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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Blitz Detective
- Sprache: Englisch
In the depths of the blackout, the silence of London's Royal Albert Dock is broken only by the lap of inky water against the quay and the occasional scurrying of rats' feet. A patrolling policeman is passing the newly arrived freighter SS Magnolia when something catches his eye. A man is sprawled awkwardly across a nearby barge - with an exotic-looking dagger in his back. DI Jago of West Ham CID discovers the victim was a dock worker by day and a Home Guard volunteer by night - and there are things even his wife, bombed out of their flimsy home in Silvertown, doesn't know about his past. Who wanted to kill him? As Jago investigates, he uncovers a widening circle of secrets ranging across family tensions, the last war, and a far-flung corner of the British Empire. And then there's the mysterious spate of thefts from the dock to contend with.
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Seitenzahl: 460
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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5
THE DOCKLAND MURDER
Mike Hollow
For Zoë,
beloved child of a different London
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
The skeletal silhouettes of cranes stood watch over the Royal Albert Dock in the scant moonlight like mourners round a grave as a solitary man paced slowly along the south quay. Sharp gusts of wind blowing in off the Thames scoured his face, and the cold was like death in his bones, gnawing from the inside. He stamped his boots on the concrete, but it made no difference. It was always the same on nights: as the shift wore on, your body slowed down and the chill set in. No wonder they called it the dead of night.
He looked back to where spikes of orange flame leapt from the far end of the neighbouring Royal Victoria Dock. The bombers had hit something, but he couldn’t see what. One of the transit sheds or warehouses that lined the quayside, perhaps, or maybe even a ship. Tonight, for once, on his own beat things hadn’t been so bad: as far as he could tell, the planes had missed the Royal Albert. But behind him, beyond the dark, hulking buildings on the quay, the sky was bright with the glow of more fire. He couldn’t see what was burning, but there was nothing between here and the river except the King George V Dock and the tightly packed streets of North Woolwich and Silvertown, where his own home was. Ever since the area had been pounded on the first night of the Blitz he’d been thankful he didn’t have a family.
He walked on, listening to his own footsteps. The luminous hands on his wristwatch told him it was twenty past five. Still a couple of hours to go before the blackout ended, but only another forty minutes to work on his shift, if he got off on time. The noise of the men fighting the fires was too far away to be more than a faint backdrop, and the aircraft had gone. Where he was, all he could hear was the rats scurrying towards the sheds as he approached, and the lap, lap of inky-black water beside him. In normal times that was the way he liked it on a night shift: quiet. But these were not normal times. Now there was no knowing when Mr Goering’s swarms of Heinkel and Dornier bombers would pay their next visit.
He’d been up in an aeroplane just the once himself: in 1932, when Sir Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus came to do a display at the Low Hall Sports Ground in Walthamstow and he’d gone for a five-bob flip in the back seat of an Avro biplane left over from the Great War. He’d seen the Thames, his little house in Silvertown, and the three long rectangles of the Royal Docks glinting in the sunlight below. He didn’t give it a second thought at the time, but now he was only too aware that if they glinted in sunlight they’d glint in a bit of moonlight too, and sometimes his spine shivered at the thought of standing in the middle of this unmistakable landmark. You could black out every house in London, every house in England, but you couldn’t black out water, and when the moon shone its light on the river and these docks, there might just as well be a three-mile-long neon sign inviting the German air force to fly this way and do their worst.
It was Tuesday the fifth of November, 1940, which meant it was the last of his month of night shifts. It also meant the docks had been under attack from the air for two months now. It was a wonder anything was left standing.
This wasn’t what Arthur Wilkinson had signed up for, nearly thirty years before. He’d joined the Port of London Authority Police in 1912, two years after it was set up, as a second-class constable on twenty-five shillings a week. His main reason for becoming a PLA copper was that it offered steady money, not the regular unemployment he’d known in the building trade before that, but he’d grown to enjoy the job. The Great War changed all that, of course. He’d policed the docks all the way through, and it was no laughing matter, especially when the Kaiser started bombing them. Keeping order in the peacetime years that followed was a merciful relief in comparison with that. But now it had started all over again, and with a savage intensity that the old Kaiser could only have dreamed of. Just a few weeks ago a PLA police sergeant and constable had been killed in this very dock when an unexploded bomb went off. Now, after nearly sixty nights of devastating air raids, he wasn’t sure how much more his nerves could stand.
He pulled up short, noticing just in time by the moonlight that he was about to walk into a heap of discarded timber on the edge of the quay. The dockers called it dunnage, but to him it was simply lumps of old wood, just part of the junk they left lying around at night, ready to trip you up and send you plunging into the waters of the dock. Like all PLA policemen he was required to be able to swim fifty yards, but if you ended up in the water you had to have your stomach pumped. He’d had that done to him once and he never wanted to experience it again.
To say that the water was foul was an understatement. He had the smell of it in his nostrils now, and there was no denying it was pretty disgusting. He remembered some of the old-timers in the police saying that back in the days before oil-burning ships, the water in the docks was so clean they’d sometimes take a dip at the end of the day. Those days were long gone, of course, but in any case, he wondered, even without the oil, what about all the other stuff that got into the water? The ships’ holds, for example: they were hosed out into the dock, no matter what noxious cargo they’d been carrying. And the toilets. It was against regulations for anyone to use these on the ships while in the dock, because they discharged directly into the water, but the lack of any alternative meant the regulation was ignored. And there were no toilets on barges, so barge hands often had no choice but to improvise as best they could – straight into the dock water. Then when you added the stench of rotting meat and vegetables, dead animals, chemicals, and anything else that fell or was dropped into the water, the dock was a thoroughly unsavoury place to work.
