Ruined Stones

by Eric Reed

  He’d seated himself near the front. Not wanting to appear suspicious, Grace plumped down next to him. “Wallace asked me to deliver papers to headquarters.” She patted the pocket holding the note pad.

  “A bit late, isn’t it? You ought to be on your way home now.”

  “I’m going shopping afterward.”

  “Oh?”

  “At Binns,” she added, then realised she had no idea where Binns was located.

  Luckily Baines wasn’t really paying attention. As the tram clattered on he lapsed into silence. Once he frowned. “Miss Baxter, you don’t have your gas mask with you!”

  “Neither do you, sir.”

  After that he was silent, leaving the tram at the Central Station. When they parted Grace did her best to lose herself in the crowd. As she looked back, he caught a Gateshead tram, just as she and Wallace had when they visited Phyllis Gibson.

  Could Baines be going to interview Phyllis? Why?

  Because Mona Collingwood had been Phyllis’ housemate. But why would Baines suddenly involve himself with a case he’d been ignoring?

  Grace couldn’t very well follow Baines on the same tram after having claimed she was on her way to headquarters. She waited and took the next tram instead, having resolved to go straight to Phyllis Gibson’s home.

  This time, crossing the High Level Bridge, Grace began to get nervous. What if her superior was there? Then what? It was reasonable for him to interview someone who knew the victim, although he shouldn’t be doing it in an impaired state.

  Yet she didn’t think it was an official visit. There was that phone call before he departed the police station in a hurry.

  There was really no way to know what was going on, nothing to do but take the leap or not.

  Grace decided to leap.

  ***

  Phyllis wore curlers and a flowered dress similar to the one she’d worn during Grace’s first visit. This time the flowers were bright yellow. She didn’t seem surprised to see Grace. She looked too exhausted for surprise or any other emotion. She had obviously been crying.

  “You might as well come in, miss.”

  Baines sprawled in an armchair facing the front window, sunlight framing him in a bright square. His eyeglasses were askew. “Good God, Phyllis!” He slurred her name. “What do you think you’re doing letting—?”

  Phyllis told him to shut up, invited Grace to take a seat, and offered her tea.

  Baines rose laboriously, steadying himself on the chair arm, and went to the table where he sat slumped forward, not looking at the women.

  Grace glanced at him and then at Phyllis.

  “Yes, we know each other,” Phyllis confirmed. “We’ve known each other for years. We met on the job. He was on his and I was on mine. A regular workplace romance, it was.”

  She fetched a cup for Grace. “I hear you gave my daughter, Veronica, a nice Christmas present, miss. Thanks. I couldn’t do as much as usual for her this year. Things have been a little tight since my housemate vanished. Only found out today you bluebottles know she was the woman found at the temple. Took the local coppers coming round to tell me.” She turned to Baines. “Why didn’t you tell me, you bloody bastard?”

  “I would have told you. You didn’t need to call me at the station.”

  “When? When would you have told me, Joe?”

  “Soon. I didn’t want to worry you. Tried to keep the police out of it,” he muttered.

  “So you say,” Phyllis replied. “Seems like you failed, seeing as the police are here.”

  “If you hadn’t rung up the station all hysterical insisting I get over here right away, she wouldn’t have followed me!”

  Since she expected at the very least a reprimand on her record for following Baines and on the principle of in for a penny, in for a pound, Grace seized the opportunity Phyllis offered. “The lost paperwork, sir. Does that mean you didn’t want us investigating Mona’s death in case it led us here?”

  Baines gave her a grim smile. “Oh, but I did want you investigating. You personally, Miss Baxter. Why do you think I’d put a raw newcomer on a murder case? And a woman, to boot? I was sure you and that broken down old fool, Wallace, would never find anything out.”

  “Shows what you know, Joe,” put in Phyllis. “Women aren’t so stupid as you suppose. Was Mona blackmailing you? It wouldn’t do your career any good if it came out you were having an affair with me, a prostitute.”

