Chapter Ten
The archives were beneath a high street bank in Winchester town centre and accessed through an unmarked door from a car park at the rear of the building. The entrance looked insignificant, as if it might be a back door to the bank, but was in fact heavily reinforced and led to a completely separate building monitored by surveillance cameras. Darrington pressed a buzzer on the door and a voice using his rank and name asked him to enter. The door clicked open to admit him then closed quietly but firmly behind him and a narrow staircase led him down to an ultra-modern, brightly lit underground complex.
A small woman with birdlike eyes and short, greying hair sat at a large reception desk behind which stretched rows of shelving filled with files. “My name is Alice Bevis,” she said in the scratchy voice Darrington had heard over the intercom. “I'm the superintendent in charge of the archives and this is a copy of the regulations. Please read them very carefully, as they are very important.”
Darrington took the sheet of paper and smiled at her, but she peered at him over large spectacles that were attached to a gold chain hanging around her neck, and did not smile back.
“You may access green files at any time,” the scratchy voice continued. “I'm aware of the nature of your investigation so I've taken the liberty of placing the pertinent files in the office allocated for your use.” She indicated with her hand to a door behind him. The office had glass panels facing out onto the reception area through which Darrington could see a large wooden desk, a chair and filing cabinets and cupboards all of which looked brand new. “Should you require any other green files, Miss Derbyshire, our filing clerk will get them for you, but red files must be signed for. They can only be issued by myself and must on no account be removed from the building. There's only one other member of staff and that's Mr Houseman, he deals with maintenance and anything heavy.” Again she looked over her spectacles, this time with the hint of a smirk on her thin lips, “That's heavy lifting or heavy security, you'll see what I mean when you meet him.”
“Thank you, Miss Bevis.” Darrington wondered who she really was. Certainly not the little old lady he had first supposed. To be aware of his brief her security clearance had to be fairly high and in spite of the scratchy voice, she spoke with the authority of one used to being obeyed. The sharp, bright eyes indicated a sharp, bright brain right behind them. “That's most helpful, I'll settle into my office and get started.”
She handed him a key. “Please ensure you lock up whenever you leave the office.”
The office was a good size, it was pleasant and expensively equipped but had the clinical hollowness of miscellaneous territory, a spare room with the only window looking into another office. It smelled of leather, wood and new carpet and Max felt the urge to make it less impersonal, bring in a plant or family photograph, something he had never even considered in his previous offices.
A young woman with short, stylishly cut blonde hair looked through the office window, tapped on the door and entered. “Good morning Sir,” she said smiling widely through glossy, colourless lips, “I'm Fiona Derbyshire, I do the filing, and other general office work. Did Alice tell you about me?”
“She did indeed.” Darrington stood up and shook her hand, something that seemed to please her. She was tall and slim and wore white, knee-high boots and a tartan mini-skirt and in contrast to the blonde hair, her eyebrows were dark and cleverly shaped above intricately made up eyes.
“Would you like coffee?” she asked, “I always need a cup before I get into the swing of things and Alice and Matt drink it all day long. Oh, look here's Matt now! I'll introduce you.”
The incredible bulk of Matt Houseman's body made him appear shorter than his medium height, but he looked extremely fit and capable of dealing with anything heavy, as Miss Bevis had inferred. They shook hands and Darrington expected his fingers to be crushed by the outsized paw, but the young man, whose arms arched from his body to accommodate huge biceps, had a firm but gentle grip.
“How do you do, sir,” he spoke confidently. “Welcome to the bunker.”
“Thank you.” Darrington glanced through the window at Miss Bevis, who smiled then looked away.
Delighted to be back in harness Darrington settled to his task immediately, approaching the case as he would a current murder enquiry. During the next few days, he ploughed through the grubby files and faded, yellowed letters and notes written more than twenty years earlier.