He moved away a little from the edge and tried to focus his thoughts on the end of his shift. Soon he’d be sitting down for a cup of tea and some breakfast, then having a welcome sleep and a bit of respite – if his house was still standing. He continued on his way, towards the next ship that lay at its mooring ahead of him. He could make out its name inscribed in big letters on the bow: Magnolia.
As he got closer, he heard the creak of a hawser on a barge moored beside the ship and looked down onto one of the many such craft that were left tied up around the ships in the dock overnight.
He had passed this point several times already during the night, but now there was just enough light to notice an odd outline at the near end of the barge. He pulled out his flashlight to check, and confident that there were no enemy planes overhead to see his light, he directed a brief beam downwards.
That was when he saw the man. He was wearing a dark civilian overcoat and a steel helmet. Just above his right elbow was an armlet bearing the words ‘Home Guard’. He was lying on his back, draped awkwardly over the wooden coaming that framed the barge’s hatch, and he wasn’t moving. Wilkinson climbed down for a closer look and stopped: the man’s eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. He knelt down beside him but could find no sign of injury. Then he slipped a hand beneath the man and felt something wet on his fingers. Using both hands, he lifted the body slightly at one side – enough to see the knife sticking out of the man’s back.
CHAPTER TWO
The message from the station had been terse. Mr Soper wanted to see Detective Inspector Jago in his office at seven-fifteen. It was a common experience for Jago to be roused by duty from a sound sleep in his comfortable bed, or more recently from a fitful doze in his distinctly uncomfortable Anderson shelter in the back yard of his house, but it was less common for Divisional Detective Inspector Soper, his boss, to be in action at such an early hour. There must be something unusual going on, he thought, as he struggled into his clothes and grabbed a quick slice of bread and jam on his way to the car. Finding out precisely what that was, though, he was happy to leave until later: by then he might be awake enough to take it in.
At a quarter past seven precisely he knocked on the door of the DDI’s office at West Ham police station, and a voice from inside bade him enter.
‘Sir?’ said Jago, presenting himself before Soper’s desk.
‘Ah, yes. Good morning, John. There’s been an incident in the docks – suspected murder. I want you to get down there straight away.’
‘Which dock, sir?’
‘The Royal Albert.’
‘Right. I assume the PLA Police can’t look after it themselves?’
‘Unfortunately not. I’ve had a phone call from Divisional Inspector Grayson asking for assistance – he’s their senior officer for the Royal Docks. Between you and me, I don’t see why they have to call on the Metropolitan Police for help whenever they get something a bit out of the ordinary. It’s not as though we’re sitting around up here with nothing to do. I told him we’re very stretched at the moment, especially what with having to run these new anti-looting squads.’
‘Quite, sir.’
‘Who’d have thought we’d need them? There’s no morality these days. I can’t begin to imagine what goes through the minds of villains like that who’ll stoop to stealing decent people’s possessions during air raids, but it’s happening, and we’ve got to put a stop to it. I told Grayson we’ve had to double the number of officers working on it, not to mention getting extra detectives transferred to our division to take charge of them. I also pointed out that the PLA Police have their own CID and suggested they might like to deal with this suspected murder, but he said they only have one detective inspector to cover all the Royal Docks, so they want our help. We’re stuck with it, I’m afraid.’
‘Right, sir. So who’s the victim?’
‘I don’t know his name, but it seems he was in the Home Guard.’
‘Killed in the line of duty?’
‘I don’t know. But if you want my opinion, we’re asking too much of those men. They’re supposed to be our last line of defence against the Germans, and I understand they’re being held in reserve to deal with any rioting that might break out too, but they’re mostly boys and old age pensioners, as far as I can see.’
‘Maybe they should be deployed to stop the looting.’
Soper sniffed contemptuously.
‘Yes, maybe – but they’ve got a few slippery customers in their own ranks, haven’t they? What about that case last week? Some seventeen-year-old lad in the Home Guard jailed for a month for stealing cigarettes from a bomb site. He admitted stealing them but said he didn’t think it was looting. What’s that supposed to mean? I worry about the youth of today, John. No backbone, no sense of right and wrong, that’s the problem. How are we going to win the war with young people like that?’
Jago was beginning to feel his time would be better spent investigating a suspected murder in the Royal Albert Dock than on discussing the youth of today with DDI Soper, so he decided to take this question as rhetorical and make his exit.
‘All right if I go down there now, sir? There’s no point wasting time if it’s our case.’
‘Wasting time?’ said Soper. ‘Certainly not. Get started as soon as you can, and take young Cradock with you – I left instructions for him to be got out of bed. I’ve also called the hospital and told them to send that young medical chappie Dr Anderson down to take a look at the body. How’s he shaping up, by the way?’
‘Dr Anderson? He’s doing very well, I think. Intelligent, thorough, and none of the airs and graces you get with some of those famous pathologists. Doesn’t miss a thing, in my experience – it just goes to show some youngsters can teach the old dogs a trick or two.’
Soper made an indeterminate noise that sounded as though he accepted Jago’s assessment but was reserving judgement nonetheless.
‘Right,’ he concluded. ‘And when you get to the Royal Albert, you’re to go to No. 20 Gate on Connaught Road and report to Detective Inspector Burton of the PLA Police.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Jago left Soper and returned to the CID office, where he found Detective Constable Cradock waiting for him, munching a bacon sandwich from the canteen.
