by V M Knox
‘Elsie? In the country? Can’t be the same Elsie, Vicar. She hated the country. Particularly East Sussex. Too close to her parents. They didn’t get on.’
A child was crying, but Clement almost didn’t hear the wailing infant. ‘She grew up in Eastbourne. Her father was a doctor there,’ Clement said trying to confirm the few details he knew about the girl.
‘That’s right. Both her parents died some time ago.’ Anne pulled a biscuit from her pocket and broke it in half. She held it out to him.
He shook his head.
‘I put them there during the shift. I don’t steal; but if the patients don’t eat them, why waste them? Besides, you never know when you might not eat for a while. She nibbled on the biscuit then said, ‘She went back there a couple of years ago to see their graves,’ Anne continued. ‘Elsie, I mean. She met someone. A man. But it didn’t work out, so she returned to London. She said she wouldn’t leave London ever again. Only get your heart broken, she said.’
‘Do you know where she is now?’
Anne stared at him, the large green eyes wide. ‘But I thought you knew, Vicar? Elsie is dead.’
Chapter 23
Clement felt the ground shudder, the sounds amplified and distorted in the railway tunnels. ‘What did you say?’ he asked aghast.
The rumbling continued. A sudden gust of wind came through the railway tunnel each time the earth shook.
‘She jumped off Westminster Bridge. Well, that’s what the police said.’
Clement stared at Anne Chambers. ‘When?’
‘It’s got to be three years now. Not long after she came back to London.’
‘Can you describe her?’
‘What is it, Vicar? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?’
‘Please, Anne, indulge me. Can you describe her?’
‘About five feet four inches, twenty-three,’ Anne paused, ‘Elsie would be twenty-six now, blonde with blue eyes. Pretty. The prettiest girl I ever saw. She wasn’t too pretty when they pulled her out of the Thames.’
‘Did she have any distinguishing marks?’ Clement asked, thinking Anne’s brief illustration of Elsie could describe many thousands of pretty girls.
‘Elsie? She was about as perfect as God can make a woman, Vicar.’
‘Indeed,’ he said. But he was thinking of the Elsie Wainwright he knew. ‘Was there anything about Elsie that only someone who knew her well would know?’
The girl looked at him, her expression changing. ‘Other than being pregnant, you mean?’
‘What?’
‘What is all this about?’ Anne asked.
Clement sat forward on the seat. ‘I don’t mean to alarm you or reignite unhappy memories, but I have met a young woman who is calling herself Elsie Wainwright. She is wanted by the police.’
‘Then whoever she is, she couldn’t be the Elsie Wainwright I knew. I lived with her. Shared a room in the Nurses' home with her. There wasn't anything we didn't share about each other. And it was me who identified her. And I know that body was Elsie Wainwright.’ Anne paused. ‘They said that is why she jumped off Westminster Bridge, because she was pregnant.’ Anne shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, Vicar, but nurses, well, we work with babies. And some women lose babies, poor sods. Naturally, I mean. But there are always a few from the wealthy classes who don’t, if you know what I mean.’
What Clement was hearing astounded him. ‘It wasn’t quite what I meant,’ he muttered, his voice subdued. His head spun; not because what Anne had told him very clearly confronted his religious beliefs, nor so much for the evident illegality of it, but because Anne Chambers had confided so much vital information he was having trouble taking it all in.
‘You meant was there anything physically different about her?’ Anne said, staring at him. ‘It was how I knew it was Elsie.’ The girl paused. ‘She had a mole on the fourth toe of her left foot.’ Anne let out a short laugh and shrugged her shoulders. ‘She used to wear a sticking plaster around it rather than look at it. It was just a tiny mole, but Elsie hated it.’
‘What did the police say had happened to her?’
‘Death by suicide. But I don’t think so. She had gone to meet him. She told me. She was so excited. She thought he was going to pop the question. But she never came back. The police said she killed herself because of the baby. Not Elsie. She was popular – men fell at her feet. With or without the baby, she’d have found another. Besides, like I said, she didn’t have to have it.’
