by Carol Rivers
Eve frowned, trying to reason out her thoughts. ‘Charlie, I’ve been thinking. I can’t believe the men who blindfolded and tied me were really bad. I didn’t understand what they said, but I knew they was arguing. Think about it, if they wanted to kill me they could have just thrown me in the water.’
Charlie agreed. ‘That thought crossed my mind too. It was as if they were carrying out someone else’s orders and got cold feet at the last moment.’ He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Eve, I don’t want you to be on your own.’
‘What?’ She laughed. ‘Why?’
‘Surely you can take a few days off? They will do a post-mortem on Singh to discover how he died. For my peace of mind, stay with Joan and Peg until then.’
Eve sat up. ‘Sergeant Moody said you wasn’t to do any more investigating—’
‘Moody said a lot of things,’ Charlie nodded, an icy tone to his voice. ‘But I doubt if he’ll lift a finger to help us. Eve, promise me you’ll do as I ask?’
Eve knew Charlie was worried, so she reluctantly agreed. ‘I’ll tell Percy to let Queenie know that I don’t want no more flowers this week.’
‘Thanks, Eve.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I’m going to revisit the place where I began my enquiries, the Overseas Sailors’ Home on West India Dock Road. That’s where I found the lascar who told me about Somar Singh.’
‘Don’t do anything dangerous.’
He grinned, looking into her eyes. ‘So you really do care?’
Eve smiled sadly. ‘If you hadn’t met me, you might be driving one of them big police cars by now. You might be like you always wanted to be, a proper detective.’
‘There’s plenty of time for all that. Now, eat up and I’ll take you home.’
As they drove, Eve reflected on her promise. She had agreed to do as Charlie asked, but she couldn’t lose business for long. Her customers would go elsewhere. And besides, what could happen to her standing on the corner of Westferry Road with the world and his wife passing by?
But that night when Eve told Peg and Joan what had happened they were in full agreement with Charlie.
‘You don’t want to worry about the money,’ Peg said immediately. ‘Jimmy’s paying his rent on Friday. We can manage on that.’
‘It will only be for a few days,’ said Eve feeling guilty already.
‘Fancy that jumped-up old sod of a copper keeping you in the nick all that time,’ Peg exclaimed angrily as she puffed on her roll-up. ‘You would think you was a criminal.’
‘He should try going after someone like my old man!’ Joan exclaimed. ‘Where was the law when he kicked me out and got a sour-faced old cow to replace me?’
‘They ain’t interested in Harold, Joan,’ Peg said with a dismissive wave. ‘He’s a randy old sod but he’s not Jack the Ripper.’
The conversation continued in the same vein until Eve went to bed. It was then she remembered the man in a long coat and cap. Had he really been watching her or was it a figment of her imagination? After all, Somar Singh was dead and a dead man couldn’t harm her.
Eve thought of the questions that Sergeant Moody had asked over and over again. But at the end of the interrogation he had not seemed to suspect anything underhand. His opinion was that it had been foolhardy of her to go into the Drunken Sailor on her own and she had brought trouble on her own head, and that she had been robbed by the men who had later dumped her at the jetty.
Could that be all there was to it? Was Charlie trying too hard to be the perfect policeman?
The next day Eve told Percy that she wouldn’t be working for the next few days.
‘You wanna watch it, gel, you might get some young whippersnapper steal yer pitch now you’ve worked it up.’
‘It won’t be for long.’
Percy jumped up on his cart. ‘S’pose yer knows what yer doing.’
Eve watched him clatter noisily back the way he had come. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t made her promise to Charlie. There were no strangers about, no one to alarm her.
When business was over, she looked up and down the road but other than a steady stream of horses and carts and a few motor vehicles making their way to the docks, there was nothing unusual. At the top of Isle Street, she met Maude Higgins who was shouting at three very small and disobedient children.
‘Just taking our Stanley’s kids up the park,’ Maude said breathlessly as she yanked one back from the road by his collar. ‘The beak sent him down last week for six months.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Eve in concern.
