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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Blitz Detective
- Sprache: Englisch
First published as Firing Line. October, 1940. Bombs are falling on Stratford when air-raid warden Sylvia Parks sees a house with a shining light, in clear breach of the city's strict blackout rules. With no answer at the door she manages to break in, only to discover the body of a young woman, strangled to death with a stocking. For Detective Inspector John Jago, the scene brings back memories of the gruesome Soho Strangler, who murdered four women a few years ago but has never been caught - could there be a connection?
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Seitenzahl: 470
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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THE STRATFORD MURDER
Mike Hollow
For Jackie: my sister, my friend
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
She wondered what it would feel like in the instant your body was blown to pieces. Would there be time for you to register the sensation before you ceased to exist? Or would some part of you live on beyond death, able to remember the pain? She brushed the thought from her mind. There were more pressing things to focus on, like not falling down a broken manhole in the blackout.
She was used to brushing thoughts from her mind. At work they called her a no-nonsense sort of woman. The sort who got on with the job. The sort who coped. Now she was coping with holding down a job in the daytime and being an air-raid warden at night. At first, when the really big raids started at the beginning of September, she’d been twitchy, yes, but even then not panicky like some – men included. As always, she’d just got on with it. Now, six weeks later, if a bomb landed round the corner and took out a house or two she barely flinched. Some people said it wasn’t natural for a woman to cope like that, but she knew that’s what women always did.
Not all women, of course. There was one she saw every night in one of the public shelters she patrolled, a worn-looking creature about her own age, muttering prayers for her husband, her children, her home, quivering with the fear of losing them. But that was the difference: Sylvia Parks had nothing to lose.
Next birthday she’d be forty-nine, if she managed to dodge the bombing that long. Past her prime, people would say, if they knew. At forty-eight she’d already been a war widow half her life, a leftover, one of the tens, the hundreds of thousands seen but unnoticed every day on every street, slowly ageing women married to ghosts.
She paused to pull her scarf tighter against the chill as a train rumbled across the bridge over Carpenters Road and on into the night. Pushing her steel helmet back from her forehead, she mouthed a silent curse at the planes that droned with their irregular engine-beat in the darkness above. For twenty-four years she’d felt numb, adrift, and only now had the nightly risk of death made her feel alive.
She glanced down at the pavement and stepped over a cat’s cradle of fire hoses. A house to her right – or what was left of it – was still smouldering, but one of the other wardens had told her they’d got the old lady out just in time. Sylvia knew the type. ‘It’ll take more than Hitler to get me out of my bed,’ she’d have said, silly old fool. Well, she was wrong, wasn’t she?
It had been cold like this on their wedding day, November 1915, with Sylvia shivering in borrowed white lace and Robbie spotless in his Royal Field Artillery uniform, a pair of corporal’s stripes on each sleeve. She was twenty-three, and he a year older. Four days’ leave from shelling the Germans for him, two days as a married woman for her before he had to go back. And by May he was dead.
She heard the crash of three bombs landing somewhere towards the London and North Eastern Railway works the other side of Stratford station. A target the German aircraft would be pleased to hit, she thought, like so many other places in West Ham. Big bombs too, by the sound of it, but no threat to her here. She’d wait till they came a bit closer before she thought of taking cover.
This wasn’t her own sector, but she could imagine Carpenters Road, crammed with factories and works, would be another important target. The post warden, her superior in the Air Raid Precautions service, had sent her over from her regular patch to gather information on the situation here. Not long ago he’d described her to a visiting dignitary as fearless, and her conduct as an ARP warden under bombing conditions as exemplary, but the truth was she simply didn’t care. What was the worst that could happen? Yes, a hundred pounds of high-explosive bomb might blast her to anonymous shreds of flesh on the back streets of Stratford, but there’d be no husband, no children, no parents, no siblings to mourn her. No hearts stabbed through by grief at her death, no unfillable void left by her passing. In her oblivion she might even be reunited with Robbie – who could say?
Up ahead, just before the bridge, she could see flames raging skywards from the site of the old William Ritchie and Sons jute factory. She checked her watch as she approached it: just coming up to three o’clock in the morning, but no chance of a break yet. Her job was to find out the extent of damage from the firemen, as well as details of any casualties and possibly unexploded bombs, and then take her report back to the ARP post.
