The Black Mile (11 page)

 
“I’ve lost
men before but you never get used to it. Always a terrible shock.”

 
“I knew
something was wrong.”

 
“How do you
mean?”

 
“The way he
was on the telephone. He was frightened, sir. It was more than just anxiety
about the investigation.”

 
“So you
drove over after you left me?”

 
“A little
later. I went home first.”

 
“And then?”

 
“I knew
something was wrong so I went inside. He was where you saw him. Shot.”

 
“What then?”

 
“I called
the locals.”  

 
McCartney
shook his head. “I’d rather you hadn’t done that. Their jurisdiction, they’re
saying. We might have been able to handle a quick enquiry from here, but now
there’ll be red tape to sort out. I don’t know why you didn’t just telephone
here rather than going through the Yard. Could’ve had it all straightened out
without all this drama.”

 
“I’m sorry,
sir. I didn’t mean to cause a problem.”

 
“I’m not
upset.” He took out his pipe and turned it in his fingers. “Poor bloody George.
What else?”

 
“I expect
you know everything else, sir. What do Timms and Regan think?”

 
“They think
it’s straightforward.”

 
“Suicide?”

 
“Of course.
Why––you’re not sure?”

 
He thought
about mentioning his return visit. The bag of money in the Anderson shelter,
the stinking rag in the bin. It wasn’t kosher, though, breaking into a locked
crime scene. He’d be on a fizzer if McCartney found out. Something to keep to
himself for the time being. “They’re probably right.”

 
“Probably?
There’s no room for equivocation, sport. What’s on your mind? Spit it out.”

 
“It’s just a
feeling, sir. Something about it. He wasn’t behaving like he was going to do
himself in.”

 
“You didn’t
know him as well as I did. He wasn’t a particularly competent officer but he
was a good lad, for all his faults. He hasn’t been himself recently. It might
be that your investigation was the final straw. The more I think about it, the
less surprised I am. Tragic, though. Bloody tragic.”

 
McCartney
took out his pipe and tapped the bowl against the side of his bin, emptying
blackened bits of ash.

 
“What will
happen now?”

 
“It’s Regan
and Timms’ case. You’ll need to surrender your file to them. They might want to
talk to you, too.”

 
“You want me
to leave it?”

 
“I’d rather
it was handled from here, by lads who knew him. If your guv’nor gives you any
gyp, tell him to telephone me.”

 
The room was
suddenly filled with shouts and exclamations. Men gathered around the
east-facing window. Charlie joined them and gawped: vapour trails headed
towards the East End where a white cloud rose into the sky. It climbed several
hundred feet, inky at the bottom, blackening at the edges, white-grey on top.
It was growing, expanding, billowing outwards and upwards. It was smoke, not so
much single columns of smoke as a huge continuous sheet slung over the East
End. The sparkling bombers rearranged themselves into nose-to-tail formations
and circled around and through the column. Their patterns were so precise they
looked like fairground chair-o-planes. As one set of bombers left the target
area another swept in to take its place.

 
Alf
McCartney stood beside him. “That’s that, then, sport. Puts our problems into
perspective. Adolf’s finally arrived.”

 
24

MIDNIGHT. Frank made his way down Shaftesbury
Avenue. The satchel over his shoulder was full of copied photographs. He had
written across the bottom of each.

 
MISSING. EVE
MURPHY. REWARD FOR INFORMATION.

 
Savile Row’s
telephone number printed beneath.

 
He glued
them to lamp-posts, post-boxes, railings and walls. He left them on tables, on
bars, in shop windows. He handed them to tramps and brasses and promised them a
ton if they could tell him where she was. He had worked his way through a third
of them so far. He was going to need more.

 
A couple of
elderly lads in the ARP, both sporting medals from the Great War, made their
way down Shaftesbury Avenue towards him. Good lads. Frank had volunteered to
rejoin the Regiment the day after Chamberlain’s announcement last year; the
Army medico had taken one look his gammy leg and asked how he managed with it.
“I do alright,” he’d said, but the doctor’s mind was already made up. Lame. He
didn’t even give him the chance to show how he coped. Damaged goods, that’s
what he was. The Army didn’t want him. Stay in the Force, the doc said. Do you
bit nicking crims.

