The Death of Kings

by Rennie George Airth

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘I must be off,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of estate agents coming to look at the house later this afternoon. We’re putting it on the market at the end of the month and they want to inspect it first.’

  Billy emptied his glass.

  ‘Well, you can give Mr Sinclair another piece of good news,’ he said. ‘I’ve already started putting a team together and Lily Poole’s name is on the list.’

  The young woman he was referring to, a detective-constable in the CID, had been one of the first of her sex admitted to the Met’s plainclothes division at the end of the war. A protégée of Angus Sinclair’s, she had quickly made her mark at the Yard and the chief inspector continued to take a lively interest in her career.

  ‘So Charlie has finally come round to her, has he?’ Madden smiled. ‘Angus will be pleased to hear that.’

  Like many of his colleagues, Chief Superintendent Chubb had long harboured doubts about the wisdom of employing women in the force, and not even Lily Poole’s accomplishments to date—they had already earned her three commendations—had brought about a change of heart. Until now, it seemed.

  ‘I wouldn’t say he’s come round exactly.’ Billy grinned. ‘Lil took the sergeant’s exam recently and she’s still waiting to hear the result. Charlie’s digging in his heels. He told me the other day he’s afraid it might have a “disturbing effect” on some of our longer-serving DCs if she was promoted over their heads. I said that short of putting a stick or two of dynamite under them, I couldn’t think of a better way of getting them to move off their lazy backsides and do some work.’

  12

  NO MATTER HOW MANY times he visited Rotterdam—and his duties brought him to the great port quite frequently—the sight of the devastation wrought by the German bombers in 1940 never ceased to impress Chen Yi.

  This was the purest expression of violence he had ever seen—greater even than the damage wrought by the Japanese on the city of Nanking, where he had been born twenty-six years earlier. This was the iron fist made manifest.

  The entire heart of the city had been flattened; obliterated.

  They had to invent a new term to describe it. Carpet bombing was the phrase used. A carpet of bombs had been laid on the old city, and with the work of restoration hardly begun, all that remained of its mediaeval heart was a ruined church; that and some other half-wrecked structures.

  It was towards one of these last that Chen was making his way that evening through the grid of streets that remained like the bones of a skeleton, fleshless, devoid of the houses and shops that had once stood there, in the company of an older man whose name was Huang Wei. Coarse-featured, and boasting a crooked nose that had been broken more than once, to judge by appearances, Huang was a famous street fighter, and Chen treated him with all the deference due a Red Pole—for such was Huang’s position in the family, an enforcer in the language employed by the brotherhood of which they were both members—while privately finding him somewhat comical. But that was true of most of the old ones, the long-standing members, with their quaint titles and arcane ceremonies dating centuries back. Sometimes Chen wondered if they knew they were living in a new world now: that everything had changed since the war.

  The building in question was near the edge of the devastated region and might in its day have been a warehouse of modest proportions. Still, with its walls mostly standing, it lacked only a roof, and on reaching it Chen paused to look about him. The deserted street down which they had walked was empty, as was the intersection at which they had paused. However, as they stood there a young man with jet-black hair cut close to his scalp appeared in the doorway of the ruined warehouse. He bowed his head on seeing them.

  ‘All is ready,’ he said.

  With a glance at his companion, Chen walked past the youth, who stepped to one side and then followed him in, staying a pace or two behind so that Chen could speak to him over his shoulder.

  ‘Is everyone here?’

  The question was superfluous. Not one of the score of men he saw standing in a circle near the centre of the warehouse would have dared to stay away. They were 49s—ordinary members only—but they had taken the oaths.

  ‘All are present.’

  Again the young man made a slight bow. Chen turned his attention to the scene before him. Although littered with debris, the floor of the warehouse had been cleared in one area, and it was there that the group awaiting him had gathered around a man stripped to the waist who was kneeling on the floor with his head bowed and his hands tied behind his back. His flabby body was marked by several tattoos of an exotic nature which included a dragon that wound its scaly tail about his slumped back.

