by David Field
In fact, it got even more suspicious when Percy wheedled out of men of Broome’s acquaintance in a Shoreditch pub that Broome been approached by one of the new landlord organisations — ‘Gregory Properties Incorporated’ — to conduct the demolition work in question, but had blankly refused on the ground that people were still living in those houses, who had twice refused to move on. Those people had no longer been there at the time of the demolitions themselves, but one of them — a labourer called Jamie Drury, the head of a family of six — had been found face down in the Limehouse Basin of Regents Canal where he worked, ostensibly having fallen from a barge. Percy had yet to add that particular suspicious death to his list, partly because he had enough to investigate already, and partly because it was currently the subject of a demarcation dispute between ‘H Division, Whitechapel’ and ‘Thames Division’, neither of whom would accept that it fell within their remit, and Percy had already ruffled enough feathers in Bethnal Green.
These had not been the only suspicious deaths of residents of Short Street. During the past few months, no fewer than five former residents of the same line of slums had been found dead, either in full view in the middle of the lane, or buried under rubble. The somewhat embarrassed custodians of law and order in Bethnal Green Police Station had persuaded themselves that these were all victims of accidents when they had wandered too close to the demolition work, a fact seemingly corroborated by the fact that all of them had died from head injuries.
Those injuries could be explained away as the result of the victims being caught under the masonry when they remained stubbornly inside their condemned homes, despite several warnings to get out. But the police surgeon called in as a matter of routine to examine each corpse, while giving his official conclusion of ‘accidental death from causes unknown’ to the local constabulary, had sent a private message to Scotland Yard that the fatal injuries bore all the hallmarks of a swift and determined blow with a sledgehammer.
It was hardly surprising that it was now being suspected by senior Yard officials that all was not well with local policing, hence Percy’s presence. Negligent and indifferent though the local force might be at best, at worst they were suspected of collaboration with the property developers. It was certainly true that the remaining families in Short Street had become noticeably more eager to vacate their squalid homes following the five deaths and Short Street itself was now a line of ominous rubble with bitter memories buried beneath piles of brick and tile. Percy was not surprised that his presence in Bethnal Green Police Station was resented and the sooner he completed his investigations, the happier all concerned would be.
Every line of enquiry that Percy had sought to pursue had ended in the same frightened denials by potential witnesses, surely terrified that they would end up in the same state as their neighbours. But one name kept cropping up in conversation just before the fear lit a dull glow behind the eyes of those he was appealing to for information. That name was ‘Michael Truegood’, the new local rent collector for Gregory Properties, though the collection of rent seemed, for him, to come second to his real mission, which was to advise those who were handing him their miserable handfuls of hard-won coins that they would soon be required to vacate, along with their families and belongings — or else. There was little doubt in Percy’s mind that Truegood was the key to all the recent deaths and from the physical description that Percy’s informants had given, he knew that Truegood was over six feet in height, built like the Shoreditch gasometer, with a fearsome black beard.
The closest that he’d come to learning of Truegood’s real role in what had been happening had been courtesy of a brave young man who was so incensed by the apparent murder of his former employer Jack Broome that he’d asked to speak to Percy in confidence. They had met in the ‘The John Barleycorn’ pub in neighbouring Shoreditch. His name was Tommy Dugdale, a roof tiler employed by Broome and romantically inclined towards his daughter, whose name at that time Percy had not known. Now he believed that Providence had handed him another useful card, since it was too much to put down to coincidence that Jack and Esther’s upstairs neighbour Alice Bridges was seeking news of her niece Emily, whose surname was Broome, whose builder father had been murdered, and who had been romantically attached to a roof tiler named Tommy.
Tommy had himself finished up dead two days previously, perhaps as the result of meeting with Percy and advising him of his suspicions that ‘Michael Truegood’ was in fact the new identity of a local terror who everyone had believed to be dead. His name had been Michael Maguire at birth, but he had delighted in the nickname of ‘Mangler’ in the days during which — without any beard — he’d been the undisputed leader of a local team of ‘enforcers’ who were either available on hire, or in their spare time ran a nice line in ‘insurance’ for those anxious to ensure that their businesses did not suffer any unfortunate ‘accidents’.