‘He’ll do it standing on his head,’ Maude shrugged. ‘It ain’t as if he’s never coming back like our Tommy. He’s only on his ’olidays.’
Nothing seemed to worry Maude much after the loss of Tommy and she took her sons’ frequent absences in her stride. ‘By the way, I saw Joseph this morning and he looked a bit peaky.’
Eve nodded. ‘He couldn’t get up the hill the other day.’
‘Carryin’ a bag he was. Looks like a stick, he’s got so thin.’
‘I’ll go and see him tomorrow.’
‘You’re back early, ducks,’ Maude frowned.
‘Thought I’d take a few days off,’ Eve said as she rubbed her hands together in the cold. ‘It’s bitter on the pitch.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ agreed Maude, ‘it’s parky enough to freeze the drip on yer nose. Oh, well, better get on. Come here, you little sod, or Gran will clip yer ear.’ She waved goodbye, still yelling orders despite the racket the children were making.
When Eve got in the boys were home. Peg had made tea and they wanted to go to the park.
‘Be back before dark,’ Eve told them. ‘Put on your coats and caps, it’s cold outside.’
They were dressed in no time at all, leaving Eve alone with her thoughts. Tomorrow she would call on Joseph and offer to do his shopping. After all, she had the entire day to please herself!
The next day Eve knocked twice on Joseph’s front door but received no reply. Crossing the road she saw Maude and her grandchildren. Maude was trying to whiten her doorstep as the kids jumped over it.
‘Want to get this done before the rain starts,’ said Maude shooing off the tiny children. ‘You won’t find Joseph in. I tried earlier and got no reply.’
‘He must have gone out early again.’
‘Must have.’
‘Do you think he’s all right?’
‘I looked through the chink in the curtain. Couldn’t see nothing untoward.’
‘I’ll send the boys up after school.’
‘They can come in if they like and have tea with these nippers. Play out in the yard till dark.’
Eve smiled and left Maude to finish her step, but she was concerned. It was not like Joseph to be gone like this.
Eve filled the day with cleaning, washing and ironing. Joan and Peg went shopping and she had the house to herself. She felt at a loose end. So this was what it was like not to work?
At half past three she left for school. The boys were full of mischief when she met them, laughing about Sister Mary whose wimple had been stained by a big bird that had flown over the playground. When they arrived home, Eve told them to call on Joseph.
‘Then go to Maude’s. She asked you to tea with her grandchildren.’
The boys looked disappointed. They felt too grown up to play with small children, but they went all the same.
Ten minutes later, the twins, Maude and her three grandchildren stood on Eve’s doorstep. They all looked very worried.
‘Joseph ain’t in,’ said Maude anxiously. ‘I don’t like the look of it, Eve.’
Quickly Eve put on her coat and was soon joined by Peg and Joan. The little group marched up the hill and stood at Joseph’s front door. They knocked and tapped on the window but could get no reply.
‘Is his key hanging down?’ suggested Maude.
Peg slid her hand through the letter box. ‘There ain’t nothing, not even the st
ring.’
‘We can climb over the back wall,’ said Samuel. ‘There’s dustbins round there you can stand on. We use ’em when we climb up to the bowsprit.’
A minute later they were standing at the rear, waiting for the boys to try the back door.
‘It ain’t open,’ they shouted over the wall.
‘Try the window,’ Eve shouted back. ‘It’s never closed properly.’
She could hear the boys lifting the sash. Once again they all hurried round to the front of the cottage and waited.
Samuel and Albert let them in and when the search of the house was complete, they stood in the kitchen.
‘His bed’s made but it don’t look like it’s been slept in. Cold as ice it is in his room,’ said Maude.
‘And look at that stove,’ nodded Peg. ‘It’s as clean as a whistle. It ain’t been used lately.’