‘Come along, Peter,’ he said. ‘We’re taking a little trip down to the docks – the PLA Police have requested our assistance with a suspected murder. You can finish that on the way.’
‘Very good, guv’nor,’ said Cradock. He stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and chewed it vigorously as he followed Jago out to the yard at the back of the station. By the time they reached Jago’s Riley Lynx he was able to speak again.
‘I’ve never been in the docks,’ he said. ‘How does it work with us and the PLA Police – I mean, what’s our jurisdiction?’
‘It’s simple – they’re a separate force and deal with everything inside the docks, but they’ll ask us for help with things like murder. Our jurisdiction’s the same there as it is anywhere else in the borough, but theirs is just the docks and up to one mile outside them.’
Judging that this was sufficient information for Cradock to digest, Jago started the car and they set off.
It was about four miles’ drive from West Ham police station to the Royal Docks, but the recent aid raids had made any kind of travel unpredictable. Jago took what should have been the most direct route, heading south down West Ham Lane to Plaistow Road and over the Northern Outfall Sewer, the great Victorian construction project that conveyed half of London’s sewage through West Ham from the Abbey Mills pumping station in the west to the Beckton sewage works in the south-east. But a few minutes later, just past the East London Cemetery, they ran into a liquid obstruction of a different kind. The road ahead was flooded and closed.
‘Look at that,’ said Jago. ‘Plaistow on Sea. One of those bombers last night must’ve hit a water main.’
‘Yes,’ said Cradock. ‘Just as well they didn’t blow up the sewer instead. Thankful for small mercies, eh, sir?’
‘I suppose so,’ Jago replied grudgingly. Hauling on the steering wheel, he performed a quick three-point turn in the blocked road and set off in search of an alternative route to the south of the borough. After more diversions in Canning Town they eventually arrived at Connaught Road and took the hydraulic swing bridge across the water channel linking the Royal Victoria Dock to their right and the Royal Albert to their left. Moments later they saw their destination: No. 20 gate, known as the Silvertown Gate, an entrance to the south side of the Royal Albert Dock.
Jago recognised the pathologist from Queen Mary’s Hospital in Stratford standing by the gate and halted the car beside him.
‘Dr Anderson,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. I hope you haven’t been waiting too long. Hop in.’
As Anderson climbed into the back seat, the uniformed police constable guarding the gate came over to the car. Mindful that this would be an officer of the PLA Police and therefore might not recognise him, Jago identified himself to the constable.
‘Thank you, sir,’ the man replied, with a brief salute. ‘Detective Inspector Burton’s waiting for you down at No. 10 shed. Keep on this side of the dock and drive down Centre Road behind those big transit sheds – that’s where the dockers store the cargo until the customers’ lorries collect it. About two-thirds of the way down the road you’ll come to the Customs and Excise Office, behind No. 14 shed. Park your car there, then walk through the gap between No. 14 and No. 12 sheds and carry on a bit further down the quay and you’ll come to No. 10.’
They drove in through the gate. Passing the Royal Albert’s two dry docks on their left, they continued down the road that ran between the long line of buildings on the south quay, much bigger than the name ‘shed’ would have suggested, and the corresponding row of structures on the north side of the King George V Dock, until they came to the gap the constable had described. They parked the car and completed their journey on foot along the quayside.
From here they could see the full expanse of the dock’s placid water, with ships moored down both sides, their bows pointing to the west, clusters of barges around them, and here and there other barges to which the barrage balloons gleaming silver in the sky overhead were tethered. The sun was just rising in the east, the direction in which they were walking, and by its light they could see evidence of the destruction wrought by enemy aircraft undeterred and unhampered by the balloons. One of the big single-storey transit sheds was gutted, its steel-and-concrete framework still standing but the rest of it a desolate chaos of loose bricks and other debris, and the quayside crane outside it a mangled wreck. There was a chill in the air.
At No. 10 shed a man in an overcoat and trilby hat stepped forward to meet them.
‘DI Burton,’ he said to Jago. ‘Jim Burton. I’m the CID inspector for the Royal Docks.’
He was a thin man, with a pinched nose and a mouth that looked permanently turned down. As they shook hands, Jago noticed that Burton’s overcoat was frayed at the cuffs, and his tie crooked. He wondered whether his Port of London Authority Police opposite number had also been dragged out of bed before time this morning. He introduced Cradock and Anderson, and Burton responded with a nod and a half-hearted smile.
‘If I can be of any assistance …’ said Burton. He looked from Jago to Cradock and back again. ‘But I don’t suppose you’ll need any from me.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Jago replied. ‘We’ll need any help you can give us.’
Burton gave a sort of shrug, said, ‘Follow me,’ and turned away in the direction of the nearest ship. Jago and Cradock followed, with Anderson bringing up the rear. Jago was looking to the left and right, taking in his surroundings, when something caught his eye. A taut mooring rope ran from the ship down to a steel bollard set into the quayside, and leaning against the rope was a rifle.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said. The other men stopped. ‘Is this something to do with it?’
Burton glanced in the direction Jago’s hand was pointing.
‘Could be,’ he said. ‘I was going to mention it. The dead man’s a Home Guard, and some of them have rifles, so it could be his. Don’t worry, though, we haven’t touched it. I thought we’d best leave it for you.’
