Fifth Column

by Mike Hollow

  “You feel you need to protect him?”

  “Where it is within my power to do so, yes. Mr Everson has had a hard life; he’s suffered, and I don’t want to see him suffer more. He doesn’t need to be distracted by young women who only want to get their hooks into him.”

  “Is that what you think is happening?”

  “No, no. I’m speaking generally, you understand. I just think that Miss Cartwright may not be as innocent as she appears to be.”

  “And what about Mary Watkins?”

  “In what sense?”

  “She was a young woman too. Was she the sort of woman who might have found it in her interests to catch Mr Everson’s eye?”

  “Really, Inspector. Is that any way to speak of the dead? I have no evidence that Mary Watkins made any advances to Mr Everson, and if she did, I’m sure he would have ignored them or if necessary repulsed them. Mr Everson is an honourable man, not the sort to fall for the guile of a young woman.”

  Jago and Cradock took their leave of Miss Hornby and walked back to the car.

  “What do you make of that, then, sir?” said Cradock as soon as they were out of earshot. “Do you think there’s been something going on between Everson and one of these women? Maybe he’s not as pure as the driven snow after all, despite what Miss Hornby says. And she didn’t exactly spring to Mary’s defence when you suggested there might have been a bit of eye-catching going on, did she?”

  “Maybe it’s just as she said – she sees it as her job to protect him,” said Jago. “She seems very loyal.”

  “Or she might think she has a special place in his affections, mightn’t she? If that were the case, younger women like Beatrice or Mary could seem like rivals.”

  They reached the car and got in. Jago sat at the wheel, giving Cradock’s ideas a moment’s silent consideration.

  “We’ve been thinking that liaison of Mary’s last year was with Richard Berry,” he said, “but maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong direction. I think we need to have another word with Angela, see whether she can remember Mary saying or doing anything that might suggest that. I’ll visit her this evening while you’re out sampling the ales at the Railway Tavern.”

  He was about to turn the ignition key when Cradock jumped round in his seat.

  “Sorry, sir, that’s just reminded me. There was another call while you were out this morning. It was from Beatrice Cartwright. She said that man Smith has told her to meet him at a phone box in Prince Regent Lane.”

  Jago turned to face him.

  “When?” he asked.

  “Eight o’clock – tonight.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Cradock felt uneasy as soon as he entered the Railway Tavern. It was a working man’s pub, the kind of place where every head turned to look at you as soon as you crossed the threshold. Checking to see whether you were a local or a stranger, insider or outsider, threat or mug. He could tell from the suspicion in their eyes that they’d got him marked down as a stranger in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. No hesitation. He considered trying on a little self-protective bravado, maybe just a hint of a swagger, but then a vivid image of fists flying and glasses smashing flashed through his mind. He thought better of it. Besides, tonight it was his duty to come across as a mug.

  It was a little before six o’clock when he arrived. The pub had been open since five, and the public bar was filling with early-evening drinkers hoping to get a couple of pints in before the blackout. The air was warm, stale, and heavy with cigarette smoke, and the harsh hubbub of men’s voices was spiked by outbursts of raucous laughter. He eased his way through the press of bodies, making sure not to jostle anyone’s drinking arm – they didn’t look as though they’d take kindly to having their ale spilled.

  The beer was a bit cheaper here than in the adjoining saloon bar, but Cradock also reckoned it was where he was more likely to find opportunities for illicit trading. He walked up to the bar and rested one foot on the brass rail that ran along it near the floor. Catching the barman’s eye and getting service was going to be tricky, and he didn’t have much time. Probably just as well, though – DI Jago wasn’t going to be pleased if he’d done too much drinking.

  The barman’s face was pockmarked and lumpy – it looked as though he’d been breaking up fights since the Battle of Verdun. He was rolling a cigarette at the far end of the counter. He kept an eye on Cradock while he licked the edge of the paper, pressed it between his fingers to seal it, and pinched off the excess tobacco hanging from the ends. He placed it behind his left ear for later use and approached his customer.

  “And what’ll it be for you?” he growled.

  “Half of mild, please,” said Cradock. “I need a bit of Dutch courage.”

  “You won’t get much of that out of a half of mild,” said the barman.

  “All the same, that’s what I’ll have – for starters.”

  The barman pulled on the hand-pump and delivered a half-pint of ale into a glass. He set it down on the counter before Cradock.

  “That’ll be fourpence, please.”

  Cradock reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a handful of change. He picked out a threepenny bit and two ha’pennies and pushed them across the mahogany counter. The barman gathered them up and then leaned forward with a confiding look on his face.

  “What’s up then, mate?” he asked. “Wife just found out?”

  “No,” answered Cradock, trying to look morose. “No wife – not yet, anyway. It’s the girlfriend. I’m supposed to be seeing her tonight and I’ve forgotten it’s her birthday. Haven’t got her a present. There’ll be hell to pay, if I know her.”

  “You should’ve made that a pint then, lad. Sounds like you’ll need it.”

