The Great Darkness

by Jim Kelly

  ‘I could let the file go like that,’ said Brooke, clicking his fingers. ‘For all I know I’ll be off the case in the morning anyway. But there’s something about it that lingers in the mind …’

  ‘Here’s my advice, if you want it …’ said Edwardes. ‘I’d go back to the scene of the crime. Someone heard gunshots on the night? Send out uniform door-to-door. Perhaps someone saw your killer. Why not put a man in the cemetery after dark? You’re not the only night walker, you know. Most places like that end up being used as lovers’ lane. Maybe someone clocked the murderer, alright, but they don’t want to come forward. Shoe leather, Brooke. That’s what this case needs.’

  Downstairs they could hear Kat at a sewing machine, the rhythmic pedalling like a racing heartbeat. The sensation of the regular speeding palpitation made Brooke feel feverish, so he took the armchair, knowing it might invite a moment’s sleep.

  He leant over from the chair to pluck a sheet of paper from the bed, noting the neat circles drawn around groups of letters. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Nothing clever,’ said Edwardes. ‘We’ve had our orders from the Home Office to watch out for groups of letters which repeat themselves in a set pattern. A tip-off from Madingley Hall, no less, via London. It’s called a crib. A key. If you had radio traffic and you knew it was about Cambridge you’d look out for nine-letter groups. See? CAMBRIDGE – nine letters. Once you’ve got that, you’re into the code.’

  ‘But you’re after seven?’ said Brooke, suddenly awake, letting his eye run over the encircled letters.

  ‘That’s it. They’ve given us the actual word in case someone panics and sends an uncoded message. That’s not as daft as it sounds, because the point about Morse is that it’s fast, and the operator can hear it as if it’s the spoken word. So if you’re in a hurry, and you think no one’s listening, then you might take the risk. It’s called “chat”.’

  ‘What’s the word?’

  ‘Pegasus.’ Edwardes was laughing. ‘I know you’re trustworthy, Brooke. But if you let that slip they might shoot me, which come to think of it might be a blessing. So, yes, Pegasus. You’re the one with the classical education.’

  Brooke shook his head. ‘Pegasus was a god, a mythic horse with wings. I think he carried another god as a passenger in pursuit of the chimera, a dazzling beast made up of several parts of other beasts: the head of a lion, the body of a goat, the tail of a snake.’

  Edwardes nodded, shuffling some sheets of paper. ‘Other than that it’s the usual chatter. The minister’s visit caused some traffic, but nothing sinister. Nasty shock, that old girl in the fire. What’s Dr Comfort say?’

  ‘Hardly a mystery. The poor woman burnt to death, pretty much in front of our eyes. We’re working on the hypothesis she was a vagrant, a roadster, probably a drinker.’

  ‘But a woman?’ said Edwardes. ‘Roadsters are usually men, Brooke. Women are very rare; I pity them all. Ever put ’em in the cells?’

  Brooke shook his head.

  ‘Next time it’s frosty, think about it. Charity doesn’t have to start at home.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Rose King’s hut on Market Hill was doing brisk business; a gaggle of shop girls had formed a scrum in front of the counter, vying for the chance to add sugar to tea.

  ‘Your luck’s changed, Rose,’ said one, and they all dissolved in laughter, watching Brooke approach.

  ‘Tall, dark and handsome,’ said another voice. ‘Just the ticket!’

  Brooke’s narrow steps brought him into the pool of light spilling from the hatch. He tipped his hat, and the girls fled, giggling.

  ‘Your man’s over there,’ said Rose, half a cigarette bobbing at her bright red lips. ‘Gives me the creeps. Oily’s the word, and I know he’s a friend … I don’t think it’s my tea that brings him to town, do you? It’s the glassy eyes that gives the game away.’

  Brooke surveyed the market. The stalls were mostly bare, a patchwork of shadows, the awnings just now beginning to glimmer with the first signs of a frost.

  ‘By the fountain,’ said Rose, signalling with her eyes.

  Captain Richard Kerridge sat on the edge of a stone bowl, a cigarette leaking smoke at his fingertips. Out of uniform, he looked rakish, even dissolute. He loosened a red silk tie at his throat and brushed some ash from his lapels.

