Birdcage Walk (26 page)

When George was woken the day after his visit, the dawn was only just creeping in at the high narrow windows. Sundays earned the men an extra half an hour in bed longer than other days. The cot he slept on was no less narrow as the bed he’d had at home, but it wasn’t nearly as soft. He made it neatly and then dressed as quickly as he could, before the warmth of sleep entirely left him. It was then that he realised the light in the barrack room looked strange, neither the golden stream of a sunny day or the weak greyness of an overcast one. He still had a minute or two before the drill sergeant came in to do his inspection so he went over to one of the slit-like windows that made the barracks look even more like a fortress.

The view that met him made him gasp out loud. Overnight it had snowed: the thick, silencing, white fall of it entirely altering the landscape that had already become familiar to him. In the distance, to the west where the suburbs hadn’t yet begun to encroach, he could scarcely tell the horizon of the white sky from the blanketed land. He wondered then if it was some sort of omen and shivered, not knowing whether it augured well or not.

“Come on, Slater. Don’t let the serg see you mooning at the window. Ain’t you ever seen snow before?” Monger called out, making the others laugh as they rushed to pull their blankets straight. As they did, the door flew open and the sergeant strode in.

“You acting the fool again, Monger?” he shouted, as the men scrambled to stand to attention at the end of their beds. He made his way slowly down the ranks, one arm behind his back, the other hand smoothing down his dark moustache. He pulled at a few blankets and told the men to do them again, but the inspection was over soon enough. George assumed he was about to leave and relaxed his posture when the sergeant suddenly turned back, as though he’d just remembered something.

“A few of you are wanted in the quartermaster’s room. One at a time.” His voice echoed around the room. “Cartwright, you’re the first of the batch. Go down now.” He consulted a piece of paper.

“When he’s back up here, Monger, you’re to go down. Then Reeve. And Slater, you’re last. I don’t know what it’s about so don’t even ask me.”

He always slammed the door on his way out but George still jumped. Monger rushed over, his eyes wide.

“What do you think that’s all about then? Must be something serious to get called down there. We weren’t back late from pass or nothing.”

Monger rushed over to see if Reeve knew anything. Cartwright had followed on the sergeant’s heels, his face anxious. George sat down on his newly-made bed and felt the sponge weight of a headache seep down over his brow.

“Slater?”

Monger was back, looking intently at him, and for an instant it seemed almost comical that he should be worried. They weren’t looking for Monger, nor Reeve or Cartwright. George stood shakily and smoothed away the indentation in his blanket. He went and stood by the window again but he didn’t see the snow this time. In his head, he tried to work through the other possibilities but there were none. He hadn’t done anything wrong at the barracks, it could only be the police.

“It won’t be nothing,” he said to Monger, smiling weakly. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

* * *

Cissy was the first person he saw in the quartermaster’s office. The rest of them—all men—were reduced to a blur. She looked tiny in comparison to them, and strange against the backdrop of the dour wooden panelling in the room. From where he was he could see that she was exhausted, her small frame hunched like an old woman’s. A tall man, his fair hair gleaming under the gaslight, had stood as George entered. Even without the rain and the dark coat and hat, George knew it was the man he’d seen under the umbrella outside Annie’s house. He wondered if the recognition showed on his face. So it was the police. He’d been surprised not to see any outside the office door, but perhaps they were guarding the great wooden gates outside. There was no other way to leave, after all.

Cissy was looking down, her gaze intent on the waxed floorboards. She hadn’t thought to take her hat off and it looked shabby in the light reflected off the dark wood. The tall man stepped closer to George and scrutinised him openly. His eyes darted towards Cissy then.

“Miss Woolfe, can you look up please? I know you are tired but I need you to look at one more man here before we go on to the next barracks.”

She looked up then, straight into George’s eyes and, though her face didn’t move a muscle, her jaw clenched with the effort of it, her eyes betrayed him. They all saw it, the inspector’s expression lighting as he also took in the resemblance between brother and sister: the dark hair, sallow skin and fine bones.

“Is this your brother, Miss Woolfe? Mind that you tell the truth now.”

Cissy remained silent, her eyes locked on George’s. She was shaking now, George could see the tremors in her knees. She looked like she might shatter from the strain of the situation.

“She’s my sister,” George said, his voice steady. “It’s me you’re looking for, so you can take her back home now.”

Cissy cried out at his words and stumbled back towards the panelling. Another inspector, shorter than his colleague, caught her as she fainted and held her until some colour came back into her face. As she opened her eyes again, they filled with tears, which rolled down silently and dripped onto the inspector’s sleeve.

“Mr.McArthur, you can take Miss Woolfe back to her lodgings now. She has fulfilled her duty.”

He turned back to George, who tried to meet his gaze so he wouldn’t have to look at Cissy as she was half-carried out the door.

“I knew it was just a matter of time until we found you. George Woolfe,” said Chief Inspector Pearn. “I am arresting you for the murder of Charlotte Cheeseman.”

