Rag and Bone: Billy Boyle 05

by James R Benn

  “Inspector Scutt thinks I am hunting Russians one by one, on the streets of London?”

  “I’d say he’s seeking a motive, and you’ve got the best claim to one, after that scene at the opera. Things got stranger after that. I went to see Cosgrove, to confront him about Sheila Carlson and watch his reaction. Who do I find him with but none other than a Mr. Brown. They had a meeting with a guy from MI6, Kim Philby.”

  “Then Mr. Brown must be more than an errand boy,” Kaz said. “Cosgrove and Philby move in the higher ranks of intelligence circles.”

  “I got the distinct notion that Cosgrove was the junior of the three, and that he and Brown were on the outs. Brown as much as boasted he’d had Sheila killed, to keep her quiet.” I described my visit to the Eastcheap Gentleman’s Club, the message I was supposed to carry to Rak Vatutin, and the surprise visit from Cosgrove.

  “So now we know who among the Russians was tipping off the Chapman gang,” Kaz said. “And that you are aiding and abetting them in hijacking farm produce. That doesn’t help clear me of suspicion, or help you solve the case.”

  “It might be more than produce or vodka this time. When I mentioned it to Cosgrove he nearly blew a fuse.”

  “What else could it be?” Kaz said. “Weapons? Drugs?”

  “We’re missing something,” Big Mike said, setting down his empty glass.

  “Obviously,” I said.

  “I mean about Sheila. We figured she killed Eddie for the cash, right? But Scutt was right, that she could’ve taken that anytime. So there had to be another reason.”

  “There could be many reasons,” Kaz said. “A lover’s quarrel, a falling-out among thieves.”

  “No, we gotta look at it with this new information: Brown wanted her dead, and she got away.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, not seeing where Big Mike was going with this.

  “OK,” he said, holding up one finger. “Let’s say she has no clue Brown is going to have her done in. She makes the cake, gives it to Radecki, and then figures it’s a big payday. Eddie’s at work. She could take off with their nest egg, and then get whatever Brown promised her once the job was done. Why kill Eddie?”

  “Maybe he found out about the poisoned cake,” I said. “Or who was paying her to do it.”

  “No, he was at work. She baked two cakes, and brought him a piece of one, which he ate. He couldn’t have known about her taking off with their money.” Big Mike held up a second finger. “Now let’s figure she knew Brown was going to double-cross her. Same question applies. Why kill Eddie?”

  “It doesn’t help to repeat that we don’t know why,” Kaz said.

  “No, that’s not what he’s saying,” I broke in, watching Big Mike nod his head in approval as I caught up to him. “We’re stuck in a rut thinking it had something to do with MI5 or Tad. It doesn’t. There’s another reason entirely. Eddie had to know something that truly threatened her. Working for MI5 is its own protection; if she had faith in Brown, she would have felt safe. Or, if she knew Brown was going to have her killed, that threat would have been her top priority.”

  “I see,” Kaz said. “You’re saying she murdered Eddie for a third reason, external to the case. And that perhaps she didn’t know Brown had ordered her death. Perhaps she slipped away for that third reason.”

  “I knew you guys would get it sooner or later,” Big Mike said. “Being officers, you were bound to. How about you buy the next round?”

  “Aren’t you driving us to Dover tonight?”

  “In this pea soup? No way. I’ll sleep on the couch in your fancy hotel, and we’ll leave at first light. Sam will never know.”

  “You’re the boss, Big Mike.”

  AFTER THE NEXT round, we decided to detour back to Eddie’s place, figuring that we might have missed something the first time. Scotland Yard would have tossed the place by now, but maybe they were looking at things the way we had: that everything Sheila did was about her work for Brown and MI5. Even after a few drinks, three pairs of eyes might see something new. The fog was lifting, but navigating in the blackout made for a slow trip across the Thames and through the twisting side streets of Camberwell. A railroad bridge crossed the main thoroughfare, where a large antiaircraft gun lifted its steel nose into the foggy night. I could see the faint red glow of two cigarettes where the crew leaned against the railing, relaxing under the dark gray cover. Were they bored, I wondered, when the lonely quiet hours stretched out before them? Did they prefer the excitement, tinged with a chance of death, which a raid brought? As we drove under the bridge, one of them flipped his butt out into the night, the fiery sparks arcing into darkness. Odd, I thought, the choices that war presents us. The slow passage of time, or the thrill of dancing with death. Everyone wanted to live, but when the minutes and seconds crawled into the small hours of the morning, the speed and decisiveness of combat had an allure that it lacked in the daylight.

