The Custard Corpses: A delicious 1940s mystery (The Erdington Mysteries)

by M J Porter

“Hum,” Quaker sighed. “It’s beginning to look as though the sicko got away with a great deal if it was the same person.”

  “Yes. It’s not looking good. Not at all. But, could you have copies of the photos you have sent to me and any other details you think are relevant.”

  “I will, yes. I’ll get them down in the next week. But, keep me informed. I’d like this one solved. I’ve never forgiven the coroner or my superintendent at the time for what happened. I’d like to take it to them when it’s shown that I was right, and they were wrong.”

  “I will, yes, and if I think of more questions, I’ll get in touch with you. What’s the number there?”

  “It’s Berwick 899, and good luck with the old cases. They’re never easy to solve.”

  “Thank you.” Sam replaced the receiver and, for a moment, gazed down at the notes O’Rourke had written down while she’d been standing close enough to him to hear the conversation.

  She looked at Sam with wide eyes, consternation evident in the way she gripped the pencil so tightly, he feared it might snap in two.

  “This is going to be huge. I just know it. We need to find the connection, because there’s going to be one, and quickly.”

  She nodded, and he could tell that she was just as curious as he was.

  “Right, I’m off to speak to Smythe. Can you sort the map out, as we talked about?”

  “Yes, straight away.” She turned aside, and he forged a path into the back office, determined not to meet Jones’ curious eyes. It was impossible he’d not heard the telephone ring twice.

  He knocked on the door and listened to Smythe’s command to ‘come in.”

  “I heard the phone,” Smythe stated quickly. “Is there another one?”

  “No, two. The phone rang twice straight after the first call. They must have received the alerts today. I don’t believe the original was ever sent to Scotland or Wales, and certainly not Northern Ireland.”

  “Damn fools,” Smythe all but exploded. “So, we fight together as a country throughout the Great War, with all that rhetoric about ‘Britons, your country needs you,’ and then as soon as it’s over, we up and forget about three-quarters of it. Bloody disgusting.” Sam felt both relieved by Smyth’s reaction and also a little contrite. After all, he’d been a constable back then. Maybe it had been his fault. Yet, he had no recollection of being involved with the sending out of the alert. No doubt, it had been an administrative error, but it didn’t stop his flicker of guilt. Children had died, potentially for no reason.

  “So, what next?” Smythe asked him as he finally ran out of steam.

  “I’m setting up a map in the back room. I’m going to start working on what we have, looking for some sort of pattern. There must be one. We just need to decipher it. The reports and photos from Berwick and Inverness will take time to come through, and I need to get started with something. O’Rourke will help me.”

  “Yes, yes, a good plan. I’ll inform my superior. He needs to know that we’ve opened a whole can of worms here. It can’t but be for the good, but there’s sure to be some recriminations. That’s not our worry. That’s why we have these bods who are the public face of the police force. I give you leave to do whatever needs to be done. Jones can field whatever local cases come up. Let me know as soon as you have a breakthrough.”

  Sam knew he was being dismissed and turned to leave the room; only then he paused.

  “What do you think the motive must be?”

  “I’ve no idea. I’m not good at deciphering my thoughts, let alone someone else’s. But you, Mason, you’re the right sort of chap for such a task. I know you’ll work it out. But, it might take time. And, I’d expect more cases yet. This is rotten, and the scandal is far from done. Mark my words.”

  The statement was far from reassuring, and yet Sam had already been thinking the same. Keeping his head down, he walked through the busy room, minding where he stepped so as not to wrench his back, only to be approached by Jones.

  The other man was almost the same age as Sam, but he wore his years far more lightly than Sam. There was hardly a slither of grey amongst his mop of dark hair, and his eyes were almost clear of all wrinkles. Sam might have felt jealous once, but he’d rather wear his age than try and mask it.

  “What’s going on?”

  “The McGovern murder. It’s been reopened.”

  “Why?” For a moment, Sam paused but then made a decision he’d probably come to regret.

