The Great Darkness

by Jim Kelly

‘Insight’s the thing, Jacob. The inner eye. Have you a Snellen chart for that?’

  ‘What does your inner eye tell you now, Brooke?’

  ‘It tells me that a man who can kill once, can kill twice,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  The door of Ida Trew’s flat was locked, a beaded curtain still obscuring the view through the pane of glass which served as her window on the world. Brooke considered breaking the flimsy door frame, but then remembered the young woman they’d met on the doorstep, who’d slipped into the ground floor flat. She answered his knock with a stealthy silence, opening the door by an inch. A series of smells wafted out into the damp corridor, oranges and cinnamon, stale sweat and pipe smoke.

  ‘It’s still early,’ she said, and behind her a voice, muffled perhaps by a bedspread, said something indistinct.

  ‘Mrs Trew?’ he asked, looking towards the locked door. ‘There’s no answer.’

  ‘She goes away the odd night; she usually lets us know.’

  As she spoke her hand rose up to the top of the door, disappeared, then reappeared with a key.

  ‘We’ve all got one, in case there’s trouble. It’s a safe place.’

  She gave him the key. ‘I want it back.’

  As Brooke walked away, she called after him, ‘You got a warrant?’ But the muffled voice must have beckoned her back inside, and she closed her door.

  Ida’s room was deserted, but he could hear the cats, on the far side of a door which led into a scullery. Once released, they swarmed to drink from a series of bowls, each one filled with milk, which had curdled and dried at the edges.

  What little light there was limped into the room through a mean window, revealing a sink, gas cooker, box bed, sideboard and dresser. He flicked the light switch but nothing happened. A minute’s search revealed the meter on the wall by the door. It took florins, so he pumped three into the slot, waiting for the mechanism to register the cash. A dull clang brought light, and then the radio sprang into life, the volume low, but loud enough to identify the clipped tones of the BBC’s Home Service. The cats milled around his feet, their insistent pawing unsettling and vaguely threatening.

  Sitting by the pillow on the bed, in a nest of old cushions, he found that he had a comfortable view down the corridor to the front door. Ida was certainly the gatekeeper. A semi-official role, clearly, to monitor the punters, coming and going. Was she paid for the service? And what had the woman in the downstairs flat said? It’s a safe place. Really? The tawdry rooms of an eighty-year-old widow?

  From the bed he could see that under the table lay some broken crockery, around which the cats circled. On his knees, Brooke tried to reassemble the lost cups but the task was beyond him, although he did identify two handles, and the residue of sugar in a shard of china. At floor level, he saw the cooker door was ajar, and, tracing its edge, he found a smudge of blood on the metallic rim and a flake of ceramic blue paint.

  A gloomy yard led by a gate into a back alley. Coal brimmed over a wooden bunker. A privy door stood open, revealing the china bowl. Out in the alley he noted tyre marks in the cinder path.

  On the back step he found a pint of milk, which he emptied into the three bowls once he’d cleaned them in the sink. The cats purred in unison.

  Switching off the radio, he sat at the table. The only items in the room of any real note were a Chinese tea caddy in splendid gold and ebony, and a telephone, which was a new model in Bakelite. Above it, taped to the wall, was a sheet of paper with a series of three numbers opposite names:

  Pete: 4409

  James: 3007

  Jim B: 4888

  Brooke took a note, presuming them all to be local.

  The cats, sated, were back around his ankles.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she’s coming home this time.’

  Standing there, on the worn patterned carpet, he could almost feel her fading away. There was a sense in which a personality held a room together, linking its disparate characteristics: the phone, the cats’ dishes, the teacups, the picture framed over the gas fire of a horse-drawn tram passing Parker’s Piece in a snowy dusk, splashes of sunset mingling with the newly lit gas lights. The smell of a human life was fading too: the tannic edge of the perpetual teapot, the warm mustiness of the box bed.

  He picked up the phone and dialled 4888.

  ‘Crown,’ said a female voice against a background of voices.

  Brooke introduced himself: ‘I’d like to speak to Jim B?’

  The phone clattered, and there was the distinct sound of someone pushing a carpet cleaner.

  ‘What is it?’ said a man’s voice.