‘Did you ever know the man’s name?’ he asked.
Anne shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t say. But I know he was in the Navy, based somewhere along the south coast. Classified!’ Anne shrugged her shoulders. ‘They all say things like that.’
Clement stood. He needed to find Arthur Morris before he left London. And he needed to tell Johnny and Miss Bradwynn what he'd learned.
‘Need the lav, Vicar? I’m afraid it’s a bucket down here.’
‘No. I need to leave.’
Anne Chambers laughed. ‘The Warden won’t let you leave here until the all-clear sounds.’
Clement sat back down on the hard bench and ran his tongue over his lips to moisten his dry mouth. He still couldn’t believe it. But illegal abortions and unwed young women aside, what he had learned about Elsie sent his head spinning. Why had the Elsie he knew attached herself to Stanley? Clement’s heart was sinking, and for the first time he began to suspect that the trusting lad had suffered the same fate as his father.
Clement visualized Reg Naylor leaning on Peter Kempton’s mantelpiece asking if Stanley was already dead. Was Nurse Anne Chambers correct about Elizabeth Wainwright? Or had Elise Wainwright wanted to disappear and staged her own death? He thought of the mole. Could that be faked? Could Anne have lied to aid Elsie’s disappearance? Clement didn’t believe so. Anne had volunteered the information and believed Elsie Wainwright was dead. In his mind he saw the girl sitting on the counter in The Crown. His heart was pounding. Had the real Elsie Wainwright been murdered because she resembled the Elsie he knew? If she was not Elsie, then who was she? And why had she come to Fearnley Maughton?
Clement pulled his coat around his body. Thoughts rushed through his mind so quickly he couldn't process them fast enough.
‘You alright, Vicar?’ Anne asked.
‘Yes. Thank you. It doesn’t matter. It must be another Elizabeth Wainwright.’
Anne pulled a book from her cape pocket and started to read. He wondered what else Anne Chambers carried in the capacious folds of her nurse’s cape. But right now his mind was on Elizabeth Wainwright.
Leaning his head back on the wall, Clement closed his eyes. Elsie Wainwright had come to Fearnley Maughton after answering an advertisement in The Times. Why would a girl who did not like the country seek a position in a rural village in East Sussex? The girl Clement knew as Elsie didn’t know the real Elsie’s dislike for the country, especially East Sussex. That tiny fact alone could be her undoing. He thought of Arthur Morris and the man’s patient, diligent investigation. Morris had checked The Evening Argus classified section for Hospital and Medical Appointments. “The pieces are coming together,” Clement muttered remembering what Morris had said in Gubbins’s office. Clement smiled. Chief Inspector Morris was also suspicious of Elsie Wainwright. Clement needed to speak with Morris, but until he could, he forced himself to focus on Elsie and on all the occasions he had met the girl since her arrival in the village. He had noted at the bus stop in Lewes that the girl had very little luggage. She would, if she did not intend to stay long.
Mary had suspected something about the girl. The next time Clement saw Elsie was in the street. But he had not spoken more than a few words to the girl on that occasion. After that he had seen her on the Sunday in church, surrounded by men, then later that same day at The Crown. He pictured her in his mind, sitting on the bar-room counter surrounded by men who were eager for the gossip she was happily supplying.
Clement thought back to the day
he and Constable Matthews had found Stanley in his cottage holding the knife. Stanley believed the girl had left to pack her possessions then return to his cottage. She did go to The Crown, Clement knew that. But where had she gone afterwards? And how had she left the village without being seen? Had it all been staged? Had Elsie killed David Russell and fled? Timing. Morris had talked about timing. Morris had also talked about there being more than one murderer.
At the time David Russell lay dead, Elsie would have been at The Crown packing. Or was she? Had she packed previously? Sometime around when Stanley was heard arguing with his father and before the time of death at around half-past ten, Elsie had disappeared. Clement thought back. What else had happened at that time? Then he remembered the broken bottle. Why had someone smashed a bottle on the police station doorstep? Constable Matthews was a little deaf, yet it was loud enough for him to hear it and investigate.
