Fifth Column

by Mike Hollow

  “Yes. I didn’t know he was her husband until I saw it, of course, but he looked like someone I’d met.”

  “And why would that have put you in an awkward position?”

  “Well, you see, if it was who I thought it was, he was someone who’d come up to me in a pub one night and paid me what you might call unwanted attentions. I didn’t want anything to do with it – I’m not that kind of woman – so I told him where he could get off. In no uncertain terms.”

  “And was that the end of it?”

  “As far as I know, yes. Some other people came in and he cleared off. I didn’t hear from him again. But when I saw him in that photo and Celia said he was her husband, I thought it would be a bit embarrassing if it came out that her old man had been up to no good in that way and that I was the one who’d been on the receiving end of his advances. Besides, the photo wasn’t clear enough for me to be sure. So I decided to keep out of the whole thing.”

  “And made a false statement.”

  “I didn’t think it would make any difference whether I’d seen the photo or not. And I didn’t want to get mixed up in someone else’s marital problems either. In any case, I still can’t be sure it was him. You won’t mention this to that Celia, will you?”

  “Only if it’s necessary for the purposes of our investigation. I can’t promise not to mention it. It would have been helpful if you’d told us this earlier.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was important, and I didn’t want to hurt Celia if it turned out I was mistaken.”

  “Any detail is potentially important in a case like this. What’s his name, this man who was troubling you?”

  “I can tell you the name he gave me, but I don’t think it’s going to help you much.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “All right, he said his name was Smith. But then again, his sort often do – that or Brown or Jones. He probably didn’t want me to know who he really was.”

  “And when did this happen?”

  “It was a week or so before the dance.”

  “You also told us that after the incident with the photo, Mary said, ‘He’ll pay for this. He’s a traitor.’ Is that true?”

  “Yes. The only thing I told you that wasn’t completely true was what I said about seeing the photo, and I’ve just explained why that was. What Mary said was nothing to do with that.”

  “At the time, you implied that you didn’t know what she meant by those words. If I asked you now why you think she said that, what answer would you give?”

  “Well, yes, of course, knowing that Mary had just been looking at a photo of Celia’s husband, I did think it must be something to do with that. But I’m still not sure what she meant. What I mean is, who was he a traitor to? If Mary had known he was married when she had the affair with him, she’d already know he’d betrayed his wife, so why react like that? Unless she didn’t know he was married. Perhaps that’s it – although if the relationship was over, as she said, why would she care?”

  “Could she have meant he was a traitor to someone other than his wife? Or even a traitor to his country?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Let me ask you one last question about something else, to do with your work. Are you aware of any pilfering going on at Everson Engineering?”

  “No. Pilfering of what?”

  “Just pilfering of property belonging to the company.”

  “No, I’m not. But that happens everywhere, doesn’t it?”

  “Did Mary ever say anything to suggest that she knew it was happening?”

  “No, I don’t think she did. Not that I can recall, anyway.”

  “That will be all, then, Miss Willerson. And if you do think of any other way in which your recollections may have been inaccurate, please let me know.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Jago drove slowly south from Chadwin Road down almost the whole length of Prince Regent Lane, the car’s hooded headlight picking out only meagre detail in the darkness. He turned left into Maybury Road and parked by the kerb. It was a short street, and unless Smith actually lived on it he would be unlikely to approach from this direction and spot the car, since the road and the turning off it led only to the new primary school and to the playing fields. Cradock was due to turn up by a quarter to eight. The detective constable had briefed Beatrice that she was to do exactly as Smith told her – bring the money, meet him at the phone box on the corner as he had said, and let him take it. Then he and Jago would take over. They would be in place close to the phone box before eight o’clock – close enough to watch what was happening and apprehend Smith, but not close enough to be seen.

  The air-raid siren had already sounded, and overhead the searchlights traced their criss-cross patterns in the sky. Jago craned his neck to look up through the windscreen. He couldn’t see any enemy planes caught in the beams of light, but the anti-aircraft fire was projecting its deafening volleys into the night regardless. Somewhere in the distance he could hear explosions.

  It wouldn’t be easy to see Smith clearly in this darkness, but on the other hand, he would be equally unlikely to spot them. And he would be at a disadvantage, because he didn’t know they were there. Even if he suspected a trap, he wouldn’t know where they might come from, whereas they knew exactly where his designated meeting place with Beatrice was.

  Jago heard a finger tapping on the car’s side window. Cradock opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. His breathing was laboured.

  “Sorry, sir, hope I’m not late.”

  “Only one minute,” said Jago.

  “Right. I’m a bit out of breath – had to run all the way from the Railway Tavern.”

  “They were chasing you?”

  “No, sir. I meant I had to run to get here on time. It was an interesting experience.”

  “Tell me later. Get your breath back – you’ll need it if Mr Smith turns up.”

  Cradock sat back in the chair and took deep breaths.

  “Okay now, sir,” he said. “Ready for action.”

  The explosions were getting closer. Fires were starting somewhere not far away, and the black night began to lighten a little as the flames took hold.