Percy had received this invaluable information a week ago and he feared that Tommy had been spotted talking to him in the pub and had paid with his life. This gave rise to the ominous suggestion that Percy’s identity was known to Truegood and his bullies. There was also the possibility that Tommy’s death was linked to the disappearance of Emily, either because she’d taken her own life when she learned of the death of her loved one, or because Tommy had also told her what he knew, thus making her the next target.
The trail was not yet entirely cold. Tommy had not, as all the others had, died from a sledgehammer blow. Instead, according the crime report, he’d been found up a back alley with a knife buried deep in his chest. The finding of the body had been reported by a young female called Daisy Trembelow. She was obviously the next one on Percy’s interview list, although he was nervous about thereby bringing about her death by association.
Inspector Mitchell was in the process of hanging his suit jacket on the coat rack when he saw Percy lounging against his doorframe.
‘I wasn’t advised that you wished to see me,’ he grunted with displeasure.
‘That’s because I didn’t announce the fact,’ Percy replied with a deadpan expression. ‘I won’t keep you long — I just need to know where I can find a local resident called Daisy Trembelow, who reported the discovery of the body of Tommy Dugdale.’
Mitchell laughed.
‘We call her “Daisy the Kneetrembler”, given her chosen profession. Like most of the females in this hellhole, she’s a tottie, and stumbled on the body when she went up the alley with a sailor in the course of her normal employment. She alerted the first bobby she could find, no doubt leaving her mark unsatisfied, although he’d have been able to choose plenty more from the line that forms nightly on Old Nichol Street. His mother identified his body at the mortuary, after Daisy told us who she thought it was. She knew him quite well, apparently.’
‘Do you have an address for Daisy?’
Mitchell smirked. ‘Like ’em young, do you? She’s only fourteen.’
‘She’s also the only one who can answer my next set of questions — or yours, for that matter.’
‘What’s the Yard’s interest in this?’ Mitchell asked.
‘None at present — I’m dealing with it in a private capacity. Friend of a friend asked me to enquire about the disappearance of her niece and Tommy Dugdale was part of her past. Now I’ll have to tell her that a “past” is all he’s got.’
‘A lady friend?’
‘In a manner of speaking. But you didn’t tell me where I might find Daisy Trembelow.’
‘After eight in the evening, you can guarantee she’ll be in the tottie queue halfway up Old Nichol Street. She looks her age and has ginger hair that’s normally in need of a wash. God only knows how clean the rest of her is. Let me know if you learn anything that’ll help in this case.’
The following evening, seated round the kitchen table, Percy was breaking the bad news while Alice was sniffling into her handkerchief, Esther was shaking her head sadly and Jack was all ears.
‘So, what did this girl
Daisy have to tell you?’ Jack asked.
‘She told me to do one when she learned that I wasn’t a potential customer. You’ll have to do instead, my girl.’ Percy turned to Esther.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Esther exploded, to Jack’s considerable amusement. ‘Do I look like the sort of woman who’d be found on street corners?’
‘I think he meant,’ Jack advised her between fits of choking laughter at the sight of their two faces, Esther’s all outrage and Percy’s one of acute embarrassment, ‘that you’ll have to approach the girl instead.’
‘Give me one good reason,’ Esther demanded.
‘Emily Broome,’ Percy replied. ‘Tommy Dugdale was one possible lead to where she might have gone and he was also my only lead to all these deaths in Hell’s Kitchen.’
‘Please, Esther,’ Alice pleaded quietly. ‘I’m so worried that Emily might have gone off with Tommy. She might be the next one to be murdered.’
Esther looked round despairingly at the others before responding. ‘Just so that I’ve got this right, you want me to walk up to a line of street prostitutes in one of the most lawless areas of the East End to try to persuade a fourteen year old girl to tell me what she knows about the man’s body she found?’
