‘If I’m not, the paper isn’t.’
‘Are you that important?’
‘I like them to think so.’ He straightened up, staggering sideways into my shoulder – the right one, fortunately. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s two more apologies than I ever had from the press before.’ I watched him with some concern and he flashed that smile again, though a little apologetically this time.
‘We are not all – what did your godfather used to call us?’
Sidney Grice was actually the godfather of my godmother but it wasn’t worth quibbling about.
‘The Vermin of Fleet Street,’ I reminded him.
Gregson grinned. ‘I like to think of myself as the Scribe of Straight Street.’
I had been into their Straight Street office once to place an advertisement for a lost tortoise and I had been most annoyed, after having spent sixpence, to get back to find her trundling home again.
‘Well, Mr Gregson,’ I said. ‘Let’s see how accurately and honestly you report this event. I’m sorry there is nothing much else I can tell you at present.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he vowed and I felt fairly sure he meant it, but I had trusted reporters in the past to my regret. ‘I can give you one scoop,’ I realised. ‘Police wish to interview a tall man in a long black coat and a floppy-brimmed hat seen running from the scene.’
I didn’t mention the gun. Perhaps I should have but I didn’t want to start a panic and I couldn’t help but believe that whoever fired that gun would have hit somebody or something if they had been aiming towards the dead man.
Gregson lit up. ‘The murderer?’
‘Did I say there was a murder?’
The newspaperman smiled. ‘You can’t blame me for trying.’
He was right about that, I couldn’t. I was only surprised he hadn’t tried harder.
After a coughing fit, Gregson made his way back to his office, declining my offer of assistance, and he was as good as his word. The headlines in the Gazette were a muted:
UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT AT SACKWATER RAILWAY STATION
but the other papers felt no need for such restraint. Bella Lugosi’s Dracula film was still showing in various venues around the country and clearly Dodo was not the only one to have seen it, for the Anglethorpe Advertiser trumpeted:
VAMPIRE MURDERS SACKWATER MAN IN BROAD DAYLIGHT
and, as if that was not bad enough, the Suffolk Courier proclaimed libellously:
POLICE STAND BY WHILE VAMPIRE STRIKES AGAIN
Again? I skimmed through the article. Apparently Freddy Smart had also been killed by one of Dracula’s acolytes. No wonder Sharkey was having trouble with his enquiries, I pondered. He was looking for a human being. It was the East Anglian Chronicle that really went out of their way to reassure its readers though, with the understated announcement:
SUFFOLK GRIPPED IN VAMPIRE TERROR
And I had thought we only had the Nazis to worry about.
34
SHAPES ACROSS THE MOON
Inspector Sharkey had been looking distinctly peaky recently. The long hours he was putting in trying to solve the Freddy Smart murder were not being rewarded. The Shark had rounded up every criminal on his books – including a member of the newly formed Oil Drum Gang, only to find out it was a musical comedy act – and he was getting nowhere. If anybody had any information about the murder of Freddy Smart, they were in no hurry to share it with Old Scrapie and the value of his kudos in the town was rapidly dwindling into overdraft.
Torn between envy of my getting a case to rival his and delight at my messing it up, my colleague took the second course.
‘Nobody saw anything that I didn’t,’ I told him in response to a gloating enquiry.
‘So you didn’t give chase to the killer?’ Sharkey ripped open a fresh pack of ten Senior Service.
‘I thought it more important to try to save a man’s life than to catch his attacker,’ I explained.
My colleague tilted back in his chair to strike a Winners match on the wall. The plaster was streaked in red lines beside him and the green lino splattered with black-rimmed craters from snapped-off heads when he had struck too hard.
‘And, in the end, you lost both of them,’ he reminded me with great satisfaction.
‘I do have one lead,’ I told him and, in response to a scowl, continued, ‘I hear the Oil Drum Gang might be behind it.’ I only wished I knew one of their songs to whistle as I left his office.
*
Vesty was going into his office. ‘Ah, Church, a word if you please.’
And suddenly I was the child going into the headmaster’s office.
