The Esther & Jack Enright Box Set

by David Field

  ‘We?’ Helen enquired with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Myself and Detective Sergeant Enright.’

  ‘Your uncle?’

  ‘The very same. He’s hoping to be allowed to lead the enquiry, since it threatens to be a very wide-ranging business and whoever’s been actually carrying out these break-ins, even though under orders from someone else, is clearly a very dangerous man.’

  Percy was indeed hoping that he would be able to join Jack in what sounded like the sort of operation he liked — buckling bullies who enjoyed preying on people weaker than themselves. On the whole that meant men and he never failed to gain satisfaction of sorts from bringing in scum who thought that it was very big and brave to punch, kick and sexually abuse women. Percy liked it even more if these men resisted arrest and he could employ his billy club where it hurt the most.

  But the look on Chief Inspector Modley’s face suggested that Percy’s next interview would be with yet another trembling bank clerk or pompous under-manager.

  ‘I assume that this is a ruse designed to avoid going back to Fraud,’ the Inspector scowled as he digested what Percy had just suggested. ‘We have an entire department dedicated to keeping an eye on these union types, so why should I authorise you to run your own show on the side?’

  ‘With all due respect to our colleagues in Unions,’ Percy argued back, ‘they’re focused on male unions and the threat that they pose to law and order. The female unions, such as they are at present, are different and pose no such threat. And this isn’t about unions per se anyway — it’s about a disgusting slime bag who preys on vulnerable women.’

  ‘Obviously I’m well aware of your role in nailing the Ripper,’ Modley conceded, ‘but from what you’ve managed to tell me so far, this man simply enjoys collecting ladies’ underwear. Not quite the same thing as slashing throats in Whitechapel alleyways, is it?’

  ‘It could develop into that,’ Percy urged him. ‘Men like that usually begin in a small — almost pathetic — way, for example stealing from clothes lines. Then after a while that isn’t enough to give them the satisfaction they crave and they take to sneaking up on women, or peeping at them through open curtains. The next stage — like this one in Holborn — is some sort of sexual assault on the victim, which rapidly turns into rape, then finally — murder. It’s a well documented pattern of offending and during our last conversation you were singing the praises of the team in Burglary, who have taken to studying patterns.’

  ‘Like your nephew?’

  ‘Yes, like him, certainly. But I’m not suggesting that we set up a family business. It just so happens that his current enquiries have revealed a pattern of sexualised criminal behaviour by a man who is at present merely a rather unpleasant burglar with a penchant for ladies’ underwear, but who may develop into something far more ominous if we don’t catch him now.’

  ‘You’re suggesting that you may have caught another Ripper in the formative years of his criminal career?’

  ‘Yes, but also someone we need to take out of circulation because of the fear he’s already instilling into innocent law-abiding women. His victims aren’t street totties, sir — they’re ordinary girls and slightly older women, still young enough to be attractive anyway, and they all do honest jobs. It’s only a matter of time before word of this man’s predatory behaviour leaks out to the newspapers, then it’ll be a case of “Where was Scotland Yard?” and “What protection do we receive in return for the cost of our police force?”. I want to nip this in the bud.’

  Modley stared back at him, deep in thought as he played with the chain on the Albert watch tucked into his waistcoat pocket. Finally he nodded and Percy let out a long but subdued sigh of satisfaction.

  ‘Very well, but no more than a month. If you haven’t buckled your man by then, you’re back to Fraud — understood?’

  ‘Absolutely, and thank you, sir.’

  Modley smiled. ‘I don’t like these creepy types any more than you do, Percy, but it’s a question of maximising the effectiveness of our manpower.’

  ‘I quite understand, sir and I think that the combined talents of the Enright contingent within the Yard will have this knocked on the head long before our month is out.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘This is my Uncle Percy,’ Jack announced as he led him into the kitchen in which Helen and Esther sat waiting for them. ‘He was the one who went to see Lillian Beckwith and got the full story from her. He doesn’t bite, as Esther will confirm, but he’s had twenty years more experience than me in catching bad people.’

  ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance,’ Helen said formally as she shook his hand, then removed it as soon as was polite to do so. ‘Do sit down and have some tea.’

  Percy thanked her, sat down and took out his notebook and pencil, before turning to Jack with a smile.

  ‘Did Jack tell you what he and Esther discovered when they compared the burglary reports from the Yard files with your membership lists?’ he enquired.

  Helen nodded. ‘Esther did. She tells me that every one of those who asked to cancel their membership had received one of those warning notes.’

  ‘But some of them received more than that,’ Jack reminded her. ‘Every victim who suffered some sort of chilling interference with her underwear was someone whose continued membership was of particular importance to the Alliance, and in each case there was an additional note written in pencil, by some despicable type who’s barely literate.’

  ‘Like this, you mean?’ Helen reached inside her handbag and produced the one she’d received. As Percy took it from her trembling hand and began to study it intently, she explained, ‘It was stuck to the mirror of my dressing table and my first reaction was to throw it into the waste basket in my bedroom. Then when Esther told me about the note that Martha Pinkney got, I retrieved it. Fortunately I hadn’t got round to emptying the basket, but the notes a bit crumpled I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ Percy assured her as he gazed warmly into her green-blue eyes and took in the light ginger hair and freckled face that reminded him so much of a young Beattie. She caught the intensity of his gaze, blushed, and looked down at her lap as Percy broke his reverie and continued. ‘We’ll need to collect as many more of these as we can, if only to further confirm that we’re dealing with the same man whose Board School education seems to have been a first class waste of public money.’

  ‘I was planning on visiting some more of those who’ve cancelled their membership,’ Esther chirped in, ‘so I’ll collect all the notes and bring them back here.’

  ‘That should also help to separate the important ones from the others,’ Jack observed to a faint snort from Helen.

  ‘They’re all important to me, young man, but I think what you meant was that we need to distinguish between the ones who could have brought in more members and those who couldn’t.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Percy confirmed, ‘and while you’re at it, Esther, could you find out if each of the notes was affixed with the same sort of stuff as this, on the back of the note Helen received? I’d take a guess that it’s some sort of putty — the sort that glaziers use for fixing glass into window frames. I believe plumbers use it as well, but at any rate it’s something widely used in the building trades.’

  ‘Do joiners use it?’ Helen enquired in a wavering voice.

  ‘Probably,’ Percy replied, ‘although obviously I’m not a joiner. Why do you ask?’

  ‘How many of the other members who cancelled their subscriptions mentioned a strong smell in their rooms afterwards?’

  ‘All the ones I interviewed,’ Jack confirmed, ‘but the smell seemed to be different in every case.’

  ‘Lillian Beckwith described a smell of carbolic,’ Percy added, then turned back to look Helen firmly in the eye. ‘You smelt something as well, at a guess?’

  ‘Yes indeed, but it was a sort of peppermint, although there was a hint of carbolic. It reminded me of when I was in hospital. But then, on
e day when the workmen were here, I smelt it again.’

  ‘Bert Freeman!’ Esther all but shouted. ‘He was forever taking snuff and the smell of the stuff almost gassed me on occasions. But it wasn’t always the same every day — are there different “flavours” of snuff, for want of a better word?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Percy replied, ‘since I smoke a pipe. But snuff is derived from tobacco and there are different “flavours”, as Esther calls it, of tobacco, so why not snuff?’

  Helen went pale and gripped the side of the kitchen table.

  ‘To think that that dreadful man was in here for over a week! He broke into my bedroom drawer and had his hands in my ... my ...’

  It all proved too much for her and she struggled vainly with the tears until she gave up the effort and laid her head on the table and sobbed. Esther moved quickly to her side and put her arms round her comfortingly, while indicating with a jerk of her head for Percy and Jack to make themselves scarce. They wandered outside into the rattle and rumble of passing vehicles, with the additional rhythmic clop of horses’ hooves on the cobbles, as Percy lit his pipe and smiled.

  ‘This is going to be easier than I feared, Jack my boy. All we need to do is collar this Bert Freeman character and “Bob’s your uncle”, as the popular saying goes. Except in this case, your uncle’s Percy and we need an address for the firm that employed Freeman, and probably still does, unaware of his sideline in ladies’ underthings.’