Percy grinned. ‘Yes, that’s what I’m suggesting.’
‘Don’t stand there for too long, unless you want to supplement the housekeeping money,’ Jack joked. ‘Compared with that raddled lot, you could probably make a quid a time.’
He managed to duck an outraged swipe aimed at his head, but Esther wasn’t finished with her objections.
‘How can we be sure she’ll tell me anything?’
‘We can’t,’ Percy conceded, ‘but she’s the only remaining lead we’ve got at this stage. According to what I learned in the Bethnal Green police station, she knew the boy and I’m hoping that we might get a line on who killed him and why. It may have been a simple street fight, or perhaps someone wanted to silence him for what he seemed to know about this Truegood character.’
‘I hope I didn’t bring about his death by getting you to enquire after Emily,’ Alice said tearfully.
Percy hastened to reassure her. ‘Don’t worry about that for one moment, Alice. I’m sure it’s only coincidental that he was an old flame of Emily’s. But I might be able to find out if she ran back to him when she left the employment of the Mallory family. There had to be a good reason for her giving up a secure position like that; love — as they say — conquers all.’
‘There must have been other witnesses to the murder of Tommy, surely?’ Jack ventured uneasily.
‘There’s only one that I know of, at this stage,’ Percy reminded them all. ‘That’s why we need to speak to Daisy Trembelow, and that’s why we need to enlist Esther’s services.’
‘At least this time I’m not being made the bait for a homicidal maniac,’ Esther muttered, ‘although it’s high time that the Metropolitan Police began paying me for my services.’
‘You may be offered payment for more personal services,’ Jack teased her and this time the flat of her hand didn’t miss.
Chapter Five
It was just after seven the following evening when Esther sidled up to the line of women that had begun to form in front of the bootmaker’s shop that had only just closed its doors for the day. It was early summer, so still broad daylight, and the penetrating rays of the sun that was retiring for the night over the rooftops of the factories were doing the women no favours as they stood there in their bonnets and other finery, looking hopefully up and down the crowded thoroughfare for their first mark of the evening. Percy was standing discreetly in a shop doorway across the road, twisting his bowler in his hand and keeping a watchful eye out for Esther as she approached the first woman in the line, a stout lady in her early forties who shot her a disapproving frown as she took in the quality of her outdoor clothing.
‘You new around ’ere, darlin’? If so, piss off somewhere else, ’cos yer’ll ruin trade fer the rest’ve us.’
‘Actually, I’m looking for Daisy,’ Esther explained.
‘Which one would that be, then? There’s three o’ them in line ternight.’
‘Daisy Trembelow?’
‘Oh, that un. The one wi’ the ginger barnet? That’s ’er, three from the end. You ’ere from the buildin’ people?’
‘No, I just want to speak to her for a minute or two. Thank you for your assistance.’
‘Think nothin’ of it, lovey. Just get lost when yer’ve done wiv ’er.’
With an encouraging smile across the road in Percy’s direction, Esther moved down the line until she reached the scrawny teenager with the tangled light ginger hair and the resigned facial expression.
‘Are you Daisy Trembelow?’
‘Wotsit ter you?’ Daisy asked.
Esther recoiled slightly from her gin-sodden breath.
‘I need a moment of your time.’
‘That costs money,’ Daisy advised her.
‘How much do you normally charge? If I give you a quid, will you talk to my gentleman friend over the road there?’
Daisy squinted across the road to where Percy was standing with a reassuring smile.
‘’E’s a copper, ain’t ’e?’
‘Yes, he is, but you’re not in any trouble, I promise you. We both need to know about your friend Tommy Dugdale and how he came to die.’
‘Knife through the chest is ’ow ’e come ter die,’ Daisy all but spat onto the pavement. ‘It were ’orrible — all that blood down ’is shirt.’
Esher judged the time to be right, as she adjusted her bonnet in the pre-arranged signal to Percy that he could cross the road. As he came closer and Daisy’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, Esther reached into her handbag and extracted a gold sovereign, which she handed to Daisy with a hasty reassurance that she wasn’t about to get into any trouble.