Clement opened his eyes. The safe keys. Whoever had killed David Russell had already done it. Morris believed, as Clement did, that the murderer had entered by the window and been expected. That had been confirmed in his mind when he stood by the window in the police station attempting to attract the attention of Phillip Haswell. David Russell had been expecting Elsie. The window was open and Russell would have seen the girl arrive.
But once inside, and with Russell unconscious, the open window permitted another to enter. Clement thought of the blow to Russell’s head. A woman could have done that. Especially a woman who already knew of David Russell’s weakness for a pretty face and who had prearranged the meeting. Russell would not be expecting trouble. In fact, the contrary. It fitted with what Clement had witnessed in The Crown. Elsie could have left the police station by the same window and run around the building, smashing the bottle on the steps to bring Constable Matthews to the door. This would give whoever was in David Russell’s office time to fetch the keys.
Clement stared at the blackish, soot-stained wall of the underground opposite. Did that mean that whoever had killed David Russell knew where to find the keys? That would implicate a local, especially Stanley. Yet, if Elsie had agreed to elope with Stanley, he would certainly have told her about his inheritance and where it was kept.
Constable Matthews had said that Inspector Russell always kept his office door ajar, but when the constable was standing in the corridor outside the inspector’s office, someone had closed the door. Clement knew now that the murderer had closed it. But how were the safe keys replaced? The keys were there when Clement went into the police station. Or had they been? Constable Matthews would surely have noticed their absence. They must have been there. Clement shut his eyes. If Elsie was watching the building, she would have seen himself and Phillip Haswell along with Constable Matthews carry the body of Inspector Russell out of the police station and around the building to Doctor Haswell’s car. The police station would have been unattended for a few minutes.
Clement recalled when he had seen her cycle through the village. She came and went, and almost no-one took any notice of the district nurse on a bicycle. He remembered Arthur’s comment about there always being a witness. The killer could have given the keys to Elsie through the window that faced the High Street. Elsie could then have dropped them into her nurse’s cape before entering the station and replacing them on the hook and all before he and Constable Matthews returned to the station to telephone Lewes Police.
It fitted. But how had she acquired the gun? She must have duped Stanley into showing her his pack. Clement remembered seeing it in Stanley’s bedroom. Stanley had made no attempt to conceal the pack. She had taken the gun and the knife, but she had only time to place the knife in the scullery drawer before Stanley joined her. The gun she had already taken and hidden somewhere.
Clement blinked several times. He needed to find Morris.
‘Had a nap, Vicar? That’s the way. Forget about it. It’s better that way,’ Anne was saying. ‘Do you want some tea? The ladies over there are making,’ she said. ‘It’s really brown-coloured water. Best not to ask what. But you can tell yourself its tea. Mind my seat and I’ll get us some.’
He smiled. Anne Chambers was a well-meaning girl. A real nurse: helpful and caring.
He watched Anne walk away. There was something different about her. It was in the walk, the way her feet hit the floor; slap slap. She had the slouch of the weary. It told the onlooker that here was a person used to hard physical labour and who spent most of every day on her feet. Elsie had never displayed such a gait. Whilst Clement knew the girl to be an impostor, he did believe she had medical training of some kind. She had delivered the Knowles baby. But if Anne was the epitome of the overworked London nurse, then Clement did not believe Elsie had come from London at all. Clement now believed the girl was implicated in the murder of David Russell. Elsie Wainwright became more enigmatic with every passing minute.
Did it follow, though, that she was also involved in George’s death? If the answer to that was yes, then it had to mean that whoever this girl was, she was still near Fearnley Maughton. Or still in it!
Anne returned and Clement sipped the tea. The liquid looked unappealing but at least it was hot. He remembered the vagrant. Was the vagrant her accomplice? Had he been the man the real Elsie Wainwright had gone to meet on Westminster Bridge? And if Elsie, with or without the vagrant, had the list, what were they planning next? Had Gubbins suspected it and that was why he sent the men to Coleshill?