  We found Penford Street and Eddie’s place. The front door was locked tight, but the back door gave way easily after Big Mike worked his knife blade into the latch and put his weight behind it.

  “Back doors are always easier,” Big Mike said, as Kaz flipped on the light switch in the rear hallway. “Now, what exactly are we looking for?”

  “Nothing,” I said, walking into the kitchen and turning on the overhead light. “Don’t look for anything. Look at what’s here.”

  “Billy, perhaps my English is not up to the distinction,” Kaz said. “What are you talking about?”

  “The biggest mistake you can make in a search is to expect to find something that shouldn’t be there. It can blind you to common objects that might mean something. Since we don’t know what we’re looking for, don’t look too hard. Just look at what’s here.” I could almost hear my dad drumming that into my head, over and over again, back when he used to pull me in as a uniform to help at a crime scene. The overtime was nice, but what he was really doing was teaching me an advanced course in homicide investigation. The problem was, I thought I already knew it all, and his lectures left me bored. Now it seemed to be such a simple, obvious truth, to not look for anything when you were looking for something.

  “This kitchen is a mess,” Kaz said, keeping his opinion about the Boyle wisdom to himself.

  “Pretty much like we left it,” Big Mike said. “Looks like the Scotland Yard boys pulled out a few drawers and fished around, that’s about it.” He was right. The cut-up oleander was dried out, and flies buzzed around the spilled sugar. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, and cooking utensils were scattered over the counter.

  “There is a third reason,” I said. “Sheila was never coming back to this place.”

  “Just because she’s a lousy housekeeper?” Big Mike said. “I’ve seen plenty places worse than this dump.”

  “No. Because she left the evidence out where we could find it. The cut-up oleander. She didn’t even try to hide it, or clean up the sugar. When’s the last time you saw a Londoner waste sugar like that? I don’t think she cared what anyone found here, which may also mean she’s assumed another identity. Or had assumed one as Sheila Carlson. If we ever find her, I bet she’ll be using another name.”

  “Yes,” Kaz said. “It makes sense. The rest of the kitchen is neat and orderly. The disarray is all from her baking, and what looks like morning tea.” He opened cupboards, revealing stacked dishes and cups, nothing fancy, but well kept. We went through the rest of the house, following the cursory search that Scutt’s men had done. We checked pockets in the clothing that hung in the closet, looked on the underside of a chest of drawers, pulled records out of their jackets, leafed through books and magazines. Nothing. I sat at a desk, glancing at unpaid bills, advertisements, and an empty appointment calendar, the past and future now useless to Eddie Miller.

  “Anything in the bathroom?” I asked Kaz as I wandered through the bedroom again.

  “Men’s toiletries. A few patent medicines.”

  “Sheila’s stuff cleared
out?”

  “There is a bottle of cologne, nearly empty, but not much else.” I looked around the bedroom. A small vanity was set between two narrow windows, hairbrushes and cosmetics lined up by the mirror.

  “I think she hightailed it out of here with the cash and whatever she put in her purse,” Big Mike said.

  “Yeah, looks like. Is there anyplace we haven’t searched?”

  “We’ve covered every inch of this place,” Big Mike said.

  “Except,” said Kaz, “for one thing. The dustbin. It was by the back door.”

  We hauled the garbage can into the back hall, and dumped the contents out onto newspapers spread on the floor. It didn’t look or smell pretty. They’d dined on fish and chips not too long ago—Eddie’s last supper maybe? The cut end of the small cake she’d fed to Eddie. Damp tea leaves, moldy crusts of bread, a broken glass, crumpled newspaper, and various indistinguishable globs made up the rest. With rationing, not much in England went into the dustbin.

