A Traitor at Tower Bridge

by Lynda Wilcox

“It was you at the nightclub wasn’t it? I saw you watching me. I take it the beard was false?” Yet she had known his eyes. I should have realised then that he wasn’t dead, she told herself, bitterly.

  “Yes, I was trying to see who you were with and if you were safe. I got a bit too close.” His jaw tightened. “Stupid of me.”

  “Have you had me watched all along?” Eleanor remembered those moments when she had felt eyes on her, when the hairs had risen on the back of her neck. “You were in the cafe the other day when I went back there. Was the man at the door —”

  “One of my men? Yes. He was there to warn me if you showed.”

  Armitage had almost been caught unawares, she realised. He had certainly beat a speedy retreat.

  “And it was you I saw just before I caught sight of the Alvis. You were slouching along the pavement.”

  “Yes, I was looking for that compound where they stored the bomb making equipment. You found it before I did. Well done.”

  Eleanor ignored his praise. She’d had nothing to do with locating the place, that was down to the Alvis leading her to it.

  “Couldn’t you have trusted me? I thought you wanted us to work together on this case. I thought that was behind you taking me to Watermen’s Hall.”

  “Trusting you had nothing to do with it. You had no idea what a dangerous and deadly opponent you were up against. I realised that as I sat in that hospital bed getting patched up. I was pretty groggy after knocking myself out when my head hit the pavement, and light-headed from the blood I’d lost. I felt it was safer for you if I disappeared, and the doctor was an old friend. I thought you might show up there and he agreed to instruct the nurse to tell you that I’d gone. You rather jumped to conclusions and I realised that that was probably for the best.”

  “Oooh!” Eleanor turned away so that he might not see the tears that sprang to her eyes. She resisted the urge to slap the major’s face. “Have you,” she asked in a calm, steady voice, “any idea of what you have put me through?”

  “I hadn’t, but I’m beginning to. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” She swung back. “Everyone but me knew that you were alive, from Chief Inspector Blount to Cameron McIntyre, and all you have to say is ‘sorry’?”

  Armitage ran a thumb down the scar on his chin. “Well, to be fair, I had to make a snap decision in hospital. I didn’t like keeping you in the dark. Blount needed to know, and I went to see him before he called on you here. As to Cameron, I worked with him, briefly, during the war. I thought it only right to warn him that he, too, might be in danger, and to recruit him to the cause, as it were. He’s been keeping an eye on Tower Bridge ever since he supposedly disappeared.”

  “At nine in the morning?” she asked.

  He frowned. “Yes, as it happens. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  That explained the note she’d found and puzzled over. Major Armitage again, 09.00 hours.

  She should have guessed that McIntyre’s reference to her seeing his boss was to the major, not to Bairstow.

  “And me? Was McIntyre also keeping an eye on me?”

  Armitage squirmed in his chair. “Yes, he was. He moved out of his lodgings into a hotel just around the corner from this building, in order to make sure that Leonov hadn’t traced you here. He was the ideal choice as he knew you both by sight. I thought it a good arrangement, protecting you and McIntyre at the same time.”

  There it was again, the protection word. She scowled at him.

  “Now,” he said, “you’ve had my side of the story, I’d like to hear yours, and how you got onto him.”

  Eleanor rang for Tilly and asked for tea. “Bring a third cup when you’ve made it, and come and join us, please.”

  The major did not look pleased at this request, but said nothing, and they waited in silence for Tilly to bring the tea.

  “Go on, then, my lady,” Armitage said, when the maid returned and they’d all helped themselves to a cup and saucer from the tray.

  “Very well. I have felt all along that the one thing I was missing in this case was motive. What did Martin Cropper have that someone else might want?” She raised a forefinger. “And want so badly, mark you, that they were prepared to kill in order to get it. It wasn’t money, the Croppers have enough to live on, although it certainly isn’t a fortune.”

  “His wife?” Tilly suggested.

  “Yes.” Eleanor nodded. “I wondered that. The neighbour Alan Green has a fondness for Mary, I’m sure, and one day I hope that will blossom into something and she will find happiness again. I don’t think Green is a killer, though. His passion isn’t strong enough that he would kill for her.”

  Armitage nursed his tea cup, and listened intently. Eleanor’s last statement brought a smile to his lips, as if he were pleased by her reasoning.

  Eleanor ignored him. His sudden reappearance had nearly caused her heart to stop, and she hadn’t yet forgiven him for that, or for the anguish of his absence.

  “Well...” Tilly wriggled in her seat. “If it’s usually love or money, and you’ve discounted both of those, what’s left?”

  “Oh, there are a lot more motives for murder. Revenge for one, jealousy for another.”

  “Or rage,” Tilly said.

  “Mistaken identity?” The major reached for a cigarette. “How do you know that Cropper — was it? — was the intended victim?”

