Forests of the Night

by David Stuart Davies

  ‘I don’t want any favours from you.’ He was about to leap from his chair and perform the, ‘Get out of my office and never sully my doormat again’ routine, when I stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘In precise terms, I’ve come to save your life.’

  The cigar dropped from his mouth and fell on to the desk, scorching one of the documents.

  twenty-six

  ‘What do you know about Ray?’

  Eve leaned close to me so that no one else could hear our conversation. We were in the Coach and Horses, a busy pub off the Bermondsey High Street, huddled around a little table with a couple of drinks and four pieces of bread masquerading as sandwiches. My treat … in a manner of speaking. The pub was filled with the lunchtime crowd, noisy and self absorbed in the pleasantly fuggy atmosphere. In this strange, timeless haven you’d never think there was a war on. That of course was why it was crowded: it provided a momentary escape from reality. There was no danger of anyone being interested in the conversation between a strange one-eyed man and a pretty young woman.

  I winked enigmatically. ‘I think I know what’s important to know about Ray,’ I said, before taking a bite of my dry sandwich. It was an original kind: two pieces of bread with no filling, unless you counted the reddish tissue paper pretending to be corned beef. I certainly didn’t count it.

  She shook her head in disbelief. ‘But how?’

  ‘Well, I smelt a rat – no offence intended – when you got so shirty about me seeing you home the other evening. You had been sweetness and light up to that moment and then suddenly you shut the door on me.’

  She sighed. ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that. I’d had a little more to drink than I should have, otherwise I would have handled it better.’

  ‘I’m sure you would, Miss Kendal. Anyway, it made me a little suspicious. It niggled me, so I rang up your office yesterday and asked to speak to Dawn. Do you remember a Scottish gentleman by the name of Angus McPherson calling? I put on my best Edinburgh accent.’

  ‘That was you?’

  ‘Aye, my wee lassie, it was me. I spun Dawn, the romantic Dawn, a little tale. I said I wanted to send some flowers to your home and asked her if she would supply me with your address. I said I didn’t want you to know. She thought it was a lovely gesture, right out of a soppy novel. She came up with the goods and I swore her to secrecy. She’s a good kid.’

  Eve smiled in spite of everything. ‘I didn’t receive any flowers.’

  ‘My apologies. It was a cheap ruse, I’m afraid. Although I suspect it would have been problematic for you if a dozen red roses had turned up on your doorstep with the message, “All my love, Johnny”. How would you explain that?’

  Eve bit her lip in response.

  ‘You see,’ I continued, ‘a little research told me that the address I was given is rented by a young couple called Fowler. Eve and Raymond. Now this Raymond is in the army, but he’s been reported missing, absent without leave. He has, not to put too fine a point on it, joined the swelling ranks of deserters.’

  Eve’s eyes misted up and she turned away for a moment while she scrabbled for a handkerchief in her handbag. I waited for her to compose herself.

  ‘Kendal is my maiden name. I’ve reverted back to it because I no longer consider myself a married woman. Ray and I were seeing each other just before the war started. We hadn’t been courting for very long, when suddenly all the men were enlisting and going off to war. Somehow we got caught up with things. All that flag-waving romantic stuff. Oh, it was a terrible mistake. I think we both realized that almost straight away. We planned to split up but then when Ray was conscripted he asked me to wait for him. I couldn’t very well say no, could I? There he was about to go off and fight for his king and country and possibly get killed. I couldn’t tell him to get lost. We were married, after all.’

  I said nothing. I didn’t know what my course of action would have been in such a situation, but the thought of being married to a lovely girl like Eve appealed greatly.

  ‘Well, he didn’t go off to fight for king and country, did he?’ she continued. ‘Ray had barely finished his training before he scarpered. He went missing. He claimed he couldn’t bear the regimentation of the army. It stifled him, he said, and he thought that all the officers had it in for him.’