  The barman gave him a crooked smile that suggested man-to-man sympathy, then wandered away to drop Cradock’s coins into the till.

  A man in an ill-fitting dark suit appeared at Cradock’s side and leaned his back against the bar. His eyes flitted round the room. He turned to face Cradock, one elbow on the bar counter.

  “I, er, couldn’t help overhearing you, squire,” he said. “What you said about your girlfriend. It so happens that I might be able to help you out. How about giving her a nice pair of silk stockings for her birthday? She’ll love them. Like gold dust they are, these days – they’re using all the silk for parachutes.”

  He produced a packet from an inside pocket and teased out a small piece of material from it.

  “Look at that,” he said. “So sheer you can see right through it. Really glamorous. She’ll go crazy for these.”

  Cradock rubbed the fabric gently between his finger and thumb as if he could tell one silk stocking from another and gave an appreciative murmur.

  “Finest quality,” the man continued. “You could spend a week going round the shops looking for stockings like this and you won’t find them, but I can let you have a pair for twelve and six.”

  Cradock winced at the price, and at what Jago might say if he bought them. He made some further appreciative but noncommittal noises, then continued.

  “Actually there’s something else I think she’d appreciate more,” he said. “Maybe you could help me with that.”

  “Of course. I can get you anything. Cigarettes, booze, ladies’ underwear, you name it.”

  “She needs a light bulb for her torch.”

  “What? Is that your idea of a romantic present? That poor woman needs her head seeing to – and so do you. Anyway, I haven’t got any right now.”

  “How about batteries?” asked Cradock, wishing the ordeal were over.

  “A right little Rudolph Valentino you are. But you’re in luck tonight. Torch batteries I can do you – one and nine a go.”

  “One and nine? They were only fivepence farthing last time I bought one.”

  “That must’ve been before the war, mate. You can’t get them for love nor money now – although from what I can see, you’re not going to get very far with love anyway.”

>   “How about this, then?” said Cradock. “She likes her hair blonde but she isn’t a natural, and she said she was trying to get some stuff you could buy to do it but the shops didn’t have any.”

  “You mean peroxide?”

  “Yes, that’s the stuff.”

  “You should have come to me before,” said the man. “I haven’t actually got any on me right this moment, but there’s this mate of mine who can get hold of it. His work takes him here and there, and he sometimes comes across merchandise that’s fallen off the back of a lorry, if you know what I mean. He lives just round the corner – I’ll nip down there and see if he’s got any. You stay here, or come back in about twenty minutes.”

  “Right you are, then,” said Cradock.

  The man tipped his hat to Cradock and moved towards the door. As soon as he had left, Cradock slipped out after him. He followed him as closely as he dared, anxious not to lose sight of him in the blackout. After a couple of turnings he saw the man stop outside a house and knock at the door. It opened, and he disappeared inside. Cradock crossed the road and took a closer look at the house – but he already knew who lived there. He made his way quickly back to the Railway Tavern so that he’d be ready to buy his bottle of peroxide when the man returned.

  He chuckled at the thought of what Jago would say when he reported the address the shady dealer had visited. Forty-seven Hemsworth Street. The residence of one Harry Parker.

  CHAPTER 33

  Angela had a flat in Chadwin Road, not far from Everson Engineering, and it was after blackout time when Jago got there. He resigned himself to the usual complications. Like probably everyone living in a street like this she wasn’t on the phone, so he’d had to go on the off-chance that she’d be in. The last time he’d called at her home was when he drove her to RAF Hornchurch, and then it had still been light. Even if he found the right house again in the dark there’d be no tell-tale lights visible to show she was at home. And he’d have to remember not to get so absorbed in finding her that he walked into a tree – the white rings the council had painted round the tree trunks weren’t as effective a safety measure as they’d claimed.

  He peered at the number of the first house he came to, then counted along the roofline silhouetted against the night sky, chimney pot by chimney pot, until he got to roughly where hers should be. Stepping close to the front door, he pulled out his flashlight and switched it on and immediately off again to find the number that confirmed he was at the right place. Even for this brief moment he shielded the flashlight with his hand, but that was more to avoid attracting the attentions of the local ARP warden than out of fear of betraying his location to the German air force. The thought that one flash of his hand-torch could bring a torrent of high explosives down from the skies and onto Angela’s flat was ridiculous, but there was something about the blackout propaganda that seemed to have made everyone edgy about the slightest hint of light – that and people being fined a pound for striking a match on the street during the blackout. He found a doorbell button for the downstairs flat and pressed it.

  Angela looked surprised to find Jago on the doorstep but welcomed him in. She closed the front door behind him and pulled the blackout curtain across it, then switched the light on. There wasn’t much to the flat – Angela took him into a small living room with a kitchen opening off it at one end, and he guessed there would be one bedroom, possibly two. He glanced into the kitchen and glimpsed a pile of dirty dishes beside the sink before she closed the door on it and motioned him towards a faded brown moquette sofa under the window. He sat down and felt the lumpy cushions sag beneath him.