Jago knelt down beside the firearm, thinking of the Lee-Enfield .303 he’d carried day and night as a soldier in the last war until he was given a commission and a pistol. This one wasn’t a Lee-Enfield, but peering closely he could see the words ‘Ross Rifle Co’ engraved on the breech. He looked away, and as his eyes scanned the black expanse of the dock beyond, unbidden memories of sights and sounds from a quarter of a century earlier broke into his mind. The stench of the water recalled the unforgettable odour of rotting flesh, and for a moment he thought he could see a human face in the inky surface shimmering below him. The face of a man drowning.
He shuddered, and pushed the image out of his mind. When he was seventeen, nearly eighteen, and waiting to be called up for military service in the Great War, he’d reckoned it might be safer to join the navy than to fight in the trenches. But then he’d imagined having to go into action below decks in a warship, trapped behind watertight bulkhead doors and hearing the gunfire raging above until a shell or torpedo struck, with no escape from the inrushing water. The thought was unbearable. Anything on the land must be better than that – at least you’d have a chance. It was only later as a soldier at the front that he encountered a vicious irony of the war: seeing men who’d been gassed by the enemy, drowning on dry land as the evil chemicals did their work.
He snapped his eyes away from the water and checked that the rifle’s safety catch was on before standing up and beckoning Cradock.
‘Peter,’ he said, ‘get this checked for fingerprints. I assume it belonged to the dead man too, but I’d like to know who put it here, so we need to know whether anyone else has handled it.’
‘Yes, guv’nor,’ said Cradock, slipping his gloves on and carefully taking the rifle from him. He held it awkwardly, not used to handling such a weapon. Jago watched him, wishing that his own acquaintance with instruments of death like this had not been so intimate.
‘DI Burton,’ said Jago. ‘Shall we take a look at the body now? I want to know what Dr Anderson makes of it too.’
‘Certainly,’ Burton replied. ‘But I’ve got someone here you might like to have a quick word with first. He’s called Danbury, and he’s the dead man’s commanding officer in the Home Guard. He seems in a bit of a hurry, but I told him you’d want to see him and asked him to wait. He’s identified the body too – I thought it’d be useful to do that in case he had to run off before you got here.’
‘Thank you. So who was the deceased?’
‘Bloke by the name of Ray Lambert – lives locally, works in the docks.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘No, never seen him before.’
‘Have you ever come across the name?’
‘No. He hasn’t come to our attention. But there’s a lot of men working in here, you know.’
‘Of course. Let’s speak to Mr Danbury then.’
Burton brought Danbury over. He was a heavily built man but tall enough to offset the impression of portliness, and in his mid-fifties, possibly older, with a florid face and an overripe moustache. He wore Home Guard khaki overalls, with a single dark-blue stripe on the shoulder and a small row of medal ribbons over the left breast pocket, among which Jago noticed the purple-and-white of a Military Cross, the same as his own.
‘Danbury,’ said the man, extending his hand to shake Jago’s. ‘Major Danbury.’
‘Detective Inspector Jago, West Ham CID. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the Home Guard’s rank insignia – what does that stripe signify?’
‘Ah, yes. I don’t suppose anyone knows what they mean outside the Home Guard. It means I’m a platoon commander, but in the army my rank was higher, so my name is Major Danbury.’
As a former soldier himself, Jago had a long-standing aversion to retired officers who insisted on retaining their rank in civilian life, but not wishing to give offence at their first meeting he decided to humour him.
‘Well, Major Danbury, thank you for waiting. I understand you’ve identified the body as that of Mr Ray Lambert.’
‘That’s right, poor fellow.’
‘And he was a member of your platoon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you on duty here in the dock overnight?’
‘Yes, I was. But look, I’m rather keen to get away. It’s just that my wife and daughter have been up all night too, working on the mobile canteen – voluntary work, you understand – and I need to get them home in the car. They’re very tired – the weaker sex, you know. Could I possibly talk to you later?’
‘Certainly – I’d like to find out more about Mr Lambert. Do go, if you wish, but before you do, can you tell me who is Mr Lambert’s next of kin? We’ll need to inform them. An address would be useful too, if you have one.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Danbury took a small notebook from his pocket and leafed through the pages.
‘Here we are. He’s got a wife – her name’s Mrs Brenda Lambert. I don’t know her, but she lives at 75 Saville Road, in Silvertown. Now, will that be all?’
‘Yes. But may I have your address too?’
‘I’m so sorry. You’ll need that, won’t you? It’s in Forest Gate – The Cedars, Claremont Road. I’ll be at home this afternoon.’
‘Thank you, Major Danbury. I’ll see you then.’
Danbury took his leave and set off at a brisk pace, not quite marching and yet not simply walking, in what seemed to Jago a semi-military style which aptly reflected the constitutional status of the Home Guard volunteers.
‘Busy man,’ said Cradock as Danbury receded from view.
‘His sort always are,’ said Jago. ‘Right, you and I will have to go round and break the news to Lambert’s widow when we’ve finished here.’
‘Right.’
‘And DI Burton, after we’ve done that I’d like to have a chat with you about how we’re going to work together.’
‘Fine,’ said Burton. ‘But as far as I’m concerned this is your case. If there’s anything specific you want me to do, just ask, but I don’t think there’s any need for me to tag along with you all the time. I’ve got plenty on my plate already, and if my boss has called you in it can only be because he wants me to get on with that and not get distracted by a murder case.’
Jago wasn’t sure how to interpret this, but at face value it sounded like an arrangement that would suit him.
