by Jim Kelly
‘She’s dead,’ he said, turning to SC Root.
‘It can’t be,’ said a voice, and they looked up to see Elsie Wylde looking down.
‘Elsie, go back. I’ve said it’s dangerous,’ said Brooke.
‘It’s Connie, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘But it can’t be. She’s at home in bed in our room. I’ve asked for an ambulance like you said, but it’s too late, isn’t it?’
She swayed dangerously.
‘There’s nothing you can do,’ said Brooke, nodding to Root, who ran for the cellar door and the stairs.
‘What’s happening to us?’ Elsie asked, her hands rising to her face. ‘Who’s going to tell Mum?’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Three hours later, an hour short of dawn, Brooke was still at the scene. A neighbour had taken it upon herself to cater for the growing band of constables, a photographer commandeered from the county force, and the pathologist, who was in the basement examining the body in situ. A large brown teapot was being constantly refreshed and passed around for top-ups. Lights were on in most of the houses, and several residents stood on doorsteps, watching silently.
Brooke had been back to Palmer Road to the Wyldes’ house and pieced together the series of known events. The family had gone to the Anderson shelter at just after eight, when the siren sounded from the Guildhall. At midnight the all-clear had roused them, and Connie had gone back to bed alone in the girls’ room, because Elsie wanted to keep her mother company. Alice had been crying over Peggy, and didn’t want to be left alone. Elsie had made them all one last cup of tea. Ollie, fed up with the sofa, had stayed in the shelter. He told Brooke that Connie was tired, missed her sister, and wanted her nana.
It was a cruel question but he felt he had to ask. ‘Do you think she might have had a secret admirer – just like Peggy? Is it possible, Ollie?’
The boy had shaken his head, his eyes flooding. ‘We were engaged,’ he said. ‘She’d promised we’d get married after all this was forgotten. She’d never lied to me. Ever.’ He’d cried then, his mouth hanging open, the lips wet, and Brooke thought that he’d lost another family and he was alone again.
Nobody had any idea how Connie had got out of the house, or why.
Brooke had walked back to the house where they’d found her body. Warmed by a mug of tea provided by the diligent neighbour, he spread out a map of the city on the bonnet of the Wasp. This point, the bombed-out house, was less than a quarter of a mile from the Wylde family home: two streets away in fact – less than a three-minute walk. Had she met someone on the street?
A sudden silence descended on the scene and Brooke looked up, expecting to see the ambulance orderlies removing the body, but instead Chief Inspector Carnegie-Brown was stepping out of her old Ford. It was such a rare outing into the real world that the effect was to halt all operations, as if they’d been blessed with a royal visit.
She adjusted her cap, straightened her uniform and examined the burnt facade of the house. ‘Carry on, everyone.’
Brooke briefed her quickly on the earlier events at Barrington, and the discovery of the body of Connie Wylde.
‘How has this young woman ended up here?’ she asked. ‘Why is she out at dead of night when she should be asleep at home?’
Brooke shrugged. ‘Nobody heard her leaving the house, which suggests she crept out. A clandestine meeting, then – but not here. Perhaps she met someone she wasn’t expecting.’
‘What next?’ asked the chief inspector, removing black leather driving gloves. ‘I can’t shift the conclusion, Brooke, that the Borough is not in control of the situation. What is your plan of action?’
Brooke lit a cigarette. ‘Priorities are house-to-house here on the street, ma’am,’ he said. ‘One of the neighbours phoned the Spinning House to say they’d heard something earlier which they thought was looters. We need to track them down and get a statement. What precisely did they hear – where and when? It looks like the killer tried to hide the body in the cellar in the hope that by the time she was found she’d be written off as a casualty of war.
‘And we need to carry out house-to-house calls along the route she took. Maybe she was attacked on the way, or someone saw or heard something.’
‘I see,’ said Carnegie-Brown. ‘So we’re somewhat lost, Inspector? Three murders, in a matter of days, and we’re back to square one, relying on the random chance that we can conjure up a passing witness.’
