by Mike Hollow
“Like your Boleyn girls, then?”
“I suppose so, yes – but that’s not much help when we’re trying to solve a crime in 1940. Peter, I think you and I need to talk to Celia about this photo. Dorothy, we must say goodbye.”
CHAPTER 25
Cradock took the wheel for their journey to Ilford, a small Essex town three miles to the east of West Ham. He enjoyed the opportunity to drive the Riley, although the journey itself was undistinguished – Jago’s directions took them through the usual sprawl of houses, factories and railway lines that marked London’s rapid eastward expansion over the last half-century.
“So she works for Ilford, the film people?” he said as they approached their destination.
“That’s what she told me,” said Jago. “Said we could meet in her lunch break at twelve-thirty. We’re right on time.”
“They’re a big company, aren’t they? Seems odd for them to be in a little place like this.”
“I believe the man who started it moved out here because there was no dust in the air – which I suppose makes sense if you’re manufacturing photographic plates.”
“Right. Not the sort of thing you’d want to try in West Ham – I don’t like to think what I’m breathing in down there sometimes. Maybe he thought Ilford was a bit more out in the country and the air was cleaner.”
“Yes. Mind you, I met an old girl once who used to work here in the early days and she said the silver they used in the production process made people’s skin go blue. Makes you think of the Bryant & May girls and their phossy jaw, doesn’t it?”
“Phossy jaw? Was that a case, sir? I think it must’ve been before my time.”
“It wasn’t a case, but it should’ve been. No time for that now, though: we’re here.”
They had arrived at the company’s headquarters, a large brick building in Roden Street. Cradock stopped the car outside it, and the two men got out. It didn’t take long to find where Celia worked: a modern two-storey structure had the words “Sales Office” proclaimed in big letters across the front. A woman in a brown coat was waiting by the entrance.
“That looks like her,” said Jago.
The woman saw them. She walked along a path round a neatly laid lawn to meet them and shook their hands.
“Hello, Inspector. I’m afraid I haven’t got long,” she said. “Can we go somewhere away from here to talk?”
“Of course,” said Jago. “Where would you prefer?”
“We can go half a mile one way to Valentine’s Park, or about the same distance the other way to the City of London Cemetery. It’s all the same to me.”
“I think the park sounds more attractive,” said Jago.
“Okay, then, follow me.”
Celia strode away quickly, leaving the men in her wake. Jago increased his pace to catch up with her, studying the back of her head on the way. Dorothy was right. Celia’s hair was blonde, but its roots were darker. Fancy her knowing that, he thought.
Within a few minutes they reached the park. Celia led them in past a lake and towards the far side, where a fingerpost sign said the open-air swimming pool was. To his right Jago could see a large area covered in what looked to be the feather-like leaves of carrots.
“The council’s turned some of the park into allotments,” said Celia without stopping. “Growing vegetables for the war effort. All right for people who’ve got time for that kind of thing, but I haven’t.”
“Have you had much bombing here?” said Cradock.
“None in the park itself yet, but we’ve had a few round Ilford. Not as bad as where you are, though. I go down Canning Town way from time to time – got friends there – so I’ve a pretty good idea what it’s like. See that?”
Cradock followed her pointing hand but could see only grass and the bathing pool beyond.
“No. See what?”
“That’s where all those people got killed last year – just a couple of weeks before the war started. It wasn’t the Germans, though. More like nature giving us a taste of things to come.”
“What happened?”
“It was in August, about five o’clock on a Monday afternoon. I’d knocked off work a bit early and come over here for a breath of fresh air. Ordinary summer’s day it was: lots of mums and kids swimming, playing. But then there was a thunderstorm. There was a kind of shelter just over there, and loads of people crowded in under it to get out of the rain – but it was made of corrugated iron and it got struck by lightning. Seven killed, two of them just kids. It was chaos – dead bodies, people with terrible burns, children screaming. Just like we’ve seen in the air raids. I tried to help, but there was nothing you could do for some of them. I’d never seen anything like it, and it was all over the papers, but now worse things happen every day.”
“A terrible tragedy all the same,” said Jago. “Now, Mrs Berry, I know you haven’t much time, so can we stop here? I just want to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Of course.”
She stopped in her tracks, and Cradock only narrowly avoided colliding with her.
“We can sit there beside the pool,” she said, nodding towards some empty chairs.
They crossed a patch of grass and sat down. Jago pulled a package from inside his coat.
“Since I last spoke to you someone’s handed in a woman’s handbag, and we’ve found a photo in it. Can you take a look, please, and tell me if you recognize either item?”
Celia took the handbag and photo from him and gave them a quick glance. She handed the bag back with a shake of her head.
“No.”
“Take your time, please.”
“I don’t think that’ll help. I can’t be sure whether I’ve seen it before or not. I don’t take much notice of other women’s handbags. But that’s my photo, and it’s my wedding. That’s me and Richard. Do you mind telling me where you found it?”
