I didn’t even try to think of an answer to that one. ‘I’ll give you a ring as soon as I know anything.’
‘But we don’t have a phone, madam.’
‘At the station.’
‘I’ll have to get dressed,’ Brigsy protested because that was an insurmountable obstacle.
‘Yes you will,’ I agreed and, remounting my bike, pedalled away to High Road East, turning right along the promenade at the bottom.
It was still raining, lightly, but heavily enough for the sea breeze to blow it into my eyes, making me squint. It was then I discovered yet another reason God gave us two hands. I couldn’t hold my collar to stop the water trickling down my neck.
The Royal George Hotel was not as grand as the Grand but more Gothic, a high-Victorian structure with proper towers and real turrets looking distinctly menacing in the moonlight. If there was such a thing as the Sackwater Vampire, I thought as I dismounted, this would be where he had his lair. The House of Horrors would have to look for another tenant.
67
THE INNOCENCE OF FELONS
Bantony stood under the portico with Nippy Walker, neither of whom had been included in my instructions.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Oy got woken too so Oy thought Oy’d come,’ Bantony told me. ‘Been lodging with Rivers since me landlady threw me out fer giving ’er daughter a bit of a seeing-to.’
‘A bit of what?’ Nippy Walker queried.
‘’Ow’s-yow-father,’ Bantony rephrased it.
‘He’s dead,’ Nippy told him cheerily.
‘Why are you here, Walker?’ I demanded. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been misbehaving as well?’
‘Chance’d be a foyne thing.’ Bantony smirked. ‘Oy was passink ’is dump and I thought ’e might as well come too.’ Bantony smirked again at Nippy’s scowl. Nippy liked his sleep, as I had discovered many times on going into the back room.
‘You told me she said I was to come,’ Walker said indignantly.
‘Yow must ’ave mis’eard me,’ Bantony said with all the innocence of a felon caught climbing out of a window with a sack of swag.
‘And in fourteen hours’ time, when everyone is exhausted, who will man the station or walk the beat? You think Box and Chivers can run the town between them?’ I demanded to blank looks. ‘Chivers can’t even walk without a stick.’
‘Well…’ Bantony began and I knew that whatever he was going to say would be useless.
‘This is ridiculous,’ I fumed. ‘Almost an entire station called out to ask two hotel guests to have relations a bit more quietly.’
‘They’ve got family with them?’ Nippy scratched behind his helmet. ‘Is that why they’re so noisy?’
‘Oh good grief.’ I gritted my teeth and was just about to go into the hotel when the door burst open and Sandy Grinder-Snipe burst out.
This was two too many bursts. If there was one thing you didn’t do in the war it was rip back curtains with the lights on. If there was another – and there was – it was fling a door wide open. In blackout conditions it was like turning on Blackpool Illuminations.
‘Oh mam—’ Sandy Snipe began.
‘Turn that bloody light out,’ I yelled, all at once the pride of the ARP, and somebody inside did and, in another all-at-once, we were back in an even blacker blackness.
‘Oh mam—’ Sandy Grinder-Snipe began again.
‘Shut up,’ I snapped, groping my way to where I judged the doorway was.
‘Oooh, that tickles.’ Sandy Grinder-Snipe giggled.
‘Oh for…’ Repeatable words failed me. I was only glad it wasn’t Bantony I had fumbled. I recoiled to think what he would have made of that.
The door pulled outwards and there was a heavy curtain across it. I slid through it sideways so as not to let Hermann Göring see where I was, doubtless at the top of his list of intended targets.
Come friendly bombs and fall on Sackwater. Even if it didn’t scan, it had a nice ring to it, I thought.
‘Right,’ I barked. ‘I want everybody inside and I want them inside now.’ A sar’major could not have driven his men over the top more effectively than that, for there was a stumbling, pushing stampede to obey me. ‘Is everybody in?’
‘Yes ma’am,’ Bantony replied because, of course, he was everybody.
‘Yes ma’am,’ the others chorused.
