Ruined Stones

by Eric Reed

  She didn’t need to say more. Clearly anyone in the church would not have survived what must have been a direct hit.

  Above the blazing edifice hungry flames mounted to the sky. Grace and Mavis stood well back and gazed at the conflagration. It was hard to believe that out beyond the reach of the fire’s light and heat lay a bitterly cold December night.

  “Charlie and them are going to get themselves killed,” Mavis observed.

  Grace feared she was right. She couldn’t see how the men could possibly rescue anyone so close to the inferno without being burnt or crushed as more walls fell, and said so.

  It was the vicar, who had joined them, who provided the solution. “They’re going through a house a few doors down, into its backyard, down the back lane, and then over the backyard wall and into the rear of the house where the poor man’s trapped.”

  “I don’t see how Charlie can climb over a wall with that bad arm,” Mavis said.

  “He won’t have to. Someone will get over first and unlock the backyard door,” the vicar replied. “I wish I’d had the chance to go with them, but one of my flock needed comforting. Now it’s too late.”

  “I daresay there won’t be any lack of opportunities to help out in similar situations in future, Mr. Elliott,” Grace observed grimly.

  The church was enveloped in a boiling cloud of inky smoke illuminated from within by flames. There was a roar as its walls gave way. Grace felt the ground tremble under her feet. A pillar of dust, colored a strange pink by the fire, rose high into the sky. When the dust dissipated the church was gone.

  The vicar stared at it in silence with that peculiar askance look of his. Grace would have described his expression as serene, almost contemplative. But how could he remain so calm seeing the center of his life changed into a pile of rubble?

  “The Germans have saved the church authorities from needing to act. St Martha’s is being cleansed by fire,” he finally said.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Elliott?” Mavis asked.

  “A nasty business with a rat. It was on the same day I talked with a parishioner who imagined someone had stolen the host and committed evil acts with it at those wretched ruins. I’m sure you remember me telling you about it, Constable Baxter.” His gaze remained fixed on the flames. “This, however, this is real evil.”

  “Aye,” Mavis replied. “These fires are good beacons for the Huns, makes it much easier to come back and drop a bit more death and destruction. Let them get the waterworks and…” She broke off, coughing.

  Mr. Elliott excused himself and hurried off to comfort a crying woman some way down the street. Grace instructed those who were not needed to assist operations to go to the nearest public shelter until the all-clear sounded, wondering why they had not already left the scene.

  Glancing down the street she saw figures emerging from the house they had used as a way to get to the trapped man. A ragged cheer died away as the men approached. The limp burden slung over one man’s shoulder told its own story.

  Another mirror would have been turned to the wall, another clock stopped, were it not that both lay shattered in the roadway.

  They said it was seven years’ bad luck to break a mirror. But what, after all, could be worse luck than a man killed in his own home as the result of enemy action?

  Grace decided to go home, put on her uniform to demonstrate her right to give orders, and return to assist in whatever way she could. Leaving Mavis, who had decided to remain on the scene to help as much as she could, Grace walked down the street to where the destruction ended in houses whose back walls had collapsed but which had not, yet at least, caught fire. Passing by the entrance to the lane behind the destroyed houses, she saw two bicycles leaning against a backyard wall.

  She knew who owned a red bicycle.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “So you never took that cone of power business seriously? It was all a joke?” Jim asked. “What were you going to do to Rutherford if the Luftwaffe hadn’t arrived?”

  The two boys were standing on a pile of rubble in a backyard.

  “I’d brought me tin of paint. I was going to get the others to help tie him to one of them altars and paint him red. A sort of poke in the eye of this god he was going on about, see. But let’s get on with business.”

  “I don’t think we should, Stu. You said we was only going to take a gander.”

  The end of Stu’s cigarette flared red. He blew a ghostly cloud of smoke into the cold air. “Long as we’re here we might as well help ourselves to a few souvenirs. Nothing wrong with bringing souvenirs home from the war, is there?”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  “Yer soft, Jim. Look, old Mrs. Fenwick lives there.” He pointed to the house in front of them. The back had been peeled off like the lid of a sardine tin, revealing the interior. “Me mam says she’s richer than the Queen of Sheba.”

  “Why’s she living in Benwell then, if she’s so rich?”

  Stu ignored him. He scrambled up a slope of brick and masonry from which timbers jutted like broken bones. Lurid light from the church fire flickered across the scene, illuminating stairs leading up from the backyard to the space where a back door had once been. The stairway railing was gone, and the stairs themselves were covered in bricks and bits of wood.

  “We can’t get up there, it’s too dangerous,” Jim said.

  Stu sneered at him. “You can’t, you mean.”

  He put his foot on the first step. It felt solid enough. He started to climb.

  Halfway up he came to a spot where several steps were piled with debris, forcing him to step sideways with his back to the yard and pull himself across the gap. For a moment his legs swung over jagged masonry lying half a story below. He felt giddy and almost lost his grip on the step he was attempting to reach. “Bloody hell!” he muttered.

  “Come back down before you fall, Stu,” Jim called.

  “Too late for that, now I’m up here!”