  “Come and see.”

  Sam pointed to where O’Rourke could be heard cursing to herself in the backroom, and Jones followed, confusion on his broad face.

  Inside, O’Rourke struggled to pin a six-foot map of the United Kingdom onto one of the walls.

  “Here, I’ll help you,” Jones immediately offered, but O’Rourke shook her head, a nail between her teeth and hammer in hand, as she stood on a table, one leg slightly raised, on her tiptoes.

  “Just hold it steady,” she asked, and Sam looked away from her where her legs were on display. He knew that was what had caught Jones’ attention, and already he was regretting his attempt to include the other man. But, he couldn’t help but think that Jones might remember something. Two memories were better than one, and there was only he and Jones who’d been in the force back in 1923.

  With a sharp tap, the map hung remarkably straight down the wall, while O’Rourke jumped down to the floor to eye it critically, straightening her skirt and tunic.

  “Where did you find this?” Sam asked. He was surprised by its size.

  “In the archive. It’s been there ever since I started here. I opened it one day. I’ve always been too curious, but for once, it’s come in handy.” She smiled with delight.

  “I think it was used for some promotion about the police being everywhere,” Jones offered, but again, Sam had no recollection of ever having seen it before.

  “Well, it’s just about perfect for what we need. Even from here, I can see the roadways and cities quite clearly.”

  “What do you need it for?” Jones asked.

  “We’ve been informed of other murders; they might be similar to McFarlane’s. Certainly, I’ve been to Weston and examined the case file there. Now I’m getting information from two possible cases, one before ours and one after. Smythe has permitted me to look into it in detail.”

  “Where were the other cases?”

  “Inverness and Berwick upon Tweed.”

  “Well, there’s no connection there.” Jones’ desire to dismiss the matter immediately surprised Sam. “Not with the other one taking place in the west, and ours here, in the centre of the country.” Jones pointed as he spoke, but rather than dissuading Sam; it merely made him think that he was right to pursue the matter.

  “Well, you asked what we were doing, and that’s what we’re doing,” Sam offered, hopefully, already turning his back on Jones. If the other man was so dismissive, he was going to be no help. None at all.

  “I always knew you’d not forgotten about this. You and your precious Chief Inspector Fullerton, trying to right all the bloody wrongs in the world. What a waste when you could be doing something useful.” The fury in Jones’ voice astounded Sam, but evidently not as much as O’Rourke, who looked about to launch a tirade against the sergeant.

  “Well, Smythe has given his permission. So, it’s what we’re going to be doing. You can get back to doing something useful,’” Sam stated flatly.

  “Suit yourself. I’m fine with you wasting your time.”

  When Jones had left the room, Sam closed the door and turned to O’Rourke, a wince on his face.

  “Sorry. He asked, and I thought he probably needed to know. I didn’t think he’d get so angry about it.”

  “You don’t need to apologise to me,” O’Rourke offered brightly, shaking her braids from side to side. “He’s never happy unless he’s right about something, and he’s not right about this. Now, where do you want to start?”

  “You’re helping me, then?” he as
ked, pleased with her initiative.

  “Yes, well, unless Smythe calls me away. I think you’ll need some help if that’s not too impertinent.”

  “Not at all. I need someone with a young mind to keep me right. Now, to start with, I think we should mark the places on that map. It’s not a lot to go on, but I prefer to visualise such things. Are you alright to hop up beside it again?”

  “Oh yes, not a problem. What shall we use?”

  “Here,” and he passed a rectangular piece of card to her. “Actually, no, I’ll write some details on first. The date, the place, and the name of the victim.”

  “Then maybe add one piece of information to three cards. That way, we’ll still be able to read it from down here.”

  “Good idea,” he agreed and hastened to do just that, the pen lid in his mouth as he carefully wrote April 4th 1919, and then Inverness in his large and slightly lopsided handwriting. He printed the details, making it as easy as possible to read from a distance.

  “Ah, I didn’t find out her name.”

