Instrument of Slaughter (9 page)

Joe Keedy’s visit to the police station was productive. He not only met and interviewed Mansel Price, he was able to use the duty sergeant’s local knowledge to advantage. When he confided that he needed to maintain surveillance on the Ablatt house that night, the sergeant recommended the nearby home of a pair of elderly sisters. They’d been burgled recently and would welcome the presence of a policeman to guard their property during the small hours. The front room of their house, Keedy was assured, would give him a good view of the wall that had been daubed with white paint. He was very grateful. If he’d had to knock on doors in search of a place in which to hold his vigil, there was always the danger that he might alert the artist. Since he (or she) was almost certainly a neighbour of the Ablatt’s, it would be ironic if there was a forewarning from the police. Staying with two old ladies obviated the danger of inadvertently coming face to face with the very person he wished to apprehend. It was a piece of good fortune that partially atoned for the evening out that he’d had to sacrifice in the interests of solving a murder

Keedy also learnt that Price was known to the police. He’d been arrested during an affray the previous year but had not been charged. The fractious Welshman had also been involved in two other incidents, one of which – refusing to pay for some groceries – had resulted in a fine. Price detested authority. Each time he’d been brought to the station, it transpired, he’d been awkward under questioning. It helped to explain why he’d been so
prickly during his session with Keedy. The carpenter, Fred Hambridge, had been far more amenable and – according to Marmion – so had Gordon Leach. It would be interesting to learn how Price fitted into the quartet that included Cyril Ablatt. Since the latter was the undisputed leader, to what extent had the Welshman accepted to the authority vested in his friend?

Time was rolling on and there were decisions to be made. It would take Keedy far too long to go all the way to and from his digs so he resigned himself to remaining in Shoreditch. He first walked to the recommended house and made the acquaintance of Rose and Martha Haveron, two anxious ladies in their late sixties who confused their recent burglary with an attempt of their long-preserved virginity. Reassured by his status and by his easy charm, they were at the same time appalled to hear about the murder. They had nothing but good to say about Ablatt and his father and had been friendly with his mother until she died some years earlier. Even though it would be the first time that a man had spent a night under their roof, the sisters willingly offered up their front room as an observation post, ready to break with tradition if it would help the police. Indeed, they both revealed a hitherto hidden maternal instinct, offering Keedy food, providing him with blankets and generally trying to make his stay there as comfortable as it could be. He had difficulty escaping their urgent hospitality in order to go shopping.

As he left his two temporary landladies, he looked up at the side of the house on the corner. Nobody was left in any doubt as to who lived there. Amongst other things, Cyril Ablatt was described as a coward, a rat, a rotten conchie and a traitor to his country. The lettering was large but hastily done. Keedy decided that it must have taken the artist a number of visits to complete the work. His sympathy for the dead man welled up. Much kinder words would be etched on Ablatt’s gravestone. While the exterior of the house had been defaced, the real damage had been caused inside it. Keedy wondered how the family was coping with it.

‘Shall I make some more tea?’ asked Gerald Ablatt, getting to his feet.

He’d done little else from the time that his sister and brother-in-law had arrived. They come to offer him comfort but it was Nancy Dalley who most needed it. Between bouts of tears, she kept dredging up fond memories of her nephew and asking her brother to endorse their accuracy. Ablatt readily agreed with everything that she said, trying to ease her pain as a means of relieving his own. Dalley was forced into the position of an onlooker, watching them suffer and listening to the endless repetition of the same empty phrases.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said, reaching for the tea pot.

Ablatt came out of his reverie. ‘You don’t know where the tea is, Jack.’

‘I’ll find it.’

‘There are biscuits in the larder.’

‘I couldn’t touch food,’ said Nancy. ‘Even a biscuit would make me sick.’

‘You haven’t eaten anything since we got here, love,’ said her husband, solicitously. ‘There’s no need to starve.’

‘All I want is some tea.’

‘But we’ve been here for hours.’

‘Tea, Jack – nothing else.’

‘I’ll get it.’

As soon as Dalley left the room, Ablatt sat beside his sister and they embraced impulsively, letting the tears gush yet again. The murder had completely disoriented them. They’d lost all sense of time, place and purpose. All that they could do was to sit there and offer each other a degree of succour. When the blacksmith returned from the kitchen with the teapot and biscuits, he found them still locked together.

