The Reckoning (22 page)

‘What about the intruder, though? How did he get in?' Billy had listened raptly.

‘They couldn't say for sure. But as there was no evidence of a break-in, they concluded in the end that he must have hidden somewhere in the building and waited until everyone had gone home. I don't know how much you know about the place, but it's a glorified library. Originally it was set up to store Chancery Court records, but some time in the last century it was expanded into a national archive open to the general public. Anyone can walk in there and, provided you follow the drill, you can consult the documents you want to see in their reading room, so long as they're not on the classified list. You can spend all day there if you like. They reckoned that whoever got into
the restricted area must have found a spot to lie up in – a cleaner's cubbyhole, maybe, or even the Gents – and then come out when the coast was clear. He could have done the same thing the next morning: waited until there were people about and then slipped out.'

Charlie was grinning now.

‘To be fair, I don't suppose security was ever Bannister's first worry. It's not as though he's guarding the Crown Jewels. He probably never imagined anything like this could happen. I might have felt the same, in his shoes. Even now he can't believe that someone went to all that trouble just to steal the record of a court martial that took place thirty years ago. He's got his people going through all the files now. He's sure the Ballard papers will turn up. As for the other stuff stolen from the stacks, he says Special Branch thought it might be the work of a political malcontent, some bloke who wasn't quite right in the head. I'll have to have a word with them.'

He chuckled.

‘But wait – I'm not done yet. I've saved the best till last. Before I spoke to Bannister I had a call from Mr Cunningham to tell me that permission had been granted for us to see the file. I'd hardly had time to thank him when he added that the minister hoped we wouldn't try to tie the murders to that court martial “prematurely”. I was still wondering what he meant by that when the phone rang again, and this time it was our esteemed AC, Mr Cradock no less.'

Billy grinned. It was an open secret in CID that the chief super's relations with his superior were far from ideal. A recent appointment, Eustace Cradock had spent most of his career at the Yard in the traffic and budgetary departments, and the reasons behind his elevation to the prestigious post of Assistant Commissioner, Crime, were reckoned by many to be a mystery beyond even the powers of a Sherlock Holmes to unravel. Charlie's response had been to keep his AC in relative ignorance
about the day-to-day workings of his department, a policy that Billy for one feared might one day backfire on their chief.

‘He asked if it was true we were going to publicly link the shootings to the Ballard proceedings and, if so, why he hadn't been informed? I told him I had made no such decision, to which he responded that it was just as well, since I'd be in hot water if I had, and that I wasn't to take any action in the matter without consulting him first. He added that there could be no question of connecting the investigation to the court martial without “cast-iron proof”.'

Billy whistled. ‘He's been got at.'

‘Done up like a kipper, if you ask me.' Chubb's snort was contemptuous. ‘Still, I suppose from the point of view of the powers that be, this could look like the thin end of the wedge. If one court martial can be made public, why not others? Why not the whole lot?' He shrugged. ‘But that's where we stand. As far as anything you might say to the press is concerned, we're looking for a man who may be unbalanced, but nothing more.'

He cocked an eye at Billy.

‘You're keeping very quiet, Inspector.'

‘I'm just thinking it through.' Billy tugged at an earlobe. ‘Assuming it was our bloke who took those papers, at least it solves one mystery: how he managed to get hold of the men's names. But he still had to find out if they were still alive and, if so, where they lived. He's been at this for some time.'

‘I wouldn't disagree.' The chief super sniffed. ‘And he's not short of nerve either, sitting it out there all night, waiting until morning to leave. He's a cool customer all right. And he seems to know things you wouldn't associate with the average law-abiding citizen. Like how to open the lock on that cupboard without leaving a mark on it.'

His scowl reappeared.

‘You don't think he's a villain, do you?'

‘A professional? No, he's not that.' Billy was surprised by his
own certainty. ‘I don't know what he is. I can't make him out. He's a mystery to me. All I know for sure is he's a killer and that's—'

He broke off as the door behind him opened and Joe Grace stuck his head into the room.

