A Traitor at Tower Bridge

by Lynda Wilcox

  “You’ve no idea who might have murdered Martin Cropper?”

  “None whatsoever, and I told the police the same thing when they called.” He leaned forward across the desk, scattering papers with his elbows. “You don’t suppose it might be McIntyre, do you? It’s only just occurred to me.”

  Eleanor considered the question. “Did the two men not get on? When I spoke to McIntyre he displayed no hostility towards his colleague. He seemed genuinely puzzled and concerned about his whereabouts, I thought.”

  Bairstow sat back, ran a hand around his chin, then folded his hands across his stomach. “No, you’re right. I can’t see it myself, really. I’m just at a loss to explain it.”

  “Where did McIntyre live? Was he married?”

  “Not so far as I know.” Bairstow pushed himself out of his chair and went to a filing cabinet. “I suppose I shall have the police here again about him soon.” He pulled open a drawer and drew out a folder. “Here we are. McIntyre lives at number 15, Portsmouth Street. I think he rented a room, or maybe a flat, there. I seem to recall him mentioning a Mrs Haddock, so I suppose she would be his landlady.” He put the folder back and closed the drawer.

  Eleanor asked for directions, then thanked him and left.

  Chapter 21

  Number 15 Portsmouth Street lay in the middle of a neat row of Victorian villas to the south of Albany Road. It looked clean and well cared for, as did its owner, Mrs Haddock, a buxom middle-aged woman with protuberant green eyes under a mass of netted brown hair.

  Her eyebrows rose at the sight of Eleanor and, behind her, the Lagonda.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” she said before Eleanor had a chance to speak. “I take working gentlemen only.”

  As she made to close the door Eleanor put out a hand. “I’m not after a room, Mrs Haddock. I’ve been sent here by Mr Bairstow of Bairstow and Son, Painters.”

  The landlady observed the fine kid leather glove held out to her and stepped forward, poking her head out and giving a quick glance up and down the street. Whether this was to see if her neighbours had noticed the elegant lady on her doorstep, or in the hope that they hadn’t, was hard to tell.

  She pulled her head back inside, like a tortoise retreating into its shell.

  “You’d better come in.”

  Eleanor followed her into the front parlour with its squared bow window hung with net curtains, its tiled fireplace, and big chintz covered armchairs with lace-edged antimacassars, and suppressed a shiver at its pristine coldness. She presented her business card.

  “I am concerned for the welfare of one of your lodgers, Mrs Haddock. Is Mr Cameron McIntyre here? He hasn’t been at work for two days.”

  “Oh, dear.” The landlady dropped into one of the chairs, and waved a hand at the other, inviting Eleanor to sit down. “I thought that’s what it might be about when you mentioned Bairstows. I’ve been wonderin’ myself where Mr McIntyre had got to. I haven’t seen him myself for a day or so, and ’e’d not long paid his rent for the month.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Let me see. That would have been at breakfast two days ago. He went off to work as normal, but he never showed up for his dinner.” She straightened her skirt which had got trapped beneath her when she’d almost fallen into the chair. “I offer two meals a day, a cooked breakfast and dinner. No lunches and I don’t offer room service. My guests are responsible for keeping their own rooms tidy and making their own beds.”

  It seemed a fair arrangement, though Eleanor had no idea how much she charged and if her lodgers received value for money.

  “How many...um...guests do you have?” Mrs Haddock was far too genteel to call them lodgers, even if that’s what they were.

  “Just the two, your ladyship. These are three-bedroomed villas, and I have the third.”

  Eleanor nodded. “How was Mr McIntyre that morning? Did he seem worried about anything, or give any indication that all was not well?”

  “He seemed just as normal. He said nothing to me about anything being wrong. In fact, he said ‘See you tonight, Mrs Haddock’ when he left just as he always did, so nothing could have been wrong, could it?”

  It was an interesting viewpoint, but Eleanor considered the landlady’s reasoning to be at fault. If McIntyre did have something on his mind he was unlikely to have confided it to her. Mrs Haddock was not the sort to invite confidences.

  She tried a different tack.