‘I’ll have to go soon,’ he warned. ‘It’s unfair to leave Perce on his own all day. He’ll wonder what’s happened.’

‘Go when you want to, Jack,’ said Ablatt.

‘Will you stay here, Nance?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured.

‘I’ll come back when I shut up the forge.’

‘I’ll still be here.’

Dalley put the teapot on the table and opened the biscuit barrel. He helped himself to a digestive them offered the selection to Ablatt who shook his head. His sister had started crying again and he was afraid to leave go of her. The blacksmith munched his biscuit and tempered his sorrow with a light-hearted remark.

‘One thing, anyway,’ he said. ‘Cyril won’t ever have to join the army now.’

The moment the words came out of his mouth, he realised how crass and hurtful they could be. However, he was spared any reproach from the others. Neither Ablatt nor Nancy heard what he said. They were miles away, trapped irretrievably in their private misery.

Notwithstanding his shortcomings, Claude Chatfield was an industrious man. By the time Marmion got back to Scotland Yard, the superintendent had immersed himself in the details of the murder, acquired a map of London and its inner suburbs, and set up a press conference. He’d also informed the commissioner about the progress of the investigation. Knowing how finicky Chatfield was about detail, Marmion had taken pains to rehearse what he was about to say. Accordingly, his report was full and lucid. He described his meeting with Eric Fussell and did his best to hide his aversion to the librarian. He went on to talk about Keedy’s questioning of Horrie Waldron. It led to the sergeant’s subsequent visit to a woman the gravedigger had claimed could supply him with an alibi for the time when he was away from the Weavers Arms the previous evening. Chatfield listened intently.

‘Who is this woman?’

‘Her name is Maud Crowther.’

‘Is that Miss or Mrs?’

‘It’s Mrs Crowther, sir.’

‘So this egregious gravedigger is dallying with a married woman.’

‘The lady is a widow, sir,’ said Marmion. ‘To gain her cooperation, Sergeant Keedy had to promise her that her name would be kept out of any newspaper reports. I think that we should honour that promise.’

‘What if she’s simply inventing an alibi for Waldron?’

‘The sergeant was convinced that Mrs Crowther was honest and reliable, sir. When it comes to women,’ he added with a smile, ‘I accept his judgements without question. He has an insight into the opposite sex that I lack.’

‘This is no time to discuss Keedy’s
amours
, Inspector,’ said Chatfield with a note of reprimand. ‘I know that they are the stuff of canteen gossip but they have no bearing on this case.’

‘I disagree, sir.’

‘As to this woman, we’ll hold her name back for the time being. If, however, she turns out to be an accomplice of sorts, both you and the sergeant will bear the weight of my displeasure.’

‘Neither of us wishes to incur that, Superintendent.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ He studied Marmion for a moment. ‘Is that all?’

‘I believe so.’

‘I’d hate to think that you’ve missed anything out.’

‘You’ve heard everything, sir.’

Marmion’s expression gave nothing away. Once again, he’d taken care to make no mention of the woman with whom Cyril Ablatt had enjoyed a secret romance. In addition to everything else, it would have unleashed a torrent of denunciation from the superintendent. Chatfield was a devout Roman Catholic who viewed extra-marital adventures of any kind with revulsion. Caroline Skene’s name would have prompted a fiery sermon from him. But that was not the only reason why Marmion kept back details of his meeting with her. He felt sorry for her in her bereavement and was not at all sure that she could endure it. To add public exposure
of her friendship with Ablatt would be a crippling blow, leading to dire repercussions with her husband. While Chatfield would think that such punishment was well-deserved, Marmion wanted to protect her.

The danger was that the superintendent might learn that he was being deceived and that would have disastrous results. Official reprimand and demotion were the least that Marmion could expect. A vengeful man like Chatfield would undoubtedly find other means of blighting his career at Scotland Yard. It was a risk that had to be taken. When he gave his word to someone, Marmion strove to keep it. Caroline Skene had been assured of his discretion. He was not going to betray her.