Eve nodded slowly, then saw the samovar on the dresser. The internal pipe was dismantled and the metal bottom and tap looked gleaming as if newly polished. ‘He’s taken apart the samovar, Peg, and cleaned it. As if . . . as if—’
But she was cut short as Peg grabbed her arm. ‘And look, hanging from the tap is the front door key.’
‘Did he take it off the string deliberate like?’ pondered Maude.
‘P’raps the nail fell off.’
They went out to inspect the letter box. But the nail above it was in place. ‘Shall we hang it up again?’ said Eve. ‘It can’t do any harm. And I expect he just forgot.’
Everyone nodded and the key was returned to where it always hung.
‘If I didn’t know better,’ said Maude, frowning at the clean grate in the front room, ‘I’d say he’s gorn away. And he had a bit of a spring clean before he went.’
‘But he don’t go away – ever,’ pointed out Peg as they studied the tidy room.
‘The larder’s bare,’ shouted Samuel and Albert from the kitchen.
Everyone went to have a look. ‘What? No vegetables’ for ’is borsch?’ said Maude disbelievingly.
‘P’raps he’s gone to the market,’ suggested Joan. ‘Get ’imself a few nice spuds and beets.’
‘It’s a bloody long shopping trip if he did,’ remarked Peg, and they all nodded in agreement once more.
They stared at the empty shelves and Eve knew they were all thinking the same thought. Why hadn’t Joseph told them where he was going?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Charlie stood at the door of the Overseas Sailors’ Home, staring into the large interior chamber. Unlike the busy halls of the Salvation Army with its noisy and ill-mannered destitutes, this retreat housed a surprisingly quiet and well-ordered number of human beings. He had thought on his first visit here that he was unlikely to discover anyone who had known Raj Kumar, for there were so many Asiatic, African and South Sea Island sailors.
As most of the sailors had fallen on hard times and spoke only fragments of English it was no wonder, thought Charlie, that they carried a certain detached look on their faces. He knew from what he had learned before that these good-natured seamen often fell victim to thieves who robbed them of their small purses and left them destitute on the London streets. This big, airy, substantial building with its natural order was their only refuge. And the sailors who ended up here – Charlie understood – once removed from the city’s temptations, reverted to their natural quiet demeanour.
Charlie studied the dark faces, the downcast eyes under the colourful tarbooshes and turbans that alternated with the dull and uniform English peaked caps, and wondered if they were missing the warmth of their native shores. He imagined many had families and children to maintain and yet they were stranded here.
Watching them move around in their unresisting manner, his heart went out to them. It must be dreadful to end up here in a bitterly cold winter, without a return passage. He knew, however, that despite the discomfort and abuse these men were subjected to, the number of lascars employed by British trading vessels was increasing every year. It seemed the country’s ships could not run without them. And equally important to the lascars was the work provided on these shipping lines. When one lascar failed to take a contract, another swiftly grasped it. And yet Raj Kumar had been an exception; he had not only faithfully served his employers but he had chosen to marry and live in a land that regarded him as an alien.
Charlie wondered once more what sort of young man he had been. Obedient and conscientious without doubt. Charlie had learned from his investigations that many lascars were trained to endure 160 degrees of heat in a stokehold, if they were contracted on such a voyage as a Red Sea trip. Others were forced to freeze as they maintained the exteriors of the vessels that sailed on winter passages through storms and gales. Raj Kumar had worked his way up through the lascar ranks and become a cook in the purser’s department. Not only would he have mixed with his fellow lascars, but with the British crew too. He spoke English – and by all accounts rather well.
So what had led to his death, this respected man who was neither threatened by the elements nor the unbearable heat of an engine room? Who were his friends? How had his employers regarded his marriage and efforts to settle in the docklands of England?
Eve’s words sprang to his mind. ‘I dared to marry a lascar. Me and Raj . . . we knew what we’d done but it wasn’t easy . . .’
Charlie shook his head slightly, as if it to clear his thoughts, and found himself staring at a small group of men seated at a table. He walked over and joined them.
