by John Gardner
Within three days of the first flying bombs 647 landed in the capital. Others were blown to pieces in the sky by the antiaircraft batteries ringing London, many were destroyed by fighter command aircraft, some were even deflected by pilots using a brave technique which called for fighters to manoeuvre their wingtips under the 103s stubby wings, so tipping the flying bombs onto a course away from their original targets.
The assault continued, night and day until the following year, though in September the V-1s were joined by the equally vicious V-2 rockets which came from the skies with no warning. The people of London and southern England who had been so defiant during the Blitz of the early forties, became nervous and fearful of the new threat: the psychological damage being as bad as the physical destruction.
Some five weeks later, on a Sunday morning, one of the flying bombs – now dubbed ‘doodlebugs’ – exploded near an Anglican convent in south London, an event inextricably linking the lives of Colonel Max Wachtel and Woman Detective Inspector Suzie Mountford: though it is doubtful if the colonel, commanding officer of Flak Regiment 155(W), ever knew.
CHAPTER TWO
‘So, where’re we going?’ she asked as they hustled down the stairs – couldn’t waste time waiting for the lift because Brian already had the car, the black Wolseley, waiting in front of the building.
‘Convent. Religious house. Like old times for you, heart.’ Tommy breathless, ought to take more exercise. In the car, Brian driving, Suzie in the back crammed between Shirley Cox and Ron Worrall.
Ron asked, ‘What’s going on, Chief?’ – They all called Tommy chief instead of the usual guv.
‘Three bodies, one wounded, result of enemy action.’ Tommy slewed himself around, looking straight at Ron who sat behind Brian. ‘One of this morning’s V-1s. Apparently one of them isn’t kosher.’
‘One of the V-1s?’ from Shirley, not paying attention.
‘One of the bodies, Shirl. Wake up. I’ve got no details except a part of the convent’s been seriously damaged and there are three fatalities.’
‘One of them not kosher,’ Suzie said, a bit cheeky.
‘Absolutely.’ Tommy paused, looked up at the mirror on the passenger side: he liked to have a mirror on the passenger side of his cars as well as the one normally placed for the driver. ‘That Emma?’ he asked and Brian lifted his hands off the wheel, making a little placating movement.
‘Yes, Chief,’ he nodded. Yes, it was Emma Penticost. ‘Said it was her duty to be with you. Following up in her own car.’
Tommy made a harrumphing noise. ‘Lucky to have her own car.’ Pause. ‘Takes it seriously, doesn’t she? Being my nanny. Full-time job, eh?’
It certainly is, Suzie thought, glancing back through the rear window to see the nose of Emma’s little black MG a few yards behind them, clinging on for dear life.
Brian drove fast, just within the limit, slipping neatly passed other cars as though trying to throw off a tail, giving them an occasional burst of the bell. All unmarked Metropolitan Police cars carried amplified electric bells to warn other drivers to keep their distance. Riding the ringer they called it and Brian was especially fond of using the bell. Sometimes he sang under his breath, ‘Ding-dong the witch is dead,’ from the Judy Garland film The Wizard of Oz. Suzie would sometimes look at Tommy and say, ‘Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.’
It took forty-two minutes to get there. Ten minutes to three on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon in the middle of August, 1944.
The Anglican convent of St Catherine of Siena lies between Silverhurst Road and Easter Park, taking up a huge slice of ground that once belonged to the Parish Church of St James, on the edge of the invisible frontier where Camberwell drains into Walworth.
Brian pulled over and they stopped, parking before the convent’s main entrance in Silverhurst Road, a big, smart signboard next to the door saying, Convent of St Catherine of Siena, Teacher of the Faith.
Tommy coughed, ‘Here we are then. Holy, Holy, Holy. All the Holies. Let’s get cracking.’
‘Who’s meeting us here from the local nick?’ Suzie had spotted a figure stepping towards them out of the shadow of the high grey wall into the blinding sunshine, reaching for the door on Tommy’s side.
‘According to Billy, their ranking plain-clothes officer. A DS, name of…’
‘… Magnus,’ she said, recognising him. ‘Philip Magnus. Pip Magnus. Watch him, Chief.’
