by Jim Kelly
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A woman visiting a grave with an armful of fresh flowers stumbled on the corpse of Chris Childe at just after ten o’clock, sprawled on the flat tombstone of his parents’ grave. She’d let out a single, piercing scream, sending a flock of starlings up into the sky. She’d fled the spot, running out into Mill Road, flagging down a butcher’s boy on his bicycle, who’d fetched a constable. Childe’s body was cold, the limbs stiff. The head wound had bled across the gravestone. The victim’s wallet contained three one-pound notes, an ID card and a membership card for the Peace Pledge Union. The address on the card was a poor street on the edge of Romsey Town, about half a mile to the east.
Brooke informed Chief Inspector Carnegie-Brown that the Borough had a potential murder inquiry on its hands, sent Edison to the cemetery with two uniformed officers, while he set out on foot for the dead man’s house. As he crossed the iron bridge into Romsey Town, leaving the old city behind, he was followed by a long line of children: evacuees escaping London, each clutching a suitcase, all tagged with labels, the babel of excited voices rising as they were enveloped in the steam rising from a train as it thundered underneath.
Turning into Gothic Street, he saw a constable on the doorstep; relief, like a glass of wine, settled Brooke’s pulse: at least he wouldn’t have to break the news, wouldn’t have to trade in euphemisms while a stricken wife began to realise that her life had changed for ever.
A woman police constable, one of two on the Borough force, joined her colleague on the threshold when Brooke arrived. ‘Sir. Wife’s in the kitchen, the children are with a neighbour. Twin girls. Her mother’s with her, she lives in. Wife’s able to talk, quite calm, really. She said she knew something was wrong when he didn’t come home. The doctor’s left a sedative but I don’t think she’ll need it. She’s worried about the children …’
The front room held a wooden printing press, boxes of type, tools hung neatly across the wall like a flight of decorative ducks. The air was heavy with the acerbic aroma of ink. On one wall, a small desktop had been fixed with hinges and held a heavy Imperial typewriter. Brooke noted that some of the keys, the principal vowels, had been almost worn away, leaving behind a smudged, metallic fingerprint.
Through the open door, Brooke could see the kitchen, a back door ajar, revealing a flagged yard and a bicycle.
‘Tea?’ he asked: the ubiquitous English antidote to shock and grief.
‘Pot’s made, sir. I can stay if it’s a help?’
Brooke shook his head, and went into the kitchen.
Mary Childe sat at the kitchen table, cradling an empty mug. An elderly woman with grey hair had an arm around her shoulders.
Brooke said he was sorry for their loss and added some other pleasantries he’d attached to the format over the years. His mind, on a separate track, considered the table, the way it embodied the family which had sat round it for meals: the dents and grooves, a circular burn, which told their own story of the lives led in a cramped terrace house.
Brooke gave the mother a shilling and asked her to fetch chips from the corner for the constable on duty at the front door, which they could all share. Straightening her stooped back she paused in front of Brooke. ‘Did he do for himself?’ she asked.
‘It’s too early to tell. I think food would help …’
The victim’s wife was shaking very slightly, her hands held together to disguise the tremor.
‘They said they didn’t know anything. I don’t know anything. I need to tell the children something. Can you help, please? Just tell me.’
There was a slight sibilance on every ‘s’. Her face was dominated by large liquid eyes which failed to hold Brooke’s gaze for more than a fleeting second.
‘Death would have been instantaneous,’ said Brooke. ‘A gunshot here, to the right temple.’ He touched his finger to his skin and she looked up, the blood draining from her cheeks.
‘The pathologist believes Chris died between five and eight o’clock. We have reports of a gunshot heard in the area at about seven-fifteen. Ballistic evidence suggests the weapon was held almost against the skin. We can’t rule out the possibility the shot was self-inflicted; however, the gun’s missing. We know that one bullet was fired, and it’s been recovered from a tree bole by the grave. I’m sorry. Those are the facts.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Brooke swiftly established what she knew of her husband’s movements. Two days earlier he’d left the house as usual at seven-thirty with a packed lunch. A conscientious objector, he’d been assigned to civic works. His duties that day had been scheduled as ditch clearing at Waterbeach, but he’d come home early to say that the shift had been reassigned to night work, digging trenches on Parker’s Piece. He’d slept for two hours, had tea, and then left for the council works yard, returning in the early hours as the air raid siren had sounded.