  “We’ll add that later,” O’Rourke stated. “Perhaps just put female for now. I think it’s relevant.”

  “Right, here you go. I’ll do the ones for Berwick while you attach those.”

  “Right-o.”

  For a few minutes, silence rang through the room, broken only by the brush of his pen against the card, and then he looked up to examine their results. O’Rourke was back on the ground by now, having reached Weston already, the details for Berwick and Erdington added to the large map, although there were more gaps for Berwick than Inverness. Sam squinted at it, hopeful something would become apparent just from those actions.

  “Well, nothing jumps out at me just yet,” Sam confirmed, his voice reflecting his disappointment.

  “Nor me, but we’re only just beginning, and we don’t have all the details yet.”

  “No, we don’t. Right, I think we should set up tables with information on for each victim.”

  “I’ll do that while you get on with other things,” O’Rourke offered, but Sam shook his head.

  “No, we should do it together. Make sure we’re familiar with all the information we have. I know the McFarlane case well, so you can do that one, and I’ll start on the McGovern one. Have those photos arrived yet?” Sam suddenly asked, aware it had been well over two weeks since he’d visited Weston.

  “I don’t know,” O’Rourke muttered, her voice muffled from where she was hanging over the old, cardboard box that Sam had brought from underneath his desk.

  “I’ll go and see,” he offered, turning aside. As he did so, his eyes caught on the map, and for a minute, he was lost in thought.

  It was so bizarre. Why would someone, and he would assume it was a man until he learned otherwise, murder children in these far-flung places? And why was he murdering children in the first place? It made no sense to Sam, but as O’Rourke insisted, there would be a connection, potentially only tenuous, but there, when they finally discovered it.

  Sam searched for some sort of pattern, but there was nothing. It all seemed random, just like the dates of the murders. Perhaps, he’d bitten off more than he could chew this time.

  At the front desk, he found both Williams and a pile of unopened post. Williams should have sorted the post, but he was busy chatting to a young woman, wearing bright red lipstick, while her hand almost touched the constable’s which was placed beside hers. They both jumped on seeing him, but he merely scanned through salutation on the envelopes, noting the king’s bust on the stamps with detachment. Most of the envelopes were for Superintendent Smythe, but he found two letters with his name on them and was hopeful that one of them was large enough to be the photos from Weston.

  Turning aside, he slit open the smaller envelope addressed to him and became so engrossed in the words that he didn’t even realise he’d stopped walking on his way back to join O’Rourke until Jones barked at him to ‘bloody well move.’

  “Sorry,” Sam mumbled, moving on and quickly returning to O’Rourke. He settled into a chair without so much as making sure she was alright.

  The words shouldn’t have shocked him, not after what had happened in the last few weeks, and yet he still couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Chief Inspector Mason,” the letter began, the letters short and stubby, no hint of a flourish in them. Perhaps someone who didn’t write very often, and when they did, they wanted to ensure the letters were the right ones and well-formed.

  “I am writing to you as I caught sight of your alert while visiting old friends at the station. I’m no longer on active duty, but your request for information sparked an old memory from many years ago. Forgive me if I don’t quite remember all of the details. I believe the year might have been 1918, or perhaps the one before, or the one after. I was a lowly constable at Cambridge police station, having been unable to fight in the war due to my flat feet. I was trying to do my bit for the country.

  There was a murder, but not a child, a teenager, I think seventeen or even eighteen. What reminded me was not the child's age but because the victim was found in his school uniform sprawled between the rugby posts, with a ball in his left hand.

  It was a murder that was solved, the boy’s Uncle was implicated, but he always vowed his innocence. I was always inclined to believe him. Although, what do I know? I was barely older than the murder victim and knew nothing of life and death back then. How different it all is now.

  Now, I moved from Cambridge to Llandudno only a few years later, and it was there that I happened to come upon your advisory. I would suggest you might want to look into the old case. I’m sure the case file must be available somewhere, although there might not be much to it. I’m sure the Uncle was given the death sentence for his part in it. As an older man now, I would like to know if they sent the right man to his death or not.