‘Is something the matter, sir?’
‘Close the door.’ He installed himself behind his desk, which was at least twice the size of mine, every letter or file neatly stacked in piles all the same height and each, as far as I could judge, exactly half an inch apart like mosaic tiles waiting to be grouted. ‘Take a seat.’ Vesty wired a pair of half-rim glasses onto his rather splendidly hewn nose and picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Had a memo this morning about you.’ He peered over the top of the lenses. ‘You women, I mean.’
‘Oh yes?’ I said politely.
‘Yes.’ He turned it over. ‘Ah here we are.’ His voice changed, as people’s voices do when they read something out. ‘A female police officer is in all matters subordinate to the male.’ He folded the document in three. ‘To précis – a woman cannot give orders to a man and must accept instruction from him, even if he be lower in rank.’
I knew about this because, unlike most of my colleagues, I actually read the regulations, but I had hoped nobody else would find out. It meant that I was certainly inferior to Sharkey and, even more gratingly, in theory – and probably in practice – Walker or Rivers could give me orders and I knew that I could not work in such circumstances.
‘You will receive my resignation before the end of the day, sir,’ I told him.
Vesty banged his ear so hard it made me wince to watch. ‘Damn this tinnitus.’ He removed his glasses and continued, ‘This leaves me with a bit of a quandary.’
‘But I have just solved it for you.’ I almost wept in frustration at the stupidity and injustice of it all.
‘I hoped you would,’ he said and I felt my trimmed fingernails dig into my palms below his line of vision. ‘Because the problem is, I have nowhere to file this memo.’ He waved a hand like he was summoning a taxi. ‘As you can see, my office is completely chock-a-block.’ He lowered his arm slowly. ‘Bit of an imposition, I know,’ he hinged the wires of his spectacles flat with great care, ‘but I wonder if you might file it for me.’
I stared at my superior. ‘I think I can manage that, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Vesty passed it over. ‘Keep up the good work.’
I opened my mouth and got as far as, ‘Then…’ before Vesty looked up sharply.
‘That will be all, thank you, Inspector.’
*
Brigsy had gone home and I was about to when I picked up the phone as I passed his desk. Before I could speak, an overly well-modulated voice said, ‘Briggs, you old son of a sodomite, Fergusson from Anglethorpe – you know, the proper police station over the water. Hear you’ve got another juicy case on with that new girl trying to run the shop. Need a hand? I can pop over and cast the old beads over it if you like. Give it the benefit et cetera.’
‘Booger off,’ I said and hung up before he could work out that my very best Brigsy imitation was not very good at all.
Our blackout boards were slightly warped and I wedged the front few pages of a memorandum into the gap between them in case anyone came in during the night. I could think of a few people who would revel in the chance to report the police to the authorities.
I called in at Felicity House on the way back to Cressida. The hall floor was so greasy as to be slippery now and, with my excellent convent education, I could have written my name in the dust on the table.
‘What on earth d
id you do to your little friend?’ my mother demanded. ‘She came home looking like your father had done a full clearance.’
‘She did,’ my father concurred.
‘She is not my little friend,’ I objected. ‘She is a serving police officer.’
‘Even policewomen have feelings,’ my mother scolded.
‘Well, it’s taken you many a year to recognise that,’ I snapped.
‘Don’t be such a silly, Bettyboo,’ my father put in helpfully. ‘We’ve only known her a few weeks.’
‘Happy weeks.’ My mother clasped her hands in a silent prayer of thanksgiving.
‘But you haven’t even been to see if the poor little thing is all right,’ my father accused.
‘But that’s why I’m here now.’
‘Oh.’ My mother propped up her bosom. ‘Not to see us then?’
‘Well, of course that too.’ Police inspector slaughters parents, I thought but patted the air between us down. ‘Is she in my room?’
‘Well, it’s her room now,’ my father pointed out.
‘Nobody would blame me,’ I said, unintentionally, aloud.
‘If you’re talking about that expensive white fluted pedestal,’ my father called as I set foot on the first step, ‘we most certainly would.’