It was cold in the cell. They had brought him to Stoke Newington police station and locked him up before dusk had fallen. With the sun gone, the temperature dropped. One of the small panes of glass behind the bars high above him had been shattered and he could feel the draught from it on his neck as he sat against the wall, his arms wrapped around his knees. There was no bed, just a raised block covered with planks of wood. There were grooves and nicks in the wood; initials and dates carved by previous occupants. George traced them with his finger and wondered what they had used to make the marks. His clothes been searched for anything sharp and they’d even taken his red scarf. His Army uniform had been confiscated at the barracks.

“I won’t have a criminal wearing that uniform,” his sergeant had said after Cissy had gone. “He’ll change into his own clothes before he leaves.”

When they had got to the police station, Pearn had not given him a second glance. George assumed the inspector would return tomorrow, rather than giving up any more of his Sunday for a common murder investigation like this one. The constable on duty had gone through George’s pockets, turning out the contents into a small cardboard box. There was nothing of interest there and George had been ashamed of his dirty handkerchief and the pathetic cache of small coins thrown into the box.

He felt more vulnerable in his own clothes. The smell of them took him back to the day he had joined up, when he had been soaked running from Avebury Street and the police. It wasn’t just the mildew smell from the rain, though. It was like he could smell his own fear, absorbed deep into the fabric.

He had decided he wouldn’t sleep that night. Despite his discomfort, he forced himself to stay sitting up, his back protesting at the cold, lime-washed bricks he leaned on. He saw the dawn break, not through the window, which he could not find the energy to turn and look at, but on the floor of the bare cell. As the light grew stronger, so did the outline of the barred window. Though he didn’t intend it, he must have slept then, the daylight itself reassuring enough to let him slip into unconsciousness. He woke with a start when the duty officer thumped on the door. A small tray had been shoved through the slot in the iron.

“Finest breakfast in London for you there, Woolfe. Make sure you eat up. Chief Inspector’s due in at nine.”

His words echoed as he continued down the corridor, the screech of metal as he pulled open the rusty hatches making George’s head ache. The breakfast was paltry but he’d tasted worse. The bread was stale, with no grease spread on it to help it down, but he ate it anyway, hoping it might stop his legs from trembling as Cissy’s had yesterday.

Pearn was early and George was sitting opposite him, and the kinder looking Inspector McArthur, by half past eight. George looked pleadingly at the other man.

“Was my sister alright getting home, sir? She hasn’t been well lately.”

“It is not you who asks the questions here, Woolfe.” Pearn’s face was sneering but George had seen the tiny nod the officer next to him had made. It made him feel slightly stronger. Pearn got up, apparently unable to stay seated for long.

“So, Woolfe, what made you do it?”

“Do what, sir?” George kept his head lowered.

“You know exactly what I refer to. Why did you murder Charlotte Cheeseman? You can save myself and Inspector McArthur a great deal of time by confessing now.”

“I didn’t murder Charlotte. I couldn’t have done it.”

“And why couldn’t you have done it? The pair of you had a tempestuous relationship and you were the last person to see her alive. I believe you had every reason to do it.”

“No, I couldn’t have hurt her. I loved her, didn’t I?” His face coloured as he said it.

“In my experience of investigating the murder of young women, loving someone is apparently no barrier to killing them. In fact, the two seem fated to go together. People think of them as diametrically opposed emotions; I believe that love and hate are more like bedfellows.”

Pearn stopped in front of the window, seemingly lost in his own musings. Suddenly he turned.

“We visited your place of employment last week, before we located where you’d fled to. One of my officers spoke to your friend Alfred Jones.”

George’s head snapped up at the familiar name in such an alien context.

“He didn’t say much at first, it took my man a long time to extract anything of use. Finally, he mentioned the file.”

“File?”

“Yes, he admitted that he had covered for you on Christmas Eve, when you accidentally—he was very keen to stress the accidental nature of it—when you accidentally left work with a file in your pocket. He covered for you, he said, with another man’s file. You must have put it in your pocket absent-mindedly on shop floor and forgotten to put it back. It happens every now and then, he said.”

The atmosphere in the room was close, the fire having been built up in preparation for Pearn’s arrival. The winter sunshine flooded in from outside onto George’s lap and, coupled with the heat from the grate, he began to feel sleepy, like he might be in a strange dream. His thoughts jumbled, he sat up straighter, knowing he had to concentrate and wishing he’d tried to get more sleep.

“It’s true, I did take the file by accident. I’ve done it before, too. Lots of us have. If you think I hurt Charlotte with it, then you’re wrong. I didn’t touch her, I’m telling you.”

Pearn rounded on George, towering over him.

“I didn’t say you did use the file on Miss Cheeseman. How would you know such an instrument was used on her?”

“I didn’t know, I don’t know. But I supposed that was what you were getting at. Why else would you mention it?”

Pearn went back behind the desk and sat down, only to lean back over it towards George.

“For the sake of argument, let us say that you are telling the truth about the file. A sharp, metal object that fits the description of the weapon used to gravely injure Charlotte Cheeseman in fact remained in your pocket. But even if we are to assume that, it doesn’t explain away the note.”

George felt his heart beat faster. Had they got hold of the letter Cissy had mistakenly delivered?

