The Black Mile
THE
BLACK MILE
By
Mark Dawson
Also by Mark Dawson
The Art of Falling Apart
Subpoena Colada
Praise for The Art
of Falling Apart
‘Ultra-addictive, super-stylish – this is a viciously good
novel.’ Toby Litt
‘A thrillingly accurate glimpse into the dark depraved heart
of rock and roll.’ Xfm
‘A talent to be watched.’ Birmingham Post
‘A brilliant debut novel from a very promising writer.’
Subject
‘Grips you like the Boston Strangler’s handshake –
essential.’ Later
‘An impressive first novel – edgy vibrancy.’ Manchester
Evening Post
‘A classic.’ RTE
The right of Mark
Dawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
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Black Dog Publishing:
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FOR MRS D
PART ONE
“BLACKOUT”
–– June 1940 ––
CALENDAR
––
1940 ––
The
Star
, 15
th
May:
MURDER
IN SOHO
A murder investigation has begun after the body of a 24-year-old woman
was discovered in a property in Soho, W1. The body of Louisa Ann Hart was found
in a Dean Street bed-sitting room on Friday, after concerns were raised about her
whereabouts. A post-mortem examination that took place on Saturday found that
she died from injuries sustained in an assault.
The
Star
, 22
nd
May:
SOHO
MURDER
WOMAN
STRANGLED
TERRIBLE
DETAILS
The death of a woman whose body was found in a flat in Soho, W1, is being
treated as murder, police said today. Officers from the Metropolitan Police
were called to the scene in Manette Street in the early hours of yesterday
morning. A post-mortem was carried out yesterday on the woman, who was named by
sources as Henrietta Clark, 23, but police said they would not yet be releasing
any information about how she died. A spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police
has confirmed that a murder inquiry has been launched following the discovery
of a woman's body in Dean Street, Soho, yesterday.”
Daily
Telegraph
, 23
rd
May:
SENIOR POLICE OFFICER PROMOTED
NEW CHIEF CONSTABLE HAS 40 YEARS SERVICE
After being offered the position of Chief Constable with the Metropolitan
Police, William Murphy said it was ‘the proudest moment of my policing career’.
Mr. Murphy will formally take up his new post in
October. He began his career as a beat bobby on the streets of the East End
before transferring to the West End, where he was responsible for several major
enquiries before taking up his present role.
“It has been a privilege to serve the people of London
for nearly 40 years,” Mr Murphy said. “The Metropolitan Police has made
enormous strides over that time and I am pleased to have had the support of
loyal officers and members of staff throughout and I look forward to making
further progress.”
The Commissioner, Sir Philip Game, said: “I’ve enjoyed
working with Bill. We have implemented changes that have benefited both the
force and the public and we will continue to build on our successes and give
the public the service they deserve.”
Mr Murphy, 60, might be giving up day-to-day policing
but he leaves two future successors behind. His sons, Frank and Charles, are
also officers. “Charles has been a Constable at my old station in Savile Row
for eleven years. Frank is in the C.I.D. there. In fact, it’s just been
announced that he is going to be promoted to Divisional Detective Inspector. At
40 years old, he’ll be the youngest man to achieve that rank in recent memory.
It goes without saying that I’m extremely proud of him.”
The
Star
, 24
th
May:
“BLACK-OUT
RIPPER” CAUSES TERROR ON SOHO STREETS
By
Henry Drake
The anxiety was almost palpable along London's Skid Row on Wednesday
night of last week. Men of commerce who work in the new office buildings nearby
hurried home along Oxford Street. Frightened derelicts crowded the dilapidated
missions or dozed uneasily in the shelter of local churches. The takings in
public houses were down, and the drab streets, lined with pawnshops, vice dens
and aging hotels, were uncommonly empty. In the past two weeks two women, both
prostitutes, have been found murdered in the alleyways and cheap rooms within
the black mile of Soho. Women in the neighbourhood have dubbed him the
‘Black-Out Ripper.’
The Daily
Herald
, 25
th
May:
ARREST “CLOSE” IN WEST END MURDERS CASE
The Daily
Herald
, 26
th
May:
‘BLACK-OUT RIPPER’: ARREST MADE
The Daily
Star
, 27
th
May:
SUSPECT
RELEASED IN SOHO MURDERS ENQUIRY
The Daily
Citizen
, 28
th
May:
‘BLACK-OUT RIPPER’ SPEAKS!
