Five Dead Canaries (14 page)

‘I’m going to send you out on patrol,’ she said, crisply. ‘Your introduction to the police service has been far too cosy.’

Being rapped over the knuckles every day was not what Alice would have called ‘cosy’ but she didn’t respond. Getting out of the building would be a boon to her. Apart from anything else, it took her well beyond the inspector’s reach.

‘Too many girls are being drawn into prostitution,’ said Thelma, ‘and they need to be warned about the risks to their health and – in some cases – to their lives. We’ve had some of them so badly beaten that they’re disfigured for life. There have also been two murders.’

‘The war is partly to blame, Inspector,’ suggested Alice. ‘Soldiers have had a dreadful time at the front. They’ve seen friends die all around them. When they come back on leave, they’re desperate for some female company and – if they have no wife or girlfriend – they’re more than ready to pay for it. Sometimes, they get carried away and don’t realise how violent they’re being.’

‘You seem remarkably well informed. Have you been talking to Daddy?’

‘No, Inspector – it’s common knowledge.’

‘And how knowledgeable are you about the services these girls provide?’

‘On that score, I’d have to admit that I’m rather ignorant.’

‘Then patrolling the streets will be an education for you,’ said
Thelma. ‘It will open your eyes to the ways of the world and take your mind off this major crime that you’re helping your father to solve.’

‘I’m doing nothing of the kind,’ retorted Alice.

‘Don’t take that tone with me, young lady!’ snapped the other.

‘I’m sorry, Inspector.’

‘I’m entitled to obedience and respect, or didn’t your father tell you that?’

Alice bit back a rejoinder. ‘You’re right,’ she said at length.

‘If he didn’t, then Sergeant Keedy should have done so. He’s been here long enough to appreciate the structure of command.’ Thelma narrowed her eyelids. ‘Has he been telling you how the case is proceeding?’

‘We see very little of each other, Inspector.’

‘What do you think he’ll say to this latest assignment of yours?’

‘Sergeant Keedy knows that I’ll do what I’m told and that it’s the essence of police work to take orders and act on them promptly.’

‘Ah,’ said Thelma with a cold smile. ‘You
have
been listening, after all.’

‘To whom do I report?’

‘Don’t rush off. I haven’t finished talking to you yet.’

‘As you wish …’

Thelma appraised her shrewdly. ‘Has something happened?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, I think you do. Ever since you came into this office, you’ve been trying to hide a smile. Do I look comical to you? Is that it?’

‘No, it isn’t, I assure you.’

‘Perhaps you think that the women police are a subject for amusement.’

‘Not at all,’ said Alice, firmly. ‘Had I done so, I’d hardly have been so eager to join. If you do detect a smile, it’s because we’ve had some good news.’

‘Are you ready to share it with me?’

‘It’s of no interest to you, Inspector.’

‘Everything about you is of interest to me,’ said Thelma, sitting forward, ‘because it affects the way you do your job. What is this good news?’

‘Paul – that’s my brother – is coming home on leave next week.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘It was ages ago,’ recalled Alice. ‘It’s getting on for the best part of a year.’

‘Where is he stationed?’

‘He’s in a camp near the Somme.’

‘When he gets back here, he’ll be very relieved.’

‘We’re giving him a welcome party.’

‘Is he married?’ asked Thelma.

‘No, Inspector.’

‘Does he have a sweetheart?’

‘Paul is single and fancy-free.’

‘Then you’ll be in a position to offer him some guidance, won’t you?’ Alice looked confused. Thelma had a gibe ready. ‘When you eventually discover what it is that ladies of the street actually do, you’ll be able to tell your brother to keep away from them or he may be going back to France with a nasty itch.’

It took them a long time to find the address they’d been given. There were three streets with very similar names and they went astray. Marmion wished that he’d asked Kennett to spell the name of the street. It would have saved them a lot of trouble. In the end, the car did find the right place and it nosed its way along the gutter before pulling up outside a Victorian artisan’s cottage. Herbert Wylie, they
learnt from the landlady, rented a room there and was an ideal tenant. He always paid her on time and spent most evenings alone in his room. Mrs Armadale was a garrulous old woman with hair dyed an unnatural ginger colour. Having lost her husband the previous year, she’d taken in a lodger because she felt so lonely. From the way that she talked about Wylie, it was evident that he’d become a friend and did all kinds of odd jobs for her. He’d even taken over the little garden at the rear of the house.

When asked to describe him, she had nothing but praise. A picture slowly formed in the detective’s mind. Wylie was short, slim and in his thirties. Whenever he went out, he always took care with his appearance. The landlady spoke with approval of the attention he lavished on his shoes, polishing them every day and making them gleam if ever he went out of an evening. She was unaware that he’d briefly had a girlfriend named Enid Jenks.

