The Year of the Gun

by Chris Nickson

  ‘Did lover boy come round, then? I didn’t think you’d mind me giving him your address. I’d have given him mine if I thought he’d turn up.’

  ‘It was fine.’ Lottie gave her own smile, sweetly enigmatic.

  ‘Well, go on then. Details.’

  ‘I had some information he needed. That’s all.’

  Helen raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Lottie said. She gathered up the teas and left. That would leave her wondering, if nothing else.

  McMillan was on the telephone, listening, adding a word of his own here and there before finally putting the receiver down.

  ‘The Assistant Chief Constable,’ he explained. ‘The Watch Committee want us to go public with all the murders. The Chief is arguing against it, says they’ll crucify us for not revealing it earlier.’

  ‘What have they decided?’ Lottie sat across from him, seeing the strain on his face.

  ‘Still up in the air. He just wanted me to know.’ He ran his palms down his cheeks. ‘He said I can have all the men I need, but I can’t magic them out of thin air. We don’t have the people.’

  ‘Then maybe you need to use me more,’ she suggested.

  ‘It might come to that.’ The phone rang again. He listened, then said, ‘Can you keep him out there for a few minutes. Take him to a café and buy him something hot. I’ll pay.’ Another paused. ‘I know it. We’ll see you there.’

  ‘Where?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘Smith’s café by Kirkstall Bridge. George Chadwick’s found that other tramp.’

  The windows were covered in condensation. A few faded posters, almost transparent with grease spots, hung on the walls. Chadwick sat at a table, arms crossed, watching a small man in a tattered overcoat devouring a plate of powdered egg, fried bread and baked beans.

  ‘This is Leslie Armistead, sir.’

  The man looked up. A pale, bland face, a timid expression, blue eyes. The type who wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

  ‘I’m Chief Superintendent McMillan.’ He sat, leaving Lottie to find a chair at the next table. ‘Did Constable Chadwick tell you what I’m looking for?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He bobbed his head, staring down at his plate.

  ‘Did you see anything that night at the abbey? Hear something, maybe?’

  ‘The shot. But when they arrived, too. Voices, you know.’

  ‘Voices?’ McMillan asked quickly. ‘Could you hear what they said? Accents?’

  ‘Not really.’ The man shook his head. ‘Just…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She sounded English, but him… I couldn’t hear well but he was...’ He paused, trying to think. ‘Different, I think.’

  ‘Different how?’ McMillan leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, his voice urgent.

  ‘Not from here, you know?’

  Lottie realised she was holding her breath.

  ‘Here? Leeds, you mean? Or England?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Armistead glanced up apologetically for a second then quickly lowered his head. ‘Maybe American, like in the pictures?’ He sounded uncertain.

  ‘American? Could you make out anything they said?’ McMillan asked slowly. ‘Any words?’

  ‘He said “Come on, baby.”’ The man seemed to colour with embarrassment.

  ‘Where were you?’ Lottie asked quietly.

  ‘In one of the rooms off the cloister.’ He seemed to grab on to the question. ‘I know somewhere dry there.’

  ‘Did you have a fire?’

  He shook his head. ‘Blackout. Can’t have fires. Enemy aircraft might spot them.’ For some reason, Lottie found that sweetly patriotic. He had nothing, he lived rough, but he still cared about the war effort.

  ‘You were close enough to hear them,’ McMillan said. Lottie could feel the pulse beating in her neck. ‘Did you stay there, Mr Armistead?’

  ‘No. They were walking round the cloister, I thought they might find me. I know my way round the abbey. I went out, by the old lodge.’

  ‘How long after the voices did you hear the shot?’

  ‘Five minutes.’ He paused. ‘Maybe it was ten. I was settling down again.’

  ‘What did you do then?’ McMillan asked.

  ‘Stayed there. I remember guns.’ Fear crept into his face. ‘They scare me.’

  ‘Did you see or hear anything else, Mr Armistead?’ Lottie asked quietly, but the man began to shake his head quickly. If he had, he wasn’t going to say.