SAYS POLICE BEAT HIM
FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST OFFICER
By Henry Drake
Mr. Duncan Johnson has filed an official complaint against detective
Inspector Frank Murphy of the Metropolitan Police after being arrested
and placed under suspicion of committing the four recent prostitute slayings in
the West End of London. Mr. Johnson was released after twenty hours of
questioning and says that he was physically abused while he was in custody.
“Inspector Murphy is a brutal thug,” Mr. Johnson said. “I’m going to see that
everyone knows it.”
ANNUAL QUALIFICATION REPORT
1 May 1939 – 1 May 1940
Police Constable Charles M Murphy
No. 540, C Division
P.C. Murphy had had a difficult year in which he has continued to
struggle. Whilst he is clearly determined to succeed as an officer in the
Metropolitan Police, the point may have been reached where I can no longer
evince any confidence that he will achieve the minimum standards required.
Sergeant Cullen and I have both spoken to him in this regard, and tactfully
suggested that he might give some thought to alternative careers;
unsurprisingly, he strongly disagrees with our assessment and thinks we have
underestimated him. I think not, and I have indicated to him that he must
demonstrate a significant improvement in his performance in the forthcoming
year. Unless he is able to achieve this, I will be recommending that he be
dismissed. It has reached the point where his continued service has become a
danger to himself and the men with whom he serves.
Insp. M Cornwall
The
Star
, 29
th
May:
ANOTHER
MURDER IN SOHO
THIRD
WOMAN STRANGLED
EXCITING
SCENES
Police investigating the murders of two London women say the body of a
third woman is also that of a prostitute. The woman's body was discovered by a
rent collector on Sunday afternoon at a property in St Anne’s Court. Police
said it was too early to link the death to those of Louisa Hart and Henrietta
Clark who were found a mile apart in the same area. Detectives said the
discovery was being treated as an "unexplained death". Ms Hart, 24,
and Ms Clark, 23, worked together and went missing from the ‘red light’ area of
the capital.
News Chronicle
, 5
th
June:
FOURTH
SOHO HORROR
The body of a woman found in Soho has been identified as missing
prostitute Lorna Elizabeth Yoxford. The 32-year-old had been strangled and left
in a one-bedroom apartment in Berwick Street, a post-mortem examination has
revealed. Ms Yoxford's body was one of two found in the same vicinity during
the past week. Detectives admitted for the first time that the three deaths
might be connected.
MONDAY, 10
th
JUNE 1940
1
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR FRANK MURPHY stepped away from
the girl’s body and went to the window; the yelling from the crowd outside was
louder. He pulled the thick black-out curtains aside. It was dusk, eight
o’clock, a silvery moon rising above the rooftops. An ARP Warden walked his
rounds; tarts and their johns found their alleys; tail-gunners from the
Piccadilly Circus Meat Rack flounced theatrically, touting for trade. The noise
was coming from the junction with Frith Street, away to the right. A large
crowd had gathered outside the Vesuvio Restaurant. A dozen bobbies had formed a
buffer and two mounted officers kept skittish horses in line. Frank watched as
a pair of men were led out of the front door, escorted on either side by lads
from Tottenham Court Road C.I.D. The crowd bayed as a couple of the woodentops
stepped up to clear a path to the Black Maria parked by the kerb.
The restaurant’s large plate glass window shattered
as a brick was flung through it.
“It’s getting worse,” Frank said. He watched as the
two men were put into the meat wagon. Locals hammered their fists against the
sides. “What a mess.”
Detective Sergeant Harry Sparks was going through
the girl’s belongings. “Mussolini getting chummy with Hitler, that’s that as
far as I’m concerned––we can’t take chances with ‘em. Risk of a Fifth Column,
that’s what they’re saying. Best keep them out of the way for the duration.”
Frank let the curtain fall back across the window.