  Brooke explained that he was a policeman and standing in Ida Trew’s flat, and that she was missing, and he was concerned for her well-being.

  ‘I’m sorry, you are?’ he added.

  ‘Her son. Eldest son. You asked the girls? Any trouble, they go to Ida and she rings us.’ The background noise suddenly faded as a door slammed. ‘Christ, hang on.’ The phone buzzed, then fell silent. ‘Sorry. Pub’s full of cleaners. You say Mum’s gone, but for how long?’

  ‘A day, maybe two. You’re at The Crown, on Mill Road?’

  ‘That’s us. I’ll ring round the brothers. She’s good on her feet. Maybe she just stayed over for a night if she’s feeling under the weather. She’ll be alright. Grew up in a pub in the Gorbals; a night out in Cambridge ain’t gonna knock her over.’

  Brooke would need a doctor’s records to identify the corpse in Dr Comfort’s morgue. After that he’d send a constable round with the bad news. For now, he’d leave Jim B to ring his siblings.

  ‘Let me know when you find her,’ said Brooke, giving him the Spinning House number. ‘Any of the girls particularly close? There’s one in the front room, just down the corridor.’

  ‘Nah. She’s new. Polly, they call her. Mum wasn’t keen. That’s why she got the ground floor flat, see, easier to watch. No, Vera’s the girl. Mum looked after her kiddie on and off for years. They’re close. Top flat. Vera’s sound.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Brooke climbed the dreary flights of steps to the fifth floor. Vera must have heard him earlier, talking to the girl on the ground floor, because she had her door open an inch in the half-light of the landing. Stepping out, she looked wary, clutching a flimsy nightdress to her neck against the chill in the house, which seemed to condense here, beneath the attic, where the reek of damp was tangible.

  She clutched her shoulders. ‘What now? I’ve answered all your questions,’ she asked, resting a hand on the door chain.

  ‘Ida’s missing. I’ve talked to one of her sons. She knew Major Stone, presumably – he was a regular visitor?’

  ‘Yes. For three years. Ida always kept an eye out and we give her names so she can keep track. She does go away to stay with her son, and see her grandchildren. I wouldn’t panic, although she usually tells us.’ She bit her lip. ‘What about the hospital? Her heart’s not strong. Maybe she’s unwell?’

  ‘I’ll check,’ said Brooke. ‘Do the clients know that she keeps tabs on you all?’

  ‘No. They may suspect. If Ida’s in, she makes sure they know she’s seen them, coming and going. Some ask who she is; I always lie and say she’s the landlady.’

  ‘How well did Stone know Ida?’

  ‘He brought her tea. He’s kind to people he doesn’t see as a threat. But, yes, packets of tea. There’s an estate in India. He never said but I bet it’s hers, the wife’s. He used to bring the stuff for me, but I can’t stand tea. Hot dishwater. But he kept Ida sweet.’

  Brooke replaced his hat.

  ‘The Yard has news on your letter, by the way,’ he said, watching her face. ‘The addressee was Palme Dutt, you said?’

  ‘Yes. The new general secretary. The last one – Harry Pollitt – he’s long gone now. Ructions over Russia, in-fighting I bet. I didn’t think he’d read it anyway; I thought there’d be … minions.’

  ‘Scotland Yard’s trying
to track down Palme Dutt,’ said Brooke. ‘The principal secretary says if the letter arrived it would have gone to one of the deputies, a man called Hamilton. At the moment his whereabouts are fluid. No doubt he’ll surface, but he was last seen boarding a boat for Ireland.

  ‘You may have a visit, from London, from the Yard, or military intelligence. There’s concern, naturally, that the letter may have reached the Comintern, the international party. Which means Moscow, of course.’

  Brooke tried to hold her gaze. ‘They won’t talk to you on the landing, Vera. There’ll be a car. You should be prepared.’

  He touched his hat.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Dusk spread over Cambridge, a smog of river mist and coal smoke brewed up by the setting sun, blurring the mid-distance so that the view from Brooke’s office, over the university laboratories, was reduced to a roofscape of grey, with splashes of electric light. At one window he could see a white-coated technician, lit by a Bunsen burner, over which he patiently held a test tube with a pair of tongs. The Galen stood out, the white tiled exterior of the anatomy building oddly luminous.

