The Black Mile (10 page)

PART
THREE

“BLACK
SATURDAY”

–– September & November 1940––

SATURDAY 7th
SEPTEMBER 1940

 
23

CHARLIE MURPHY PUSHED THE COVERS ASIDE. The pitiful
scene in George Grimes’ living room repeated itself whenever he closed his
eyes: Grimes slumped in his armchair, his dressing gown open to the waist, his
eyes staring dumbly, the side of his head caved in. He was dog-tired but there
was no point in staying in bed; he wouldn’t be able to sleep again now and
there were things he needed to do. He got up, showered and dressed. He poured
himself a bowl of wheaties and polished off the last slice of the mock apricot
pie that he had bought at the corner shop on Wednesday. Couldn’t get real
apricots now. Grated carrots and plum jam instead, the shopkeeper’s wife had
told him.

 
He checked
his watch as he opened the communal door: a quarter before six. He got into his
car and drove East again. The streets were quiet and he wound down the window,
cool air whipping into the car and helping him shake off the fugue of his
wasted night. He passed Liverpool Street station and turned onto the Kingsland
Road, squeezing the throttle down and staking advantage of the clear run. The
Humber was certainly a luxury, and he wasn’t sure whether it would be feasible
to run it when petrol went on the ration, but it was certainly useful for
getting about town and now, with the road empty and the sun rising above the
rooftops of the low buildings on either side, it was enjoyable.

 
He parked in
front of Grimes’ house, got out of the car and took out his murder bag from the
boot. The door to the house was locked. He took out his lock pick, knelt before
the door and examined it: no sign it had been forced––the panel was clean and
undamaged, without the dent a booting-in would have left. The lock was in one
piece, too. Charlie slid his pick and a small tension wrench into the lock and
lifted the pins one by one until they clicked.

 
He turned
the handle, opened the door and went inside.

 
He turned
around and read the handwritten note on the door: DON’T FORGET: IDENTITY CARD,
RATION BOOK, GAS MASK. A coat and hat on a hatstand, shoes neatly placed, a
handful of loose change and a set of keys on the telephone table. Everything
looked normal, domestic, as if Grimes would be back shortly. Charlie ran his
finger across the surface of the table. It was sad and pathetic. He shut the
front door and flicked through the address book next to the telephone. Nothing
stood out.

 
Charlie went
through into the sitting room. He put down the murder bag and surveyed again:
the blood-soaked armchair, the blood on the floor around it, the splatter on
the wall. He took out his notebook and wrote SUICIDE? at the top of a blank
page. He moved through the house again, picturing the scene, trying to imagine
what might have happened. What did he know about Grimes? He was under
investigation on serious charges, so it was certainly likely that he was
depressed, worried about the mess he was in. That all made perfect sense.
Charlie pictured the scene from last night: Grimes was in a dressing gown,
there were flecks of shaving foam on his cheeks and half of his face was clean
of whiskers. He would have undressed. Drawn a bath. Started to shave. What
then?  He got out of the bath before he was finished, put on a dressing
gown, went into the sitting room, took out a gun he had probably swiped from
the armoury at work, sat down, shot himself.

 
No.

 
Didn’t make
sense.

 
Too many
questions.

 
He noted
them one by one: why would Grimes call and ask to see him and then top himself?
Why call him when he had already taken a gun from work? Why start to shave but
finish halfway through? If he was making himself presentable before putting a
bullet in his head, surely he would have finished the job?

 
The last
question suggested he was interrupted.

 
He wrote
MURDER? across the top of the next page, and walked the house again. A
different movie played: this time, Grimes telephoned him, made the appointment,
and came back to the house. It was a Friday night––perhaps he had planned to
speak to Charlie and then go out for a few jars to help forget his troubles. He
would have got into the bath and started to shave. There was a knock on the
door. He put on a robe, went to answer it. No signs of forced entry confirmed
Grimes had let him––or them––into the house. So, if he was killed, it could be
assumed that he knew his murderer well enough to let him inside.