‘That was the night of the blackout,’ she added.
‘By the time he got back the siren had gone off, so we all got under the stairs, ’cept Mum. She’s happy to take her chances, so she stayed up in the attic.’ She pulled at a simple silver chain round her neck. ‘Selfish, really. We’d have to dig her out if the bombs did fall.’
‘Next morning?’
‘Chris didn’t sleep. We all went back to bed when the all-clear sounded, the girls in our bed, because they get scared, or excited. Chris got up at dawn and started work. I could hear the typewriter.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘No, he’s always working, Chris. When I took him a cup of tea he said he had to make a report, for the Party. Chris lives for his politics, for the Communists, and the PPU. He’s a peacemonger, that’s what he always tells the girls. That’s why he’d been late that night, he’d met the other members of the committee because they wanted to help him prepare for court. He was up in front of the tribunal so he could print full-time. He had plans to edit a news-sheet for the Party.’
‘What was this report about?’ asked Brooke.
‘He wouldn’t say. He just had to get it down, and then get the letter to London, to Party headquarters. Vera, she’s the Party secretary, knew who to send it to. So he said he’d take it round on the way to the depot.’
‘Do you have an address for Vera?’ asked Brooke.
She fetched a small leather-bound book from the dresser, the entries in a neat copperplate. ‘This is Chris’s. Henderson’s the chairman, Lauder the deputy, and Popper’s the treasurer – they all helped with the tribunal rehearsal. Vera Staunton’s the secretary.’
Brooke flicked the pages, finding addresses and a telephone number for Henderson, making notes as he went along. But under ‘S’ there was no Staunton.
‘Any idea where Vera lives?’
She shook her head.
Finished, he looked round the room, noting the threadbare rug on bare boards, the tin bath on a hook by the grate. ‘Who would want to kill Chris, Mrs Childe? Did he have any enemies, any fights or disagreements, with neighbours perhaps, or his comrades in the Party …?’
A banal question, it produced a profound answer. It was clear that Christopher Childe was largely defined by a life constructed to anger no one. Printing, the Party, the PPU, his novels (unpublished), his studies in economics and politics for a degree which always seemed just out of reach, and his family: these were the sinews of a blameless existence.
Struggling to find any sense to his violent death, his wife finally settled on ideology. ‘They argued in the Party. That got Chris mad. He’d come home het up. Chris liked the debates, the theory of it all, but he didn’t like losing. And I think the others lost patience. But they were comrades, he always said that too, and comrades, in the end, would stick together.’
Brooke made a note. ‘And he didn’t return after he left with this letter?’
‘No. He had the tribunal in the afternoon and he wouldn’t have missed that. And he had to report to work, although they’d said he could have time off for court. Maisie, a
cross the street, said he’d got what he wanted from the tribunal. Her son was up too. So if he’d come home we’d have celebrated …’
This thought made her stop in mid-sentence.
‘The money they give him for the hard labour isn’t enough,’ she said, eventually. ‘And it meant he didn’t have time for printing, which used to bring in some cash. So getting registered would have changed his life, our lives …’
Her face lightened fleetingly. ‘The last thing he’d do is take his own life. He wouldn’t leave us.’ She covered her face, but Brooke heard the addition: ‘Not the girls.’
It crossed Brooke’s sceptical mind that, for a pacifist, Childe had nevertheless inflicted considerable hardship on his own family, for while he pursued his obsessions, he had found little time to eke out a living to help make ends meet.
Mrs Childe got up to refill the tea pot, moving as if underwater, the weight of gravity almost too much to allow her to lift her feet.
She’s thinking about telling the children, thought Brooke.
On the wall above the fireplace, Brooke noticed a framed photograph. A caption read: The Anglo-Soviet Committee. Cambridge, 1938.
