Fifth Column

by Mike Hollow

“Yes. You’re right, of course – she was my friend, my best friend, the only real friend I had in the world. That’s what I thought, but what I didn’t know was that all the time she was betraying me, selling me. More fool me.” She gestured with her head towards the handcuffed Fletcher. “I couldn’t understand how that swine over there knew so much about me – not just the business about the Link, but all the other stuff, personal stuff, that convinced me I must be under some kind of official surveillance. I thought he could really get me into trouble. It never crossed my mind that she… Not until that night.”

  “Which night?”

  Angela sobbed.

  “The night she died.”

  “What happened?”

  “We went out for a drink together, and by the time we set off home it must have been getting on for half past ten. We were both a bit tipsy – her more than me. We got to a place where the houses had been bombed, and it was all just a pile of rubble and wreckage. I said something like the whole country was going to pot these days, and before long it’d all be smashed to pieces like this, and the way things were going I wouldn’t be able to afford to go out for a drink soon. She said, ‘It’s all about number one, Angela,’ said you’ve got to look after yourself, because no one else is going to look after you. Then she started telling me about this thing she’d been doing at work – said she was making a bit of cash on the side.”

  Angela wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and continued.

  “I asked her what she meant, and she said, ‘Supply and demand, my girl.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she said there was this man who wanted information about people – not big secret information, not like a spy, just ordinary personal information. ‘That’s what we call demand,’ she said, and then she said something like, ‘So I just give him some ordinary bits of information from the personnel files at work – that’s what we call supply. And he gives me money, so everyone’s happy.’ Then she laughed, like it was some big joke.”

  “Did she say who this man was?”

  “No, but I wasn’t so tipsy I couldn’t put two and two together and make four. I could see it, plain as day – it must be the bloke who’d been trying it on with me. That would explain how he knew so much about me. She’d just got my file out and told him what it said.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Angela’s expression grew hard, and she spoke through gritted teeth.

  “I got angry – said, ‘How could you do this to me? I’m your friend.’ That sort of thing. She just said, ‘You poor naïve little kid,’ and laughed in my face. I felt so angry. All that time I’d thought she was my friend, and she’d betrayed me, made a fool of me. I could see she was wobbly on her feet because of the drink, so I pushed her. I couldn’t get over the fact that she’d betrayed me to that man. I grabbed a piece of wood and swung it at her.”

  “Did you hit her?”

  “I was so mad I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t even aiming – I just sort of lunged at her with it. It caught her on the side of her head. She went flying backwards and landed on her back on this pile of bricks. I got down beside her. It was too dark to see properly, but it looked like I’d knocked her out cold. I put my hand over her mouth and I could feel she was still breathing. Then I panicked. I knew if she told anyone what had happened I’d be in trouble and it would all come out. I knew no one would see us in the blackout, so I just held her down and put my hands round her throat and squeezed as hard as I could. Then she stopped breathing.”

  Angela began to cry. When at last she spoke through her tears, her voice was hushed, but it had the intensity of a scream of anguish.

  “I didn’t mean to kill her.”

  Jago got up and stood before her. He laid his hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you say may be given in evidence.”

  Angela collapsed back in her chair and raised one arm to cover her eyes. Her body shook as the tears welled up from somewhere deep inside her.

  She seemed oblivious to the bombs which continued to crash to the earth, their blasts now thuds receding gradually into the distance. A silence fell on the room.

  CHAPTER 47

  It was Friday morning, and Jago felt as though some of the weight had been taken off his shoulders, at least for the time being. He took the two steps up to the front door of West Ham police station in one stride and greeted Sergeant Tompkins with a broad smile.

  “Morning, Frank.”

  “Morning, sir. You’re looking pleased with yourself.”

  “That’s because it’s Friday, and tomorrow it’ll be Saturday, and then it’ll be Sunday and I can have a whole day off.”

  “You mean you won’t be sneaking in just for a few hours?”

  “No. I intend to have a day off, and I’m thinking of telling young Cradock to do the same.”

  “He’ll think you’re going soft – soft as a mop.”

  “I think we both deserve it.”

  “You got your man, then.”

  “In a manner of speaking. We got one man, but the main man we got was a woman.”

  “Well, they do say we’re living in tumultuous times, so I suppose nothing should surprise us.”

  “No, this really was a woman.”

  “Whatever you say, sir.”

  “What’s the matter, Frank? You sound a bit down in the dumps. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got to work an extra shift on Sunday. At my age. It’s bad enough being hauled out of retirement because of staff shortages, but then they go and get more shortages and I have to work extra hours. It’s not right.”

  “I expect your wife will see the bright side of it.”

  “I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that. Actually, I reckon she’ll go on about it. She’ll say she’s managed to get a bit of beef for a roast on Sunday and now it’ll go to waste. She’ll say that, even if she hasn’t. You know what women are like. And how’s that –”

  Jago held up his hand.

  “No more questions, Frank. I must get down to work. Any messages? Does DDI Soper want me to join him for a celebratory drink?”