“What note?” His voice quavered on the second word.

Pearn almost snarled, his lip curled back away from his large white teeth.

“You can’t have forgotten that too. I shall read it to you. It must have made pretty reading for that poor girl the day she got it. You didn’t even deliver it yourself, did you? According to Mrs. Matthews, the deceased’s sister, you sent your own sister round with it, didn’t you?”

He gestured impatiently at McArthur, who was searching through a sheaf of papers on the desk in front of him. Eventually he held up a single sheet, the paper so thin George could see the black ink of his own hand through it. Pearn almost snatched it from his colleague.

“You must have thought this quite a masterpiece of indifference, Woolfe. ‘Miss Cheeseman, just a line. Recently I made the acquaintance of a young lady I admire much better than you. Therefore you had better do the same and think no more of me, if you haven’t done so already. I hope you will take this as goodbye for good.’”

Pearn stood again, he seemed incapable of sitting still for long.

“I am intrigued to know who this other young lady is, I must say, but I am sure we will come to that in due course. What I am particularly interested in is the post-script. This, to my mind, is where your genuine feelings for the victim are revealed. It says, as I’m sure you remember, ‘I hope I shall never hear of you or see you again, and I am thankful I got rid of you so easily. I have got the date I went with you, so if you find yourself in trouble, or I mean in a certain condition, it will do no good to put the blame on me. I pity the man who ever gets tied to you, but I am glad that I am free at last and now have a chance of being my old self again.’”

George was barely listening. If Pearn latched onto the mention of the other girl then somebody might find out about Miss Clemmie and the Drews. So far, it seemed that no one had said enough about his visits to warrant any interest in it. Cissy wouldn’t have said anything, he knew that, and perhaps Charlotte hadn’t confided in Annie about it after all. Perhaps Charlotte had told no one about her visit to Highbury after all. Ted clearly didn’t know any details or the policemen would. If he could keep the Drews out of this, then that would be something. He realised then that Pearn had asked him a question.

“Woolfe, I don’t think you are entirely stupid but this is certainly not an occasion to let your mind wander. I repeat to you that you wrote in your note ‘I am thankful I got rid of you so easily’. I put to you that that is exactly what you did on Tottenham Marshes. Am I correct? Got rid of her so that you could be free of her, and could be your ‘old self again’. Isn’t that right?”

“I wrote that note in anger but she wasn’t supposed to see it. My sister took it round to Charlotte by mistake, she thought she was doing me a favour.”

“So it was more of a portent, then? Or a letter intended for her once you had done away with her on the marshes? If only you had just left it with the body, Mr. Woolfe, we would have saved ourselves this long day of questioning and you would already be locked up at Newgate.”

“No. You’ve got it all wrong, sir. I didn’t see her after we argued outside the Britannia.”

“But I don’t think I have got it wrong. I think I have hit the nail squarely on the head.”

Pearn’s eyes were shining; he believed he had made a breakthrough. George tried to order his thoughts, wondering if this was going to be his only chance to explain before he was put on trial. But it was too warm in the room; the quiet and coolness of his cell seemed appealing now and he wished he were back there.

Pearn hadn’t finished yet, though, and the questions continued into the afternoon. As the sun moved round to the west, the light in the room altered and eventually darkened, the embers from the fire glowing more brightly in contrast. Even Pearn lost some of his initial vigour, the long day telling on him as it was on George.

“You still maintain that you are innocent of this murder?”

It was not the first time he had asked but George nodded dumbly again.

“Woolfe, I will be frank with you. The Metropolitan Police Force do not believe that anyone else would have had reason to commit this crime. You were her intended, you had had a disagreement—her sister has told us this much, and the note confirms it. You suspected her of infidelity and you wanted revenge for the injury to your pride. You had also taken a fancy to another girl. So you engineered a meeting—a reunion, in fact—lured her first to the Britannia Theatre and then to Tottenham, to marshland she was entirely unfamiliar with, and took her life. She had become a millstone around your neck, hadn’t she, Woolfe? You wanted rid of her, as you so eloquently put it yourself, and the drink you took at the Park Hotel gave you the courage to see it through.”

George shook his head but Pearn wasn’t looking. He was putting on his coat. He re-shaped the peak of his hat before putting it on and then glanced over at McArthur.

“Inspector, I shall leave you to wrap this up. I must catch my train.”

Without so much as a glance in George’s direction he left the room, shutting the door smartly behind him. McArthur looked over at George.

“Son, you would do yourself a favour if you were honest about this nasty business. It would make things easier for your family. Did you think of that?”

George leant forward in his seat, his hands gripping the edge of the desk.

“Sir, I beg you. Please believe me. I didn’t lay a hand on Charlotte. We met up, we even argued it’s true, but I didn’t touch her. You’ve got to believe me, sir. Whoever did this to her is still out there.”

McArthur got awkwardly to his feet. The skin beneath his eyes was pouchy and bruised-looking. He looked over at George for a long moment before addressing the constable standing in the corner of the stuffy room.

“Take him down again,” he said, sighing, before following Pearn’s footsteps out the door.