Fifth Column

by Mike Hollow

  He handed the package to Jago.

  “I found it, like,” he added.

  Jago opened the paper bag and took out a woman’s handbag. It was made of black leather and was dirty, dusty, and battered-looking.

  “Where did you get this, Harry?” he said.

  “I told you – I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “In Tinto Road. On that site where we were working after the bombs dropped.”

  “When did you find it?”

  “On Friday, when we were clearing up there.”

  “But it’s Monday now. Why the delay in reporting it? We’re investigating a suspected murder, and I’d like to know why you seem to have withheld a potentially important piece of evidence.”

  Parker took a step backwards and bumped into the chair. He reached out to steady it with his hand.

  “Now look, Mr Jago, I’ve got nothing to do with no murder. I wouldn’t be here if I did, would I? Don’t forget, I’m the one that reported the body. I just thought this was a bit of lost property, and I was going to hand it in, only I forgot about it. Then I was thinking yesterday about that dead girl and I suddenly thought the bag might be hers. So here I am – to help you.”

  “All right, Harry, no need to get agitated. Just tell me exactly where you found it.”

  “It was on that pile of rubble where we found the woman. Not close to her, though – it was over towards the side near the first house that was still standing, about five or six yards away. I took it home for safe keeping, like.”

  Jago put the handbag back into its brown paper bag and looked him in the eye.

  “I hope that’s true, Harry. I’d hate to think you might have been meaning to keep it. That would be stealing, and that’s a very serious matter nowadays, especially for someone in your position who’s supposed to be helping people who’ve been bombed out. There’s men who’ve got twelve months’ hard labour for less. And if the court decided it was looting, you could be shot. I wouldn’t like to lose an old pal like you just because he still couldn’t keep his hands off other people’s property.”

  “No, no,” said Harry, “you’ve got it all wrong. It’s not like that at all. Honest, Mr Jago, I’m not like that any more.”

  “I shall give you the benefit of the doubt again, Harry,” said Jago. “Just don’t give me any reason to regret that.”

  As soon as he’d sent Harry Parker on his way Jago took the handbag to the CID office, where he found Cradock reading the Daily Mirror.

  “Morning, Peter,” he said. “You got nothing better to do than read the paper?”

  “Sorry, guv’nor,” said Cradock. “I was trying to educate myself, keep up with what’s happening in the world.”

  “Well, I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere. I’m not sure the Mirror is your best guide to world affairs, though. It’s not that long ago it was telling us we all ought to join the Blackshirts.”

  “Doesn’t say that now, though, sir, as far as I can see.”

  “No, well it would be a bit daft of them if they did, wouldn’t it? But I’m probably being unfair – it must be five or six years ago they said that, and I’m sure they’ve changed their minds since. Back then they reckoned what the Nazis were doing in Germany was just ‘patriotic enthusiasm’, but I think we can all see where patriotic enthusiasm can get you now.”

  “It’s not wrong to be patriotic, though, is it?”

  “Of course not. But you can be patriotic without being stupid and vicious, that’s all.”

  Jago put his brown paper package on the desk and pulled out his chair. He sat down and leaned back with his hands behind his head.

  “So, how did you get on at Mary’s flat?”

  “No luck, guv’nor,” said Cradock. “She kept it very tidy. No clutter anywhere – which was a mercy, I suppose, but I didn’t find any wedding pictures. Perhaps she wasn’t a wedding kind of person.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “In actual fact, I didn’t find any photos at all – well, just one, to be precise. I thought with her being a spinster there might be family pictures or something, but no.”

  “Except one, you said.”

  “Yes, but I don’t think that was important. It was a photo of an actor – one of those publicity shots, I suppose. It was signed – ‘Sincerely yours, Hadleigh Crane’. That sounds like an actor’s kind of name, doesn’t it? He’s probably resting, these days, what with the theatres being shut down. That’s what they call it, isn’t it? Resting – when they’re out of work?”

  “Yes. He’ll be more than resting, though. He’s very likely locked up in Brixton prison or Wormwood Scrubs or somewhere like that with Mosley and his Blackshirt mob by now – he was quite pally with them, I believe.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve heard of him, sir,” said Cradock. “He’s the sort they call a matinée idol – not quite up your street, I would’ve thought.”

  “I keep my finger on the pulse,” said Jago.

  He leaned forward in his chair and pulled the brown paper bag towards him across the desk.

  “Now I’ve got something to show you. Nothing to do with matinée idols, not by a long chalk. This has just been handed in by Harry Parker, former local window cleaner and now public hero, if we’re to believe him.”

  He took the handbag from the bag and set it on the desk.

  “I see,” said Cradock. “You still don’t think he’s as straight as he says, then, sir?”

  “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. I just remember the days when he used to tell his window-cleaning customers he’d keep an eye on their place while they were away, and then when they came back they’d discover it’d been turned over and all their valuables had mysteriously disappeared.”

  “So there was a connection, yes?”

  “Too right there was, and the connection was Harry’s light fingers. But be that as it may, he brought this in this morning. Says he found it on the bomb-site where Mary’s body was and meant to hand it in but forgot.”

