by Jim Kelly
‘There’s a church outside the factory,’ he said. ‘They let me say Mass. But there’s no one here now. I am alone. And I am sorry – the papers are not in order, and I am struggling to answer the letters. The task is too much.’
Brooke explained what he was after and read out the paragraph at the end of the story in The Times.
‘Yes, yes. No one knows this man. But if anyone does they have been told to contact the hospital, at Newton Mearns, outside Glasgow. My old parish is in the city so I know it well. It is very beautiful. For children – yes? A quiet place, and out of the way of the world, so they let this man have peace. I do not have the number, perdonami.’
Brooke asked him to spell out the hospital name.
‘Good luck with your task, Father,’ said Brooke. ‘You can only do what’s in your power.’ There was a pause, and a whispered addio, and then the line was dead.
Brooke walked through to the switchboard where one of the girls was painting her nails.
‘Can you get me a line to Mearnskirk Hospital, Glasgow? Just put it through to my office.’
It took ten minutes, and then there was a whirring sound on the line, a moment of total depthless silence in which Brooke was certain they’d lost the connection, before a soft Scottish brogue was whispering in his ear: ‘Mearnskirk Hospital, switchboard.’
‘This is Detective Inspector Eden Brooke, Cambridge Borough Police. You have a patient, an Italian man rescued from the Arandora Star. Can I speak to the ward sister?’
‘We call him Mr Eyetie – sorry. We had to call him something, and it’s stuck. He’s on Lewis Ward; I’ll put you through to the night sister, it’s the end of the shift. It may ring for a while, there’s just a light, not a bell, so don’t give up. I’ll keep listening.’
The line hummed, and then began to buzz softly, rhythmically, and he imagined the ward, and the light winking, a nurse perhaps tending to one of the patients, her back turned.
‘Sister Kershaw, Lewis Ward,’ said a clear voice in an Edinburgh accent.
Brooke introduced himself and asked the nurse to sit down for a minute, if she could, so that he could ask a few questions. ‘It is important. I won’t take up too much time.’
‘It’s alright,’ she said. ‘They’ve had breakfast an hour ago. It’s blissfully peaceful. It’s an acute ward so most of the men are sick. But the doctor’s been round so they’re resting.’
‘My wife’s a nurse,’ he said. ‘She says that sometimes it’s a joy to listen to the silence. This Mr Eyetie – can you see him now?’
‘Yes. He’s been in a coma but he’s back with us now – although the periods of consciousness come and go.’
‘Has he had any visitors?’
‘Yes. His son. He’s here now, asleep in a chair by the bed. He hitched a ride up from Cambridge. He’s been sleeping here because the doctors said that when the old man comes round it’s a big help having a friendly face by the bedside – it softens the shock. And of course he can talk his own language.’
‘He’s there right now?’ Brooke stood up.
‘Yes. He’s called Bruno. I think he came as soon as he read the piece in the paper about his father. He showed us his ID card, and proof of address. Do you want to speak to him?’
‘No – thank you. It’s good to know he’s there. He needs to come back to Cambridge, I’m afraid, and answer some questions. But for now let’s leave him be. I’ll talk to Glasgow and get a constable to attend.’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t think he’s done anything wrong but I don’t want to frighten him. We’ve been looking for him, you see. We need his help.’
‘Shall I tell him you phoned?’
‘No. Please don’t mention it, Sister. I’ll send a constable and we’ll go from there.’
‘He’s very nice,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it? That he’s here.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The sergeants’ room, behind the duty desk, smelt like a greengrocer’s stall. The long, plain deal table was obscured by carrots, lettuce, radish, potatoes, green beans and a small white mountain of cauliflower, which resembled a large fluffy summer’s cloud brought down to earth. Edison was sitting, brushing red fen dust from the vegetables, before allocating them to punnets laid out on the floor.
The sergeant spread his arms wide. ‘What can we do? Now the kids have gone there’s more than we can eat so I thought I’d distribute the largesse. A punnet’s coming your way, sir.’