The names were listed with appropriate positions, including Christopher CHILDE, Editor, Anglo-Soviet Bulletin.
Brooke slipped off his tinted glasses and studied the rest of the line-up: men, almost exclusively, mostly with glasses, mostly in late middle-age, if not older, in threadbare suits. But one woman stood out. Standing in the middle of the front row, she’d broken protocol with a smile, but there was nothing shy about the breach. She had a fine face, and very clear eyebrows, one of which was arched as if interrogating the camera. Mid-thirties, possibly older, but soft and sinuous where the men were stiff and upright. There was a certain challenge in the direct connection she’d made with the photographer’s lens.
Brooke read the caption: Mrs Vera STAUNTON, Secretary to the Committee.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Major Joelyn Stone took the train to London. As a senior officer at Madingley Hall, he’d been able to secure a first-class ticket. The carriage was empty, and he’d watched the harvest fields fly past, occasionally rereading a sheaf of notes extracted from a leather attaché case. The war had brought the countryside back to life, as the nation dug for victory. Pickers in lines stretched out along furrows, tractors raised clouds of red fen dust. Stone let the scenes slide past his eyes.
At King’s Cross, the platforms were jammed with evacuees waiting for trains to the north. An air of a seaside outing pervaded, rather than panic, or even anxiety. Stone noted the smell, the stench of the crowd, something he’d forgotten since his pre-war days in India.
Outside, he watched the traffic on Euston Road. London, under low cloud, seemed to be wearing khaki. A wall of sandbags discouraged him from taking the Tube. Checking his watch, he calculated he had the time to walk to his appointment at the Army and Navy Club, so he set off down Gray’s Inn Road. To the east he could see a few barrage balloons over the docks, and another, flying solo, to the west, possibly over Buckingham Palace.
Slipping across Trafalgar Square, he skirted the War Office: tomorrow he’d be there for the formal interview, but today was the real thing, a cosy ‘chat’ over lunch at the club.
Downing Street, when he reached the corner, looked as it always did, rather squalid and middle class, the paintwork grimy, a sandbagged machine-gun nest looking bedraggled under a camouflage sheet. A man in a morning suit and tails walked up the street, knocked and was admitted, the first gleams of a hazy sun catching the polish on the black door.
The Army and Navy Club – or The Rag as it was affectionately known – stood on Pall Mall. On his honeymoon with Margaret they’d stayed in a hotel on the Grand Canal in Venice and he’d bored her with a long walk to get a view of the Palazzo Cornaro, the architect’s model for one of London’s most imposing gentleman’s clubs, the Good Old Rag.
Stone breezed in, trying to look at ease, avoiding the full-length military portraits in the lobby because one of them was of his father-in-law. Stone came from middle-class stock. His career had undoubtedly benefited to some degree from his wife’s family connections, but he didn’t like to be reminded too blatantly of the fact.
Brigadier Pearce was in an armchair, cradling a tumbler of whisky, and looked mildly out of sorts to be diverted from some inner reverie. Pearce was in his eighties, a veteran whose career stretched back into the previous century.
Pearce’s hand shook slightly holding his glass, but his first question, after a few perfunctory remarks, was direct enough.
‘This plan of yours has a certain brutal genius, Stone. I don’t think anyone had ever realised you could use a barrage balloon as a weapon. Just drop the cables and let them drift away. It’s cowardly, of course, don’t you think? They can kill and maim, and spread chaos, but they’re unmanned, aren’t they? Delivering death by proxy. There’s no sense of combat …’
The look on Stone’s face must have shaken Pearce in turn. The word ‘coward’ seemed to have drained the blood from the major’s face.
‘And there’s this American casualty, in Cambridge,’ said Pearce, pressing on. ‘Dr Lux. Unfortunate, to say the very least. One boffin, I know, neither here nor there. But it raised questions. It is rather careless.’
