A Bespoke Murder (12 page)

‘So? We’ll probably have gas masks to wear.’

‘I’d hate to be poisoned to death.’

‘Stop getting so upset, will you?’ said Cochran, irritably. ‘A fine bloody soldier you are – giving up before we’ve even started. We’ve already fought one battle at Ypres. That was last year and we won it.’

‘Yet look at how many thousands of our men were killed in the battle. And they were regular soldiers, blokes who’d fought in the Boer War and that. They were professionals, Ol. We’re just raw recruits.’

‘I’m not raw. I’m as good as any fucking Hun.’

Snatching up his rifle, he jabbed at an imaginary enemy then pulled out his bayonet before stabbing a second one. As he showed off his proficiency with rifle and bayonet, there was a zestful fury about Cochran that lifted his friend’s spirits. Gatliffe, too, picked up his weapon and
went through some of the moves they’d learnt during bayonet drill. It felt good to have a rifle in his hands. Confidence returned. He looked forward to the time when he could fire at the enemy. With Cochran beside him, he was ready for the fight.

Tossing his cigarette butt to the ground, Cochran sliced it apart with a thrust of his bayonet. Like Gatliffe, he was having misgivings about his decision to join the army. While his friend was honest about his fears, however, Cochran suppressed his apprehension beneath a mixture of boasting and bravado. He would never show a hint of trepidation to Gatliffe because it would undermine his strong hold over his friend. Cochran was the acknowledged leader and he was determined to retain his leadership.

‘Know what, Ol?’ said Gatliffe. ‘You ought to be a corporal, even a sergeant.’

‘Nah!’ retorted Cochran with a sneer. ‘It’s a stupid idea.’

‘You’d be really good at it.’

‘NCOs are all wankers, especially the ones we’ve got.’

‘I could just see you with three stripes on your arm.’

‘You’re off your bleeding head, Gatty. There’s only one thing worse than being a sergeant and that’s being a fucking officer. Look at the idiots we got in command. You wouldn’t catch me mixing with silly sods like that. They all talk as if they got a plum in their gobs.’

Gatliffe scratched his head. ‘It was only a thought.’

‘Well, don’t bleeding think it again,’ said Cochran. ‘I’m where I want to be and I’ll stay right here, OK?’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘If you want something to think about, remember what we did on that last night in London. She was an ugly little thing but she had a good body, I’ll give her that. I had a great ride on her and you could have done the same.’

Gatliffe was reflective. ‘I’m beginning to wish I had now.’

‘You got cold feet, Gatty, that’s your trouble.’

‘I was afraid that somebody would come and catch us.’

‘You didn’t want it enough, did you? Whereas I did,’ bragged Cochran, ‘and so I bloody well had it. That’s the thing about women. You got to grab them when you get the chance.’ His smirk broadened. ‘And there’s something special about virgins like her. It means I was the
first
. She’ll always remember me.’

Ruth Stein felt imprisoned in her own house. They never left her alone. When her mother was not watching her, she was kept under surveillance by her Uncle Herman or by a member of his family. She was not even allowed to sleep by herself. One of her cousins shared the same bedroom. Nobody ever mentioned her suicide attempt in so many words but it was neither forgotten nor forgiven. Everything they did was informed by it. At one and the same time, she was being punished for her crime and smothered by their collective love. It was agonising. Her father’s funeral was over now and they had entered a seven-day period of bereavement called shiva when Ruth and the other chief mourners did not leave the house. It all served to heighten her sense of incarceration. When she joined the others in the thrice-daily recitation of Kaddish, she could barely mumble the words.

Armed with their documentation, and carrying a pair of handcuffs apiece, Harvey Marmion and Joe Keedy took a train to Dover and boarded a ferry. Standing on deck, they were the only passengers not in uniform. Inevitably, Marmion thought about his son who had crossed to France with his regiment the previous year. Since then they’d only
seen him once on leave. Paul Marmion’s letters from the front were eagerly seized on by every member of the family. They were not always comfortable reading. Joe Keedy had many friends who had enlisted in the army, several of them from the police force. But they were not in his thoughts at the moment. What interested him was the large number of horses on the vessel.