‘When do you expect him back?’ asked Marmion.

‘I don’t know, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘A few days or so, he said.’

‘And he didn’t tell you where he was going?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

She was very happy to answer their questions until they asked if they could see Wylie’s room. Suddenly, she became defensive, wondering what had really brought them there and why they were so keen to speak to her tenant. Keedy took over and invented a plausible story concerning an accident at the factory that Wylie had witnessed and about which he’d promised to deliver a written report. The combination of Keedy’s charm and Marmion’s rank persuaded her that she should let them have their way. Once inside the room, they began a thorough search.

‘Thanks, Joe,’ said Marmion, opening a wardrobe. ‘You saved us the trouble of getting a search warrant.’

Keedy sniffed. ‘Would you want to live in room like this? It stinks.’

‘I think that Wylie came to the same conclusion.’ He indicated the empty wardrobe. ‘The cupboard is bare. What’s in those drawers?’

The sergeant opened them one by one. ‘Nothing – he’s made a run for it.’

Wylie had taken almost all of his clothing and personal items. All that he’d left behind were a few books and a grubby shirt hung on the back of the door. They could find nothing that indicated where he’d gone. Marmion was disappointed that they’d found no evidence to connect Wylie to the explosion at the pub. The man had either been careful to remove all trace of it or had not been implicated in the first place. They were about to leave when Marmion caught sight of the little shed in the garden. If Wylie looked after the lawn and the flowerbeds, he’d have free access to the shed. The landlady was puzzled by their request to go into the garden but she raised no objection. Keedy led the way and lifted the hook on the door of the shed. There was barely room for the two detectives to step inside. It was filled with garden implements. Marmion managed to trip over a watering can and Keedy’s shoulder dislodged a flowerpot from a shelf.

But the visit yielded a clue that made the pair of them grin broadly.

‘Do you see what I see, Joe?’ asked Marmion.

‘I do, indeed,’ replied Keedy.

The news that her son was at last coming home on leave had filled Ellen Marmion with a delight that never faded. As she did her housework that morning, she was almost radiant. Her only complaint was that she’d not yet had time to discuss with her husband or daughter the welcome they should prepare for their returning hero. Paul’s letter had talked about his need for a long rest but there would be other members of the family eager to meet him, so there had to be a big celebration. Plans for a party began to form in her mind. Taking wartime food shortages into account, Ellen even went through the meal that would be served. It was when she got to her son’s bedroom that she felt real exhilaration. Though he’d been away for a long time, she’d cleaned the room regularly and dusted all of his trophies. Paul had been a talented sportsman. He’d won cups for his prowess at athletics and tennis, but the award he valued most was the shield his football team had acquired when winning the league title in their last full season. A photograph of the eleven players stood on the mantelpiece and Ellen could see her son smiling proudly in the back row.

Her stomach lurched slightly as she glanced at some of the other young men. Heartened by the fact that they could all be in the same regiment if they joined up together, the whole team had rushed off to the recruiting office. Some of the players had already been killed and others had been sent home with missing limbs and disturbing memories. While luxuriating in her own pleasure, Ellen spared a passing thought for families less fortunate than her own. When she picked up the photo to examine it more closely, she was struck by something that Marmion had told her about the investigation. Some of the victims were members of a ladies football team. Such a thing had never existed in her youth and Ellen was not sure that it ought to exist now. While she saw the necessity for change, she was fearful of the way that the boundaries between the two sexes were being blurred and, in some cases, eradicated altogether. Women now played football, drove buses, ran canteens and refugee centres, filled shells in munition factories, joined the police service and did almost everything else that had once been the exclusive territory of their male counterparts. Some, like Ellen herself, sewed and knitted with varying degrees of skill in order to send gloves, socks and other items to soldiers at the front.

It was unsettling for a woman with the values of her generation. Particularly worrying for Ellen was the rise of the suffragettes. Having suspended their campaign at the outbreak of hostilities, they’d devoted themselves to unflagging war work as a means of attesting their patriotism and of proving that they could match what men did and should therefore be given an equal right to vote. That was going too far, in Ellen’s view, and she was unnerved by the support that Alice gave to the notion of female emancipation, hoping that her daughter’s marriage to Joe Keedy would return her to a more traditional role. Dusting the photo before replacing it, she wondered what her son would make of
the way that Alice had changed since the outbreak of war. As children, they’d been very close but they’d slowly drifted apart. Ellen had watched with disquiet as her daughter had gone from being a teacher to wearing a police uniform. An army uniform might have wrought even more profound changes in her son. He would certainly not be the person they’d waved off after his last leave. All of a sudden, her elation began to dim slightly.

‘What’s the fellow’s name?’

‘Herbert Wylie.’

‘Where did he work?’

‘In the Cartridge Section at the munitions factory.’

