The White Feather Killer

by R. N. Morris

  ‘Don’t get clever with me, sonny.’

  ‘Ain’t no need for this, you know. If you’d just knocked on the door, I would have let you in. Now look at the damage you’ve done. It was bad enough when that rabble came round and started throwing bricks and stole all our meat and all.’ Egger shook his head forlornly.

  Coddington was striding towards him, brandishing a pair of handcuffs. ‘William Egger, you’re under arrest for the murder of Eve Cardew.’

  ‘Murder? What you talking about?’

  It took Egger a moment to weigh up the situation. He must have seen something in the eyes of the men gathered there outside his dead father’s shop. He must have seen their muscular bodies tense and flex in preparation for closing in on him. He must have sensed the coming of the command that would seal his fate. His eyes, already hopeless, grew desperate. He slammed the door to. Quinn heard the lock turn, a bolt slide into place.

  ‘That went well,’ was Inchball’s muttered wry aside.

  Coddington caught Quinn watching him. ‘An innocent man would not seek to evade arrest.’ Quinn had the impression that Coddington was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

  ‘No, but a frightened man might.’

  Coddington stuck to his theme. ‘An innocent man has nothing to fear.’

  ‘Do you really think that’s how he sees it, after what was done to his shop? After what happened to his father? He might have expected to look to the police for protection. Instead, he finds we have come to arrest him. Put yourself in his shoes, Coddington.’

  With perfect equanimity Coddington nodded for the policeman with the axe to resume his assault on the panel. Again Quinn detected that tremor of uncertainty in his eyes. ‘Truncheons out, men!’ he shouted, his voice suddenly hoarse and strained.

  The axe was the kind used by firemen, long-handled with a massive blade, as sharp-edged and merciless as sunlight in an empty sky. It was a serious weapon, professional and deadly.

  It was mesmerizing to watch the axehead bear down. It made short work of the flimsy panel. The rhythm of the blows was steady and merciless, although the timbre of the hacking modulated as the chipboard broke into smithereens.

  The bobby stood now with his legs apart, the axe held in front of him in both hands. His pose said, Anything else you’d like me to smash?

  Now with his truncheon in hand, Coddington stepped forward and peered gingerly into the ragged gap created. Leversedge was right behind him, so that when Coddington stepped unexpectedly back, he trod on the other man’s boots.

  ‘What the Devil are you playing at, Leversedge?’

  ‘Sorry, guv. I thought you were going in.’

  ‘That’s not the procedure. You know that. I was simply having a look-see so that I can direct operations more efficiently. I’m the commander. The brains. I don’t do the heavy lifting.’ Coddington cast a sly look at Quinn. ‘Inchball.’

  ‘Yes, sir, DCI Coddington, sir.’ Inchball clicked his heels and gave a salute. Quinn could only believe it was meant sarcastically.

  ‘Take as many coppers as you want and get him.’

  Inchball pointed to a handful of uniforms. They quickly mustered into a line behind him. One hand on his bowler, he ducked his head down and led the way in through the wreckage of the chipboard panel.

  A tense moment stretched into a tense quarter of an hour. Quinn kept his eye on Coddington, who was getting twitchier with every minute that went by.

  Eventually, one of the constables popped his head out of the ragged hole in the chipboard panel. ‘Beggin’ your pardons, sirs, but he’s asking for DCI Quinn.’

  ‘Who is?’ Coddington’s eyes bulged in outrage.

  ‘The suspect, sir. He’s saying he’ll only hand himself in to the famous Quick-fire Quinn what he’s read about in the papers.’

  Coddington’s jaw was trembling now. His nose twitched into a snarl. His eyes narrowed as he flashed a look of focused hatred in Quinn’s direction. Quinn realized this was a man close to breaking point.

  ‘Believe me, Coddington, I no more want this than you do.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Surely the important thing is that we extract this fellow without anyone getting hurt? If that is what you wish to accomplish, then I place myself at your disposal.’

  ‘I see what you’re doing here, Quinn.’

