Anthem for Doomed Youth

by Carola Dunn

  ‘No phone number, Chief.’ Ernie continued sorting as he spoke. ‘Fast trains every half hour from Marylebone, quarter to and quarter past, till eleven fifteen. It takes twenty-six minutes.’

  ‘I should have known you’d have checked already.’

  Gerrards Cross, in Buckinghamshire, was where the letter came from. Brief and businesslike, it stated that the writer, Stanley West, a captain at the time, had been posted close to Pelham’s regiment at Loos. As liaison officer, he had made the colonel’s acquaintance, but did not claim to know him well, except through what his junior officers had said of him. He had shared a mess with Halliday, Devine and other officers of the regiment fairly regularly for several weeks.

  An outsider’s view – Alec would have liked to go himself to talk to West, but he decided he was the only person who could deal with the Newcastle police. Besides, he ought to stay in case something more urgent turned up. He went over to Mackinnon and dropped the letter on the desk in front of him.

  ‘All yours,’ he said. ‘You know the case thoroughly and I trust you to ask the right questions. You’ve got things ticking over smoothly here. Delegate whomever you choose to keep it running while you’re gone.’

  Mackinnon read the letter. ‘Ye think he’ll bide at home this evening, sir?’

  ‘One can only hope so. He gives a phone number, so ring beforehand, but if you’re told he’s out and will be coming home later, I want you to go out there anyway.’

  ‘Och, aye. And if there’s no answer, I’ll get the Gerrards Cross coppers to try and find out when he’ll be back.’

  ‘I’ll leave it to you. Piper has the train times. If it’s after midnight when you finish there, you can go straight home. But before you go, get the switchboard to put through a call to the main police station in Newcastle upon Tyne, would you? When it comes through, I’ll take it up in my office. After that, I’m going to pop over to Southwark.’ Alec could have sent a detective constable to interview his ‘obdt. servant, Robt. Thomson,’ but he had a feeling, illogical and inexplicable, that as he couldn’t send Tom Tring, he ought to go himself, even though Thomson had not known Pelham.

  ‘Southwark, sir? Better take a constable.’

  ‘I’ll call in at the local coppers’ and see what they say about the address I’m bound for. If it’s in a respectable area, as I expect, I don’t want to embarrass the man I’m going to see by turning up with a uniform in tow.’

  ‘Nor his guidwife, if any,’ Mackinnon agreed with a rare grin.

  ‘Especially not his good wife, if any. I’ll see you in the morning, if not before.’

  Upstairs, while waiting for the trunk call to come through, Alec tried to analyse his feeling that Thomson might be important. There was a whiff about the crime of a lower-class, other-ranks grudge against superior officers. Perhaps he was letting himself be influenced by the choice of burial-place. Epping Forest was, after all, the traditional spot for the concealment of homicide victims originating in the East End, from illegitimate babies to those who fell afoul of gangs.

  Was that the only indication? Unable to come up with anything more convincing to support the hypothesis, Alec decided a better use of his time would be going through the rest of the few papers Piper considered worthy of investigation.

  None seemed as likely to yield results as the four he was already dealing with. They could wait for the morning, he thought, pushing them aside as the telephone bell rang.

  After all the usual pauses, pings, crackles and exhortations from operators, he was connected with DS Miniver, the senior detective on duty in Newcastle. Miniver’s Geordie accent was quite strong but comprehensible. What was more, he had read about the case in the papers and was pleased to be asked to help in such a notorious affair. He quickly grasped what Alec wanted of Peter Chivers.

  ‘Ah’ll go to his hoose reet away, an if he’s not in, Ah’ll see if Ah can find him. Shall Ah ring back the neet?’

  Alec blinked. The neet? Oh, tonight, presumably. ‘If you manage to see him, yes, please, and send a written report by first post. If you can’t find him, a telegram to that effect will do. Then one of your day officers can try again tomorrow.’

  ‘Reet ye are, sir.’

  Thanking him, Alec rang off. He went over to the window and looked out over the Thames towards Southwark. The sun, already sinking in the west, glinted pinkly off the glass roof of Waterloo Station. It would be near dark before he reached the humble abode of Robert Thomson. Better get moving. Doubtless Ernie Piper would know which bus he should take across Westminster Bridge.