Edison’s allotment was out at Stourbridge Common, beside the river, just where the main line to the coast vaulted the Cam via a metal girder bridge. One spring morning earlier that year Brooke had watched his sergeant skilfully harvesting lettuce for Claire. The Wasp had been in use for police business and Edison had offered to run him home – but via the allotment, so that he could garner a gift, rather than see it all go to waste. It was an idyllic spot: where Cambridge gave itself up to the countryside, and the Fens. Houseboats clung to the banks of the Cam, and wild horses roamed the water meadows, and the only sign of habitation lay ahead, where the river swung in a curve past the village of Fen Ditton, with its church tower and old wharf. Edison had patiently fetched a pair of secateurs from his shed. Brooke had watched the Fenman Express fly at speed over the bridge, en route from sunny seaside Hunstanton to smoky King’s Cross in the capital.
Edison stood up stiffly now, rubbing dust from his hands.
Briskly, Brooke brought his sergeant up to date on the events of the night.
‘You’re sure he’s an innocent man, sir?’
‘Possibly. Even probably. He’s given his name and address to the hospital authorities, shown them his ID card and made no attempt to “lie low” – hardly the actions of a man on the run having committed two murders, Edison. But there’s still questions to answer. He was the last person to see Peggy Wylde alive: where had they gone, what had they said, what was their plan? Did Peggy know about the deaths on Earl Street? Did he own the Lucifer, and why’s it in the river? We need to know the answers.’
Brooke shrugged. ‘It’s still possible he’s the killer, but if he is he’s either stupid or extraordinarily clever. Either way we need him here to answer questions. I’ve just rung Glasgow – they’re pretty much stretched up there, so they can’t run him down to us. They’ve offered to get him to the nick in Manchester.’
From his inside pocket, Brooke produced a sheaf of petrol coupons. ‘That should get you there and back, care of the chief constable. He’ll be at Piccadilly – the central police station – by three o’clock.’
‘What if he doesn’t want to leave the old man?’ asked Edison.
‘They’ll arrest him for obstruction. I’ve authorised them to inform him of the deaths of Peggy Wylde and Nora Pollard – nothing more. He was the last person to see her alive. He needs to face up to that. The father’s recovering, and he can go back to the bedside when we’re satisfied we have the truth.’
Edison heaved himself up. ‘And you, sir?’
‘Start again, Sergeant. At least we’re not back to square one. I’m certain the Earl Street killing led directly to Peggy’s death. I’m equally certain it’s linked to looting, and blackout crime. We’ve a lead there: Norwich have just been in touch. They’ve found some goods, fitting the description of the items pilfered from number 36, on a market stall in the city. They’ll interview the trader later today, and they’re sending the stuff by messenger. If we can find our thief, maybe we’ll find our killer.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Brooke had hoped the autopsy on Peggy Wylde would have been completed by the time he climbed the Galen’s concrete switch-back steps to the sixth floor. Students came and went, clutching books, and as he passed a set of doors he glimpsed a hall within, a white-coated lecturer at a lectern, a large diagram of a dissected heart looming as a backdrop. When he pushed through the metal double doors of the morgue he knew he’d arrived at precisely the wrong moment; Dr Comfort, assisted by his loya
l ‘servants’ – armed with saws and instruments of greater finesse – had opened up the body of the young woman, removed the vital organs and set them aside. The reassembly of the cadaver, in the interests of a formal identification, had not begun, and the liver, heart, brain and offal stood in jars of preserving fluid. Brooke’s eyes, shielded by the ochre lenses, slid away from the splash of red where the corpse lay on its steel table, but then all too easily came to rest on the organs, illuminated by the sunlight which streamed in through the windows on three sides.
‘Inspector, a few moments, please,’ said Comfort, washing blood from his hands and arms at a stone sink. ‘Then I can talk you through our findings.’
One of the servants brought Brooke a mug of tea and set it on the window ledge. Once he had Comfort’s report he’d visit the Wylde family. He’d already despatched a uniformed sergeant with the bad news, but he needed to interview them all. The prospect of this grim duty was weighing him down.
