She Died Young

Elizabeth Wilson
is a researcher and writer best known for her books on feminism and popular culture. Her novels
The Twilight Hour, War Damage
and
The Girl in Berlin
are also published by Serpent’s Tail.

Praise for
The Girl in Berlin

‘The picture of an earlier era of austerity Britain has a confident sweep and truthfulness that establishes
The Girl in Berlin
as something rather special in the espionage genre’
Independent

‘This is a clever, well-written and carefully plotted novel in which class, hypocrisy, moral corruption, treachery and taboos ancient and modern are cunningly interwoven. It’s a thoughtful, clever read with a twist at the end that makes you want to turn back the pages to wonder how you missed the clues’
The Times

‘Wilson’s third novel has all the strengths of her others. She’s great on style; atmosphere (the foul taste of smog in your throat); and how the covertly interlinked milieus that ran the country operated’
Guardian

‘Quite splendid’
Shots Magazine

Praise for
The Twilight Hour

‘This is an atmospheric book in which foggy, half-ruined London is as much a character as the artists and good-time girls who wander through its pages. It would be selfish to hope for more thrillers from Wilson, who has other intellectual fish to fry, but
The Twilight Hour
is so good that such selfishness is inevitable’
Time Out

‘A vivid portrait of bohemian life in Fitzrovia during the austerity of 1947 and the coldest winter of the twentieth century’
Literary Review

‘Fantastically atmospheric … The cinematic quality of the novel, written as if it were a black and white film with the sort of breathy dialogue that reminds you of
Brief Encounter
, is its trump card’
Sunday Express

‘An elegantly nostalgic, noir thriller; brilliantly conjures up the rackety confusion of Cold War London’
Daily Mail

Praise for
War Damage

‘[A] first class whodunit … The portrait of Austerity Britain is masterfully done … the most fascinating character in this impressive work is the exhausted capital itself’ Julia Handford,
Sunday Telegraph

‘[Wilson] evokes louche, bohemian NW3 with skill and relish’ John O’Connell,
Guardian

‘The era of austerity after the Second World War makes an entertaining and convincing backdrop to Elizabeth Wilson’s fine second novel … A delight to read’ Marcel Berlins,
The Times

‘
War Damage
captures the murky, exhausted feel of post-war London. Buildings and lives are being reconstructed and shady pasts covered over. The atmosphere of secrecy and claustrophobia is as thick as the swirling dust of recently bombed buildings. Wilson excels at a good story set in exquisite period detail’ Jane Cholmeley

SHE DIED

YOUNG

ELIZABETH WILSON

A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library on request

The right of Elizabeth Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Copyright © 2016 Elizabeth Wilson

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in the UK in 2016 by Serpent’s Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd

3 Holford Yard

Bevin Way

London

WC1X 9HD

www.serpentstail.com

eISBN 978 1 78283 177 8

Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle. She died young.

John Webster:
The Duchess of Malfi

part one

chapter
1

T
HE QUEEN’S HEAD WAS
well away from Fleet Street. You didn’t find journalists there. Nor policemen. Faced with tiles the colour of brown ale, it stood on the corner of a street that wandered away towards Soho. Its shabby
moderne
decor, unchanged since before the war, hardly welcomed visitors; the locals avoided it. It resembled a railway waiting room, home to no-one in particular. It was the ideal anonymous meeting place: a pub without regulars – and that was the very reason Gerry Blackstone liked it.

He kept a low profile in a raincoat or tweed jacket and trilby, neither smart nor shabby. There was an air about him – louche and slightly running to seed, weary, yet purposeful and alert – that could have marked him out as a reporter, but passers-by seldom looked closely enough to make a guess.

He paused in the doorway and glanced round the saloon bar. None of the three lone drinkers looked like the man he was to meet. He fetched a pint and sat down in a corner, lounging against the cracked American cloth of the banquette. He ground out a cigarette on the floor and at once lit another. With it stuck to his lip he pretended to be studying the racing tips in his copy of the
Evening News
, midday edition, but he was actually thinking about the coming meeting. It was tricky, because DCI Jack McGovern had a reputation. Not bent, like the rest of them. Once he’d been the coming man, but then he’d fallen foul of MI6. He was still with Special Branch, but there’d been one or two rumours of a new role.

Blackstone hoped he’d picked the right man. Because what he really wanted was to find out more about the girl.

What a turn it had given him to see her like that. His heart had skipped a beat when Rob Crowther at the mortuary had opened the drawer. Horrified, Blackstone had recognised the almost childish face, the little scar between the nostrils and the upper lip. The skin had a horrible fishy glaze to it, but she was still beautiful. Valerie, that was her name.

Crowther hadn’t expected Blackstone to recognise the corpse. The girl was of interest because no-one had claimed the body. Sheer coincidence.

Blackstone had felt upset for days. Now he was here to talk about the Soho stabbing, but to him it was only an excuse.

And there was the man himself: a tallish copper in a subtle tweed suit. With that thick, dark hair and olive skin he looked more like an Italian than a Scot. They shook hands.