‘Sorry to butt in, but Poole's back.' He was grinning. ‘She arrived soon after you stepped out. She's got something to tell you.'

‘Can't it wait?' Billy frowned. ‘We're almost done here.'

‘I'm afraid not, guv.' Joe's grin widened. ‘In fact it's something you both need to hear, and right away.'

Stepping to one side, he ushered the young woman into the room.

‘Not to put too fine a point on it, it looks like we've been barking up the wrong tree.'

‘Now wait a minute, Detective. Don't go making wild assertions. What sort of evidence have you got? She was probably engaged in fraud: collecting money under false pretences. That's an offence all right, but not one that concerns us; not at this moment.'

Chubb showed his disapproval with a scowl. He had listened in silence as Lily began her story, but under his steady glare she had lost the thread of her tale and had begun to skip back and forth, trying to explain first this and then that, until finally, in exasperation, Charlie had let fly.

Billy intervened.

‘Take a moment, Lil.' He spoke in a quiet voice. ‘Have a look at your notes.'

They were sitting side-by-side in front of the chief super's desk, Lily with her pad on her knee. Flushed and excited when she'd arrived, she now found herself faced by an audience of three – Joe Grace was perched on the windowsill behind Chubb's
desk – all showing by their expressions at least a degree of scepticism at what they were hearing. As a result she had quickly become tongue-tied, her thoughts in a muddle.

‘There's no hurry,' Billy told her. ‘Start at the beginning.'

Lily bent over her pad. She took a deep breath.

‘I didn't see it at first,' she confessed. ‘I missed it. When I spoke to Mrs Singleton I asked her about any visitors they might have had before her husband was shot, and she mentioned this woman who had come by collecting for Remembrance Day. But she also told me about a vacuum-cleaner salesman who had knocked on their door – a bloke we'd never heard of before – and I was thinking so much about him that I forgot about the woman.'

‘A salesman?' Chubb frowned. ‘What salesman?'

‘He worked for Hoover, guv, and I thought it might be our bloke, who was using that as a cover. But he turned out to be real. I rang the company's office in Oxford and they confirmed it. After that the only thing left to do was go back to London, but while I was at the station waiting for my train I went into the ladies' loo and that's when I realized.'

‘The ladies'
loo
?' The chief super was lost.

‘I was looking at myself in the mirror,' Lily explained. ‘I saw I still had my poppy on, from when I'd got it in London a few days before. It was pinned to my lapel. I decided to take it off, but while I was doing that I pricked my finger and that's when it hit me.'

‘
Hit
you?'

‘I suddenly realized. They don't do that – the women who collect money at this time of year. They don't go to people's houses. They stand on street corners, and outside hotels and railway stations and big shops. They have those red tins and they shake them, so you know why they're there—'

‘Yes, yes, all right.' Chubb cut her off. ‘We get the picture. So what did you do about it?'

‘I went back.'

‘Back where?'

‘To north Oxford, to speak to Mrs Singleton again. I told her we needed to know more about this woman, in case she was involved in some way. I asked her to tell me everything she could remember about her visit, starting with her description. Mrs Singleton said that, as best she could recall, the woman was in her late twenties or early thirties with dark hair, and was dressed in a smart coat with a silk scarf and a hat. She said she was well spoken – that was the word she used. She didn't say so, but I think she meant she was a lady.'

Lily paused to wet her lips. There was no need to hurry now. She had their attention.

‘She turned up one afternoon, telling them she was collecting for Remembrance Day and that going round to people's houses was a new policy they had.' Lily looked up. ‘I reckon that was in case they thought it strange. Mrs Singleton said she must be tired after all that walking and offered her a cup of tea.' Lily smiled. ‘She's a nice lady. She gives everyone a cup of tea. While she was in the kitchen she heard them talking, her husband and this woman, and when she came back she found that he was showing her a photograph of himself taken when he was in the trenches in the first war. I'd noticed it myself when I was there. After the woman had gone, she asked him what they were talking about, and Mr Singleton said the woman had told him that an uncle of hers had fought in the First World War and she wondered if they had served in the same sector. It turned out that they had.'

