Direct Hit

by Mike Hollow

  “You can say that again,” said Jago. “But I don’t want my car going down a bomb crater.”

  He wished he still had Clark to work with. There had always been something solid about Clark. Cradock was willing enough, and might make a decent detective one day, but Jago missed Clark’s experience. He had good judgment too. The kind of man you could rely on, especially at times like this. Jago hadn’t seen him since November, when the detective sergeant had been recalled to the colours, but he’d celebrated with a small whisky on hearing in June that Clark was one of the lucky ones who’d got back safely from Dunkirk.

  The car bumped over a fire hose and snapped him back to the present.

  “So couldn’t this have waited, sir?” said Cradock. “At least until after the raid?”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Jago. “We can’t leave bodies lying around in the street.”

  Cradock wasn’t sure whether this was some kind of joke, so said nothing. He glanced to his left. Jago was staring ahead at the road, his face expressionless.

  “Left here,” said Jago.

  They turned into Crompton Street. Before they had gone fifty yards they found the road blocked by a collapsed building.

  “Turn back, sir?” said Cradock.

  “No,” said Jago. “We’re only round the corner from where the boy said. We’ll walk.”

  Cradock stopped the car and got out. Jago reached for the door to open it, but as his fingers touched it the crash of bombs landing somewhere out of sight pounded his ears. His body seemed to freeze, suddenly detached from his will. It was happening again. He could feel a familiar silent panic creeping through him. It was irrational, but he recognized it. The helpless terror of the artillery barrage.

  Cradock was crouching beside a wall. “Everything all right, sir?” he shouted over the noise.

  “Yes, fine,” said Jago. He forced himself out of the car and onto the street, then turned and refocused on Cradock’s face.

  “I just wondered why you’d stopped, sir,” said Cradock. “We’re a bit exposed here, aren’t we?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jago. “I was somewhere else. Let’s go.”

  They set off down the road as fast as they could, skirting the random debris of high-explosive destruction. The noise of the bombing receded into the distance. They turned left into Blenheim Street, a narrow lane lined with small houses. It was darker than the streets they had just left, and deserted. From what they could see, it hadn’t been hit yet.

  The van was parked halfway down the street. Jago saw a figure pressed into a shop doorway, a bicycle lying on the pavement beside him. It was a young lad, and he looked anxious. Not surprising, thought Jago.

  The boy showed no inclination to move as the two men approached. He stared at their faces, saying nothing.

  “Police,” said Cradock. “What’s your name?”

  “Carson – Billy Carson.”

  “Address?”

  “Eighteen Westfield Street, just off Plaistow Road.”

  “Let’s see your identity card.”

  The boy got to his feet and brought the card out of his pocket. Cradock perused it and handed it back.

  “So it was you who reported this incident, was it, son?” said Jago.

  “Yes,” said Billy. “I told the people at the ARP control centre. They phoned the police, then told me to get back here and wait for you.”

  “Tell us what happened.”

  “Well, I was on my way to the control centre. I had this urgent message to deliver. A warden stopped me just over there and told me to look at this van. There was a man in the driver’s seat, blood all over him. The warden said he was dead, and told me to report it to you lot.”

  “And what time was this?”

  “Well, I was only here long enough to see what had happened, then went straight to the control centre. I was there by a quarter to ten, so I must have got here at about five-and-twenty to ten and left at twenty to.”

  Jago checked his watch. It was coming up to half past ten.

  “Right, my lad, you can go now,” he said. “We’ll be in touch later. Mind how you go.”

  Billy looked relieved to be released. They watched him wobble off on his bike until he turned the corner and disappeared.

  “Time for a closer look at that van,” said Jago.

  They crossed back to the other side of the street, and Cradock opened the cab door. He pulled his flashlight from his pocket, then faltered.

  “Don’t tell me you’re worried about the blackout,” said Jago. “The whole borough’s lit up like a Christmas tree. They don’t need your torch for a target. Now, get some more light onto that body. I want to see everything.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Cradock. He leaned into the cab and shone his torch on the man at the wheel.

  “Well, what do you see?” said Jago.

  “Lots of blood, like the boy said. Cuts to the wrists too.”

  “That’s interesting. What do you reckon?”

  “Well, sir, the windscreen’s intact, no broken glass, no other damage to the vehicle. Nothing I can see to make it an accident. So either someone’s slashed him, or he did himself in.”

  He turned back to Jago, grinning. “Mind you, too late to arrest him for attempted self-murder now, sir. If he did try, he’s got away with it.”

  Jago gave him a look of disdain.

  “You’ll drive me to it one day, my boy. And I don’t think knowing I was breaking the law would deter me, any more than it deterred this poor fellow, if you’re right.”

  “We’ll never know now, will we, guv’nor?” said Cradock. “About him, I mean, not you.”

  “If you get on with your job we might,” said Jago. “Now out of the way and let me have a look.”

  He took the torch from Cradock.

  “You’d better get busy with your notebook. I can’t see us fetching the police surgeon out in the middle of all this, let alone a photographer, so get as much detail down as you can.”

  Cradock stepped back and began to make his notes. Jago leaned into the cab and touched the man’s face.