The first victim was an 18-year-old prostitute named Jenny Doig whose body was found beneath a pile of rubble on a piece of waste ground after an air-raid on 29 September, 1940. There were thousands of casualties and the emergency services, not yet accustomed to dealing with death and destruction on such a momentous scale, were stretched to breaking point and but for a sharp-eyed policeman this murder might well have been overlooked altogether.
The chronological police report compiled by Constable Arthur Dennison was a list of facts betraying no hint of the utter moribund helplessness encompassing the city after the ceaseless attacks. Max could clearly remember how it had been. The images for public consumption were dished up in chirpy newsreels depicting brave âwe can take it' smiles of steadfast Londoners carrying on determinedly, thumbing their noses at the enemy and cheering their leader Churchill. The reality was heartbreak, fear and death on an unimaginable scale. In the chaotic aftermath, casualties congested the overburdened hospitals and the dead were laid out in makeshift mortuaries in municipal centres or church halls to be inspected and identified by relatives looking for missing loved ones.
When Constable Dennison pulled back the grey blanket covering the body of Jenny Doig, the middle-aged couple with him gasped at the sight of the pale, badly mutilated face but shook their heads in relief and quickly left. Whoever the poor girl was she was not their daughter. Replacing the blanket the policeman noticed a thin, red line at the side of the dead girl's neck and closer inspection revealed that, beneath the disfigurement and a thick coating of dust, the line continued across the throat. The duty doctor agreed the matter should be investigated and separated the body from the others for a possible post-mortem.
In what seemed like an afterthought, the last paragraph of Constable Dennison's handwritten statement noted that a post-mortem had not been carried out as, after further consideration, the damage to the throat was later deemed to be part of the injuries sustained from falling masonry.
Darrington flipped the pages looking for details of Dennison. He was 45 years old and having been a London policeman for twenty years, hardly likely to make a mistake about a cut throat. He wondered if perhaps the fact the victim was a prostitute had influenced the decision not to pursue the matter. The body was eventually released for burial and like thousands of others that week Jenny Doig became a number in a batch of statistics instead of the victim of a vicious crime.
There was absolutely no doubt about the second victim. 28-year-old Paula James, a married woman with a husband serving in the army, was found dead in a boarding house that had been bombed on 30 October, 1940. Her fully clothed body was discovered the morning after the air-raid by the house owner, 52-year-old Mrs Beatrice Parker who, on returning to collect some of her belongings, found Mrs James in the room she had rented the previous day. Although there was no damage to that particular room, the victim's face had been smashed with what was thought to be a building brick and her throat cut.
This time there was a post-mortem. Mrs James had had what appeared to be consensual sexual intercourse shortly before death and died of shock and loss of blood caused by injuries inflicted to the throat by a sharp, thin blade, the facial damage having taken place after death.
The landlady stated that Mrs James often booked into the boarding house with her husband who was a Polish flyer, now a Flight Lieutenant with the RAF. They registered as Mr and Mrs Bronski and she had no reason to doubt they were married. On the day of the murder Mrs Paula James, whom the landlady knew as Mrs Bronski, arrived alone in the late afternoon and said her husband would be joining her.
Darrington smiled. Almost certainly Mrs Beatrice Parker was letting rooms, probably by the hour, with no questions asked. Dozens of such places operated in London during the war and landlords, or in this case a landlady, made a great deal of money from those prepared to spend it. In the midst of such violent destruction, people suddenly saw survival as pure chance and grabbed at anything they perceived to be happiness revelling in it lest their lives be cut short. He and Claudine had done much the same, not in any backstreet boarding house but in his mother's home carelessly producing a child neither of them was there to bring up. Since the war he had shut Claudine from his mind and if he thought of her it was with bitterness for not being the person he thought she was but recently she had appeared in dreams and intermittently came into his mind in his waking hours and his feelings had changed to regret about the mistake they had made and sadness at her early death.
When pressed Mrs Parker admitted that while sheltering under the staircase during the raid she thought she heard screaming and had been on her way to investigate when the house next door received a direct hit. The blast had rattled through her own home blowing out windows and doors, sending her screaming into the street and running for the safety of the air-raid shelter at the end of the street. She had not seen Mr Bronski arrive but thought she heard him go up the stairs shortly after the raid began.