It appeared she was on the receiving end of a dressing-down. Three years in the British Army had taught him the golden rule in such situations – never answer back.
He studied the map in silence for a moment until he judged the moment had passed. ‘Sergeant Edison is at the bedside of the spiv – Miller,’ he said.
‘But you say the body of this poor girl was still warm. So Miller’s not our killer, is he?’
Brooke studied his shoes.
‘And Bruno Zeri is in a cell at the Spinning House. And there’s this …’ She handed him a typed sheet. ‘A note from Durham. His alibi stands up, I’m afraid, at least to the extent that he was picked up walking beside the Great North Road and the constables noted his wounds.’
She slipped a tortoiseshell cigarette case out of her pocket. ‘And the pilot?’
‘On duty, ma’am. Spitfire flight stationed at Newmarket for forty-eight hours. We’ve radioed the tower at Marshall’s and they confirm he is on duty.’
She lit the cigarette with a silver lighter. ‘Not him either, then. As I say, Brooke. Lost. Two sisters dead – what of the third?’
‘I’ve left a constable with the Wyldes. We’ll take formal statements in the morning from the family. I’ll draw up a rota so that an officer is always at hand. We don’t want Elsie, the surviving sister, left alone – certainly not after dark.’
‘You think she knows something?’
‘Possibly. The real point is that the killer might think she knows something. That might be enough to get her killed. The family clearly poses some kind of unknown threat to the killer. If we knew its precise nature we’d know the murderer’s identity.’
She checked her watch. ‘We need to make progress, Brooke. Scotland Yard is unlikely to find the short distance to Cambridge a barrier if they think the Borough is incapable of catching a triple murderer. Two sisters, the grandmother first. It’s a nest of vipers, Inspector. Or are they all innocent of the crimes?’
Brooke took the question to be rhetorical. An awkward silence established itself until Dr Comfort appeared from the ruined house. He had a cigar lit before he’d taken a step into the fresh air. The green cloud hung in the air as he packed his bag away into the boot of the black Rover.
He tilted his head back, and they heard a cartilage in his neck creak.
Comfort’s preliminary findings were curt and angry.
‘It’s pretty clear from an external examination that an attempt – several attempts – have been made to make the girl unidentifiable. It’s a bit desperate, and it’s worth noting that he used a half-brick – there are fragments in the wounds – and so presumably that came from the cellar floor, which suggests a lack of planning. Although there’s no sign of the half-brick – daylight will help there. Blood stains on red brick are not easy to see. All the injuries you can see are post-mortem. She died like the others, strangled from the front.’
‘The same killer, then?’ asked Carnegie-Brown.
‘That’s my preliminary judgement, but my final report will have to wait for a full autopsy tomorrow. I wouldn’t rule out separate offenders, but it’s extremely unlikely, don’t you think?’
They all looked to the east but there was no sign of dawn. Several stars still fidgeted in the sky.
‘Takes a certain type,’ said Comfort, producing a small silver flask from his long wool coat’s inside pocket. ‘She was dead, as I say, but nonetheless. An assault such as this would inflict psychological damage on the assailant, if he had a shred of moral character, which I suppose we should doubt.
‘He looked into their eyes, you see. In each case he choked the life out of these women while looking them in the face. A dangerous man, capable of extreme violence, but able, it seems, to get close to his victims. The idea that he might stop killing if threatened in any way is unlikely.’
He produced a final flourish of green smoke. ‘We should all be aware of that compelling threat.’
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Brooke found Claire asleep in their bedroom at Newnham Croft, and he slipped in beside her under the single sheet, their mirrored bodies stirring only slightly until he awoke an hour later to see sunlight streaming through the old shutters. He slept again, for a handful of minutes, and a final third time for a few seconds, but on every occasion he dreamt of a face: Nora first, Peggy next, and lastly Connie. And each time he saw them alive, and laughing, smiling, despite the fact he’d never seen Nora before that moment in the wrecked house when he stumbled on her body. So her face had to be a feat of his imagination, a collage of her granddaughters, her own cold, still features animated by the lives of others.
