A Bespoke Murder (6 page)

‘That doesn’t mean you have to give up your job.’

‘I could always return to teaching later.’

‘I can’t bear the thought of you in uniform, Alice.’

‘Paul is in uniform.’

‘That’s different,’ argued Ellen. ‘Your brother is a man. He felt that it was his duty to enlist.’

‘Joining the WEC doesn’t mean that I’ll be in any danger,’ said Alice. ‘I’d still be based in this country – in London, probably. There’s a whole range of jobs that need doing.’

‘Teaching is one of them,’ Ellen reminded her.

She stifled a yawn and put her knitting on the kitchen table. It
was too late to reopen an argument that she’d been having with her daughter for some weeks now. Ellen’s position was simple. She was proud that Alice was a schoolteacher. Having been denied a proper education herself, she wanted her daughter to pursue her studies and gain qualifications. It had involved dedication and many sacrifices. She could not understand why Alice was ready to turn her back on a job she’d striven so hard to get.

‘One more uniform in the family won’t make any difference,’ said Alice with a teasing smile.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was thinking about Uncle Raymond. He’s been wearing a uniform for years in the Salvation Army. And he has to put up with far more hostility than I’d have to face in the WEC.’

‘I know,’ said Ellen, ruefully. ‘He’s been called names and pelted with stones time and again. He’s only trying to help people. I don’t agree with everything he believes in but I think your Uncle Raymond is a very brave man.’

‘Perhaps I should talk it over with him.’

Ellen was firm. ‘This is a matter between you and your parents, Alice. We don’t want to drag your uncle into this. Now why don’t you forget all about that marking and try to get some sleep.’

Alice touched her mother’s arm gently. ‘Let’s go up together.’

‘Your father can’t be all that long now.’

‘Daddy can’t expect you to wait up for ever,’ said Alice, helping her mother to her feet. ‘You leave your knitting and I’ll leave my marking. Off we go, Mummy.’

Feeling another yawn coming, Ellen put a hand to her mouth. Then she let herself be led out of the kitchen, leaving the light on. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, she grasped Alice’s wrist.

‘I want you to promise me something,’ she said.

‘I can’t promise not to join the WEC.’

‘That’s not what I’m asking, Alice. Your father and I have been very happy and I wouldn’t change him for the world. But I don’t want the same life for you. Promise me that you’ll never marry a policeman.’

Herbert Stone looked so dejected that Marmion took pity on him. Opening a drawer in his desk, the detective took out two glasses and a bottle of brandy. He poured a tot into each glass then offered one to his visitor. With a nod of thanks, Stone took it from him and had a restorative sip. It was late at night. After a visit to the morgue, they were in Marmion’s office. It had been trying enough for Stone to identify the corpse but there was an additional burden for him to carry now. He’d been told that foul play was involved. As well as coping with his own grief, it fell to him to inform the rest of the family that his brother had been stabbed to death.

Taking another sip of brandy, he mastered his sorrow.

‘When can we have the body?’ he asked.

‘That’s a matter for the coroner to decide,’ said Marmion, softly. ‘He’ll want a full post-mortem.’

Stone was dismayed. ‘Does my brother
have
to be cut to pieces, Inspector? Surely, he’s suffered enough indignity already.’

‘It’s standard procedure in the case of unnatural death, sir.’

‘Our religion enjoins us to bury the deceased as soon as possible. There are strict rituals to observe. Ideally, we’d like to reclaim the body today.’

‘That’s very unlikely, I’m afraid, Mr Stone. The body has far too much to tell us and that takes time. You’ll have to be patient.’

Stone’s anger surfaced again. ‘This wouldn’t have happened if the police had been protecting my brother’s shop, as they should have done. How could you allow such a tragedy to occur?’ he demanded. ‘My brother has led a blameless life. He didn’t deserve to die like this. What kind of police force permits a drunken mob to charge through the streets of London and murder someone with impunity?’

‘The killer will be punished,’ said Marmion with conviction. ‘That’s one thing of which you may rest assured.’

‘How on earth will you find him? It was the random act of someone who hates all Germans. He was one of a crowd. You’ll never pick him out.’

‘I disagree, sir. This was no random murder.’

‘What else could it be, man?’

