Murders in the Blitz (13 page)
‘Blimey, Evie, not another one! People’ll begin to wonder.’
‘The inspector says you can help me – if you want to.’
‘Of course. Give us a minute and I’ll get someone to take over and you can tell me all about it. Who is it this time?’
‘I’ll tell you in a mo’. I’ll wait for you in Gladys’s.’ Eve was referring to the cafe in the corner of the market that many of the market stallholders frequented.
‘Righto,’ said Charlie to her retreating back. ‘You can buy me a buttered bun while you’re at it.’
Charlie, always up for an adventure, was thrilled about the murder, once Eve had told him all about it.
‘Wow, Eve, what a turn up! Another case for us to solve.’
Eve didn’t bother to remind him that he had little to do with the discovery of the killer last year, but she admired his enthusiasm. Eve knew that Charlie would do anything to avoid hard graft, and a new adventure would certainly get him away from the drudgery of getting up to go to Covent Garden market in the early morning to buy vegetables fresh up from the countryside. His on/off boss, Greg, was accustomed to him disappearing occasionally on some enterprise or another and wouldn’t give him a hard time. There was such a shortage of strong young men that Charlie would always be in demand. And there was also his undoubted talent as a market trader. As someone had said, he could sell ice to the Eskimos.
‘Where are we going to start?’ Charlie asked as he slurped his tea and tucked into his bun, oblivious to the butter dripping down his chin, making the incipient whiskers gleam. Nothing much Charlie did could detract from his dark good looks, Eve thought with wry affection as she handed him a table napkin, but he could be a bit of a slob.
‘I’ve got to go back to talk to the milkmen again. Inspector Reed doesn’t want me to do it alone, in case it’s one of them that did it,’ she said.
‘Cor. So I’m a sort of bodyguard for you then?’
Eve laughed. ‘I’m more likely to be looking after you. But first I’ve got to go and see Mrs Miller in the nursing home, to tell her about Malcolm.’
‘I don’t envy you that job. Poor woman, with her ill and all.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m not looking forward to it. Look, you stay here for now, I’ll go and talk to her and come back for you at lunch time.’
Charlie’s face dropped with comical disappointment. ‘Oh, can’t I come now? Don’t you need me to take care of you?’
‘Not just now, Charlie. I won’t be in much danger from a few nuns and a bunch of sick and old people. I’ll see you later.’ She rose from her chair, slipped into her jacket and picked up her bag and gas mask case and, ruffling Charlie’s poetic locks as she passed, left the cafe.
This time she caught a trolley bus to Fulham and was soon walking through the wrought iron gates of St Barnabas. A different, older nun greeted her and Eve explained why she was there. The nun crossed herself repeatedly and rattled the rosary beads hanging from her waist.
‘Oh, dear Lord!’ she cried. ‘The poor young lad. What a terrible end. I will pray for him, so I will. And poor Mrs Miller, how will she take it I wonder.’ Her soft Irish lilt accompanied Eve along the halls to the Day Room.
‘Thank you, Sister. Will you wait while I tell her? She may be very upset.’
‘Sure I will indeed,’ said the nun as they walked into the room.
Mrs Miller’s chair had been moved close to the window and she was enjoying the sun that poured in through the tall sashes. Another patient sat nearby. Both had books lying open on their laps, ignored whilst they dozed in the warmth.
The nun touched Mrs Miller’s shoulder gently. ‘Dorothy, dear, there’s a Miss Duncan to see you. She has some news for you.’
Eve pulled forward a footstool and sat on it close to Mrs Miller’s armchair. Dot Miller’s eyes flew open and she looked directly at Eve. She seemed to detect immediately that the news Eve brought was not good. A fleeting expression of anguish crossed her features and was extinguished as she managed a slow gentle smile.
‘They’ve found Malcolm haven’t they, dear?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid so, Mrs Miller,’ Eve replied. ‘I’m so sorry, but it’s bad news.’
Mrs Miller closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them to look Eve steadily in the face.
In a whisper she said, ‘Tell me what happened please.’
Eve felt that she had to give this brave woman the news straight out. There was no point in shilly-shallying with the truth. ‘His body was found on a bombsite near Shepherd’s Bush Green, in Coningham Road this morning. He had been stabbed.’
The nun standing behind the armchair gasped and crossed herself again. Mrs Miller gazed at Eve and breathed a deep, resigned sigh.
‘I have always thought that something like this would happen in the end. Thank you, my dear, for bringing me the news. Don’t feel too badly, it isn’t your fault.’
Eve felt her eyes fill with tears. Not for Malcolm, but for his long-suffering mother.
‘I’m so sorry to bring you such bad news, Mrs Miller.’
‘That’s all right, dear. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone for a while.’
‘Shall I come and visit you again?’ asked Eve.
