Too Many Heroes

by Jan Turk Petrie

  ‘Here we are then, room eighteen.’ The room is very much what he expects. At least there’s a small sink in one corner. ‘Lav’s along the hallway at the end – there’s only half a dozen rooms that use that one. If you want a bath, it’s downstairs. It’ll cost you another shillin’ an’ you’ll have to book a time with me. That’s it, really. Alright, Mr, ah –’

  ‘Frank,’ he says. ‘No point in us getting all formal is there, Pam?’

  She knocks the ash off her cigarette and makes no attempt to catch it. ‘Try not to make too much noise when you come in – there’ll be plenty of kiddies sleepin’. Oh, and make sure it’s just you, I don’t hold with no unexpected female guests.’ She gives him a quizzical look. ‘Nor male ones for that matter.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he says. ‘This’ll suit me just fine.’ Once he’s handed over the cash she leaves.

  He sighs with relief as he turns the key in the lock. Doesn’t bother to unpack. Frank inspects the bed and finds it somehow manages to be both hard and soft at the same time. Covers look clean enough.

  Frank lies down with his hands behind his head and stares up at the electric light. He recalls all those nights before an op – the struggle just to get to sleep.

  A tawny owl calls out. No – for pity’s sake it’s only a wood pigeon. Even so, his heart won’t slow down. The rickety red shade is tilted at an angle, casting a fiery light onto the walls.

  With no warning the trembling starts. A faint sound turns into screams that grow louder and louder filling his head. Flames are leaping everywhere – catching the curtains, the bed, engulfing the room. Searing heat on his skin; his nostrils fill with the stench of smoke and burning flesh.

  Screwing his eyes shut, he blocks his ears with his hands and prays for it to stop.

  Still not himself, Frank’s relieved to be back outside breathing in fresh sea air. The dusk has deepened and darkness is hiding the worst of the town. Along the waterfront, all the dancing lights are conjuring up a glamour that’s entirely absent in daylight. The onshore breeze carries the briny smell of the sea along with a dank earthiness from all the mudflats.

  Passing the window of a shut-up shop, Frank checks his reflection again. With his thick-rimmed specs and trilby he’s almost unrecognisable to himself. All the dressing up is making him feel like some bad music-hall turn.

  He passes a few more side streets and then the road takes him round to the left. The pub he’d been told about – the George and Dragon – is right there on the corner in front of him.

  Inside, it’s packed to the gunnels with seamen, many of them still in uniform. The air is so thick with smoke he’s forced to shut his mouth. His eyes are smarting. When his glasses fog up, he takes them off and stuffs them into his jacket pocket.

  The stink of sweat and warm beer is overpowering. Everybody seems to be in fine spirits, arms around one another’s necks or shoulders as they swap stories or belt out raucous songs. Pushing his way through, Frank hears the names of far-flung places being bandied about like anyone else might talk about the districts of London.

  All too aware of his rapidly disappearing cash, he buys half a bitter and props himself against the far corner of the bar to wait. He takes a couple of sips then puts his glass down; though he’s thirsty enough, he’d better make it last.

  Every few minutes he looks back towards the door. The chap he’s meeting hadn’t specified an exact time. Someone watching him would say he had the desperate look of a man who’s worried about being stood up. When he checks, he can’t see a single woman in the place – even the bar staff are men. Someone nearby starts up a rendition of Wild Rover and despite the many loud groans, at the No neigh never bit the whole bar seems to clap three times in unison.

  ‘Is there somethin’ wrong with yer beer, mate?’ The speaker is a young chap with a deep tan dressed in sailor’s whites. The hat perched on the back of his fair hair is in danger of sliding off.

  ‘No point in hurrying a good beer, is there?’ He gives the bloke a wry smile.

  The sailor waves a ten-bob note at the barman. ‘Over here, Fred. Give me two pints of Truman’s.’ Once he’s been served, the sailor slides one of the pints across to him. ‘Get that down ya, pal.’