  Abruptly there was a gun in Baines’ hand.

  “You looked in my handbag when I answered the door!” Phyllis shouted in outrage. “What else did you steal, you swine?”

  Baines shrugged. “Illegal weapon. Shouldn’t have it. Useful for a personal quick exit, though.”

  “But why?” Grace demanded, horrified.

  “Do you think I haven’t felt like it ever since the night of the bombing? I killed her, her and the kids.”

  “Joe, stop!”

  The gun swung toward Phyllis.

  Grace flung her cup at Baines’ head. Throwing up his hands to protect his face from hot tea, he dropped the weapon. Grace retrieved it from under the table.

  “It’s mine,” Phyllis said, holding out her hand. “Like I said, my line of work is dangerous. These days I feel safer carrying it when I go out in the blackout. You never know who you might meet on a dark street.”

  Baines got up abruptly and left the house, slamming the door.

  “I would feel a lot safer if I actually had any bullets for it,” Phyllis continued after a moment.

  “What does he mean he killed his wife and family?”

  “He wasn’t at home at the time they died. It was a direct hit. He was with me at the time, you see, and feels so guilty about it he’s gone to pieces. He can’t forgive himself.”

  Forgiven. That’s what the message at the séance must have meant, Grace thought. If it had indeed been sent by Baines’ wife.

  Phyllis stared at her. “I love him,” she went on. “What in bloody hell’s wrong with me?”

  ***

  Grace sat propped up on her bed, the bedroom door shut. She needed to be alone. She liked to think while walking, but the streets of Newcastle were too dark and cold for that, so she sought solitude, telling Mavis she wasn’t feeling well.

  She heard Hans come in. She should have gone into the kitchen to say hello but she didn’t have the energy. Instead she picked up her mother’s Bible and leafed through its pages, searching out colloquies between her mother and grandmother.

  Pausing at their lengthy duel over the witch of Endor, she thought of the séance.

  What would the vicar say about attending such meetings? She recalled Mr. Elliott staring into the flaming church. This is real evil, he had said. Worse than the sacrilege committed with the rat, worse than any imagined rituals carried out at the temple with a stolen host.

  From the kitchen came the sound of Geraldo and his Gaucho Tango Orchestra.

  She set the Bible down on the chest of drawers, next to a couple of Mavis’ crisp bars.

  Whether it was her wise woman’s blood or her subconscious at work, Grace could not say, but whatever the cause, the solution to the dual mystery came in a sudden silent explosion of realization, blowing everything else she had imagined away with the force of a bomb.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “I could just fancy a bit of one of those crisp bars of yours, Hans.” Grace took a seat at the kitchen table where Mavis and Hans were sitting talking.

  “Certainly, Miss Grace.” Hans pulled an opened packet from his shirt pocket, as he had on the night of the dance, and snapped off a piece of the chocolate-covered wafer.

  “Thanks.” Grace took a bite. “I would have thought these were hard to come by.”

  “He’s a canny shopper and he knows I like them,” Mavis replied with a wink.
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br />   “At least Stu didn’t take any the night he broke in.”

  Mavis looked perplexed. “What’s this, then? I told you I made a mistake about that.”

  “You were right the first time, Mavis. You were burgled, but I suppose you wouldn’t miss one record binder with so many scattered around. Stu had taken it. You came back too early and interrupted him, so it was all he could get.”

  “So he really did break in, the little swine? Well, no harm done.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Grace said slowly.

  “You’re acting very mysterious, Grace,” Mavis observed.

  Hans frowned in concern. “Is it because you are feeling unwell?”

  “Worried rather than ill. Did anyone from the station come round to see you today, Mavis?”

  “No. Why would they?”

  “To interview you about the ration books hidden in the stolen record binder. Where did you get them?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about! You said Stu had it. So obviously it was Stu who hid them.”

  “That makes sense, I admit, but from his reaction when we found them I could see he was genuinely surprised. Oranges. Now I’m thinking about oranges. Hard things to get, oranges.”

