Mickey was currently restocking their own kit and adding the extra film and chemicals that Henry had decided they should carry.
Second on the board was Chief Inspector George Cornish, who only the previous year had made headlines by solving the murder of Minnie Bonati, whose dismembered body had been found in a trunk in Charing Cross.
Third on the list was Prothero.
Henry still sometimes found it strange that he should be working in such illustrious company.
He closed his eyes and stretched back in his chair, trying to pull the knots and kinks out of his back. He opened them again on hearing something being dumped down on to his table. Mickey stood there, newly stocked bag set before him.
‘They lost Tommy Boswell in one of the alleys off Brick Lane,’ Mickey told him.
‘No surprise. He’s well practised in being invisible. Revealing, though, I think.’
Mickey grabbed a chair and plonked down on the other side of the desk. ‘How so?’
‘He’d be aware that we’d keep him under observation. If he simply wanted to pass information along, he’d have met one of Bailey’s other associates in a local pub. One way or another, anything he had to report would have filtered back to Bailey. Tommy himself would have remained in plain sight.’
‘The fact that he took the trouble to shake off his followers suggests he wanted to see Bailey and report direct.’ Mickey nodded. ‘Though that’s attributing some capacity for subtle thought to our friend Tommy.’
‘True, but as you say, he’s spent a lifetime being invisible and unconsidered. He could be said to have made a career of it. That’s how he’s survived – both Bailey and his fits of temper and the hazards of being useful to Bailey. My guess is that the man himself is now back in London.’
‘Which probably doesn’t help us one iota,’ Mickey observed. ‘Bailey’s mob is tight and we could schedule raids on likely places between here and Christmas and still miss him.’
‘But his grip isn’t as tight as it used to be. Sooner or later he’ll slip up or someone else will. Anyway …’ Henry stood up and stretched again. Sure sign, Mickey knew, that he was fatigued and hungry.
‘Food,’ Mickey said. ‘And a beer. Come on, let’s be having you. One small piece of good news: we now have a couple of names attached to our mystery body. One person recognized him as the elder brother of Sonny Peterson, now deceased. Remember him? Housebreaking, robbery with violence, threats to kill, until somebody finally threatened him and then did it. Never one of Bailey’s crew, so far as we know.’
‘Interesting,’ Henry said as he collected his coat. ‘But no first name for this brother?’
‘Well, another of today’s guests suggested his name might be Max and also thought he might be related to Sonny, so I’m thinking—’
‘That putting those two fragments together would give us a Max Peterson. And does this Max Peterson have a record?’
‘Surprisingly not, given the company he’s probably kept – always supposing that’s who he is, of course. Clean as a whistle, at least in our records. We sent a call out to Kent Constabulary, seeing as that’s where his body was found, and will spread the net wider if necessary, but a lack of record, in my book, is suspicious enough. Sonny Peterson had one long as your arm, and the younger brother, Alf Peterson, is serving time. Armed robbery, and a man died. He was a juvenile at the time so got off with a life term; his two colleagues got their necks stretched.’
‘So we show him the picture of his possible brother.’
‘Already in hand,’ Mickey said. ‘Now, beer and food, probably in that order, and then we get ourselves some sleep. How’s that working for you, by the way?’
‘Somewhat better, last night.’
‘Better by your standards or better by normal standards?’
Henry just smiled. ‘Cynthia phoned. I’m going to try and get over to hers on Sunday. Apparently she’s having a house party over the weekend, but it will be good to see her anyway.’
‘Give her my best. I’m expecting a weekend of domestic bliss,’ Mickey said, with only a little irony.
‘Belle is home, then?’
‘She is indeed. The tour has finished and she should be back in town for at least a few weeks.’ He sounded very content with the idea. Mickey and his wife had a somewhat unconventional marriage, which hadn’t done him any good in the promotion stakes and meant that Henry had sometimes had to defend his sergeant from those who considered he was not living quite as proper and upright a life as they would expect. Henry liked Belle; she was an independent woman who had refused to give up her independence just because she happened to fall in love and get married. And frankly, Henry couldn’t see why she ought to have done. But then, Henry had been largely raised by his sister Cynthia. And, he was content to acknowledge, this probably skewed his view of such things.