Tommy nodded and opened his door before Pip Magnus got to it. Suzie slipped out and was on her feet by the time Tommy Livermore exited the car. Behind her Emma Penticost had parked her MG and now stood four paces behind the detective chief super’s left shoulder, a stunning athletic figure, prematurely ash-grey hair and that stance that would make even a jaywalker think twice. Emma, Tommy would say, was their secret weapon, their doodlebug, one of the very few police officers allowed to go armed. Certainly the only woman officer with that privilege.
Pip Magnus wore a grey double-breasted suit with fashionably wide lapels, the jacket a touch too tight, straining at the cross button, a grey trilby cocked to one side covering his thatch of straw-coloured hair, everything else in place: the thickset figure running to fat, rubbery lips and slightly bulging eyes, high colour in the cheeks. ‘Mr Livermore, sir. Good afternoon, we’re honoured, sir.’ Hand out, drawn back a little like the handle on a slot machine. ‘Detective Sergeant Magnus, sir. Pip Magnus.’
Tommy barely touched the hand, nodded and asked what it was all about and, as he did so, Magnus turned his head and saw Suzie. ‘Suzie!’ he said, registering a slight shock. and Tommy didn’t miss a beat.
‘WDI Mountford. You know each other?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Magnus hadn’t heard about her promotion. ‘Sorry, ma’am. Yes. Knew each other. Camford Hill. Lifetime ago. Met you there as well, sir. When you came over…’
‘Quite,’ Tommy said, ‘half a lifetime back.’ Suzie didn’t even open her mouth. Pip Magnus had been a close crony of DCI Tony ‘Big Toe’ Harvey, now in Wormwood Scrubs for being bent as a corkscrew. Suzie had served under Harvey and worked with Magnus when he was a detective constable. Slippery as the proverbial eel. ‘Might as well use grease instead of soap,’ someone had said of him.
‘Well?’ Tommy took a step past Magnus towards the convent door. ‘We going in among the holy ladies or not?’
Magnus put an arm out as though to bar his superior officer’s way. ‘No, sir. If you don’t mind … really I’d like to show you where the doodlebug came down. This way, sir,’ pointing towards Easter Park.
They could all see activity at the end of the road where it turned into Easter Park, with Easter Road running off to the right. Dust still hung in the air, vehicles were parked close to the wall and there was constant movement around what was obviously the incident.
Suzie glanced at the convent’s façade: dirty grey stone; three wide steps up to a solid, four-panelled oak door; three windows reaching away on either side, and three above on the second storey with an extra one above the door, the windows set into pointed arches and barred with grilles let into the stonework. Above the façade there were five stone decorative gables, the middle one containing a statue of St Catherine standing in a tall niche looking down benignly from the roof, a book open in her hand, the other raised in benediction.
Giving us her blessing, Suzie reckoned.
Away to the right a wall swept to the natural end of the road, slightly lower than the façade around the main door, all finished in the same way, big grey blocks of stone now blackened by the soot and dirt of London. You could always smell the soot in London and taste it at the back of your throat. Suzie knew that if she was put down blindfold in a London street she’d know immediately that she was in Britain’s capital. Nowadays you often smelt burning, and when it rained the scent of charred wood usually hung in the air, a legacy of the Blitz of 1940/41. As for the dust, there was plenty in London these days, dust laid in former centuries now unsealed by explosions and
again brought to light. Dust that had been laid four or five hundred years ago was now the dust and grit of the 1940s.
She followed Tommy, going towards Easter Park, walking the length of the boundary wall.
Another plain-clothes man came moving quickly from the direction of the park with a message for Magnus who excused himself and strode swiftly ahead.
Tommy dropped back. ‘Magnus?’ he asked.
‘One of “Big Toe” Harvey’s chums,’ Suzie supplied.
Tommy Livermore nodded. A thin grim smile. ‘Knew I’d seen him before. Right little darling as I recall.’
‘You had an idea he was the one tipped off Lavender. Made sure she got away in time.’
He nodded again.
This was all about Suzie’s first big case, the murder of a BBC female announcer in 1940 and the subsequent trail that led them to the psychotic, terrifying killer, Golly Goldfinch. Tommy Livermore had guided her through this frightening period of her life. Lavender was Goldfinch’s cousin, a West End tart who had motivated Golly, pushing him into his killing sprees.