  Hans tried to smile. “Everyone buys a little extra now and then when nobody is looking. It is the custom, is it not?”

  “Really, Grace!” Mavis said, flushing with anger.

  “You know Ronny’s old acquaintances, Mavis.”

  “I do but I avoid them.”

  “Sefton visited you,” Grace pointed out.

  “Couldn’t stop him paying his respects to me dead husband, could I?”

  “Sefton told Wallace Ronny planned to get into the black market using foreign refugees in some way. As I said, I’m thinking about oranges.” She glanced at Hans.

  “You’re not accusing Hans?”

  Grace ignored the question. “And what about you, Mavis? Extra money from dealing on it would be very useful.”

  Mavis leaned back in her chair. “What are you getting at, Grace? If I was involved in illegal goings-on why would I have a bluebottle for a lodger?”

  “Camouflage. And perfectly safe. It would be easy to pull the wool over the eyes of a simple woman from the countryside, wouldn’t it?”

  Hans cast a worried look at Mavis as Grace continued. “Let us say you contacted some of Ronny’s former associates and recruited Hans to help you. Whatever the details might be, you both profited. Then Ronny came home and he wasn’t happy to find you in the same line of business he intended to take up, particularly since your partner was someone he thought was your fancy man.”

  “So what if I happened to get hold of a few ration books? Which I’m not admitting by any means, mind, so don’t think I am.”

  “They don’t leave ration books lying around at Vickers,” Grace pointed out. “More importantly, not everyone dealing in the black market ends up so close to murder.”

  “You mean Ronny and the dead woman? Isn’t it obvious she and Ronny were murdered by the same person?”

  “The woman’s name is Mona. Give her that much respect, Mavis. Stu robbed her and it appears possible he killed her by accident, pushing her over when he grabbed her bag. Seems to me if he meant to kill her, given his character, he would be far more likely to stab her. Cyril Rutherford’s admitted he arranged Mona’s limbs and claims it was a sort of cry for help to the god of the temple.”

  “Well, there you have it. Rutherford’s mad. Obviously he attacked Ronny while he was wandering about after visiting every pub in Benwell, if I know Ronny.”

  “Ronny never went to the temple. He came back here to resume his argument with you. Hans returned just in case things got out of hand,” Grace replied. “Stu told me he saw him hanging around the night Ronny was killed.”

  “Stu!” Mavis spat the name out. “You’re quick to believe that little bugger!”

  “It seems to me it fits together.” Grace paused, feeling she had come to the edge of the precipice.

  She looked at Hans in silence.

  “No, Miss Grace!” Hans shook his head. “I would not kill anyone!”

  “Not deliberately, Hans, but you have episodes when you’re not right. Joop told me about them and I saw one myself at the cinema.”

  Mavis laughed bitterly. “Hans? A murderer? Next you’ll be accusing me of helping him!”

  “Mavis, you forget I saw Ronny threatening you, saw your bloody nose. Right now I am speaking as a friend, pointing out what will weigh heavily with the authorities, which is that Hans fled that night. It was suspicious behaviour, to say the least.”

  “They might also consider what I just said about where Ronny was found,” Mavis emphatically pointed out. “And furthermore you can start looking for new lodgings tomorrow. Accusing us of black marketeering and murder!”

  “It wouldn’t be hard for Hans to carry Ronny to the place he was found,” Grace continued relentlessly. “It’s barely a step up the back lane and across Chandler Street, and in the blackout nobody could see him anyway. And Hans knew, because I told him myself, Mona’s body was laid out in the form of a swastika. A left-handed swastika. Arranging Ronny like Mona would make the authorities think Ronny’s murderer was the same person.”

  “But Miss Grace, how can you possibly think that?” Hans protested.

  “The vicar told me a parishioner found what she thought was a piece of the host over there. Those crisp bars you carry around in your shirt pocket have wafers in them. One must have dropped out, while…while…” Grace’s voice broke.