‘Is there still a place for a cavalry regiment?’ he wondered.

‘Somebody clearly thinks so, Joe,’ said Marmion.

‘I wouldn’t fancy charging at the German lines with nothing but a lance or a sabre. The enemy have got machine guns and rifles. What use are horses when bullets are flying about?’

‘They get our soldiers to the point of attack much quicker. It’s one of the things Paul is always complaining about – how painfully slow you are, trying to run across a field with mud up to your ankles.’

‘I keep remembering that poem we learnt at school.’

Marmion grinned. ‘I never took you for the poetic type.’

‘I’m not, Harv,’ said Keedy, speaking more familiarly now that they were off duty. ‘I used to hate having to learn all those verses. But this one stuck in my mind somehow. It was about the Crimean War.’

‘I know it,’ said Marmion. ‘
The Charge of the Light Brigade
– it’s about the battle of Balaclava.’

‘They didn’t stand a chance against the Russian cannon. No wonder it was called the “Valley of Death”. I would have thought the days of a cavalry charge were over after that.’

‘Apparently, they’re not.’

‘You wouldn’t get me galloping at the enemy on a horse. I could be blown to pieces by a shell before I got anywhere near them.’

‘The same goes for the infantry,’ observed Marmion. ‘That’s why
there’s so little movement in the war zone now. Soldiers on both sides are hiding in trenches for protection. Paul hates it.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘He joined up to see some action, not to be stuck in a hole in the ground with rats for company. Paul enlisted after the retreat from Mons. I was glad he missed that bloodbath.’

‘What about the rest of his soccer team? They all joined up together, didn’t they? How many of them are still alive?’

‘Seven,’ said Marmion, grimly, ‘though two had to be invalided home when they were badly injured in a mortar attack. According to Paul, neither of them will be able to kick a football again.’

War had suddenly become more of a reality for Harvey Marmion. Momentous events were taking place on the Continent but – while he was in London – they seemed to be a long way away. He’d had to rely on letters from his son and newspaper reports to give him some idea of what was actually going on. He was now travelling on a troopship with men who would be flung into action against a German army that had already made territorial advances on a number of fronts. Because of its strategic value, Ypres was being staunchly defended against German attack. If it fell, the enemy could move on to capture the vital Channel ports of Calais and Boulogne. Marmion realised what a catastrophe that would be. Latest reports indicated that British and French soldiers were putting up strong resistance in the second battle of Ypres. They were holding their own. Marmion was interested to see exactly how they were getting on.

It was left to Keedy to point out one possibility.

‘What if we get there too late, Harv?’ he asked.

‘Too late?’

‘Cochran and Gatliffe are soldiers. By the time we reach them, they
could be fighting in the front line. What if they’re already dead?’

‘Then I’ll feel terribly cheated,’ said Marmion, bristling with anger. ‘They committed a heinous crime and must be punished for it. Getting themselves killed in action would help them to escape justice and I’d hate that to happen. I
want
these men, Joe,’ he emphasised. ‘I want the pair of them behind bars where the bastards belong.’

CHAPTER TEN

War had profound social effects in Britain. When it first broke out in August 1914, the general assumption was that it would all be over by Christmas. The carnage of Mons shattered that illusion and the prime minister was soon calling for 500,000 soldiers. Women had at first confined themselves to urging men to enlist or – in some cases – sending them white feathers if they failed to do so. As more and more men joined up and went overseas, there was a crisis in the labour market. It was met by enterprising women who took over work that had hitherto been essentially a male preserve. For many of them, it was a liberating experience, allowing them to travel to places they would not otherwise have visited and to take up occupations that gave them both an income and the satisfaction of helping in the war effort.

In the course of a day, Irene Bayard found an endless sequence of jobs on offer. The problem lay in choosing the one that most attracted her. Calm and methodical, she made no instant decisions. Going from
place to place, she made a mental note of over a dozen potential jobs that covered everything from nursing to operating a lathe in a factory. It was all a far cry from being a stewardess on the
Lusitania
and that was its appeal.

She took the opportunity to call at the shop managed by her sister and was given a cup of tea in a small room stacked high with shoeboxes. Irene had lunch alone in a café. Sitting in the window, she watched a number of women going past, many of them in uniforms of one kind or another. London streets had changed visibly. With recruitment at its height, there was a comparative dearth of young men counterbalanced by an increase in the number of working women. Things were different now.

