The Black Mile (25 page)

 
47

FRANK GRIPPED THE EDGE OF THE SEAT as the driver
flung the Wolsley through the streets. The siren on the roof clanged, the
sparse traffic pulling to the side to allow them to pass. Malcolm Slater and
Albert Regan were in the back; a Railton with Colin Winston and a Comet
followed behind; a police van with another six men and a Black Maria brought up
the rear. They killed the sirens when they were half a mile away and cruised in
silently.

 
Frank hadn’t
had the chance to think all day. His father had been busy, chivvying up support
and calling in favours. It had been successful: with Tanner still missing, he
was in command of the biggest murder hunt in the history of the Metropolitan
Police. Officers from the Yard had joined detachments from every Division
across the capital and, by midday, over a thousand men were on the look-out for
Johnson.

 
It had been
a woodentop who spotted him. A random break: a man matching his description was
seen going into a boozer in Canning Town. Two Detectives from the local factory
were sent to observe; they followed him and another man to an address half a
mile away, surveilled from a bombed-out house opposite. K Division called West
End Central and enquiries were made. The local council said the house was
rented to a Reggie Dudley. Frank ordered a C.R.O. check on Dudley. The file was
dynamite: Reginald Wilson Dudley a.k.a. Hoppy Dudley (on account of a clubbed
foot); form for a series of nasty knife-point rapes on young girls; served time
in Brixton between 1929 and 1939, overlapping with Duncan Johnson; out for six
months and his P.O. wasn’t happy with his progress. The dots were easy to join:
Johnson and Dudley palled up together inside, two perverts who decided to get
together on the outside. Johnson lied to his P.O., left his halfway house, quit
his job; it looked like he was trying to drop out of sight. Wasn’t hard to
guess why he might want to do that. What he might have been up to.

 
Frank looked
at the scrap of paper in his sweaty hand: 19, Appleby Road, Canning Town.

 
His watch
showed eleven as they sped onto East India Dock Road. The air raid sirens had
sounded and the sky was full of exploding AAA shells and the low drone of
engines. The shoreline on either side of the Thames at Silvertown and Canning
Town was still burning, huge flames a hundred feet tall stacked up around them.

 
“Are you
sure about this, guv?” the driver said. “We’re going right into the middle of
it.”

 
“Keep
driving.”

 
Frank took
out the .38 and loaded it with six slugs. The station armoury had a supply of
Webleys from the War. They hardly ever had to break them out, but McCartney had
insisted: both Johnson and Dudley had form for violence, and nothing was to be
left to chance. Alf had made it crystal clear: Johnson was coming in. Dead or
alive.

 
Appleby Road
bordered a square of fenced-off recreation ground less than three hundred yards
to the north of the Royal Victoria Dock. The Wolsley pulled up out of sight
around the corner and parked. The warehouses and tethered ships were burning.
The heat was so strong the paint on the side of a fence was bubbling and the
wooden panels had warped. It washed over Frank as he stepped out of the car. It
was dizzying and it took a moment to get used to. The light from the flames was
enough to turn the darkness to day and the noise was deafening. Explosions
cracked out incessantly, fire cackled, flames danced across the barrel of
Frank’s gun.

 
The van
arrived and the rest of the men got out. They were going in heavy-footed,
weapons drawn. Frank wasn’t going to take any chances. Dudley’s address was in
the middle of a terrace of three-storey houses. The windows of the house were
gone, the frames boarded up, and the basement door hung off one hinge. An
explosion detonated and a warehouse ahead of them collapsed, sparks thrown into
the air.

 
Frank split
the men: “You lot stay out front,” he said to the uniform. “If you hear
anything, put the door in. Regan, Slater, Winston: with me. Through the back.”

 
He led the
way behind the terrace. A fence bordered a narrow alley; they opened a gate and
went through. The backyard was covered with a crazy jumble of broken roof
timbers, pieces of wood, tiles, bricks, an old mangle, bits of smashed
furniture. The tiles were missing from the roof, and a few remaining timbers
stuck up through open gashes like splintered bones. The outside privy stank.