  Stu’s heart was pounding and he was sweating despite the cold. He’d never had reason to give it any thought but now he realized he didn’t have much use for heights. He’d rather face a man with a knife than a long drop. He forced himself to continue. Shadows flickering across the rubble suggested a blind man’s hand groping for him, waiting to grab him and throw him to his death.

  Stop that, yer fool, he told himself. It’s just shadows thrown by the burning church, even if they do look like fingers.

  It occurred to him the Huns had destroyed a church but left the temple alone. He paused, contemplating the thought for a moment, then forced himself to continue.

  He couldn’t have said how many times the rattle as bricks fell into the yard or a subtle movement of those he was crawling over forced the breath out of him as he anticipated the inevitable fall. But finally he reached what was left of the scullery, cursing himself for his cowardice.

  He looked around. The floor was littered with broken dishes and glass. Exploring further he found a bedroom. The ceiling had fallen in. The air smelled of the plaster that crunched under his feet, its ghostly mantle over everything.

  The jewelry box sat on top of the chest of drawers. He brushed the dust off it, opened the lid, shone his torch on the contents, and whistled to himself.

  “It’s the bloody crown jewels!”

  ***

  Grace, now in uniform, stood in Stu McPherson’s bedroom. Stu slouched as far away from her as possible in the cramped space. Mrs. McPherson occupied the doorway. In her dirty pinny she looked both outraged and beaten down. “Oh Stu, looting houses before the smoke’s cleared! I would never have believed it.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” Stu said, not for the first time. “I was delivering messages.”

  “To a bombed house?”

  “You got me mixed up with another bloke, miss. Maybe you’re thinking of that Jim Ch
arles.”

  “It was you who climbed up to Mrs. Fenwick’s bedroom, not the other boy. And he didn’t take that box of jewelry home. I was watching you the whole time.”

  “Spying on us,” Stu said bitterly.

  The jewelry—the cheapest and gaudiest imaginable—was spread out on his eiderdown, along with a set of cutlery, two photo frames, several books, a handbag, and a binder holding gramophone records.

  Grace picked up the handbag and looked into it.

  There wasn’t much inside. A handkerchief, a comb, a couple of sweets, and an envelope containing a photo. Grace glanced at the photo. A man in uniform stood beside a young woman. The picture had been taken in a park. There was a kind of fairy-tale castle building in the background and nearer to the couple a column surmounted by an angel holding a wreath out at arm’s length. Her gaze moved down from the angel to the young woman’s face.

  It was the woman found dead in the temple ruins.

  Stu’s mother must have seen how Grace’s expression suddenly hardened. “He was a good boy before his brother was killed, miss. Will he get into much trouble?” Her voice quavered.

  “A great deal,” Grace replied. “Please go into the kitchen until I call you.”

  Stu’s mother shuffled away as Grace turned back to Stu.

  “We are going to have a talk, Stu, and I advise you to tell the truth. Where did you get this handbag?”

  Stu gave her a look of innocence mixed with insolence, a look he would probably have numerous occasions to employ in later life. “I didna kill her, honest. I’d been out visiting me marrers and on the way home stopped at the ruins, see, so I could catch this cat what hangs about there. Then I seen the tart on the ground.”

  “Why did you want to catch a cat?”

  “I wanted it for a pet.”

  Grace thought it more likely he wanted something small to torment. “Go on.”

  “Well, I sees she’s out of it, so I takes her bag. There was only a few bob in it. But there’s this girl I like, Mabel Greene, and I thought she might like a handbag for a present, so I—”

  “Did you touch the woman’s body?”

  “Never! I never did! I thought she was drunk. But next morning I seen she hadn’t moved, so I went and told the police.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and gave Grace a sly look she pretended not to notice.

  “She died from a head injury, Stu. Did you knock her down so you could steal her handbag? Maybe she tried to hold onto it and you pulled her over in the struggle?”

  “No, miss. I’d never rob anyone like that.”

  An all but imperceptible shift in his demeanor told Grace she’d hit upon the truth. “So you only rob bombed houses and drunks?”

  Stu shrugged. “That’s different, isn’t it?”

  “You’re out a lot after dark. Darkness is good cover for a boy up to no good,” Grace observed.

  Stu glared at her in defiance but he couldn’t keep his mouth from twitching into a smirk. “It’s fun following people in the blackout, scaring silly buggers like Rutherford. He’s afraid to turn around to look. But try proving I said that.”

  The boy was baiting her, she realised. “And the blackout is handy for hiding people painting swastikas on back doors and throwing paint over cemetery angels.”

  “Got no proof of that either, have you? Just guessing,” the boy sneered.

  “I don’t need to guess who nailed a rat to the church altar, Stu. But right now I’m more interested in the woman you robbed. Why did you arrange her the way you did?”

  “I told you already, miss. I never touched her.”

  Grace felt he was telling the truth. After all, the swastika on Mavis’ door had been the familiar German symbol. Was it possible then that the way the bodies had been laid out might have been a simple mistake, that whoever carried out the unpleasant job had meant to form a Nazi swastika?