 
“What are
you doing, sir?”

 
Frank took
out his Warrant Card and badged the wardens.

 
“Best get
into shelter, Inspector. They’ll be back tonight.”

 
“I’ll take
my chances.”

 
“I’m
serious, sir. Find a shelter. What they’ve done to the East End–– you wouldn’t
credit it.”

 
“Thanks,
lads.”

 
Frank left
them and walked on.

 
The streets
were empty.

 
The Phoney
War was over. People knew what the Luftwaffe had done to Poland, the Low
Countries, the French. It wasn’t hard to imagine what a five-hundred pound bomb
would do to a building.

 
The fire on
the horizon painted a vivid picture.

 
The siren
sounded, long up and down howls.

 
Frank looked
up at the sky.

 
Nothing, not
yet.

 
He walked to
Maddox Street.

 
He knew he
would end up there.

 
The door
opened as he approached and a man stepped onto the street. He was wearing
military green. Frank moved aside to let him pass, caught his eye––the soldier
ducked his head, shamed.

 
Marianne
noticed him as she was closing the door. She waited for him in the doorway,
light framing her.

 
“Detective
Inspector.”

 
He nodded
down the street. “Careful. The ARP’s out tonight. You’ll get in trouble.”

 
“Better come
in quick, then.”

 
She shut and
bolted the door behind him.

 
“You look
done in.”

 
“Been out
all night.”

 
She stood on
tip-toe and kissed him.

 
Frank heard
the rumble of engines from outside.

 
“Here they
come again.”

 
Marianne
re-arranged a thick drape across the door.

 
Engines
throbbed in his gut as the planes passed overhead.

 
“Working
late?”

 
“Something
like that.”

 
“Come
upstairs. I’ll make you a drink.”

 
A drink.
That would be good. A double whiskey. A gin. Something to help him take his
mind off things. But he knew he couldn’t. It would dull his mind, and he couldn’t
afford that. He needed to be sharp. Clear. Focussed.

 
She went
into the bathroom. He went into the bedroom. It was decorated in an Oriental
style: thin gauze sheets hung from the ceiling, a futon on the floor. A joint
smoked in the ashtray. Embers smoked in the grate. The room smelled sweet.
Frank took off his jacket and shoes and sat down on the futon. The sheets were
disturbed.

 
She came
out, her make-up reapplied and her scent freshened.

 
“You look
awful,” she said.

 
“Thank-you.”

 
“One of
these days I swear you’re going to tell me what’s the matter.”

 
He stared at
the wall.

 
“Drink?”

 
“I’m
alright.”

 
“Suit
yourself.” She took the joint and lit it, inhaling deeply. She passed it to
Frank. He put it to his lips and did the same.

 
“You must
think I’m blind. You think I haven’t noticed? Whatever it is, it’s been
bothering you for weeks.”

 
She switched
off the light, padded across the bedroom and moved the black-out aside. She
opened the sash window, the breeze fluttering the edges of her negligee. The
moon was bright; silvered light cast dark shadows against the wall.

 
“You know
you can talk to me.”

 
She sat down
next to him.

 
Frank looked
at his hands. He was dead-beat.

 
“I’ll make
it worth your while.”

 
She pushed
him backwards until he was laid out flat. She undressed, then straddled him.
She started to unbutton his shirt.

 
“It’s my
daughter.”

 
She finished
with the buttons and helped him slip the shirt off. “Giving you lip?”

 
“I wish
that’s all it was.”

 
“Then what?”

 
“We had an
argument. She ran away.”

 
“She’s testing
you, dear. Kids––you know what they can be like. Girls at her age–– she’s just
making a point. She’ll be back.”

 
“It was
three months ago.”

 
“Oh.” She
paused, unsure what to say. She undid his belt, then his trousers.

 
“My wife
blames me. Said it was the way I treated her. She’s thrown me out of the house.
I’m living in the bloody Section House.”

 
She kissed
his neck, then down his chest.     