“In Mary Watkins’ handbag. It was found not far from her body.”
“And you think it’s got something to do with why someone killed her?”
“Not necessarily. We’re simply trying to find out more about Mary and what might have been on her mind at the time.”
Celia was still holding the photo. She looked at it in silence, as if it had sparked some train of thought in her mind. Eventually she spoke, in little more than a murmur.
“It must have been her who took it then, stole it from me. That Mary.”
“Do you have any idea why she might do that?”
“No, not really. I remember telling you she looked a bit surprised when she saw it – it was as if maybe she’d recognized someone she knew. The only thing I can think is that she recognized Richard. But she went all serious, like I said. Then she asked me his name.”
“When we spoke about this before, you didn’t mention her asking you his name. You said she didn’t say anything.”
“Did I? I must have meant she didn’t say anything when she looked at the photo. She asked me his name afterwards.”
“And you told her?”
“Yes, and when I told her, she just went quiet again. It was a bit spooky, to be honest. Why do you think she did that, Inspector?”
“I don’t know. It may be significant, or it may mean nothing at all.”
“I suppose so. I shouldn’t read too much into it. And you said before you thought she might have been murdered. Do you still think that?”
“That’s what we suspect, yes.”
“Well, well. They say your sins’ll find you out, don’t they?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’m just surprised at what some people get up to. Although actually, after having a husband like Richard nothing surprises me.”
“Meaning?”
“Let’s just say there’s a lot of deceit in the world, and sometimes a bit of truth doesn’t do any harm.”
“When we spoke at the dance, you said you took what your husband said with a pinch of salt – about his w
artime service, for example. You said he might have made the whole thing up. Do you have any evidence that he wasn’t telling the truth?”
“I can’t say, really. I dare say something happened. I just wonder whether he dressed it up a bit, to make it sound grander. Some men do that, don’t they? Want to be heroes, especially if they’re villains. I don’t even know if he was wounded – I mean, I wasn’t there, was I? He might’ve got injured some other way, unless he was born like that. The only thing I know for a fact is that he’s missing the last two fingers on his left hand, so something must’ve happened. Why? Is it significant?”
“Thank you, Mrs Berry, you’ve been most helpful. We must let you get back to your work, but before we go, may I ask one more small question on a totally different subject? It’s a rather personal matter, I’m afraid.”
“Fire away.”
“I just wondered whether you use anything to colour your hair.”
Celia laughed.
“My roots are showing, are they? Very observant of you. Yes, I use a drop of peroxide from time to time, but I must be a bit behind, mustn’t I?”
“Is it difficult to get hold of?”
“Can be these days. It’s a bit scarce in the shops, but it’s not rationed or anything. You sometimes have to shop around to get some, but you can usually find it somewhere. I know girls who pay a bit over the odds for things like that from what you might call private suppliers.”
“Do you know of any such suppliers yourself?”
“Oh, Inspector, fancy asking a question like that. A girl’s got to have some secrets, hasn’t she?”
Celia pulled back the sleeve of her coat and glanced at her watch.
“Oh dear,” she said. “Look at the time – I must get back to work. Sorry to rush off.”
Before Jago could reply, she was skittering back down the path towards the park entrance.
CHAPTER 26
“Guv’nor,” said Cradock, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Jago waited until he had seen Celia Berry disappear from view before turning back to the detective constable.
“Thinking what you’re thinking?” he said, pursing his lips and inclining his head a little to one side. “Difficult to say. I often wonder what you’re thinking, Peter – it intrigues me. But judging by the evidence to date I would say that the likelihood of our thoughts coinciding is not great. Give me a clue.”
“Well, the fingers, of course.”
“The fingers?”
“Yes – George Fletcher and Richard Berry’s fingers. We’ve got a case that two men are mixed up in –”
“We don’t know that they’re mixed up in it. One is married to the victim’s sister and the other is the absent husband of a woman who briefly met the victim. That could be regarded as just a tenuous connection.”
“Yes, but both of them have got the last two fingers of their left hand missing. That’s what Celia said, wasn’t it? And it’s what we saw when we met George Fletcher.”
“The latter we’ve seen with our own eyes, but the former we haven’t. In any case, there are plenty of men of their age with war wounds like that. Could it be a coincidence?”
“Two men in the same town with the same injury, yes, but surely not in the same case. That must be too much to be a coincidence.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? They must be the same bloke.”
“What we’ve heard doesn’t quite add up, though, does it?”
“In what sense?”
“Well, Celia Berry says her husband lost his fingers when he was in the Navy, at the Battle of Jutland. What date was that?”
Cradock’s face was blank.
“Er, sorry, sir, I don’t know. Before my time. Is it important?”
“Yes, it is. The battle was on the last day of May and the first of June in 1916, so that would be the time and place where Richard Berry lost his. But George Fletcher told us he got his wound when he was in the merchant navy, and the merchant navy wouldn’t have been involved in the battle. And more importantly, he said he didn’t go to sea until 1917, so he couldn’t have been there in 1916.”
