JM01 - River of Darkness

by Rennie Airth

  “Is Captain Miller available?” Hollingsworth asked.

  “No, he’s dead,” Sinclair answered bluntly. “His staff car was hit by a stray shell behind the lines. It happened a few weeks afterwards, but by then the case was wrapped up. Let me go on.”

  He seated himself behind his desk.

  “For whatever reason—we can’t be sure from this distance in time—suspicion fell on a battalion of the South Nottinghamshire Regiment. On a company, rather, B Company, and just a small part of that—fifteen men, to be precise. They were all questioned.”

  “Were they together?” Madden asked.

  “Apparently they all went to the farmhouse for a meal. The battalion was being rested. They’d been in action and taken a mauling and were waiting for replacements. The point, as far as we’re concerned, is that these were the only men questioned in connection with the crime. Captain Miller must have had strong reasons for thinking the killer was one of them.”

  “Then why was the case closed?” Billy Styles spoke before he could stop himself.

  The chief inspector’s smile was deceptively inviting. “Why don’t you tell us that, Constable?”

  Billy blushed bright red. Hollingsworth, beside him, was grinning.

  “Sergeant?”

  “Because he must have reckoned whoever did it was dead, sir.”

  “Just so.” Sinclair nodded his approval. “The battalion was back in action a week later. It was that Passchendaele business. Of the fifteen men, only seven came out alive. Colonel Jenkins did some checking. Miller closed the case right about the time the battalion was withdrawn a second time. Which suggests he believed the murderer was one of the eight men who were killed.”

  In the silence that followed, the sound of a tug-boat’s whistle floated in through the open window. Hollingsworth cocked his head. “Could he have had the wrong man in mind, sir?”

  “I wonder, Sergeant.” Sinclair sat forward in his chair. His eye met Madden’s. “Of the seven who came out, only four were alive at the end of the war. Their names and service records are in the file, and Colonel Jenkins was good enough to check with the Army to find out where they were paid their twenty pounds.”

  “Twenty pounds?” Billy didn’t understand the allusion.

  “That’s what the government gave every private soldier who came through the war. A gratuity. Two of them were paid in Nottingham, one in Brighton and the other in Folkestone.”

  Madden extracted a sheet of paper from the file and handed it to the chief inspector. “Here’s a list of the names, Sergeant.” Sinclair passed it on to Hollingsworth. “You and Styles find yourselves a couple of telephones and see if you can come up with four current addresses by lunch-time. But go carefully.” He raised a warning finger. “Just say we want a word with these people. Don’t start any alarm bells ringing.”

  The chief inspector waited until they had the office to themselves again. He took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and laid them on the blotter in front of him. His fingers beat a rapid tattoo on the desktop. “Well, John?”

  “Was she raped?”

  “She was not.”

  Madden grunted. He was studying a fan of documents spread out before him. “These verbatim interviews—they don’t tell us much.”

  “‘Yes, sir, no, sir, it wasn’t me, sir.” We’ll have to go through ’em, just the same.” Sinclair began filling his pipe. “Damn it, John, we might have struck lucky. We could come up with a name and a face.”

  Madden said nothing. But he was smiling as he went on with his reading.

  Sinclair struck a match. “I’ve just had a large pat on the back from Bennett.”

  “Have you, sir?”

  “In front of the chief super, too. He came expecting our usual Monday morning get-together. Instead he had Bennett telling him what my ‘leap of imagination’ had uncovered. I thought Sampson was going to be sick on the carpet.”

  Madden was grinning now. “A leap of imagination, sir?”

  “Those were his words. I was overcome. Speechless, you might say.” The chief inspector blew out a cloud of mellow tobacco smoke. “By the way, how is Dr. Weiss? Safely back in Vienna, I trust.”

  Lunch-time came and went, and it was not until four o’clock that Hollingsworth was able to report success in tracking down three of the four survivors.