  “You must excuse the state of this place, Inspector,” said Angela. “I’ve been so busy at work these last few weeks – rush orders, extra hours. I normally try to keep it a bit tidier, but you know what they say – there’s a war on. Care for a drink?”

  Jago noticed there was a tumbler half full of a clear liquid that he suspected would be gin rather than water.

  “Not for me, thank you very much,” he said.

  “Suit yourself. I was just having a little one to keep me company. It can seem very quiet when you get home from work if you live alone. Are you a married man?”

  “No, I’m not, as it happens.”

  “You’ll know what I mean, then. Are you sure you won’t have a drink?”

  “No, really, it’s most kind of you, but I won’t. I just want to ask you a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “I see. Well, fire away, then, although I’m sure I’ve told you everything I can.”

  “I’d like to ask you about the liaison you said Mary had mentioned – the relationship she had with a man last year. I know she didn’t tell you who the man was, but it’s been suggested to me that it could have been someone at Everson Engineering. What do you think?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose. I mean, as far as I could tell she didn’t see much of Everson people outside work, apart from me. She never mentioned any other friends, either, and never brought anyone else along when we had our nights out. But on the other hand, she didn’t seem to have anything to do with her family – well, with her sister, anyway, since there didn’t seem to be any other family. So if she did meet a man, the most likely place would have been at Everson’s.”

  “Do you think it could have been with Mr Everson himself?”

  Angela laughed. She sipped her drink but laughed again and began to choke. She put a hand to her mouth and brought the coughing under control before speaking.

  “Now there’s a possibility I hadn’t considered, Inspector. An affair with the boss. Well, she wouldn’t be the first to pursue her career in that direction, would she? He’s living on his own now, worth a bob or two and maybe looking for a bit of warmth and company. He may not be a bachelor but he’s certainly eligible, to some girls at least.”

  “Was Mary that kind of girl?”

  “I honestly couldn’t say. If she did fancy him, she never let on to me. But she could be a dark horse, that one.”

  “So what do you think of the suggestion that it was Mr Everson she was referring to when she mentioned her liaison, as you called it?”

  Angela pursed her lips in thought before replying.

  “Now you mention it, I must admit the impression I had when she talked about the affair was that it might have been a married man. Nothing I could put my finger on specifically, you understand – just the way she talked. But no, I can’t imagine her and Mr Everson being like that. I don’t know him well, but I’ve heard he’s very kind to his poor wife, makes sure she gets the best care and all that, you know.”

  “Could Mary have found him attractive?”

  Angela’s expression suggested that this was a very debatable question.

  “Who knows why anyone finds a man attractive?” she said. “Sometimes it’s just baffling – but in this case, no, I don’t think so. She was young and liked a laugh. He’s old and serious.” She laughed again. “No, if there’s anyone with a crush on him, I reckon it’ll be that Miss Hornby. She’s a funny old stick. Looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but I could imagine her swooning like a schoolgirl if Mr Everson so much as looked at her. They’re much the same age, too, I would think.”

  “Are you aware of any other married men that Mary could have been in such a relationship with?”

  “No. But then she didn’t give anything away. It could have been anyone.”

  “Do you think there could have been any significance in the photo that the woman you met at the dance – Celia – showed to Mary?”

  “If I knew what it was a photo of I might be able to say, but I was too far away.”

  “In that case it may interest you to know that when I spoke to Celia after you’d brought her to me at the dance on Saturday, she told me it was a picture of her and her husband at their wedding. She also told me that when Mary saw it she seemed surprised. She even used the word ‘shocked’. What do you make of that?”

  “I see… Ye
s, that begins to make sense, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, look at it this way. Mary sees Celia’s husband and recognizes the man she’d had her affair with. Even if she knew he was married at the time, she wouldn’t necessarily ever have seen his wife. So that would be a shock, yes. And that would explain why Mary was quite different by the time I got back to them. I’m not surprised she wanted to go home – she wouldn’t want to hang about with Celia any longer if that was going through her mind. Mind you, I’m only guessing – I mean, Mary never said anything to me that would prove it was Celia’s husband she’d been carrying on with.”

  “I understand. But there’s one small point that I don’t understand, and perhaps you can help me with that too.”

  “Of course. Anything I can do to be of help.”

  “On that night at the dance you were too far away to see what was in the photo, so you didn’t know until I told you just now, yes?”

  “That’s right. I was dancing with a young airman.”

  “But when I mentioned that to Celia, she said that wasn’t the case. She said you were still sitting at the table with her and Mary when she showed Mary the photo.”

  “Did she? I see.”

  “Is her recollection correct?”

  Angela averted her eyes and nodded.

  “Yes, it is. I’m sorry, Inspector, I was mistaken.”

  “Mistaken?”

  “Well, not exactly mistaken. You see, I was at the table and I did see the photo, but to tell you the truth it put me in a rather awkward position.”

  “Please tell me more.”

  “Well, when Celia showed it to us she said it was a picture of her wedding. The photo wasn’t very clear, but I thought I recognized the man in it.”

  “You recognized her husband?”