She crossed the road, then stopped as something caught her eye. Not another one – would these people never learn? At the back of one of the houses adjoining the jute works site a ground-floor window was shining like a beacon. Of course, even an idiot should be able to see there was no serious risk of light in a kitchen window guiding the German air force to its target when there was a huge blaze like that right next door, but nevertheless she wasn’t allowed to ignore it. She’d have to tell whoever lived there to turn the light off or obscure it with their blackout curtain. That was if there was anyone at home, of course. If there wasn’t, she’d have to find a policeman or a fireman to break in – as an ARP warden, for reasons best known to the people who made the regulations, she wasn’t permitted to do so.
She strode up to the house and was about to reach for the door knocker when she saw a pair of bell-pushes to her left. So the house must be two flats. She jammed her forefinger onto the lower one and held it there for two or three seconds. Nobody came. She pressed again, for longer this time, then bent down and shouted through the letterbox. Still no answer. She tried the upper bell, but this too went unanswered. She stepped back and looked up to the first floor of the house. All the curtains were open and the rooms behind them in darkness: the whole house had a bleak and lonely air. With a sigh of exasperation she set off briskly up the road towards the blaze. No policemen in sight: she’d have to ask a fireman.
Fire hoses snaked in all directions across the factory site, each one terminating in a cluster of firemen wrestling to direct what must have been tons of water into the burning buildings, too focused on their task even to notice Sylvia approaching. She looked around for help and spotted one man sitting alone on a doorstep away from the inferno. He was wearing a fireman’s tunic, and as she approached she could see the Auxiliary Fire Service badge on its breast, and the letters AFS on the front of his steel helmet. He looked exhausted, and when she drew close enough to see his eyes by the light of the fire they were vacant, as if in his mind he was somewhere else, far away.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for some help. Are you injured?’
Her question made him snap to attention, like a man caught dozing on duty.
‘Me?’ he replied, with a sudden brightness and a hint of Welsh in his voice. ‘No, not injured, love, but bless you for asking. I had a bit of a slip off the ladder over there, and it knocked the wind out of me. I’m just sitting here for a moment to recover. How can I help you?’
‘I’m Sylvia Parks. I’m an ARP warden.’
‘I can see that,’ he replied, glancing at her helmet. ‘Hosea Evans – Auxiliary Fire Service, as you can also no doubt see. So what’s up?’
‘I’ve got a house over the road with a light on, and there’s no answer when I ring the bell, so I need you to break in so we can turn it off.’
‘Break in? Why me?’
‘Because firemen are allowed to, and wardens aren’t. I don’t make the regulations, but I don’t want some bobby nicking me for breaking and entering.’
‘They wouldn’t do that, love.’
‘Wouldn’t they? We’ve put their noses out of joint enough already when it comes to who does what. They kicked up a right stink when someone said the ARP should be in charge of everything in an air raid, not them.’
‘Except fire-fighting.’
‘Yes, all right, except fire-fighting. Anyway, the fact remains that I need you to break into that house for me. There may be someone in there who’s hurt or can’t get to the door for some reason. If so, they’re in danger.’
‘All right,’ said Evans, hauling himself to his feet. ‘Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom, lead Thou me on.’
Sylvia recognised the hymn, but wasn’t sure whether his intention was poetic or patronising.
‘This way,’ she said. ‘Welsh, are you?’
‘Oh, yes. I expect you could tell.’
‘It wasn’t difficult. Now come along – as quickly as you can.’
She set off towards the house, with Evans limping along beside her.
‘You really could, you know,’ he said.
‘Could what?’
‘Break in for yourself. They’ve changed the regulations. You’re fully entitled to smash your way into some poor soul’s house now, especially if you think they need rescuing. No need to bring a boy like me along.’
‘Well, they haven’t told me. Not that anyone tells us much – we spend so much time enforcing the blackout, they must think we like being kept in the dark.’
‘Oh, yes, very good,’ said Evans with a laugh, although Sylvia wasn’t sure whether it was genuine.