SIX
Josiah Bailey was watching two men sparring. Both were young, juveniles not yet tested in the professional ring, but they showed promise. One had black skin and his father worked as a stevedore in the docks, the other was white and pale, though his fluffy blond hair was currently darkened by sweat and slicked back. He was the son of one of Bailey’s long-term associates. Bailey had decided that both were worth his time and every few days, when opportunity allowed, he took his place alongside their trainer and watched them work.
The boxing gym was in the basement of a warehouse. It had been there more than twenty years and produced some good fighters, though not all of them had gone out on to the public circuit. Betting men did not always like to bet in public and not all of his fighters could show their face where a police officer might see it, so two worlds occupied this one space and Bailey was king of both, even now.
Word had filtered back all day about the raids and the police interviews and Bailey was annoyed about Billy Crane. He’d been a good lad, had Billy. Maybe not too bright, but loyal and capable where it counted. He could make a guess as to who the other man might have been; Billy Crane and Max Peterson were practically inseparable and had been so for as long as Bailey could remember. Close – some said too close and Bailey should intervene, hinting at a kind of closeness that many said was sinful. Bailey chose not to know about that sort of thing, not where useful men were concerned, so long as they kept it quiet and made enough of a show with the women for talk to remain only talk (and even that was in hushed tones, and not where anyone that mattered could hear it).
He was perfectly aware of what Billy and Max were, and were to one another, but they had never tipped the balance and been less than useful, or less than loyal, and so he had chosen not to make an issue or an example. They knew how to keep everything within bounds and behind closed doors.
Thomas Boswell was the first actually to come and report to him in person and he now sat uncomfortably perched on a wooden chair on the left-hand side of Bailey. Bailey, eyes fixed on the two young men circling in the ring, had barely acknowledged Tommy’s presence, a slight inclination of the head was all. He’d felt no need to ask Tommy about his having been followed. It was inevitable that the police would have trailed him and just as inevitable that Tommy would have shaken them off before coming here. Anything less and Tommy would not have survived Bailey’s anger, and he knew that.
‘Stabbed, you say.’
‘Two different hands. I don’t know how they know that, but the copper reckoned there were two different weapons used. Max and Billy both had their hands tied, they couldn’t defend themselves. Then they put them in water, left them, and then got this man and boy to drag them onshore.’ He paused. ‘I brought pictures. The copper, he must have forgot to pick them up when he left the room, so I slipped them in me pocket.’
‘I doubt he forgot,’ Bailey said. ‘Give them to me.’
He could see that Tommy’s hands were shaking as he held out the two small images.
Bailey studied them closely. ‘And where did you say this was? Where they fetched up?’
Tommy shrugged, as
though the name meant nothing to him. ‘Some village called Upchurch,’ he said. ‘Water somewhere near, a creek or some such, something to do with otters … Otterham, I think he said.’
Bailey frowned. Vague memories surfaced, but he couldn’t quite place them as yet. Something had happened out that way. A lot of years ago. It would come to him … Ah, that was right.
For the first time he turned to look directly at Tommy Boswell. ‘You’ve been there,’ he said. ‘Within a mile or two. Ten-year back. You fetched the Beaney woman and her kids away, when we did her old man. A liar and a traitor he was, so I had an example made of him. Maxie wasn’t there, but you were. You and Billy, you went to fetch the woman and the children. Senior gave them money, told them to skedaddle. So, from what I remember, you put them on a train, burned the cottage to the ground.’
Tommy’s jaw dropped. ‘Manfrid Beaney? Wife was Dalina. You think …’
‘I think nothing,’ Bailey said. ‘Not if you put them on a train and they went, like sensible people. Word was Dalla Beaney was a sensible woman and went quietly, or so I was led to believe.’