  The front door opened and Esther slipped out to join them.

  ‘I think she’ll be alright, but perhaps it’s best if we call it a day for now.’

  ‘I think we’ve got all we need for the time being anyway.’ Percy smiled. ‘Except for dinner — whose treat is it?’

  ‘Have you given any thought to where to go for your honeymoon?’ Percy asked as they each sat hunched over something calling itself a ‘ciabatta’. Percy had gone for what had once been ham, while for Esther the choice had been chicken and Jack had yet to work out what exactly was making his mouth burn and was hesitant to enquire further.

  ‘Somewhere where they serve better rolls than this, I hope,’ Esther commented.

  Jack cleared his mouth and stared out at the passing traffic. ‘I thought perhaps the South of France,’ he mused out loud, ‘or some moon-drenched beach in Tahiti. Or we could take a camel ride across the burning sands of Arabia, or go pearl diving in the glittering Pacific.’

  ‘I had in mind Southend,’ Percy replied with a smirk.

  ‘Southend?’ Jack and Esther shouted back in disbelieving unison, before Esther added, ‘A week in Southend would be the end of our marriage before it had even begun!’

  ‘I take it that was a joke, Uncle?’ Jack said hopefully. ‘Whereas Bournemouth, Brighton and suchlike are holiday resorts, Southend is more like a last resort!’

  ‘Very funny,’ Percy said, smiling, ‘but humour me. An old school friend of your Aunt Beattie’s now runs a guesthouse in Southend, right on the sea front and your aunt’s been in my ear for the best part of a month now, campaigning for us to spend a weekend in the place. The only way I can shut her up is by suggesting that I talk you into spending your honeymoon there. If it’s anything like our honeymoon in a holiday cottage in Suffolk, it won’t matter what else there is to do, or even what the weather’s like.’

  ‘Uncle Percy!’ Esther admonished him with a blush. ‘I’m sure we’ll find plenty of other things to do, so thank you but no thank you.’

  ‘On the other hand...’ Jack mused out loud with a lascivious grin, which disappeared when Esther punched him on the shoulder, relieving him of the obligation to burn his mouth further with whatever he had chosen for his dinner, as it flew out of his hand and landed on the narrow pavement beyond the door.

  Jack looked out with a rueful smirk. ‘Whatever that was, not even the sparrows seem to want it.’

  ‘Leave the talking to me,’ Percy instructed Jack later, as they prepared to enter the premises of ‘Eastside Joiners and Jobbers’ in Bow Road.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I outrank you — twice,’ Percy replied as he tapped the ash from his pipe onto the pavement with the aid of his boot heel. ‘Once as your uncle and secondly as your sergeant.’

  The bell above the front door tinkled faintly as they pushed it open and within a minute or so a man in a brown overall emerged from the back, a pencil stuck behind his ear and a notebook in his hand.

  ‘What can I do fer you gents?’ he enquired pleasantly, before his face froze as Percy produced his police badge from his inside pocket like a magician coaxing a rabbit from a top hat.

  ‘We’d like to speak to a Mr Bert Freeman.’

  ‘Never ’eard of ’im. Does ’e claim ter work ’ere?’

  ‘Don’t mess me about,’ Percy warned him. ‘Bert Freeman’s your jobbing foreman.’

  ‘No ’e’s not,’ the man replied confidently. ‘That’s ’Arry Broad’urst. Leastways, it were until ’e fell off a ladder a few weeks back. ’E won’t be back on the job fer another fortnight, they reckon.’

  ‘You recently carried out some work on premises in Lamb Street, Spitalfields?’ Jack reminded him.

  ‘Sounds familiar. Let me look at the order book. Let me see now, when were this exactly?’

  ‘Mid to end of November,’ Jack prompted him.

  The man looked up with a smile.

  ‘Yeah, ’ere it is, right enough. Internal dividin’ walls an’ a couple o’ doors — that the one?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Jack confirmed, and Percy added, ‘And Bert Freeman was the foreman.’