  Brooke thought of the pale bodies within, allotted their sightless metal coffins. Death in the Galen held a certain nightmare twist: the bodies of Lux, Childe and Sneeth faced intermittent exposure to the light as they were slid out for re-examination. Suspended in this strange purgatory, they would be denied peace until their cases were finally closed.

  Brooke ordered Edison to bring Major Joelyn Stone up from the cells. Unlocking his handcuffs, they sat him down and left a bottle of Bell’s by a tumbler. Stone’s undamaged hand was steady as he sipped the spirit. His uniform had been removed to test for gunshot residue, along with clothes from his house. Shorn of his military carapace, he looked oddly vulnerable.

  ‘We found this gun in your locker at the firing range at Madingley,’ said Brooke. He let the weapon tumble out from its green felt bag.

  Stone reached out a hand, then stopped, looking up at Brooke.

  ‘Help yourself. There are no fingerprints; even our modest resources stretch to charcoal powder and a brush. It’s clean, in fact so clean, I’d say it’s been wiped.’

  Stone held it easily in his hand. ‘But not mine, Inspector. I’ve seen them, back at the end of the war. German prisoners had them, souvenirs from the Eastern Front. They’d pick them off the Reds.’

  ‘I’m more concerned that you denied having any other pistols, but failed to mention the one you kept on the range.’

  ‘The one in my locker is a Webley .45 – ancient, bloody museum model. Slipped my mind. Sorry.’ He tipped back the whisky and refilled the tumbler.

  ‘This gun was in your locker, Major. How do you explain that?’

  ‘No. Mine’s a .45 Webley,’ he said flatly.

  ‘This gun killed Chris Childe,’ said Brooke. ‘There’s no doubt. I asked you twice if you’d fired the shot that killed him, Major.’

  ‘I didn’t fire the shot,’ said Stone, examining the pistol closely, until he found the inscriptions. ‘I’ve never seen this gun before. What do these letters mean?’

  ‘Ah. Oddly, your wife solved that mystery.’

  For the first time Brooke could see fear in Stone’s eyes: an intimation, perhaps, that the rest of his life might be spent in a prison cell. Or was it the shame, the public downfall, that suddenly loomed large?

  ‘My wife. What the hell does she know about guns?’

  ‘She’s a general’s daughter. I don’t think I need to remind you of that. The general collected pistols. He had three sons. They all served in the armed forces, and they all brought back interesting weapons for their father. One of them was a captain in the Armoured Car Expeditionary Force in Russia. The ACEF. All very swashbuckling, a band of brothers, let loose on the Red Army after the Great War. The White Terror, and all that. Glory and medals.

  ‘To be fair, your wife couldn’t identify the gun per se, but there’s no doubt a jury would find the coincidence persuasive, don’t you think?’

  Stone took a gulp of whisky. There was an air of desperation now, a sense, perhaps, that the life he’d had was indeed slipping through his wounded fingers.

  He made an effort to regain his dignity, brushing imaginary dust from the white shirt front.

  ‘If you’re going to charge me, do it.’

  Edison leant back heavily in his chair until it creaked, one hand caressing his pipe in his jacket pocket.

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ said Brooke. ‘You bumped into Childe that morning at the house on Babylon Street. A few hours later he’s in the dock, in plain sight, and you were on the bench. No wigs, no gowns. You recognised him, so did he recognise you? There was a lot at stake: not just your marriage to the general’s daughter, but a career. You said yourself you anticipated a new posting. A chance to shine at last, perhaps.’

  Stone’s good hand closed in a tight fist on the tabletop.

  ‘You went to see Vera Staunton after the tribunal. You thought you’d buy Childe off. You thought money would solve the problem. How did you track him down to the cemetery?

  ‘Vera Staunton knew that Childe was working on Midsummer Common that day. I think you made a visit to the site. It would have been easy enough to follow him to Mill Road … Did you try to offer him money there, or was the opportunity too good to miss? A deserted graveyard in the failing light?’

  Stone started to speak but Brooke held up a hand.