  “You’re a bloody fool, Grace! What kind of proof is that? Anyone could have dropped it, and you damn well know it!” Mavis was scarlet with anger. “I don’t care how late it is, we’re going over to the station right now and you can tell them what you have to say. See what good it does you. And when we get back, you can start packing.”

  They got their jackets.

  ***

  Stu waited, hiding in a doorway on Carter Street. The blackout was so impenetrable he could have stood in the middle of the street without being seen, but he wasn’t taking chances. Now that bloody meddling policewoman had caught him out he’d be spending time in the borstal. He might not get another opportunity to avenge his brother, Rob.

  His feet were blocks of ice. He kept blowing on his hands to keep them warm. He needed warm hands to be able to grip his knife properly.

  He ran his thumb along the blade. How many hours had he spent lovingly honing that sharp edge on the back doorstep?

  They all thought he wouldn’t do it. Jim at least had feared he might and tried to discourage him.

  By tomorrow morning they’d all know better.

  Stu McPherson was no coward. Sometimes justice had to be taken into yer own hands instead of relying on some old god who probably never existed in the first place.

  Soon at least one Hun would pay for Rob’s death.

  Down the street, a torch flickered.

  ***

  Hans strode on ahead. Grace wondered if he would run off as he had before. She half hoped he would run and try to escape. She tried to push aside the memory of the dance, how Hans had offered her a crisp bar and later kissed her, how he had held her hand in the darkness of the cinema.

  No one spoke. They moved through what might have been an endless abyss of darkness, their tiny world defined by the dim light of shaded torches.

  As they picked their way across the pitch black street, there was a sudden rush of footsteps.

  Grace whirled, the gleam of her torch finding only housefronts and empty pavement.

  Mavis screamed.

  Grace swung her torch back round and saw a figure darting at Hans.

  Stu!

  A knife blade glinted.

  Grace lunged forward, swinging her torch upwards
. It clanked against a knife raised for a second stab, sending it flying into the darkness.

  Hans fell to the ground, blood on his chest.

  Stu stood over him and kicked him in the ribs. “Got you at last, you Hun bastard!”

  Grace pushed the boy aside and knelt down. “Hans! Hans!”

  “Miss Grace,” he gasped painfully. “It was just as you said. Miss Mavis had nothing to do with it….”

  Epilogue

  “I’ve made a right mess of things,” said Grace.

  Constable Wallace had offered to show her around Saltwell Park. It was the sort of winter day when warmth and greenery were part of a half-forgotten dream. A January sun, sharp and cold as a reflection in polished steel, illuminated the fairy-tale turrets, towers, and chimneys of the mansion Grace and Wallace faced. Saltwell Towers, Wallace had called it.

  “Nowt you could have done to stop Stu springing out of the dark, Grace. It happened too fast,” Wallace replied. “Since he’s still a minor they’ll only put him away for a while in a place where he can study for his future criminal career.

  He paused. “I happen to know a member of the staff where Stu is currently held and he told me over a pint the lad got into a fight the night he arrived. Attacked another boy for making shadow pictures on a wall. You know, rabbits and elephants and such. Needless to say, some of the other boys started making them to start fights. He’s already been in sick bay several times because of such brawls, but all they can get out of him is something about shadows with knives being after him. Apparently he’s terrified of them, not that anyone else sees them.”

  “That’s ironic, given his penchant for following people around in the blackout to frighten them,” Grace replied.

  The thought of Hans’ death did not bring forth the feeling of grief Grace imagined it should. Rather she felt anger at how he had deceived her. “Hans didn’t have to kill Ronny to protect Mavis, did he?”

  “No. But the situation offered a good excuse to get Ronny out of the way.”

  The conversation turned to the repercussions of recent events.

  Grace had taken a temporary room while seeking other lodgings. Mr. Elliott was holding church services in a school in Benwell. Sergeant Baines was in hospital.