 
Charlie
continued. Grimes and his visitor or visitors went through into the sitting
room. A discussion ensued––something was said, things took a turn for the
worse, for the violent. George was a big bloke and wouldn’t have gone down
without an almighty scrap, so they––and Charlie decided there would have been
more than one of them––must have subdued him first. But there were no marks on
George’s body save the gunshot: no other head trauma, no defensive marks.
Perhaps they knew him, perhaps he trusted them. So, somehow, they put him in
the armchair, put a gun to his head and made it look like suicide.

 
Why would
someone want George Grimes dead?

 
Charlie put
his murder bag on the floor and opened it. His father had given it to him, one
he had used from when he was a D.C.I. working cases on the Murder Squad. Two
sections opened out, dividing into a number of compartments. Everything was
perfectly organised: fingerprint outfit; metal footprint forma; twenty-four
inch boxwood rule; sixty-six foot measuring tape; map measure; compass; torch;
pencil torch with reflector; lenses; clinical thermometer; scissors; probes;
lancets; pliers; tweezers; test tubes; glass boxes; standard thermometer; small
cardboard boxes; overalls; rubber apron; rubber gloves; disinfectants;
soap-box; sponge; towels; napkins; statement paper; adhesive and transparent
tape; envelopes; pocket books; labels; handcuffs.

 
With the aid
of his magnifying glass and torch, he examined objects until he found sets of
prints. He took a feather brush and dusted an application of black carbon
powder over the distinctive whorl of a thumbprint on a clock in the bedroom. A
few strokes of the brush and the power adhered to the oils and moisture of the
residue in the latent, exposing the pattern of the friction ridges until it
stood out clearly. He took another couple of prints from the room: identical.
Chances were, those were Grimes’ dabs. He marked one of the cards with GRIMES
and used it as his control.

 
Starting in
the hall, he examined each surface under the beam of the torch. There were
prints everywhere, and, by using Grimes’ sample and the magnifying glass, he
eliminated most. Two hours passed. Into the lounge: he found different prints.
Prints on the sideboard, the mantelpiece, on a wooden chair back. There would
have been coppers in here on Sunday morning; they were supposed not to touch
anything, but they always did. They would each have to be eliminated. He
lowered the magnifying glass to the sideboard and examined a print, pressed a
strip of lifting tape across the wood and carefully peeled it off, bringing an
impression of the latent with it. Further pieces of tape removed additional
prints. He stuck each piece of tape to a blank index card, marking where he had
found them.

 
He went
through into the kitchen again. He opened the cupboards and the larder. A
bottle of milk was on the turn and starting to smell. He poured it down the
sink. There was hardly any food in the house. Charlie remembered the packed
case upstairs in the bedroom. No food, a suitcase ready to go, the forty
pounds. It was beginning to look like George was planning a trip.

 
He went
outside. The front garden was empty. He opened the gate and went through into
the back. An Anderson shelter had been dug into the lawn: the raised hump
covered with spoilage, a scraggy vegetable patch struggling atop it. Charlie
lowered himself into the damp trench around the corrugated structure and tried
the door: padlocked. He went to the garden shed, found a hoe and used it as a
lever to pop the lock. The door opened. Charlie crouched beneath the low sill
and went inside. It was dark, grey light edging the shapes of a toilet bucket,
a shelf of paperbacks, a lantern, narrow seats alongside both walls. The floor
was soaked, mud sucking at Charlie’s shoes as he stepped further inside. He saw
something against the back wall: he reached out, squinting, his ankle bumping
against something hard. A hessian sack was on the bench. He took it out into
the garden and opened it.

 
Banknotes
fastened with elastic bands.

 
Charlie took
them out one by one:

 
A hundred
notes in each wedge.

 
A dozen
wedges.

 
Serious
money.

 
Big George
Grimes was definitely up to no good.