* * *
In a way, Suzie thought, it was gratitude that had led her to becoming Tommy Livermore’s lover, though a deeper feeling had come with time.
Two open lorries with white ARP insignia on the doors and the hopeful word RESCUE stencilled white along the sides came jolting along the road, overtaking them, the dark blue overalled men in the rear whistling and chaiaiking at Suzie and Shirley Cox.
‘Nice to be fancied,’ Shirley said, echoing many women before and after her.
Magnus returned, hot and bothered. ‘We’ve had the first reports back from the hospital. Confirms what we’d found.’ Suzie thought he looked liverish. ‘You’ll have to go and take a look. It’s very odd. Just as we thought.’ And Tommy grunted, not committing himself.
They could now see the road ahead was cordoned off, allowing people to turn right into Easter Road, but denying access to the park. There was the constant sound and clatter of heavy manual work, the noise of bombed property being cleared and made safe.
Magnus gestured, suggesting they move to the other side of the road, were they passed two old and discoloured office blocks, a handful of shops, greengrocer, butcher and a haberdasher with practically nothing in its windows except a plethora of pink petticoats and armoured corsets. There should be a medal for any man who could get through that lot, Suzie thought, catching a glimpse of herself in the plate glass, amazingly not shattered by the blast of the explosion. Hardly recognised herself. Bloody hell, she thought, seeing her floral-patterned skirt whipped around her knees and thighs and her short hair looking a tangled mess. She felt hot, sweaty, fat and much older than her twenty-six years, but there she was, the same slender figure, the slim waist, straight back, no sloppiness here. But where was it all going, her youth, her life? Whizzing fast as any doodlebug. When she first moved into CID (the Criminal Investigation Department) in 1940 she had been just twenty-two. Now…?… didn’t bear thinking about.
Near Easter Park they passed a Church of England school, stamped in the same way as all those Victorian schools, carbon copies of each other, red-brick buildings, big arched windows, the little bell tower for the single bell to summon the weary children to their lessons.
Across the road, the convent wall turned abruptly at right angles, running a good hundred and fifty yards to form the rear boundary of the property. There was the hint of another wall within and in the far corner a short spire ran up from what could only be the chapel.
The flying bomb, the Fiesler 103, had landed some fifty yards inside Easter Park, gouging out a crater in which you could have hidden a couple of London double-decker buses, tearing up trees and the tarmacadam from a path running alongside the grubby grey convent wall.
On the corner the explosion had ripped away the stone blocks of the wall, laying bare three and a half rooms, hurling the stone inwards, bringing down the heavy ceilings. Three cells really. Cells for nuns, each with a simple iron bedstead, a stand chair and a prie-dieu, a crucifix on the wall: spartan little living spaces around ten feet by six, each uniformly whitewashed, grey now and dirty where they’d removed the debris. No sign of life except for the rescue men still busy clearing rock and starting to shore up what was left of the sagging ceilings.
The air smelt as though it was on fire and a curtain of dust appeared to hang permanently over the scene.
The Rescue team they had seen arriving had taken over from a section of ten men now relaxing on the grass, just outside the cordoned area, sipping large mugs of tea and munching on sandwiches provided by a WVS mobile canteen. A fire engine was also in attendance, its crew making the most of the canteen, and there was an ambulance parked nearby.
‘We’ve had to cordon this far back,’ Magnus explained. ‘Two of the cell doors’re damaged and can’t be locked,’ nodding towards the exposed rooms. ‘When the fire service boys and the rescue teams arrived there were nuns coming from the far side, trying to get to the bodies. Had to be told to go back. Bloody dangerous. Have to leave a guard down here all night of course. Some idiot on the piss, bet your pocketbook, will be in there and through into the convent. Raising all kinds of hell.’
‘Can’t raise hell in a convent. Three nuns, then? In there, three nuns?’ Tommy asked.
‘Novices, sir. Yes. Four actually, one’s in hospital, still alive. We went like the clappers to get them out so the crime scene’s ruined.’ Magnus hopped nervously from foot to foot, like a child in need of a urinal. ‘Three novices, Mr Livermore. Two of them killed by being knocked across their cells by blast and stone. Crushed. The other one was dead already they tell me. Had her throat cut. It wasn’t till they got her down the hospital that we were told for sure she wasn’t…’
‘Wasn’t a nun…?’ Tommy started.