  Paranoid as well, I thought, but still remained the attentive silent listener. It was a familiar tale. David Llewellyn at the Yard had told me that the numbers of deserters were growing daily. It really was a serious problem with not enough personnel to follow up individual cases. This was well known. In fact it encouraged the practice. A really wily deserter could, in essence, vanish, never to be seen again. With forged ration books and a slight change of appearance, they could slip back into civilian life with great ease. What puzzled me was how they could live with themselves when numbers of their fellow countrymen were dying in the war – men who hadn’t given up, but had denied themselves all the comforts of home and the nearness of their loved ones to fight for Britain against the Nazis.

  ‘He was on the run for about three months. At first the officials were round searching the place every week. Looking under the bed and all that. Then when the fuss died down a bit, Ray turned up on the doorstep. He’d grown a moustache and taken to wearing spectacles. He really didn’t look like the same man.’

  ‘Tall, blondish hair, prominent nose.’

  Eve’s eyes widened. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw him this morning. He came to the door as you left for work.’

  It took a few moments for the import of these words to strike home. ‘This morning … you mean … you were spying on me? Why you…!’

  She had raised her voice sufficiently to attract the attention of a few of the customers. I placed my forefinger to my lips in a hushing motion. ‘Careless talk…’ I said quietly.

  Eve was still angry. ‘You rat, fancy spying on a person like that. Where were you? Hiding in the dustbin?’

  ‘I was just across the street. And I am a detective, after all. It’s my job to find things out. And I had to find out why you were so desperate to prevent me from seeing you home the other evening.’

  ‘I am not a criminal.’

  ‘Well, that’s a moot point, Eve. You are harbouring a known deserter on your premises.’

  ‘But he’s my husband. You can’t expect me to give him up, can you?’

  ‘I don’t know. You seem to be able to go on dates with gullible gentlemen despite being married.’

  Her eyes watered and she shook her head in dismay. ‘In a real sense, the marriage is dead. I don’t love him any more. Ray is just a lodger. We are going to get divorced when the war is over.’

  ‘These are mixed messages, Eve. The marriage is over and I can’t betray my husband.’

  ‘I know it sounds odd, but surely you can understand. I did marry Ray. I thought I loved the man and I just can’t ignore that fact. I simply can’t betray him by welching to the authorities. I think what he has done is despicable and I’ve tried to persuade him to go back, but he won’t. And I can’t do it for him. Surely you can see that?’

  ‘In a way, I suppose,’ I said reluctantly, although the thought of anyone supporting a deserter caused me great unease. ‘So, that means I have to wait until the end of the war before we can have another date.’

  Eve looked away, absently-mindedly turning her glass round and round.

  ‘What are you going to do about Ray?’ she asked at length.

  Indeed, what was I going to do about Ray? Now I knew the situation for certain, if I kept the information to myself I too would be aiding and abetting a deserter.

  ‘He’s got to turn himself over to the army.’

  ‘He won’t. He can’t.’

  ‘Can’t!’ I sneered. ‘Of course he bloody well can. He just needs to get in touch with his guts. He’ll spend a few months in a military prison and then be returned to the army. He can request to be transferred to another unit if that’s a problem to him. It wou
ld be better for him to give himself up rather than be arrested as a deserter.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him.’

  ‘You’d better. And be at your persuasive best. Because if he doesn’t hand himself over to the authorities, I’ll have to do it for him.’

  ‘Would you actually do that?’

  I took a drink. Warm, flat beer, ideal for raising the spirits. ‘I would. It’s my duty. You cannot imagine what I would give to have a chance to fight for my country instead of being this one-eyed reject. I have no sympathy with the Rays of this world.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ She glanced awkwardly at her watch. ‘I’d better get back to the office.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, off you go.’

  ‘I’m sorry I messed you around, Johnny. I didn’t mean to. I liked you and … I was lonely.’