  Ernie had the route number at his fingertips, along with three more letters.

  ‘I’ll read them on the bus. This shouldn’t take long, I hope. I’ll be back.’

  It was early enough for buses to be frequent, late enough for them not to be over-full. Alec spared a glance from his seat upstairs for the famous view from the bridge. Though Wordsworth’s ‘All bright and glittering in the smokeless air’ had ceased to apply long ago, on a warm June evening the permanent haze over the great city was at its minimum. In spite of familiarity, the vista was still majestic.

  He took the new letters from his pocket. One was a stiff note from Pelham’s nephew, who assumed the police would be in touch at their convenience. Alec had been too preoccupied with the immediate families of the victims and the search for links between the three to spare him a second thought. It was always possible he might be able to shed some light on his uncle’s past. Tom or Mackinnon would have to see him tomorrow.

  According to Mrs Pelham, Reginald Pelham was, or had been, at the India Office. So was the husband of Daisy’s close friend, Mrs Prasad. Prasad and Pelham more than likely knew each other. Perish the thought! Did it bring Daisy close enough to the colonel to give the super ammunition for one of his diatribes? He must never find out.

  The next letter Alec looked at was from an elderly gentleman who had been a lieutenant under then Captain Pelham in the Zulu war of 1879. He also had the pleasure of the acquaintance of Sir Daniel Halliday. He was not aware of any relationship – other than through himself – between the two families. However, if the police desired to speak to him, they could find him at his club, address above, where he resided.

  Possibly interesting, Alec thought, but hardly urgent. Everett Davis-Slocumbe, Esq., could wait.

  The last of the papers Ernie had thrust into his hands was a Yard memo slip reporting a telephone call from the police in H Division – Stepney. A man had come into the station who claimed to know someone who knew who had committed the Epping Forest murders. He had refused to stay or to give his name, but said he would return on Sunday at noon. If the chief inspector he’d read about in the papers was there, he would pass on the information; if not, not.

  Noon! Alec had planned a gathering at the Yard at half past ten. The man could be making up the story to get someone else into trouble, or he could just be a crank. He might or might not turn up. The message gave no indication as to whether the Stepney police considered him a credible witness.

  The stroke of luck they needed, or a complete waste of time? Descending the steps as the bus pulled up at his stop, Alec decided to ring the Stepney inspector from the Southwark station.

  Much of Southwark, though a more salubrious area than Stepney, was a grimy district of narrow streets, tenements, and long rows of terrace houses opening directly onto the pavement. Neither inspired much confidence in any effort of an inhabitant to aid the police. But Alec still had that lurking sense that the murderer was not to be sought in the same class as the victims.

  He went into the police station. The sergeant at the desk told him he’d be better off not taking a uniformed constable with him to the address he was bound for.

  ‘Give the neighbours something to talk about!’ he said with a grin. ‘This bloke you’re going to see, he and his missus wouldn’t live it down for a month of Sundays, and he’d know it. Might be enough to make him keep his mouth shut. That street, they scrub their do
orsteps every day and polish the aspidistra. It’s not somewhere they’re used to seeing us haul off a villain or two every couple of days.’

  Alec thanked him and requested the use of a telephone. He got through quickly to the H Division inspector on duty.

  ‘I didn’t see the man myself,’ the inspector said. ‘Hadn’t come in yet, and the sergeant who talked to him’s gone home. But seeing it’s to do with a big case, he reported to me in detail. Let me find my notes. What exactly did you want to know, sir?’

  ‘Whether it’s going to be worth my time to come and meet him. I realise you can’t give me any certainty, but did the sergeant get the impression that the man was reliable?’

  ‘What Sergeant Jones told me is, he was reluctant to have anything to do with the police – that’s why he was willing to talk to you, sir, reckoning you wouldn’t be interested in small fry – but he didn’t hold with murder. Little ratty chap, sneak-thief type, not a smash-and-grabber.’

  ‘Not known to you, though, I take it.’

