‘How’s the wife?’
‘Nancy is worse than ever this morning.’
‘Don’t forget that offer we made.’
‘Later on – when the worst is over – Nancy might be glad of Elaine’s company. But that time may be weeks away.’
‘Where is she at the moment?’
‘I took her over to her brother’s. She can’t bear to be apart from him.’ He took off his hat and coat and tossed them onto a stool. ‘Everyone knows now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s in all the papers, Perce. The one I saw even had a photo of Cyril. As we walked to my brother-in-law’s house, people were already pointing and whispering. I’m not a blacksmith any more,’ complained Dalley. ‘I’m the uncle of the lad who was battered to death.’
‘That will pass,’ said Fry.
‘Not for a long while. If he’d been killed in the war, everyone would have showered us with sympathy for a day or two. This is different. Cyril is a murder victim. That makes him a sort of freak. People won’t forget that,’ said Dalley, sourly. ‘As long as the hunt for the killer goes on, the event stays fresh in the mind.’
‘They’ll catch the bastard eventually.’
‘London’s got millions of inhabitants. Where do the police start looking?’
‘That’s up to them, Jack. Let them get on with it, I say. The only thing you need to worry about is Nancy. She’s the one who needs help.’
‘Too true – she was awake for most of the night again.’
‘Might not be so bad when the funeral is over and done with,’ said Fry.
‘I’m not looking forward to that,’ confessed Dalley. ‘It’ll be harrowing. Nancy and her brother are bad enough now. They both look ten years older. What are they going to be like when they actually bury Cyril?’
From the time that she got there, Caroline Skene had endeavoured to be useful. She made tea, passed round biscuits and offered what solace she could. Her presence was so comforting to Gerald Ablatt and his sister that Dalley had felt able to leave them and return to work. Caroline was in charge. She was tirelessly helpful and full of compassion. When they wept, so did she. Neither of them realised that she had as much cause for anguish as they did.
‘It was good of you to come, Caroline,’ said Ablatt.
‘I felt I might be needed.’
‘You are – and we’re grateful.’
‘Yes,’ said Nancy with a woeful smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘How is Wilf?’ asked Ablatt.
‘He’s fine,’ replied Caroline. ‘He sends his love.’
‘Is he still having that back trouble?’
‘Oh, let’s not talk about him, Gerald. What are a few back pains compared to what you have to suffer? You can forget Wilf. Think of yourself for once.’
‘He can’t do that,’ said Nancy. ‘Gerald always puts other people first. His son has been killed yet he still worries about his customers.’
‘I hate to let anyone down,’ said Ablatt.
‘Do you know what he did last night?’
He was embarrassed. ‘There’s no need to mention that, Nancy.’
‘I think there is. Caroline deserves to know.’
‘Know what?’ asked Caroline.
‘When Jack took me back home last night,’ said Nancy, glancing at her brother, ‘Gerald should have gone straight to bed. He was as exhausted as we were. Instead of that, he went to the shop and started mending shoes.’
‘Never!’
‘I simply had to do something,’ he declared. ‘I thought it might take my mind off Cyril. I needed to be occupied. Can’t you understand that?’
‘Yes,’ soothed Caroline, ‘I think I can. It seems ridiculous but what you did was right. It fulfilled an urge.’ When there was a knock at the door, she got up at once. ‘You stay here. I’ll see who it is.’
She went to the front door and opened it. The vicar was standing on the doorstep and he asked if he might come in. Caroline would have turned anyone else away but both Cyril and his father had worshipped regularly at the nearby church. She’d heard them speak well of the vicar, an elderly man with a kind face and wisps of white hair curling down from under his hat. In the hope that he might be able to alleviate grief and provide some spiritual sustenance, Caroline stood aside to let him in. When she took him into the front room, Ablatt and his sister looked up with gratitude, pleased to see the old man. Removing his hat, he set it aside and offered a consoling hand to each of them. Caroline put the hat outside on a peg and went into the kitchen to make yet another pot of tea. When she returned, she saw that the vicar had already lifted the morale of the mourners.
It was the chance for which she’d been waiting. After pouring the tea and handing the cups around, she excused herself to go to the bathroom, making sure that she shut the door of the front room behind her. She then scampered upstairs and went straight to Cyril Ablatt’s room, opening the door and gazing around with a mixture of sadness and nostalgia. She needed minutes to recover.
Caroline then began a frantic search.
CHAPTER TWELVE
After a hectic morning in the lorry, Alice Marmion drove it back to the depot and brought it to a juddering halt. She looked across at Vera Dowling.
‘I don’t like the sound of the engine.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Vera. ‘Something is wrong.’
‘Let’s see if we can find out what it is.’
Alice switched off the engine and got out of the lorry. Vera went to fetch the toolbox in the back of the vehicle. By the time she brought it to her friend, Alice had lifted the bonnet and was peering underneath it.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ warned Vera. ‘It will be piping hot.’
‘I’m afraid that it could be something serious.’
‘We could always go to that garage and ask the mechanic to help us.’
Alice was derisive. ‘Ask a man to bail us out?’ she said. ‘This is the WEC, Vera. We sort out our own problems.’