“So do you mean that ruins our theory?”
“No, not necessarily. It would do if both George and Celia were telling the truth, but we can’t assume that. And if Celia did tell us what she believed to be true, it would also depend on whether Richard Berry had told her the truth too. But in any case, what she’s said is just hearsay, so it’s not admissible as evidence anyway.”
“But you’re saying it’s impossible to be sure.”
“Yes. Mind you, having met George Fletcher, I wouldn’t take everything he says at face value. On balance, at this stage I’d say your theory is an intriguing possibility.”
“And it would be an interesting situation, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but we’d need some stronger evidence to prove it.”
Jago began to walk back towards the park entrance. Cradock fell in beside him, striding along eagerly with his face turned towards his boss.
“Just for the sake of argument, though,” said Cradock, “supposing it was true. The person in the picture who surprised her must have been Richard Berry. But suppose that wasn’t why she was surprised. What if the person she recognized was George Fletcher – her sister’s husband? That certainly would’ve been a turn-up for the book as far as Mary was concerned.”
“But everyone’s said Mary had never met George Fletcher, and she didn’t go to the wedding. She couldn’t recognize George Fletcher if she’d never seen him.”
“But what if Mary had actually found out who Susan had married – or maybe she even found out before the wedding. It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Yes, the fact that she wasn’t at the wedding doesn’t necessarily mean she’d never seen him. But the problem is we’ve no proof that she did, and we can’t ask her now.”
“All right. But let’s say she saw Richard Berry in the photograph and recognized her sister’s husband. She’d have just discovered he was a bigamist. That would be more than enough reason to make her look shocked, wouldn’t it? And what might she have done with that information? Something that would get her killed?”
“Yes, but that’s just supposition.”
“You’re always telling me to ask the ‘What if?’ questions. Shouldn’t we look into it?”
“Yes, Peter, we should – and your reasoning is good. Now let’s see if we can substantiate it. You’d better start by checking the two weddings actually took place. If Mary had discovered some skulduggery going on it would put a very different complexion on things. I’m still wondering what Celia meant when she talked about deceit just now. We’ve only got her word for it that she was married, and these days a woman might have all sorts of reasons for saying she’s married when she’s not. Celia told me herself that she wears a wedding ring to keep the men at bay, and that wedding photo wasn’t very clear, so you can imagine that if she wanted to deceive them any old photo would do.”
“And she didn’t even have the same colour hair in that picture as she does now. How do we know she’s telling the truth?”
“Steady on, Peter. A woman’s allowed to dye her hair if she wants to. That’s not a reflection on her character – we can’t infer she’s a liar just because she wants to look blonde. Now then, I want you to find out what the parish church is for where George and Susan Fletcher live and get over there. Find out if they got married on the twenty-seventh of July – ask the vicar to show you the register and check what names it gives for them. Then get hold of the vicar at St Luke’s Church in Wolverhampton on the telephone and ask him to check his wedding register for the seventeenth of February 1938 to see if there’s a Richard Berry marrying a Celia whatever her name was then.”
“Very good, sir.”
“But first I think we’ll see whether Mr Fletcher’s company can spare him for a little while so that we can have a chat with him and his wife.�
�
CHAPTER 27
A snub-nosed Morris van was parked on the road outside the house. Its freshly washed black bodywork contrasted sharply with the white stripes that had been painted round the edges of its mudguards to comply with the blackout regulations. The words “Empire Office Services” and the company’s address were also painted neatly in white on the side panel, together with a telephone number on the Maryland exchange, creating an impression of orderly professionalism far removed from the scene Jago and Cradock had encountered at the company’s offices.
“Looks as though George is home,” said Cradock.
“Yes,” said Jago. “Now, I don’t want you asking him whether he’s a bigamist or whether he’s got two fingers missing because he’s really someone else, or any other clever questions like that. We don’t want to frighten Mrs Fletcher unnecessarily, and if all that’s true I’d like to keep it up our sleeves for the time being. Understood?”
“Yes, guv’nor.”
At a nod from Jago, Cradock leaned forward to knock on the door. They heard footsteps pacing down the hall behind it, and it opened a crack to reveal George Fletcher, still in his work suit.
“Come in,” he said, looking down the street to left and right. “I hope you won’t make a habit of this. The company don’t like me taking time off in the daytime, and if the neighbours get wind of the fact that you’re police there’ll be rumours flying up and down this road like nobody’s business. A bit toffee-nosed, some of them. You know the sort.”
He ushered them in and closed the door behind them.
“Come on through. My wife will put the kettle on.”
“Thank you, Mr Fletcher.”
They sat in the living room, on the sofa as before, and waited until Susan Fletcher arrived with a tray bearing tea in dainty china cups and saucers which she set on an occasional table beside them.
“So, what can we do for you?” asked Fletcher. “I’m hoping this won’t take long – I’ve got to get back to work.”