Read Stratton's War Online

Authors: Laura Wilson

Stratton's War (9 page)

After ten more minutes of Comber’s pontificating, a kick from Donald made Stratton gulp down the rest of his drink - waste of decent beer, but it couldn’t be helped - remark, untruthfully, that Jenny would have his guts for garters if he stayed out too long, and depart, with Donald, amidst a barrage of jovial advice about not upsetting the little woman and injunctions from Comber and the Major to give our regards to your good ladies.
 
‘We’re fucking done for,’ Donald remarked, as they walked back to Lansdowne Road.
‘I know,’ said Stratton. ‘All that stuff about famine in Germany. He’s conveniently forgotten about Dunkirk. Magnificent retreat, my arse! You can’t win wars by evacuating people. It’s just wishful thinking. Worst thing is when you find yourself doing it.’
‘Yeah . . . Not like Comber, though.’
‘God, no. I just keep thinking about how nice it’ll be when we’re together again as a family - what we were saying before.’
‘If it happens.’
‘Do you think it won’t?’
‘Don’t know.’ Donald didn’t look at him. ‘Best not to think at all, really. Mind you, having to listen to people like Comber talk a lot of piss doesn’t help much.’
‘They’re enjoying it, though.’
‘You’d enjoy it too if you were married to Joan Comber.’
‘That’s true.’ Mrs Comber was a large, raw-boned woman, whose face bore an alarming resemblance to Stan Laurel’s.
‘You’d take any excuse to get out of the house.’
‘Do you think they still . . .’
Donald grimaced. ‘Would you?’
‘No, but I wouldn’t in the first place. Change the subject, for Christ’s sake.’
‘To what?’ asked Donald. ‘It’s all pretty fucking gloomy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton. ‘It fucking well is.’
‘Reg is a stupid old fart, isn’t he?’
‘He’s a fucking stupid old fart.’
They grinned at each other. They’d always enjoyed the harmless, if juvenile pastime of swearing in each other’s company. Normally, they were more inventive, even laboriously so, but at the moment, just being crude seemed to be enough to relieve their feelings. Stratton had always felt that the fucks, shits, and occasional cunts that oiled their conversation were like the visible tip of a vast sunken iceberg of things that he thought or felt, but that couldn’t be spoken without revealing himself to be malicious, misanthropic, self-pitying, uncaring, arrogant, lecherous, cowardly, or some appalling combination of all of them. He’d occasionally wondered if Donald saw the swearing thing in the same way but that, again, was something quite impossible to put into words.When they parted in front of Donald and Doris’s gate, two doors down from his own, Stratton felt oddly comforted. The conversation had provided confirmation that he did, as the Major had said, know where they were: in the shit, and without a shovel. There was, he thought, as he unlocked the front door, a sort of grim satisfaction to be taken from this.
TEN
Jenny looked resigned when Stratton announced that he had to take the bus into London the following day, but, having secured several promises that he would be back in good time for lunch at Donald and Doris’s, she kissed him and waved him off. The address Mrs Cope had given him for Joe’s sister turned out to be a flat in the Peabody Buildings on Clerkenwell Road. Looking round the courtyard at the glazed brick entrances and rows of wash houses, Stratton wondered if Beryl Vincent had had the tenancy for long, and whether she was much older than Joe and would be over-protective of him. He checked the number - 12 - and found the right staircase. The concrete steps that smelled strongly of carbolic, and the two clean rag mats and row of potted geraniums at the top announced that Beryl, who, in Stratton’s mind, had acquired the violent irascibility of a harridan, was house-proud.
He adjusted his hat, squared his shoulders, and knocked. After a bit of scuffling and soft murmuring, the door opened enough to show the red, curly head and saucy eyes of a pretty woman in her mid-twenties. ‘Miss Vincent?’
The curls bobbed as she looked him up and down. ‘Who’s asking? ’
‘Detective Inspector Stratton, West End Central. Are you Miss Beryl Vincent?’
‘Yes.’ The girl’s whole face, including her delightfully pert nose, crinkled in a frown. ‘Is it Joe you want?’
‘Yes, Miss Vincent. May I come in for a moment?’
‘Of course. I’ll go and wake him.’ Beryl opened the door wider, revealing herself to be dressed in slacks and a sweater, and admitted him to a small room furnished with two easy chairs, a gas fire, a table heaped with slippery-looking fabric, a dressmaker’s dummy and a sewing machine. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ he said.
‘Oh, no. As a matter of fact, I was just about to make some tea,’ said Beryl. ‘Would you like a cup?’
‘Please,’ said Stratton.
She gestured towards a door behind her and said, in a lowered voice, ‘Joe’s in there. You won’t be . . . He’s quite upset about what happened, and we didn’t expect . . . Well, what with the inquest and everything . . . I mean, I don’t know what it is you want, but he’s not very . . .’
Seeing her floundering - even if she knew about Joe, she was hardly going to say anything along the lines of, he’s a pansy so he’s got good reason not to trust the police - Stratton said carefully, ‘I know that your brother was very . . . attached . . . to Miss Morgan. I just need to ask a few more questions, I shan’t keep him long.’
Beryl smiled just long enough for Stratton to catch a glimpse of pretty, if rather squirrelly, teeth, invited him to sit down, and withdrew to Joe’s bedroom. Listening to voices from within, he was sure that Joe had been awake before he arrived, and was now in a state of panic.
A shrill whistle brought Beryl racing from the bedroom - ‘Joe’s just getting dressed, tea ready in two shakes,’ - before she disappeared into what had to be a very tiny kitchen and re-appeared with a tray, which she placed on the only clear corner of the table. ‘Have to be careful,’ she said, ‘if I spill anything on this lot I’ll never hear the last of it.’