  Frank starts to protest but the sailor plants a heavy arm across his shoulder. ‘Look, mate, I can see from the way yer toyin’ with that half pint you must be skint. We’ve all bin there and no doubt will be again, more’s the flamin’ pity. There’s no shame in it.’

  ‘Ta very much.’ Frank’s touched by this unexpected generosity. ‘To your good health.’

  ‘Cheers, mate.’ Beer slops out of the sailor’s glass as he knocks it against Frank’s. ‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth – ain’t that what they reckon, Charlie, me old mate?’

  The Charlie he’s talking to is an older man with the name of the same ship across his hatband. Frank hadn’t noticed him standing behind them clutching a part empty glass. ‘So where exactly are you hiding my drink, young Ronnie?’

  ‘You – you’re bloody rollin’ in it. You can buy yer own. Our friend here – what’s yer name, pal?’

  ‘Frank.’

  ‘Our friend Frank here has been nursin’ a ruddy half for the last twenty minutes. Now that can’t be right on a Friday night, can it?’

  ‘Is that so?’ His smile reveals the teeth of a younger man. ‘Well now, I’d call that a travesty. If it’s work you’re after, Frank, sure I happen to hear talk of a ship that’s not fully crewed-up.’ Charlie must be from Southern Ireland; County Kerry possibly because his accent’s exactly like Liam’s.

  Liam – Frank hasn’t thought of the lad in a while. He’d never asked their bomb aimer what he was doing in the RAF in the first place with his home country being neutral. The lad would have just turned thirty-one now, if he’d lived.

  He’s nudged back to the present by Charlie’s elbow. ‘She’s a bulk carrier heading for somewhere in North America – I forget exactly where.’ Leaning over, the sailor manages to knock Frank’s glass, spilling a good inch of beer. ‘Yer man over there – him with the bald head and pipe waving his glass around – he’s the fella to speak to.’

  ‘Thanks, mate but as it happens, I’m s’posed to be meeting a bloke in here about a job.’ Frank looks up at the clock behind the bar. ‘He should be here shortly.’

  ‘Ah well, if you’ve a change of heart, or the other fella doesn’t show up, you’d best go and have a natter with baldie there. Though I’d wait till the fella’s stopped singing with such gusto or you’ll be deaf for a fortnight.’

  Seems it’s easy to pick up work on a ship if you’re not too fussy where she’s heading. Charlie’s right, if his man doesn’t show up soon, he might as well go and have a chat with the bald bugger now attempting to demonstrate how to drink a pint backwards and getting it mostly down his front.

  They all get pushed from behind when a group of lads at the back spread out to spin a bottle. While it’s spinning, they chant something to the tune of Waltzing Matilda.

  Frank goes cold before he hears them more clearly: ‘Who’ll buy the next round? Who’ll buy the next round?’ they’re singing – not Ops in a Wimpey after all. Frank sips his beer. Hadn’t he learnt a long time ago how there’s no ruddy point dwelling on the past? He’s beginning to give up on the bloke he’s waiting for when the man strolls in. Frank detaches himself from the sailors. ‘Just off for a slash.’ He walks on past the man into the gents’.

  While he’s taking a piss, the bloke comes in and stands alongside him at the urinal though he doesn’t relieve himself. Frank feels him slip something into his left pocket. ‘All arranged. That’s everythin’ you’ll need.’ He turns and heads for the door. ‘Best of luck, mate.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Saturday 5th July

  Grace is almost at the Eight Bells when a car draws up alongside her. As soon as it stops, Collingwood jumps out of the backseat. ‘Mrs Stevenson,’ he says, lifting his trilby and then planting it
back down on his head. ‘Might we have a word with you?’

  Sergeant Bradley gets out from the driver’s side and comes to stand in the gutter behind his master.

  ‘Of course,’ she says.

  Collingwood nods towards the pub. ‘I see the place is still closed up.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve only come back to sort out some of my personal things.’

  The inspector looks like the cat that’s got the cream. ‘Would one of those personal items include a passport, by any chance?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with you? Your men gave me all that stuff back.’

  ‘I must say, I was more than a little surprised to learn that you and your late husband had need of passports. You don’t strike me as the sort woman who regularly takes foreign holidays.’