  “Yes, sir, and no, sir. Mr Soper hasn’t mentioned that to me, but there’s one message. It’s from Detective Superintendent Ford – he says you’re to go and see him at the Yard as soon as you come in. I’m sorry if that prevents you catching up with your work today, but it’s the world we live in, as they say. Perhaps you can get it done on Sunday.”

  Within an hour Jago was back in Ford’s office. The detective superintendent gave him a warm welcome, as on his previous visit.

  “I expect you’ll be wondering what this is all about, me dragging you back here,” said Ford.

  “Yes, I am, rather,” said Jago.

  “Well, it’s a bit off your normal beat, as it were, down in West Ham, but there’s a connection.”

  “I assumed there must be.”

  “It’s about Japan, you see.”

  “Ah, now that is not something I assumed. We don’t have a lot to do with Japan in West Ham.”

  “It’s not top of our list at the moment either, with Hitler threatening to break down the door and help himself to everything in the house. But better minds than mine in the government have their concerns. Did you hear about the Tientsin Incident last year?”

  “I read a few bits and pieces in the paper, but I can’t say I know much about it.”

  “To be honest, there’s not much to say. Tientsin is one of those treaty ports in China dating back to the Opium Wars, on the coast up Peking way, and some local unpleasantness in June of last year ended with the Japanese Navy blockading the British concession. I daresay you and I had never heard of the place, but I can tell you we came very close to war with Japan – the last thing we wanted, given what was brewing in Europe.”

  “It obviously didn’t come to that, though.”

  “No. It seems the Foreign Office managed to smooth th
ings out, but the government’s still anxious. And now there’s this business with the Japanese invading French Indo-China and squaring up to the Americans. There’s trouble ahead, and if the Americans get sucked into any kind of war with Japan they won’t be able to spare anything to help us. There’s no doubt the Japanese have their minds set on expansion. We’ve got enough on our hands trying to keep Hitler out of Kent, so it leaves us very vulnerable in the Far East. What they’ve been doing in China is bad enough, but if they ever start looking beyond that the consequences are unthinkable. Imagine if they set their sights on Malaya, or even India. If they start trouble there we might as well shut up shop.”

  “That I can understand, but what’s it got to do with me?”

  “Well, it’s not quite from the sublime to the ridiculous, but the fact is that ever since Tientsin we’ve been asked to keep an eye on one or two characters from the Japanese Embassy here. A couple of our men were watching one of them last night. He was in a café up west with a woman they didn’t recognize, and it appeared she was trying to pass him something in exchange for cash. When she left they picked her up and brought her in for a chat. She’s here now, helping us with our enquiries, and I think you might like to meet her. You might be interested to see this, too.”

  He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a woman’s handbag.

  “This is hers. And look what we found in it.”

  He opened the bag and put in his hand, then withdrew it.

  “There we are.”

  “A wireless valve?”

  “Indeed. The very thing you were asking about on Tuesday. Come with me.”

  CHAPTER 48

  They entered the interview room, where a woman was sitting at a table with her back to the door. At the sound of their arrival she turned round. Her eyebrows arched in surprise.

  “Mr Jago,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask the same question,” he replied. “Since I’m a policeman and this is Scotland Yard, it’s perhaps less of a surprise for you to see me here than it is for me to see you, Miss Hornby.”

  Ford and Jago sat down on the other side of the table. Ford put the handbag on the table, took out the valve, and placed it in front of her.

  “Miss Hornby,” he said, “I’d like you to tell my colleague here exactly what you were doing discussing one of your employer’s products with a Japanese diplomat last night, and to answer any questions he may have.”

  Miss Hornby shifted on her chair to face Jago. It was difficult to interpret her expression, but he read it as reflecting a kind of embarrassed hopelessness.

  “The short answer, Inspector Jago, is that I’ve been a fool,” she said. “I’ve no idea what that valve thing is for, but I knew we were making them for the War Office and the job was very urgent and secret. I thought it might be something important.”

  “So you phoned an acquaintance who just happened to be a Japanese diplomat?”

  “No, of course not. It was he who contacted me. The Japanese gentleman was a pre-war customer of ours – he’d visited Everson Engineering in 1938. He seemed to know we were manufacturing valves for the government and he asked me to get him a couple of samples. He said he might buy some if they were interesting enough.”

  “And you thought this was above board? You didn’t think it was suspicious that a representative of a foreign power was asking you for something that our government had said was a secret project?”

  “But they’re not an enemy, are they? We’re not at war with them. And in the last war Japan was on our side.”

  “So was Italy, but that didn’t stop them declaring war on us three months ago when Mussolini could see that France was finished.”

  “Be that as it may, Inspector, I just thought I’d take a few of those things for myself.”

  “Mr Everson told me those valves were behind some heavy crates and he thought they’d have been too heavy for a woman to move on her own. Did you have someone to help you?”

  “Yes, I did, actually. I persuaded Mrs Parker to help me. She does some cleaning for us. There was no reason for her to think there was anything suspicious about pushing a few crates to one side, and between us we managed it.”