  “He wasn’t worried about anything, then?”

  Mrs Haddock gave every appearance of being about to reply in the negative, then stopped herself and so far forgot herself that she addressed Eleanor as ‘my dear’.

  “Well, you know, my dear, but you might be right at that. Mr McIntyre had been very quiet of late. He wasn’t a talkative man at the best of times, in fact I once joked with him that it was like having one of them Trapper monks in the house, but he always wished one good morning, or goodnight, or made some comment about the weather.”

  Eleanor let the comment pass. McIntyre was not a Trappist monk — assuming that’s what she’d meant — nor could he be described as a dour Scot. He’d been chatty and friendly enough when she’d interviewed the painters.

  Mrs Haddock was still in full flow.

  “Of course, my other guest, who is a teacher at the nearby Junior School, is rather loud in his speech, especially at dinner. It comes from trying to make himself heard over a classroom of noisy youngsters, I reckon, so Mr McIntyre being on the quiet side could be a bit of a blessing at times.”

  Having lost the gist of her narrative, she stopped and beamed at Eleanor.

  “And did he explain why he was more reserved than usual?”

  “Well, not in so many words. He came home one day last week, I think it was, and we crossed in the hall — he was going upstairs to wash before dinner — and he said, ‘We live in strange times, Mrs Haddock’.”

  “We live in strange times,” Eleanor repeated.

  “Yes, yes. Those were his exact words. I had my hands full carrying things into the dining room, and I’d no idea what he meant, so I just said, ‘Are they, Mr McIntyre? In what way’s that, then?’ and he said, ‘There are too many secrets’. Then he laughed and carried on up the stairs. I’d forgotten all about it until you asked.”

  What on earth had McIntyre meant by that? The word secrets brought Major Armitage to mind, but she brushed all thought of him aside. She must focus on the job at hand and the woman opposite.

  “And this was last week?”

  Mrs Haddock screwed up her face in an effort of remembrance. “I think so. No, I tell a lie, it was earlier this week. Tuesday, perhaps.”

  The day the major had been shot.

  “I see,” said Eleanor, though she felt as much in the dark as ever. “Did Mr McIntyre ever mention a man called Martin Cropper to you, Mrs Haddock?”

  “Ah, yes, I think so. Is that the poor gentleman that was murdered and they found his body in the Thames?”

  “Yes.” Eleanor leaned forward. It seemed unlikely that McIntyre knew anything of Cropper’s killing, still less that he would have spoken to his landlady about it, but clues were so thin on the ground in this case that she would take whatever scraps came her way.

  “He only said that he’d worked with him and he was shocked to hear he was dead.”

  Disappointed, but not surprised that McIntyre had expressed his dismay if not his inner thoughts, she asked if she might see his room.

  “Well...” The landlady shrank back as if the request put her in a difficult position.

  “I only want to see if he left any clues to his disappearance. You’ve checked it yourself, I take it?”

  “Well...” she said again, and looked down at her hands.

  Why she should feel guilty at going into her lodger’s room puzzled Eleanor. It was her house when all was said and done. Perhaps she thought that going into a gentleman’s bedroom, even in his absence, was not the done thing, that it wasn’t ‘nice’. Unfortun
ately, Eleanor had a murder to solve and could not afford the niceties. She got to her feet.

  “Come, will you show me Mr McIntyre’s room, please? I would not ask if I did not think it important.”

  Mrs Haddock gave a sniff almost as impressive and redolent with meaning as one of Tilly’s. “Very well. If you’ll come this way, my lady.”

  Upstairs it was pretty much as Eleanor had expected. Four doors opened off the landing. The two that faced the top of the stairs and looked out over the rear of the property were the bathroom and Mrs Haddock’s room. McIntyre had rented the room to the left.

  Sparsely furnished with a bed, a bedside table, a wardrobe and a washstand, it had been left tidy enough. The bed had not been made — the sheets still lay rolled back, presumably to let the bed air — although the pillow had been plumped. An alarm clock sat on a lace doily on the table, but there was no book, magazine or newspaper.