  No words were necessary. All knew why they had been summoned there, and if what was to follow bore something of the nature of a ritual, it was designed to deliver a message. No one who witnessed it would forget what he had seen. The guilty man had stolen from the family. Money received in payment for the precious white powder they trafficked in had been held back. The betrayal of sworn oaths was gross and unforgiveable. Each of the spectators knew that he, too, might one day find himself in the same fatal predicament, and it was with this in mind that Chen spoke once more, though only in an undertone.

  ‘We don’t believe that Liu was working alone. One or two others might have had a hand in his scheme. Watch their faces. See which ones sweat the most.’

  The youth acknowledged the words with the faintest of nods.

  ‘Let us begin.’

  Chen turned and went back to the doorway where Huang had been waiting. The older man took off his jacket and handed it to Chen. His shirt and tie followed. Stripped to the waist, his stocky, well-muscled body bore tattoos similar to the ones marking the body of the bound man as well as two scars, one across his chest, the other close to his navel, both the result of knife slashes. Chen folded the clothes and carried them to a block of concrete which had been well dusted. Laying the garments down carefully, he picked up a woodsman’s axe, which was leaning against the block, and brought it to Huang. Although the evening was well advanced there was still enough light in the sky to bring a gleam from the polished head as Huang swung it easily from side to side, testing the weight and balance. A murmur came from the lips of the men standing in the circle. It died as Huang moved forward, approaching the kneeling man from behind, and then stepping to one side.

  Measuring the distance with his eye, he lifted the weapon with both hands and then brought the edge down in one swift stroke on the neck of the kneeling man. The body bucked convulsively as his head was separated from his body and sent rolling across the cement floor. Blood spurted from the neck like a fountain. It continued to flow as the body slumped to the floor, spreading in a dark puddle that shone faintly in the last of the light. A sigh came from the lips of the watching men.

  Huang handed the axe to Chen, who walked to where the head was lying. Affecting an indifference he was far from feeling—it was the first such execution he had witnessed—he picked it up by the hair and carried it to the door of the warehouse, where another square of cement stood ready. Laying the axe aside, he settled the head firmly on the block so that the face, with its lips drawn back in a last rictus of pain and shock, was clearly visible.

  Huang, meanwhile, had retrieved his clothes. Taking his time, he put on his shirt and tie and donned his jacket.

  Only then did he turn to the circle of men, none of whom had moved.

  ‘Go,’ he said. They were his first words. ‘And remember.’

  • • •

  ‘The Deng brothers looked away when you struck the blow. I noticed they were sweating.’

  Chen spoke in a toneless voice. Though careful not to show it, he had found the preceding spectacle somewhat absurd (or so he told himself, now that the initial shock had worn off) and the bloody finale overdone. Wouldn’t a bullet in the back of Liu’s head h
ave done just as well? Couldn’t they simply have cut his throat? These old men lived in a fantasy . . . a dream of the past.

  Huang grunted. ‘I will arrange for them to be watched,’ he said.

  After the departure of the others, the two of them had waited alone in the warehouse for the cleaning crew to arrive. Not required to attend the execution, they were only aspirant members, Blue Lanterns, not yet initiated into the family. Chen had given them their orders. The body was to be cut up and disposed of: all except the head, which was to remain where he had placed it. All traces of blood were to be washed from the floor, which was to be liberally sprinkled with dust afterwards. They were to keep silent about what they had seen and done on pain of death.

  The orders having been issued, Huang had led his assistant outside. Darkness had fallen finally, but the summer night was warm.

  ‘I have received instructions from Hong Kong,’ he said, speaking in English. Up till then both men had used only Cantonese. ‘There is more work to be done. I shall need an assistant. Is your passport in order?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Be at Amsterdam station on Tuesday, no later than a quarter to two. Bring clothes for at least a fortnight. Make sure they are suitable.’