I felt behind me, relieved to find I had grabbed the curtain this time and not part of a constable, and pulled it across. ‘Turn the light on.’ Somebody did. There was a dusty chandelier overhead with four bulbs fused, one missing and one remembering and doing what it was born to do. And, there with her hand on the switch on the wall, was a striking woman aged about fifty, I guessed, hair curled in a light blue rinse, a well-chiselled jaw and nose, her cheekbones just prominent enough to cast shadows that would have been the envy of the Marlene Dietrich I allegedly sounded like.
A man stood stiffly by as well, in his sixties and stubby in a faded red livery.
It was a square lobby, dark-oak panelled with a lighter-panelled reception desk straight ahead, a pigeon-holed structure and a board of keys on hooks behind it.
‘Hello,’ I said but that was all I said.
I expected to introduce myself. I didn’t expect to be stopped by such a terrible scream.
68
SPIKES AND THE EXTINGUISHING OF HOPE
Everybody froze – you can’t help it – but I like to think I thawed first.
‘Was that—?’ I was going to ask if that was the same noise they had heard before.
‘The vampire!’ Constable Lysander Grinder-Snipe ejaculated because it is the sworn duty of every serving police officer to terrify members of the public.
‘What?’ The woman gaped in horror.
‘Upstairs?’ I asked.
She nodded dumbly.
‘Lead the way, Snipe,’ I rapped.
‘Grinder-Snipe,’ he muttered.
‘Lead the way.’ Damn you, I added under my breath.
‘Up there?’ Sandy looked about in the panic he had done his best to nurture.
I pushed him aside, racing up the cantilevered staircase on the left-hand side of the lobby, aware of heavy feet pounding the threadbare fleur-de-lis carpet behind me. At the top was a galleried landing.
‘To the left,’ the woman called – more useful and cool-headed than the 50 per cent of my double-barrelled twins had been so far. ‘There’s a light switch just inside the arch on your left.’ I turned through the open archway, felt a dolly switch and flicked it down to find myself at the end of the corridor going off to my right.
From down the corridor came a whimper. Halfway along, in the middle of the floor, down on his haunches, was Algy.
I rushed up. ‘Are you injured?’ But he was busy trying to curl into a ball, his head between his knees clamping his hands over his ears to block out another louder, longer, higher scream.
‘Ohhh pooor Algernon.’ Sandy hurried up. ‘’E’s always bin ’ighly strung.’
‘Stand up.’ I prodded Algy with my foot but my attention was on room 14. I tried the handle. It turned but the door was locked. I knelt, peered through the keyhole and slipped out a hairgrip. The key was still in but it was turned too far for me to wiggle it out.
At least the screaming had stopped.
‘Get the porter,’ I yelled at Bantony. Sandy was down by his brother, giving him a cuddle. ‘Stand up, the pair of you,’ I commanded. ‘You are officers of the law.’
I hammered on the top right of the four bevelled panels and called out, ‘Police. Open up.’
‘I tried that.’ Sandy struggled up and held out his hand to help his twin to his feet.
‘Be quiet. I’m trying to listen.’ I put my ear to the door and thought I heard rustling.
‘Open the door or we shall break it down!’ I bellowed. I have quite a strong voice. Nobody had trouble hearing me in school plays, except Mrs Whetbarrow when Johnny Harrison had poured melted candle wax into
her ear trumpet for a joke.
‘I tried that’ – Algy rubbed his shoulder – ‘but it’s ever so strong. Solid mahogany, George said.’
‘Who’s George?’ I asked automatically, giving the door an experimental kick. It didn’t even rattle.
‘I am, Inspector,’ the porter declared as he came through the arch.
‘What does this room overlook?’ I asked.
‘The back garden,’ he told me, ‘but you can’t get in there. The side gate is padlocked with spikes over the top and all the ground-floor windows are barred. Mrs Gillian Andrews on reception is the owner, with Mr Francis Andrews, but he has gone on holiday with the keys to the back door and gate since he found chambermaids were inviting gentlemen callers in.’ His voice dropped so low I could only just make out, ‘I think he suspected Mrs A was doing the same thing.’
‘Wouldn’t mind a bit of that myself,’ Bantony murmured because this was exactly the time for barrack room talk.