‘Right,’ said Chatfield, leaning forward and pointing to the map on his desk. ‘Based on what we gathered from two of his friends, I’ve marked the route that Ablatt would have taken from Bishopsgate to the house in Shoreditch where they agreed to meet. Somewhere along that route, he was intercepted and killed.’ He looked up. ‘How and where did it happen?’

‘If only we knew, sir,’ said Marmion, bending over the map with interest. ‘There seem to be a number of dots here.’

‘I’ve marked the principal locations.’ Chatfield used his finger to point them out. ‘This is the Ablatt house and this is where Hambridge lives. Over here is the library and – since Waldron is implicated – I’ve also marked the cemetery.’

Marmion indicated another dot. ‘What’s this one, sir?’

‘It’s the pub close to the scene of the crime – the Weavers Arms.’

The Weavers Arms was the haunt of Horrie Waldron, still the only real suspect in the case. When he’d finished his shopping, Keedy decided to pay it a visit. In a large paper bag was the torch he’d just bought along with the razor, shaving brush and shaving soap he needed. The Haveron sisters had given him such a cordial welcome that he felt they deserved more, first thing on the following morning, than the sight of a bleary-eyed
detective with dark whiskers. While he was out, Keedy had also availed himself of a snack. A glass of beer was now very tempting. He entered the bar to find that it was relatively empty so early in the evening. Standing behind the counter, the landlord gave him a grin of welcome.

‘What can I get you, sir?’ he asked.

‘I’ll have a pint of your best, please.’

‘It’s on its way.’

Reaching for a tankard, Stan Crowther filled it slowly with practised use of the pump. One mystery was solved for Keedy. When he’d heard Waldron express fear of the landlord, he couldn’t understand why such a sturdy man as the gravedigger would be afraid of anyone. The explanation was standing in front of him. Crowther was a beefy man with immense forearms and hands like shovels. But it was his face that gave the game away. Any trace of his mother had been pummelled away in a boxing ring. Crowther had a broken nose, a cauliflower ear and eyebrows that looked to be permanently swollen and misshapen. Hanging on the wall behind the landlord was a framed poster advertising a series of fights. Top of the bill was a heavyweight contest between Stan Crowther and Eli Montgomery.

‘In case you’re wondering,’ said Crowther, putting the full pint in front of him. ‘I knocked him out in the fourth round. Old Eli was a good fighter but he had a glass jaw.’ He chuckled. ‘He went down like a sack of spuds.’

After paying for the beer, Keedy sipped it and gave a nod of approval. There was no need to introduce himself. In the same way that he’d guessed the landlord’s former occupation, Crowther had worked out that he must be a detective.

‘I was expecting a visit from you sooner or later,’ he said.

‘Then you’ll know why I’m here.’

‘It’s a bad business, this murder. I mean, we have the odd fight in here and I got nothing against that, provided they don’t break the furniture.
But murder is out of order – especially when it’s almost on our doorstep.’ He scratched his cauliflower ear. ‘What’s the name, sir?’

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Keedy.’

‘Have you got any suspects yet?’

‘These are early days, Mr Crowther.’

‘Everyone calls me Stan – except Eli Montgomery, of course. He calls me a black-hearted bastard. Eli always was a bad loser.’

‘One man has come to our notice, Stan,’ admitted Keedy. ‘He’s not exactly a suspect but we believe that he and the victim had quarrelled. The man’s name is Horrie Waldron.’

Crowther grinned. ‘Horrie quarrels with everybody.’

‘He’d have more sense than to quarrel with you, I fancy.’

‘Even he is not stupid enough to do that, Sergeant.’

‘I spoke to him earlier at the cemetery. He tells me that he was in here all evening apart from an hour or two when he popped out.’

‘Then he’s told the truth for once.’

‘You’ll vouch for that, Stan?’

‘I will,’ said Crowther. ‘Horrie was in here the moment we opened. For some reason, he was carrying his spade. God knows why. Anyway, he has a pint, looks at the clock and goes out. We didn’t see him until a couple of hours later.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘For once in his life, he looked fairly clean even though he had his working clothes on. He must have sneaked off and had a bath somewhere.’

‘What about the spade?’

‘Oh, he took that with him but came back without it. The spade is like a fifth limb,’ said Crowther. ‘I’ve seen him using it at work. He’s amazing. You should see what Horrie can do with it.’