  Unsure what was meant by these last words, Chen simply bowed. The older man regarded him.

  ‘You are not curious to know where we are being sent?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Chen knew well how to frame his reply. ‘We follow orders.’

  ‘A good answer.’ Huang’s slate-coloured eyes were unreadable: it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. ‘But, then, you are a clever young man . . . or so people say. I will tell you anyway. We are going to London.’

  PART TWO

  13

  ‘GO ON—A DETECTIVE?’

  Arms folded, Annie Potter eyed her visitor suspiciously. She was standing on her doorstep barring the way in, and to judge by the work-stained apron tied to her waist and the white flecks of soap suds attached to her tanned forearms, it looked as though she were in the middle of her housework (and not best pleased with the interruption).

  ‘Are you having me on? I’ve seen one or two women in uniform, but I haven’t met one in plainclothes yet. You got a warrant card and all?’

  Though slightly built, she looked to have the lean strength of a whippet—or so it seemed to Lily Poole—and thus far she was showing no sign of being willing to admit a stranger through the front door of her small terrace house.

  ‘Course I have,’ Lily replied. She fished out her card demonstrating that she was indeed what she said she was, a bona fide detective-constable with the Metropolitan Police, and held it out for the other woman’s inspection. ‘I would have rung you in advance to say I was coming, but I couldn’t find you in the phone book.’

  ‘That’s because we haven’t got one.’

  Despite the sharpness of her tone, she seemed satisfied by the sight of Lily’s card and she stepped aside.

  ‘Come on in, then. But keep it down, will you. My youngest is upstairs sleeping, and I’m warning you now he’s a holy terror when he’s awake.’

  She led the way down a short passage carpeted with linoleum into a cramped kitchen where a small girl whose dark curls matched her mother’s was sitting at the table with a colouring book open in front of her and a box of crayons beside it.

  ‘This is Winnie for Winifred,’ she announced. ‘And this is Detective-Constable Poole,’ she added, turning to the little girl. ‘Believe it or not she’s a copper, so mind your manners.’

  The little girl giggled. Having examined Lily for a moment or two, she went back to her colouring.

  ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ Annie Potter asked her visitor. ‘I was about to put the kettle on. Then we can sit down and you can tell me what brings you down this way. It wouldn’t be about that story I read in the paper the other day, I suppose?’

  Her glance had sharpened.

  ‘It’s not about that young lady that got herself strangled all those years ago?’

  • • •

  Truth to tell, Lily wasn’t best pleased with the assignment she’d drawn. She had hoped for something a little more testing after learning that Billy Styles had been given the job of looking into an old murder case, one she remembered reading about before the war, and had chosen her to be part of his team. She’d been hoping he would make her his number two, but when she answered the summons to his office she had found that Joe Grace, one of the most experienced detective-sergeants on the Met’s strength, was already there and waiting to receive his orders.

  ‘The chief super wants this business cleared up quickly,’ Billy had told them both. ‘Read this file first.’ He had tapped a hefty-looking folder on his desk. ‘There’s a lot of detail you’ll have to get clear in your minds. Some of the witnesses are dead now, and others may be hard to track down, but we’ll be talking to as many of them as we can get hold of. It’s pretty straightforward. Either the bloke that was hanged got what he deserved—his name’s Norris—or there’s been a miscarriage of justice. It’s up to us to decide which. And like I say, we’ve been told not to hang about.’

  The case was a tantalising puzzle—or so Lily had thought after a day’s hard study of the evidence collected at the time and the additional information gathered since, mainly by Mr Madden, whom she happened to know personally, thanks to his connection with the man she was more indebted to than any other: former chief inspector Angus Sinclair. It was Sinclair who, on Billy Styles’s recommendation, had overseen her transfer from the uniform branch to the CID shortly before his retirement some years earlier. Lily had never ceased to be grateful to them both, and it was the favour that Styles had shown her since then—he had taken pains to include her in a number of important investigations, cases from which she might have been excluded on account of her sex—that had given her hope of taking a further step up the ladder at the Yard with this new inquiry that was about to be launched.