  “I supply my guests with an eiderdown. He’s left it folded up in the base of the wardrobe.”

  So, she had been into McIntyre’s room since his disappearance, much as Eleanor had suspected.

  Eleanor opened the wardrobe door. A suit hung from the rail and shirts and underwear filled a row of shelves at its side. Two pairs of shoes fitted onto the bottom shelf. McIntyre was not the snappiest of dressers, but his clothes were well cared for and of decent quality.

  A glance upwards showed a suitcase on the top of the wardrobe and Eleanor let out a sigh as she walked to the washstand which still held the occupant’s shaving gear.

  Wherever McIntyre had gone, whatever had happened to him, he hadn’t packed. This was looking more and more ominous by the minute.

  “It doesn’t look as though his departure were premeditated,” Eleanor said.

  “As to that, I wouldn’t like to say.” Mrs Haddock tucked a stray lock of hair behind an ear. “I don’t know what to do for the best. If he’s not coming back, then I’ll have to re-let the room and get rid of all his belongings. I don’t really want to go to the police, I wouldn’t want him to get into any trouble, especially if he may have come to harm, but I have my own living to think of.”

  Eleanor was barely listening as she picked up the wastebin tucked out of sight at the side of the washstand. It held nothing but a scrunched up piece of paper. She lifted it out and smoothed it open. MAAGAIN 0900

  “Does this mean anything to you?” She showed the scrap to the landlady.

  “I can’t say that it does. Is it supposed to be Margate, or maybe it’s foreign.”

  “Did Mr McIntyre speak a foreign language?”

  “Not so far as I know.”

  “But it is his handwriting?”

  “As to that, I wouldn’t like to say. I’m not sure as I’ve ever seen his writing.”

  Eleanor put the paper into her bag. “As McIntyre paid until the end of the month, will you keep his room until then, please. The police may want to see it, and its contents.” She added that last in case Mrs Haddock had any plans to make a little money by selling McIntyre’s clothes. “If he isn’t back within a day or so, I suggest you let them know that he is missing.”

  Not that they would do much about it, she thought sourly, as she gazed around and let out a sigh. It wasn’t much of a place to call home.

  Thinking that she had got as much as she was likely to out of the voluble landlady, Eleanor thanked her and took her leave. She was desperate for some time alone to sit and think, but first she wanted to pay a call on Mary Cropper.

  Expecting to find her still prostrate with grief, alone or with her sister, Eleanor was surprised to discover her with an unknown man. Judging by the tray of things on a small occasional table, they had been drinking tea together when Eleanor called.

  “This is Alan, Alan Green, your ladyship.” Mary introduced her companion. “He’s a neighbour and only lives two doors down. He called to see how I was getting on.”

  The unnecessary explanation made Eleanor wonder if her client felt guilty in some way. She certainly didn’t begrudge her male company, recently widowed or not.

  “As have I, though I wanted to ask you a few more questions if you feel up to them.”

  Green, a thickset man in his early forties, immediately got to his feet. “Pleased to meet you, your ladyship. I’d better leave you to your business.”

  “No, Alan, please don’t go. You might be able to help.”

  He turned toward her. “If you’re sure...”

  “Perfectly sure.”

  “Yes, don’t leave on my account, Mr Green. I shan’t keep either of you long.”

  He did not appear reluctant to retake his seat, while Mary cleared a heap of sewing off a hard backed chair, moved it closer to Green, and sat in that, offering her own armchair to Eleanor.

  “Would you like tea, my lady? It’s freshly brewed.”

  “No, thank you, Mrs Cropper. I came to ask if you know Cameron McIntyre?”

  “Oh, yes. He is...was... Martin’s foreman at Bairstows. Martin always spoke highly of him, and they seemed to get on quite well, by all accounts. He called on me a few days back and asked if there was anything he, or the gang, could do. The police had been to speak to them, and...well...he knew about Martin. I thought it was kind of him.”

  All the time she was talking, Green had never taken his eyes off Mary, a fact that Eleanor’s own sharp glance did not miss.

  “Has he called on you within the last three days?”