  ‘No ’e weren’t,’ the man insisted. ‘The lads worked wi’out a foreman on that job. Yer got a complaint abou’ the way it were done?’

  ‘No,’ Percy replied in a sharp voice that betrayed his mounting irritation, ‘I just want to speak to Bert Freeman.’

  ‘Well, like I said, yer can’t,’ the man insisted. ‘I ain’t never ’eard o’ no Bert Freeman.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned during what I choose to call my illustrious police career,’ Percy said to Jack as they stood, nonplussed, on the pavement outside Eastside Jobbers and Joiners, ‘is never to accept the first answer you’re given.’

  ‘The bloke seemed pretty definite,’ Jack observed.

  ‘Particularly not the first answer you’re given by someone who seems pretty definite,’ Percy added. ‘Did you notice his Adam’s Apple?’

  ‘Can’t say I did,’ Jack admitted.

  ‘Always watch the Adam’s Apple. His was going up and down faster than a tottie’s skirts. A good sign of a bloke lying through his arse.’

  ‘You reckon he knows Bert Freeman?’

  ‘Not necessarily, but he knows that something wasn’t quite right about that job in Lamb Street.’

  ‘So where do we go now?’

  ‘What time is it?’

  Jack took his fob watch from his pocket. It had been left to him by his late father and it was his proudest possession. He flipped open the silver cover and examined the ornate numbering.

  ‘A few minutes before five, why?’

  Percy smiled and nodded across the road to ‘The Volunteer’s Arms’. ‘In there,’ he replied and began to stride away, forcing Jack to scurry after him.

  ‘Why in here? Do you think Bert Freeman might be a patron?’

  ‘No, but his workmates will be. It’s across the road from where they sign off for the day and I’d bet Bermondsey to a brick that some of them will head straight in. We sit here and make a mental note of who goes in there to sign off, then we wait here until they cross the road for a light refreshment after their honest day’s toil. Oh, ye of little faith,’ Percy muttered as two workmen made their way from the front door of the joiners’ office to the front door of the pub. ‘Head for the Gents up the side alley, then we come back in as if we’d only just arrived. Follow me.’

  Two minutes later the two workmen were barely into
their first pint when they saw the police badge appear on the counter in front of them and turned to see Percy and Jack standing behind them.

  ‘Sorry to disturb your well earned pints, my friends,’ Percy purred politely, ‘but I’m looking for a Mr Bert Freeman.’

  ‘So am I, the arse’ole,’ one of them replied as he spat into the sawdust. ‘Borrered a quid off me on the Friday dinner time, then didn’t bother showin’ up fer work on the Monday. We ’ad ter finish the job ourselves, then report back ter Mr Jenston in the office.’

  ‘Is he the bloke behind the counter in the shop across the road?’ Percy enquired.

  The man nodded.

  ‘That’s ’im, the pompous ol’ shit. ’Im wi’ the chrome dome an’ the Newgate Knockers the colour o’ rabbit shit.’

  ‘Bald head and darkish side whiskers,’ Percy explained to Jack by way of simultaneous translation. Then he turned back to his new found confidante. ‘I take it that Mr Freeman wasn’t your normal foreman?’

  ‘No, that’s ’Arry Broad’urst, but ’e took a turvey off a ladder an’ busted ’is spanner.’

  ‘Hand,’ Percy translated for Jack’s benefit, before turning back to the two men. ‘So how were you advised that Mr Freeman was to become your foreman for the Lamb Street job?’

  ‘We wasn’t, not proper like,’ the other man joined in. ‘We turned up fer work on the previous Monday and was told ter report ter this office place in ’Oxton wi’ the wagon. When we got there, it turned out ter be one o’ them property offices an’ the geezer in charge introduced us ter Bert Freeman an’ told us that ’e were in charge o’ the job we was assigned ter, an’ ter foller ’is orders.’

  ‘And you never saw Mr Freeman again, after that job?’ Percy asked by way of confirmation.

  Both men shook their heads.

  ‘Like I said,’ the first one repeated, ‘we never even seen ’im again by the end o’ that job an’ we ’ad ter sign off on it ourselves.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr —?’