‘OK,’ he replied. ‘But I’d still like to talk to you as soon as we’re back from Mrs Lambert’s. I want to get some background.’
‘By all means. How about a chat over a pint? I know one or two nice pubs round here.’
‘It’s a bit too early in the day for me, thanks. Besides, where I live the pubs aren’t open this early in the morning.’
‘Ah, well, it’s different down here – the pubs near the dock gates have a special dispensation to open early in the morning so the lads can get a drink on their way in to work. We call them six o’clock houses. Very thirsty work, being a docker, you know.’
‘Even so, I think I’d better decline, thank you.’
‘OK. In that case, if you want me I’ll be in the Albert Dock police office. But don’t go to the old place – we moved last year, and now we’re in the old Seamen’s Hospital, right at the far end of the dock on the northern side, just inside No. 9 Gate.’
‘Thanks. We should be with you by no later than ten o’clock, I would think. Now, let’s see the body.’
‘OK – it’s on a lighter.’ He threw a glance at Cradock, half pitying, half scornful. ‘And I don’t mean a cigarette lighter, Constable, in case that’s what you’re thinking. You do know what a lighter is round here, don’t you?’
Cradock pulled a non-committal face which he hoped suggested confidence rather than ignorance, but Burton seemed to recognise it as the latter. ‘It’s a barge, boy – a barge.’
Cradock nodded sagely.
‘It’s just down here,’ said Burton, addressing Jago again. ‘I’ve got PC Wilkinson there too. He’s the man who found the body.’
Jago, Cradock and Anderson followed Burton a short distance along the quay to where the lighter was moored, with the dead man’s body still sprawled face-up across it and the constable on guard on the quayside nearby.
‘Good morning, PC Wilkinson,’ said Jago. ‘I understand you’ve been on duty here overnight.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ Wilkinson replied.
‘And what were you doing?’
‘On the beat, sir. In the dock police there’s always two types of duty – gate duty or beat duty. On gate duty you’re manning the gates, and your job’s to stop people nicking stuff, making sure they don’t go out of the dock with anything they didn’t bring in. Beat duty’s patrolling the dock, of course. I’ve been on nights for a month, so all I do is walk round the dock all night.’
‘On your own?’
‘Yes, sir, it’s just one man. A bit tricky sometimes, too. It’s pitch-black in here at night now the war’s on, because they’ve turned all the lights off, so unless there’s a bit of moonlight you hardly know where you’re going.’
‘But there was some moon last night.’
‘That’s right – enough to see a bit, at least.’
‘And what time did you find the body?’
‘Five-thirty this morning, sir.’
‘Did you see anything suspicious? Anyone else around?’
‘No, sir. I just noticed the body lying on top of the lighter, and that was suspicious, of course. I had a bit of a look and saw a knife sticking out of the poor blighter’s back. I left everything as I’d found it and reported back to the sergeant. That’s all, really.’
‘Right, thank you. We’ll take a look.’
Jago and Cradock climbed down onto the barge, followed by Anderson. Burton joined them, but stood back.
‘You first, Doctor,’ said Jago to Anderson.
The young pathologist edged carefully past Cradock to get closer to the body. The deceased looked tall and lay with his arms spread out to either side and his face frozen as if in a moment of surprise. His right leg was bent back under him at the knee, like that of a man trying to get up.
‘No external signs of injury to the front,’ said Anderson, after examining it, ‘so there’s nothing to indicate that he landed face down. Now let’s have a look at the other side.’
He rolled the body over carefully. The handle of a knife was protruding from the man’s coat, about halfway up his back.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Not much doubt about that.’
‘What’s your verdict, then?’ asked Jago.
‘My initial verdict is that it looks pretty straightforward – he’s been stabbed in the back, and that’s that. But I’ll need to get him back to the mortuary and do a proper examination.’
‘The PLA has its own mortuary, Doctor, if that would be more convenient for you,’ Burton interjected, stepping forward. ‘It’s not far from here – just over on the north side of the Victoria Dock.’
‘Thanks for the offer, Mr Burton,’ said Anderson, ‘but I think I’d rather get him back to my own post-mortem room at Queen Mary’s, where I know where everything is. I’ll arrange to have the body collected.’
Burton took a step back again, as if opting out of further discussion.
‘We’ll need to see if we can get some prints off that knife too before you do your post-mortem, Doctor,’ said Jago. ‘Take care of that, will you, Peter?’
‘Yes, guv’nor,’ said Cradock.
‘Now, Doctor, if you’re finished,’ said Jago, ‘we’ll take a look in his pockets.’
He and Cradock poked into all the pockets they could find in Lambert’s clothes. Jago came up with nothing but a grubby handkerchief and a front-door key, but Cradock’s exploration was more productive.
‘Here we are, guv’nor,’ he said. ‘A wallet.’
He opened it and emptied the contents into his hand.
‘One identity card, a ten-bob note and a few shillings in loose change. Not planning to go out on a spree, then.’
‘I don’t imagine there’s a lot to spend money on in the docks at midnight,’ said Jago. ‘And is the identity card in the name Danbury gave us?’
‘Yes,’ Cradock replied. ‘Raymond Lambert. And the address is the one Danbury gave us for Mrs Lambert too.’
‘Is that all? No photo of his beloved wife, no membership cards, driving licence? No letters?’
‘No, sir. The only other thing is this.’