‘I think it’s the work of someone who took advantage of the situation, using the mob as his cover. He must have known that the shop was a likely target and – more to the point – that your brother might actually be on the premises at the time. There was calculation at work here,’ decided Marmion. ‘That means we’re not looking for an anonymous figure caught up in the attack. We’ll be searching for someone who
knew
Mr Stein and who had reason to wish him dead.’

‘Are you saying that the murder was planned?’

‘That’s my feeling, sir.’

‘What evidence do you have?’

‘Very little at the moment,’ admitted Marmion, ‘so I’m relying to some extent on intuition. But ask yourself this. If you’re simply intent on breaking into a shop and looting it, why would you carry a knife?’

‘I never thought of that,’ said Stone.

‘We’re looking for a killer who had some kind of grudge against
your brother – and it may have nothing to do with the fact that he has a German background. Think carefully, sir,’ he urged. ‘You may be able to suggest some names. Did your brother have any enemies?’

Before he spoke, Stone drained the glass of brandy.

‘Of course,’ he said, resignedly. ‘Jacob was a Jew – we always have enemies.’

CHAPTER SIX

When Alice came downstairs for breakfast, she found her mother in the kitchen. Fried bacon was already waiting on a plate in the gas oven and eggs were sizzling in the pan with some tomatoes. Toast was slowly turning brown under the grill.

‘What time did Daddy get back last night?’ wondered Alice.

‘I don’t know. I was fast asleep.’

‘You were quite right to go to bed.’

‘Then why do I feel so guilty about it?’ asked Ellen. ‘I felt it was my duty to be here for him.’

Alice was crisp. ‘Daddy is the detective – not you. If he has to work long hours, it doesn’t mean that you have to as well.’ She grinned. ‘After all, you don’t get paid for overtime like him.’

Ellen laughed. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

She continued to make the breakfast before sharing it out on three separate plates. By the time that Marmion arrived in his shirtsleeves,
the meal was on the table for him with a cup of tea beside it. He gave Ellen a kiss of gratitude then sat beside her. Alice was opposite him.

‘Good morning, teacher,’ he said.

Alice smiled. ‘You may not be able to call me that much longer.’

‘Don’t tell me they’ve sacked you.’

‘No – but I may be handing in my resignation.’

Realising what she meant, Marmion stiffened. He hoped that he’d talked his daughter out of her plan to join the Women’s Emergency Corps. Clearly, it was still a live issue. Before he could speak, Ellen jumped in quickly to avert an argument.

‘Let’s not discuss it over a meal,’ she suggested. ‘We don’t want a row this early in the day.’

‘I’m entitled to pass an opinion, love,’ said Marmion.

‘Alice already knows what it is, dear.’

‘And you both know
my
opinion,’ said Alice, ‘so let’s leave it at that.’ She put sugar in her tea and stirred it with a spoon. ‘I didn’t hear you come in last night, Daddy. Where had you been?’

‘Joe Keedy and I found an illegal gambling den,’ joked Marmion, ‘and we lost a month’s wages on the roulette wheel.’ He shook his head. ‘Actually, it was a lot more serious than that. A mob raided a gents’ outfitters in Jermyn Street. They burnt it down and the owner was murdered.’

‘What a dreadful thing to happen!’

‘Do you have any suspects?’ asked Ellen.

‘At the moment, we have too many of them – forty or more.’ He looked quizzically at his daughter. ‘What do you do with your pupils, Alice? When one of them does something naughty and nobody owns up, how do you handle the situation?’

‘I threaten to keep them all in after school.’

‘Does the threat work?’

‘Every time – the children all stare at the culprit.’

‘Unfortunately, that option is not open to Joe and me.’

Ellen swallowed some bacon. ‘How is Joe Keedy?’

‘He’s in fine form.’

‘We haven’t seen him for ages. You should ask him round.’

‘Yes,’ said Alice, fondly. ‘That would be nice. Invite him to tea.’

‘There won’t be time for luxuries like tea for quite a while,’ said Marmion. ‘Joe and I are going to be working at full stretch.’

‘He can always drop in for a drink one evening,’ suggested Ellen. ‘I like him. Joe Keedy is good company. He’s got a sensible head on his shoulders.’ She shot a glance at Alice. ‘He might even be able to persuade a certain someone to abandon this urge to join the WEC.’

‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about that,’ protested Alice. ‘Besides, Joe might be on my side. The last time he was here, he told me I should think about joining the Women’s Police Service.’

Marmion pulled a face. ‘Oh no you don’t.’

‘One police officer is enough in any family,’ said Ellen, stoutly.

‘In any case,’ said her husband, ‘it was only formed last year. It still hasn’t sorted out exactly what it’s supposed to do. In essence, I think it’s a good idea but that’s not a view shared by some of my older colleagues. They feel that policing is a man’s job.’

‘Everything was a man’s job until the war broke out,’ noted Alice. ‘Then women proved that they could mend cars and drive ambulances and make shells in munitions factories and do just about anything else that a man can do. It may be one of the best things to come out of the war.’

‘I’m not convinced of that,’ said Ellen.

‘Good things do come out of bad ones, Mummy.’

‘How can you call having women car mechanics a good thing?’

‘Alice makes a fair point, love,’ said Marmion, chewing some toast. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining. Look at this business with the
Lusitania
, for instance. I bet the captain of that submarine thought he’d struck a blow for Germany when he ordered that torpedo to be fired. It’s led to some bad results, of course – I was dealing with one last night – but there was also a gain. Enlistment has picked up amazingly. When I went past the recruiting centre yesterday, there was a queue halfway down Whitehall. So the loss of the
Lusitania
was not a total disaster.’

Irene Bayard was one of the first of the survivors to return to England. Rescued by a fishing boat, she’d been taken to Queenstown where she was given food, shelter and limitless sympathy. As soon as a ship departed for Liverpool, however, she was on it with Ernie Gill and a number of other survivors. She was keenly aware of how fortunate she’d been and was upset to learn that almost all the passengers she’d looked after on the
Lusitania
had perished. Irene had no desire ever to go to sea again but there was no other way to reach Liverpool, so she steeled herself for the short voyage. Though irritating at times, Gill helped her to keep up her spirits.

Neither of them was prepared for the welcome they received in Liverpool docks. It was overwhelming. The pier was thronged with relatives and friends of those who’d survived the sinking, their numbers swelled by well-wishers. But it was the number of newspaper reporters that surprised Irene. There were dozens of them. She was ambushed the moment she stepped off the ship. Irene tried to pretend that she had nothing to do with the
Lusitania
but her uniform gave her away. She was still wearing the distinctive garb of a stewardess that she’d had on when she jumped into the sea. The seemingly endless questions were
both painful and intrusive. Irene wanted to forget the tragedy, not be forced to reconstruct it for the benefit of an article in a newspaper. She was glad to escape from the harassment.

Ernie Gill, by contrast, had enjoyed all the attention.

‘They even took my photograph,’ he boasted. ‘Well, I’ll see you around, Irene. Will you be staying here for a while?’

‘I don’t know, Ernie.’

‘I will. The only trouble is that I’ve got here too late.’

She was puzzled. ‘Too late for what?’

‘Too late for the fun,’ he explained. ‘I wanted to help them chase every bleeding Hun out of Liverpool. There was a pork butcher from Lubeck at the end of our street. If I’d been here, I’d have sliced the ugly bugger up with his own meat cleaver.’

Irene let him give her a farewell kiss then she went off to catch her tram. Gill’s violent streak disturbed her. She was happy with the thought that she’d probably never see him again. She would certainly never be part of a crew with him. That phase of her life was decidedly over. When she reached the house where she rented a couple of upstairs rooms, the first thing she had to do was to calm her tearful landlady down and assure her that she felt no ill effects. Then she filled the boiler so that she could heat enough water to have a bath. Once that was done, she put on fresh clothes and threw her uniform into the bin. Her break with the past was complete.

Next morning, Irene caught the early train to London.

When the commissioner faced Herbert Stone across his desk in Scotland Yard, both of them were wearing Jacob Stein suits. It was the morning after the crimes in Jermyn Street and his visitor’s ire had increased rather than subsided. Sir Edward Henry kept a respectful silence while
Stone ranted on about the shortcomings of the police and the fire brigade. It was only when he began to criticise Harvey Marmion that the commissioner interrupted him.

‘You’re being too censorious, Mr Stone,’ he said. ‘Inspector Marmion is one of my best detectives.’