The investigating police officers had traced Flight Lt Stefan Bronski to an RAF officers' club in London and he admitted having an affair with Mrs James and regularly using the boarding house for their liaisons. On the night she died, Paula James had apparently developed a latent guilty conscience and told Bronski it was to be their last meeting as her husband had been wounded and was coming home. Bronski confirmed they had intercourse and that he left shortly afterwards because he was sad and angry. He found out about Paula's death the next day when he went to her home hoping to persuade her to change her mind and was informed by neighbours.
Attached to his statement were those of two doormen at the officers' club confirming his return not long after the air-raid began and neighbours' statements corroborating Bronski's own that the next day he was heard banging on the door of Paula's house and yelling her name. When informed she had been killed he had collapsed in the street.
Darrington sifted through the disorderly file looking for some sort of conclusion and eventually found a crumpled, but official-looking memo typed on notepaper headed Department of Security and dated 3 December, 1940. The document had been crushed by several other papers pushed carelessly into the file and had a rusty paper clip mark on the top left hand corner. A corresponding rust mark on the front of the file showed it had at some stage been affixed there.
The gist of the memo was that investigation into the death of Paula James had been terminated due to lack of evidence as the main witnesses, Mrs Beatrice Parker and Flight Lt Stefan Bronski, were no longer available to give testimony. The Flight Lt was apparently on active service, but no reason was given for Mrs Parker's unavailability. Mrs James's husband was still seriously ill in hospital and further probing could only cause him unnecessary distress.
Intrigued and unconvinced Darrington closed the file and put his elbows on top of it resting his chin on his interlocked fingers. The memo had the ring of officialdom, but his detective's antennae twitched with curiosity as to where it had originated. The Department of Security in wartime could cover many areas and, probably quite intentionally, there was no address or contact reference only an illegible signature. Absentmindedly glancing out of his office window he realised Alice Bevis was watching him. She gave him a fleeting smile then looked away. Like the document in front of him, she was not quite what she appeared to be.
At lunchtime, Max decided to take a break. Matt and Fiona had as usual gone off together to eat their sandwiches in the nearby park. He wondered if they were just friends or a couple, as these days he couldn't tell. Miss Bevis was at her desk sipping coffee and chain smoking. In the few days he had been in the archives he hadn't seen her take a break or eat anything during the day, in fact, she seemed never to leave the reception area. As he stood up to leave, he noticed a small, red star on the top right-hand corner of the file on Paula James.
“I'm going for out for a breath of fresh air, Miss Bevis,” he said as he passed her desk.
She smiled showing remarkably even, but nicotine stained teeth, “A very good idea, Chief Inspector, you shouldn't overdue things at first.”
He registered that she was aware of his illness and asked almost as an afterthought, “Miss Bevis there are red stars on some of the files. Is that significant?”
Again the yellow smile but the eyes were calculating, “A red star indicates the existence of a red file under the same name. As I explained on your arrival, red files are strictly monitored and difficult to access. We would rather you didn't use them.” The voice had gained a harder edge, “However if you deem it necessary we will, of course, make the appropriate arrangements.”
Who was âwe'?
Darrington wondered and would she be ringing the other part of the plural while he was at lunch or was he developing Hitler-like paranoia cooped up in what Fiona and Matt referred to as âthe bunker?'
Free of the artificial lighting and controlled air of the archives the sun was shining and a warm, gentle breeze wafted through the ancient Winchester streets. Steeped in history, the beautiful old city was at its best and Darrington decided he should make time to see more of it while he had the opportunity to wander the peaceful streets, visit the Cathedral and the marketplace and generally soak up the ambience. He had tenaciously dived into his new task, it was how he worked, but reminding himself why he was there in the first place, he determined to pull back a little and get into light duties mode. Checking his watch he planned to walk for twenty minutes and then have something to eat in one of the many excellent tea shops dotted around the city centre.