  Grace would prefer not to imagine what sort of woman he has her down as. ‘As it happens, Dennis took me to Paris for our honeymoon,’ she says. ‘Not that it’s any of your flamin’ business.’

  She carries on walking with the two policemen at her side. There’s movement behind several of the lace-curtained windows nearby – goodness knows what’s being made of this. ‘If you think I’m goin’ to keep answerin’ your questions out here in the street,’ she says, ‘you’ve got another think comin’.’

  ‘Well then, why don’t we continue our discussion inside?’ the inspector says.

  When she opens up, once again a pile of post is snagging the bottom of the door.

  ‘Allow me.’ Before she can stop him, Collingwood picks up her letters and starts sorting through them. ‘Mm, I see you have a postcard here.’

  ‘That’ll be from me mum, I ’spect.’ She takes off her headscarf. It’s hard to keep the tears at bay when she catches sight of Dennis’s old jacket hanging there ready for him to put it on. ‘She likes to send me them funny ones with the fat ladies on the beach.’

  Grace watches him turn the postcard over and then back again. It’s too dark in the passageway to see what’s made him so curious. ‘This wasn’t sent from Brighton. The postmark says Tilbury, if I’m not mistaken.’ Bringing it closer, he squints at it. ‘It was posted only yesterday morning.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’ve had so much post since Dennis died. Lot of people I’ve never set eyes on from all over London, never mind Essex and Middlesex, Kent even – they’ve all sent their condolences. He knew a lot of people. Still, it makes you wonder if they might be after somethin’.’

  There’s not much room for the three of them in the hallway. ‘You’d better come through to the kitchen,’ she says, looking at Collinwood. No point her addressing Sergeant Bradley when all he does is stand there stiff as a ruddy dummy.

  ‘I thought we should have a little chat, you and I,’ Collingwood says. ‘Lay our cards on the table, so to speak.’ He plants his hat in the centre of the table next to the salt and pepper like he’s just placed his first chess piece. She thinks of her father and how he taught her to play chess when she was off school with the mumps that time.

  ‘Mrs Stevenson, I’ll come straight to the point: we know that you’ve been engaged in an intimate sexual relationship with Frank Whitby. In fact, Sergeant Bradley here found you both in a state of undress on the very morning they called round to break the news to you of your poor husband’s demise.’

  ‘And they jumped to the wrong ruddy conclusions. Dennis had just disappeared for no reason. Frank kindly offered to stay here to protect me.’

  His moustache twitches: ‘Really? To protect you from what exactly?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say – only that he had his reasons to be worried for my safety. He offered to sleep on the sofa and I agreed. We slept in separate rooms.’

  She’s careful to look directly at Sergeant Bradley now. ‘Your chaps looked around the place – you must have seen where Frank had been lying. The sofa was too cramped, so he had to make do on the floor.’

  The sergeant clears his throat. ‘I can confirm that we did find a makeshift bed on the living room floor, sir.’

  The inspector strokes his moustache. ‘Be that as it may, let’s move on, shall we? There’s been talk that you’re in the process of selling up here?’

  ‘I’m surprised you have time to listen to gossip,’ she says. ‘Besides, whether I choose to sell up or not is no business for the police.’

  ‘At the moment, we have no evidence to suggest you were Mr Whitby’s accomplice in the murder of your husband. So, unless we find proof to the contrary, we have no plans to bring charges against you.’

  He holds his finger up in her face like he’s the headmaster and she’s the naughty pupil. ‘However, now that Whitby is the chief suspect in your husband’s murder, should he contact you in any way and you subsequently fail to inform us.’ He cocks his head to one side. ‘That would be an entirely different matter – such a failure would mean we could well bring serious charges against you for obstructing justice and so forth. Is that understood?’

  She nods.

  ‘Has Whitby contacted you since we last spoke?’