He kissed Claire on the neck, below the ear, and said he’d see her later at the hospital: he had a prisoner there and he’d have to take a statement.
‘How was Joy?’ he asked.
‘Stoical. She’s prepared for the worst, I can tell. She said we should have a family powwow. Perhaps tonight?’
‘Yes. I’ll try – but this case in the Kite has taken a turn for the worse.’ When he could he always tried not to bring the details of crime into the house. He felt Claire had enough to worry about with the ward, and now with Joy and Luke.
She opened her eyes. ‘She didn’t put Iris down for a single moment last night, Eden, and I think she’d thought twice about leaving her with Mrs Mullins during the day. But work’s good for her, it makes her feel needed.’
Brooke said he’d get the number for the Red Cross and get a constable to drop by during the day.
‘So you both know,’ he added, ‘the head porter – Roly Cheaver – we’ve got him in the cells at the station. He’s been selling illegal drugs on the black market.’
Claire sat up. ‘Roly?’ She shook her head. ‘I thought I was good at judging people. He was so kind to the patients, Eden. Always time for a chat and a joke – so it was all a front?’
‘Bad people do good things, Claire. Good people do bad things. I’m not a believer in complete evil – are you?’ It was what he always said, but the face he’d seen in the rubble the night before made him doubt his own wisdom.
Half an hour later he was at the Spinning House. The duty sergeant had a note from the pathologist: Alice Wylde had agreed to the identification of Connie Wylde’s body at eight o’clock at the Galen Building. There was also a report from Edison: Miller had regained consciousness and made a brief statement. His sergeant had left a typewritten summary for Brooke, before going home to sleep.
Brooke took it to his office, with a canteen sandwich of beef dripping. He sat at his desk, took the phone off the hook, and read. Miller, it appeared, was what their Victorian predecessors at the Borough would have called a ‘kidsman’ – a criminal fence, who employed a wide range of juvenile thieves to supply him with goods stolen from houses during the blackout, from bombed-out homes, and petrol from parked cars and vans. Claire’s young patient, Bert Smith, had probably represented the lower end of the age range. Miller described the majority as ‘tearaways’ – a word which rang a bell with Brooke, but one he could not pin down, a failure he would later regret. Miller was keen, according to Edison, to avoid prison at all costs and had offered to cooperate in closing down the blackout gang, as well as identifying his customers: a network of fences, and a list of garages on major arterial roads which filled passing traffic with adulterated petrol.
Miller had flatly denied being involved in the murder of his neighbour Nora Wylde or her granddaughter Peggy. His alibi for the murder of Connie Wylde was airtight. He also denied receiving any stolen goods from number 36. He had spent the night of the bombing carrying out his duties on Earl Street as ARP warden – several police officers had seen him at work, including Brooke.
The appointed hour for Connie’s formal identification was at hand so Brooke reluctantly set the file aside. In the hallway of the Spinning House, just out of sight, was a full-length mirror left from the building’s workhouse days. Brooke had always suspected the looking glass had assisted overseers in keeping an eye on the women working at their spinning wheels. It seemed to radiate a penitentiary light. He stopped in front of it now; he was not a vain man, but he felt that the identification of the dead was a formal duty. He straightened a black tie and made a note to remove his tinted glasses when the moment came.
The grim ceremony did not, by custom, take place on the fifth floor of the Galen Building, close to the morgue, but on the first. A lift connected the laboratory above, with its steel drawers, to the room marked Relatives of the Deceased. Brooke always felt that the amount of space allocated for this duty was inadequate. The door opened to reveal a box room about ten feet by twelve. A pair of lift doors stood at one end. There was nothing else in the room but a wooden bench and a wastepaper bin. A single window gave on to a light shaft, so that the view was restricted to pipes and bricks, and the metal rungs of a fire escape. A pigeon, wings flapping, rose out of sight as he entered.