‘Are you a dressmaker?’
Beryl nodded. ‘I work at Madame Sauvin’s in Bond Street, but we’ve been so busy recently. You wouldn’t think people would want evening dresses, would you, with things the way they are. Sugar?’
‘No, thanks.’
Accepting the cup of tea, Stratton asked, ‘Did you know Mabel Morgan, Miss Vincent?’
‘Oh, yes. Not like Joe did, of course, but we got on ever so well. I couldn’t believe it when I heard. Look . . .’ Beryl leant over the back of the unoccupied armchair and pulled some complicated-looking pale pink knitting, strung on three needles, from behind the cushion. ‘Bed socks. I was making them because she used to complain about her feet getting cold in the winter. I was sat here last night, right where you are now, listening to the wireless, and I must have been knitting away for ten minutes before I remembered . . . It wasn’t right, her dying like that. I don’t know what to do with this, now,’ she added forlornly.
‘What about someone in your family?’
‘There’s nobody. Mum died when we were small, and Aunt Edna - that’s who brought us up - she passed away a couple of years ago.’
‘What about your father?’ asked Stratton, adding hastily, ‘Not that you could give them to a man, of course.’
‘He was killed in the last war. We didn’t really know him - at least, Joe didn’t, because he’s younger than me. It’s just the two of us now. You won’t be too hard on Joe, will you?’
‘I promise.’ Stratton smiled. ‘I haven’t been hard on you, have I?’
‘No, but . . .’ Beryl looked confused again, and Stratton changed the subject by asking, ‘What did you mean when you said Miss Morgan’s death wasn’t right?’
‘Well, just that, really. It was rotten. Falling on those railings . . . I don’t care what they said at that inquest, I don’t believe it was suicide for a minute, and neither does Joe.’
‘Why not?’
‘She wasn’t that sort.’
‘What sort was she?’
‘Brave. A fighter. I don’t mean she went round clobbering people, although she certainly used to speak her mind. But she was game, never felt sorry for herself. And you’d have to, wouldn’t you, to commit suicide?’
‘What was it, then?’ asked Stratton.
‘An accident! She leant out too far, that’s all. It could have happened to anyone. And,’ she concluded triumphantly, ‘Joe told me she hadn’t got her teeth in, and I never saw her without them, never.’
‘Was there anything troubling her?’
‘Not that I know of. She’d have told Joe, wouldn’t she?’
‘Would she?’
‘Course she would. They were as close as that.’ She crossed the first and second fingers of her left hand and lifted it up in demonstration. ‘Anyway,’ she said abruptly, ‘I’d better go and see what he’s up to. Stuff this under your seat, will you? I don’t want him to see it.’ She dropped the jumble of knitting into his lap and left the room.
Stratton just had time to raise one leg and shove the wool under the cushion before she returned, pulling her brother along behind her. Stratton’s first impression was that Joe was terrified - the man was actually shaking. He watched as Beryl pushed him into the armchair opposite his own, performed introductions, and handed over a cup of tea with instructions to drink it before it got cold. Despite the fear, the black eye and the bruised face, Stratton could see that, while his sister was pretty, Joe Vincent was actually (if this could be said of a man) beautiful. His head, with glossy hair, dark eyes, smooth skin, unsuitably generous mouth and perfect profile, reminded Stratton of the classical statues of athletes and young noblemen he’d seen on visits to the British Museum.
Beryl interrupted his reverie. ‘I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’
‘Thank you,’ said Stratton, and they both watched in silence as she gathered up various pieces of sewing equipment and retreated into what was, presumably, her bedroom. Alone with Joe, Stratton continued to stare at him. He stared back with an expression that suggested Stratton was a wild animal about to attack at any moment, and eventually blurted out, ‘What is it you want? I’ve told you people everything I know. I just want to be left alone.’
‘I know you do, but there are one or two things I want to clear up.’ Stratton paused. ‘I understand you were in a bit of bother the other night.’
Joe fingered the bruise round his eye. ‘It was just a misunderstanding . . . Nothing at all, really.’
‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Doesn’t look fine, either. What happened?’
‘Chap I know,’ Joe directed his comments to his teacup. ‘Lent me some money, didn’t he?’
‘And?’
‘Put it on a dog, didn’t I?’ Joe’s voice was sullen.
‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was it called?’
‘Bonny Beryl.’
‘Beryl?’
‘Yes, like my sister. That’s why I put it on. I lost it, so I couldn’t pay him, and he—’
‘Which track?’
‘White City.’
‘When were you there?’
‘Last . . . Monday.’ Joe looked at Stratton for the first time since the start of the exchange, something like triumph in his face.
‘Why weren’t you at work?’
‘Afternoon off.’
‘So you were at the dog track at White City on Monday afternoon? ’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Sure about that, are you?’
‘Yes!’
‘I’m not.’
Joe’s face turned a mottled pink. ‘You calling me a liar?’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton, gently. ‘But you’re not a very good one. You see, I happen to know that dog-racing’s been restricted to one afternoon a week, and the London meetings take place on Saturdays.’ He wasn’t absolutely positive about the day, but that didn’t matter because he was willing to bet that Joe had never been to a dog track in his life, and the expression on the man’s face confirmed that he was right. ‘Now, why don’t you start all over again, and tell me the truth?’

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