It was late afternoon when she returned to the house and she planned to put her feet up for an hour. After so much walking, she was quite fatigued. The moment she let herself in, however, she heard the tinkle of Miss James’s bell. Tapping on the lodger’s door, she opened it tentatively.

‘Good afternoon, Miss James.’

‘Good afternoon,’ said the old lady from the comfort of her armchair. ‘This is the first chance I’ve had of speaking to you, Mrs Bayard.’

‘Oh, you’ll have plenty of chance from now on,’ Irene told her. ‘I’ll be living under the same roof.’

‘So I understand, dear, and I’m very happy to hear it. Your sister gets very lonely at times. Having you here will be a tonic.’

Miss James seemed smaller and frailer than when Irene had last seen her. Her face still had a faded prettiness and her white hair was as well groomed as ever, but she’d lost weight and colour. She was not idle. As she talked, the knitting needles in her hand clicked away.

‘What are you knitting?’ asked Irene.

‘That depends on whether or not you can keep a secret.’

Irene understood. ‘Oh, it’s something for Dorothy, is it?’

‘Yes, it’s a new scarf – but please don’t tell her.’

‘I won’t breathe a word, Miss James.’ She smiled invitingly. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’

‘No, thank you, dear.’

‘I just wondered why you’d rung your bell.’

‘Well, I wanted to tell you how pleased I am to see you back,’ said Miss James, ‘but I also needed to pass on a message. While you were out, a gentleman called.’

Irene was surprised. ‘Was he looking for me?’

‘Yes. I can’t really describe him because my eyesight is all but gone. But he had a nice voice and I could tell from his manner that he was fond of you.’

‘Did he give you his name?’

‘Of course,’ said the old lady. ‘I made a point of asking. His name was Mr Gill – Mr Ernest Gill.’

Irene’s heart sank.

They were miles from their destination when they first heard the continuous thunder of artillery. As they got closer, the sound grew steadily in volume. The British Expeditionary Force was undergoing a constant bombardment and retaliating accordingly. Stopping well short of Ypres itself, they established that the regiment they sought had its headquarters in an old farmhouse. The first person they encountered was a peremptory captain who treated their request with barely concealed hostility, arguing that Scotland Yard detectives had no jurisdiction over members of the BEF and that their journey had therefore been futile. Refusing to be turned away, Marmion waved the letter from the War Office under his nose and the man eventually gave them some grudging cooperation. He introduced them to Major Nicholas Birchfield, a
portly man with a neat moustache, bulging blue eyes and a peppery disposition. When he’d heard them out, Birchfield clasped his hands behind his back and spoke with clipped politeness.

‘That’s all very well, Inspector,’ he began, ‘but your arrival is deuced awkward. As I’m sure you appreciate, we need every man we have. We can’t release two of our soldiers on the basis of what may turn out to be a wholly false accusation.’

‘There’s nothing false about it, Major,’ said Marmion. ‘The young lady in question was raped. A doctor confirmed it.’

‘He may have confirmed that she had intercourse but that’s hardly proof of rape. We are all men of the world, are we not?’ he went on with a ripe chuckle. ‘This situation is as old as the hills. A young woman drinks too much then gives herself willingly to a chance acquaintance. Later, when she comes to her senses, the only way that she can account for the loss of her virginity is to cry rape. It’s happened before a hundred times.’

‘Well, it’s not the case with Miss Stein.’

‘How do you know? Have you spoken to her about it?’

‘No,’ admitted Marmion, ‘but I talked with her mother. She was able to pass on the relevant details.’

‘Oh, so this is the mother’s doing, is it?’ said Birchfield, amused. ‘That settles it in my mind. What mother believes that her darling daughter would sacrifice herself before marriage? She simply
has
to claim that rape took place. It’s maternal instinct.’

‘We’re not only concerned with the charge of rape,’ said Keedy, annoyed by the man’s tone. ‘Murder, arson and theft are among the related crimes. In all probability, Gatliffe and Cochran may be guilty on other counts as well.’