  “Were you aware of the scheme she and her husband were running to pilfer various items from the business?”

  “Yes, I was. As you know, I was one of Harry Parker’s customers. I bought silk stockings from him, but I know other women got hydrogen peroxide, batteries and so on from him – things which tallied rather closely with what I’d heard was going missing from Everson Engineering.”

  “You knew who was stealing these things and you didn’t tell Mr Everson?”

  Miss Hornby gave a shrug of the shoulders as if to say there was nothing she could have done about it.

  “No, I thought Harry’s activities would provide a useful cover for what I was doing. If the disappearance of the valves came to light I could always give an anonymous tip-off or do something else like that to point you in the direction of the Parkers.”

  “Harry Parker said it was Mary Watkins who put the idea of helping themselves to a few odds and ends into their heads. Is that true?”

  Miss Hornby hesitated.

  “I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t right, but it was I who told Harry to say that. You must think I’m an awful person, but I’m afraid in the heat of the moment I thought, ‘Mary’s dead, so she won’t be able to deny it, and also no one will be able to punish her for it, so why shouldn’t I?’”

  “And you were prepared to sell the Parkers down the river just to protect yourself?”

  Jago could see the distress creeping into her face as she spoke.

  “I didn’t want to go to prison, Mr Jago. I knew that Mr Parker had already been to prison, so I thought he would be used to it, and in any case generally their class of person is more accustomed to imprisonment than mine, so I thought it would simply be judicious to cast suspicion in their direction if the need arose.”

  “And what about Mr Everson? I thought you were one of his most trusted colleagues. Weren’t you concerned about jeopardizing his business?”

  Miss Hornby looked down at the table. When she spoke, her voice was softer and quieter.

  “Yes, I realize that. As I said, I’ve been foolish. The more I think about it, the bigger fool I think I’ve been.” She paused, as if struggling to find the right words. “I just wanted him to… to notice me. All these years… I felt taken for granted. Oh, yes, it was always Miss Hornby, very efficient, a model employee, nobody more reliable than her. But he never even looked at me. I wanted him to – I wanted him to look at me… in that way. But he didn’t.”

  “So you decided enough was enough?”

  “Yes. It all just got too much.” Her voice broke. “The truth is I wanted to hurt him. I know it doesn’t make sense. Why would I want to hurt the man I – the man I respect?” She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and delicately blew her nose. “Now you can see, Inspector – I’m just a foolish woman. Why is it we hurt the people we hold dearest?”

  Jago did not respond to her question. His face was an impassive mask.

  Miss Hornby crumpled the handkerchief in her hand and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

  “What will happen to me now?”

  “That’s a question for my colleague here – not me, I’m afraid.”

  “What will Mr Everson say?”

  “I expect that will rather depend on whether he manages to keep his contract with the government. If he does, you may be able to prevail upon him to vouch for your previous good conduct.”

  Detective Superintendent Ford rose from his chair.

  “Stay here please, Miss Hornby. Detective Inspector Jago and I are just stepping outside.”

  In the corridor, Ford closed the door and motioned Jago a few steps away to get them out of earshot.

  “So what are you going to do with her?” said Jago.

  “Actually, John,” said Ford, “I was rather
thinking you might like to take her away with you. Put her up before your local magistrates if you like. I don’t think she’s of any great interest to us – the Japanese fellow didn’t take the valve. I doubt whether she knew whether it was technically significant or not. I’m no expert, but it looks like the kind of thing you’d put in an ordinary domestic wireless set to me, so she may have taken the wrong sort – in which case the diplomat may have spotted that for himself. Either way there’s no harm done to national security.”

  “She’s a lucky woman, then. She could have been facing a hefty stretch of penal servitude for assisting the enemy.”

  “Yes, but she said it herself: we’re not in a state of war with Japan, so they’re not strictly the enemy. You could charge her with larceny, but that’s more in your line of work, not mine. My advice is take her away and give her a stern talking to. Have a chat with her employer and see what he wants to do.” He paused and leaned forward in an air of mock confidentiality. “And when you’ve done that, perhaps you should find her a good man to occupy her thoughts.”

  Jago smiled.

  “I think I may already have done that.”

  CHAPTER 49

  When Jago returned to the station he opened the door of the CID office to find the divisional detective inspector’s back filling most of his view. Over Soper’s shoulder he could see Cradock on the far side of the room. The detective constable’s face reminded him of a cornered cat trying to calculate an escape route. A wave of relief seemed to pass over Cradock’s face as he saw Jago enter the room.

  Soper turned round on hearing the rattle of the door handle.

  “Ah, good morning, John,” he said. “I was just asking Constable Carruthers here about your murder.”

  Cradock half opened his mouth, wondering whether he should attempt to correct the DDI, but caught the look in Jago’s eyes and thought better of it.

  “Yes, sir,” said Jago. “DC Cradock has been of great assistance to me on this case.”

  Soper eyed Cradock sceptically, as if finding this claim implausible.