  Yours, Chief Inspector Willows (retired).” The signature was again neatly printed, and the address was given in the top right-hand corner. It confirmed what Willows was saying about no longer being in Cambridge.

  “Oh, did they come?” O’Rourke piped up, a smidge of dust on her nose as her head appeared from behind the McGovern case box.

  “Pardon?” Sam asked, for a moment, forgetting what he’d been searching for in the post because he couldn’t believe the contents of the letter he was reading. Evidently, the alert hadn’t been received today, but some time ago. He supposed it wasn’t a surprise that the war effort had disrupted the smooth postage service.

  “The photos? Did they come? What’s that?” O’Rourke caught sight of the letter he was reading, the paper, thin, and light-weight, the heavy-handed writer forced to use separate sheets of paper for the two pages. Sam could feel the shape of the letters through the paper.

  “Here, have a read,” and Sam handed her the letter while he opened the other, larger envelope. It was almost anticlimactic to have the photographs from Weston and the newspaper photographer spool into his hand.

  “Goodness me,” O’Rourke trilled, shaking the letter in her hand, meeting his eyes. “Shall I add this one to the map?”

  “Yes, I suggest you do,” Sam confirmed, his gaze sliding between the map on the wall and the photographs in his hand. He almost couldn’t stand to look, and yet he made himself, all the same.

  There were thirty of them in all. They weren’t crime scene photographs, far from it, and yet they made it clear what had been found in the aftermath of Anthony’s death. He could almost imagine himself being there, the sensation helped by the fact he’d visited the Women’s Institute while in Weston.

  The body had been lying on the ground, posed, as Sam was now starting to think of it, in a very specific and defined way, as though he’d been playing football. He found his eyes drawn to the photographs which showed Anthony’s feet. Yes, the initial police report had been right to list the items Anthony wore in death, but the stark words covered so much.

  Yes, the shoes had been un-scuffed, and yes, his sock had appeared
clean, but it hadn’t stated that his feet were drawn up tight to his knees, the stripes clear to see.

  Sam leaned back, looking once more at the map and then at the photographs, closing his eyes to see Robert’s body as it had been found. Then he thought of the body in Berwick, which had been found on the cricket green and the one in Cambridge between the rugby posts.

  “There’ll be a sports connection to the murder in Inverness as well as the four we already know about. We must find out who did this, even if we never find out why they did it.”

  O’Rourke didn’t respond, but Sam watched her nod violently, braids covering her face. It seemed he wasn’t the only one filled with fierce resolve. But, he knew only too well that tenacity didn’t solve a crime or a series of crimes. No, he needed to be intelligent in his approach, consider all possibilities. Sam couldn’t help but dread the cases about which he remained ignorant.

  Chapter 8

  “Mason, this man says he’s here to see you.” It was Jones who spoke, his eyes looking anywhere but at Sam and certainly refusing to notice the quantity of information that he and O’Rourke had been collating in the backroom regarding the potential victims to date.

  Sam nodded, distracted from his job of cross-referencing the cases which had, unsurprisingly, grown to nine in the last few days.

  His eyes alighted on a youngish man, well, certainly younger than him, with wild dark hair, crushed down where he’d been wearing a hat. He was about the same height as Sam, so not the tallest, and his boots showed the unmistakable shine of someone who knew the way to keep his Superintendent quiet. Sam didn’t like to jump to a conclusion, but he knew who the man was, even without seeing the case file clutched tightly in his hand.

  “Hamish,” the man said, “Constable Hamish Dougall from Inverness. We spoke on the telephone.”

  Sam ignored the twisted look on Jones’ face at the accent and stood to greet the man, rubbing his dusty hands down his trousers. Hamish had a broad face, free from a beard or moustache, and he was younger than Sam had thought he sounded, no more than late twenties. Perhaps he wasn’t too old to be a Constable after all.