  ‘No, but could just be he operates on someone else’s manor. He wasn’t too sure, Jones said, that this other chap was telling the truth. Could be he was just boasting, talking through his hat. Same applies to him, of course, the one who came in, though Jones got the impression he was serious. That’s about it, sir.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’ Alec sighed. ‘It sounds as if I’d better turn up. I’ll be there at noon tomorrow.’ He rang off and went to pay a call on Robt. Thomson.

  It was dusk when he turned into Balaclava Row. The Victorian terraces of tiny, soot-stained brick houses were no different from those he had walked between on his way here. Lights shone in lace-curtained windows, the soft glow of gas. The street lamps at both crossroads were electric, but landlords in these parts had not yet caught up with the changing times.

  Alec walked along to number 45 and knocked on the door. It was opened by a wiry man of about thirty, in his shirtsleeves, with a cigarette in one corner of his mouth.

  Removing it, he said, ‘Copper? I was wond’rin’ if you’d show up. Come on in. The missus is gettin’ the nippers to bed.’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher,’ Alec introduced himself, stepping into the tiny entrance hall. A Southern Railways porter’s cap and jacket hung on a hook on the wall, announcing Thomson’s job. ‘I appreciate your willingness to talk to us.’

  ‘Ain’t got much to say,’ he grunted, ‘but you’re welcome to what I got. Come through to the kitchen, if you don’t mind. The missus loikes her Ovaltine at bedtime, and I’m watchin’ the milk.’

  ‘Through’ to the kitchen was a couple of paces. Thomson stepped over to the stove and turned down the gas under a pan of milk. Alec sat down at the well-scrubbed table, noting faded but neat gingham curtains, pots and pans and crockery neatly stacked on a couple of shelves. The worn, green linoleum floor was polished to a gleam. A house-proud housewife, who definitely wouldn’t have appreciated the arrival of a uniformed constable; he was glad he had taken the sergeant’s advice.

  ‘Fag?’ offered his host, joining him at the table.

  ‘No, thanks, I’m a pipe-man. Well, what can you tell me about Halliday and Devine?’

  ‘Captain and lieutenant they was back then. Me and me mates’d just shipped out to France, see, and they was two of the officers we landed up with. You want to know where we was, and all?’

  ‘No, that’s not necessary. I’m trying to understand the sort of men they were, and what they might have done that led to murder.’

  Thomson shook his head slowly. ‘Nasty business, all right. But the fact is, guv, I can’t see neither of ’em doing nuffing that’d get ’em snuffed out.’ Cepting by the Boche, nacherly, but they made it through the war, di’n’ they?’

  ‘Yes, they died quite recently.’

  ‘They was the same in some ways and diff ’rent in others. They was gentlemen. Both of ’em treated you like a human being, even us Tommies. But the captain was kind of standoffish wiv it, like he was polite acos it was beneath him to be anyfing else. Lieutenant Devine, you got the feeling he reelly knew we was real people and he was sorry he couldn’ do anyfing about us being stuck in them gawdforsaken trenches.’

  ‘You’re an acute observer of character, Mr Thomson.’

  ‘Yes, werl, you got to be to make a living as a porter, guv. Got to take a dekko at a passenger and know this lady’ll give you a smile and a half-crown, even if you can’t find her a window seat facing the engine, and that gentleman’ll make a big fuss about whatever seat you bag him and give you sixpence for your trouble.’

  ‘I see what you mean!’ said Alec, amused.

  ‘And I do well enough.’ Thomson looked with satisfaction round the tiny but comfortable kitchen, then sprang to his feet to rescue the milk just in time to stop it boiling over. ‘Whew!’ Wiping his forehead with his sleeve, he mimed relief. ‘She’d’ve ’ad me guts for garters!’ He sat down again and lit another Woodbine. ‘Captain Halliday, now, he was going to do his duty, come what may. The lieutenant’d do what he was told.’

  ‘And you didn’t see anything of Colonel Pelham?’

  ‘There was talk that some old fossil was going to come out of retirement and take over the regiment, but I never heard his name. Then me and me mates, we was transferred to another unit. But what I reckon is, if them three, the colonel, Captain Halliday and Lieutenant Devine, did summat as made someone want to murder the lot of ’em, it must’ve been the colonel as started it. The captain made up his mind it was his duty to go along, and the lieutenant just followed orders.’