‘Out of your league, son,’ George told him because, apparently, it was exactly that time.
The Grinder-Snipes were making baby noises to each other.
‘Shut up,’ I snapped, ‘the pair of you.’
Algy shushed Sandy and Sandy shushed Algy and they cut the noise to a few low hisses.
I put my ear to the door again and heard some shuffling. ‘How many people in there?’ I asked the porter.
‘A couple checked in,’ he told me, ‘Mr and Mrs Herring.’
‘Is there a fire escape?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Or a ledge someone could get along from the next room?’
‘I’m afeared not.’
A faint hope. ‘It isn’t an interconnecting room, is it?’
‘No, ma’am.’ Faint hope extinguished.
‘How many other guests in the hotel?’
‘None, ma’am, and no staff live in but for me and Mrs A.’
I unsheathed the jemmy from my belt. ‘Anyone know how to use this?’
‘Oy certainly do.’ Bantony eyed the whimpering twins in disgust.
I slapped the jemmy into his hand – perhaps a bit too hard, for he winced. ‘Then use it.’ Inspectors don’t break doors down. They order it done.
Bantony took the jemmy in both hands and twisted his body round, ramming the flat blade in between door and post just above the lock. It stuck in deep. He leaned into the bar, put one foot on the opposite post and pushed, the muscles of his neck fanning out with the strain.
‘Come on, yow bastard,’ he grunted and was rewarded with a sharp cracking as the wood splintered away and the door hinged open a fraction.
There was a plaintive sob.
‘Stand away from the door. We are coming in,’ I warned and nodded to Bantony, who looked at me quizzically. ‘Well, kick it, man.’
To give Bantony credit, he made a good run at it and managed a flying kick with both feet before landing on his side. ‘Shit.’ He rolled onto his back as the door crashed open. It hit against something hard, partially rebounding.
Somebody was choking and there was the sound of drumming feet and a sharp whispered, ‘Die, bitch, die!’, then the sound of a spade being plunged into earth – though I had a sickening sureness that it was not a spade nor was it earth – and a gurgled gasp.
There was a light on in the room. I put my head through the gap and saw a wall of wood. A wardrobe had been dragged behind the door.
‘You twins,’ I rapped. ‘Put your shoulders to the door.’ They looked at me and each other as if I had suggested they leaped into a vat of boiling pitch. ‘Do it now, God damn you.’
As one they went to the door. ‘Use your other shoulder, Algy,’ Sandy advised, ‘as that one is so sore.’
I could hear more scuffling.
The twins swapped sides and gave a little shove.
‘Get that fucking door open, you mincing ninnies,’ I screeched. This was no time to worry about hurting their feelings.
And, rather than pouting as I expected, the twins put their backs into the job now. They were not very hefty but they were tall and quite athletically built and, as they heaved with all their might, the wardrobe ground back, twisting away a foot or two until the door opened about halfway. ‘It’s jammed, mam,’ Sandy said. They were so unusually purple now that Sidney Grice might have patented their colour.
‘Stand back.’ I brushed past them into the opening, ripping my jacket off, throwing it to the floor and pulling my chest in as much as I could, wedging myself, back to the wall, in the tight space they had managed to create.
A window slid and slammed but, though my head was facing forward, I could see nothing except the side of an unmade bed and an old iron fireplace to my right. I wriggled wildly. The lock was hanging loose and a bent screw caught on my shirt, digging into my waist.
‘Let me.’ I was aware of Bantony behind my left shoulder straining at the wardrobe.
‘Hang on,’ I said, trying to twist the lock away, but I couldn’t. I took a fistful of shirt and yanked. There was a ripping noise and I heard a button bounce over the floorboards. ‘OK but don’t touch my arm.’ Even in all the mayhem I was aware of it throbbing.
Bantony had his knee up against my hip and was pushing so hard that I let out an involuntary yelp but I had to get through and, with one final squeeze and pull from me and violent shove from him, I did, tumbling into the room to see the closed window and the disarrayed bed and the horror that was upon it.
‘Bloody hell,’ I breathed, for that is exactly what it was.