  ‘Rich, thanks. You got the message,’ said Brooke.

  Kerridge nodded. ‘Summoned by the hero of the desert. How could I refuse?’

  ‘A favour if you can, Rich,’ said Brooke. ‘I need to check out the story of a soldier, in the last lot, who won a medal, could you trace the citation? Name of Corporal Harry Staunton.’ Brooke spelt out the surname. ‘That was your beat in the Middle East, wasn’t it, medals, awards. Still got the contacts?’

  Kerridge executed a lazy salute and nearly tumbled into the fountain.

  ‘Bit of a party somewhere?’ asked Brooke.

  ‘Gathering intelligence,’ said Kerridge, pouring a mug of Rose’s tea into the fountain. ‘And I must get back. My duties are ceaseless.’

  The gaggle of girls was out of sight but they heard a wave of delighted screams bounding and rebounding down distant streets.

  ‘Tell me about Swift-Lane,’ said Brooke.

  Kerridge sighed. ‘What’s to tell? A soldier trying to match the exploits of his elder brothers. Did I say trying to match? Perhaps desperately trying would be more accurate.’

  He met Brooke’s eyes. ‘I didn’t tell you this, Brooke. You heard it on the grapevine. Swift-Lane has a reputation for flakiness. Before the Great War he led an expedition to map Baffin Island, up in the Arctic. It was so badly organised he and his men had to be rescued by the Canadian Navy. Copybook blotted.

  ‘In the war he was at Gallipoli – ditto – then various theatres of war, all far-flung. Russia after the Armistice, one of Churchill’s anti-communist volunteers. Then a spell in military intelligence, then back to the War Office. Marriage ended in divorce, another black mark.

  ‘This is his last chance, Brooke. But that’s the great thing about war if you’re a soldier. Right place, right time, you can remake a career. Wrong place, wrong time, you get shot. Madingley’s a little cauldron of schemers, believe me.’

  ‘So Swift-Lane’s distrusted?’

  ‘A loose cannon, Brooke. Lethal in action, but only to his own men. There’s nothing a soldier despises more than the reckless hero. You can see why he hates Major Stone. He might be second-in-command but at least he can organise a piss-up in a brewery. Talk about chalk and cheese.’

  ‘Hate’s a strong word.’

  ‘They communicate by paper. Total loathing, Brooke, believe me.’

  ‘Why’s Swift-Lane so interested in the fate of Chris Childe?’

  Kerridge brushed his greatcoat down, buttoning the collar under his chin, so that what little light there was caught his profile, and Brooke saw a glimpse of what the drink would do to his face in ten years’ time.

  ‘Swift-Lane’s interested in Childe because if sensitive information gets out it will cost the colonel his career. The operation on the riverside, the lecture at the Galen, it’s all part of military weapons research and it’s under Swift-Lane’s direct oversight.

  ‘The night of the Great Darkness was a five-star cock-up. The civilian unit should never have been allowed to dig the pits, but Corporal Currie wanted to give his lads a break. Currie’s got previous with Swift-Lane, by the way – he was his driver at Gallipoli. Anyway, he goes to Swift-Lane and pleads his case and the colonel obliged by signing the order.

  ‘Crucial mistake. Worse, Major Stone spotted it, and took action. Currie had to sprint down to the Galen and read the Riot Act. Not that they’d seen anything. But they couldn’t take a chance. Which might have all worked, but Childe, as you have discovered, was a persistent man. He got sight of the classified film.’

  Kerridge ditched his cigarette in the fountain. ‘If there is a major security failure, if the contents of the conchie’s
letter do reach Moscow, then Swift-Lane will carry the can. Stone will make bloody sure of that.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Vera Staunton sat opposite Brooke in the slated morning sunlight which fell through his office blinds. She’d called at the Spinning House duty desk at eight o’clock, asking for the inspector, explaining that she wished to make a statement in relation to the death of Chris Childe. They waited patiently in silence for tea, and Edison, who’d been summoned to take down a record.

  At Staunton’s feet sat a wicker basket of shopping: a loaf of bread, a butcher’s parcel of folded brown paper, a tin of soup. On her lap was her purse and a copy of Britannia and Eve magazine, showing a young woman at the wheel of an open-topped sports car, cherry-red lipstick matching the paintwork, a beret set at just the right angle.