‘When did he last turn up there?’

‘On the day of the explosion,’ replied Marmion.

‘What did you find at his digs?’

‘We saw evidence of bomb-making ingredients, sir.’

‘Anything else?’ asked the superintendent.

‘It looks as if he’s flown the coop.’

After their visit to Wylie’s house, the detectives had returned to the police station. In view of what he felt was a significant discovery, Marmion had rung Claude Chatfield to tell him what had been found in the garden shed. He praised Keedy for drawing the information out of Maureen Quinn that one of her friends had been stalked by a man at the factory who was frighteningly obsessive.

‘What do we know about him?’ enquired Chatfield.

‘We know very little, I’m afraid,’ said Marmion. ‘Mr Kennett only knew him by sight and Wylie’s landlady gave us an idealised portrait of him. She seems to treat him like the son she never had. If he can win her over so completely, he must have some redeeming features.’

‘Did you tell her that he’s now a suspect in a murder inquiry?’

‘No, sir – it seemed too cruel to shatter her illusions. Besides, we don’t know that he
was
the bomber. We’ve had strong evidence in the past that turned out to be annoyingly misleading.’

‘My instinct tells me we’ve picked up the scent of the man we want,’ said Chatfield, emphatically. ‘I’ll release his name to the press and say that we’re anxious to trace him. He’s gone to ground somewhere and we need to flush him out.’

‘I agree, Superintendent.’

‘What will you and the sergeant do in the meantime?’

‘Sergeant Keedy has gone back to the factory to talk to people who knew Herbert Wylie rather better than the works manager. With luck, there might even be a photograph of employees that includes the man. I know that there are group photos of female workers because I saw one on the wall in Mr Kennett’s office. Hopefully, they pointed the camera at the men as well.’

‘You haven’t told me what
you’ll
be up to, Inspector.’

‘I’m going to pay a second visit to Mr Jenks.’

‘I thought he denied that his daughter had any interest in boyfriends.’

‘He did,’ said Marmion. ‘What he’s going to learn about Enid will come as a severe blow. Jonah Jenks felt that he controlled his daughter’s life.’

Jonah Jenks sat at the piano and played a few chords. The sound was still echoing when the door knocker introduced a note of disharmony. He answered the door and, moments later, brought Neil Beresford into the living room. Though they’d never met before, their mutual sorrow gave them an immediate rapport. After declining the offer of a cup of tea, Beresford explained why he’d called.

‘By rights,’ he said, ‘I should be at work but I overslept this morning. I’d set the alarm when I went to bed but my mother removed the clock while I was asleep and I woke up far too late.’

‘Your mother probably did you a favour, Mr Beresford.’

‘I’ve told her I’ll go back tomorrow but she thinks it would be too soon.’

‘I’m inclined to agree with her. I’ve taken leave from work for the foreseeable future.’

Beresford looked as if he needed as much rest as he could get. Fatigue had painted his features a deep grey and hollowed his cheeks. Yet there was an intensity and animation about him that contradicted his appearance.

‘I really came to ask you about the letter from Mr Kennett. Have you reached a decision yet?’

‘Yes,’ said Jenks. ‘I’ve come round to the view that the offer should be accepted. I’d like Enid to be laid to rest with her friends.’

‘Mr Ingles wants his daughter to be part of a joint burial,’ Beresford told him. ‘He called round to see me early on and persuaded me that it’s the right thing to do. That makes three of us who are of the same mind. I can’t speak for the others.’

‘Reuben Harte is against the idea.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I tackled him about it earlier but he wouldn’t commit himself to the notion. He prefers a quiet funeral involving only the immediate family.’

‘What about Agnes Collier?’

‘I don’t know her family at all, Mr Beresford. Agnes lived near Uxbridge close to Maureen Quinn. We’ll have to wait and see how they react to the offer. My hope is that – seeing three of us in favour of it – they’ll decide to join us. If it’s a case of four to one,’ Jenks continued,
‘then the pressure will tell on Reuben Harte. His resistance might well crumble. What do you think?’

Beresford was distracted and the question had to be repeated for him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a disarming smile, ‘I was admiring that photo of your daughter. She was a beautiful young lady.’

‘One newspaper described her as a canary – along with your wife, I may say. It’s a dreadful name. I hate it. But you know Reuben Harte, don’t you?’ Jenks went on. ‘Whenever his daughter played in the football team, he came along to support her.’

‘Yes, he was always there on the touchline. A lot of parents were.’

‘What will happen to the team now?’

‘We’ll fight on,’ said Beresford with conviction. ‘We owe it to the players we’ve lost to play and win that cup final. Woolwich may think it’s theirs for the taking and that will make them complacent. We’ll take them by surprise.’

‘I wish you good luck.’

