by Mike Hollow
“I’ve never done that. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to do it.”
“If you’ll pardon my frankness, that’s exactly what I’d expect you to say. You see, my job is to intercept those signals to Berlin – yes, we are very capable of doing that – and to track down the people who are sending them. You’re in serious trouble.”
“Look, there must be some mistake.”
The emotional stress of everything that had happened since she’d met this man who called himself Smith was taking its toll on Beatrice. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes.
“I haven’t done anything wrong. I need that job – I can barely make ends meet as it is. All this has got nothing to do with me. You have to believe me.”
Smith moved back a little from her on the bench, and his voice softened.
“Trust me, Miss Cartwright, if there were anything I could do to spare you this unpleasantness I would.”
She lowered the handkerchief and looked at him uncertainly. He paused, as if giving further consideration to what he had just said, then continued.
“You know, I almost believe you. But I have my job to do, and my own position could be at risk if I dropped my investigation and cleared you in my report. Having said that, of course, I did have a case only recently where a gentleman who came to my attention was able to reassure me of his innocence.”
“How was that?”
“It was quite simple: he gave a pledge.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, as an assurance of his good faith he entrusted a small sum of money to me. I took it as his personal guarantee that he was innocent of all the charges that would have befallen him if I had reported the evidence I had. Perhaps we could come to a similar arrangement.”
Beatrice’s eyes widened.
“You mean you want me to give you money to keep your mouth shut? That’s outrageous!”
“A rather vulgar way of putting it, in my opinion, Miss Cartwright. I would call it a form of surety. Think of it as bail: a sum of money that can keep you out of prison. If you can imagine, heaven forbid, finding yourself out of a job and in significant trouble with the police, you might conclude that providing such a surety is a very attractive alternative to the cells.”
“But that’s extortion!”
“These are difficult times, and we all have to make difficult decisions.”
Beatrice felt defeated.
“How much?” she said, her voice flat.
“I think twenty pounds would be an appropriate sum.”
“Twenty pounds? Who do you think I am? I don’t have that kind of money going spare.”
“Well, I’m a reasonable man: I’ll give you four days. I’m sure you’ll find a way. You will meet me at nine o’clock on Tuesday evening and you will give me twenty pounds.”
Beatrice fought to stop her voice trembling. When she was able to speak, her response was hushed.
“Where?”
“That’s more like it. I shall contact you on Tuesday to tell you where to go. I don’t want you to have to roam too far in the blackout, so I’ll make sure it’s somewhere near that nice little flat of yours.”
She shuddered, but said nothing.
“There we are, then,” he continued. “You just think for a moment about what it will cost you if I submit my report, and you’ll soon see that twenty pounds is quite a bargain for your liberty.”
Smith got to his feet and pulled the peak of his cap a little farther down.
“Good night, Miss Cartwright, and pleasant dreams. I shall see you on Tuesday evening. And now you’d better get along home before blackout time. I wouldn’t want you to come to any harm in the dark.”
CHAPTER 12
It was a few minutes before nine o’clock on Saturday morning when Jago parked the Riley outside Everson Engineering. There were wisps of cloud in the sky, but the air was still and the temperature agreeably warm. It looked like a promising day.
“Out you get,” he told Cradock. “We’ve a lot to get through this morning, and I’ve got a lunch engagement to keep, so look sharp.”
“Lunch, sir?” said Cradock. “That wouldn’t be with the American lady, would it?”
“Yes, it would, as it happens,” said Jago. “Not that it’s any business of yours.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Although in actual fact on this occasion it is your business.”
“Sir?”
“Miss Appleton has been away in the north for a few days but should be back today, and it seems she wants to quiz me about all this talk of a Fifth Column and whether we’ve seen any evidence of it locally. I’d like you to join us.”
“As a chaperone?”
“Don’t be impertinent. If I needed a chaperone I reckon I’d go in there and ask Miss Hornby, not you. This is purely out of the kindness of my heart – I thought you might like a change from the canteen.”
“Thanks very much, guv’nor. Where will we be eating?”
“Miss Appleton has never experienced Rita’s café. I think it’s time she did.”
“You’re sure you won’t need me as a bodyguard, sir? I’m not sure what might happen if Rita sees you with Miss Appleton.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Rita and I are very old friends.”
“Exactly.”
“Your imagination’s running away with you, lad. Now, let’s go and meet this Angela Willerson.”
“Very good, guv’nor.”
They crossed the small parking area and Cradock followed Jago into the building, where after a short wait they were met by Miss Hornby. She showed them to an empty office and returned minutes later with a young woman.
“This is our employee Miss Angela Willerson,” said Miss Hornby. “I’ll leave you to talk, Detective Inspector, but please don’t take too long – we have a lot of work on our hands this morning.”
“We’ll be as quick as we can,” said Jago.
Miss Hornby nodded and left, closing the door behind her.