 
“She’s
probably right, though, Julia––probably was my fault. I’m too hard on her. Too
strict. You think you’re doing the right thing for them but then, I don’t know,
you wonder, did I? Did I? Was I a good father?”

 
A tumbling
and a crash from outside; a starburst of white light was thrown across the
room.

 
“You poor
thing. Always worrying about other people. Who’s going to worry about you?”

 
Frank closed
his eyes.

SUNDAY 8th SEPTEMBER 1940

 
25

FRANK WOKE AND OPENED HIS EYES. He was lying on the
futon, Marianne beside him. Her breathing was deep and steady. Frank rolled
away from her and onto the floor.

 
His clothes
were scattered on the floor. He dressed quietly and left a pound note on the
table.

 
He descended
the stairs, opened the door and then shut it silently behind him. It was early:
cold and fresh. He caught sight of a clock: half six. Hell. Still tired, he
headed east towards West End Central. He could grab a couple of hours of kip in
his office.

 
This was the
scraggier end of the West End, with cheaper hotels, a handful of shops, and
buildings that had seen better days. Free French posters were stuck on walls,
the streets around here popular with the Frogs. A police Railton was parked at
the intersection of Mill Street and Conduit Street. The door to the car was
open and Michael Fraser, a D.C. from Savile Row, was speaking into the radio.
His buck, D.C. Colin Winston, was talking to a pair of men next to one of the
street’s surface shelters. Two P.C.s were nearby, looking into the shelter
nervously. Frank crossed over to the car. “Alright, Fraser. What’s going on?”

 
“Dead girl,
guv.”

 
A tremble of
anxiety. “Do we know who?”

 
“No, guv.
Not yet.”

 
“Murdered?”

 
“Strangled
and cut up. Could be him.”

 
“What
happened?”

 
“We came on
early-turn at six. Patrolled the manor until ten past then we got a call from
the Information Room. Report of a sudden death. We were up on Oxford Street at
the time so we drove down pronto. The two gents over there”––he pointed to the
upset-looking men––“it was them who found the body and called it in.” He
referred to his notebook. “P.C. Knowles and P.C. Miles attended, saw what was
what, and called the Yard. I was just calling the nick for reinforcements.”

 
“Where is
she?”

 
“The
shelter, sir.”

 
Fraser
handed Frank a torch and he headed across. He concentrated on assessing the
scene, anything to distract him from the dark vortex of thoughts that whirled
beneath the surface, barely contained.

 
Surface
shelters were supposed to offer somewhere safe for those who couldn’t get
underground. They were built from brick and concrete with an iron roof and were
propped up against the sides of buildings. Problem was, the shortage of
concrete plus jerry-rigged building meant they were unstable, more likely to
collapse during a bomb blast than protect from shrapnel. Frank had heard them
called sandwich shelters. If a bomb hit, the walls would be sucked out and the
nine-inch thick concrete slab on top would drop and crush the people inside.
Messy end. No-one much liked them but, since there were few gardens in the West
End where you could put an Anderson, unless you were lucky enough to have a
basement there wasn’t anywhere else to go. There were three on Conduit Street,
constructed so that they were partly on the footway and partly on the road.
Nothing unusual about them: oblong in shape, standard design and dimensions,
bare brick on the outside, whitewashed walls within. The centre structure was
the largest, with an entrance at both ends. The two on the outside had single
entrances where they adjoined the middle shelter. Frank stepped closer to the
nearest outside shelter and looked inside: empty. The usual smells hung in the
air: damp mortar, urine, sweat, dirty washing.

 
He stepped
back outside. There was a small item in the roadway between two of the
shelters: the top of an electric torch. He crouched down to examine it and
noticed a pair of legs extending a short distance from the entrance of the
central shelter. He approached, the narrowing distance and angle revealing more
details: a pair of feet, legs, disturbed skirts. A woman, lying on her back in
the gutter that ran through the shelter, her feet pointing in the direction of
New Bond Street. The right leg: raised, foot resting on brickwork in the corner
of the shelter. The left leg: angled on the ground in the shelter entrance.

