by John Gardner
The first thing Molly Abelard asked was had he touched anything, as if he would. ‘I am a trained policeman, Sarn’t. Not likely to tamper with a crime scene.’
Molly looked at the body, horrible, head thrown back revealing the deep scar round the neck where wire had bitten in, blood oozing down on to her collar, eyes open; teeth bared, the dreadful grimace. Her fists were clenched and she had obviously fought back. Molly had seen others like this and knew immediately what it meant and who had done it.
Most of the team had also seen Golly’s handiwork and this subdued them as they carefully went about their work, looking for clues, combing the grass and putting up a screen so nobody could see the cadaver from the road — local press already there, champing at the bit.
There were no footprints, the ground already too hard for that, and when the doctor arrived he said the victim had almost certainly been killed there, in situ, in the little glade. She’d also almost certainly been sexually molested, but he’d have to take a look when the body came to King’s Lynn for the post-mortem. Could have been gang-raped, the doc thought.
Ron Worral was moving round taking the pictures, looking as serious as a judge.
‘They can take her as soon as you’ve got enough snaps,’ the quack told Molly as though this was an everyday occurrence.
They finished a little after midday and Molly went off, taking Dennis with her, to break the news to the mother, one of the most unpleasant jobs she’d ever known. Never got used to it.
Elderly Mrs Axton rocked back and forth in her chair, keening, little wails of distress. ‘She were only twenty: just. Twenty in July, whole life before her.’ Heart breaking, crying again. ‘I en’t ever going to have grand-babies now, never.’
Molly asked the routine questions. Had she been to the dance at the aerodrome? Yes. Was she going with anybody? Yes, Violet Sparrow from lower down Pheasant’s Row. Two doors down. Were they meeting anyone, did she talk about a boy friend? Oh, yes. Our Juliet were meeting an officer. Very proud she had an officer boy friend. Had she got his name? Yes, it was a captain something, Eclare or something. Ricky, and he was a captain. Pilot. Flew one of those Fortress things that make all the noise. Mrs Axton sometimes thought the roof would come in, the planes made so much noise, rattled the whole cottage.
Molly got a neighbour in to sit with Juliet’s mother, said the doctor’d be round shortly. Went back to the Falcon and telephoned the doc in the village, asked him to trot up and see Mrs A.
Then she telephoned the Provost Marshal. Tommy had said she must go through the Provost Marshal regarding anything connected with the men of the 8th USAAF and she’d already been going to phone him, ask him if they could look around. She’d spoken to the telephone people at the GPO and found that Midge Morrison had a blue Austin Seven, so wanted to see if it was anywhere on the aerodrome. Neither Lavender nor Queenie had owned to having any transport, but Molly would have laid a large bet that they’d driven in, or at least one of them had. Probably with Golly aboard.
She met the Provost Marshal just after two in the afternoon, taking Dennis with her — the others were now back doing the house-to-house enquiries in the village.
Seeing the Provost Marshal wasn’t something Molly had looked forward to — after all she had been with Tommy during the arrest of Lavender and Queenie the previous night, so knew what a difficult man Major Bragg could be. In the event, as soon as she told him about the murder he lost his aggression, petered out, was even quite pleasant, and certainly calmer than he had been after the dance.
‘Sure. Sure, I saw that girl with one of our people at the dance. Real peach of a girl.’ Molly had shown him a photograph they’d borrowed from Juliet’s mother. ‘Now who the heck was it?’ scratching his head.
‘Her mother said she was meeting a Ricky Eclare, a pilot?’
‘LeClare,’ the major actually smiled. ‘Ricky LeClare. That’s it, who I saw her with. Gee, they were having a dandy old time and all. I’m sorry, very sorry about this.’ He picked up the telephone — they were in his Guard Room office, which he seemed to prefer when talking to civilians; probably easier to get them off the aerodrome straight from the Guard Room.
‘Captain LeClare is flying, up on an air test, but should be back any time now,’ he told her after holding a brief conversation. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you both come along to the Officers’ Club, have a bite to eat. We’ll catch Ricky LeClare when he comes in after he’s done flying.’