They sat down and discussed the apparent lack of progress in the police investigation. Neither of them could offer any clue as to the identity of the person who’d planted the bomb or what his motives could possibly be.

‘My mother feels that it could be a Woolwich supporter,’ said Beresford, ‘but even a fanatic would have more respect for human life than to kill five innocent women. I’m wondering if it was a tragic accident.’

‘It was certainly tragic,’ said Jenks, sadly.

‘Why would anyone deliberately want to cause such pain and suffering?’

‘The German army is doing just that as we speak, Mr Beresford.’

‘You expect horrors in a war,’ said Beresford, ‘but not on your doorstep.’

‘When did you first hear?’

‘I knew that something had gone wrong when …’ he paused to grapple with his emotions ‘… when Shirley didn’t come home after the party. The Golden Goose is less than twenty minutes’ walk away. I was about to go there when a police car pulled up outside the house. Hearing the news was like being hit by a thunderbolt.’

‘I felt the same. Enid was my sunshine. I couldn’t believe she’d died.’

‘My wife used to say what a fine musician she was.’

‘We’ll never know just how good she could have become,’ said Jenks, flicking his eyes to the photograph on the piano. ‘The war robbed her of a chance to develop her talents and the explosion robbed her of her life. It’s so unjust.’ He took a deep breath before conjuring up a smile. ‘Have you had any reporters hounding you?’

‘Quite a few have come to the house but my mother sent them away.’

‘They’re like vampires, feeding off the dead.’

Beresford was philosophical. ‘I suppose they’d say that they were only serving the public interest. It’s a big story that must have got national coverage. Every newspaper wants inside information.’

‘Well, they won’t get it from me.’ He looked up as he heard the door knocker. ‘If that’s another of them, he’s going to go away empty-handed.’ He got up from his seat. ‘Excuse me.’

Jenks went out of the room and opened the door. The caller was Harvey Marmion. After apologising for disturbing him, the inspector asked if they might speak in private. Jenks brought him into the living room. Marmion was surprised to see Beresford there but pleased to have caught the two of them together. It enabled him
to ask about the funeral arrangements. Both men confirmed that they would accept the offer and that Brian Ingles planned to do so as well. Jenks hoped that Marmion had brought some good news about the investigation.

‘Do you have something to tell us, Inspector?’ he asked.

‘It’s really for your ears only,’ said Marmion.

‘You may speak freely in front of Mr Beresford. After all, he’s rather more than an interested party.’

‘That’s true,’ said Beresford. ‘I’d like to hear what you’ve found out.’

Marmion looked from one to the other before putting a question to them.

‘Does the name Herbert Wylie mean anything to either of you?’

‘No,’ replied Jenks. ‘I’ve never heard about him.’

‘What about you, Mr Beresford?’

‘There’s a chap at work called “Herbert” but I’ve no idea what his other name is. He puts detonators into shells.’

‘That sounds like our man. Could you describe him, please?’

After explaining that he didn’t really know the man, Beresford gave enough details about his appearance to convince Marmion that it was indeed Wylie. The description tallied with that given by his landlady.

‘Why are you so interested in this fellow?’ asked Jenks.

‘What I’m looking into is Wylie’s interest in your daughter,’ said Marmion, gently. ‘I suspect that you didn’t realise that Enid once went out with him.’

‘That’s nonsense!’

‘We have it on good authority, Mr Jenks.’

‘Enid would have told me. She wasn’t deceitful in any way.’

‘This occasion was the exception to the rule, sir. Wylie did take her out and your daughter chose not to mention it to you because the
evening ended unhappily. Enid told him that she never wanted to see him again.’

‘Wait a moment,’ said Beresford, snapping his fingers. ‘My wife used to work beside Enid at the factory. I vaguely remember her saying that someone was pestering Enid. I didn’t realise that it was Herbert.’

Jenks was puce with anger. ‘I still refuse to believe that my daughter went out with any man,’ he asserted. ‘Her whole life was here with me and her music. What else did she need?’

‘Whatever it was,’ said Marmion, ‘she obviously didn’t find it in Wylie. For his part, he was livid at being rejected and determined to win her over. It seems that he pursued her with single-minded dedication. He even turned up in the church congregation at one point, simply to be close to her.’

‘You’re making this up,’ said Jenks.

‘I’m only reporting what I was told, sir.’

‘And I can support it,’ said Beresford. ‘Now I recall it, Enid always lurked at the factory gate so that she could go in with Shirley. I thought she was just being friendly but it’s more likely that she needed a bodyguard.’

Jenks was furious. ‘If Enid was being harassed, she’d have told me.’

‘It’s precisely
because
you’re her father,’ argued Marmion, ‘that she couldn’t turn to you. It would have meant owning up that she’d once encouraged this man’s interest in her.’