  The Chief Superintendent stood, took a shilling from his pocket and placed it on the table.

  ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. I appreciate it.’ He tilted his head for Chadwick to join them outside.

  ‘Good stuff, sir?’

  ‘Very, if it’s true. Do you believe him?’

  ‘Never known Leslie Armistead to lie, sir,’ Chadwick answered.

  ‘Fine,’ McMillan answered after a moment. ‘I want you to keep an eye on him. Don’t let him vanish again. I think there might be a thing or two he hasn’t said yet.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. Do you want me to have a go, see if I can find out more?’

  ‘If you think he’ll tell you. It would save me some time.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Chadwick grinned under his heavy moustache. ‘He’s a good lad, really, is Leslie. Just too meek for this world.’

  ‘We’d better go out to Castle Grove Area HQ. I need to see Ellison as soon as possible.’

  ‘On our way.’ She sped up to overtake a bus on Kirkstall Road before turning up the hill to Headingley. ‘An American voice.’

  ‘I know.’ She checked the mirror. He was staring emptily out of the window. ‘What do you make of it? Was he telling the truth?’

  Lottie took her time replying.

  ‘In his mind I think he was,’ she said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘He believes he heard an American.’ She tried to explain it. ‘Inside, he’s sure of it.’

  ‘You’re not sure? He seemed quite convinced.’

  ‘The more I think about it, the less likely it seems. Especially with everything else we know now.’ Her eyes flicked to the mirror, watching him. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘But I’m trying to keep an open mind.’ He gave a dark smile. ‘And it might prove useful.’

  The sentry recognised the car and their faces, waving them through without checking identification. Inside the old building Lottie hurried to keep pace as McMillan climbed the stairs to the attic. Ellison was in his office, head bowed as he wrote. He looked up at the footsteps, his expression changing from surprise to concern.

  ‘I hadn’t expected to see you so soon, John. Have you found him?’

  McMillan ignored the question and sat down. ‘I’ve just had a very interesting conversation.’

  She watched Cliff’s face as he listened to the story. He pushed his lips together and narrowed his eyes, then reached for a cigarette, squinting through the smoke.

  ‘So where does that leave us on the other killings, and that body at the furrier’s?’

  ‘I don’t know. But what about Shire Oak Road – the neighbour saw a woman carried out to an American Jeep. And we have someone else missing…’

  ‘I know. Lottie told me last night.’ He immediately realised he’d said too much. But McMillan ignored it.

  ‘There’s something going on and I’m damned if I can make head or tail of it. But it really looks as if we’re going to need to work together.’

  ‘I’ve got men ready to arrest the people selling guns in—’ Ellison looked at his watch ‘—thirty minutes. Want to stick around and see?’

  ‘I don’t have time. But I do still need any information you can give me on an American officer with a mole on his cheek. He’s the one who was looking at the house.’

  ‘I’ve been checking, no joy yet. But I haven’t forgotten.’ His expression softened. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything at all. Meantime, we’d better start liai
sing daily and keep each other up on things.’

  ‘Agreed.’ McMillan paused. ‘I need this solved quickly and cleanly. I’m under a great deal of pressure from above.’

  ‘Yeah, I guessed,’ Ellison said gravely. ‘I’ll do everything I can.’

  A handshake and they left. She looked over her shoulder but he was already concentrating on the papers once more.

  THEY’D just crossed Shaw Lane, on the way back into town, when he spoke.

  ‘Last night?’

  ‘I wondered how long that would take you.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised you two were so close.’

  ‘We’re not. I’d rung him earlier. On your orders, remember,’ she added. ‘He wangled my address from the switchboard and stopped by.’

  ‘Very cosy.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she said. Her voice was firm and he held up his hands, palms out.

  ‘Sorry. None of my business.’

  ‘No, it’s not. And there’s no business, as you call it.’ She could feel the heat rising up her neck. Not embarrassment – anger. ‘Shall we just leave it at that?’