‘That’ll be very nice, but I don’t think Dennis can make it. You’ve other things to do, Dennis? Right?’
‘No, I’m with you all day, Sarg.’ Big smile and a narrow-eyed look from Molly, who wanted to eyeball the Yank facilities on her own.
The major’s jeep was summoned and they were driven across to the Officers’ Club, a fairly lavish building and not as formal as the Officers’ Messes of the British Forces that Molly had seen — among them she had been to the Raff Mess at Middle Wallop, following up work that Suzie had done in 1940. That was a fairly formal place with erk waiters and Waaf waitresses trolling around in white jackets. Well, there were white jackets inside the Officers’ Club but it was a much brighter and easier atmosphere. She thought of Trevor Skeggs, wondering what his mess was like: hadn’t heard from him since they’d found the shotgun.
‘Care for some chow?’ the major asked when they had ordered drinks in the bar, and they accepted immediately, not showing any polite reluctance, because they wanted to see how the Yanks did for themselves.
‘Best meal I’ve had in months,’ Molly said later. They had to line up for the served buffet, canteen-style arrangement, but the food was hot and plentiful — hamburgers, solid meat in tomato sauce, chips — which the Yanks called fries — beans and peas, plenty of freshly baked bread, and three or four kinds of salad. Molly grinned at Dennis as they returned, plates loaded, to the table the major had taken for them.
‘Yeah, I guess we do ourselves proud here. We fly stuff in from home. It’s pretty regular but we don’t eat as well as our troops still stationed back in the US of A.’
They finished off the meal with apple pie with ice cream, ‘A la mode,’ Bragg explained. Then, shortly after they moved out into the bar and main club area, he saw Ricky LeClare come in with some of his crew.
‘Like a gun dog,’ Dennis said, watching the major walk quickly over to LeClare and quietly pull him aside, talking to him as he eased him away from his fellow crew members.
‘LeClare, yes. He was at that dinner party last night. Sat next to the Chief. Chief wanted to talk with him. He knew the Ascolis, well, knew Mrs Ascoli. Knew her a long time ago. In the States.’
As she spoke, Molly saw the young officer falter, his face going white, and she swore under her breath. ‘Bloody Bragg, he’s just told LeClare about Juliet Axton. We should have done that, Dennis.’
‘Yes, indeed we should.’ Dennis looked up at the advancing men as Bragg brought the pilot across to the table.
The Provost Marshal introduced Captain LeClare, who was clearly shaken, ashen-faced and uncomfortable.
‘I get you a drink, Ricky?’ Bragg asked. ‘A brandy, perhaps?’
‘That’d be good, Major. Thank you.’
‘Steady your nerves, I guess.’
‘Yes, he’s just told me,’ tipping his head back towards Bragg. ‘You’re the police, yes?’
Molly introduced herself and Dennis, explaining, telling him they had to ask him some questions. He was shaky but understood, and told them he’d been with Juliet all evening, ‘I picked her up at the Falcon. After the dinner party. The RAF Station Commander had a dinner party… Oh, you were there, ma’am. I saw you there. I spoke to Mr Livermore — that right? That his name?’ Very polite, no messing around.
Molly acknowledged that was his name. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Livermore. Yes, I remember seeing you there.’ She then asked why he hadn’t seen Juliet home from the aerodrome, and he told a long involved story about her not wanting to bother
him, knew he was flying today, said she’d go straight home.
‘Would that’ve involved her going into Knights Close? You know Knights Close? That’s its name. Knights in the plural, no apostrophe.’
‘Yeah, that would be her way back. She said she was going that way. She told me, Knights Close, then up Church Lane and into Pheasant’s Row. She said she’d be home in ten minutes. Jeez, I can’t believe it. She seemed so happy. Now I feel… Well, I feel dreadful. It’s my fault…’
‘You weren’t to know, Captain LeClare. You went straight back to your room?’
‘Sure.’ Shore. ‘I went straight back. Sat on my bed, smoked a cigarette, had a shower, then went to bed. It was around 01.25 hours, I took my watch off,’ he lifted his left wrist. ‘Took my watch off, laid it on the night table, and that was that. Jesus, she was coming to London with me and the rest of the crew. Tuesday. We had it all planned.’