‘There’s no need, love. We’re moving to the country later today.’
Eve took her leave. The sister went to get Mrs Miller a strong, sweet cup of tea and Eve let herself out of the nursing home, a weight of sorrow on her shoulders. As she passed through the gates she was forced to step aside as a pair of removal lorries drove in. At least the patients would be safe in the country she thought, as she caught the bus back to Shepherd’s Bush.
There was a heavy Luftwaffe raid that evening and Eve heard the next day that the empty Fulham nursing home of St. Barnabas had taken a direct hit by a huge bomb and been levelled to the ground. How random was fate.
*
Eve picked up Charlie from the market and they began to visit the addresses of the milkmen on the dairy manager’s list. Luckily, as they all served the same area of Hammersmith, Fulham and Shepherd’s Bush and parts of Kensington, none of them lived too far afield and all within the less prosperous streets of the area. Some even lived in the same road as each other. But Eve and Charlie still had to travel on several different trolley buses to find all the men. Generally they found them at home in the afternoon as their working hours were in the early hours of the morning. Some were asleep and annoyed at being disturbed, but some were gardening, toiling over vegetable patches or cleaning out chicken coops, trying to be backyard farmers to provide food for their families. There was still fear that, with the continued German bombardment and the constant attacks on merchant shipping, the population of England would starve.
Eve had some probing questions to ask the milkmen about their whereabouts on Monday morning and what they knew about Malcolm. Many of them were not in the least interested in the lad or his activities; they just got on with their work. These men were well into middle age and not concerned with the doings of the younger generation. They were not happy about the fact that Malcolm was not involved in the fighting war, but apart from that they had no particular antipathy towards him.
‘It seems unpatriotic,’ several of them said, ‘not being in the army, a strapping lad like that. He should be doing something to support his country.’
It was only amongst a minority of his workmates that Eve found real anger and animosity towards Malcolm. The black market sugar racket annoyed them in particular. This was possibly out of jealousy that they were not involved and making extra money for themselves.
‘Knowing Malcolm, and his tricky ways,’ one of the men said, ‘he’s been topped by one of his suppliers. You can bet he’s tried to turn them over in some way; not giving them their money or short-changing them.’
The man, Jim Brent he told them his name was, gave them a pointer to someone else who might have a real motive for killing the younger man.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ he said. ‘But Sid’s got a real beef with Malcolm. He’s been seeing his wife, Eileen. She’s a lot younger than Sid and a bit of a good time girl, to be honest. Malcolm and her, they’ve been seen dancing together and who knows what else.’
The man winked and Eve guessed he was being less than subtle in trying to tell them that Malcolm was having an affair with Eileen. Nowadays this sort of thing was not unusual with so many husbands away at the war. You would have thought, Eve considered, that the boy might have had the sense to pick a girl with an absent husband, instead of one whose man was still around, and one that he worked with as well.
‘Thank you, Jim. That’s very useful,’ said Eve. ‘Is there anyone else you can think of who’s had trouble with Malcolm?’
‘Well,’ the man paused, embarrassed, ‘there’s Jack. He hates the bloke. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d do him in for what he done to his daughter.’
‘Oh, what’s that?’
Jim looked around, as if Jack might suddenly appear in his living room. ‘It’s a bit, um, awkward.’
‘You can tell me. It won’t go any further.’
‘It seems that Malcolm... Well, Malcolm got the girl in the family way.’
‘Oh, he got her pregnant?’
‘Yeah,’ Jim gazed at his feet, encased in boots muddy from gardening, ‘Jack would’ve killed him then and there if his missus hadn’t stopped him. He wanted Malcolm to marry the girl, but she wasn’t having any of it.’
That was very brave of her, thought Eve. Any number of so-called ‘shotgun weddings’ had been performed in recent times. Life could be very hard for unmarried mothers and girls usually accepted this unsatisfactory kind of marriage rather than managing alone. It took real courage to refuse to accept such an arrangement. Perhaps her parents were sufficiently supportive to allow her to stay at home and keep the baby. Chances were, however, that the child would be put up for adoption. The shame of an illegitimate child was too much to bear for most families.
‘Do you really think Jack might have killed Malcolm?’
‘It’s possible. He was very angry indeed; bloody furious. But it may just have been words. Jack’s a bit of a blusterer. I’m not sure he’d have the bottle to actually kill someone.’
‘Thank you for the information, Jim. That’s very helpful. We must get on now.’
‘You won’t tell anyone what I said, will you?’ Jim peered anxiously at Eve, obviously beginning to regret that he had been so informative.
‘Don’t worry, this is all confidential. Before I go: Do you have any idea of where I could find out where Malcolm got his black market sugar?’
Jim appeared taken aback. ‘I don’t know about that stuff. I expect he met them in the pub, or at the dog track. Isn’t that where all these shady deals are done?’