Tommy nodded his head violently. ‘That’s what I heard too. And that’s what happened. She didn’t say nothing, just took her kids and their few bits they had and went.’
‘So, no trouble there, then. Must be something else, then, mustn’t it?’
Tommy felt himself dismissed, so he got up and backed away. ‘They left,’ he said. ‘I saw them go. Dalla, she had too much sense to come back.’
Bailey turned to look at him again, his eyes cold and expressionless. ‘But the kids will be all grown up now, won’t they?’
Tommy absorbed what he was saying. ‘They had no love for their dad. Violent bugger he was, made their lives hell.’
‘I hope you’re right, Tommy boy.’
Tommy nodded. He hoped he was right too.
SEVEN
1925
The transfer of Ricky Clough to Durham gaol was to take place on the morning of November twenty-third and it was unlikely that any tears would be shed the day the man finally went.
Clough, the governor thought, was an inveterate troublemaker. When he’d first arrived he’d gathered around him a clique of those who considered themselves hard men, but as time went on even this coterie had fallen off and found other alliances – though if Clough said jump, they would still ask how high. He’d been put in solitary, he’d been put in a shared cell with two others of similar reputation, he’d been given a single cell, he’d been singled out for discipline … nothing worked with the man the governor was convinced would have ended up hanged, if he’d just been given a little more rope on the outside.
And a good thing that would have been. Eventually, after his continuing complaints, it had been agreed that Clough would be transferred to a maximum-security facility and, Durham being the closest option, that was where he would be heading.
A van with driver, two armed guards and the prisoner in chains set off on what was an impressively bright morning for so late in the year. Clough was solid rather than large. Barrel chested, and with unusual strength in his arms. Last time he’d attacked a fellow inmate it had taken four officers, with batons, to get him to let go. Bleeding from the head and with a broken arm, Clough had still refused to give in.
The governor personally checked his shackles, clamped down tight so he could reach neither of the accompanying guards, and sent the armoured van on its way with a sense of relief. It was relief which would be only short-lived.
Six miles out of Durham, on a narrow road taken because it offered a direct and swift route, the van driver spotted an accident. He shouted back to the men in the body of the van.
‘Looks like a cart gone over. There’s a horse on its side, still in the traces, and it’s blocking our way. I’m going to have to pull in.’
‘Turn around and head the other way,’ came the rather tense response.
‘And what if someone’s hurt?’
‘And we do what if they are, put them in the back with this bastard? Turn round and we’ll sound the alarm at that village we passed through back there.’
The van slowed and the driver, grumbling that he didn’t like it one bit, began to turn. Then a shot rang out and he slumped forward against the wheel.
‘Charlie, what the hell’s going on … Charlie?’
No answer from the driver. The engine still running, the sound of someone bashing hard against the rear doors. Clough sat up, suddenly interested.
‘Fucking hell.’ The van doors swung open and three armed men stood in the road beyond. One guard fired; was dead before the bullet left the gun.
‘Keys.’ The man had a cloth muffling the lower half of his face.
Keys were handed over. Clough was released and beckoned from the van. The second guard, relieved of his gun, sat with hands raised, staring in terror at the men who had broken his prisoner free.
‘Out,’ the masked man told him.
Clough turned as the guard stepped down from the van. No one expected what happened next. He seized hold of the guard, held him high above his head and then sent him crashing to the ground.
‘What the hell did you do that for? He was doing what we told him.’
Clough shrugged. ‘And so what?’ he said. ‘Now, tell me. Just who the fuck are you?’
EIGHT
1928; Saturday
At nine o’clock on the Saturday morning Henry and Mickey stood in the cold basement of Bart’s Hospital watching Taylor, the pathologist, as he minutely examined the body of Billy Crane. Taylor, as frequently happened in Mickey’s experience, had arrived early that morning and had already dealt with Max Peterson. The report slip for Peterson’s body already lay on the bench set to one side of the examination room.