‘Here we are,’ she said as they arrived. She rang the bell again, but there was no answer. She turned to Evans and jerked her thumb towards an alleyway that ran along the side of the property. ‘Down there,’ she said. ‘Back gate. Off you go.’
Evans hobbled down the alleyway, followed by the warden. They turned left at the end, into another narrow lane bounded on one side by a brick wall that enclosed the small yards behind the houses. He reached the first gate and rattled it.
‘It’s locked,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to break it down?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘We don’t want to create more damage than we have to. That wall looks manageable – over you go.’
Evans seemed suddenly to regain his agility, and Sylvia was surprised to see him clambering over the wall without difficulty. She followed him, thankful for the protection of her sturdy tweed overcoat and leather gloves, and for the fact that like many of her fellow female wardens she’d taken to wearing slacks since the air raids started.
At the end of the back yard was an Anderson shelter, sunk into the ground to the requisite depth and covered with soil. She shone her flashlight in at the entrance: it was empty. Crossing to the back door of the house she tried the handle. It was locked.
‘Open it, please,’ she said to Evans.
‘Righto,’ he replied, and took his fire axe from its pouch on his belt. He pushed the spike end of its head into the gap between the door and the frame, and with a couple of twists the door was open. He swung it wider and held it open with a flourish, inviting Sylvia to enter first.
She stepped past him without a word and went into the scullery. It was dark, but beneath the door leading to the kitchen she could see the light glowing. She went on, with Evans following her. The kitchen was empty too. She drew the blackout curtains across the window, leaving the light on, and went into the hall. There was an open door on the left, leading into what must have been the front room. This was in darkness too, but as she went in she swept her flashlight quickly round it. The first thing she saw was a dazzling reflection of her own light from a tall mirror – a wardrobe. As the realisation dawned that this was the bedroom, her light picked out a bed.
She stopped, and let out an involuntary gasp. On the floor beside the bed there was the unmistakeable shape of a body dressed in a jersey and slacks, curled on its side, face to the bare polished floorboards. It was lying unnaturally, one arm twisted behind it. The head was shrouded in a tangle of blonde hair.
‘Look,’ she whispered to Evans. ‘It’s a woman.’
She knelt down beside the body and gave it a gentle shake, but the woman did not stir.
‘She must be unconscious,’ said Evans. ‘Passed out, by the look of it.’
Sylvia gripped the woman by the shoulder and rolled her onto her back, and gasped again.
‘Worse than that,’ she said. ‘Look at that thing round her neck. I think she’s been strangled.’
CHAPTER TWO
It was a quarter to four in the morning when Detective Inspector John Jago arrived at the scene. He was not in the brightest of moods. When the bomb blasts ceased and a measure of silence fell, he’d tried to settle down in the damp tomb of his Anderson shelter for some belated sleep, only to be roused by the noise of what proved to be a uniformed constable rapping his truncheon vigorously on the shelter’s corrugated iron wall.
‘Sorry, sir,’ his unexpected visitor had said. ‘You’re wanted in Carpenters Road. A body’s been found in a house next to the old jute works by the railway bridge.’
‘What?’ said Jago, struggling out of his uncomfortable bed and sticking his head out of the shelter.
‘Foul play suspected,’ the officer added in a theatrically gloomy tone. ‘PC Gracewell’s down there waiting for you, sir, guarding the scene.’
Jago thanked him as courteously as he could. Not the best start to a Monday morning, but the poor man was only doing his duty. He threw some clothes on and dragged a comb through his hair, then set off in his car to the scene of the crime.
He found PC Gracewell waiting for him in Carpenters Road, but there was no sign of Cradock.
‘Morning, sir,’ said Gracewell. ‘I’m sorry we had to disturb you, but it looks like a suspicious death.’
‘Where’s Detective Constable Cradock?’ said Jago. ‘Did you get him out of bed too?’
‘I contacted the station, sir – the phone box down the road’s still working. He’s living in the section house, isn’t he? I expect they’ll have told him. They said they’d try to get hold of the pathologist at the hospital and get him down here as soon as possible, but he hasn’t arrived yet. They said they’d get the police surgeon too, but apparently he’s not been very good at answering his phone in the night of late.’