  “No sign of rigor mortis yet, and he’s still as warm as I am, so he can’t have been dead for long.”

  He studied the man’s wrists for a few moments.

  “Right,” he said, “look at these wrists again, Detective Constable. How many cuts do you see?”

  Cradock squeezed in beside Jago and looked over his shoulder. “Two, sir: one on each wrist. That’s all it needs.”

  “Yes,” said Jago, “but that’s the point: just two. No scars, so it looks like he’s never tried before. But if he’s a first-timer, where are the other cuts? They usually do a few smaller ones first, don’t they? To make sure the blade’s sharp enough and to work themselves up to it. They don’t normally just make two big cuts like this straight away.”

  “Yes, you’re right, sir,” said Cradock. “But on the other hand, a man with strong will and self-control could do it with one cut, couldn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said Jago. “I saw men in the war who wounded themselves just to get out of the front line. It’s surprising what a man can do to himself if he’s under enough stress.”

  “Wait a minute, sir,” said Cradock. “Can you shine the torch on his jacket for a moment?”

  Jago directed the light onto the dead man’s chest.

  “Now that’s interesting,” he said. “That slightly complicates the idea of suicide.”

  He carefully opened the man’s jacket. Both detectives could see that the white shirt beneath was covered with blood.

  “A wound to the chest too,” said Jago. “So did he slit his wrists and then stab himself in the chest, or was it the other way round?”

  “Sounds a bit difficult either way,” said Cradock. “Could that mean someone else killed him? But if it’s murder, why cut the man’s wrists? It’s a slow way to die, so you’d have to restrain him, and that’d mean hanging around in a public place. Too risky, surely. If you wanted to kil
l him, stabbing’s a much better bet, but then why cut his wrists too?”

  “Indeed,” said Jago.

  He played the torch round the blood-soaked seat and floor of the cab. A small object lying just in front of the driver’s seat glinted in the light.

  “Aha,” he said. “This looks interesting.”

  He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and reached down to the floor to pick up what he’d seen. It was a pocket knife. The blade, about three inches long, was open, as was a short spike.

  “The weapon, do you suppose?” he said, showing it to Cradock. “Looks like some blood still on the blade. Curious spike too: I wonder what that’s for.”

  Cradock inspected the knife.

  “So why is it still here?” he said. “I mean, if this is a suicide it makes sense: he does the deed and the knife falls where he drops it. But if it’s murder, why would the killer leave it here? Unless someone came along and he had to clear off in a hurry, of course.”

  “Or maybe he heard a bomb landing close by and decided to leg it,” said Jago. “Or she, of course,” he added. “If there was a killer we can’t rule out the possibility that it was a woman.”

  “Or maybe he – or she – left it here because they wanted to make it look like suicide,” said Cradock. “But surely if they’d stabbed him in the chest too they’d know it wouldn’t look like that? They can’t have thought we wouldn’t find the other wound.”

  “So,” said Jago, “what we’re saying is it could be suicide, but on balance it looks more like a murder.”

  “Yes.”

  “But there is another possibility. It could be an attempted suicide and a murder.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, theoretically, I suppose, it’s possible that he did slit his own wrists but then somebody else came along – or was already here with him – and decided to finish him off with a stab to the chest. Or indeed that he did inflict both wounds on himself: slit his wrists and then stabbed himself in the chest. Stranger things happen in Japan, from what I’ve heard. Seems a bit unlikely in West Ham, though.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “Out of all those possibilities, I think the most likely is that someone else killed him and made a rather poor attempt to make it look like suicide, so we’re going to treat it as murder until and unless we find evidence to suggest another explanation. But I’d like to find out whether anyone who was close to him thinks the idea of suicide is viable – not just so we know whether he could have done it, but to see whether anyone would like us to believe that and tries to encourage us in that direction. We need to know more about him.”

  “Shall I check his pockets, sir? See if we can find out who he is?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Jago. “That’s probably the only thing about this blasted war that’s made the job easier. Identity cards, I mean. As long as the poor blighter had the decency to make sure he was carrying it when he died.”

  He looked again at the man’s face. “Mind you, I think I can save you the trouble. If you’d been on K Division a bit longer you’d know who this is.”

  “What, you mean he’s got previous?” asked Cradock.

  “On the contrary,” said Jago. “You’d have seen him on the bench in Stratford magistrates’ court. Unless I’m very much mistaken, this is Mr Charles Villiers JP. When he’s not getting murdered in the back streets of Plaistow, he’s a Justice of the Peace.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Oi! What do you think you’re doing out in this? Get to the shelter.”

  The two detectives turned to see a stout middle-aged woman striding briskly towards them along the pavement. She was wearing the black steel helmet of an ARP warden and looked as if she would tolerate no nonsense.

  Jago pulled his warrant card and National Registration identity card from his pocket and showed them to her. “We’re police officers,” he said. “I’m Detective Inspector Jago and this is Detective Constable Cradock, West Ham CID.”

  The woman switched to a less peremptory tone.

  “Very sorry, officers. With you not being in uniform I thought maybe you were up to no good, or just out in a raid when you had no business to be.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jago. “Are you responsible for this area?”