Bragg returned with the brandy and LeClare took a gulp, winced at its burn going down. ‘Murdered?’ he said again. Then, ‘Murdered? You think it had anything to do with the Ascoli business? I mean Mr and Mrs Ascoli had the whole crew in to dinner couple weeks ago.’ He shook his head. ‘Where I first saw Juliet Axton. Her mom used to help out at the Ascolis’ and Juliet came in to assist that night; serving all five courses. She helped me with all the knives and forks I’d never seen before. Pointed to the right ones as she served, said later that she only knew them ’cos Mrs Ascoli taught her. Where I come from we hardly bother with that kind of thing. Took a fancy to her straight away, Juliet. Christ, murdered?’ Then almost to himself, ‘I told your Mr Livermore about the dinner party last night, the dinner party with the Ascolis and my having known Mrs Ascoli in, what would you call it? Another life I guess. This have anything to do with the Ascoli murders?’
‘We’re pretty sure it had nothing to do directly with the Ascolis,’ Molly said, and went on to tell him they knew the identity of a dangerous man. ‘This guy’s around here somewhere, Captain LeClare. We’re not making a big fuss about him but he escaped from a mental institution: pretty dangerous sort of guy. I think you should know that he’s killed before. Just for the hell of it, I suppose.’
She asked if Juliet Axton said anything else about Mrs Ascoli.
‘Said she could be a bit sharp, then admitted that was an understatement, seeing as how I’m the world expert on Mrs Ascoli.’
Then suddenly switching as if he’d only just taken in her reference to the ‘dangerous sort of guy’. ‘Not Pip?’ he asked.
‘What did you say?’ her head whipping up, eyes a shade wider.
‘I…er…I said it’s not Pip, is it? Mr Ascoli’s brother, Pip?’
‘What d’you know about Pip, Captain?’
The silence was too long, trailing out across the room, she thought. Something not quite right. ‘Not much, I don’t know much about Pip. But I know he’s supposed to be dangerous.’
‘Really, how do you know that?’
‘From Mrs Ascoli. From Jenny. It worried her.’
‘You tell that to Mr Livermore?’
‘We didn’t get that far into it, no.’
‘You want to tell me?’
He shook his head, eyes on the brandy, then slewing towards Major Bragg, who was starting to get restless.
‘Well?’ Molly asked. ‘Do you tell me, or do you wait until Mr Livermore gets back?’
‘It’s nothing,’ shifting in his chair. ‘Really, it’s nothing.’
‘All right.’ Molly made as though to stand. ‘We have to take a walk round the car park,’ she said to Bragg.
‘Yes indeed.’ He rose.
‘If you want to talk further, Captain, just ring me at the Falcon.’
‘I’ll do that. Yes.’ Seemed like he meant it.
‘Good.’ She still had a great deal to talk about with Ricky LeClare; felt uneasy leaving it all unsaid, but he wasn’t going to talk in front of the Provost Marshal.
In the car park, outside the hangar where they’d all danced the night before, they found the solitary Austin Seven. Blue.
Molly immediately sent Dennis back to the main gate. ‘Get Doc to drive you around the village, find Ron and Laura. I want them to go over this car with a toothcomb, see if Golly had been in it, brought on to the aerodrome. I’ll wait here, make sure nobody touches it. That okay, Major Bragg?’
‘Sure, I’ll send one of my guys over to keep things regular, ’cos I gotta go and sort out some stuff with the old man. You don’t mind?’
‘It’s good of you, Major. We don’t want to be any bother.’
‘No, you’re okay. We’ve had a memo saying that we have had to accord you every possible help and assistance. Seems your boss, Mr Livermore that is, well he seems to have friends in high places.’
‘Tell you something, Major Bragg. Tommy Livermore is really the Honourable Tommy Livermore. That usually means he has a little extra pull when he wants to use it.’
‘Honourable, huh? That’s something special, huh? Sounds chink to me — Honourable Number One Son. Uh?’