‘Don’t tell me – I assume he hasn’t turned up either.’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ said Jago. ‘What do you know?’
‘It’s a young woman, sir. Looks like she’s been murdered. She was found in that house there by an air-raid warden name of Mrs Sylvia Parks, but she’s had to go off and make a report. I told her you’d want to speak to her, but she hasn’t come back.’
‘So what did she have to say before she disappeared?’
‘She said there was a light on in the downstairs flat and no answer when she rang at the door, so she got a fireman to break in and they found the woman dead. The fireman’s still here – Evans, he’s called. I told him to stay until you got here. He’s waiting just across the road there.’
‘Good work. I’d better get in the house and have a look at the body.’
‘I’m very sorry, sir, but it’s not there.’
‘Not in the house, or not anywhere?’
‘Not in the house, sir. I’m afraid it’s been moved from where it was found.’
‘Wonderful. That’s just what we need.’
‘I’d have made sure nobody touched it or moved it before you came, but unfortunately by the time I got here they’d already done it. It’s just over there on the pavement, by the wall. They covered it with a blanket.’
Jago was about to give vent to his feelings about members of the public who thought they were being helpful by moving bodies when he spotted Cradock hurrying down the street towards him.
‘Good morning, Peter,’ he said when Cradock arrived. ‘Good of you to join us.’
‘Very sorry, guv’nor. I had to—’
‘Never mind. You’re here now, and we’ve got work to do. Tom Gracewell’s just told me the body’s already been moved, and there’s a fireman that we need to talk to.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I think we can manage without you now,’ said Jago to the uniformed constable. ‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than hang around here waiting for the CID to arrive. Thanks for your help – you’ve done everything right.’
‘Thank you, sir. I think the fireman’s keen to get away – he’s been on duty all night.’
‘Very well, we’ll have a quick word with him straight away. That’ll be all.’
PC Gracewell nodded, thanked Jago again and set off down the road in the direction of Stratford High Street.
‘Now, then, Peter,’ said Jago to Cradock, ‘to work. The victim’s a young woman, strangled it seems. She was found by an air-raid warden and a fireman, but the warden’s had to go and deliver some report to her post and isn’t back yet. The fireman’s over there, so we’ll see what he’s got to tell us first.’
They crossed the road to where the fireman was sitting with his back against a garden wall. He got to his feet as they approached.
‘Mr Evans?’ said Jago.
‘That’s me,’ said the fireman.
Jago thought he sounded surprisingly cheery for a man who’d been up all night fighting fires during an air raid.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Jago of West Ham CID,’ he said, ‘and this is Detective Constable Cradock.’
‘Good morning, gentlemen. Hosea Evans at your service. I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse the mess.’ He gestured over his shoulder towards the jute works site and its ruined buildings, glowing red in the darkness. ‘I don’t think this is quite what my illustrious countryman had in mind – you know, “keep them burning”.’
‘What?’
‘The home fires. You know – Ivor Novello. “Keep the Home Fires Burning”.’
He sang the first line of Novello’s song from the last war in a mellow baritone voice.
‘I see,’ said Jago. ‘The song, yes – very stirring. More popular at home than at the front, though, I’d imagine. So would I be right in thinking you must be Welsh?’
Evans laughed. ‘That’s right. I suppose if the voice doesn’t give me away the name will.’
‘I understand it was you who found the body.’
‘Well, strictly speaking it was that ARP warden who found the body, but I was with her, see?’
‘And what time was that?’
‘About three o’clock, as I recall.’
‘Where did you find the body?’
‘It was in the downstairs flat at number 28 over there. In the bedroom – that’s the front room.’
‘And can you tell me why you moved the body?’
‘Well, we thought we had to, really. The fire next door looked like it might spread, you see, so we had to make a quick decision – leave her there and risk any evidence of who did it being destroyed by fire, or pull her out. So that’s what we did. We got her out and covered her with a blanket, out of respect, like – respect for the dead. The ARP warden said she’d find a policeman, and I went back to my work. But look, couldn’t I tell you all this later? I’d like to get away if it’s all the same to you.’