  She looks down at those over-polished brogues of his. To his face she says, ‘I haven’t seen Frank or heard a thing from him, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘Be under no illusion, Grace, we are going to find Mr Whitby very soon and when we do, he’ll be sent for trial. In my considered opinion, a jury will likely find him guilty of murder and, as a consequence, he will be hanged by the neck until he’s dead.’

  How the bastard relishes saying those words. Grace is in no doubt, that a swift conviction would be another feather in this vain man’s cap.

  Instead of leaving, Collingwood continues to stand there toying with his hat. ‘You know, until he went AWOL, Whitby had had the devil’s own luck. His service record states he was the only surviving crew member when the Wellington he was in crash landed on its return from Bremen.’

  ‘So what saved him?’

  ‘The plane broke her back on landing. Whitby was in the rear gun turret. Seems it snapped off on impact and was separated from the main fuselage. Rest of her went up in flames before anyone could rescue the poor blighters inside. They pulled Whitby out with only a few cuts and a broken arm.’

  The inspector puts his hat on but shows no other sign of leaving. ‘After he was discharged from hospital, he was sent back to his squadron – ruddy fool only had three more ops left and he’d have completed his tour.’

  ‘But hadn’t his wife just been killed in an air raid – wouldn’t that explain it?’

  He raises both eyebrows. ‘That may be so, but their child survived. What about little Thomas left with no parents – just think on that, Mrs Stevenson.’

  He strikes the table with his fist. ‘And what about the duty Whitby owed to his squadron,’ (thump) ‘and to his country?’ (thump) ‘I’m a former RAF officer myself and I can tell you that, whichever way you care to look at the man’s actions, he took the coward’s way out. A path that inevitably led him into a life of crime, deception, violence – oh yes we have evidence of that too – and finally to the murder of an innocent man for his own venal motives.’

  ‘I’d be interested to know if you found all that out about Frank’s past by yourselves. You see, my guess would be you were tipped off about a lot of it.’

  The man’s expression remains fixed, unreadable. She takes a step towards him. ‘Shouldn’t you be askin’ yourself, Inspector, exactly why someone would want to provide you with that information in the first place?’

  Grace knows better than to say anything more. With luck, that’s rattled him out of all his ruddy certainty.

  As she’s showing them out, Collingwood stops to pick up the same postcard as before. He turns it over several times. ‘It seems strange there’s no signature on this – not even an initial.’

  Turning towards her, he reads aloud: Looking forward to my trip on the high seas tomorrow. Will write again when we reach our destination. Look after yourself. All my love. xxx

  ‘Maybe they didn’t have room to put anything else,�
�� she says.

  He passes the card to Sergeant Bradley. ‘I wouldn’t consider that to be a woman’s hand. What do you think, Sergeant?’

  ‘I think you’re right, sir. It looks very like a man’s handwriting to me.’

  Grace tries not to react, but she can’t help herself – she knows her cheeks have reddened and she can feel her heart racing. ‘I’m afraid I don’t recognise the writing,’ she says. ‘An’ I’ve no idea who might have sent it.’

  Chapter Forty

  Frank’s stomach rumbles; his breakfast had consisted of two bits of bread with a scraping of marge and Marmite – hardly enough to keep a man going for the rest of the day.

  The stench of the marshes hangs in the air. He intends to join the queue nearer the ship’s scheduled departure time, though that’s not until the afternoon. Whatever happens he’s determined to stick to his plan – he’s learnt before how things can go awry if you start to deviate. Which means right now, he has plenty of time to kill.

  He walks a mile or so before he finds another gents’ – the smelliest yet. Once inside the narrow, fetid cubicle, he takes out all the items he needs to transform himself into an old man.

  If only he had a mirror. The first thing Irving had taught him (while recounting his own days in rep) was how to smear the grey powder right into his skin – rubbing it to emphasise any natural creases but taking care to avoid the upper lip. Next, he takes out the false moustache and spreads the adhesive as evenly as he can.

  When someone bangs on the door, Frank nearly drops the bloody thing down the lav. There’s more thumping but this time on the other two doors.

  He turns round to be sure his feet are in the appropriate position in case they look underneath. Any minute he expects to see a police helmet over the top of the door or even below it.