  “Yes,” she replied, “I’m the post warden, Mrs Gordon.”

  “Right,” said Jago. “We’ve got a body here, and we think it may be a suspicious death. One of your colleagues found it earlier this evening: Mr Davies. Do you know about it already?”

  “No,” she said. “But that doesn’t surprise me. Generally people don’t tell me anything. Some of the old ARP men round here don’t seem to think women count. Don’t suppose they’d complain if I pulled them out if a roof fell on their head, though.”

  She smoothed her coat down, as if restoring her dignity.

  “Well, Mrs Gordon, DC Cradock and I need to get the body removed, and this vehicle too, but with all this mayhem going on it’s going to be a while before we can organize it.”

  “Do you want some help? We’re using the municipal baths over on Romford Road as a temporary mortuary. I could try and get one of the light rescue parties to take the body over there.”

  “No. I need to get the police surgeon and a photographer down here before the body’s moved, and I can’t do that till this raid’s finished. In any case, the rescue squads’ll have more than enough to do getting people out who’re still alive.”

  “Right you are,” said the warden. “Between you and me, I’ve heard we’re pulling out so many dead tonight, the mortuary’s already getting pretty full. There’s a rumour going round that the council’s ordered three thousand canvas coffins, you know. Grim business, this.”

  “Indeed,” said Jago. “Now, all I need you to do is give your details to the detective constable here, in case we need to talk to you in the next day or two.”

  “In that case,” said the warden, “I’ll get back to work.” She gave Cradock her name and address, then bade them goodnight and made her way back down the street.

  “Shall we try to get a PC down to guard the scene?” said Cradock.

  “I don’t think we’re going to find one tonight who’s not already doing something more important. No, we’ll stay here until the raid’s over. We can keep an eye on it from over there,” said Jago, gesturing to where Billy had been sheltering when they arrived.

  Cradock looked sceptical about the protection the doorway would offer, but could see there was nowhere more suitable if they were to keep an eye on the van and its grisly contents.

  “But first,” Jago continued, “let’s see if there’s anything else of interest in the cab, and check the back of the van too.”

  They searched quickly. The inside pocket of the dead man’s jacket yielded his identity card, which confirmed that he was indeed Charles Villiers and provided his address. His wallet contained nothing of interest, and their check of the cab was equally fruitless. Cradock walked round to the back of the van and opened the unlocked doors. “Nothing to help us here, sir,” he shouted back. “It’s completely empty: clean as a whistle.”

  The two men crossed the street and stood in the shop doorway. Like every other building in the street the shop appeared to be deserted.

  “Seems strange, doesn’t it, sir, to be investigating a death in the middle of an air raid?” said Cradock. “I mean, who knows how many people have been killed tonight? It could be hundreds.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if it were thousands,” said Jago. “But a crime’s still a crime, even if there’s an air raid going on. We seem to have a local magistrate out in an empty van on a Saturday night in the middle of an air raid and getting himself murdered. So what was he doing? Where was he going? Why would he go out on a night like this?”

  “Right now, sir, I don’t think I’ve got any answers,” said Cradock. He squeezed himself further in. This doorway wasn’t going to be of much help if a bomb came anywhere near, he tho
ught. He felt exposed and vulnerable.

  He looked down the street. The rooftops on all sides stood out against the red and orange glow of the sky. Acrid smoke from burning timber was still billowing across the area, mingled with the pungent odour of soot and brick dust from the demolished houses. His nostrils were stinging, but he began to detect another strange, sweet smell in the air, like caramel. He wondered whether the huge Tate & Lyle sugar refinery down in Silvertown had been hit. That’ll mean more rationing, he thought. The guv’nor might even have to give up sugar in his tea completely.

  He looked at Jago. The inspector was gazing up at the night sky. The searchlights did little more than illuminate the mountainous plumes of smoke that spread as they rose and drifted towards central London.

  “They’ve given us a real kicking tonight, haven’t they, sir?” said Cradock. “We don’t seem to be shooting any of them down. Surely there should be more ack-ack fire than this: where are all the other anti-aircraft guns? Why aren’t we fighting back?”

  “The usual problem, I expect,” said Jago. “When I was in the Army the troops had a number of colourful expressions for it, but in polite terms you might call it ‘shortcomings in military administrative efficiency’.”

  Cradock could feel his legs going to sleep. He shifted his position, careful not to kick his boss.

  “I suppose you’ve seen a lot of this sort of thing, sir. Being in France, I mean, with people shelling you and trying to kill you.”

  “Every day and every night. I suppose that counts as a lot.”

  “Sounds like a nightmare.”

  “It was. But you just had to get on with your job. A bit like tonight, really.”

  “It must have been awful for your family at home, knowing you were out there.”

  “I didn’t have any family: my parents were both dead by then. Perhaps it’s a mercy that there was no one to worry about me.”

  “Not even a sweetheart, sir?”

  “Never you mind, Constable.”

  Cradock thought he saw a flicker of a smile cross Jago’s face, but he couldn’t be sure in the peculiar light. His curiosity was beginning to get the better of him, but he didn’t want to overstep the mark.