  “What’s this?” Big Mike said, holding out a small stained and wet piece of paper. It was dark green, and looked as if it had been ripped in half. A number was at the top and bottom. It was hard to read, but the printed words said Railway, along with some smudged ink stains that had once been handwriting. I ran my fingers through the garbage again, thinking how often I heard that a detective’s life must be glamorous.

  “Here!” Kaz said, shaking out the newspapers. He held the other half, this one dry and intact. Southern Railway. Ticket number 4882. London to Shepherdswell, via Canterbury. Third class, round-trip.

  “Who went to Shepherdswell, wherever the hell that is?” Big Mike said. “Eddie or Sheila?”

  “Impossible to say, but the Southern Railway goes to the channel coast. Canterbury is southeast of here, so it should be a simple matter to find Shepherdswell along the line,” Kaz said. “We could ask around. If it’s a small town, someone may have noticed one of them.”

  “That’s on the way to Dover, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Ah, the ever-elusive Dover. Yes, it is.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EARLY MORNING FOUND us on the road to Canterbury. We’d used the rear entrance of the Dorchester, since Inspector Scutt was on the lookout for Kaz. The blackout curtains had come in handy, and the kitchen had fixed us up with a thermos of coffee and cheese sandwiches for our predawn departure.

  Crossing the River Medway at Rochester, we heard the heavy drone of engines behind us, and soon the sky was filled with B-17 bombers, hundreds of them, heading into the eastern dawn. It was a solid stream of aircraft, bomber squadrons forming up from bases all over southern England, coming together above us, painting the sky white with contrails and vibrating the air with their thousand-horsepower engines. Big Mike pulled the jeep over by the embankment, and we craned our necks to watch the air show.

  “You’re not from around here then.” The voice came from the sidewalk, where an elderly gent rested his hands on his cane, a playful smile on his face.

  “Don’t tell me you get used to this?” I asked him.

  “You never get used to Jerry coming over, and he used to, you know, day and night. Hit the airfield outside of town and us, too, for good measure. Now, at least if I hear airplanes during the day, I know it’s you Yanks flying them. Makes a fella feel good not to have to look up. Safe and secure, like.”

  “You take any hits recently, with the new raids?” I asked.

  “No, just some fields plowed up with those Jerries what got shot down, and them releasing their bomb loads. Sometimes the Home Guard has to round up the aircrew, or collect the bodies. Seems like every airplane in this war flies over us, going or coming from bombing poor souls somewhere. Better them than us, that’s what I say. But I’ll tell you, boys, I will look up when them B-17s come home.”

  “Why?”

  “Not all of them make it. I’ve seen one try to land, smoke spewing out from two engines. They crashed, poor lads. Tore up a barn, too. You’ve got to watch out in the afternoon, but morning time, I go for my walk, and enjoy the sound they make. Different at night, though. Could be our own Lancasters or Jerry coming over, can’t really tell. Anyway, I hope your boys knock Adolf for a loop. Good day, lads.” He tapped his fingers to his forehead in a salute of sorts, and continued his constitutional. As we pulled away, I looked back, and saw him give a quick glance skyward.

  “That’s what comes of living in Bomb Alley,” Kaz said. “Good advice about the afternoon, though.”

  “I think he was laughing at us, the old coot,” Big Mike said.

  “What he’s lived through, I’ll let him have a chuckle,” I said. “No way to live out your old age, with the Luftwaffe bombing your hometown, and then both sides crash-landing around you for the rest of the war.”

  We drove on, watching the contrails disappear off to our left, as I wondered what the formations would look like coming back, and what the old man would think and feel as he watched them. He looked like someone who’d worked all his life, and probably served in the last war. These should be his golden years, and instead of tending roses, he was walking under a cloud of bombers, looking over his shoulder every day for the debris of war to fall from the sky. There were all sorts of victims in this war, in every war, and for certain there were plenty of people who’d do anything to be in his shoes. Still, it bothered me. I thought of my own father, another veteran of the last war, and a guy who worked harder than anyone on the force. I always imagined him going fishing and chewing the fat with his pals at Kirby’s after he retired. What specter would he glimpse over his shoulder?