The room had a desk, two steel filing cabinets and a bentwood coat-stand, but didn’t look as if it were in regular use. Three wooden chairs had been arranged facing each other a few feet apart in a kind of triangle in front of the desk – by Miss Hornby, Jago assumed, or on her instructions, in anticipation of their visit. She was probably used to taking care of details, he thought.
He motioned the young woman to one of the chairs, and when she had sat down he and Cradock took the other two. She looked about twenty-five, he thought, and was dressed in loose-fitting overalls, her fair hair tucked under a light cotton headscarf. He was struck by the contrast between the worn and grimy clothes and her neatly made-up face. No doubt she was following the constant advice in the newspapers and magazines for women to do their bit by keeping up their appearance despite the bombs and shortages, he thought – although he suspected that for some of these girls the reasons might be more personal than patriotic.
“Miss Willerson,” he began.
“Miss Hornby’s the only one who calls me that,” she replied. “Everyone else calls me Angela.”
“Very well, Angela. I understand you’re a workshop supervisor here.”
“That’s right. I’ve been here for a couple of years. I was an assembly worker to start with, then got promoted when the workshop supervisor was called up. He’s in the Navy now, poor soul, probably freezing cold out in the middle of some ocean while I swan around here in the warm. I dare say I’ll be demoted again when the war ends, though: same thing happened to my mum after the last war.”
“It might be different this time, though, don’t you think?”
“Yes, and pigs might fly.”
“Well, let’s hope. Now, we’ve come to talk to you about Mary Watkins. I assume you’ve heard the sad news?”
“Yes, I heard yesterday. Miss Hornby told me Mary had been killed in an air raid, and she’d been to identify the body. It’s so sad. How can I help you?”
“
We’re trying to find out more about Mary, and we were told you’ve spent some time with her outside of work.”
“Yes, but not much. I can’t say I know much about her.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Since I started working here, really, although I’d met her once or twice before that. That’s how I came to get the job. We were in the same keep-fit club for a while, before the war started. I didn’t know her well then, just socially – you know, the odd chat now and then. Anyway, one day after we’d finished our keep-fit I must have said I was looking for a change of job, and she told me they needed people here, so I came along and they took me on.”
“And how did you get on with her here?”
“Fine. I didn’t see a great deal of her in the normal run of things from day to day, but she was always nice, and I suppose we just became friends. We’d go out together in the evening sometimes, go for a drink. Mary liked a drink – a pink gin was her favourite – and sometimes we’d go to the pictures or dancing. Not often, though.”
“What kind of person would you say Mary was?”
Angela inclined her head to one side and pursed her lips.
“Friendly, I’d say – she took an interest in people. She even told me she did a bit of voluntary prison visiting in her spare time. She never gave much away about herself, but she was always good at listening. When you talked to her, she seemed to care, to want to understand you. I suppose that’s why she worked in staff welfare. She was probably good at that – although I never had any need for dealings with her in that way myself.”
“Do you know of anyone else she was friendly with?”
“Can’t say I do, actually, now you come to mention it.”
“Did you regard her as a close friend yourself?”
Angela hesitated. She looked a little distressed, and turned away for a moment to wipe her eyes before continuing.
“It’s difficult to say,” she said. “People don’t always mean the same thing when they say ‘friend’. I don’t think I’ve had many real friends in my life, and I couldn’t say Mary and I were particularly close – she wasn’t the kind of person to share her secrets with you. But I reckon as far as it went she was a good friend to me, especially when I was new here and lonely, and I’ll miss her. Please forgive me: this is all a bit of a shock.”
“Yes,” said Jago. “I’m sorry to have to ask you these questions, but it helps us to get a clearer picture of Mary.”
“Don’t mind me. I understand,” said Angela. “What else would you like to know?”
“Anything you can tell me about her.”
“Well, from what I could see – which wasn’t much, you understand – I think she took her work very seriously, worked hard. She was always very proper at work – it was always Miss Willerson this, Miss Willerson that in the office, never Angela.”
She paused and then smiled as if recalling something.
“Mind you,” she continued, “when she’d had a drink or two in the evening she’d sometimes let her hair down a bit, and then she could be really funny, a bit indiscreet even. But I think she trusted me not to speak out of turn. She was clever, I reckon, and confident. The modern professional woman, if you know what I mean. It was just the odd thing or two she said when she was a bit the worse for wear that made me think she might have had a rather more colourful past than she usually let on.”
“What sort of things made you think that?”
“Well, there was one time I can remember quite clearly. To be honest it was a bit of a shocker, really. I mean, if you saw her here at work you’d say she was every inch the confirmed spinster, dedicated to her job, no time for men – you know. But one night when we’d both had a bit to drink I asked her whether she’d ever been interested in men. I thought she’d say no, she had no time for them, but what she actually said was ‘Never again’.”
“What do you think she meant by that?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking, so I asked her what she meant and she gave me a sly sort of look and said, ‘Once bitten, twice shy.’ I pressed her a bit, but she didn’t want to talk about it. In the end, though, it turned out that at some time in the past she’d had what the papers call a liaison with a man.”