‘Well, don’t expect me to do anything. I don’t know the first thing about engines – except that they get very hot after a while.’ She wiped perspiration from her brow. ‘They’re a bit like me.’
They’d spent several hours delivering bedding to various emergency accommodation sites. It had meant loading and unloading the lorry a number of times and they were tired. While Alice continued to scrutinise the engine, Vera leant against the side of the vehicle. Hannah Billington emerged from her office and marched across to them.
‘What seems to be the trouble?’ she asked.
‘We don’t know, Mrs Billington,’ replied Vera.
Alice was more positive. ‘We’ll soon find out when the engine cools down,’ she said, turning to the newcomer. ‘It was starting to pull and making a funny noise.’
‘It was a bit scary.’
‘There was no danger, Vera.’
‘You never know. It might have been sabotage.’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Hannah. ‘Who would sabotage our lorry?’
‘I was only thinking of what my friend told me about the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps.’
Hannah was reproachful. ‘Oh, come on, please. You should have mastered the initials by now. And what did this friend from the WAAC tell you?’
‘Well,’ said Vera, discomfited by the rebuke, ‘when she first started driving a thirty-hundredweight van, the men were very jealous.’
‘Why aren’t we surprised?’ asked Alice, jocularly.
‘They did all sorts of things to slow her down. They cut her petrol pipe halfway through, they unscrewed valves, they even changed over the leads on the sparking plugs. What upset her most, however,’ she went on, ‘was that they emptied the paraffin out of her lamps. When it got dark and she tried to light them, nothing happened. That was a cruel trick.’
‘Nobody would dare to do that to my drivers,’ said Hannah. ‘Any vehicles parked here are watched carefully day and night. Luckily, we’ve got enterprising y
oung women like Alice who can turn their hand to vehicle maintenance as well as to driving. You should follow in her footsteps, Vera.’
‘Not me – I’m all fingers and thumbs.’
‘Learn from Alice. It’s only a question of application.’
‘I’ve tried, Mrs Billington, I really have.’
‘You must make more effort, woman,’ said Hannah, curtly. She summoned up a smile. ‘Anyway, what have the pair of you been up to this morning?’
Alice delivered her report and earned a nod of approval. Vera was too nervous to venture anything more than the occasional word. Hannah looked from one to the other as if weighing something up.
‘You’ve done well,’ she said. ‘You’ve done very well, in fact. I trust that the lorry will be ready for action again this afternoon.’
‘Yes,’ said Alice, confidently. ‘I’ll have that engine singing like a bird.’
‘That’s the attitude – every problem can be solved.’
‘It certainly can – even if it means oily fingers and a lot of tinkering.’
The older woman gave her braying laugh then promptly changed the subject.
‘What do you think of the food here?’
‘It’s all right, Hannah.’
‘Do you agree, Vera?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said the other. ‘It’s better than I expected.’
‘But it’s rather bland and repetitive,’ said Hannah. ‘We can’t blame them for that. We’re subject to rationing like everyone else. I just wondered if you’d like a chance to eat something more appetising for once.’
‘We’d all like that,’ said Alice.
‘Then you and Vera must come to tea sometime. Cook makes the most wonderful scones and her chocolate cake is almost sinful.’
‘Thank you, Hannah. We’d love to come.’
Vera was less certain. ‘Yes … thank you for asking us.’
‘I’ll find a time when we’re not so busy and let you know.’
After flashing a smile at them, she turned on her heel and marched off. Vera waited until she was well out of earshot. She could be honest with a friend.
‘I don’t want to go, Alice.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable,’ said Vera. ‘I’ve never been to a house with a cook before. Mummy and I make the meals at home. I’d be on tenterhooks. I’ll find an excuse not to go. I hope that won’t stop you.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Alice. ‘I’d love to go. I’m much nosier than you.’
They met in Marmion’s office at Scotland Yard and were able to review what they’d learnt that morning. Marmion talked about his visit to the library and his conviction that Eric Fussell had enough hatred inside him to drive him to murder. Keedy told him about the second encounter with Stan Crowther and how the landlord had confirmed the alibi given by Robbie Gill. Marmion was more interested in the information that Crowther’s mother had been there and that she’d hotly denied that Waldron had arrived for a tryst with his spade.
‘So where did he leave it?’ wondered Marmion.
‘Maybe he took it back to his digs before he went to Maud.’
‘Why bring it home in the first place? Surely he keeps it at the cemetery. It would have been a bit late to do some gardening.’
‘P’raps he used it to bash Ablatt’s head in.’
‘You’ve met Waldron. Can you imagine him doing that?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Keedy. ‘He’s mean and dangerous. When he’d had enough beer inside him, I can well imagine him killing someone. What I can’t believe is that he’d do that and then go off for a rendezvous with a lady.’
‘He could have done it after he’d seen Maud Crowther.’
‘Her son told me he looked unusually clean when he got back to the Weavers Arms. That doesn’t sound like a man involved in a brutal murder. There’d have been specks of blood over his clothing.’
‘That’s speculation, not evidence.’