  The countryside opened up after Rochester—low, rolling hills, farmland with fields marked off by stone walls and shrubs. The ground was bare, plowed over after the fall harvest, except for the apple orchards, with their neat lines of trees, branches pruned and ready for the spring. It was a pleasant drive, until we came to a crossroads outside of Sittingbourne. A military convoy had the right of way, and we sat, watching the parade of heavy trucks cross the roadway.

  “Perhaps we should tell stories,” Kaz said, after ten minutes of monotony. “We are headed toward Canterbury, after all.”

  “So?” Big Mike said, looking at me. I shrugged.

  “Geoffrey Chaucer? The Canterbury Tales? Surely they teach Chaucer in American schools?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” Big Mike said. “I left after the eighth grade to work at a gas station, on account of my old man kicking the bucket. Maybe they mentioned him in the ninth grade.”

  “The name rings a bell,” I said. “But I never paid a lot of attention in class. What are they? Stories about Canterbury?”

  “Do you want to hear about him?” Kaz said, from his perch in the rear seat.

  “We ain’t going nowhere soon,” Big Mike said, gesturing at the line of stationary traffic in front of us.

  “Well,” Kaz began, warming to the lesson and a willing audience, “Chaucer lived in the fourteenth century. He was originally from London, but the story goes that he was peripherally involved in a power struggle between a group of powerful barons and King Richard II. He and his friends backed the king, and the king lost. Chaucer’s friends lost their heads, so he wisely retired to the countryside, in Kent.”

  “Those barons, they knock off the king?” Big Mike asked.

  “No, they kept him as a figurehead, but eliminated all his advisers. The parliamentary session after they took over was called the Merciless Parliament, since the death sentence was imposed on all the nobles who had supported the king’s cause. Chaucer had been a soldier and a diplomat for King Richard II, but he was not highly born and probably would have been left alone, but he took no chances.”

  “Smart guy,” Big Mike said. “Like after a Mob war. The ones who come out on top watch for any threat, and eliminate it. So Chaucer went on the lam?”

  “Not in hiding, just out of the way, until Richard regained control, insuring a royal position and pension.”

  “Exactly like a Mo
b war,” Big Mike said, bridging the gap between centuries with his common-sense analysis. “What did he do, bring in some muscle from out of town?”

  “Exactly,” Kaz said. “The king’s uncle, John of Gaunt, returned with his forces from a war in Spain.”

  “And they put Richard back in power, and Chaucer got his cut for staying loyal, and alive,” Big Mike said.

  “Yes, quite. He wrote one of the great works of the English language while living here in Kent, presumably near Canterbury. It begins with a group of travelers setting out on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, to visit the cathedral. It is a long walk, so they agree to tell stories on the way there and back. At the end of the trip, the person who has told the best story will have their dinner paid for by the others.”

  “I get it,” I said. “Since we’re on the road from London to Canterbury …”

  “I’m in,” Big Mike said. “Kaz, you tell us some of those old Chaucer stories, and we’ll see how they stack up against our yarns.” The traffic inched ahead then started to move and as quickly came to a stop. There was a chill in the air, even with the bright winter sun, and I buttoned my trench coat collar and nodded to Kaz to begin.

  “One of my favorites is ‘The Pardoner’s Tale.’ He tells the story of three men who are drinking heavily, mourning the death of a dear friend. The more they drink, the angrier they grow at death, whom they hold responsible. So they go out, searching for death, vowing to kill him. On the road, they meet an old man, who points to an ancient oak tree and tells them that is where they could find death. The three wait by the tree, and while there, discover eight bags of gold coins. The bags are heavy and they decide to wait until dark to remove the gold, or else someone will see them and steal their treasure. By now, all thoughts of killing death are forgotten. Growing hungry, they agree that one man should go to the village for food and wine. They draw straws and the youngest draws the short one. He leaves without complaint, trusting that his friends will not depart before nightfall. As soon as he is gone, his companions plot to kill him, reasoning that the gold will be best split two ways instead of three. The lad returns, with three bottles of wine and ample food, when he is set upon and killed. To celebrate, his killers drink the wine, not knowing that the boy had poisoned two of the bottles, intending to kill them. When darkness finally comes, all three are dead at the foot of the tree, having found death, just as the old man had foreseen.”