think we can leave it at that, June. Mr Hardcastle will be very interested in what I just heard.’ Davis repeated the conversation that had taken place between Shaw and Gillian Flint.

  ‘What are they up to, then, Jim? Apart from the obvious.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Davis, ‘but I’m sure it’s not a straightforward love affair.’

  Hardcastle didn’t think it was a straightforward love affair, either.

  ‘You and Taylor can return to your ordinary duty, Davis, and thank you both for your efforts. That was a useful piece of information you picked up.’

  After Davis’s departure, Hardcastle thought about the affair between Keith Shaw and Gillian Flint. Eventually, the next day he decided that it was nothing further to do with him.

  And just to confirm it, Hardcastle received a telephone call from Detective Superintendent Aubrey Drew of Special Branch, asking him to call at the Yard.

  ‘I’m sorry to drag you up here again, Walter,’ said Drew. ‘I think I’d better arrange for you to have a scrambler phone installed. After all, you have got Alan Moore and Company on your patch and some of their employees. And you’ve got Hawkers, of course. It would save you coming up and down to the Yard whenever I had something sensitive to discuss with you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. It would save a lot of time.’

  ‘Now then, Shaw and Gillian Flint. I’ve been authorized to tell you that your two officers were spotted last night.’

  Hardcastle was momentarily taken aback by that piece of information. ‘But it couldn’t have been that they were recognized by either of the targets.’

  Drew smiled. ‘They weren’t. They were spotted by the MI5 watchers who followed the little party all the way from Pine Walk to the Griffin Hotel.’

  ‘Oh, hell!’ What little Hardcastle knew of MI5 watchers, they had a reputation for being very professional. Doubtless they would have seen PC Davis and WPC Taylor for what they were – amateurs. ‘I thought MI5 weren’t interested, sir.’

  ‘Well, it seems they are. After a little gentle persuasion from Mr Canning, mainly involving inter-departmental co-operation, they decided to own up. It seems that Shaw is an MI5 agent and had been tasked to test Gillian Flint who, they believed, was willing to sell secrets that she obtained from her husband, Commander Rollo Flint, stationed at Portsmouth. It turned out, Wally, that Commander Rollo Flint is, in fact, Petty Officer Ronald Flint and knows practically nothing. MI5’s interest stemmed from the fact that Gillian Flint lives in an expensive property just off Kingston Hill.’

  ‘Seems to me that almost everyone is working for MI5, sir.’

  ‘Certainly looks that way, Wally. However, they thought that the only way she could have afforded such a property was through spying, but the fact of the matter is that when her parents died, she inherited the house and a substantial sum of money. It is also the case that Petty Officer Flint volunteered for the Navy at the outbreak of war. I think it was just a case of snobbishness that Gillian Flint pretended her husband was a commander.’

  ‘Case closed, then, sir.’

  ‘Reckon so, Wally. But from what your people overheard, it looks very much as though they’re continuing their affair.’ Drew stood up and shook hands. ‘I’ll get you a scrambler phone as soon as possible.’

  Despite Detective Superintendent Drew’s warning, Hardcastle had no intention of keeping the latest information from his assistant.

  ‘Don’t that lot ever make background enquiries before they launch an operation, guv’nor?’ asked a bemused Bradley.

  ‘It would appear not, Jack.’

  ‘No wonder that Shaw was reluctant to tell the PC where he was going when he was stopped. All he had to do was show him his identity card, but according to the report, he wasn’t carrying it. Why Shaw should have refused his name and address, God knows. It doesn’t make sense. After all, we visited him last year about his break-in.’

  The man in a black dinner jacket, this time without his overcoat, but with his usual white silk scarf and homburg hat, crouched behind a fence close to a gate. Fortunately for him, the gate was immediately opposite the house in which he was interested.

  He’d kept a relatively low profile the last few months, waiting for the police’s focus to move to other cases, but he still had to be careful this time, and had followed the occupants of the house to the Elite Cinema in the centre of Kingston. The film was Gone with the Wind and the man in black knew that it lasted four hours.

  It was not that he was averse to murder, but after he had shot and killed the Ropers, he had decided not to risk it, at least for a while. He had made a mistake in losing his glove, added to which it was an indictment on his self-perceived Teutonic perfection and the wrath of the Führer if he ever got to hear of it.

  It was now totally dark, thanks to the blackout and the absence of street lighting. Swiftly, he crossed the road, through the side gate of the house and round to the rear. Using his knife to disengage the latch, he opened a window and climbed into the kitchen. Checking the front door and satisfying himself there was no deadlock, he began a search of the house, starting upstairs.

  Thirty minutes later, the man in black let out a sigh of disappointment; he had not found what he had been looking for. He took a few items from the mantelshelf in the sitting room and a tiny framed cameo from the wall in the hall, all of which could be secreted in his pockets to make it look like a burglarly, and let himself out of the front door.