‘My name is Charlie Merritt,’ he began quietly, not knowing if they understood him. ‘I’m looking for anyone who knew a man by the name of Raj Kumar.’ This time he didn’t add that he was a policeman. He knew now that it could count against him and that it was sheer luck that he’d happened upon the lascar who’d told him about Singh.
The four faces stared at him in silence. Each with that curious expression of detachment.
‘If not Raj Kumar,’ he continued, enunciating each word, ‘then Dilip Bal. Both men served on the Star of Bengal.’
It was several moments before two of the seated sailors rose quietly to their feet. Almost bowing, they lowered their heads and moved silently away.
Charlie looked at the two remaining lascars; one wore an ordinary peaked cap and boiler suit, the other the loose, native costume of an Oriental seaman. It was cold inside the big room, but he had made no attempt to dress warmly. His eyes stared into Charlie’s and Charlie was certain that when he said the next three words, there was, for the first time, a fleeting flicker of recognition.
‘Or Somar Singh,’ he murmured, ‘who also served on the Star and, later, the Tarkay.’
Once again there was no response and soon he found himself sitting alone at the table, the air of quiet around him deepening to a disturbing silence.
The four women stood on the pavement outside Joseph’s house. Eve had sent the twins and younger children into Maude’s yard to play whilst they decided what to do.
‘But what can we do?’ posed Maude, pulling her collar up to her double chins. ‘’Cept worry!’
‘He wasn’t in the peak of health,’ nodded Peg, shivering in the cold wind.
‘Has he got any relations?’ asked Joan, tying her scarf tighter under her chin.
‘None that I know of.’ Eve thought of the two young people that had had stayed with him recently. But they hadn’t been relations, and all she knew about them was that they’d gone up north.
‘Do you think Charlie could help?’ asked Maude.
They all looked at Eve. She hadn’t told them he had been suspended. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t think he took ill somewhere?’ suggested Joan.
‘Don’t forget, the larder was empty. Like someone deliberately going away,’ Maude pointed out.
Peg shrugged. ‘There’s nothing more we can do tonight.’
‘He might be back soon,’ said Joan hopefully. ‘Give us all a nice surprise.’
They all nodded. But Eve
had a heavy weight in her stomach. It was as if he’d left the house clean and tidy for a reason. But what kind of reason could it be? He had lived in the cottage ever since she could remember. He didn’t take holidays or go away; he was a homebird.
‘Better get in for me old man’s tea,’ said Maude.
‘Send the boys back when you’ve had enough of them,’ called Eve as she watched Maude hurry across the road. It was dusk and the chill night was settling in. Could an old man like Joseph really stay out in this weather?
The three women walked down the hill very slowly. But the more they suggested this or that, the more it seemed a puzzle. Eve decided that tomorrow she would go to the hospital. And she would ask Jimmy to call at Charlie’s and tell him that Joseph had disappeared.
On Friday, after Eve sent the boys to school, she tried knocking again on Joseph’s door. There was no reply.
‘I used the key and took a gander early this morning,’ shouted Maude, dragging on her coat as she hurried across the road. ‘It just don’t make no sense.’
‘I think I’ll make enquiries at the hospital.’
‘If you wait till Eric or Duggie comes in, I can leave the kids with them and come with you.’
But Eve shook her head. ‘No, it won’t take me long if I leave now.’
‘Well, wrap up warm, love. And I hope to gawd you don’t find ’im. Not in ’ospital anyway.’
Maude needn’t have worried, Eve reflected as she left the hospital and returned to the island. All her enquiries had been fruitless. The hospital hadn’t had anyone brought in of that name or description. She went to the market at Cox Street as she knew that Joseph shopped there. But once more she was met with the same answer. No one had seen Joseph Petrovsky. The next place to enquire would be at the police station. Had Jimmy remembered to call on Charlie?
As Peg and Joan were out and the boys at school, Eve decided she would go to Joseph’s house. Perhaps there was some indication as to where he might have gone that they had overlooked previously.