  Quinn suppressed a groan. ‘I’m not doing anything, Coddington. Other than trying to make myself useful.’

  ‘You want to take the credit.’

  Quinn resisted the temptation to say that he was not convinced there would be any credit. ‘If I go in, it will be on your orders. The credit will be all yours.’

  Quinn could see the calculations taking place behind the other man’s eyes.

  ‘And if anything goes wrong, I’ll be the one in the firing line.’

  A look of dull cunning dawned across Coddington’s face. He impelled Quinn into the butcher’s shop with a callous nod.

  THIRTY

  Quinn stepped through into a shuttered darkness. What light there was gatecrashed in behind him, prurient and blinking. A pungent odour filled the gloom, the heavy, hanging air of blood and meat. The smell felt oddly familiar to Quinn, like an unhappy homecoming.

  The constable who had beckoned him in stood alone in the middle of the shop.

  ‘Where’s Sergeant Inchball?’

  ‘This way, sir.’

  The policeman lifted the flap to the marble counter and stood aside for Quinn to enter. ‘They’re in the back, sir.’

  There was a door to one side. Quinn opened it on to an over-furnished parlour typical of a well-to-do family, for the most part conservative and conventional. Here and there, little flashes of individuality jumped out. A painting of a pied pig with large ears hanging down over its face. Another pig, this time cast in brass and with a set of wings on its back, was mounted on the wall as if in flight.

  Pride of place was given to a dresser displaying examples of Dresden china, the only indication of the dead man’s Germanic origins that Quinn could see.

  The room was incongruously bright and cheery after the shop, and even more incongruously crowded with policemen. A woman in a black dress sat on a divan, assiduously dabbing at a dampness that would not go away beneath her eyes. The pork butcher’s widow, by the looks of her. An English matron from the stolid, respectable mould.

  Her son stood on the hearthrug with his arms crossed and legs spread in a defiant pose, facing off the policemen.

  He looked up at Quinn’s entrance. ‘Is this ’im?’

  Inchball confirmed Quinn’s identity.

  ‘I thought ’e would be more …’ William Egger broke off, squinting at Quinn in dissatisfaction.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I dunno … dashing or something.’

  ‘Why did you ask for me, Mr Egger?’

  Sergeant Inchball cut in. ‘’S’my fault, guv. I told ’im you was ’ere.’

  ‘I wanted take a look at you, di’n’ I? You’re famous, ain’t ya?’

  ‘And now that you have?’

  ‘I ain’t killed that girl. It was ’orrible what she did. And it killed Dad, you know. She killed ’im, as sure as if she’d fired a gun at his heart. But I di’n’ kill ’er. What kind of a monster do you think I am?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a monster at all.’

  ‘She used to come in the shop, you know. When she was a little girl. Dad would make an almighty fuss of her. That was ’is way. He loved those people. They was ’is people. All those people, all those people what came ’ere and smashed our windows and stole our meat. He thought they were ’is friends. Look what they did. Look what she made ’em do.’

  ‘I think the best thing you could do is come with me to the station. You can tell your side of the story. We can get this whole thing cleared up.’

  ‘Ain’t I under arrest? That bloke out there …’

  ‘Don’t you worry about him. If you’re telling the truth, you have
nothing to fear. There has been a tip-off from a member of the public. We are obliged to look into it. If you come in voluntarily, it will be better. Trust me.’

  ‘The police did nothing when it all kicked off. There was a copper there but he did nothing, I tell you. He just stood there and watched.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I ain’t a murderer. I ain’t even German. I was going to enlist. Now how can I, with Dad dead and Mum all on ’er own? She needs me ’ere, she does.’

  ‘Come and say all this to the officers investigating the murder. It will help your case.’

  William Egger went over to his mother and knelt down in front of her. ‘What do you think, Mum?’

  His mother dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and nodded.

  Egger stood up and turned to Quinn. ‘Let’s go then.’