‘And don’t make a mess,’ my mother’s voice followed me.
‘Speaking of messes’ – I paused on the third step – ‘have you thought about getting a cleaner?’
‘We had Pooky,’ my mother reminded me.
‘Yes but—’
‘She left to make Spitfires,’ my father explained ploddingly as if we had only just met.
‘There are other cleaners.’ Even the bannister rail left a grubby mark on my hand.
‘Where?’ He looked around.
‘I can’t be having strangers in my house.’ My mother was wild-eyed, as if a horde of them was battering the door down to rape, pillage and smash the sacred pedestal.
It was useless, I knew, to argue that their income depended on having strangers in the house.
‘Perhaps you could do a little bit yourself,’ I suggested gently.
‘Cleaning?’ She could not have been more indignant if I had suggested she tried her hand at prostitution. ‘What am I – a skivvy?’
‘Is that all she is to you?’ My father looked almost as shocked. ‘You are talking about your mother, for heaven’s sake.’
I carried on up.
‘Where did we go wrong?’ my mother’s voice followed me.
‘We mustn’t blame ourselves,’ he reassured her.
For the first time in my life I knocked on my own bedroom door.
‘Come in if you’re good-looking.’ Dodo was sitting on the floor in my blue dressing gown with my dolls and teddy bears in a circle all around her. ‘Oh hello, B—Inspector,’ she beamed. ‘I’ve made lots of new friends today. Say hello, Archibald.’ She made the balding teddy wave a paw.
‘It’s Mr Fluffly,’ I bawled and wished, instantly, that I hadn’t, but if there was one thing Mr F hated doing, it was performing tricks.
35
THE SACKWATER SLAYINGS, AL JOLSON AND THE KAISER
I always arrived early for work. It gave me a chance to check the first post and get some paperwork done – plus it kept the men on their toes, knowing I was there and able to check they weren’t finishing the night shift early or starting the morning shift late. Brigsy usually beat me to it but he had the advantage of living round the corner. I do be round the bend, I do, he would tell people, bemused by their sniggers.
‘Let me know when Constable Chivers turns up,’ I told him as he stirred the pot.
‘You’ll know as soon as I do,’ he forecast with raised eyes.
Ever since Dodo had heard the ‘Three Little Fishies’ song she had taken to announcing her arrival with a boopety boop ditty boopa – her own approximation of the tune and lyrics.
I took my enamelled mug to my office and shuffled through the files. A vampire attack on a child in nearby Tringford had turned out to be a stray cat but the village constable – clearly feeling he was missing out – had seen fit to put in a report. A bat in a retired wrestler’s bedroom for which he called out the fire brigade (there being no anti-vampire service in Suffolk) was exactly that, a tiny harmless pipistrelle bat.
There was something I had been meaning to ask since the day I came. ‘Why’ – I nodded towards it – ‘do we have a jemmy on the wall behind the filing cabinet?’
‘Somebody drop ih here seven year gone by’ – Brigsy stood up slowly like the mummy encumbered by its bandages – ‘and we do be awaiting him coming back to look for ih we do.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Well.’ The sergeant leaned on his desk like a landlord ready to regale his customers with a well-honed anecdote. ‘You may well ask me thah. A month or so back you may well ask me if it’s likely we have a lady inspector and my answer would be the same.’
The front door opened a crack and a little face poked through.
‘Tuppin’ ’ell,’ Brigsy groaned.
‘May I gain admittance?’ a voice to match the face enquired.
‘Just this once let me say no,’ Brigsy begged between gritted teeth.
‘Come in, Miss Grim,’ I called.
‘Prim.’ She crept into the lobby. ‘I shan’t disturb you.’
‘Oh good.’ I slipped crabwise towards my office but Miss Prim scuttled cockroach-wise to cut off my escape.
‘But I know you have been avoiding me.’
‘Well—’ I hadn’t actually given her much thought since we met.
‘Because you are too shy or stubborn or silly to ask my advice.’
Or too sane.