‘It’s all we’ve got.’
‘So where does that leave us, Joe?’
‘We’re still very much in the dark.’
‘There are only two possible suspects so far and, although they were known to each other, they’re the most unlikely accomplices. Waldron may have been in the right place at the right time but all he was thinking about, I fancy, was knocking on Mrs Crowther’s door.’
‘What about the newspapers? Did they bring in any witnesses?’
‘They brought in much more than that,’ said Marmion. ‘I was wading through the messages when you go back here. There were two cranks who claimed that they’d actually done the murder, but then we always get bogus confessions at a time like this. One woman reckons that her husband was the killer because he came home with blood on his face and there was a man who insisted that he witnessed the murder even though he was in Stepney at the time. He must have the most amazing eyesight.’
‘We ought to arrest them for wasting police time, Harv.’
‘Leave them to their weird fantasies.’ He noticed the signs of weariness in his colleague. ‘You look as if you’re ready to fall asleep, Joe. Take the afternoon off. Get some sleep and start fresh again tomorrow.’
‘I don’t want to miss any of the fun.’
‘What fun?’ Marmion’s laugh was mirthless. ‘If you think it’s fun to go to another press conference this evening, you can take over from me and have the superintendent breathing down your neck.’
‘No, thanks – keep Chat well away from me.’
‘We’re going to release a few details about the post-mortem.’
‘Not too many of them, I hope. I saw the corpse, remember. We both know the effect it had on Mr Ablatt. When’s the inquest, by the way?’
‘No date has been set for it yet.’
‘The family will want the body as soon as possible.’
‘That’s always the case,’ said Marmion, ‘but we have to follow protocol. The inquest must come first.’ He picked up the newspaper beside him. ‘Have you had the chance to see this?’
‘Is that the Evening News?’
‘They sent over a copy of the early edition.’ He handed it to Keedy. ‘Just read the first paragraph. The tone has changed completely since yesterday.’
Keedy looked at the front-page feature. ‘I see what you mean, Harv.’
‘Yesterday, he was a murder victim deserving of sympathy. Then we told them about Cyril Ablatt’s background and they latched onto the fact that he was a conscientious objector. Today, he’s a different person altogether.’
‘The sympathy has dried up almost completely.’
‘That’s why we have to redouble our efforts. There are far too many people who think that conchies ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered. They’d be quite happy if the killer got away with it. We’re going to disappoint them.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘Something will turn up.’
‘I’ve heard that phrase before.’
‘It comes from Mr Micawber in David Copperfield.’
‘But he wasn’t a detective, was he?’
‘Oddly enough, he was. It was Micawber who exposed Uriah Heap’s villainy and saved the day. He turned out to be a hero in the end.’
‘Things don’t happen like that in real life.’
‘We’ve had to rely on luck before,’ said Marmion. ‘Solving a murder is not entirely a matter of logical deduction. Take that anonymous letter I had this very morning. It came out of nowhere.’
‘But did it get us any closer to the killer?’
‘It might have done, Joe.’
Keedy put the newspaper aside. ‘All we’ve managed to do so far,’ he said, disconsolately, ‘is to arrest a useless plumber.’
‘You did more than that. You stopped him venting his spleen on the wall of the house. Mr Ablatt will be grateful and so will a lot of people in Shoreditch. Most of them are decent folk who’d think what Robbie Gill was going to do was in bad taste.’
As t
hey were speaking, a young woman knocked on the open door and came into the office. She spoke with deference.
‘This came for you, Inspector,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ said the other, taking a piece of paper from her.
The woman walked away. Reading the message, Marmion grinned broadly.
Keedy was curious. ‘Well?’
‘I told you that something might turn up,’ said Marmion. ‘This could be it.’
Caroline Skene had never been inside a police station before and she didn’t relish the experience. It was so bare and comfortless. When she showed the business card to the duty sergeant, he rang Scotland Yard and asked for Inspector Marmion. He was told to wait while the inspector was found. Caroline, meanwhile, was kept sitting on a high-backed wooden bench. The fact that desperate criminals must have sat on it over the years only deepened her sense of guilt. She had the urge to leave but, since the phone call had been made, she had to stay there. It seemed an age before someone came on at the end of the line. The sergeant spoke to him then offered the receiver to Caroline. She crossed to the desk on unsteady legs and looked at the instrument warily. Unfamiliar with a telephone, she took it gingerly from him.
‘Hello,’ she said, meekly.
‘Is that you, Mrs Skene?’ asked Marmion.
She was reassured. ‘Yes, Inspector – you told me to contact you.’
‘Do you have some information for me?’
‘Yes, I do, but I don’t want to talk on the telephone.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ he said. ‘I was told that you’re ringing from Shoreditch police station. Is that correct?’
‘It is.’
‘Then I’ll meet you there. You stay put.’
She looked around. ‘I’d rather not talk here, Inspector.’
‘I understand. A place like that can be rather intimidating for someone as law-abiding as you. Not to worry,’ said Marmion. ‘I’ll come as soon as I can. Then we’ll find somewhere else to have a chat. Is that all right?’
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