‘I expect you’re right,’ said Eve. ‘Well, thank you for now, you’ve been most helpful.’
Charlie and Eve walked away from the little house with a lot to think about. They seemed to be gathering quite a list of suspects for Malcolm’s murder.
Charlie and Eve were agreed that they must next call on Jack Graves, the father of the girl that Malcolm had made pregnant. The family lived in a substantial four storey house, converted into flats, in a street off the Uxbridge Road. Their apartment was on the second floor and surprisingly spacious and airy. Mrs Graves’ domestic skills were evident in the sparkling windows, the polished wood and complete absence of dust.
She let them in with a jovial smile and, after persuading them to sit down in the living room; she bustled off to make a pot of tea.
‘Jack won’t be a minute,’ she said, ‘he has a rest after lunch. He’s up so early in the morning he finds it helps him to get through.’
Eve murmured her understanding and she and Charlie waited on the chenille covered sofa for Jack to appear.
When he loomed in the doorway Eve recognised him immediately as the man she had seen at the bombsite where Malcolm was found. Had he been returning to the scene of the crime? Eve had been told that this was a common habit amongst criminals curious to see the outcome of their handiwork. A strongly built man of about five feet ten, Jack showed every sign of inclining to be belligerent. His normally ruddy face, due to working outside most of the time no doubt, had taken on a purplish hue.
‘What the hell are you doing here? I thought you’d asked all your questions at the dairy.’
‘I did say I would be coming round to see some of you later, Mr Graves,’ Eve reminded him politely.
The man calmed down slightly and, still simmering, he slumped into an armchair. ‘I can’t tell you anymore. I don’t know what happened to the little bastard.’
‘Had you not heard? His body was found in Coningham Road, on the big bombsite. I thought I saw you there, Mr Graves.’
Jack had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Yeah, well, I saw all the coppers and the ambulance. I didn’t realise it was Malcolm that was there. Could have been anyone’s body.’
‘He was still wearing his dairy uniform. But never mind that. One of your colleagues told us that you had an especial grudge against Malcolm.’
Jack Graves leapt up and stood over the sofa, a dark and menacing expression on his face and fists clenched. Even Charlie quailed and drew back into the cushions.
‘Now you can stop that nonsense right away, girl!’ he yelled. ‘You’re not going to pin this on me. I didn’t do the little bugger in.’
Eve tried not to flinch at the verbal onslaught and she laid a hand on Charlie’s thigh as he looked as if he might stand and give the bloke a wallop. She carried on calmly.
‘I understand that he made your daughter, er, pregnant.’
‘Bloody gossips, sticking their noses into everyone else’s business. I suppose it was that Jim told you that, was it? Never could keep his mouth shut, the bleeding idiot.’
‘I merely asked if anyone knew a person who had a grudge against Malcolm Miller, Mr Graves, and that is what I was told.’
Graves subsided into his chair, in a mute sulk, and Mrs Graves came in with the tea tray. He started to speak again once he had been given his cup.
‘Yes, well, I wanted to kill him when I found out. I could happily have strangled the little blighter. I tried to get him to marry our Patty, but he laughed at me; said it was probably not his anyway. I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. Our Patty’s a good girl; he must have seduced her to get her in the family way.’
Mrs Graves, listened with an expression of cynical humour in her eyes. Eve could almost hear her thoughts: a doting father always likes to think the best of his daughter, she would always be perfect in his eyes, but she’s not as good a girl as he likes to think. Eve was sure her own father would be mortified to find out the true nature of her relationship with Pete Heller.
‘He said he had no intention of marrying my girl. He didn’t seem at all sorry about what he’d done.’ He paused for a moment. ‘In any case, Patty wasn’t having none of it. She didn’t want to marry him neither. Said he was a feckless so and so, and she’d rather bring the baby up herself than marry him.’
‘When was this, Mr Graves?’
‘Couple of months ago. Patty’s gone to stay with her sister down Somerset way until the baby comes. She’ll be safer down there an’ all. I swear to you Miss Duncan, I didn’t kill Malcolm, nor never would. I was so angry at the time I let my mouth run away with me and threatened him with everything I could think of.’
Calmer now, Jack Graves was sipping his cup of tea. His wife’s hand had briefly caressed his shoulder as she gave it to him. The couple had clearly been very upset by the turn of events and had probably been trying to forget about it now that Patty was safely away from home. Eve changed the subject.
‘Do you have other children, Mr Graves?’
‘Yes, two boys, they’re in North Africa with Monty’s lot.’
The North Africa Campaign, under the leadership of Lieutenant-General Montgomery, had been raging across Libya and Egypt for months, fighting Italians and the German’s Afrika Korps, under the command of the Wehrmacht’s General Rommel. It had proved to be a bitter battle with many lives lost on both sides.