“Did she say when?”
“Not exactly, but it can’t have been that long ago. Last year, from the way she talked about it – she said it ended when the war started.”
“Do you know who the man was?”
“No, she never let on what his name was, or anything.”
“Did she ever talk about her family?”
“I can’t say she did, no.”
“Not even after a pink gin?”
“Not particularly. I know she had a sister, but Mary never said what her name was. She only mentioned her a couple of times, and I think she just said ‘my sister’.”
“We’ve met Mary’s sister: her name’s Susan. She told us there were no other siblings, and that their parents died three years ago. Is that consistent with what you know from Mary?”
“Yes, that’s right. She mentioned the mum and dad dying, because that’s how they got the house.”
“Which house?”
“The one her sister lives in, as far as I know. I’ve never seen it, but Mary said they’d both inherited it. But she said she didn’t want to live there – she wanted to have her own place. I suppose it’ll all be the sister’s now. Susan, you say?”
“Yes, Susan. And do you know her husband?”
“What, Susan’s?”
Jago nodded.
“No,” said Angela. “I didn’t even know she was married. Like I say, Mary didn’t say much about her family. To tell you the truth, I don’t think she got on with her sister. No love lost between them, if you ask me.”
There was a knock at the door, and it swung open into the office. A timid-looking girl in a dark dress who looked no more than fifteen or sixteen came in, carefully balancing a tray on which were three cups and saucers and a sugar bowl.
“Miss Hornby thought you might like a cup of tea,” she said shyly. She put the tray down on the desk and left the room immediately, closing the door behind her.
Cradock jumped to his feet and passed a cup of tea and the sugar bowl to Angela and Jago in turn, then got his own.
“Miss Hornby thinks of everything,” said Jago.
Angela made no reply, but stirred her tea silently, her eyes looking down.
“Now, can you tell me whether anything was troubling Mary before her death?” he continued.
“She seemed the same as normal at work,” said Angela, looking up. “But there was one thing that struck me as a bit funny – unusual, I mean. It was a week or so ago, and I thought Mary was acting peculiar. We went to a dance together at the RAF station in Hornchurch on a Saturday night – the Saturday before last, it was. Mary was getting into the swing of it – she liked dancing, and we were both enjoying having some men to dance with for a change. But then something happened, and she seemed to change. It was like something had upset her – she got all moody and strange, not her usual self.”
“What was it that happened?”
“It was after we got talking to a woman there.”
“Who was this woman?”
“Can’t remember her name. Hang on, it’ll come back to me.” She screwed up her eyes in concentration. “Yes, I remember now, or at least I think I do. I think it might have been Celia. Yes, that’s it: Celia.”
“And what was she? A WAAF?”
“No, she was nothing to do with the air force, as far as I know, and not in uniform. She was just ordinary, a civilian, same as me and Mary. Older than us, I should say, but not too old to be out for a good time with the boys in blue – she was certainly dolled up for the dance. She seemed to be on her own, like us, but I noticed she had a wedding ring on. Anyway, we were sitting at the same table as her and we got talking. She was friendly, but a bit cagey too: I asked her if she was married, whether her husband wa
s away with the forces, as you do these days, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t want to tread on any toes, so I shut up. Fortunately then a nice young airman came and asked me for a dance, so I went. Ground crew, he was: tall, with lovely blond hair.”
“Yes, quite, but what happened to upset Mary?”
Angela shrugged her shoulders.
“I haven’t a clue. I didn’t see anything happen, as such. When I left them at the table to go and have my dance they seemed to be fine. Just making small talk, as you do. I looked over once or twice from the dance floor and at one point I could see the other woman, Celia, getting what looked like a photo out of her handbag and showing it to Mary, so I thought they were getting on all right, showing snaps and what have you. But then when I got back from my dance it was like the atmosphere had changed. Mary seemed quite different – she looked cold, distant, as if her mind was elsewhere. She said she wanted to go home, she wasn’t feeling well. I wanted to have another dance, so I persuaded her to stay for a bit, but in the end Mary insisted on going. I was miffed, to be honest – I’d taken a bit of a shine to that young airman, see, and I’ve always said you shouldn’t let a good ’un slip through your hands. I wasn’t in a hurry to leave.”
“Did you see what was in the photo?” said Jago.
“No, I was too far away. I could just see it was a photo, that’s all.”
“And did anything else happen?”
“Well, that’s just it, you see. When we got outside the hall, Mary was sort of brooding. I got the impression she was angry about something but didn’t want to talk about it. When I asked what was the matter, all she said was, ‘He’ll pay for this. He’s a traitor.’ It was as if she was talking to herself. When I asked her who was a traitor, she wouldn’t say any more about it. I could tell she was really upset, so I didn’t press her any more, and we went home. She never mentioned it again. And now she’s dead, and I suppose I’ll never know.”
Angela looked away and seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment, then snapped her attention back to the policemen.