  “The other bloke, Samuel Patterson, seems to have vanished. He left Nottingham two years ago to take a job as a labourer on a farm near Norwich, but he quit after only a few months and nobody’s heard of him since. The Norwich police are trying to trace him.”

  The second man paid his gratuity in Nottingham, Arthur Marlow, was a patient in an Army hospital. “He’s got a leg wound that won’t heal. He’s been bedridden for a year.”

  The Brighton police had provided an address for Donald Hardy, who worked as a solicitor’s clerk in Hove. The fourth man, Alfred Dawkins, had had various addresses in Folkestone over the past eighteen months.

  “The police don’t know where he’s living at present, but they know where to find him—that’s how they put it.” Hollingsworth scratched his head. “I let it go at that, sir. Didn’t want to stir them up.”

  After reflection, Sinclair issued his orders: “John, you go to Folkestone tomorrow morning. Take Styles with you. Hollingsworth and I will deal with Mr. Hardy in Hove. Let’s both be clear on one point. If there’s any suspicion that either of these two is the man we’re seeking, the help of armed officers must be sought before he’s approached. I want no more casualties.”

  3

  Before they had even left the platform at Folkestone station next morning Madden and Styles learned that Alfred Dawkins was not the man they were seeking. “That’s right, sir, only one leg. Didn’t they say?” Detective Sergeant Booth of the Folkestone CID had come to the station to meet them. He was a thickset man with dark brown eyes and a watchful air. “Lost it in the very last month of the war, or so I’ve been told.”

  Studying the sergeant, Billy noticed the yellowed fingers of a heavy smoker. His trousers were a little loose at the waist, possibly the result of a diet, Billy surmised. He had resolved to become more observant. To take note of things. He knew he was burdened with a wide-eyed quality: a sort of innocence that led him to make daft remarks and ask stupid questions, like the one that had caused him such embarrassment in the chief inspector’s office the day before. It was obvious why Captain Miller had closed the case, once you thought about it. His trouble was, he didn’t think about things enough. Or, rather, he opened his mouth first.

  This line of reasoning had been reinforced by a conversation he had had with Madden on the train coming down from London. The inspector had seemed in better spirits. The haunted look Billy had grown accustomed to was less marked. He had gone to the trouble of explaining to the young constable why the case they were on was proving so hard to crack.

  “Nearly all murders take place between people who know each other, so there’s an obvious connection from the start. But this man kills people he’s never met. At least, that’s what we think, though we can’t be sure. How does he pick them? What took him to Highfield and Bentham in the first instance? Is he a travelling salesman? Does he drive a van, or some other vehicle? Whatever job he has seems to take him around the country. Without a real lead, we have to accumulate all the information we can, all the details, no matter how trivial, because the answer may lie in one of them.”

  That chimed with what Billy had been telling himself. Pay attention.

  They rode through golden cornfields and orchards heavy with fruit. Then the hedgerowed fields stopped abruptly and Billy saw the silver glint of the sea below. Madden pointed to a collection of low buildings on the outskirts of the town.

  “That’s Shorncliffe Camp. It used to be five, no, ten times the size. The tents stretched for miles. Nearly every British soldier who went to France passed through here. Did you know that, Styles?”

  Billy nodded. It was the first time he had heard the ins
pector speak about the war.

  “Towards the end they got up to nine thousand a day. They marched them down to the town and straight on to the Channel steamers and across to France. At night there were illuminated fishing boats strung out in lines all the way to the French coast.”

  On the platform at Folkestone Detective Sergeant Booth explained about Dawkins. (To Billy’s satisfaction, he had lit up almost at once.) “We haven’t got his current address, sir. He moves a lot—trouble with landladies. But he’s generally down in the port this time of day. I’ve no doubt we’ll find him there.”

  “He’s not the man I hoped he might be,” Madded admitted. “But I’d like a word with him just the same.”