‘I hope they come home safely,’ Eve said. She felt genuine sympathy for any parents with children at the Front. How terrible it must be not to know what was happening to them and getting no news for weeks on end as to whether they were alive or dead.
Mrs Grave spoke, her words quiet but confident. ‘They’ll be back,’ she said, ‘I just know it. I feel it in my bones.’
She stood beside her husband and grasped his hand as she said this, as if the contact would make her words true and transfer her strength and conviction to him.
Eve thought it was time to leave. She stood, gathering her belongings, and Charlie joined her.
‘I don’t think I have any more questions for now. Thank you for the tea, Mrs Graves.’
Once they were on the landing outside the flat Charlie spoke for the first time.
‘I don’t think he done it, Eve. He’s got a temper on him and he was certainly royally pissed off by Malcolm’s behaviour and his not being at all sorry. But as the girl wasn’t going to marry Malcolm, I think that was the end of it. There wasn’t much Graves could do about it.’
‘I agree, Charlie,’ said Eve. ‘Come on, let’s go and find someone else to bother.’ She slipped her hand through his arm and they walked out into the street.
Their next visit was to Sid Barrett, the man who was having trouble with his wife. He turned out to be a slight, ineffective man with such a washed-out air that it was clear that he was unlikely to have the strength of will to do anything about Malcolm and his affair with his young wife. His appearance was utterly grey – grey jumper, grey trousers, even a grey tie and his sparse hair was beginning to go grey as well. He walked with a bent, apologetic gait. It was a mystery to Eve why such a wishy-washy man had managed to snare a young, flighty wife. He was just a milkman, hardly a catch even today when there was a shortage of young men to get hitched to. Eve was curious to meet the young Mrs Barrett, but she worked at the Waring and Gillow factory, making tents, parachutes and gas masks, doing her bit for the war effort.
‘I need to ask Mrs Barrett a few questions,’ said Eve.
‘She’ll be home later.’ Sid said. ‘I expect,’ he added, as if she was frequently absent on mysterious business of her own.
‘Thank you, Mr Barrett,’ said Eve as she left with Charlie. ‘Tell her we want to talk to her about Malcolm Miller. We’ll be along later.’
The husband gazed at them meekly, without surprise. It seemed highly unlikely that Sid Barrett would have ever summoned up enough energy or passion to do Malcolm to death.
‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ she said to Charlie as they walked back towards Shepherd’s Bush Green. ‘He couldn’t kill a fly, let alone a beefy young bloke like Malcolm. We’d better go and look at the people living on the milk round. Perhaps someone there will have something to tell us. At least we may be able to find out at what point the milk stopped being delivered. That may give us a clue to where the murderer is.’
It wasn’t far to where Malcolm’s round started. He came up from the dairy in Hammersmith via Shepherd’s Bush Road and visited the side streets on the left hand side of that main road. The right hand side was covered by another milkman or rather woman in this case, who delivered to the roads east of the main road.
Eve and Charlie sighed at the number of houses they needed to visit. As they had done before on enquiries, they took alternate dwellings, or opposite sides of the road and briefly questioned the residents. Eve was surprised at the difference in attitude to Malcolm by his customers compared to his co-workers.
‘Malcolm? Oh, he’s such a lovely lad. Always cheerful, full of smiles and ready for a chat. Not that I do see him often, mind, he comes very early. But he’s here later on Saturday, when he collects his money.’
People told Eve more or less the same story along the entire route. There was, of course, shock and dismay when Eve told them of Malcolm’s death.
‘Oh my! That’s terrible. The poor lad. Who can have done such a terrible thing? I do hope you find the person who did it, miss. Such a nice boy, they should be strung up for it.’
Eve knew that whoever had done this murder would, more than likely be hanged for the crime. She wasn’t sure that she approved of capital punishment, what if they got the wrong person? But that was the law and it was rare for a murderer to be spared the ultimate fate.
After a couple of hours walking the streets it was getting dark and people were putting up their blackout curtains, securing the edges so that not a chink of light escaped to guide the Luftwaffe’s bombers to the area. Many of the houses Charlie and Eve visited were empty, their occupants still at work, and having found that no-one had seen Malcolm on that Monday morning, though some had heard the chink of bottles as he passed, they decided to call it a day. There were still the customers on the other side of the Green to cover, but that could wait for another time.
‘I’ll report to Inspector Reed in the morning, Charlie. Then I think we’d better go and look at Malcolm’s mother’s house in Arminger Road. The keys are at the station. Perhaps we’ll also be able to find out something about Malcolm’s black market connections and where he gets the sugar from.’
They popped into The Bush pub for a quick drink and then split up to go to their homes with a nagging feeling of disappointment that the day had not turned up much in the way of useful information. Perhaps tomorrow would be better.