He handed Jago a crumpled scrap of paper that looked as though it had been torn from a notebook. Jago unfolded it and looked. It was blank except for two words pencilled in the middle of it: Dayabir Singh. He passed it back to Cradock.
‘What do you make of that?’
‘Looks foreign,’ said Cradock, returning it.
‘Yes,’ said Jago. ‘I think we can both be confident of that. But Singh’s a name, isn’t it? An Indian name.’
‘The name of the bloke who killed him?’
‘I suspect even Jesse Owens would find it too far to leap to that conclusion, although it’d be very convenient for us if you were right. But given that Mr Lambert was stabbed in the back and might not even have seen his killer, do you think he’s likely to have had time to get a bit of paper and a pencil out and write the man’s name on it?’
‘Er, no, sir.’
‘I agree. Still, it’s something – we’ll hang on to it.’
CHAPTER THREE
The narrow strip of soot-blackened shops and houses known as Silvertown had the feel of an island, squashed as it was between the Royal Docks to the north and the jumble of factories, chimneys, wharves and industrial premises that lined the River Thames to the south. It was just one of the areas of very poor housing hurriedly thrown up on marshland in Victorian times to accommodate first the construction workers who came to build the docks and then the tradesmen and labourers who worked in them. Silvertown had never been the most attractive of places, but now that the Luftwaffe had done their nightly work it was battered beyond recognition.
It was into this maze of bombed streets that Jago and Cradock now ventured in search of Mrs Lambert. Leaving the Albert Dock by the gate through which they had arrived, they turned left and headed south under the elevated Silvertown bypass onto Albert Road, passing the squat spire of St Mark’s Church on their right.
‘What’s that?’ said Cradock as a cloying smell assailed his nostrils.
‘That’ll be Tate & Lyle’s sugar refinery, on the right there,’ Jago explained. ‘It runs right down to the river. Like Shirley Temple, isn’t it? So sweet, it makes you feel a bit queasy.’
They reached the refinery and turned into Saville Road. The Lamberts’ house was on the left-hand side of this narrow street, the end of which was cut off by the dock fence. Behind it loomed a huge ship, twice as high as the houses, in the King George V dry dock. It made the houses look like toys.
‘Do you know why it’s called Silvertown, sir?’ said Cradock, surveying the gloomy surroundings as they came to a halt. ‘I don’t suppose it’s because of all the silver mines.’
‘Very observant of you,’ said Jago. ‘It’s named after Samuel Silver, who I think built one of the first enormous factories along the river. He started the India rubber and gutta-percha works about half a mile west of here, getting on for a hundred years ago.’
‘Gutta-percha? What on earth’s that?’
‘I don’t know. Some kind of rubber, I think. It’s what they made golf balls from, back in the old days. Ever heard of the Silvertown golf ball?’
‘Er, no, sir. I don’t play golf.’
‘Neither do I, but they used to be famous, and they were made down the road in Mr Silver’s factory.’ He opened the car door with a sigh. ‘Right, that’s enough history. We need to go and tell poor Mrs Lambert that her husband’s been killed.’
At number 75 a middle-aged woman opened the door to them. Her lined face suggested a lifetime of struggle, and Jago guessed she was probably younger than she looked. She was wearing the kind of cotton overall and turban that probably every woman in the street wore, and she had a duster in her hand.
Jago introduced himself and Cradock, and she let them in. The house was as humble on the inside as the exterior would have led them to expect, but it was clean and tidy.
‘Mrs Lambert,’ Jago began, ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news for you. Would you like to sit down?’
She sat down on a chair without answering, but then held up a hand before Jago could go on.
‘It’s all right, Inspector. It’s about Ray, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Well, you needn’t worry – I already know. He’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. I’m very sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied. Her voice was flat, and she sounded tired. ‘One of his mates has already been round to tell me – Charlie Bell, one of his Home Guard pals.’
‘I see. Can you tell me how he knew?’
‘Yes – he was on duty with Ray last night at the dock. Not with him when he died, though.’
‘And he was a friend of your husband’s, you say?’
‘Well, they worked together and they were in the Home Guard together, so I suppose they were friends, yes.’
‘I wonder if you could give me Mr Bell’s address. We might want to speak to him.’
‘Of course. I don’t know the house number, but he told me he lives in Woodman Street. He’s got lodgings on the corner with Dockland Street, just over the road from what’s left of St John’s Church since it was bombed.’
‘Thank you. I’m very sorry about your husband’s death, Mrs Lambert. Please accept my condolences.’
She raised her hand again wearily, as if to acknowledge his concern, or perhaps to dismiss it.
‘You’ll have to forgive me, Inspector – please don’t think I’m heartless. It’s just that I’m feeling a bit numb.’
‘I understand.’
‘It’s come as a shock, you see. One minute you’re waiting for your husband to come home, same as every other day, next minute they tell you he’s dead. It knocks you sideways. But that’s what life’s like round here – just one shock after another. Mind you, it was bad enough before this rotten war started – men losing their jobs, families that never had two ha’pennies to rub together in the first place suddenly out on the street. And now what? You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Half the factories bombed, and half the houses too – just ruins wherever you look.’
‘I’ve seen some of it on the way down this morning. It’s very bad.’