  Now Stu had begun to smirk without any effort at concealment. Grace restrained her anger. “It’s no secret you wished the Dutchman dead. Did you try to kill him?”

  The smirk vanished. “If I’d tried to kill him, miss, I would’ve killed him and I’d make sure everybody knew it was me done him in! They give you medals for killing Huns, don’t they?”

  “You don’t get a medal for killing the wrong man.”

  Stu’s composure wavered. “What do you mean?”

  “He and Ronny Arkwright are about the same size. Leaving the Arkwrights’ home in blackout conditions, they might well be mistaken for one another.”

  “I know Ronny. I wouldn’t mistake him for a Hun!” He abruptly bent toward the bed and grabbed the record binder. “Look, I’ll give you this if you like, miss. It’s Mrs.. Arkwright’s. You can give it to her.”

  Mavis hadn’t mentioned stolen records to Grace. “You have just admitted breaking into Mrs. Arkwright’s home, Stu.”

  “If she gets them back she won’t care about making a complaint, will she? See, she wrote her name on them.”

  Stu opened the binder and pulled a record from its sleeve, bringing a ration book with it.

  He tried to grab the small book but Grace was too quick. Examining it, she saw blank spaces where a name and address should have been entered.

  “A blank ration book is worth something on the black market. Where did you get it?”

  “Honest, miss, I never seen it before. Must be Mrs. Arkwright’s.”

  Grace pulled another record from its sleeve. Mavis had, indeed, written her name on the label. Since these records belonged to her, why hadn’t she reported them as missing? Maybe she hadn’t noticed, she had so many.

  Grace found more ration books tucked into binder sleeves. “This is much more serious than frightening people in the blackout—”

  “I didn’t get them anywhere,” Stu interrupted, “and I never pinched them either.”

  “Then who gave them to you? Were you keeping them for someone?” Grace began to replace the handbag’s contents and paused.

  When she’d dumped the items out she’d missed the identity card in a pocket stitched to the lining.

  Pulling the card free, she opened it.

  The handbag belonged to Mona Collingwood. She had lived in Gateshead.

  At the same address as Phyllis Gibson.

  ***

  So the dead woman was the housemate Phyllis had complained had left her to pay the rent alone. The tarts who had told Grace they didn’t recognize Mona’s photograph had been truthful. Mona probably didn’t spend much time on the Benwell side of the river. Had Phyllis lied? Did she know, in fact, that Mona Collingwood was dead, murdered?

  Grace returned to her lodgings, having taken Stu and the stolen property to the police station and leaving both with the night shift. Stu would be charged and released.

  The maisonette was dark. Evidently Mavis was still assisting at the scene of the fire.

  A record had been left beside the gramophone. It was “She Had to Go and Lose it at the Astor,” an ironic coincidence, given the ration books Stu claimed to have known nothing about. Nevertheless, feeling guilty about suspecting Mavis, Grace picked up the record and looked in its sleeve.

  Nothing extra there.

  She examined a random selection of record binders piled here and there around the maisonette and found nothing unusual. There was only what would be expected in the chest of drawers, in a wardrobe stuffed with garments. Mavis must spend half her pay on clothes, Grace thought. Either that or she’d had generous boyfriends.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  It was mid-morning when Wallace followed Baines into the station kitchen. “Now you’ve here, sir, I’d like to talk to you about the contents of this file.” He slapped a folder on the cluttered table.

  Baines sat down without glancing at the folder. “Don’t be insubordinate, Wallace. Got a terrible headache
. Keep it short.”

  “It won’t take long. I say contents but there isn’t any. Where’s all the paperwork on the case? Have we been robbed by a burglar who only took the records about the girl found dead but didn’t bother with a tea caddy which actually has tea in it?”

  Baines leaned back in his chair, rubbed his forehead, and grimaced. “Oh, that. Not a problem, Wallace. I shoved the papers into an envelope and took them home to study. Left them on the tram. Reported the loss to the company and expect them to produce them any minute.”

  “You didn’t leave the request for missing persons information you were supposed to send to headquarters on the tram. I found it at the bottom of a pile of paperwork on your desk.”

  “Bloody hell, Wallace, you know the force is undermanned and things take time to—”

  “That’s as may be. I’ve asked headquarters for copies of anything they have relating to the case, so some of the missing paperwork at least can be replaced quickly. But the big news is we’ve got a real break. Grace was telling me about it. She had reason to search Stu McPherson’s bedroom and found the handbag belonging to our mystery woman. She’s a mystery no longer. There was a photo of her in the handbag, taken at Saltwell Park over in Gateshead. Her identity card shows she was Phyllis Gibson’s housemate Mona Collingwood.”

  Baines sat up. “Phyllis Gibson?” There was an edge to his voice that Wallace guessed was more than mere irritation.

  “The very same. Yet when Grace and I interviewed Phyllis the other day she only mentioned that her housemate had scarpered. Made it sound as if she’d left to avoid helping with the rent.”

  “Probably thought she had. Nothing strange about it, Wallace. These girls are always going missing for a few days. Then they come back with a grin and more pounds than usual in their purses.”

  Wallace thought Baines seemed at pains to defend the former Benwell resident.