‘I am a trained police officer—’ I began indignantly.
‘Yes but that is the trouble.’ Miss Prim pulled a crooked finger through the air. ‘You are looking for clues when you should be listening to your feelings.’
‘I shall bear that in mind,’ I assured her, confident that while a defendant’s lawyer might criticise evidence, he would, of course, never dream of questioning feminine intuition.
‘But fear not,’ she piped up.
‘Thank you very much, I won’t.’ I made another unsuccessful break for freedom but nobody could have told Miss Prim that little old ladies do not have lightning reactions, for her furled umbrella shot out like a rapier, blocking off the last line of my retreat.
‘Because I am here to help.’ A light smile slinked over her atrophied lips. ‘I have given a great deal of thought to the Sackwater Slayings, as I shall refer to them in my memoirs, and it appears to me that you have forgotten, as the murderer intended you to, about the real crime.’
I didn’t want to but something made me ask, ‘Which is?’
Miss Prim’s spectacle lenses glinted in the light over the desk.
‘Have you forgotten already?’ She sniffed reproachfully. ‘Why, the crime at the station, of course.’
‘But that was a murder too,’ I objected and Miss Prim tinkled in amusement.
‘Oh no, my dear. I am referring to the memorial bench.’
Miss Prim tapped the bench at her side, in case I had forgotten what the word meant.
‘So you think the murders were committed to distract attention from its theft?’
The tinkle became a neigh. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I dare say you have hardly given that crime a thought since you allowed yourself to be distracted by the vampire.’
‘There is no vampire, Miss Prim,’ I insisted. ‘And, even if there was, why would a vampire steal a railway bench?’
‘Haven’t you understood a word I said?’ Miss Prim closed her eyes patiently. ‘To distract you from your murder investigations, of course.’
Brigsy cleared his throat. ‘I did hear talk of a foreign man in the Copper Kettle in Tringford boastin’ ’bout havin’ a new bench, I did,’ he recited in oddly flat tones. Brigsy sighed heavily. ‘If Inspector Church allows me, I’ll be on the twe
nty-past bus and in that café snoopin’ about this very day.’
‘I can’t possibly spare you, Sergeant,’ I said and he did a passable imitation of a man imitating somebody looking disappointed. ‘And I shan’t allow anyone else to go there and take all the glory either.’
‘Well, I’ve detained you long enough,’ Miss Prim said more truthfully than she probably realised and skipped off as agilely as her aged skeleton allowed.
‘Inspired,’ I told Brigsy.
‘Who is?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘You.’
‘Had a bath night afore last.’ He bristled as much as any man with no bristles can.
The door opened again.
‘Like Piccalilli Circus,’ Brigsy complained, betraying the fact that he had never even been to London by transforming one of its most famous squares into a jar of tangy relish.
It was Sammy Sterne, the sweet-shop owner, and he looked utterly miserable.
‘I have been told to report here.’ He handed me two envelopes with the royal crest stamped on them and my heart sank, for I had seen a few of those already. ‘Yesterday I’m a good citizen – good enough to pay taxes at least.’ He flapped his hands. ‘Today I’m an enemy alien.’
‘You don’t have a British passport?’ I asked.
‘I never got round to it,’ he admitted.
‘What about Mrs Sterne?’ I tried without hope.
‘She has taken to her bed,’ he told me unhappily.
Brigsy read the letters. ‘She do be ordered to attend,’ he pointed out, ruefully, for we all knew Abbie Sterne. She made cakes for the children’s Christmas party, even though it was hardly her festival.
‘I tried to tell her.’ Sammy waved his hands around his head. ‘But she is overcome with terror we will have to go through it again.’
They had been interned in the last war but I had hoped they would have been naturalised by now.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll call in later, if that’s all right, to sort out the paperwork.’
‘Thank you.’ Sammy clasped my hand in both of his and I felt something being pressed into it before he trudged off, a jolly man who had made the mistake of coming from the wrong race in both the country of his birth and the country that had all but adopted him. I glanced down. It was a little bag of gobstoppers.
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