The All-Clear siren sounded, intruding on his thoughts.
‘Well there’s a relief, Vicar. We won’t be down here all night after all.’
‘Do you live far from here, Anne?’
‘I live in the Nurses Home, attached to the hospital. I was on a split shift and hoped to have time to wash my hair and get some much-needed air. Some air! The smells of the London underground! Never mind. I wouldn’t have met you, Vicar had I not come out. Well, good luck to you.’
Clement lifted his hat. ‘Thank you, Anne. You have been such a help. Would you mind if I was to contact you again? About Elsie?’
Anne turned to face him. ‘If you can make any sense of it, Vicar, it would put my mind to rest.’ Anne lowered her voice, ‘because I think she was murdered.’
Clement came up into the light. Trafalgar Square looked much the same. He thanked the Lord for his safe delivery and for Nurse Anne Chambers. Meeting Anne had been a true turning point. Some would say it was luck or coincidence. He felt a smile creep across his lips. Clement called it divine intervention. But now he needed to find Arthur. He wasn’t really sure where Scotland Yard was, but he quickened his pace as he walked in the direction he had seen the Chief Inspector take. Asking directions, he found the layered white and red brick building and entered the main door. Fifteen minutes later he was sitting in an office with Arthur Morris.
Clement related what he had learned from Anne Chambers. ‘Can you find out what happened to the real Elsie Wainwright?’
‘Yes, that is possible. The archived files are downstairs. The raid has delayed the forensic report on the bullets, so we can do it now.’
Clement followed Morris through a labyrinth of stairs and corridors until they stood at a counter in the basement where Morris requested the file on the deceased Elizabeth Wainwright.
‘I never thought I would say this, Arthur, but I have to thank the Germans for their early bombing raid today. I would never have questioned the identity of Elise Wainwright.’
‘It has certainly advanced the investigation. And we may just catch them, Clement.’
He wasn’t really sure what Arthur had meant by the remark. He would have asked had the woman not returned to the counter with a file in her hands. They sat at a wooden desk, one of many in the archive room.
‘Does it say anything about distinguishing marks?’ Clement whispered.
Morris’ eye scanned the document. He saw Morris raise his eyebrows and knew what that meant, but Elsie Wainwright's pregnancy had no relevance to their current enquiries.
‘There are no birthmarks listed,’ Morris said.
‘Not a birthmark as such,’ Clement said and he told Morris about the mole on the fourth toe.
Morris turned the pages to the list of the deceased’s possessions. Listed with the clothing and personal effects was a hand-written comment that upon removal of the water-sodden shoes and stockings, a plaster covering had been found on the fourth toe of the left foot but it had revealed a mole, not a wound.
Clement learned back in the chair. ‘Was Elsie Wainwright murdered?’
‘Cannot answer that, Clement.’
‘But you will investigate?’
‘Perhaps. My current priority is to find the girl purporting to be Elsie Wainwright, and Stanley Russell. It must be considered that Stanley might be another victim. Shall we call the imposter Jane, for now?’
Clement was thinking more Jezebel. ‘Why Jane?’
‘Plain Jane,’ Morris answered. ‘A simple name for a most complex woman.’
Clement smiled and began to share his thoughts on how Jane had entered the police station, and his theory about the smashed bottle.
‘Did you think to ask Anne Chambers where we can find her in future?’ Morris asked.
‘She lives in the Nurses Home at Charing Cross Hospital.’
‘Good.’
‘You seem convinced that Elsie, sorry Jane, is not acting alone,’ Clement said, but his statement had more to do with confirming the suspicion rather than challenging it.
‘I am pleased you have come to the same conclusion, Clement.’
They left the archives office and returned upstairs to the visiting police officer’s room. On the desk was a beige envelope marked for the attention of Chief Inspector Morris. He tore open the envelope, his alert eyes flowing over the document. Morris lifted his head, the report in his hand. ‘Nine millimetre. All three from the same weapon.’
‘A Sten?’ Clement asked.
Morris shook his head. The intense brown eyes settled on Clement. ‘Luger.’