 
The bins
were pushed up against the side of the house, badly cleaned and spilling
rubbish. A pair of rats scampered into the garden as he approached. He opened
them and peered inside: they smelt foully of rotten food and rodent faeces. On
top of the garbage was a flash of white cloth. He covered his mouth with his
jacket sleeve and yanked it out. A white cotton terry towel, smeared with slime
from the bin, but still pungent with an ether-like odour. Charlie brought it
closer to his nose. It was strongly acrid, almost dizzying; he winced.
Chloroform? He put the towel into an evidence bag and put it in the boot of his
car.

 
It was ten
o’clock when he parked next to the police telephone box on the Kingsland Road.
He unlocked it and called Paddington mortuary, eventually connecting to a clerk
in the administrative office.

 
“D.S.
Charles Murphy, Scotland Yard. “You had a body brought in a few hours ago.”

 
“Had seven
last night.”

 
“Name’s
George Grimes. Could you check for me?”

 
There was a
pause as the clerk referred to his records. “Yes, we’ve got him. What about
it?”

 
“When’ll the
P.M. be?”

 
“Not until
tomorrow or Wednesday, most likely. Got a few stiffs in the queue. Heart
attacks, the siren, they’re dropping like flies. Yours’ll have to wait in
line.”

 
“He’s a
policeman. It can’t be expedited?”

 
“Wouldn’t
matter if he were the Pope. Not without a note from the coroner.”

 
“Would a
toxicology report be included?”

 
“Not
normally, no.”

 
“Can you
arrange it?”

 
“Certainly.”

o         
o          o

THE SIREN SOUNDED AT JUST BEFORE FOUR. They ignored
it. Charlie fiddled with the embroidered edging of his apron as he waited for
the meeting to start. It was a full turn-out, but that wasn’t surprising:
George had been a popular member of the Lodge. Charlie glanced around the
Temple. The traditional black and white checkerboard carpet; the Bible, the
Carpenter’s Square and the Compasses. Two dozen brawny detectives all dressed
the same, lounge suits topped by aprons: the simple folded one of the Entered
Apprentice, the tassled apron worn by Fellow Craft Masons, the ornate version
worn by Masters.

 
Alf
McCartney was last into the room. The Chaplain rose and delivered a short
prayer, and then McCartney stood. “We meet tonight to celebrate the life of
George Grimes. He was a young man, not long on the Square, but he loved the
Craft and we were fond of him. His loss is a tragedy, a sorry waste. But life
goes on. The work of the Lodge goes on. That is how he would have wanted it and
so that is what we are going to do. With that in mind, there will be a Festive
Board after the meeting tonight. Brothers Nicholson and Burgess have arranged
several crates of ale. Tonight, we drink to George’s memory.”

 
Suits took
his seat again, next to D.D.I. John Simons. The men applauded and Charlie
joined in, thinking about George and Alf and the other men at the Lodge. He’d
been a Mason for two months. He’d expected to just tolerate it, use it for its
benefits and that was that, but he had surprised himself by how much it had
come to mean to him. Some of the things they said and did would be derided by
the Profane as foolish, but they took on a special quality within the Temple.
There was something about it, a fraternal association separate from the outside
world, bound together by history and ritual. Like family. His own had disowned
him but he had found the possibility of another. 

 
The rest of
the evening’s business was transacted. The meeting took the usual form: a
ritual, a prayer, communications from the United Grand Lodge and the Provincial
Grand Lodge, other minor matters.

 
A large
ante-room adjoined the Temple and the usual Festive Board had been set up on
the long table. Three crates of ale were stacked at the end of the room.
Charlie took a plate and helped himself to slices of pork and turkey and a
serving of salad. The spread was not as generous as before the War but it was
still better than the Profane would have been able to manage. The cuts of meat
were on the ration and almost impossible to find, certainly in these
quantities. Another benefit of Masonry, favours owed and called in.

 
He followed
Alf to the bar.

 
“Sir.”

 
“Charlie.”

 
“I’m sorry
about George.”