 
Frank
signalled, crept to the back addition and tried the door handle: unlocked. An
explosion masked the scrape as he pushed the door open. Inside: a filthy
kitchen, dirty plates in the sink, empty cans and packets overflowing from the
bin, stained clothes piled on the floor. A muffled radio played from another
room. Frank drew his .38; Slater, Regan and Winston pulled theirs. He opened
the kitchen door: a short hallway, empty, leading to the front door, another
door opening onto it to the right. It was murky, the boards across the windows
blocking out most of the firelight from outside. Frank put his ear to the door:
he caught the sound of the radio, but nothing else. He opened it carefully: a
fire burned in the grate, a Roberts set played show tunes from a table, two
half-eaten meals were left on the floor. Frank touched a plate: still warm.
Adrenaline pumped; his pulse ticked up.

 
“Stay here,”
he whispered to Winston and Slater. “If they come down, shoot them.” He prodded
Regan on the shoulder and then pointed to the first floor.

 
They
ascended slowly, the treads creaking. A dirty rug on the landing floor helped
dampen their noise. The stairs led onto a narrow landing with two doors leading
off it: both were shut. The sound of laughter came from the room at the front
of the house. Frank stepped closer to the nearest one and pressed his ear to
the panel. He froze; he thought he heard a muffled sob. He gestured for Regan
to be ready to shoot and wrapped his fingers around the doorknob. He turned it
gently and pushed. A gut-wrenching view: a naked girl roped to a bed frame, a
red scarf stuffed into her mouth. Frank told Regan to stay at the door and went
to the bed. The girl followed him with big, frightened eyes. With his finger to
his lips, he removed the gag.

 
“Don’t
worry. I’m a policeman. It’s all over.” He set to untying the ropes around her
wrists and ankles.

 
“Guv,” Regan
hissed. “There’s definitely someone in there. I can hear them talking.”

 
The girl
whimpered. Frank took off his jacket and covered her with it. She was no older
than fifteen; just a girl. Same age as Eve when she disappeared. “What’s your
name, darling?”

 
She looked
at him blankly. Shock––they weren’t going to get much from her tonight.

 
“I need you
to be as quiet as a mouse for me. Alright?”

 
She nodded.

 
“The men who
did this to you––are they in the other room?”

 
She nodded.

 
“How many?
One?”

 
She shook
her head.

 
“Two?”

 
She nodded.

 
“Alright,
sweetheart. We’ll be back––promise.”

 
He followed
Regan into the hall and shut the door. “Two men. Ready?”

 
Regan
gritted his teeth and nodded. Frank slid his finger through the trigger guard
and squeezed the cold butt of the revolver into his palm. They faced the door.
Frank held up his fingers and counted down: three-two-one. He kicked the door
so hard it flew off its hinges. Candlelight spilled out, revealing two men in
ratty armchairs, stroke magazines on the floor, the girl’s clothes in a pile.

 
“
Police!
”

 
Frank
recognised them from their mugshots. Duncan Johnson was furthest from the door;
he threw up his hands. Reginald Dudley stumbled up. Regan aimed: bang bang.
“No!” Frank yelled. Dudley took one slug in the forehead, the other in the gut,
and sprawled back in his chair. Regan swivelled, aiming for Johnson; Frank
checked him, forcing his arm towards the ceiling.

 
Chaos: on
cue, the front door was kicked in and, downstairs, Winston and Slater shouted
out before putting through the closed door.

 
Regan
struggled to bring his gun arm down again. Frank stepped between him and
Johnson, held onto his wrist, pressed himself tight against him. “No, Georgie.
We’re taking him in.”

 
Regan pushed
against him. “You saw that poor mite. You know what they’ve done to her and
what he did to those other girls. You want to take the chance he gets a proper
brief? You sure he won’t fool a jury? Or persuade a judge he’s mental?”

 
Frank was
bigger than Regan. He forced the gun out of his hand. “It’s not up to us.”