  ‘Mmm, lonely with a husband at home.’ I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t fair and it was wounding. But I had said it before my brain could warn my mouth. Eve’s face told me that she thought it was unfair, too, and that it had hurt her. Without another word, she left, pushing her way through the crowded pub.

  twenty-seven

  After Eve had departed, I made my way to the bar and ordered another drink. I wanted to think and I always found alcohol an effective lubrication for the rusty cogs in my brain, especially when consumed in a warm, smoky atmosphere where no one knows you. The barmaid, a rosy-faced matron with unnaturally bright blonde hair, smiled at me as she pulled my pint. ‘Your lady friend gone?’

  I nodded. So she’d noticed. We’d not been as anonymous as I’d thought.

  ‘Not had a tiff, I hope.’

  ‘No, she had to go back to work,’ I murmured.

  ‘Lovely looking girl. You two going to get married?’

  Had the Gestapo Interrogation Squad infiltrated itself into this part of London, I wondered. Would I suddenly be strapped to a chair and have a bright light shone in my eye? All I wanted was a pint, not to deliver an exposé of my love life.

  I forced a shy smile. ‘It’s early days yet.’

  ‘Go on with yer,’ she cried, as though to bring in the other boozers around the bar into the conversation. Luckily, they didn’t respond, wrapped up in their own lives and not some passing stranger’s. No doubt they had seen all this before. Miss Nosy Parker interrogating an unsuspecting male drinker. However, their indifference did not stop her inquisition. ‘I’ve seen enough courting couples come in here to know when it’s a right match or not. You made a very sweet pair and not half.’

  ‘Leave him alone, Rosie,’ responded a large chap with a face like a disgruntled bulldog, leaning against the bar, nursing an empty glass. ‘Can’t you see you’re embarrassing the feller.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ grinned Nosy Rosie as she passed me the pint. ‘You’re not bothered, are you, lad?’

  ‘Not really,’ I replied, maintaining my shy persona. And then quickly I returned to my seat, wondering why Rosie didn’t pay more attention to the state of her sandwiches than to the potential marital status of her customers.

  My mind now clouded with this episode, I had to clear it again. So many things had become evident to me in the last twelve hours or so but I was really working on instinct rather than rational and considered thinking. I hoped to goodness I was right in my conclusions. I thought back to my recent interview with Leo Epstein not an hour ago in his luxurious ‘I keep the world at bay’ office.

  I was sure that he had not been to the police to tell them of his relationship with Pammie. Oh no, he would bluff it out. But thanks to Eve, I was aware that his little fling, as he reported it to me, had been a full blown affair, one in which he was the infatuated participant. I had cut through his angry bluster and told him that I knew all about his passionate relationship with Pammie. What a delight it was to see a solicitor lost for words. That must go down in my book as one of the most memorable moments of 1940.

  Eventually, the legal mind having recovered its momentum, he addressed me in his courtroom voice. ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh, yes it does. Was it Eve? If it was, she’ll be getting her cards tonight.’

  I shook my head and smiled gently as I lied through my teeth. ‘Of course it wasn’t Eve.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘I cannot divulge my source, Mr Epstein,’ I said, matching his pompous tone, ‘but your reaction to my revelation convinces me that the story is true.’

  ‘Of course it’s true. I loved Pammie. I’d never met anyone like her before. She was beautiful, alluring, sexy and yet somehow spiritual.’

  He made her sound like a lady’s perfume.

  ‘And you paid her for sex.’

  Momentarily Epstein shifted awkwardly in his chair and his face flushed with anger but he quickly regained his composure. ‘It wasn’t like that. Wasn’t like that at all. I don’t suppose I can expect you to understand. Yes, I bought her presents, paid for things, took her to nice places. But I did it willingly. I was happy to do so because it made her happy and that made me happy. There was no formal financial arrangement. No contract – if that’s what you were thinking. I just gave her some money from time to time.’

  ‘You paid for sex,’ I affirmed.

  ‘That’s all it reduces down to in your gutter of a mind doesn’t it, Hawke? Some kind of prostitution. Well, it wasn’t. If it was only about sex, I could have had many other girls for less expenditure. Can’t you get it through your thick skull, I cared about her? I would have married her if she’d have had me.’