‘… novice?’ Suzie asked.
‘No.’ Magnus shook his head. ‘Wasn’t a female. The third one, with her throat cut, wasn’t a her. He was a him, and his throat was cut, not by flying detritus but by a good, old-fashioned knife that we’ve yet to find.’
‘Oh, good,’ said DCS Tommy Livermore, always heavy on the irony.
CHAPTER THREE
They went down to the hospital to take a shufti at the bodies, not the most pleasant part of the day, getting on for five o’clock and four more V-1s falling not very far off, the sound of their popping, purring engines stopping making everyone clam up until the beast had exploded elsewhere.
Magnus was correct; one of the novices was a bloke, meat and two veg, the lot, and with his throat cut, ear to ear like a big extra pink mouth. The two women, both quite young, had been crushed horribly by great hunks of flying stone. Not a pretty sight, one with her neck obviously broken, the other with her chest stove in. Suzie thought of it like that, ‘chest stove in’ sounded like something from one of her brother’s books when he was fifteen or so, full of pirates, swashbuckling, full-blooded adventure and battles galore; people getting their chests and heads stove in.
When they’d marvelled at it all, Tommy talked to Magnus then sent Ron off to take a hard look at the three cells where the deaths had taken place.
‘No need to get your magnifying glass out, Ron. Those hairy great ARP Rescue people’ve been clumping all over the place. Even Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t find anything now. Have a good look round just the same. Bring your talents to bear and remember we’re still looking for a knife, something sharp that did the damage to the wolf in nun’s clothing, if that’s what he was. I’ll be down later for you to give me the sixpenny guided tour.’
Off he went, happy as Larry, maybe happier. Emma Penticost just stayed in the background, silent, and Tommy turned to Magnus, ‘What about the injured one? Sister…?’
‘Monica.’
Tommy nodded and sent Shirley off to find the missing nun. ‘Just get a general picture at this stage.’ Then, turning to Magnus, ‘You say they’ve been identified, the bodies?’
‘Two of them. Reverend Mother – M
other Ursula – took a gander at them on the grass. She got first look, didn’t recognise the bloke, only we didn’t know it was a bloke then. Made a good nun, he did, that bloke.’
‘You didn’t think it was a bit odd?’
‘What?’
‘Reverend Mother not being able to finger her … him?’
‘She said something about getting the Hovis Mistress – no, that’s not right…’
‘Novice Mistress,’ Suzie supplied.
Magnus gave a leery smirk. ‘That’s the one. She’s pretty old. Old and decrepit, that Mother Ursula.’
‘No need to be disrespectful, lad. With any luck we’ll all be old and decrepit one of these days.’ Tommy drawled, turning his head in Suzie’s direction. ‘Won’t we, heart?’
‘Yea, we should live so long,’ chuckled Magnus, and Tommy treated him to a withering look. ‘She was a bit confused as well, sir. Admitted to it. Said, “I’m a bit confused these days,” and there was a younger nun with her who nodded, agreed with her. I don’t think her eyesight’s up to much either, guv.’
‘Yes. Well.’ Tommy frowned. ‘So really, the three bodies haven’t been officially identified?’
‘No, guv.’
‘You think we ought to go and talk to her, Chief? The Reverend Mother?’ Suzie asked.
‘Yes. Definitely. We need to talk to her and we need to get the corpses identified. Someone official will have to do it in case the man was a regular visitor to the convent.’
‘I don’t think nuns have regular male visitors.’ It came out before Suzie could close her mouth: thinking aloud.
‘I’m aware of all that, heart. I meant, butcher, baker, candlestick … Oh, well.’
‘You want me in on that, sir, or…?’ Magnus left it hanging in the air.
‘No.’ Tommy firm, giving the impression that his dearest wish was to be a long way from Magnus. ‘Just remind me, the two women, the novices, which cells were they found in?’
‘One of them right at the far end, where the wall turns at the bottom of Easter Park. Then the one that’s a bloke, in the next cell. Then the younger nun.’