‘Just a lot,’ Molly said. Disgusting, she thought, that by an accident of birth someone could have an open door to heaven knew how many powerful places. Still, the way of the world.
Alone on the hard-standing they had used for the car park she was surprised to see Captain LeClare striding towards her from the direction of the line of Quonset huts she knew made up the aircrew quarters.
‘Just wanted to pass on something, Sergeant.’ He saluted as he approached, wearing an officer’s raincoat over his uniform, his ‘crusher’ cap at an angle, the stiffening removed so he could wear it with headphones on in the B-17 flight deck.
‘You had second thoughts, Captain?’
‘Some. I just didn’t want Major Bragg to hear what I had to say.’
‘So?’
‘So, Juliet Axton didn’t leave by the main gate last night — well, this morning actually.’
‘No.’
‘No, Sarge. That hut at the end there,’ pointing. ‘It’s not occupied yet, not finished really, inside that is.’
‘Go on.’
‘She and I — Juliet and I, well we went in there for a spell. Kinda…well, I guess you’d call it canoodling.’
‘Yes.’ Molly knew what she’d have called it.
‘So she didn’t leave much before around one fifteen. Went out through a split they got in the wire, the chain-link, ’bout twenty, maybe thirty, yards down from where the main road turns into Knights Close.’
‘I know it. Thought they were keeping a guard on that hole in the wire.’
‘Kinda rolling sentry. They go take a look about once every hour.’
‘And you saw her go out that way?’
He nodded and said, yes he did.
‘Anything else?’
‘About poor Juliet Axton? No, except I cared for her. I feel dreadful about it.’
‘Don’t, Captain LeClare. There was no way you could’ve known. Anything else?’
‘About Jenny Ascoli? I’ve told Mr Livermore about that.’
‘All of it. You’ve told him about Pip?’
The silence stretched out for several seconds. ‘I told him that she was not the nicest woman around.’
‘And you knew about that? Personally.’
‘I did.’
‘And Pip? Mad, bad Pip.’
Again a wait while time went by.
‘Max Ascoli brought him to Long Taddmarten in 1938.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Mrs Ascoli, bitch that she was, she was terrified of Pip. Truly frightened. It was as though he had — this sounds stupid — as though he had impregnated the whole house with his madness. She thought Pip would kill her.’
‘You’d better go over all this with Mr Livermore when he gets back.’
‘Sure. Yes, sure I will.’
*
Back in his quarters, as the sun came out from behind the clouds, Ricky LeClare lay on his bed, eyes closed, a
nd wondered what he should do. Should he go to the Livermore guy and tell him everything? That could be a problem. They wouldn’t be happy with him. They wouldn’t be happy with the truth. Two lots of murders, unconnected except by him. They’d take him off flying that was for sure: once that particular cat was out of the bag.
What if something happened to him? What if they got hit bad and had to get out of the ship? If he was taken prisoner, or worse? Nobody would ever know, who or why.
Ricky LeClare got off the bed, went over to the metal wardrobe and opened it, got writing paper and his pen, started writing everything, writing a long letter which he finally folded and put in an envelope marked ‘For Detective Livermore. In the event of my death’. Felt someone walk over his grave as he sealed it, tossed it into the drawer next to the other one. The one to his wife back in the States. The one that started, ‘Dear Angel, If you get this you’ll know I’ve gone. Now don’t be sad, ’cos it happens to a lot of guys here, that’s the nature of war…’
It went on like that for over six pages. Basically he thought Angela would be relieved, theirs was not one of the great marriages, wasn’t that conventional.
*
Molly rang Suzie that night, told her the latest and said she really had to speak with the Chief the minute he got back. It was very important. She said that they had found traces of Golly all over the Austin Seven they’d picked up in the car park.
‘Couldn’t he have ridden in it during the escape?’ Suzie asked brightly. Too brightly.
‘Looks like he was brought in to the aerodrome. Under a blanket in the back. Both Queenie’s and Lavender’s prints’re all over the front and Golly’s traces’re much more recent. If that’s the case he possibly watched Juliet Axton go through the wire fence, probably followed her. Then killed her.’