  ‘I need you to work with him. I hope that won’t be any sort of problem.’

  ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Good. I’m relying on him to take care of the American end.’

  ‘How do you think it all ties together?’ Her flash of temper had passed. She was breathing calmly again. Back to more important matters.

  ‘Honestly, I’m damned if I know. I start pulling at one thread and something completely different pops up.’

  ‘What about this American connection?’

  ‘If it even exists. Remember that. All we have is the word of one tramp.’

  ‘And the American at Shire Oak Road. That old chap who saw the Jeep there,’ she said. ‘We know Pamela Dixon was there from the knickers we found.’

  ‘If you can untangle it you can have my job,’ he said. ‘None of it makes the slightest bit of sense to me.’

  McMillan closed the door to his office and a few seconds later she heard his voice on the telephone. Sitting at her desk, she tried to draw a chart, to put any connections on paper. But they didn’t know enough to join the dots. The only names they had were the dead women. And one still missing.

  One where there was still hope.

  For an hour there was nothing to do beyond doodle and read more of the Graham Greene novel. Then he came out and beckoned her.

  ‘Can you get us a cuppa?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the chief. My throat’s like a desert.’

  Lottie shook her head at him, but returned after a few minutes with two mugs and a pair of digestive biscuits. Down in the canteen Helen and Margaret had been at a table, flirting with a pair of uniformed coppers, too busy to notice her.

  ‘Had my ear scorched,’ McMillan said. ‘Orders are to get it solved, as if it was something simple.’

  ‘Did he offer any brilliant suggestions?’

  ‘Merely that my intelligence and experience would take care of it.’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Lily Kemp?’ she asked.

  ‘No word yet. People have been searching out at Kirkstall.’

  ‘Maybe she’s alive somewhere,’ Lottie said.

  ‘I wish to God I could believe that.’

  Silence filled the room slowly.

  ‘There’s got to be something in the fact he chose Cohen’s cold storage,’ Lottie said. ‘That he had the key for it.’

  ‘I’ve got Smith and others going over that. I’ve drafted in a couple of men from Wortley and Chapel Allerton to help. Probably half the names on the list are in the forces now. And there might well be some Cohen’s forgotten.’

  ‘None of them are American, I take it?’

  McMillan shook his head. ‘That would be too easy. We’re in for the long slog on this, no doubt about it.’ He dunked the biscuit for a moment then ate it, thinking. ‘What have we missed?’

  She was about to answer when someone rapped hard on the door. Pegg, the sergeant brought out of retirement to man the front desk. His face was red after climbing the stairs.

  ‘Beg your pardon, sir, but we’ve had a message. Body in the river at Kirkstall.’ He paused. ‘A young lady. I thought you’d want to know, what with…’

  ‘Thank you.’ He was already standing, reaching for his coat and hat.

  ‘I’ll bet you anything it’s Lily Kemp,’ he said. Lottie darted the Humber in and out of traffic, not caring who sounded their horns.

  ‘We’ll find out once we get there.’ But she knew he was probably right.

  A procession of vehicles was already parked at the kerb. The pathologist’s car, the coroner’s van – five in total.

  ‘Looks like we’re last to the party,’ McMillan said wryly.

  The earth was hard under her shoes as she marched across the grass towards the crowd gathered on the bank. One uniform was interviewing an older lady. She was sitting on a bench, distressed, kneading a handkerchief in her fist. A pudgy terrier lay placidly at her feet. Had to be the woman who discovered the body.

  The corpse had been pulled up on to the bank. As they arrived, the pathologist was putting his instruments away in a large leather bag.

  ‘Well?’ McMillan said. It came out almost as an accusation.

  ‘She didn’t drown.’ The duty doctor was a lanky man, half a head taller than anyone around him, with sandy hair, glasses, and washed-out features. ‘Can’t really tell how long she was in the water. Eight hours is my guess, maybe a little longer.’

  ‘Then what killed her?’ McMillan asked.