  Quinn gave a brief nod of assent. The hand of one of the uniforms came down on Egger’s shoulder. Egger tensed as the copper yanked his arm up to clap on the handcuffs. ‘Go easy! I said I was coming, didn’t I?’ He glared at Quinn.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Quinn. ‘There’s no need for handcuffs. Mr Egger is cooperating.’

  The copper blew out his cheeks. Then his face settled into a crestfallen look, as if he had been cheated of a privilege he had every right to expect.

  PART VI

  A House of Grief

  16–17 September, 1914.

  THEY THOUGHT HE WAS A SPY.

  An eminently respectable journalist friend of mine, who went to St Albans yesterday to see how the Territorials there were enjoying themselves, had an amusing experience, which, however, shows how thoroughly the authorities are guarding against spies. He had taken a note or two, when unexpectedly he was tapped on the shoulder by a corporal and challenged as to his business.

  Inquired Before Released.

  “I said I was a reporter,” he told me, “and I was thereupon marched off to the nearest guardroom between four soldiers. I was kept there for about half an hour, and then marched to the City Police Station, where enquiries at my office established my identity and I was allowed to go. There was some good-natured chaff between the corporal in charge of the escort and the police inspector, who asked him if I looked like a German.”

  Daily Mirror, Wednesday, 16 September, 1914

  THIRTY-ONE

  Outside the interview room, Quinn did his best to convince Coddington of Egger’s innocence.

  ‘I don’t believe he did it. It doesn’t fit with anything else we know. The soldier who shot Macadam. The white feather in the victim’s mouth.’

  Coddington’s prodigious moustache twitched impatiently. ‘What’s the white feather got to do with anything? You’re always trying to complicate things, Quinn. You get bogged down in irrelevant details. What it comes down to is this: we have a motive. That’s good enough for me.’ The familiar look of stupidity masquerading as cunning flashed across his eyes. It seemed that Coddington had thought of the clincher. ‘If he’s innocent, why did he resist arrest?’

  Quinn stifled a groan. You really never got anywhere with this man. ‘He didn’t resist arrest. He cooperated.’

  ‘He shut the door on us.’

  ‘He panicked. Then, when I’d had a chance to talk to him, he came voluntarily. We didn’t even have to cuff him.’

  ‘And whose stupid idea was that? Don’t you know anything about procedure? What if he’d turned nasty?’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  Coddington shook his head. ‘You’re a bloody liability, Quinn.’

  ‘We need to follow up the lead of the soldier Macadam saw. Talk to the CO of the Royal Fusiliers. Find out if they have had any deserters.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me how to run my investigation?’

  ‘I’m trying to help. I’ll do it if you don’t have the men. I don’t want you making a mistake, Coddington.’

  That was clearly the last straw as far as Coddington was concerned. His moustache trembled with rage.

  The door to the interview room swung to in Quinn’s face.

  Quinn found his former sergeant at his desk. ‘What the Devil are you doing there?’

  Inchball sat up, flushing at the injustice of Quinn’s accusatory tone. ‘Well, they won’t let me in there with ’im, will they?’

  ‘What about that sketch? We need to ID that soldier. Or have you forgotten?’

  Inchball sprang to his feet. ‘I’ll get on to it.’

  Quinn knew that he had no real authority over Inchball any more, but old habits died hard. Judging by the speed Inchball dashed off to find the police artist, it seemed that was true for both of them.

  ‘I need your help.’

  Miss Latterly – Lettice – looked up from her typewriter. Her look was anxious, concerned – and sincere. She must have detected something in Quinn’s voice that caused her to put aside her usual armoury of spiky irony. Whatever she had heard was evidently confirmed by her impression of his demeanour. She sat up, took notice, and said nothing.

  Quinn flashed a persecuted glance about him. He dropped his voice to an urgent whisper. ‘I need you to go into Coddington’s office. There’s a case file in there. I need you to look at it for me. If I do it, they’ll see. You can go in there and they’ll assume you have a reason.’ Again his eyes flicked warily from side to side, on the lookout for his enemies.