  Booth had a taxi waiting outside the station. It took them on a winding downhill route through the town. When they reached the port he told the driver to stop. Ahead of them Billy could see the harbour situated in a natural bay carved out of the chalky cliffs. In the foreground a small steamer was tied up at the wharf. A crowd of people, mostly women, were gathered in front of the gangplank. Smoke was issuing from the steamer’s red and white funnel. Sergeant Booth pointed. “There he is, sir, at the foot of the gangplank.”

  Through the press of bodies Billy caught a glimpse of a figure on crutches.

  “All those women—they’re war widows going on a tour of cemeteries in France and Belgium. It’s something they started last year. Perhaps you read about it?”

  Madden shook his head.

  “Alf Dawkins gets himself down here whenever there’s a sailing, which is most days in the summer. Stands there on his crutches with his medals pinned on. You’d be surprised how many ladies put half a crown in his hand. Probably worth a couple of quid to him. Afterwards he goes over to the pub”—Booth pointed to a line of buildings a little way down the jetty—“buys himself a drink. Two or three more likely. That’s how we know him. He’s been up before the bench. Drunk and disorderly.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him here. We’ll wait in the pub.” Madden’s voice was terse.

  Twenty minutes later, sitting in a taproom smelling of fish and stale tobacco smoke, they heard the toot of the steamer’s whistle. At that moment the pub doors opened and Dawkins swung in on his crutches. Short and stocky, his pale face was disfigured by red blotches. Billy noticed that one of his eyelids blinked with a nervous tic.

  Madden rose. “I’ll talk to him alone, if you don’t mind.”

  Booth raised an eyebrow at his departing figure. “Doesn’t say much, does he?”

  Billy wanted to defend the inspector, but he couldn’t think of a suitable response.

  “Mind you, I wouldn’t have his job.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This Melling Lodge business?” Booth shook his head. “Worst kind of case a copper can find himself landed with.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re dealing with something you don’t understand.” The sergeant dipped into his beer. “Most people do things for reasons and criminals are no different. But this bloke!” He shook his head again. “With a case like that, it’s hard to know where to start.”

  Billy watched Madden lead Dawkins away from the bar to a table in the corner. The inspector carried their glasses. He pulled out a chair for the other man and saw that he was comfortably settled.

  “I remember a case I was on once.” Booth was speaking again. “A young woman was murdered, strangled. Her body was found in a field just outside of town. We got the bloke that did it. He kept a diary. It was produced in evidence.”

  “Did he mention the murder?” Billy was fascinated.

  Booth nodded. “But it’s what he wrote—I’ve never forgotten it. ‘Warm weather. Rain in the afternoon. I killed a girl today.’ ”

  “That was all?” Billy was incredulous.

  The sergeant shrugged. “She was his first, thank God. But I remember thinking then, there must be people around us living another life from the one we live. It’s as though they’re from a different world. To understand them you’d have to get inside their heads, and what chance is there of that?”

  Madden took Dawkins’s glass to the bar and returned to their table with a fresh drink. He was smiling and nodding at the other man. Dawkins spoke, gesturing with his hands. He patted his trousered stump. He was grinning across the table at the inspector.

  “How did you catch him?” Billy wanted to know.

  “Through a little thing.” Booth drained his glass. “He’d taken something from the girl he killed, a brooch shaped like a buckle with a piece of amber mounted in the middle. It was nothing special, but we gave out a description of it. A couple of weeks later a beat constable noticed a girl in the street wearing something similar. He asked her where she’d got it and she told him a young man had given it to her. Turned out he was the bloke.”

  “That was lucky.”

  The inspector rose and took his leave of Dawkins. Billy saw a banknote change hands.

  “Lucky for her,” Booth countered. “I reckon she would have been his next. But that’s how it is with a case like that—or this Melling Lodge business. You won’t crack it the usual way. You have to hope something will turn up. Some little thing,” he added, unconsciously echoing the inspector’s words earlier. “You have to keep your eyes open.”

  Little was said on the journey back to London. Madden sat gazing out of the window, seemingly wrapped in thought. Billy, aware that another possible lead had turned cold, supposed that was what was on the inspector’s mind.