  Lottie knew the answer as well as he did. But he needed to hear it.

  ‘She was shot. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have house calls to make. On the living.’

  She had the photograph of Lily Kemp in her uniform jacket, but she didn’t need to look at it again. The face was imprinted on her mind. Now she was seeing it, all the life gone. Hair matted by the water, blood gone from her cheeks and lips, eyes closed. Just the innocence of death. As she looked, McMillan whispered in her ear. She looked at him, pleading silently, but he simply stared at her.

  ‘Move everyone away,’ she told him. Only when they’d gone ten yards back towards the ancient buildings did she lift the hem of the dress. The soaked material clung to the skin. Finally, though, she could see, and gave the woman some faint decency again.

  He watched her and she shook her head. As if there was ever any doubt about it, Lottie thought. The killer’s hallmarks, a bullet hole and no underwear.

  McMillan interrupted her thoughts. ‘How fast do you think the river’s flowing?’

  She glanced at the water. It hardly seemed to be moving at all.

  ‘Why?’ she asked. Then it clicked.

  ‘I’ve had men watching the abbey all night. He must have slipped her in the water further upstream. It can’t be too far. Come on.’

  Back in the car he ordered her to drive slowly.

  ‘There,’ he said after about half a mile.

  She parked and saw why he’d chosen the spot. No houses anywhere near, just a short walk down the bank to the River Aire. She started to follow the path but he held her back.

  ‘We’ll get the evidence people out here. They might be able to find something.’

  ‘If there’s anything to find,’ Lottie pointed out. ‘He didn’t kill her here. You can see that; this is strictly for dumping.’

  He turned. In the distance the old, ruined tower of Kirkstall Abbey stood above the treetops.

  ‘What is it about that place, do you think? Why does he want to have the bodies there?’

  ‘I don’t know. But we need to find out.’

  ‘I’ll give him this, he’s sly.’ McMillan said. ‘He must have seen the men watching the abbey and come up with the idea of floating the body down.’ He slammed his palm down against the stone wall. ‘Dammit.’

  Back in the car, returning to Millgarth, he said, ‘He must have been planning to haul Pame
la Dixon from cold storage out to Kirkstall.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Lottie said. ‘I wonder why he didn’t bring her out immediately.’

  In the mirror she could see him watching her.

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Well,’ she began, ‘it looks as if she was his first. Maybe he hadn’t decided on a place to leave the bodies yet.’

  ‘Possible,’ McMillan agreed. ‘He came to a decision soon enough, though. He killed Kate Patterson out there. And dumped Anne Goodman’s body there the night after that.’

  ‘So why did he leave Dixon there for so long?’

  ‘Maybe he was waiting until it was safe.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t buy it. That was taking a chance,’ Lottie said. ‘He couldn’t know when Cohen would come down to the cold storage for something.’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I can’t find a scrap of logic in it.’

  ‘What if he put the body there because he didn’t know what to do with it and he had to go on duty? If he was in the service.’

  ‘It’s a thought.’ He nodded. ‘But then why didn’t he get rid of her the next night instead of finding another victim?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. He was right, not a scrap of sense in the whole thing.

  When she’d been a full police constable Lottie had worked on a murder case. Her one and only. It had seemed thrilling, every day a challenge. She’d worked with McMillan then, too, when he was no more than a brash, cocky detective sergeant. Now she just wished the killing would end, that they could catch the murderer, then life might return to whatever passed for normal these days.

  The old sergeant nodded welcome as she followed McMillan past the front desk and up the stairs to his office. A head poked out from the CID room. Detective Constable Smith.

  ‘Got something for you, sir.’

  ‘Go on,’ McMillan said once they were all seated.

  ‘You wanted me checking those men who’d had access to Cohen’s keys.’ He looked around eagerly.

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘His name’s Terry Cruickshank. Worked as a salesman at the company until he was called up. He was in the Signals, stationed up at Catterick. Went AWOL in November. His name’s on the deserters’ list.’