  Thanks to her careful reading of the file, she could see that the man they ought to be focussing on first was this Rex Garner bloke. The fact that he might have had an affair with the murdered woman and never owned up to it was reason enough to look hard at him; and then there was the question of his so-called alibi. Had he really driven into Canterbury that morning to see an old friend? Or had he arranged to meet Portia Blake in private later, after lunch? Was he the one who had strangled her?

  Armed with this idea, she had gone to see Styles to suggest that they pay him a visit at his flat.

  ‘You’ve got the right idea, Lil,’ he had told her. ‘But he’s not in London at present. I’ve been making some phone calls and I’ve learned that he went up north a couple of weeks ago. You’ve heard of the Glorious Twelfth?’

  ‘The glorious what?’ Lily asked.

  ‘It’s the day the grouse-shooting season starts, mainly in Yorkshire and Scotland. The nobs go out with their guns, and I suppose Garner counts as one of them. His late wife had an estate up there. He went up to Scotland a fortnight ago—I got that from his daily—but he’s due back in London any day now, so instead of us chasing up there after him, I thought we’d just wait until he gets back.’

  Styles had tapped the file on his desk.

  ‘Meanwhile there are some other people we can talk to. I’ve managed to run down some of the staff who were employed at the house. The butler was a man called Hargreaves. He’s retired now and lives in Bournemouth. I’m sending Joe down there tomorrow morning to talk to him. I’m going to slip down to Canterbury myself. It’ll give me a chance to talk to Tom Derry, and I’ve learned that one of the maids, called Daisy Davenport, is working in a dress shop there. I’ll have a word with her, too. What I’d like you to do is go and have a chat with a woman called Annie Potter. She was another maid, the only one we’ve been able to track down who lives in London. I’ve got an address for her from Mrs Castleton. Ask her what
she remembers about that week-end. See what you can get out of her. Servants tend to fade into the background—people forget they’re there—and sometimes they notice things others don’t.’

  He’d been trying to encourage her, Lily supposed. (She liked Billy Styles. He had always stood up for her and was one of the few at the Yard who treated her like a copper rather than a butt for one of their pathetic jokes about women in the force.) But talking to a former maid about what she might or might not have seen ten years ago didn’t strike her as much of a challenge, and she had made her way down to Whitechapel, where this Potter person lived, with little hope of a fruitful outcome to the interview.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said now, having accepted the offer of a cup of tea and taken a seat at the table alongside Winnie, who remained bent over her book, busy with her colouring. ‘It’s the Portia Blake case. We’re taking another look at it. The pendant she was wearing at the time of her murder and which was lost has turned up unexpectedly. Do you remember her wearing it, Mrs Potter?’

  ‘Call me Annie.’ She turned to glance at Lily from the cupboard, where she was fishing around for cups and saucers. ‘You’re from down this way, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not that far off,’ Lily admitted. ‘I was born in Stepney. My dad was killed in the first war, and when my mum died of the flu I went to live with my aunt and uncle. He was a copper stationed at Paddington nick.’

  She returned Annie’s smile, feeling easier now. Although she was proud of her Cockney roots, Lily knew her accent had faded somewhat with the years due to her living away from the East End; yet Annie Potter hadn’t been fooled and Lily hoped that she would prove to be just as observant in other respects.

  ‘Basically, we’re looking to see if anything was missed in the investigation,’ she said. ‘How well do you remember that week-end?’

  ‘Well enough.’ Annie shrugged. She put the crockery on the table and turned to attend to the kettle, which had just begun to boil. ‘We weren’t all that busy: it wasn’t a big party. There was all that hoo-ha at dinner, though. You know about that, do you?’