  “No, he only called that once. I thanked him, but told him I was coping, and that Mr Bairstow was arranging for me to get Martin’s outstanding wages and the money in his pension pot. Why do you want to know?”

  “Because Cameron McIntyre has also disappeared. He wasn’t at work yesterday or today, and his landlady hasn’t seen him since he left for work yesterday morning.”

  “Oh, no.” Mary’s hand flew to her mouth.

  Green patted her other hand, then looked at Eleanor. “It sounds as if something very funny is going off at Bairstows, if two men have gone missing now. Have you spoken to Bairstow? What’s he got to say about it?”

  “Yes, I have, and he’s as baffled as everyone else appears to be.” Eleanor gave him a cool and critical stare. “Are you a painter, Mr Green?”

  He shook his head and said he was a self-employed carpenter and joiner. “I have a small workshop out the back of my house where I make cabinets and such. I also rehang doors for folks and do other small carpentry jobs. I prefer to work for myself and not be at the whims of some boss or other. Never saw the point in making more money for somebody else than I make for myself. No offence, Mary.”

  Mary waved the comment away with a flick of her hand. “It don’t do for us all to be the same. You make your living the best way you can.”

  “Did you know any of Mr Cropper’s workmates, Mr Green?”

  Green glared at Eleanor as if resenting the question, then screwed up his face. “No, I’d never met them, so far as I know. I’ve been friendly with Martin and Mary for years, and I try to stay on good terms with all my neighbours, but that don’t mean that I know everything about them, or who they work with.”

  Eleanor nodded, apparently accepting the answer at face value, but something niggled at the back of her mind.

  “Do either of you know anyone from the Rother Rowing Club? A member perhaps, or someone who is keen on rowing?”

  The two of them looked at each other. Mary shook her head. “I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of it,” she said.

  “Oh, I know of it,” said Green. “It’s that place down on the mouth of the Rother where it meets the Thames. I did some work at a pub down there — making new barrel stands for the cellar — a couple of summers ago. It’s a bit of a toffs’ place by all accounts.”

  Toffs? Yet McIntyre had recently joined. He could hardly be described as a toff.

  “What has that to do with Martin? Do you think someone from the club murdered him? But why? Whatever for? I’ll warrant he didn’t even know of its existen
ce.”

  Mary’s eyes filled with tears. She dabbed at them with a large cotton handkerchief. Alan patted her hand and murmured softly.

  Green obviously hadn’t wasted any time in offering Mary comfort, nor she in taking it, but they were old friends and neighbours and Eleanor was pleased that her client had someone to lean on and thought no ill of them for that.

  On the other hand, Cropper’s workmates and his drinking buddies had all claimed that he was devoted to his wife, but there was no real evidence, apart from her tears, that she felt the same way about her husband.

  Eleanor brought her attention back from the couple opposite to answer Mary’s question.

  “Because as far as I’ve been able to discover, Martin was last seen talking to someone wearing the club’s blazer. I’m trying to find out who that was. He may have nothing to do with the murder, but he might know where your husband went to after they had spoken.”

  And that, she thought, would at least be a step forward, even if it were no bigger than a baby’s step.

  However, both Mary and Alan Green looked at her blankly.

  “I’m sorry, my lady, but I can’t think of who it could have been.”

  “It might just have been a passer-by.”

  Eleanor sighed. “Yes, that is a possibility, of course. Well, thank you for your time.” She rose to her feet. “I shall keep on looking, Mrs Cropper, never fear, and I’ll be in touch.”

  But when, and where she should look, she did not say. The case was to take on a whole new twist before Eleanor would see light at the end of the tunnel.

  Chapter 22

  Eleanor threaded the Lagonda through the back streets, heading for Tower Bridge and thence home. She concentrated on her driving, refusing to let her mind dwell on her most baffling case.

  Coming to a halt at a T-junction, she waited for the traffic to clear, idly watching shoppers on the far pavement. A man slouching along with his hat tipped low gave her a quick glance, then looked as quickly away and entered a book shop. She didn’t give him a second thought as a small blue Alvis carrying a familiar registration approached from the right.