  “Fits the description that Miss Hornby woman at Everson’s gave us,” said Cradock. “Do you believe Harry?”

  “I believe he found it, but as for the rest – well, let’s just say I’ll keep an open mind on the subject.”

  “A leopard can’t change its stripes, eh, sir?”

  “Spots, Cradock. A leopard can’t change its spots. Have you never seen a leopard?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not likely to, I suppose, round here. But they don’t have stripes. You’re thinking of zebras.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jago opened the handbag and emptied the contents on the table. He picked up a pencil and began to poke through the items.

  “Let’s see,” he said. “An identity card in the name of Mary Watkins, which suggests it’s her bag. A bunch of keys – could these be the ones Miss Hornby mentioned? And this. That’s the one we’ve been looking for. What do you make of that?”

  He used the pencil to push a photograph across the desk. Cradock took a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and used it to pick up the photo. He looked at it and felt an immediate sense of disappointment. It was a small black-and-white print, just two inches square, and it looked as though it had been taken either with a very cheap camera or by a very poor photographer, or both. It had a soapy look to it, and although it clearly showed a bride and groom in their wedding clothes, the faces were too small and unfocused to recognize.

  “Not the sort of picture you’d put in the Police Gazette for a missing person or a suspect,” said Cradock.

  “No,” said Jago. “I wouldn’t be able to say who either of those people are. But if this is what upset Mary, she must have known the man well enough to recognize him.”

  “So we need to try and find out who that man is,” said Cradock.

  “I think so, yes,” said Jago. “And there’s another thing. Angela said she was away from the table dancing when Celia showed the photo to Mary, but Celia says she thought Angela was st
ill sitting at the table with her and Mary when she got the photo out.”

  “Could that be significant?”

  “It may or may not be significant, but it’s certainly inconsistent. They can’t both be right.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The phone rang. Cradock jumped up and answered it.

  “Yes, he’s here. I’ll tell him she’s arrived.” He put the phone down. “Miss Appleton’s arrived, sir,” he said. “Says she’s got an appointment with you to talk about local crime.”

  Cradock noticed that Jago looked hesitant, as if he didn’t know what to say.

  “Is something wrong, sir?”

  “No, no,” said Jago. “Go and fetch her, but tell her I haven’t got long.”

  Cradock departed, and within five minutes he was back with Dorothy in tow. He showed her to a seat in front of the desk and hovered, unsure whether Jago would want him to stay. He gave a sideways nod towards the door a couple of times, but Jago shook his head. Cradock sat down again.

  “Thank you so much for sparing me a few minutes,” said Dorothy. “I’ll be as quick as possible. It’s just for this article I’m researching on the way the crime rate has fluctuated since the war began. If you can give me some figures for this borough, that would be really helpful.”

  Jago pulled a buff-coloured folder from a wire tray on his desk.

  “I, er, put a few figures together for you yesterday, and some other anecdotal information. You should find something useful in there.”

  He pushed the folder across the desk to her.

  “Thank you,” said Dorothy. “I’m interested in petty theft and what you might call the black market, too. For example, I’ve heard there’s quite a lot of pilfering going on, now that there are shortages of various things, and I’d like to know how that kind of market works. Do people take things for themselves, or are they mainly selling them on to strangers? How do they do it?”

  Jago had promised to help her, but that was last week, and now he felt a reluctance to lengthen the conversation more than was absolutely necessary.

  “Well, typically someone will sidle up to you in a pub and offer you something on the cheap.”

  “I’d like to see that, get a feel for the ambience of an East End pub.”

  “They’re not necessarily good places for a woman to go on her own.”

  “I’ve told you before, I can look after myself.”

  “Yes, I know, but some of the men in those pubs – when they see a woman coming in on her own they can jump to the wrong conclusion.”

  “So it would be better if I were accompanied by a man?”

  “Now wait a minute…”

  “In that case it’s a deal. Would tonight be convenient for you?”

  “No, I’m busy tonight, and tomorrow too.”

  “Wednesday, then.”

  “I’m really not sure I –”

  “But what would your divisional detective inspector say if he heard you’d been sending me into a pub without an escort? I’m sure I recall you saying he was expecting you to look after me.”

  Not for the first time, Jago felt outmanoeuvred by Dorothy. He could feel anger brewing inside him. If he had felt betrayed when he saw her kissing a young RAF officer at the dance, now he felt used. What was worse, she seemed to find it amusing. He was not best pleased that Cradock was within earshot and probably enjoying the whole scene.

  He controlled his expression. He did not want to give any indication of what he was feeling. He wasn’t a kid any more. He would be polite and self-controlled.

  “Very well.”

  “Where shall we go?”

  “There’s a place called the Railway Tavern, in Canning Town. I’ve told Cradock to do some observation down there in the next day or two. If you get the train over here I’ll meet you at the station at six o’clock or so and drive you down there. We might have time for a drink before the air raids start.”

  If Cradock’s going to be keeping an eye on the place, he thought, this’ll be a good opportunity to take a look at it myself. Combine business with pleasure. But he didn’t expect it would be much of a pleasure – he just wasn’t sure he would be able to relax with her.