‘This man’s called Percy,’ she advised Daisy, ‘and he wants to find out as much as he can about young Tommy, that’s all. Tommy’s girlfriend’s very upset about his death.’
‘Who might thatta bin, then?’ Daisy replied suspiciously. ‘I didn’t know ’e ’ad no girlfriend, although a good lookin’ lad like ’im — well, ’e wouldn’t o’ needed ter choose outta this queue, let’s put it that way.’
‘He had a lady looking out for his interests,’ Percy explained in his softest voice, ‘and she’s employed us to find out how he came to die. She’s not short of money, so there’s possibly some more in it for you if you can tell us what you know about him and give us any information you can about who killed him.’
Daisy looked anxiously round before answering.
‘’E first come inter The Nichol a few years since, doin’ a roofin’ job wi’ a bloke called Jack Broome an’ we got proper friendly when ’e stopped ter eat ’is dinner a few doors down from us. We got talkin’ an’ then once ’is boss gotta few more jobs from the landlord we took ter meetin’ regular like. Then when the new landlord took over, it were like ’e wanted nowt more ter do wi’ the place. ’E told me that things weren’t quite right about the plans they ’ad fer them new ’ouses we’re always ’earin’ about, an’ that the bloke collectin’ the rents were a right bad ’un. ’E gimme a name an’ all, but I don’t rightly remember it now.’
‘Michael Maguire — or maybe “Mangler”?’ Percy enquired.
Daisy nodded.
‘Yeah, that were it, right enough — Mangler Maguire. I asked me Dad if ’e knew ’im an’ that’s when Dad told me ter stop talkin’ ter Tommy, since he must be a wrong ’un if ’e knew Maguire. I tried tellin’ Dad that Tommy were just tryin’ ter warn me, but it made no difference. Then bronchitis got me Dad an’ by then we wasn’t seein’ Tommy around the place any more. Then I found ’im dead, like I said.’
‘The night you found his body,’ Percy asked, ‘did you see anyone else around?’
‘No,’ Daisy replied with a vigorous shake of her head. ‘We went up that alley ’cos it’s kinda p
rivate, yer know? We got ter the top, where that ironmonger’s is, an’ we was just goin’ ter get down ter the business when I spotted this ’eap o’ clothes propped up against the wall. ’Cept it weren’t no bundle o’ clothes — it were Tommy, poor bastard.’
Surprising both Esther and Percy, tears began to well in Daisy’s eyes and Esther reached instinctively inside her handbag and held out another sovereign, but Daisy shook her head.
‘Nah, yer alright, if yer sure I won’t get in no trouble? It’s good ter be able ter tell someone what’s interested, ’cos the coppers round ’ere couldn’t care less. Just another stiff ter them.’
Percy tried to reassure her. ‘They might not have cared, but I do, Miss Trembelow, and I’ll do everything I can to find the person who killed Tommy.’
‘Word on the street’s that it were the same team what done all the others around the same time — them what’s in the pay o’ the bastards what’s knockin’ down the ’ouses. They reckon’ our street’ll be the next ’un.’
‘It must be very worrying for you, not knowing if your home’s going to be demolished,’ Esther murmured as she made another attempt to hand Daisy a gold sovereign.
Daisy spat on the ground and glared at her.
‘An’ what ’ome would that be, exactly? It’s alright fer you. You an’ yer fancy clothes an’ posh ’at, throwin’ gold coins around like Lady Bountiful! I bet yer got an’ ’usband at ’ome what can always put food on the table an’ cuddle yer warm on cold nights. You don’t need a shillin’ a night fer a bed in a doss’ouse. An’ even if yer ain’t got no ’usband, there’d be no shortage o’ fancy blokes ter keep yer supplied wiv gold coins in exchange fer lettin’ ’em spend theirselves between yer legs.’
‘Thank you, Miss Trembelow,’ Percy said quietly as he took hold of Esther’s arm and steered her gently away.