The conclusion on Peterson’s report was unsurprising. Death from a single stab wound that had penetrated from beneath the ribs, perforated the diaphragm and plunged into the heart. Angle of the blow had been upward and the weapon had a blade of perhaps an inch and a half wide and five or six inches long.
The weapon that had killed Billy Crane was a little more unusual. Taylor’s best guess was that it was some kind of conical spike perhaps two inches in diameter at its widest point. The angle of that blow was different too, entering between the ribs, but again penetrating lung and heart.
The deaths of both men must have been pretty instantaneous.
‘You notice that the hands of both were bound,’ Taylor said. ‘What you probably didn’t have leisure to notice was that they had also been bound at the feet. My guess is that they were weighted down and left in the water for a time. Not that they would have floated yet, of course. In summer I would expect them to become floaters after five or six days, but this time of year in the cold water, it could take anything up to a couple of weeks. Fermentation within the gut being slower, of course, than it would have been in warm weather. But whoever did for this pair wanted to make sure they stayed down, presumably until it suited their purpose to move them.’
He pointed to the ligature marks on Billy Crane’s ankles. The ropes had cut deep into the flesh and pulled down at a slight angle, indicating that something had been dragging against them. Henry nodded; that fitted with what they had suspected.
Mickey shifted restlessly, foot to foot. He had no objection to watching such medical dismemberment but was sometimes irritated by both the length of time the operation took and the chilly environment in which it took place. He was deeply interested in the ways in which photography, science and proper observation assisted in their work, but he was also, at heart, much more of a ‘tramping the streets’ and ‘knocking on doors’ sort of officer. Knowing people, knowing where and how they lived and the pressures and impulses that led them to commit their crimes was what interested him.
Henry was of a somewhat opposing persuasion. His habit of attending post-mortems (and bringing Mickey along) was one at which colleagues often looked askance.
‘How long were they in the
water?’ Henry asked, dragging his heavy coat more tightly across his chest. ‘We thought perhaps a day or two?’
Taylor nodded briefly. ‘Both were dead when they entered the water. Neither had eaten for perhaps twelve hours or more prior to death. Stomachs were empty. None of the usual signs of drowning. No water in the lungs or foaming in the trachea or about the mouth. No, these two were dead before that.’
Mickey sighed. He knew that Henry was trying to speed the process; knew also that Taylor was not a man to be hurried. He liked to tell his story at his own speed, in his own way, as if ticking off a list. He supposed they were fortunate that it wasn’t Spilsbury taking the post-mortems. The great Bernard Spilsbury was quick, efficient and totally against any observation of his work, eschewing even the services of a note-taker or secretary. He even posted his report slips himself.
Mickey, for all the tedium, was in agreement with his inspector that it was better to see the process, to understand it, to gain knowledge of it.
He shifted his weight again, allowed his gaze to drift about the tiled walls, the small high windows of the basement lab, the naked bulbs on long, twisted cords.
‘Fleas,’ Taylor said unexpectedly. ‘Fortunately for us, both of your men had them.’
‘Fleas?’ Henry was as puzzled as his sergeant.
‘In those little sample dishes, over on that bench. Lively little pests.’
Henry crossed to the bench and picked up the sample bottle. ‘Fleas,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘Human fleas are strange creatures. Fortunately for us they can survive a little immersion in water. A human flea will typically drown within thirty hours of submersion, sometimes more quickly. I found our little friends there in the armpits of both men, combed them out and put them into a bottle and left them for a while. It took them a few hours to dry out and start moving again, by which I deduce that they had been in the water for upwards of a day, but certainly not for as much as two. Not all of the fleas revived, of course, but as you can see, four or five little blighters made it through. So unless there are particularly virulent and hardy strains of human flea in the population of East London, I would place the upper time of their immersion at perhaps thirty hours. Certainly no more and probably closer to a single day.’
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