  ‘Then I think you went home for dinner. Later, you drove back to Babylon Street in your car. My sergeant tells me it’s a black Ford, and it’s in the garage behind Blenheim House. We’re just checking if the tyres match the tracks left behind Ida Trew’s flat. Because it was Ida you went to see.’

  ‘What has any of this got to do with Ida Trew?’

  ‘She’s dead, Major, as you well know, because you killed her.’

  Stone stood up, but Edison was ready for him, using his own weight to settle him back into the chair.

  ‘If you stand up again we’ll put the cuffs back on,’ said Brooke. ‘Yes. Ida the gatekeeper. She’d seen the comings and goings. A chat, perhaps, a cup of the fine tea? She’d seen Childe, a stranger, so she’d have remembered him. What else had Ida seen? What would she have said if asked about Vera’s clients? Did you mean to kill her? I got the sense she was a determined soul.’

  ‘Ida? Brooke, she’s an eighty-year-old woman. You think I killed her to protect my career? This is ridiculous.’

  ‘The body was the problem,’ continued Brooke. ‘I think you got her out into the car and drove to the riverside. There’s blood stains in the boot of the Ford. We’re testing those too …’

  ‘A holiday in Scotland, Brooke. We went shooting. I had a boot full of pheasant.’

  Brooke ignored him. ‘It was your job to set a guard on the site, but I checked, he wasn’t due on duty until midnight. So there was a window of opportunity. The great fire would leave no trace.

  ‘One mistake. She wasn’t dead. A note of panic there, I think. Did you even bother to try her pulse? But your career is not entirely unblemished by fear and panic, is it?’

  Stone was beginning to shake, a high frequency vibration notable in his fingers: ‘How dare you.’

  ‘You might like to think about Ida tonight in your cell, Major. She was unconscious, almost certainly, so there’s some comfort there. Left alone she’d have died in time. Her heart was weak, it would have faltered and failed. But then the fire was lit, and that’s what brought her to life, Stone: the pain of the fire, the flames and the heat.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Brooke let the great oak door of Michaelhouse bang shut behind him. The boom!, embellished by the metallic clatter of the lock and latch, faded away in a series of diminishing echoes. The street was empty, its high kerbs teetering over damp cobbles, the only noise the dripping of water from the iron gutters. Doric had provided a leftover ham hock which they’d picked apart in convivial silence, aided by half a bottle of the
Coulange. Brooke felt replete, his steps buoyant.

  As he walked, Brooke manipulated in his mind the pieces of the jigsaw which made up the murder of Chris Childe: the motive, the opportunity, the evidence from the scene and the car. With luck they’d have a formidable case, including a corrosive motive: ambition. Although it occurred to him that the real wellspring of the crime had been Stone’s cowardice, the constant pressure to excel at being a soldier drove him on, in a desperate attempt to offset his inability to be a soldier when it had really mattered to his men.

  The zigzag route took him between high walls. In his imagination he hovered overhead, watching his hat navigate the maze, like one of Aldiss’s pouch-cheeked hamsters trapped in a laboratory experiment. The concept was unwelcome: the idea that he might be condemned to wander in some vast unperceived puzzle created by others made him feel like a helpless victim.

  Distracted, he at first failed to note the footsteps behind him; a fleeting coda to the sharp double-crack of his own shoes.

  At a corner he paused in the gloom, adjusting his collar, and glanced back to see a figure following him. He stepped out of sight into a doorway slick with mud which must have led into some college gardens. He waited, his heartbeat steady, the footsteps finally passing. He watched her go: a uniform, tweaked at the waist, gave her identity away, as did the immaculate pair of tailored fatigues and the pale-stockinged calves.

  ‘Jo?’ he called.

  Ashmore stopped and turned, a look of pleasant surprise on her face, and not a trace of discomfort.

  ‘You’re following me,’ said Brooke, offering her his arm.

  ‘I tried the station; they said you used the phone at Michaelhouse, at the lodge. I missed you by a minute. The porter said you were heading to the river and home. He gave me a very knowing look; he fears for your moral soul, Brooke. Am I the only young woman on your trail …?’

  ‘You are unique,’ said Brooke.