  Lettice got to her feet without demur. For a split second, Quinn was startled by her compliance. And then it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it really was this simple. All he had to do was show her that he needed her and she would come to his aid.

  ‘I’d better bring something with me. Some papers. There’s this. A memo from Sir Edward which he wants circulating to all the senior officers.’

  She was a bright girl. He hadn’t thought of that: a cover.

  ‘I can give some to the other officers and then go into his office.’

  ‘We have to be quick though. I don’t know how long we have.’ Quinn explained what he needed her to do. Just once, in a few brief words. She nodded once, understanding fully. Taking in the gravity of it too.

  Then they walked in silence back to CID. There were things Quinn wanted to say to her, and possibly things she needed to say to him. But now was not the time. The urgency of their shared endeavour bound them together as no words could.

  They split up before they got to the department. Quinn went ahead and sat back down at his desk. Lettice came in a few minutes later. She did not look at him. Not even when she dropped a copy of the memo on his desk. Quinn tried to watch her without looking at her, looking in every direction except where he sensed she was, aiming to catch sight of her as his gaze swept distractedly from one part of the room to another. In between such glances, he had his head bowed over the sack of mail that he had been given to sort through. As he pulled each letter out, he cast a seemingly bored glance about him. If anyone sought to meet his eye, he would not flinch away.

  He saw her just as she disappeared into Coddington’s office, and was careful not to let his gaze linger, instead returning his attention to the bottomless sack.

  She needed to be quick. Everyone in the department had seen her. What Quinn had to hope was that she had become invisible to them now. They had registered her and forgotten her, so that if she needed more time to find the information that Quinn wanted from Coddington’s office, then no one would grow suspicious. The arrest of William Egger helped. Most of Coddington’s detectives would be thinking about the breakthrough in the case. They would be excited, distracted, complacent. They wouldn’t give a second thought to the female secretarial worker going about her business, unless it was to speculate unpleasantly about her. That was the danger. Quinn knew what a lot of dirty-minded bastards they were. He’d heard the banter, seen the leers and picked up the rumours of coppers abusing their positions to extort sexual favours from women. Miss Latterly was an attractive young woman. She would be a natural target for their smutty interest.

  Quin
n cast a slow, sweeping gaze around the room.

  There was the possibility – a possibility almost too painful to acknowledge – that news of his liaison with Lettice had got about. He knew how policemen liked to gossip. The place was a rumour mill. Perhaps they had been seen out together. Or someone had overheard their fervid whispering outside Sir Edward’s office. That would make her an object of suspicion to Quinn’s enemies. And God knew, there were enough of those about.

  Quinn looked back down at the pile of letters on his desk and picked one out. Feigning some kind of vague investigative purpose, he held it up to the light to examine it. In the process of lowering it, he was able to sneak a look at Coddington’s door.

  She had still not come out. Quinn’s heart began to pound. This was taking too long.

  He was powerless to act. And that made it intolerable. The anxiety of just sitting and watching was far more stressful than any active police operation he had been engaged on. He should never have involved her in this.

  Suddenly the sound of bellowing laughter alerted Quinn to the return of the Coddersedge hydra. His pulse rate spiked and he glared desperately at the door to Coddington’s office. Coddington and Leversedge were making brisk progress towards it. There was no chance to cut them off without arousing suspicion. Better to let her brazen it out. The chances were she would hear their voices and leave the office nonchalantly, making some remark about just dropping off a memo from Sir Edward. They might be suspicious if they had heard any rumours about him and Miss Latterly, but otherwise it was a natural enough occurrence.

  Coddington and Leversedge made it to the door of the office and stopped to continue their conversation.

  She had to come out now. If she took any longer it would be obvious that she had been snooping in there.

  But still she did not come out.

  Coddington disappeared inside his office.

  Quinn waited for the inevitable fireworks. They did not come.

  Gradually his heartbeat returned to its normal rate. He stared fixedly at the letter in his hand but could make no sense of it.