‘What’ll you have?’

‘Thanks. Half of bitter.’

Abstemious then. Blackstone brought the drinks to the table.

An observer might have taken McGovern for a toff and Blackstone for a man of humble origins. In fact, the Scot was the son of a Clydeside shipyard worker, while Blackstone’s father was a well-off undertaker. The journalist’s roving life was part of an effort, never successful, to escape the smell of formaldehyde, for his job continually brought him back to corpses and death. But along the way he’d got rid of his cut-glass accent and developed a careless appearance more in keeping with the villains alongside whom he lived.

He watched as the policeman took out a silver case, eased a cigarette from under its elastic band and tapped it against the lid. Expensive, that case; so McGovern thought he was classy, did he. Wasn’t that what they held against him? Thought he was different, better than the others, above the fray. That was why Blackstone had chosen him.

‘I knew Superintendent Gorch from way back. Sad to see him go.’ He hoped it was the right opening gambit. And he meant it. Gorch had always cosied up to the press and he’d be missed by the journalists who thronged the press room at Scotland Yard. You’d see him in the pubs round Scotland Yard, too, hobnobbing with them all. Crime reporters and coppers: they needed one another; like a tree and its ivy or a rhinoceros and the ticks it housed in its crumpled skin.

Jack McGovern nodded, non-committal. Chilly Scots bastard. Blackstone pressed on. ‘Hope he’s enjoying his retirement. He deserves it. He and I—’

McGovern cut him short. ‘You’re right. He was a good policeman.’

‘Aren’t many like that now.’

They gave Gorch a moment’s silence, as if he’d passed away, although in fact at this moment he was sunning himself in Cape Town.

It was no use being nostalgic about Gorch. He’d gone and Moules, the new man, was an altogether different kettle of fish. A new relationship had to be formed. It was all unknown territory, uncharted waters.

‘So, Mr Blackstone …?’ The Scot waited. He wasn’t going to make it easy. And that accent – hint of Scots, not pronounced, but enough to give the impression of reserve, that he was canny, that you wouldn’t get much change out of him.

‘The
Chronicle
’s keen to help Scotland Yard in any way we can.’

‘The right sort of cooperation’s always welcome. Not much in evidence just now.’

‘I think you’ll agree the
Chronicle
’s assistance has been crucial in the past – Burgess and Maclean, just one example …’ Then he wondered if it was a bit too risky to have mentioned the defection of the famous spies, five years ago. McGovern hadn’t been involved directly, but he’d got caught up in a related scandal, exposing the crimes of a top British agent. The spooks hadn’t liked it. They hadn’t been able to discredit the Scot completely, but they’d done some damage.

Well, he’d said it now. He hurried on. ‘And of course we realise the importance of sharing information – it’s a two-way system. Superintendent Gorch understood that too.’

‘He’d not have appreciated the way you’ve hammered us over the Soho case.’

‘The public’s worried. Can’t understand why there hasn’t been an arrest.’ The Met had egg on its face and the
Chronicle
was running a big anti-lawlessness campaign, amplifying a single Soho murder into a major crime wave.

‘I’m not involved – I’m sure you know I’m with the Branch. Inspector Slater’s following up a number of leads, I believe,’ said McGovern cagily, about as forthcoming as Ben Nevis. He stubbed out his cigarette, then added: ‘The point is, Superintendent Moules feels the press have not exactly helped in this case. Quite the opposite. If Gorch had asked you to lay off for a few weeks, you’d have listened, would you not?’

‘But as we said, Superintendent Gorch ain’t here.’

The policeman looked away across the room as if for help from Gorch’s ghostly presence.

‘How many weeks since Tony Marx was murdered?’ persisted Blackstone.

‘They need more time. No-one’s talking.’

McGovern sat there and waited. Blackstone had to engage his interest, aware that the Scot wasn’t going to make it easy, and wasn’t prepared to wait indefinitely.

‘Inspector Slater’s case, you say,’ he ventured.

‘As you know.’

‘Inspector Slater is quite efficient, or so I thought, at getting villains to talk.’

Silence.

Blackstone moved on. ‘It’s not so much the Marx case in itself that interests me.’

‘So what does interest you, Mr Blackstone?’

‘All sorts of rumours going around … the new Super … heard he’s a bit of a bureaucrat. Very keen on cracking down on irregularities, as it were.’

McGovern said nothing.

‘CID’s got a bit of a reputation these days, hasn’t it, and not least Inspector Slater. His time in the flying squad was full of incident.’

‘Well, now he’s at West End Central, Division C.’

‘Plenty of opportunities there for Inspector Slater’s special methods.’

McGovern stood up. ‘If you brought me here to talk about my colleagues, you’re wasting your time.’ Blackstone half rose too, started to put out a hand. McGovern mustn’t leave, not yet.

But McGovern merely said: ‘Same again?’

That must be a good sign – unless the policeman’s move had been to stop the conversation getting into choppy waters.