 
He drew
breath.

 
He moved in
closer. Her head was turned slightly to the left, a scarf covering her face. A
pile of red hair spilled onto the cobbles, bedraggled and matted in the dirty
water. She was wearing a pea-green camel-hair coat, a green jumper, a brown
shirt, two pairs of bloomers. Good quality clothes.

 
He shone the
torch onto the corpse. A pair of gloves was lying on the body, palms upwards,
fingers pointing towards her throat. She wore a wristlet watch on her left arm.
Frank checked it: it had stopped at just after two. Lying on the floor, near
the left leg, was a box of Masters safety matches and a tin of Ovaltine
tablets. A green woollen hat and an electric torch––missing its top––were on
the floor between the left foot and the doorway.

 
The left
leg, flexed at the knee, was extended and abducted. The right leg was raised,
the hip abducted and the knee semi-flexed, the heel of the foot resting on a
ledge. There were signs of scratching on the heel of the shoe. Whatever had
happened to her, she’d put up a fight. The damage to the shoe was probably
caused during a struggle, perhaps as she scrabbled for purchase while being
forced to the ground.

 
Oh, Christ.

 
He knelt
down over the body. He took the edge of the woman’s scarf between forefinger
and thumb and lifted it up.

 
Oh, shit.

 
Her throat
had been sliced wide open. The incision went deep, from ear to ear. Blood
slicked down across the skin, gathered between the cobbles, tacky, damp.

 
He’d seen
this before.

 
He directed
the light onto her face.

 
Her mouth
had been sliced on both sides, bloody incisions that cut up into the cheeks,
almost to the earlobes. Flaps of skin hung down, the mouth widened horribly, a
grisly rictus. There were red-tinged bruises around her throat and bruises on
her face. Save the mutilations, she would have been pretty. A sweet face. Her
eyes were wide open, staring up at the ceiling.

 
Eve’s face
sank down over the dead girl’s.

 
Empathy was
suddenly too easy.

 
He steadied
himself with a hand on the damp floor. He felt cold all over. Emptiness, anger,
terror. Relief. Guilt. Hot blood roared in his temples, a dizzying rush of it
and his balance deserted him. He closed his eyes until it returned.

 
He stepped
outside. D.C. Fraser came over. “Are you alright, sir?”

 
“Yes. I’m
fine.”

 
“What do you
want me to do?”

 
“Get down to
the nick. Have Doctor Baldie sent over and as many men as they can spare.”

 
“Yes, sir.”

 
“And then
call the Yard. Detective Chief Inspector Tanner needs to be here as soon as
possible.”

 
Frank
pointed to the nearest uniform. “You, I want a crime scene perimeter from the
shelter to three feet out into the road. No-one goes inside perimeter unless
they’re Old Bill or I say they can. Especially reporters. If anyone tries,
arrest them. And I’ll need to talk to your two fellows over there.” Biliousness
suddenly struck.

 
“Sir?”

 
“I’m fine,”
he spat. He managed to hold it down and looked around: there was a coffee shop
fifty yards up the road. “Keep an eye on the shelter,” he managed to say. “Send
the men to the café.” The biliousness got worse. He wanted to run but he didn’t,
walking quickly up the street. He pushed open the door to the café and walked
straight through to the back. Hit the first door: occupied. Hit the second:
empty. He stumbled inside. Bent double over the khazi and voided his guts. Last
night’s grub sloshed out in chunks. The stench of stomach acid. He spat the
taste away and rested his forehead on the china rim. He filled up the sink and
splashed cold water over his face. The sudden shock helped to calm him down.

 
He gargled
with water and spat it out. He sat in a cubicle, NO LOUSY JEWS OR COMMUNISTS
HERE scrawled across the partition. He took out his comb and arranged his hair,
straightened his shirt collar and tightened the knot of his tie.

o         
o          o

7AM. THE CAFÉ WAS A DOWN-AT-HEEL PLACE, ten stools
lined up against the counter and half a dozen tables and chairs crammed against
one another. Behind the counter was a stove, a huge coffee urn, a blackboard
with the day’s specials and two Fridgidaires holding cold drinks and sandwiches.
A broken slot machine stood against the wall. The room was full of steam from
the urns, condensation misting the windows. The two plumbers from outside were
sitting down at a window table. Frank ordered three cups of tea and took them
over. He put the mugs down and slid into the seat.