‘We got bombed out of our place on that first night of the Blitz, back in September. It’s just a pile of old bricks now – fell down like a house of cards. It was rented, of course, which I suppose is a mercy really, compared with losing a house you own, but just about everything we had went with it. Now we’re in this little place with what bits of furniture we could scrape together, praying it won’t happen again, but if this war carries on it probably will. And what’s anyone doing to help? We haven’t seen much of the government round here, nor the council. Mind you, if you live round these parts you get used to that. So I hope you can understand how I feel – don’t get me wrong, I’m shocked to hear what’s happened to Ray, but it just feels like I haven’t got enough strength left to take it in. You know what it’s like when a boxer’s finished and he keeps taking the punches but doesn’t have the sense to go down? That’s how I feel.’
Brenda Lambert lapsed into silence, and Jago nodded sympathetically. She pulled a white handkerchief out from her sleeve and dabbed a tear that had appeared in her eye.
‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage now,’ she continued. ‘Ray had a bit of life insurance, but the company said he’d have to pay an extra couple of bob a week if he wanted it to cover getting killed on Home Guard duty, and I don’t know whether he ever paid it.’
‘What was your husband’s job?’
‘He worked in the docks, of course, like all the other men. I don’t know much about it, though, so I’m not sure I can tell you a lot. I mean, I’ve never even been in the docks, have I? No one’s allowed in unless they work there or they’ve got official permission, so people like me don’t get in. I do know what Ray’s job was, though. He was a tally clerk – he had to tally the cargoes.’
‘What did that entail?’
‘Well, he always used to say he was a counter – he said there were hundreds of men all over the docks, all counting different things in different places, on the ships, on the quays, in the transit sheds and warehouses. They counted how much cargo went onto the ships when they were being loaded, how much came off when they were being discharged, how much went into the sheds, how much came out. You name it, they counted it, and it all had to tally up with what the ships reckoned they were carrying and what the customers were expecting to receive, as well as all the stuff that was lost or damaged on the way.’
‘Had he done that job for long?’
‘Oh, yes. He was a tally clerk when I first met him, and before that I think he was an ordinary docker. The job was just casual, of course, getting work from day to day with nothing guaranteed for tomorrow, but that’s the way he liked it. There was a time when people said he ought to get a regular office job on the PLA staff – he was good with numbers, see – but he was always a bit of a restless soul, and I don’t think that appealed to him.’
Jago took a scrap of paper from his pocket and showed it to her.
‘Can you tell me – have you seen this before?’
She examined it and gave him a blank look.
‘No. Should I have?’
‘Not necessarily. We found it on your husband – we think it’s a name.’
‘Really? Well, I’m sorry, but if it is it’s no one I know.’
‘Thank you.’ He folded the paper and put it back in his pocket. ‘Now, I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but can you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm your husband?’
‘Harm Ray? No – I can’t imagine anyone’d want to do that.’
‘And can you tell us where you were overnight?’
‘Yes, I was in the public shelter down the street, waiting to get blown to pieces. Stinking little hole, it is. You have to go out every twenty minutes just to get some air.’
‘Can anyone else corroborate that you were there?’
‘Well, we’re new here, like I said, so most of the neighbours probably don’t know who I am yet, but I expect I can find someone.’ She paused for a moment’s thought. ‘Here, you don’t think I done him in, do you?’
‘It’s just a routine question, Mrs Lambert.’
‘I see. Well, that’s all right then. I don’t want anyone thinking I could do a terrible thing like that. It’s all upsetting enough as it is.’
She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and gave a little sniff. Jago moved towards the door.
‘Once again, Mrs Lambert, I’m very sorry about what’s happened. We may need to talk to you again, but we’ll say goodbye now for the time being.’
She looked at him and forced a weak smile.
‘Yes, of course, dear. Bye bye.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Jago, ‘and thank you.’
Jago and Cradock left the house, shut the front door quietly behind them and returned to the car.
‘Must be awful to get news like that out of the blue,’ said Cradock. ‘She seemed to be coping well, though, didn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Jago replied. ‘But the women round here are tough – they have to be. They’re used to coping with the worst life can throw at them, and it’s the way their mothers brought them up. Nothing comes easy when you live in a place like this.’
‘And I suppose there’s no telling what she might be thinking and feeling inside. She might just be doing her best to put a brave face on it.’
‘Exactly.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Spots of rain spattered onto the car’s fabric roof as Jago settled in behind the wheel and started the engine. The sweltering days of September, when the bombs had begun to pound this area to rubble, were long gone, and the chances of driving with the roof down again before next summer looked slim.
‘Right,’ he said, as the car pulled away from the kerb, ‘we can get back to DI Burton now.’
He retraced their journey back to the Royal Albert Dock, this time entering a little farther up the Connaught Road through No. 9 Gate, which led onto the northern side of the dock. The police office was just inside the gate, and they found Burton at his desk. To Jago’s eye he didn’t look busy.
‘Ah,’ said Burton, looking up. ‘You’re back. That didn’t take you too long, then. Anything I can do for you?’
‘Yes,’ said Jago. ‘I’d like to talk to whoever’s in charge on that ship, the Magnolia, the one that’s moored next to where the body was found. Is it all right if I just go on board and introduce myself?’
‘Don’t see why not,’ said Burton. ‘But I’ll come with you, just in case you need a hand.’
He got up from his desk and took his hat from a hook near the door. The three men left the office and walked round to the southern side of the dock, where the ship still lay at its mooring.
‘How do we get on it?’ said Cradock, as they stood beside the ship. ‘Shouldn’t there be one of those gangplank things to walk up?’
‘It says Magnolia on the side, not Mauretania,’ said Burton. ‘Liners have gangplanks, but not little things like that. You go up there.’