  He strolled down the road, wishing a patrolling ARP warden ‘good night’ as he turned the corner.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’ DC Winters, Hardcastle’s clerk, entered with a message form in his hand. ‘It’s from DI Black at Kingston. There was a break-in at Howard Austin’s house in Birkenhead Avenue, Kingston, last evening while the Austins were out at the cinema.’

  ‘Ask Sergeant Bradley to come in, John.’

  Moments later, Bradley entered the DDI’s office. ‘Yes, sir, I heard. We’ve got to catch this cheeky monkey. A possible two murders under his belt and he’s just thumbing his nose at us.’

  ‘Whatever else you say about him, he’s a clean burglar, Mr Hardcastle.’ Howard Austin had remained at home, pending Hardcastle’s arrival. ‘There was no mess at all.’

  ‘I know you’ll have told the first officer to arrive what was taken, Mr Austin, but would you mind telling me?’

  Once
again, Austin listed the missing items. ‘We were particularly annoyed about the cameo, Mr Hardcastle. It’s not that it was especially valuable, but Eunice and I bought it on our honeymoon, nearly thirty years ago.’

  ‘Obviously, the advice given about security was not enough, Mr Austin. I’ll have another officer survey your property and assess what’s required.’ In fact, Hardcastle thought that Austin had probably ignored the advice.

  ‘Thank you. That’s very good of you, and it’ll put Eunice’s mind at rest. She hasn’t said anything, but I could see she was upset, more about the cameo than anything else.’

  ‘You never know,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but we might even get that back for Mrs Austin.’

  ‘Why d’you think we were targeted, Mr Hardcastle?’

  ‘For the same reason as the others were. I think the burglar is an enemy agent – or a sympathizer – who is hoping to find some secret files in your house. His method is very similar to the other break-ins involving Moore’s employees that occurred over recent months. Furthermore, you have a lot of valuables here that he could have taken. But all he took were a number of comparatively worthless items … if you’ll forgive me for saying so.’

  ‘No, no, you’re quite right, Mr Hardcastle, and that bears out your theory about someone looking for secret papers. But nobody removes anything from the offices. That would be the height of foolishness, apart from resulting in instant dismissal and possible prosecution.’

  ‘But as I queried once before,’ put in Bradley, ‘does the Abwehr know all that?’

  After grabbing a quick lunch in the canteen, Hardcastle and Bradley returned to the DDI’s office. Hardcastle settled himself behind his desk and took out his pipe. Filling it slowly and thoughtfully, he remained silent until it was well alight. ‘This bastard’s running rings round us, Jack,’ he said eventually. ‘Every beat is filled and yet not a single copper’s caught sight of him. He’s like a bloody phantom.’

  ‘I suppose we could put every CID officer on the division on to the streets, guv’nor. The burglaries all took place on a Friday between the hours of eight and ten thirty in the evening, and were mainly in the Kingston Hill area. Being in plain clothes, they might stand a better chance of nicking him.’

  ‘It’s a good idea on the face of it, but Mariott would never agree to it. Crime enquiries are piling up, and each officer has already got a backlog of cases. To put everyone on the streets with potentially nothing to show for it … No, I don’t think Mr Marriott would be too pleased about that at all.’

  ‘And nobody’s seen our phantom burglar, so we’ve got no description to go on,’ added Bradley moodily.

  Hardcastle glanced at his pocket watch, a present from his father on the occasion of the young Hardcastle’s sixteenth birthday. All the officers under his command wore wristwatches, and regarded Walter Hardcastle’s use of a pocket watch to be rather old-fashioned. But a few who had known the DDI’s father attributed it to parental influence.

  ‘I think we’ll have an early night, Jack. Go home and put your feet up.’

  Bradley glanced at his watch. It was nigh-on eight o’clock, but in the CID that was an early night. But his occasional girlfriend Blanche was playing hard to get lately and that meant an evening spent in his local pub. Alone.

  When Hardcastle arrived home, there was a small lorry outside his house. As he felt in his pocket for his door key, the door was opened by a workman.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ demanded Hardcastle.

  ‘We’re from the council, guv’nor. We’ve boarded up your windows and swept up the glass.’ The workman lowered his voice. ‘If you want the glass replaced, my brother’s a glazier and he’ll give you a fair price, seeing as how you’re a copper an’ all.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll bear it in mind,’ said Hardcastle, who had no intention of taking advantage of the workman’s offer. Individuals who offered a discount to police officers usually wanted something in return, especially if they were ever arrested. And if the workman’s brother bore the same shifty countenance as his sibling, it would not be long before his collar was felt.

  Muriel Hardcastle appeared from the kitchen. She was wearing an overall and her hair was tied up in a headscarf. There were a few smudges of dirt on her face.

  ‘There’s dust everywhere, Wally.’ Muriel pushed a lock of hair back under her headscarf.

  ‘What happened exactly, darling?’

  ‘It must have been about seven o’clock, I suppose, when the raid started. They were after Hawkers again. One bomb destroyed a house in Deacon Road and took out all our rear windows.’

  ‘Were any of you hurt? With flying glass, I mean.’