It wasn’t Alice Wylde sitting on the bench; it was her daughter Elsie Wylde, and she looked up with a start. She’d abandoned her regulation overalls and headscarf for a drab brown dress and a dark threadbare coat. He experienced a sudden insight: that she’d considered taking something smarter from Peggy’s wardrobe, or even Connie’s, but baulked at a sense of sacrilege.
‘It’s you,’ she said.
‘I can stay if it helps,’ said Brooke. ‘Or there’s a woman constable at the Spinning House? I’m afraid there has to be a witness.’
She didn’t answer, but he took silence as assent, and they sat together.
‘I was expecting your mother,’ he said.
‘Yes. Sorry – she’s taken to her bed. Ollie’s sitting with her. I think that boy’s adopted us. And there’s the constable, of course. Is that necessary?’
‘I doubt it,’ admitted Brooke. ‘But the facts speak for themselves, Elsie. Two sisters murdered. I’d be drummed out of the Borough if I didn’t do the obvious and make sure you’re safe.’
She shrugged. ‘Ollie couldn’t face it. He thinks it isn’t her, but he can’t face the truth, which he knows really. It is her. I know it is. I saw enough. Felt it, really. This is just a formality. It just has to be done.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
The clock on the wall ticked. Elsie looked round the room and found the NO SMOKING sign. The disappointment, the incremental blow to her burden of sadness, made her shake her head.
‘We have to try and find the man who killed Connie quickly. Do you see, Elsie? It’s possible – isn’t it – that Peggy and Connie guessed the identity of the man we’re after and that’s why they died. And if they guessed, you might guess too. That’s why we have to keep you safe.’
They heard the distant clatter of metal doors in the lift shaft. Elsie stiffened and unclipped her handbag, then closed it.
‘I know this is a terrible time but will you think, Elsie? When this is over, when you can, think about the family, friends, neighbours, everyone.’
The lift motor began to whirr.
‘Can I still see Joe?’ she asked.
‘If you want to, yes. He made a short statement last night. He admits he’s a common thief, a criminal fence and a black-market trader. He’s promised us a list of his suppliers – kids mostly. He says he isn’t a killer and I’m inclined to believe him. Although he’ll have to explain that warning shot. It was reckless, Elsie. People could have died.’
In the silence he thought he’d been too kind: Miller’s parting shot hadn’t been reckless; it had been designed to secure his escape, regardless of the possible loss of
life.
The lift arrived, and they both stood up.
The doors scraped back and one of Dr Comfort’s ‘servants’ – who provided the heavy labour when needed – wheeled out a trolley. Suddenly they all seemed crowded into too small a space. The presence of death stilled the air, but Brooke felt yet again that the appearance of the body provided a flat emotional note, in that it always failed to meet the hopes of loved ones, looking forward perhaps to some kind of farewell, or epiphany.
Brooke asked if Elsie was ready, and when she said she was, the servant quickly revealed just a part of the face: the forehead on one side, the eye and the hair. Elsie smiled, perhaps because Dr Comfort had somehow arranged these few features into a semblance of peace, although the bruising and swelling was still brutally apparent.
She nodded. ‘Yes. That’s Connie. Now I’ll have to tell Ollie.’
‘Do you want a moment alone?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’d like to go.’
The servants moved quickly to take the body away but they must have inadvertently knocked the gurney because one of Connie’s arms dropped down, lifeless and stiff.
‘Oh God,’ said Elsie. ‘I hadn’t thought.’
There was an engagement ring on Connie’s hand. A silver ring with a tiny red stone.
‘Can I take it for Ollie?’ she asked. ‘It cost him five shillings. I helped him pick it out of the window of a jeweller’s on Petty Cury.’
The servant gently eased the ring from the finger and handed it to Elsie.
‘She was so proud of it. I think Ollie thought she could do with some joy in her life after what’s happened to us. He said he knew they were a bit young but he wasn’t in a hurry.’ She examined the ring in her hand. ‘She was so happy.’
Outside on the pavement, the sunshine was fierce and they stood for a moment in the shade of a plane tree.
‘I could come with you,’ offered Brooke.