69
THE SLICING OF THE NIGHT
I found myself in a small room – maybe fifteen feet square, some sort of big orange leaves on the wallpaper, putty-coloured fitted, frayed carpet, the wardrobe halfway across the doorway at an angle and, straight ahead, a double bed, bedding strewn about, soaked in blood, and on top of it all, the bloody bodies of a woman and a man.
I ran to the window and wrenched up the lower sash. It was slightly warped and a struggle to do one-handed but I got it fully open. It was just that every snag was wasting precious seconds. I stuck my head out. There was no natural light at all out there now. I rushed back to the door.
‘Is she dead? Has the killer gone?’ Bantony asked.
‘They are both dead. Give me a torch.’
Another delay, then, ‘Here, mam,’ Sandy Grinder-Snipe said and a long-fingered elegant hand passed one through the gap. The lens had been largely painted out.
‘A proper one,’ I shouted. ‘Look in my handbag.’
More shufflings until my torch appeared. I snatched it and dashed back to the window, clicking the switch as I went. My beam sliced through the night as I worked it to and fro. It was a small garden laid mainly to an unkempt lawn with flower beds along every border. The sides were walled in solid red brick with no visible breaks. In the back right-hand corner was a wooden octagon.
‘Is the summer house kept locked?’ I shouted.
‘I don’t know, mam,’ Algy called back. ‘One moment, I’ll ask… No, Sandy doesn’t know either.’
‘Ask George, you halfwit,’ I yelled.
‘It is, Inspector,’ George called back. ‘And it’s full of garden furniture so nobody could get inside it.’
I would swap this man for any one of my constables, I thought fleetingly.
‘Is it possible to get behind it?’
‘No, ma’am. It’s right against the wall and the side gate is flush with the back of the hotel so there is no passage anyone could hide down either.’
Any two of them, I thought, training my beam from side to side, ploughing furrows in the dark. There was nobody there.
‘Could anyone break back into the hotel on the ground floor?’
‘All barred,’ George assured me. ‘So is the cellar.’
‘What’s behind the back wall?’
‘Donkey Lane,’ George shouted. ‘It’s an alley between Paget Street and Fallow Road.’
‘Twins.’ I ran the beam carefull
y around the back bed and thought I saw a broken rosebush. ‘Go out to the front door. One of you turn left, the other right. Go down those two streets until you meet in the middle of Donkey Lane. If you see anyone – and I mean anyone at all – detain them. Check every back garden you can get into. See if there’s anyone hiding. Look for any abandoned ladders. Have a good look at the back wall for signs someone climbed over it – scuffs, bits of ripped clothing, footprints if it’s muddy out there – and don’t trample over any. Once you’ve done that, come back here.’
‘You’ll know when you’re at the back of this hotel because there’s a metal plaque on the gate,’ George told them, earning his sergeant’s stripes already.
‘What if the maniac is still out there?’ Algy queried nervously.
‘You will exercise your authority and arrest him,’ I bellowed. ‘Now go.’
‘Oy can’t get in.’ Bantony was grunting and struggling with the door.
‘Stay where you are,’ I ordered. The last thing I needed was somebody coming in messing things up and distracting me. ‘Are you still there, George?’
‘Yes, Inspector.’
‘My constable will give you his key for the police box. The phone will automatically put you through to Sackwater Central. Sergeant Briggs will answer. Tell him two people have been murdered and their killer is on the loose. Briggs is to gather every officer he can get hold of at the station and to inform the police at Anglethorpe and Felixstowe Police Stations. Got that?’
‘Yes ma’am.’
I didn’t get him to repeat it because I knew that he had.
It was time to give my attention to the bodies.
70
THE SLAUGHTER AND THE SORROW
The couple lay on their backs, the woman – young, petite, pretty if you could see past the long slashes in her face, peroxide-blonde if you ignored the blood soaking into her hair – was on the left near the window. Her nightdress had pulled down from the top and up from the bottom into a crude cummerbund. There must have been fifty knife wounds visible at a glance, including one just below her small left breast, gaping between her ribs. I touched her arm. It was still hot. Her head was turned towards her companion.
Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire Page 26