  “Follow me,” said Jago, getting out of the car. He led Cradock a few yards down the road, to the junction with Prince Regent Lane. Where the houses ended there was a patch of wasteland. The two men ran across it and crouched behind a clump of bushes from where they had a good view of the street and the phone box.

  Before long they saw the figure of a woman approaching, clothed in a coat and a headscarf. She was carrying a large handbag. There wasn’t enough light to see her face, but it could only be Beatrice, they assumed.

  She took up her position, as agreed, beside the phone box. Cradock had told her to stand between the phone box and the inside edge of the pavement, to restrict Smith’s potential escape routes.

  It was eight o’clock. As if intentionally marking the hour, a fire engine thundered by, its bell ringing. If Smith was here, thought Jago, that might hold him back, increase his caution. But even as he considered this possibility another figure appeared. From the size it looked like a man, in a dark jacket and trousers and with a cap pulled down over his face. Jago nudged Cradock in the ribs to make sure he’d seen too.

  The man approached Beatrice and stood close to her. There was presumably some brief exchange of words which the detectives could not hear – the only sound was the continuing crump of bombs and the pounding of the anti-aircraft guns.

  “Let’s get him,” said Jago.

  He got to his feet and began to run towards the man, followed by Cradock. As they crossed the short stretch of wasteland the suspect turned and saw them. He grabbed the handbag and dashed away, into the road.

  Jago and Cradock gave chase. He was heading north up Prince Regent Lane. He’d already made twenty yards on them, running with long strides down the near side of the deserted roadway. Jago pushed on as fast as he could, but Smith seemed to be at
least their match in speed. He was holding them off, possibly even gaining ground.

  A shape appeared in the gloom ahead. It was a vehicle of some kind, a dark shadow on darkness. It was heading towards Smith, who was running towards any oncoming traffic. Its dim lights drew near. It was a truck.

  “Watch out, you fool!” Jago shouted. At the last moment Smith swerved out of the way, onto the other side of the road, and it was the pursuers’ turn to dodge the lorry. Jago and Cradock lunged out of its way and followed him on the opposite side of the road. Now there was a new danger – any traffic would bear down on them unseen, from behind.

  “Pavement!” shouted Jago to Cradock.

  They both jumped onto the pavement and continued in hot pursuit. The blast of a nearby bomb jolted the ground. A car sped past them and pulled round Smith just in time to avoid hitting him. Jago saw him leap onto the pavement too, still at least fifteen yards ahead of them.

  “We’re gaining on him,” he shouted to Cradock. “Come on!”

  He heard something else approaching behind him. Another vehicle. The engine was loud, a deeper growl than the car, and a sound he knew well. He looked over his shoulder just as it passed them – a double-decker London bus, the dim blue wartime-regulation lights in the lower saloon glimmering through its side windows. In a moment it was ahead of them, gaining on Smith.

  Their quarry was now no more than ten or twelve yards ahead. Smith must have heard the bus approach, because he turned round to look too. Jago shouted a warning to Cradock, but they could run no faster. Smith stepped into the road as the bus passed him, ran three or four steps behind it, then jumped onto the back platform and grasped the vertical handrail. They saw him turn towards them. He clung to the handrail with his left hand, leaned out at an angle and waved to them casually as the bus pulled ahead and gradually disappeared into the darkness.

  Jago and Cradock stopped in their tracks – there was no catching him now. They hunched over, hands on their knees, and fought to get their breath back. A few moments passed before either could speak.

  “He’s pretty fit,” said Cradock at last.

  “Fit and lucky,” added Jago. “That bus saved his bacon. He’ll be well away by now.”

  “With the money, too.”

  “You don’t need to remind me. We’ll have to make our apologies to Miss Cartwright.”

  They trudged back down the road, the air around them still ringing with gunfire but now also bitter with the smell of smoke. When they reached the phone box they leaned against it, neither of them speaking.

  “Where is he?” said a voice behind them. “Where’s that man?”

  It was a woman’s voice. They both turned towards its source and recognized Beatrice emerging from the shelter of a shop doorway. When she got close they could see the anxiety on her face.

  “I’m afraid he got away,” said Jago. “He managed to hop on a bus as it was passing – too fast for us.”

  “You let him escape? How could you?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll track him down.”

  “But what about me? What happens if he tracks me down first? He’ll know I went to the police now, and he said he knows where I live.”

  Beatrice’s voice was trembling. She looked down the street as if expecting the man to appear out of the darkness.

  “What am I going to do? I can’t go home. He’ll find me.”

  “We’ll make sure he doesn’t,” said Jago. “I have a friend who’ll be happy to put you up for the night – a lady friend. She’s called Rita. We’ll take you home to pick up some things, then drive you to her place. It’s not far. Then tomorrow we’ll find you somewhere a bit further away where no one knows you, so you can lie low for a couple of days.”

  “I’ve got a cousin in Chigwell, sir,” said Cradock. “A female cousin, that is. I’m sure Miss Cartwright could stay with her for a while, out of harm’s way.”