With the refilled glasses on the table in front of them, Blackstone pursued his point. ‘Rumour has it your new guvnor is piloting a little sort of unofficial enquiry into what’s going on and it occurred to me that he might think you’re just the man.’

McGovern stared into the distance. A young woman appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the white November chill outside, hesitated and left again. ‘Who did you hear that from?’ he said with apparent indifference.

‘No-one mentioned your name. I worked it out for myself.’

‘Remind me – you’re the big-time crime reporter? Bigger fish to fry than ill-founded gossip about police corruption, I’d have thought.’

‘The crimes of the powerful, Chief Inspector. Aren’t they the biggest crimes of all?’

Silence again. Blackstone feared McGovern’s reputation for discretion was going to outweigh his alleged dislike of corruption; however before the silence had become too uncomfortable, the Scot said: ‘Superintendent Moules has been in post – how long – less than a month? And already you’re hounding him over the Soho case. That’ll not help if it’s cooperation you’re after.’

‘Say we go easy for a couple of weeks …’

‘That would be welcome. As for the rumour – like every new super, Moules thinks he’s a new broom. He wants everything all neat and tidy. You’re aware of his reputation in Birmingham. He’ll not tolerate irregularities any more than Superintendent Gorch. But you’ve picked the wrong man if you think I’m involved. In the Branch, we lead a life apart, a charmed life, some think. You surely know that.’

‘That’s the very reason—’ Blackstone was surprised that the Scot had said even this much. Because as Blackstone read it, the denial was a kind of admission. So perhaps the stony Glaswegian was going to cooperate. He must have played it right after all. On the other hand, if McGovern’s remit had been to get the
Chronicle
to cool down, he’d achieved his mission – or at least done what he could, which wasn’t much, to stem the flood of bad publicity.

McGovern was finishing his drink. Blackstone had to act, to mention the thing that really mattered to him.

‘What about the girl in the hotel?’

‘Girl?’

‘The one they found in some knocking shop at the back of Bloomsbury.’

McGovern frowned. ‘I don’t recall the case.’

‘Hotel in Argyle Street. Well … call it a hotel …’ He pulled out a crumpled packet of fags and without offering it to his companion, lit a tired-looking cigarette straight off the previous stub. ‘An accident. Girl fell down the stairs. Barely a mention in the local rag. Funny, that. When I was on the
St Pancras Gazette
, a death like that would have been all over the front page. Used to be my territory, you see. Now I’m with the
Chronicle
– fair enough, it’s not a story for the nationals. Not yet anyway.’

‘An accidental death’ll not hit the headlines.’

‘That’s just the point. She was supposed to have tripped – fell down the stairs and broke her neck. High heels can be dangerous.’

‘No doubt they can.’ Finally McGovern smiled. ‘But you know, those hotels might be sordid, that doesna turn an accident into a crime.’

‘The coroner had doubts. Opted for an accident in the end, but it was very iffy. And no-one’s claimed the body. There was a doctor very conveniently on the scene. Signed the death certificate there and then. The police weren’t even called. It wasn’t properly investigated and I can’t help wondering why not.’ Blackstone raised his hands to indicate huge areas of uncertainty and suspicion. He hoped he’d sown a little seed of curiosity. He wasn’t going to let this Itie-looking Hibernian, this block of effing North British granite defeat him; and glancing sideways, Blackstone thought he had aroused the detective’s interest, because a faint frown had replaced McGovern’s studied neutrality.

Finally the policeman looked up and straight at him. ‘You say the coroner returned a verdict of accidental death. But you don’t believe it was an accident. And yet there was no police involvement.’

‘Let’s just say there’s more to it than meets the eye. And I reckoned Superintendent Moules wouldn’t like to think a death like that hadn’t been dealt with properly.’

McGovern drank the rest of his beer and stood up. ‘I’m sure he would not. I have to be on my way.’ He looked down at Blackstone. ‘I’ll look into it, but I doubt I’ll be much help to you in the short run, I’ll be away from London, checking up on Hungarian refugees in Oxford.’

‘Poor sods. What a bleeding mess.’ But there was no time to chat about the failed revolution in Hungary, so Blackstone also stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch, Chief Inspector. Perhaps you’ll have some news for me.’

McGovern merely smiled and said: ‘Good to meet you, Mr Blackstone.’

Blackstone watched the policeman walk away. He moved quietly, inconspicuously, not one of those coppers that swelled to fill the space. Not self-important, as many of them were. Though of course you could prick their balloon double quick when you got to know what they were up to.

Gerry Blackstone hadn’t had high hopes of the meeting, but he had a feeling it had turned out all right after all. McGovern hadn’t actually denied that something was going on with the CID. And by drawing McGovern’s attention to the Argyle Street affair, he had possibly given him a little help – if he was involved in some sort of internal investigation. Personally, Blackstone thought there was little chance of any superintendent successfully ending police corruption, but he wished the new man all the luck in the world.