“Maybe,” he said. He turned back into the room. It was a tart’s lumber, a cheap
single room where punters would come up to get what they’d bought with their
oncer: five minutes of slap and tickle and a dose of the clap so bad it’d peel
the jewels right off. Cheap furniture, dirty clothes strewn about, unwashed
pots and pans in the sink. Squalid. The business transacted inside was gruesome
and desperate but it was hardly novel. Frank had seen plenty of rooms like this
in Soho and Fitzrovia, especially in the last month.
A neighbour had noticed the door had been shut for
three days and had stopped the local bobby. The woodentop had put his size
twelve through the flimsy door and discovered the poor girl. Her body was
spread out across the single divan. Her tongue protruded from between bluish
lips and the bruises around her throat were dark and evocative, the shape of
fingers from where they would have met beneath her chin. She had been stabbed a
dozen times, probably more than a dozen, and her blood was on the walls, the
floor, soaked into the bedding.
“What do you want me to do, guv?”
“Wake Spilsbury up––he better take a look.”
“What do you reckon?”
Frank looked at the girl: seventeen or eighteen if
she was a day, a grim and brutal life cut short. He’d been working on the case
like every other detective on the manor and he recognised the handiwork. “It’s
him.”
He was sure. He’d only taken five days’ rest this
time.
Whoever this poor doxy was, she was one of his.
Number five.
2
THE NEWSROOM WAS FRANTIC. Mussolini’s speech had
caused chaos and the noise made it difficult to concentrate: batteries of
teleprinters spewed out reams of copy, wire reports with information about what
the declaration of war meant to the European political situation; telephones
rang as journalists interrogated sources; correspondents fresh from the Houses
of Parliament and Whitehall dictated stories to typists. It was chaotic and
noisy and busy and Henry Drake loved it. He unrolled his own copy from his typewriter
and set it on the desk before him. He pushed back in his chair and stared at
the page. The fourth girl had been dead for two days and the police had made no
progress.
He put the pen down and stared
absently at the jumble around him. He had a space in the corner of the floor,
an L-shaped desk with shelves fixed two high on each side. Organised chaos. His
old Remington typewriter. Piles of paper: scraps with telephone numbers,
policemen who would give him a tip for a quid; expenses chits; ideas for new angles.
The shelves bowed in the middle from the weight of the folders and papers that
were stacked haphazardly across them. It was all about the Ripper: interviews
with witnesses who could be bought for the price of a pint; copies of the post
mortem reports from his contact in the pathologist’s office; a map of Soho was
overlaid with photographs of the dead girls, scrawled arrows pointing to where
they had been found.
Framed copies of his front page
scoops hung from the only unencumbered space of wall: T.E. Lawrence’s
motorcycle crash in Dorset; the Gresford Colliery disaster; a trip to Egypt for
the Tutankhamen shrine.
He looked at the mess, the
confusion, the business of it all, and he couldn’t help but be satisfied. Two
months short of his thirty-fifth birthday. He’d come a long way.
He got up to stretch his legs. A
thick fug of fag smoke hovered in the room, the ceiling-hung gasoliers cloaked
in fuzzy penumbras. He fetched a fresh packet of Players from his jacket and
tore away the top. At least they hadn’t put tobacco on the ration yet. Bloody
good job. Morale had to be maintained, that was probably the thinking. A smoke
always put a man in a better mood. He lit a fag, sucked down happily and looked
out of the window. The black-out was in force but it was still impressive: the
dark shapes of Fleet Street, heading east to Ludgate Circus, the shadowed dome
of St Paul’s dominating the horizon. The Street of Ink: it was where he had
always wanted to be. Not bad for a boy from the sticks.
“Best get your coat on, Drake.”
The Star’s editor, Edward
Chattaway, was at his desk.
His heart skipped. “Another
one?”
Chattaway nodded.
Henry stood so quickly he
knocked over his chair. “Where?”
“Soho, again. Byatt just
telephoned.”
“Jesus.” Henry swiped a notepad
from the desk and dropped a handful of pens into his pocket.
“Careful on the way down. Byatt
said there are crowds on the street. A couple of windows have been put
through.”
“Why?”
“They’re interning the Italians.
Mussolini’s speech hasn’t gone down well.”
“I’ll watch my step.”
“Off you go. Get me something
juicy. Front page if it’s any good.”