  Dorothy chatted on breezily, oblivious of his turmoil.

  “By the way,” she said, “how did you get on with that photo you showed me? The one of the two women. Did you find that other woman I saw at the table with them?”

  Jago was relieved that he could talk about the case, not about themselves or the dance. Had she seen him? He thought not, but couldn’t be sure.

  “Yes, I did,” he said. “Cradock and I were just talking about it. A handbag was handed in today, and I believe it belonged to the dead woman. We’ve found a photo inside it, and I think this may have been the one you saw the woman who was murdered take out of the other woman’s handbag.”

  “I’m getting confused now: too many handbags and photos.”

  “It’s simple. You said you saw Mary, the woman who’s been murdered, take a photo out of another woman’s handbag. We’ve now found the woman that photo belonged to – she’s called Celia – but it’s turned up in Mary’s handbag, which confirms what you saw: that Mary removed a photo from Celia’s handbag and put it in her own. And here’s the handbag, handed in this morning.”

  Dorothy glanced at the handbag.

  “And the photo?” she said.

  “Here. It’s on the table.”

  “May I see?”

  “Certainly.”

  He slid the photo across the desk, using his pencil again, and then straightened it so that she could see it the right way up.

  “No touching, please,” he said. “We don’t want to get your fingerprints on it.”

  Dorothy peered closely at the photo.

  “Not a very good snapshot, is it? Not the sort of quality we’d use in the Boston Post. But do you know who these people are?”

  “I’m not at all sure. If what Celia says is true, that should be her there in the bride’s dress. But to me it looks nothing like her. You can’t make out her facial features, and the hair is short and looks dark, whereas Celia has long hair, and she’s a blonde.”

  “Do you know when it was taken?”

  “She said she got married in February 1938, so if it’s her, that’s when it was.”

  “That may explain it, then. That’s more than two and a half years ago. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, John, but women’s hairstyles change. I mean, when I was fourteen I had cootie garages. Can you believe it?”

  Jago caught sight of Cradock’s face and almost laughed. It registered a look of complete bafflement. Jago himself was no wiser, however.

  “I’m not sure whether I can believe it,” he said, “because I haven’t the faintest idea what it means. Is it something American?”

  “Cootie garages? Well, a cootie is a slang word. Cooties are lice, the kind you get in your hair if you don’t look after it.”

  “I know all about lice,” said Jago. “But garages?”

  “A garage is where you park your car. You have them over here, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but –”

  “So a cootie garage is where you park your cooties.”

  He still looked puzzled.

  “Okay,” said Dorothy. “It was a hairstyle lots of girls went for in the twenties. We rolled our hair round over our ears – it looked like earphones, and people called them cootie garages, as if they might be a good place to keep your lice.”

  “I see,” said Jago. “But what’s that got to do with Celia and the photo? She wasn’t wearing that style.”

  “That’s my point. Cootie garages were all the rage when I was a kid, but now I wouldn’t be seen dead in them. Like I said, women’s hairstyles change. Not so long ago the only things girls wanted were bobs and crops and fingerwaves – everything short and close to the head. Women today are going more for long hair and waves, and those old tight crimps are as out of date as Blucher shoes. But a couple of years ago
you’d still have seen quite a lot of short hairstyles. If that was Celia in the photograph, she probably doesn’t look like that now.”

  “But what about the colour? She’s a blonde, but here in the photo it looks dark.”

  Dorothy looked at him with surprise.

  “Now, I know your police work keeps you very busy, but there are some things going on in the world out there that you really should know about. I’m going to share a women’s secret with you. Okay?”

  “Of course.”

  He felt irritated. He wasn’t accustomed to being teased in front of Cradock and he wasn’t enjoying the experience.

  “Here it is, then. There are blondes and blondes in this world. The natural and the not so natural. She may be the peroxide type.”

  “Now I see what you mean,” said Jago. “Peroxide. You’re the second person who’s used that word with me this week.”

  “Well, yes, it’s what women who want to turn blonde overnight use. Your Celia might have decided she wanted a change. Next time you see her, check her roots and her eyebrows. If they’re still dark, she’s probably a fake blonde. Millions of women do it.”

  “Do you?”

  “No: I prefer things the way nature intended. I used to do fancy tricks with my hair, but that was before I became a war correspondent. Once I got to Spain I realized it wasn’t a place to start messing around with wave sets – the less hair maintenance I needed to put in the better. Since then I’ve been plain and natural all the way – well, maybe I give nature a little helping hand when I’m in a place where you can get a half-decent perm, but that’s all.”

  “Right. I think DC Cradock and I are better educated than we were about ladies’ hairstyles, but I’m not sure we’re any the wiser about this case – except that you’ve helped to confirm that Celia could well be telling the truth when she says this is her wedding photo.”

  “So what I said was useful?”

  “Yes, I think so. But to be honest, all I know is that this photo may have some connection with Mary’s death. But equally, it may not.”

  “Do you have some angle yet on what this case is all about?”

  “Not really. All we’ve got is two sisters who didn’t get on, one married, one not – and now one dead.”