  “Does that sound all right, Miss Cartwright?” asked Jago.

  “I don’t care, as long as that man can’t find me,” said Beatrice. “Did he get away with my money too?”

  “I’m afraid so, but we’ll do everything we can to recover it.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No, it was too dark.”

  Beatrice wiped her eyes and composed herself.

  “In that case, I’ve got something that might help you.”

  She returned to the shop doorway, picked up an object and brought it back to Jago. He strained his eyes through the gloom and then saw it was a man’s cloth cap.

  “I think this is his,” she said. “I found it on the ground as soon as he’d dashed off. I thought perhaps it would give you a clue or something.”

  Jago took the cap, turned it upside down and peered inside it, shifting his position to try to capture any tiny scrap of light that might help him.

  “Thank you, Miss Cartwright,” he said. “I think you may be right.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The next morning Jago and Cradock collected Beatrice and drove north towards the small rural town of Chigwell. Beatrice sat in the front next to Jago, while Cradock and the small suitcase she had packed on the way to Rita’s were relegated to the back. She seemed to have recovered from her fright of the previous evening. Rita had been very kind, she told them, and she had slept surprisingly well. Cradock’s private observation from the back seat was that she looked a sight fresher than either him or his boss.

  “What I still don’t understand,” said Beatrice as they bowled along the main road into the Essex countryside, “is how that man Smith, or whatever his name really is, knew all that information about me.”

  “You’re sure he’s not someone you’ve seen before – someone at Everson’s, for example?” said Jago.

  “I’m as certain as I can be, but then I’ve only met him twice, once in the blackout and both times with that cap over half his face. Why do you mention Everson’s?”

  “It’s just that it seems to me it might have been passed on to him by someone who has a connection with you through your job. I want you to think, Miss Cartwright – how much of what he knew about you would have been known to Everson Engineering?”

  Beatrice sat in silence, head down, counting off the fingers on her left hand with the forefinger of her right as if working through a list in her mind. She looked up.

  “From what I can remember him saying, all of it, I reckon. It’s the sort of thing that would probably be in my personal file. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I think that’s where our Mr Smith may have got it from. Is it possible someone could have gained access to it?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. Certainly Miss Hornby could have – she’s the head of personnel, so she’s in charge of all the files. But how would I find out? I mean, if I thought someone had got hold of my file who shouldn’t have and I wanted to enquire about it or make a complaint, the person I’d have to go to is Miss Hornby. But if she’s the one who’s taken information out of it and given it to a criminal she’s not going to tell me, is she?”

  “If you felt uncomfortable about taking the matter to her, could you raise it with Mr Everson? He’s the only person in the company who’s senior to Miss Hornby.”

  “Are you joking?” said Beatrice. “I don’t think so. Have you seen those two together? They’re like a couple of love birds. You couldn’t get a cigarette paper between them sometimes. I’m sure there’s something going on, now his wife’s out of the way. While the cat’s away, you know. I think she’s got him wrapped round her little finger.”

  “In that case,” said Jago, “I think you’d better leave this matter with us. Stay out here where you’re safe until we contact you.”

  “All right, I will. But I want you to catch that man, and I want my money back.”

  Cradock’s cousin proved to be a good choice. She lived in a dilapidated but clean cottage just outside Chigwell on the road leading to the RAF barrage balloon depot and the River Roding, and she and Beatrice
seemed to hit it off as soon as they met. Jago and Cradock left them chatting and began their return journey to West Ham.

  “Interesting, isn’t it, guv’nor?” said Cradock, now promoted back to the front seat.

  “What is?” asked Jago.

  “The difference between the generations. I mean, there’s Beatrice Cartwright saying to our faces that the two senior people in the company where she works are like love birds, while old Miss Hornby witters on about ‘delicate matters’ that she’d rather not talk about, but in fact she’s doing the same thing as Beatrice – they’re both insinuating the same about each other.”

  “They can’t both be right, then.”

  “Not unless Mr Everson’s got more time on his hands than he lets on,” said Cradock. “By the way, sir, I noticed you didn’t tell Beatrice that Miss Hornby’s already told us her file’s gone missing.”

  “Yes, that was intentional. For the time being I think it’s best that not everyone working at Everson’s knows everything we know.”

  “What I’m thinking is why would Miss Hornby bring it to our attention? If she’s the one who passed the information to Smith, whoever he is, surely it would be in her interests to keep the fact quiet?”

  “But equally, if she’s up to something it could be a bluff. She’s the only person who definitely doesn’t need to steal the file in order to get the information out of it. So if it is her, it would make a lot of sense for the file to go mysteriously missing – then it could be anyone who took it. And she puts herself in the right by reporting it to us.”

  “So what we need to do is find this Smith fellow.”

  “Yes, exactly. He seems a slippery customer, but when we get our hands on him we’ll know how he got the information. And speaking of information, how did you get on at the Railway Tavern?”

  “It was really interesting. There was a bloke in there selling silk stockings and what have you, on the quiet.”

  “Did you buy some?”

  “Really, sir – what would I do with a pair of silk stockings?”