Comfort, lighting a cigar, joined him to share the view over the rooftops.
It occurred to Brooke for the first time that the habitual cigar was in fact a device to shield the pathologist’s nose from the smells of the laboratory: the blood, the preserving fluid, the unmistakable gravid edge of the butcher’s shelf.
‘I’m sorry, Brooke; hardly a complete surprise, but there is something you should see. She’ll be sewn up in an hour, but if you’ve the stomach for it we can look now. I can cover the body – or most of it.’
A bloody sheet had been thrown over the corpse, leaving just the head and throat clear, the hair combed back brutally and parted along a line running forward from the crown to the forehead.
Vividly Brooke was back in Palestine, picking his way through the dead scattered on the road to the citadel at Tyre, trying not to see the faces in the hope that he could pass by without seeing a friend, or worse – one of his own men cut down in the final assault. The sense in which he wanted to look, but couldn’t look, was disturbing.
‘Here – do you see – the bruises again,’ said Comfort, his face a few inches from the corpse. ‘Strangled like her grandmother. The internal fractures are identical.’
‘Not drowned?’ asked Brooke, studying Comfort’s face.
‘No, no. The lungs are dry,’ said the pathologist, indicating the jars, but Brooke moved closer to the exposed throat.
Comfort let the green smoke from the cigar linger around his head.
‘One thought presents itself yet again, Brooke. The assailant in this case, as in that of Nora Pollard, would have faced his victim. Two hands, the arms extended – that’s the key; the pressure is exerted forward, the thumbs pressed inwards. In such cases the victim might be able to use their hands to inflict an injury – usually to the assailant’s face. In Mrs Pollard’s case I suspect she was near death when attacked. But this girl was in the prime of life. She’d have fought. I’d keep that in mind. Look at this …’
He edged the sheet away from one of the arms and picked up the hand, turning it over to reveal scratches and some bruising.
‘Maybe she landed a few blows?’
‘Anything that might help us narrow the field?’ asked Brooke, unable to keep a note of exasperation from his voice. The room, the disaggregated body, always made him unaccountably impatient, as if the physical evidence of death was a personal challenge to find those responsible.
‘The backs of her heels are stained with grass – but not much,’ said Comfort. ‘It’s a surmise, but I’d say she was killed at a spot nearby, then hauled to the hatchery and thrown into the water. That could have been immediately after she was killed, or much later; much later sounds more likely. Perhaps the killer put her body somewhere out of sight – a ditch, a barn, a copse of trees – then he came back after dark. With no air in her lungs she wouldn’t float – that’s how she got caught up in the bottom of the net.’
Brooke nodded, turning to go, but Comfort held up a hand.
‘I’m sorry, Eden, there’s more. You don’t need to see the evidence, but I have to tell you it exists. And it provides a possible motive of sorts: she was two months pregnant, so she would have known there was a child on the way. I’m not sure but that seems to make it a more heinous crime.’
Brooke’s eyes studied the distant view of the city’s rooftops, desperate to avoid the specimen jars and the floating organs.
‘Morally, it depends if the killer knew,’ he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Wylde family lived in a terraced house on Palmer Road, identical in its two-up two-down layout to the one destroyed by the bomb on Earl Street. The Kite imposed its own brand of uniformity. The district was dense and claustrophobic, with teeming back yards and narrow alleys, corner pubs and shops. The contrast with the city’s splendid medieval heart was stark. The Wyldes’ house was closer to the river by a quarter mile than Nora and Arthur Pollard’s, but stood on lower ground, and so felt damper, despite the warm sunlight that brought out the smell of the place, dominated by the acrid stench of the nearby beet factory. The area had probably looked the same for half a century, and there were few signs a war was being fought, except that a greengrocer’s on the corner had only a few potatoes and leeks on show, and a butcher’s window was empty, despite a queue of housewives, clutching ration books, waiting patiently in line.
The Wyldes’ front door was open, a woman constable on the step.