 
“Get those
down you. Sweet enough to stand spoons in.”

 
“Thanks,
guv,” the man adjacent to him said. His hands were shaking as he took the mug
and raised it to his lips. He was as white as a sheet.

 
Frank
swallowed the tea, letting it disguise the taste of the vomit in his mouth.
“Detective Inspector Murphy, West End Central. And you two are?”

 
“Harald
Batchelor,” said the first man.

 
“William
Baldwin.” He was younger. An apprentice, probably, sixteen or seventeen.

 
Frank took
out his pocketbook and noted their names. “Alright, gents. You discovered the
body?”

 
“Yes, guv,”
Batchelor said.

 
“Tell me
what you saw this morning. Everything. Don’t miss anything out––it might not
seem it, but it could be important.”

 
Batchelor
took a long swig of his tea. “We were doing a job at Dover Street. Just after
five. Blocked drain in a restaurant. Early start––they get breakfast going at
six and they needed it sorted. It only took ten minutes to do. We’ve got plenty
of other jobs this morning so we had a quick cup of tea and left there, must
have been quarter past. We’re supposed to be over Cricklewood way so we was
headed over to Edgware Lane to get the train.”

 
“Which way
did you come?”

 
“Up Dover
Street, through the Square, into Davies Street.”

 
“Which side
of the street?”

 
“Over there.
The left-hand side. I saw something lying in the gutter––the top of a torch or
a cycle lamp. Lying between two of the air-raid shelters.”

 
“I went and
picked it up,” Baldwin said. “As I was crouched down there I saw something in
the shelter.”

 
“Well, I
went to have a look. I could see it was a bloody body, couldn’t I? The girl.”

 
“It was
bleedin’ horrible, what they did.”

 
“Poor little
bitch.”

 
The two men
both looked down, pale, and stared into their teas.

 
“Go on,
lads. What next?”

 
“Well she
obviously weren’t moving so I run to the builder’s on Brutton Street and
telephoned 999. Then I went back to the shelter and waited until the Constables
arrived.”

 
“Was there
anyone else on the street when you found the torch?”

 
“No, sir. It
was empty.”

 
“Did you
touch anything?”

 
“Only the
top of the torch. Nothing else.”

 
Frank
nodded. He believed them, and he doubted he’d get anything else from them this
morning. Details might come back as the fright receded, but that would take
time. “Alright, chaps. Thanks for waiting. That’s all I need for the moment.
But go to Savile Row station this afternoon so we can take your statements
properly. Alright?”

 
One of the
P.C.s had called Savile Row to have them send over the woodentop who’d been
patrolling the beat last night. He would have been on late turn ––the poor
bugger would hardly have had his head on his pillow before they yanked him out
of bed. He was a war reserve Constable; Arthur Cyril Williams, 403 “D” WR. He
sat down opposite Frank, red-eyed and grouchy. Another two cups of tea, plenty
of sugar. Frank asked him about his rounds last night. Williams commenced duty
at ten, being posted to number thirteen beat: Savile Row, Conduit Street, New
Bond Street, Oxford Street, Davies Street, Berkeley Square, back to Savile Row
and repeat. He’d do the circuit three times every night. He said he passed the
surface shelters for the first time just after eleven. Shone his torch
inside––all empty, quiet, he heard nothing. He took refreshments at Albermarle
Street Section House between one and two. Didn’t notice anything at two-thirty
and four, although he didn’t look inside again. Frank noted all this down even
though it added nothing. No leads. It might help with the time of the assault,
unless he’d had a kip half-way through his shift and was fibbing about his
movements now, covering up to avoid a bollocking from his skipper.

 
Frank tried
to remember back to last night. It had been dark and the black-out was
well-observed. It would have been simple to miss things. Chances were good that
Williams had walked past the body once, probably twice, without seeing her.