  Or was he thinking about all those men who had marched down through the town to the harbour and on to the Channel steamers? the young constable wondered. The route had been renamed after the war, Sergeant Booth had told them in the taxi. Now it was known as the Road of Remembrance. To Billy, recalling Alf Dawkins with his crutches and his nervous tic, begging for half-crowns, it seemed more a case of how quickly people forgot.

  Mr. Hardy has three children and sings in the church choir. He’s short and fat and gets breathless climbing a flight of stairs. I hope you had better luck with Dawkins, John.”

  Madden’s response caused Sinclair’s eyebrows to shoot skywards. “One leg! Poor devil—but couldn’t someone have told us that?”

  The chief inspector had returned from Hove an hour earlier. He was seated at his desk, smoking his pipe. Behind him the late-afternoon sun lay like molten fire on the river.

  “He remembers the incident well enough. They were all lined up by the sergeant major and marched in one at a time to be questioned. It put a scare into them, Dawkins said, but he swears none of them was guilty. They returned from the farm in a group that night.”

  Madden settled behind his desk. He lit a cigarette.

  “He said Miller was rough on them. He behaved as though he believed they were hiding something. But after they came out of the line a few days later they never heard another word about the case.”

  “I got the same from Hardy.” Sinclair puffed at his pipe. “What did you make of it?”

  The inspector shrugged. “I wondered why Miller didn’t talk to them again. Even if he believed the guilty man had been killed in action he’d still have wanted to question the others to get the full story from them.”

  “I had the same reaction.” Sinclair nodded agreement. “It’s obvious Miller no longer regarded them as suspects. He must have had someone else in mind. We’ve been chasing the wrong fox, damn it!”

  “But still someone he thought was dead,” Madden pointed out quickly. “He closed the case, remember.”

  The chief inspector grunted. He shook his head pessimistically. “I’ve been wondering what to do next. It occurred to me the Belgian police might be able to help us, so I sent a telegram to the Brussels Sureté half an hour ago asking them to check their records. After all, those were Belgian citizens who were murdered.” He sighed heavily. “The trouble is, Brussels was under German occupation at the time and I’m not sure the civilian police were ever involved in the inves
tigation. I’ve a nasty feeling they’ll simply refer us to the British military authorities and we’ll be back where we started. With Miller’s missing memorandum.”

  4

  Harold Biggs had been looking forward to spending that Saturday afternoon at the races. He and his pal, Jimmy Pullman, had planned to drive to Dover in Jimmy’s second-hand Morris, lose a few shillings on the nags and then look in later at the Seaview Hotel where there was a regular Saturday tea dance. They might, if they were lucky, pick up a couple of girls. But a summons from Mr. Henry Wolverton, senior partner in the firm of Dabney, Dabney and Wolverton, on Friday morning put a stopper on that.

  “There’s something I want you to do tomorrow, Biggs. Old client of the firm. Widow of client actually. Got herself into a state about something. Written me a letter.” Wolverton, a stout middle-aged man with an unhealthily red face, spoke habitually in short sentences as though he couldn’t summon up the breath for longer utterances. “Wants someone to go and see her tomorrow afternoon. Has to be then.” He peered up at Harold over the top of his half-spectacles. “Out of normal working hours, I know. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No, sir,” said Biggs, minding strongly.

  “He’s got his nerve,” Jimmy Pullman remarked when they met later in the Bunch of Grapes for a lunchtime drink. Jimmy worked in a gents clothing store. “Catch Mr. Henry Bloody Wolverton spending his Saturday afternoon traipsing around the countryside. You should have told him where to get off, Biggsy.”

  Harold shrugged, pretending unconcern. He accepted a Scotch egg from the plate Jimmy pushed along the pub counter towards him. His job as a solicitor’s clerk was the same one he’d held before the war and he’d been happy when early demobilization enabled him to reclaim it. Other men returning later to civilian life had not been so fortunate.