  ‘No, Wally, we were all in the shelter. But that’s nothing. The bomb that hit Deacon Road killed the whole Collie family, including Edward’s schoolfriend Tim Collie. And his sister and their mother. The man of the family is at sea somewhere with the merchant navy. Won’t be a happy homecoming for him.’

  ‘Where are our tribe?’

  ‘In their rooms doing their homework.’

  ‘Good. Knock it off now, Muriel, love, and have a cup of tea. Or something stronger.’

  ‘I could do with a large whisky.’ Muriel sank into an armchair and took off her headscarf.

  ‘How’s Edward taking the death of his friend?’ asked Hardcastle, as he busied himself pouring two substantial measures of Scotch.

  ‘Either it’s not sunk in yet or he’s just shrugged it off. It seems to me that the kids are more accustomed to death and destruction than we are. I know I was only ten when the last war started, but this one seems different and kids appear to take it in their stride.’

  ‘I was a telegram boy during the last war,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I can still remember delivering telegrams after the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Almost twenty thousand men were killed that day and nearly forty thousand were wounded. Practically every house in the street I was delivering to got one of those terrible telegrams from the War Office. I remember that the envelopes were specially marked so that we wouldn’t ask if there was a reply. Not that we had to; one look at the poor woman’s face told you what was in the telegram.’

  ‘You’re a cheerful soul at times, Wally Hardcastle,’ said Muriel and held out her empty glass for a refill.

  THIRTEEN

  By the middle of 1940 the so-called phoney war was well and truly over. The French had capitulated, the Low Countries had been overrun and Norway had been invaded. It seemed that Hitler’s determination to dominate the world was becoming a reality. Britain stood alone, although the Empire was rallying to her support and there was a greater variety of foreign uniforms in London than had ever been seen in the country’s long history.

  And then the war came to the streets of London and other major cities. Night after night in that summer of 1940, the relentless sound of German bombers, the staccato bark of anti-aircraft guns and the depressing clatter of cascading brickwork as houses, factories and public buildings fell victim to the enemy’s bombs.

  The murders of Frank and Helen Roper remained unsolved, much to Walter’s frustration, but so did many others, and the growing backlog of cases couldn’t be ignored any longer. Murder victims were not infrequently left in the ruins of bombed buildings in an attempt by the killer to mislead the police into thinking that their deaths were the result of an air raid. Still, the targeting of Howard Austin’s home suggested that the Ropers’ murderer hadn’t fled the country. And there was always the possibility that he might slip up again. For now, all they could do was wait.

  Mrs Audrey Kane lived in the next flat to Joyce Butler, whose ‘working’ name was Kim, and worked at Kingston Hospital, a short walk from Ravenscroft, a block of flats just off Kingston Hill. She’d left for work in a rush that morning, but as she passed Joyce’s flat at five o’clock in the afternoon on Wednesday the thirty-first of July 1940, on her way home, she noticed that the girl’s front door was very slightly ajar.

  Mrs Kane was a worldy woman into
her late fifties, and knew that the girl was a prostitute. But she didn’t cause any trouble, never giving cause for complaint, and Mrs Kane’s maxim was to live and let live.

  When Hardcastle appeared, he was greeted by Detective Inspector Kenneth Black, the DI from Kingston, who was the first CID officer to arrive at the scene of the murder.

  ‘A young woman named Joyce Butler, Mrs Joyce Butler, lives here, guv’nor,’ said Black. ‘At about five o’clock, the victim’s next-door neighbour – a Mrs Audrey Kane – on her way home from work, noticed that Mrs Butler’s door was slightly ajar. On entering, she called out and, getting no reply, went further in. She found the girl dead on the sitting room floor and suggested that she had probably been struck on the head with a wine bottle which lay broken nearby. There was a lot of blood. Mrs Kane spoke as though she had some nursing experience and reckons she knows a dead body when she sees one.’

  ‘Right. Better have a look. Where’s Mrs Kane now?’

  ‘Back in her own flat, guv.’

  The constable pushed open the door of Joyce Butler’s flat to admit the two senior detectives and Detective Sergeant Jack Bradley.

  The sitting room was well-appointed and it was evident that quite a lot of money had been spent on furnishing, curtaining and carpeting. All in all, the flat seemed to have been occupied by a very rich young woman.

  ‘Better have a look at the deceased, Jack,’ said Hardcastle.

  Joyce Butler was lying on the floor in the room wearing the same clothes she’d presumably worn the previous evening. A broken wine glass and bottle were indeed lying nearby.

  Jack disappeared into the bedroom and Hardcastle followed. ‘I think that answers the question of what this girl did for a living,’ commented Bradley. Items of erotic clothing had been flung around the room. ‘She was on the game.’

  ‘That’s all we need,’ said Hardcastle. ‘We might get some fingerprints from the wine bottle and glass, if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Looks like a fight that ended in murder if Mrs Kane is right about the cause of death,’ commented Hardcastle as he walked back to the sitting room and bent down to examine the body, and particularly the head, more closely.