‘The local police rang this morning,’ said Stone, stretching out his legs to affect relaxation. ‘The American’s death is not down to us. I don’t know what it is down to, the detective concerned is a difficult chap, and wouldn’t clarify the issue. But he’s pretty sure the balloon wasn’t the culprit. An accident, perhaps; there were several during the blackout. And all three balloons are now accounted for. It won’t happen again. The new winches are designed to allow us to release the balloons on order. There was a malfunction. They’ve been modified and the problem solved.’
‘Don’t misunderstand me, Stone. Everyone’s impressed. Even the prime minister. In fact, especially the prime minister …’
‘It’s the perfect weapon,’ said Stone. ‘Properly organised, it could be devastating. And the Met Office will have to step up. Wind speed, wind direction, is critical. But there’s no doubt the effects will be crippling for the enemy. A thousand, let loose at the right moment, could plunge the Ruhr into chaos. They’re slow-motion bombs.’
The brigadier’s eyes looked wary, as if this vision of the future was all too much.
‘And the Germans can’t retaliate,’ said Stone, decisively. ‘Wind direction’s almost always against them. And the cost is minimal. Just compare it to a Spitfire, or a Lancaster.’
‘Quite,’ said Pearce, summoning a waiter. ‘A bottle of the Tsarine,’ he said, pulling himself up straight in the armchair. ‘You’ll get the papers but, entre nous, the Cabinet has decided that funding can be set aside for your balloons, at least for six months. The chain of command will be short, so if it goes wrong it’s your head that rolls. You’re in charge. First, you’ll have to work out of the War Office, then from somewhere on the south coast, that’s up to you to map out.’
Stone thought he’d misheard. ‘Command? But the other candidates?’ Stone had been hoping for a senior role; second-in-command had figured only in his wildest dreams. It had never crossed his mind he’d be given command.
‘Leave the other candidates to us. This is an organisational challenge, Stone. We don’t need any flashy heroics. But for now, please keep the appointment to yourself. The other principal candidate has already been told of your appointment. You’ll respect the niceties, this is all on the QT for now …’
‘Of course.’
‘Good man. You’ll have to liaise with the War Office, of course. A production line is needed. Industrial warfare, that’s the ticket. But yes, a thousand of these things drifting over Dortmund, or Mainz, has caught the spirit of the age, Stone. It’s cheap, and it might work.’
Standing on the steps of The Rag two hours later, after an excellent lunch, Stone thought life couldn’t get better. He
’d booked a room for the night, but he saw Pearce to the door, as the old soldier shrugged himself into a greatcoat. ‘Don’t forget the formal interview tomorrow. Play it safe. They just want to feel they’re in the loop.
‘One other thing: given the scope of the command, we feel Lieutenant Colonel would be appropriate. It’ll take time, wheels within wheels, but you’ll get the notice in due course.’
He didn’t shake Stone’s hand – even the nod was limited to an upward dismissal with the chin – and then he was gone, bundling himself into a cab.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Detective Sergeant Edison swung the Wolseley Wasp out of the Spinning House yard into Regent Street, the pale sun catching the plum-red paintwork, which had been polished to a mirror-like patina. Slipping the engine into second, then third, they sped past Downing College and out beyond Parker’s Piece, the old city passing in a blur. Brooke, in the passenger seat, held the map close to his eyes.
Their priority was to find Vera Staunton. The key, felt Brooke, to tracking down Chris Childe’s killer lay in the letter he’d delivered to the Party branch secretary. But Staunton was proving elusive. They had uniformed branch checking out the Peace Pledge Union, and admin at the Spinning House trawling through the electoral rolls. So far, there was no sign of her. Brooke and Edison would try and locate her via her comrades in the Party: Henderson, Popper and Lauder, the three officials who’d put Childe through his successful rehearsal for his tribunal appearance.
They set out for Barnwell, a suburb clinging to the bank of the river, which had once clustered round a vast Augustinian abbey. In the crowded streets, medieval fragments survived: the monks’ old treasury house in stone, and a chapel, now the local church. The place strived to be genteel, but down by the quayside there were slums. Lauder’s address was a rooming house on Wharf Street. The skeleton of an old pram stood on the cobbles, and a small child chased a ball in the gutter. A neighbour said Lauder was a Scot, a brickie, and had not been seen that day.