  Staunton wore a full-length coat, slightly frayed at the cuffs, and a pair of leather flat-soled shoes. She looked tired: a tradesman’s wife perhaps, with children still at home, and a day of chores ahead. The easy confidence she’d displayed in her rooms on Babylon Street was gone. Her face, free of make-up, looked puffy, as if she’d been crying.

  In the war, Brooke had seen many women forced into prostitution. In Cairo, he’d often met Captain Kerridge in a bar in the Birka, the city’s red-light district, to swap gossip and so-called ‘intelligence’. Shops, bars and brothels fronted a lake. The atmosphere had been febrile, with good reason, for in the first years of the war a riot had broken out, sparked by the discovery of an English girl dancing naked in a club. A mob of soldiers had tried to ‘rescue’ her, and were promptly ejected from a fourth-storey window.

  The women of the Birka were cowed, not only by their clientele and by a palpable sense of shame, but by the men who hovered by every stairwell, their eyes constantly scanning the crowd for approaching customers. Vera Staunton radiated a very different aura: there was more of the scent of the cool courtesan, a working woman visited at appointed times. There had been no pimp at her front door on Babylon Street, just the intermittent vigilance of the aged Ida in her bedsit at the end of the corridor.

  Edison arrived with tea and biscuits, and set them down before subsiding into a chair himself. He’d been out since dawn organising the door-to-door on Mill Road, trying to track down, without success, a sighting of Childe’s killer. Several residents had heard the shot, at a time between seven and quarter past, but seen no one.

  ‘You wanted to make a statement,’ prompted Brooke. Edison had his notebook unfolded on the desk before him.

  ‘I have a friend,’ said Staunton. ‘A Major Stone. He visits regularly.’

  ‘I see,’ said Brooke, nodding his head as if this statement were not as startling as it was. Amid his confusion, the euphemism ‘friend’ almost worked: how clever to choose it, ahead of visitor, acquaintance or client.

  ‘And he pays, to visit, and to be your friend,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘He pays.’

  The only sound was the scratching nib of the sergeant’s fountain pen.

  ‘This is Major Joelyn Stone, of Madingley Hall?’

  She nodded. ‘The morning Chris called with the letter he bumped into Major Stone on the stairs. Major Stone – Joelyn – had been with me, for several hours. Later, around five, Joelyn returned. He’d seen Chris at the tribunal at the court. Joelyn sits on the bench.

  ‘He was convinced Chris had recognised him. He wanted to know if he’d been back since the tribunal to ask questions. I said he hadn’t; I said that he’d simply seen a soldier on the stairs in the half-light. He was hardly likely to recognise him on the bench in court. But Joelyn wouldn’t have it … He’s an ambitious man whose career depends on the opinion of others,’ she said.

  Brooke thought it was a devastating verdict, and wondered if she’d prepared it, along with the rest of her story.

  ‘He insisted that he couldn’t just let the issue lie. The timing, he said, was particularly bad. I think he planned to offer Chris money for his silence. I said he should just wait. But he said that wasn’t an option.’

  ‘Major Stone is married?’ asked Edison.

  ‘Yes. To a general’s daughter. I think the relationship’s a cool one.’

  ‘What do you mean – I think he planned to offer him money? Why do you suspect that?’ pressed Brooke.

  ‘He asked several questions about Chris: his house, job, family. I said he was often pressed for cash and had two young girls. The house in Romsey Town is a poor one, a slum, at least to some eyes, if not to mine.’

  ‘Did Childe come back at all that day?’ asked Brooke.

  The events of the last day of Childe’s life were still unclear. He’d taken the letter to Staunton, reported for work at the depot, appeared in front of the tribunal, then returned to work on Midsummer Common. His body had been found the next morning. Had there been time to go back to Babylon Street?

  ‘I didn’t see Chris again, not after I went out to post his letter,’ insisted Staunton.

  ‘A letter which never arrived, Mrs Staunton,’ said Brooke.

  ‘I can’t answer for the Royal Mail, Inspector. Or our central office,’ she said, shaking a bangle which encircled her right wrist.