‘PC Jenkins,’ said Brooke, touching his hat. The Borough had six female constables, and Jenkins was the best. She carried out the duties women constables were expected to perform in efficient silence. But on several cases she had exhibited a detective’s eye for detail, and a sergeant’s initiative.
Briefly she told Brooke what to expect inside.
Alice, the mother, had been distraught when she was told that her daughter had been found dead, although she must have feared the worst. She’d been given a pill by the doctor and was up in bed. A neighbour was sitting with her. The two sisters, Elsie and Connie, were downstairs with Connie’s boyfriend, Ollie.
‘I’ve taken in a lot of food – gifts from neighbours,’ said the constable. ‘They seem popular as a family – that’s how people respond, isn’t it? A stew, an apple crumble, cakes. The woman opposite has been ferrying tea across the road on the half hour.’
‘Spoken to the neighbours?’ asked Brooke.
She nodded. ‘Peggy is – was – a popular girl. Everyone says the same thing: so beautiful, elegant, a pretty face, a film star, but there’s something almost unsaid, sir. Maybe she knew she was special, so a bit above herself. I’d say the sympathy was for the family – for the other girls, and the mum. Not sure there’s really too much for the dead girl. Sorry to say that.’
Brooke took off his hat. ‘It’s your job, Constable. And you’re doing it very well.’
The sisters were in the front room. Elsie, in her overalls, had her arm around Connie, while Ollie sat rather stiffly apart, on the same sofa, smoking with an ashtray beside him. The contrast between the girls was even more apparent than it had been when they’d come to the Spinning House to report Peggy’s disappearance. Elsie looked tougher, a bit world-weary, while Connie appeared lost, her make-up streaked by tears.
Brooke touched his hat. ‘I’ve some questions,’ he said. ‘But first I should see your mother. Indeed, I need to see her alone, so if you could all wait here with the constable.’
He climbed the stairs, the house revealing itself as battered and worn, the stair carpet threadbare, the wallpaper bubbled, the once-white ceilings yellow with nicotine and old age.
There were three bedrooms, one of them a box, but no bathroom, so he guessed there was a privy in the backyard. One door stood open to reveal two single beds set together under patchwork quilts. He was at eye level with the floor so he could see the chamber pot underneath one, and some slippers.
He knocked on the closed door to the front bedroom.
A woman’s face appeared, her hair hidden under a bright s
carf.
Brooke held his hat to his chest. ‘Inspector Brooke. I do need to speak to Mrs Wylde alone, please, if she’s up to it. Can you ask?’
There were whispers, and the clatter of a teacup and saucer, then the neighbour reappeared and fled, leaving the door open.
Alice Wylde was propped up on pillows, settling her hands and dabbing at her lips with a handkerchief which had been embroidered in one corner with the letters AW. The room was bleak. A neat WRVS uniform hung from a hanger on the wardrobe door.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Wylde. There is something I need to tell you.’
Brooke felt this woman was a pale shadow of the matriarch he’d seen on the morning after the Earl Street raid. The loss of her mother had made her bitter and sad, but Peggy’s murder seemed to have put her on her own death bed: she was grey, bloodless, less substantial than the pillow supporting her fragile skull. Brooke had to remind himself that she was likely to be little more than fifty years old.
‘I’ve just come from the pathologist. There seems little doubt Peggy was murdered, but that it would have been very swift, and painless. She would not have suffered.’
Brooke was thankful that this lie always seemed to have such a magical effect. The woman’s eyes – which were grey – caught the light for the first time.
‘Thank you. Can you tell her sisters? They keep imagining the worst.’
‘But there is some bad news. Peggy was pregnant, Mrs Wylde, two months gone. So she would have known her condition. Did she talk about this with you?’
She shook her head by a fraction, studying the wall, where a rectangle of sunlight was edging across flowered wallpaper.
‘No – we didn’t talk about such things. Peggy lived her own life. She knew what I thought. That’s why she spent so much time at Earl Street. My parents were more forgiving. More fun. And this is where it’s led …’