 
“You want
him getting out of a scragging and doing life? I don’t want that on my
conscience. He doesn’t deserve to live. This is justice.” 

 
Frank looked
over his shoulder. Johnson had pushed himself up against the wall beneath the
window, his hands in front of his face. He mumbled he was sorry, over and over
and over again.

 
“Think of
your daughter!”

 
Frank felt
the urge: powerful, compelling, and for a moment he almost let it have him. The
evidence of what the two filthy perverts had done to the girl was as plain as
the nose on his face. Dirty bastards. Dirty, evil, degenerate bastards. Frank
felt the heft of the gun in his hand, cold steel in his palm. Regan punched him
in the shoulder. Regan was right. What if a slippery brief fooled a jury? He
had it in his power to give him what he deserved now.

 
“Shoot the
bastard!” 

 
Frank aimed
the revolver. Johnson recoiled as he covered him, his legs scrabbling as he
pushed himself back against the wall. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” Frank
thought of the girl in the room next door, of Molly Jenkins, of Constance
Worthing, of Annie Stokes. He thought of five other dead girls. He thought of
Eve. He thought of what Duncan Johnson would do if the legal system failed
again. He thought of evil and the chance of extinguishing it. He thought of
what the one pull of the trigger offered him: final, certain, absolute justice.

 
“Do him!”

 
Frank
lowered his arm.

 
“Murphy,
shoot him!”

 
He took a
step towards Johnson.

 
“No,” he
said. “It’s not for us.”

 
Johnson
looked up at him.

 
“Duncan
Johnson,” Frank said. “You’re under arrest.”

o         
o          o

FRANK WRAPPED THE GIRL in a blanket and carried her
down the stairs and out into the fire-lit street, her tiny body weighing next
to nothing in his arms. She didn’t say a word, just looked straight ahead; the
jittery flinches from close-falling bombs were automatic, didn’t register
across glassy, dead eyes. Johnson followed in shackles. Dudley would be last,
bagged-up on a stretcher once the formalities of his death had been dealt with.

 
“Secure the
house,” Frank told the nearest uniform. “But no-one goes upstairs until I say
so. Alright?”

 
“Yes, sir.”

Johnson was put into the back of
the Black Maria with two of the uniforms. The driver was on the radio,
requesting attendance by the first available pathologist.

Frank grabbed D.C. Slater by the
arm and moved him to one side. “Take him to West End Central. Tell Tanner I’ll
see if the girl has anything to say and then come back here. Fill him in on
what happened then get to writing it up. Anything else we find, we’ll add later.”

 
“Yes, guv.”

He went back inside the house.
Regan and Winston were in the kitchen.

 
“Georgie. A
word.”

 
He took
Regan out into the corridor.

 
“Give me
your gun.”

 
“What?”

 
“Give it to
me.”

 
Regan handed
over the revolver. Frank opened it; four bullets, two discharged.

“Alright,” he said. “This is
what we’re going to say. We went in, we told them to put their hands up, there
was a struggle and Dudley managed to get my gun off me. He took a shot at us
and missed.”

“I say––”

“Don’t bloody argue with me,
Georgie. He took my gun off me, he shot at us, then you shot him twice. Once in
the gut, once in the head. Understand?”

 
“Yes, guv.”

 
“If Johnson
says different, I’ll back your story.”

 
“Thank-you.
Guv, I––”

 
“That’s it,
detective. We won’t mention it again.”

 
They went
back into the kitchen. Winston was going through the filthy plates on the
draining board.

 
“Top to
bottom search. Put the lights on. Bugger the black-out. Jerry’s lit a big
enough beacon on the docks, he’s not going to notice us.”

 
He went up
to the first floor, checked both bedrooms. The first one was empty now the girl
was gone. In the second, Dudley’s head had stopped leaking. He looked around
more carefully: a bed roll on the floor; crusted, dirty sheets; rubbish piled
against the walls and overflowing from bins; a plastic bucket full of piss.
Pleasant. The place was a pigsty; no knowing what they’d find. One thing was
certain: the whole house was so packed with junk it’d take hours to check and
inventory.