  CHAPTER 13

  As Daisy, Sakari and Melanie reached the Meeting House, they saw a crocodile of schoolchildren approaching, halfway down the hill. They had arrived a few minutes early, hoping they wouldn’t have to walk into a room full of silent people.

  Belinda had told Daisy about Quaker Meetings, so she had a rough idea of what to expect. She was surprised, though, when she entered the room with Sakari and Melanie, to see the pews arranged in a square facing a central table with a vase of pink roses. Beside the flowers lay a bible and another book, but there was nothing remotely resembling an altar! Several people were already there, sitting quietly with their hands folded in their laps. Most wore subdued colours, but one woman had a bright red hat, so Sakari, who didn’t own anything subdued, wasn’t too far out of line in her peacock sari.

  A soft-voiced elderly lady in grey greeted them. ‘Welcome to our Meeting,’ she said. ‘The seats facing this way are reserved for the children from the school, but please sit anywhere else.’

  Sakari chose the nearest pew, closest to the door. ‘You two go first,’ she whispered, ‘in case I want to escape.’

  They left space between them for the girls, who had said they were allowed to sit with parents, when present. Several more people came in, and then the children arrived, remarkably quiet, the boys ushered by Mr Tesler, the girls by Miss Bascombe. Bel, Lizzie and Deva had no difficulty finding their mothers, given the beacon of Sakari’s vivid turquoise.

  With a big smile, Belinda kissed Daisy’s cheek, but she didn’t say anything.

  Quite a few of their fellow pupils also joined parents, while the rest filed into the reserved pews opposite. Tesler and Miss Bascombe stood at the back, on the outer edge of the boys’ and girls’ sections respectively, where they could keep an eye on their flocks. They waited till everyone was settled before they sat down. Daisy thought they both looked harassed and ill at ease. Twitchy was the word that came to mind. She wondered whether they had quarrelled, or perhaps that wretched Harriman had been making trouble for them.

  Would the Committee that oversaw the school frown on their romance? Perhaps they were not sufficiently discreet about it, given that the children were apparently well aware of it.

  Or perhaps just being in charge of keeping all those teenaged children quiet for an hour was enough to explain their anxiety.

  More people had come in while Daisy’s thoughts were wandering.
Now the woman who had greeted and directed them, closed the door and went to take her seat in a space obviously saved for her on the front bench at right-angles to the school pews. The hushed room took on a deeper stillness. Though the loud, slow tick of the clock on the wall intruded, clearly it was time to turn one’s mind to higher things.

  Despite her best intentions, Daisy’s continued to wander. She soon ceased to notice the clock and started to wonder what Alec was doing. Was he any nearer to solving the triple murder? Perhaps he had already arrested someone and would join them in Saffron Walden for the afternoon. They had better go back to the hotel after Meeting to see if there was a message from him. If he didn’t know by then, it would be too late to make the journey worthwhile. He might as well stay at home with the twins.

  A man in front of her stood up and prayed for Mahatma Gandhi’s success in his path to peaceful reform. From the corner of her eye, Daisy saw Sakari’s shoulders relax their tautness. She hadn’t realised her friend was feeling uncomfortable in these surroundings, unsure of her welcome.

  Tesler, also, regained his characteristic serenity in the course of the Meeting, absorbed in meditation. Daisy wondered whether he would notice his charges misbehaving, as long as they didn’t make a lot of noise.

  In the next half-hour, several people stood and spoke. Some had an overtly Christian message, others talked about an act of kindness they had witnessed, or something inspiring they had read. One ancient woman rambled on for several minutes in a mumble Daisy couldn’t make out at all, but on the whole, she found plenty of food for reflection during the periods of silence. Then the small children thundered down the stairs from Sunday School. They were very well-behaved, but inevitably a bit restless, as Bel had foretold.

  A short, stout, balding man rose and said gloomily: ‘“Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”’ As he sat down, Daisy wondered whether he did the same every week, just to remind himself.