  ‘So why did you kill her?’

  His reaction was not the one I expected. He didn’t explode. His jaw didn’t drop like it does with characters in novels who are unexpectedly accused of a heinous crime. He didn’t cry. He didn’t try to thump the living daylights out of me. And he didn’t confess. Instead he shook his head wearily and rather sadly. ‘I would not have harmed a hair of Pammie’s head. I could no more kill her than I could my own mother.’

  ‘Well, they say matricide is on the increase.’

  Epstein sneered at me. ‘Call yourself a detective. You wouldn’t know a murder suspect if he jumped up and confessed.’

  I lit a cigarette. ‘Actually, I do know that you didn’t kill Pammie but I reckon it’s always worth asking the question. It’s possible I could be wrong.’

  ‘If you don’t think I killed Pammie, why are you harassing me with your questions and your nasty innuendos? Why aren’t you out there trying to find the bastard who did commit the crime?’

  ‘I already know and that’s why I am here.’ I blew the smoke into the air and watched it as it spiralled towards the ceiling before disappearing.

  ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘Are you ready for this? I believe that the person who killed Pammie, also killed Gordon Moore, the actor.’

  ‘You mean the chap who plays Tiger Blake?

  ‘That’s the feller. He was murdered last night. Stabbed to death. Like Pammie.’

  ‘You’ve lost me already. What’s Gordon Moore to do with all this?’

  ‘He was another of her lovers. And like yourself he fell in love with her.’

  Epstein shook his head in bewilderment. ‘I still don’t understand.…’

  ‘I believe our murderer wanted to possess Pammie. To own her. She was too good for any other man to touch. When he couldn’t prevent her from indulging in her … what shall we call them?… amorous activities, he killed her and then set about getting rid of her lovers as a punishment for sullying her flesh. He couldn’t touch Sam Fraser because he was arrested immediately and anyway, as things stand, he’s likely to end up on the gallows. So he turned his attention to the others. Gordon Moore was more accessible than Fraser and so, my friend, are you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I believe that you are next on the list.’

  ‘Isn’t this a bit melodramatic?’

  ‘Of course it is – but murder is melodramatic. The thing that invades a person’s
psyche and drives them to take someone’s life is weird and fantastic. The belief that by shedding blood you are righting a wrong or easing a pain is beyond moral consciousness. There is insanity there – and insanity above all things is melodramatic.’

  Epstein looked a little chastened after my outburst which in its own way, I must admit, was somewhat melodramatic also. ‘Who is this person?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m keeping that piece of information to myself.’

  ‘But the police should know.’

  ‘Indeed, they should, but at present they have shut their ears and eyes to any other explanations regarding Pammie Palmer’s death because they believe that they have the man responsible. And you will not shift that rock of belligerence – I refer to Chief Inspector Knight – in this conviction. It would ruin his record if it turned out to be someone else, someone other than his chosen victim.’

  ‘So you’re going it alone.’ Epstein couldn’t keep the sneer from his voice, not that I supposed he wanted to.

  I nodded.

  ‘It just doesn’t make sense. Are you telling me that my life is in danger?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘But why me? How does the killer know about me?’

  ‘Of that I’m not sure. There probably was a diary which he found at Pammie’s flat.’

  ‘There must be others on the list then. She had quite a few clients I believe.’

  ‘But none like you and Gordon Moore. You didn’t just have sex with Pammie, you formed a relationship with her. It wasn’t casual or anonymous sex, there were feelings involved on both sides.’

  ‘Whoever this person is must have been very close to Pammie. Someone who knew her secrets.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you find out about Moore?’

  ‘Sam Fraser gave me some names of Pammie’s clients. He was top of the list. I met Gordon Moore yesterday. He was a sad case: a film actor on the skids with a frigid wife. He found some warmth and affection with her. He visited her the night she was killed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was the one who found her body.’