‘And whereabouts was that?' Billy asked.

‘Near a place called Arras.'

The silence that followed was broken by a whistle. It came from the lips of Joe Grace. The sergeant still had a grin on his face, but he was eyeing Lily with interest now.

The chief super, too, had his gaze fixed on her.

‘Well, that's very interesting, Detective,' he said. ‘But aren't you jumping to conclusions? Can you be sure what this woman was doing – going round to people's houses with a collection tin – was out of order? She might have been telling the truth. Perhaps it is a new policy of theirs.'

‘Yes, I know, guv.' Lily nodded eagerly. ‘I had to be certain.'

‘Certain?'

‘After we'd said goodbye, I walked up and down her street, and along a couple of the side streets, too, knocking on every door and, if anyone was home, I asked them if they remembered a woman like the one Mrs Singleton described coming round to collect money a few weeks earlier.'

Lily paused. She was enjoying the moment.

‘They didn't, guv. Not one of them. The only house she called at was the Singletons'.'

This time the silence lasted only for a second, and it was Chubb who broke it.

‘Hell and damnation!' He struck the desk with his fist. ‘Don't tell me there are
two
of them.'

19

‘
T
WO
?
' M
ADDEN SCOWLED
. ‘T
HAT
can't be.'

‘I know what you're thinking, John.' Chubb raised a hand. ‘I had the same reaction. But facts are facts.'

‘It's hard enough trying to imagine
one
person engaged in a vendetta of this kind. But
two
! It beggars belief.'

He looked at Billy, who was sitting beside him.

‘Are you sure this woman isn't the daughter – Alma Ballard?'

‘As sure as we can be.' Billy shrugged. ‘We haven't actually made contact with her yet, but she's in Canada all right. It's been confirmed.'

Madden shook his head. It was late on Friday. About to set off from St John's Wood for Waterloo station to return home for the weekend, he had been diverted by a call from Billy and had stopped off at the Yard to lend whatever support he could to his old colleagues, faced as they were now by a fresh set of challenges.

‘We did wonder if we'd been given some wrong information,' Billy went on. ‘About her emigrating, I mean. But when we checked we found that she'd taken passage on a Cunard liner to Halifax at the end of July. I also rang the Canadian High Commission here in London, and they confirmed she'd
gone through the necessary immigration formalities. She didn't ask for an assisted passage, but we know she's got money of her own. She was her mother's only heir.'

‘What if she came back, though?' Madden was unconvinced.

‘I thought of that, sir.' Billy grimaced. ‘I rang that solicitor I told you about – Royston's his name – and he confirmed that the last letter he'd had from Alma before she set off by train for Vancouver was sent from Toronto on 18 September, which was just two days before Wallace Drummond was shot in Ballater. I haven't had a chance to tell you this yet, but we've good reason to believe that the woman who visited Mrs Singleton in Oxford also called on Drummond at his rooms a day or so before he was killed. It can't have been Alma Ballard. She couldn't have been in two places at once.'

Chubb stirred in his seat.

‘I know how you feel, John. We thought it had to be Alma – it was the only answer that made sense. But like it or not, we have to face the fact we're looking for two people: a man and a woman. It looks like
he's
doing the killing and
she's
his accomplice.'

‘But who could they possibly be?' Madden was lost for words.

‘I can't answer that.' The chief super scowled. ‘Not yet. But what I can tell you is that we're looking into James Ballard's family background. There may be something there. You know he was born out of wedlock?'

Madden nodded.

‘Well, at first that looked like a dead end. But then Styles phoned Eve Selby again – that woman in St Ives who knew them – and she told us a little more about him.'