Cradock followed the direction in which Burton was pointing and saw only a rope ladder dangling from the ship down to the quay.
‘After you,’ said Burton.
Cradock had never climbed a rope ladder onto a ship before. He turned to Jago with a helpless expression on his face, but Jago, who had, merely echoed Burton’s invitation with a casual wave of his hand in the direction of the problem.
Fortunately, at least the shower had abated. Cradock put a foot on the first wooden tread and gingerly hauled himself up, clinging to the ladder for dear life, but he was soon in trouble.
‘This is killing my arms, sir,’ he called down.
‘Hold the ropes, Peter, not the treads, and lean back a bit,’ Jago replied. ‘This is a useful skill for you to learn.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Cradock replied, gritting his teeth. He followed the instruction and with some difficulty made it to the top, then with equal difficulty managed to pull himself over the ship’s rail and onto the deck. To his annoyance he then watched Jago and Burton make their way up the offending contraption with apparent ease.
As Burton joined them on the deck a man of about fifty wearing an old duffle coat and sea boots appeared, heading from the stern end of the ship to intercept them. He was a little on the short side, but his stocky build suggested they would go no farther without his say-so.
‘And who would you be?’ he said, in what sounded to Jago like a Scottish accent.
‘Police officers,’ said Burton. ‘These men need to talk to you about the man found dead down there this morning.’
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in a vague indication of where the body had been found. The seaman followed the direction of Burton’s gesture with his eyes and nodded.
‘Welcome aboard, gentlemen,’ he said with a kind of cautious growl, and stepped back.
‘Detective Inspector Jago, West Ham CID,’ said Jago, shaking his hand. ‘And this is Detective Constable Cradock.’
‘Duncan Carlisle. I’m the mate,’ the man replied. He glanced at Cradock. ‘That means I’m the second in command of this vessel, sonny. The master’s in charge, but he’s not here just now. Come this way.’
He led them to a small cabin and sat them at a table. Taking a pipe and a tobacco pouch from his pocket, he filled the pipe, lit it and started puffing.
‘Would you like a drink?’ he said, seeming a little more relaxed now.
‘No, thank you,’ said Jago. ‘We shouldn’t be long.’
‘As you please. So what can I do for you?’
‘Well, at the moment we’re trying to work out exactly what happened. So first of all, can you tell me whether you were on board overnight?’
‘Aye, I was.’
‘And the master too?’
‘No, he’s been ashore since early yesterday evening, before the blackout. I think he’s got a lady friend somewhere nearby.’ He gave Jago a broad wink and a knowing smile. ‘That’s why I was aboard, otherwise I’d have been away having a bit of fun myself. One of us has to be here, so that there’s an officer responsible for the ship. Just in case anything goes wrong, you know, and that can happen in dock too, not just at sea, especially when there’s bombs flying about.’
‘Of course. Now, did you see anything that might have some connection to that man’s death?’
Carlisle thought for a moment and shook his head.
‘No, I don’t think so. It was a pretty ordinary sort of night as far as I was concerned.’
‘How long have you been here in the Royal Albert?’
‘We got in two days ago – managed to get a berth that was relatively undamaged, and we’ll be here for about a week before we sail again. We came down from Scotland, and I can tell you that trip was even less fun than it was in the last war.’
‘The Germans, you mean?’
‘That’s right. Very active, they are, and a little old tub like this isn’t the most reassuring place to be when they turn up. We have to run the gauntlet down the coast to get here – we’ve got E-boats trying to torpedo us, planes dropping bombs and strafing us, and mines everywhere. It’s as bad as the Atlantic convoys, except we’ve got our own mine barrage running all the way up the coast from the Thames Estuary to the Moray Firth. That usually keeps the enemy submarines out, but those E-boats are light enough and small enough to get through. That’s why we call it E-Boat Alley. And all we’ve got to protect us is Harry Tate’s Navy.’
He chuckled to himself, with the pipe still gripped between his teeth, then pulled it out sharply as he began to cough.
‘Harry Tate?’ said Jago. ‘The old comedian with the car that used to fall to bits? I don’t understand.’
‘You would if you’d been in the navy. It’s what they used to call the Auxiliary Patrol in the Great War – it was mainly trawlers requisitioned by the Admiralty and manned by fishermen. Now we’ve got the same thing again, only they’ve changed the name to the Royal Naval Patrol Service. New name, same old tubs.’
‘Ah, yes, I’ve seen it mentioned in the papers.’
‘Right, well, if you could see what it’s got to defend us with you’ll realise why everyone still calls it Harry Tate’s Navy – liable to fall to pieces at any moment. Brave men, though, to take on U-boats and E-boats and the Luftwaffe at eight knots maximum. A fisherman told me we’ve already lost more than a hundred of those trawlers on minesweeping duties. Anyway, however many are left, we need them more than ever now that France has thrown in the towel.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because now the Germans have put big guns in on the French coast just the other side of the Channel, and they can shell our merchant shipping as it sails past.’
He leant forward and jabbed the stem of his pipe towards them.
‘This time last year more than a third of the country’s trade was coming through the Port of London. You just imagine what a state we’d be in if that was all trying to get through the Channel now. Even the government could work out that might be a problem if war broke out, so they decided to divert some of the shipping to what they reckoned were safer ports, further away from the bombers, and that’s why we’re so busy up and down the east coast. Most of the imported food comes into places like the Clyde, and then they send it down south by train or by coasters like the Magnolia to storage facilities here at the Royals or the West India Docks. Clever, eh?’