  ‘Why tell us about Major Stone now?’ said Brooke. ‘Do you think the major is a murderer, that’d he’d take a man’s life to protect his own position?’

  ‘I don’t think he’d plan such a thing,’ she said carefully, and Brooke thought how damning that line would have sounded to a jury. ‘But I think that if he did offer Chris money he would have turned it down. Thrown it in his face. And he might have said more: about my life, about the men who visit, about the evils of money and power. Once he started, Chris just spewed it out. They might have fought. It has to be possible.’

  She appeared genuinely moved. ‘I had to tell you. I visited Mary last night. There is no money. She’s a widow with two children, as I was a widow with a child when Harry didn’t come back. Her life is ruined, Inspector. Every day will be a struggle. I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry.’

  The brown eyes flooded. ‘Mary deserves some justice. I thought I should tell the truth, whatever it costs me. The children should know what happened to their father. It’s all I can give her.’

  ‘I see,’ said Brooke, keeping his voice neutral, reminding himself that this complex woman had mixed political activism with working as a prostitute. Perhaps she did feel deeply for Mary in her plight. Perhaps she had other motives. ‘How many friends do you have, Mrs Staunton? I ask only in the interests of the inquiry. Was Childe ever such a friend?’

  ‘Good God, no. Chris loves Mary. Mary loves Chris. Frankly, he seemed to emit no sexual …’ She searched for the word. ‘No sexual signals at all. As to my friends, Inspector. Six, sometimes eight. It depends …’

  ‘I see,’ said Brooke. ‘We’ll need to confront Major Stone with this allegation. We may need a statement.’

  Edison had one last question. ‘Are any of your other clients military personnel?’

  Staunton stood, an easy fluid motion, and Brooke thought she’d simply ducked the question, but she stopped at the door and turned back. ‘They’re all military personnel.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The key to the case, at least to its successful prosecution, was the murder weapon. If Major Stone was their man, and he had not disposed of the gun in the river, then it was either at Madingley Hall or hidden at his private home, a leafy villa on the city’s southern borders. Brooke dispatched Edison to the magistrates’ court to obtain a warrant to search the house, while he waited to set out for military headquarters at Madingley.

  The phone rang on Brooke’s desk.

  ‘Inspector?’ Brooke recognised Dr Comfort’s blunt vowels. ‘I’ve completed the external examination of the woman burnt to death last night. A surprise, I’m afraid. Can you?’

  ‘It’s urgent?’ he asked the pathologist.

  ‘Oh, yes, Brooke. I’d say so.’

  It
would take Edison an hour to get the warrant, so Brooke grabbed his coat and rushed out into the autumn sunshine. The Galen’s white facade was stark in the morning light, students crowding into the lobby, heading for a lecture. He took the steps to the fifth floor two at a time, bursting through the doors into the light-drenched morgue.

  ‘I’ll keep it brief, Brooke, as you’re clearly in a rush,’ said Comfort, by way of welcome. ‘Several points, but you do need to see this …’

  A surgeon’s face mask covered Comfort’s mouth and nose, fogging his speech. Brooke declined the offer, instead holding his linen handkerchief to his nostrils.

  The badly burnt naked body was laid out on the metal table.

  Comfort moved towards the head, to which a few threads of hair were still attached.

  ‘Overall she’s suffered eighty per cent burns. The skull is particularly badly affected, the bones charred, but it does reveal this …’

  Brooke had no choice but to look. Carefully he removed his spectacles, leaning in to examine an area of exposed cranium.

  ‘Do you see? A depression, a wound, I’m afraid. What? A centimetre in depth at the centre, indicating a forceful blow. Our old friend the blunt instrument, very blunt actually; you can see that the wound is in no way concave, it’s a flat depression in a curved surface. And I found this, just a few particles in the wound, most definitely associated with the trauma.’

  He had a Petri dish, within which was a small amount of a sticky material noteworthy for its colour, a metallic, blanched blue.

  ‘Ceramic paint, mixed with a little blood,’ said Comfort. ‘My guess, from the colour, is that it’s the paint used to cover a lot of heavy-duty tools. A wrench? A hand vice? Unconsciousness would have followed within seconds of this blow, certainly within a minute, and would have lasted several hours. It would have killed her eventually: unfortunately, we know it didn’t.’