  Eleanor smiled. “Because of his job.”

  “Eh?” Armitage looked blank.

  “He was a painter, my lady.” Tilly’s brow furrowed. “Why would someone kill him because of that?”

  “It’s not what he did, Tilly, old girl. It’s where he did it.”

  “Ye gods!” The major let out a whistle. “Leonov killed him simply to have reason to be at Tower Bridge?”

  “Yes. At first I thought he might be planning to blow it up, that would cause carnage enough, but then I remembered that the Royal Barge was due to come down from Windsor and would pass directly underneath the bridge. He would damage, or even destroy, the bridge and assassinate the king and queen at the very same time.”

  “So, what put you onto Leonov?”

  “His aliases. They all had the same initial. Sergei Leonov, Stephen Leather, Simon Lauder. As Leather he had joined the Rother Rowing Club — useful for keeping an eye on that stretch of the Thames and surveying the bridge from water level — and he was wearing their blazer when he had met and then killed Cropper after the latter’s shift on the Saturday. Then, using the name Lauder, he had turned up at Bairstow’s at lunchtime two days later knowing he would be able to walk straight into Cropper’s job.”

  “Did you see him in all three guises, my lady?” Tilly asked.

  “Not as Leonov, I didn’t, not until the end. I’m afraid I put two and two together there, and I’m lucky that I didn’t make them equal six. However, when I was in the Commercial Hotel talking to Cropper’s colleagues, Leonov sat in profile to me. McIntyre introduced him as Simon Lauder, Cropper’s replacement and explained that he hadn’t known the dead man, yet he was paying particular attention to what was said. If he hadn’t known his predecessor, there was no reason for him to have turned up at the hotel — apart from the offer of a free drink, of course. He gave himself away when he took a cigarette from a monogrammed silver case displaying the initials S.L. It was far too fancy an item to be in a humble painter’s possession, I thought.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about him that night at the Watermen’s Hall?”

  Eleanor grimaced. “Because I wasn’t aware he was Leonov, or that the two cases we were working on were so closely connected. I’d also largely forgotten about Lauder and become sidetracked by McIntyre. Besides, you had other things on your mind.”

  She shook her head and looked away. They weren’t much of a team, despite him claiming to want them to work together and pool information. And had he been trying to protect her, or himself?

  “I also saw him at the rowing club when I visited with Lady
Ann. He turned away, but I’d already spotted him. Unfortunately, he’d also spotted me.”

  “Well done on solving it so quickly, my lady.” Tilly got to her feet, putting the now empty cups back on the tray. “I said you could do it, didn’t I?”

  “Thank you, Tilly, but it was mostly down to luck. I can’t take credit for that.”

  As the maid left, carrying the tray into the kitchen, Major Armitage also levered himself from his chair. “I’d better go. I have a lot to do. As the Chief Inspector has probably told you, Leonov still hasn’t confessed and it’s going to be a long night.”

  “Good luck,” she said, rising to show him to the door. As far as she was concerned, the case was closed, the whole matter over and done with. She had no doubt that Armitage would be back, interfering in her life once again and, as she shut the door on his retreating back, she allowed herself a smile.

  Life without him had been far too dark and dull. As long as he was alive, he could interfere all he wanted.

  She picked up the telephone receiver, gave a number and waited to be connected. “That you, Ann? About tonight’s party. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

  The End

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In an effort not to bog the story down with too many facts and figures, a lot of the research for A Traitor At Tower Bridge never actually made it into the book. Most of it was fascinating, if ultimately irrelevant to the tale I had to tell.

  For example: the two halves of Tower Bridge that open, which really are called bascules, only open wide (and high) enough to accommodate whichever ship is passing through. They are only raised to their highest, an angle of 86 degrees, when the monarch is on board the vessel.

  The Company of Watermen and Lightermen still exists, as does their magnificent Hall. I am indebted to their clerk, Colin Middlemiss, for answering my long list of questions, although any errors concerning the Company, its Hall and events, are down to this author.

  Readers interested in knowing more about either of the above can find further information at the following websites:

  https://www.towerbridge.org.uk/

  https://watermenscompany.com/

  THANK YOU FOR READING A Traitor At Tower Bridge. I hope you enjoyed it.

  The Lady Eleanor Mysteries:

  Book 1 A Poisoning In Piccadilly.

  Book 2 A Burglary In Belgravia.

  Book 3 A Traitor At Tower Bridge.

  Book 4 A Drowning In Dulwich – coming soon!

  Other series by Lynda Wilcox:

  The Verity Long Mysteries

  A crime writer's researcher finds herself in a heap of trouble trying to solve old cases.

  The Gemini Detectives

  Twins Linzi and Loren Repton solve crimes with the help of a mysterious bag-lady and her three-legged dog.

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