‘No, I’ll need you to show me where you found her. I’ll—’
Jago was interrupted by a familiar voice calling his name. He turned round and saw Dr Anderson, the pathologist, emerging from the darkness.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Anderson. ‘I was actually asleep when your chaps called me. I came as soon as I could. What have you got for me?’
‘Mr Evans,’ said Jago to the fireman, ‘I’ll have to ask you to excuse me for a moment. Perhaps you’d like to get yourself a cup of tea – I saw a mobile canteen parked in the High Street on my way here.’
‘Very well,’ said Evans with a sigh. ‘Can I get one for you and your boy too?’
Jago took ‘boy’ to be a reference to Cradock, but in view of his colleague’s evident youth he didn’t think it inappropriate.
‘That would be kind of you. One spoonful of sugar for me, two for my colleague here. And Dr Anderson?’
‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Anderson. ‘I confess I grabbed one in the hospital canteen before I left.’
‘Just the two, then,’ said Jago. ‘Thank you, Mr Evans.’
Evans sauntered off towards the High Street, in no apparent hurry.
‘Right, let’s see what we’ve got,’ said Anderson, rubbing his hands together. Jago was unsure whether this was because of the night chill or simply a reflection of the unseemly enthusiasm the pathologist seemed to have for poking about in dead bodies. He pulled back the blanket and played his flashlight over the dead woman’s body.
Her clothes were loose-fitting and ordinary-looking: the kind of things he imagined a woman might wear for comfort rather than show, when she wasn’t expecting visitors or when she’d got home from work and changed. She was slim, of average build and height, with nothing visibly exceptional about her. But his hand twitched as he shifted the flashlight to her face and saw her eyes. They were bulging, staring forcefully at nothing, a picture of terror.
He tried to imagine what she would have looked like before she was consumed by those last terrible moments of fear and agony. If he ignored her eyes he could see an attractive young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a confident chin. What his mother would probably have called presentable. And she had what looked like a stocking tied tightly round her neck.
‘Do you know who she is?’ said Anderson.
‘Not yet. I’m going to take a look at her flat as soon as you’ve finished here, so I might find out more in there.’
‘Presumably not married, though – no rings on her finger.’
‘So I see.’
‘If you’ve seen enough, I think I’d rather like to get her back to the mortuary. I can put her under some proper light there. I just need to take her temperature before I go, to help establish an estimated time of death.’
Jago took a deep breath.
‘Tell me when you’ve finished,’ he said, turning away and motioning Cradock to come with him. He understood that pathologists had to do these things, but he had always found it such an undignified procedure that he felt guilty if he watched. Even the dead deserved their dignity.
‘All right, gentlemen, you can come back now,’ said Anderson moments later. ‘All done.’
‘Can you give us an indication of when she died?’
‘I’ll let you know when I’ve had a look at her in the mortuary. Right now her temperature’s still a little above the normal 98.4 degrees, but that’s nothing unusual.’
‘But she’s dead,’ said Cradock. ‘Shouldn’t it be lower?’
‘Not in this case,’ said Anderson. ‘As I’m sure you can tell from that thing round her neck, she’s been strangled, and in cases of asphyxia the body temperature actually rises.’
‘Right,’ said Cradock, sounding surprised.
‘But Doctor,’ said Jago, ‘surely the fact that she’s got a stocking tied round her neck doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what killed her.’
Anderson laughed. ‘Good point, Inspector. We should get you to train our forensic pathologists. You’re absolutely right – I’ll need to make a closer examination before I can be as categorical as I sounded.’
‘There’s something odd about it too,’ said Jago. ‘It looks much thinner and finer than any stocking I’ve ever seen – not that I’ve made a study of such things, of course.’
‘I think it must be one of those new ones, sir,’ said Cradock. ‘I’ve read about them.’
‘There you have the advantage of me, Peter. I don’t make a habit of reading the women’s page in the newspaper.’
‘Neither do I, sir. I just happened to hear about this new thing they’ve invented in America – they call it nylon.’
‘And they make stockings out of it? I’ve heard of nylon toothbrushes, but not stockings.’
‘That’s probably because they’re only made in America – you can’t get them here, as far as I know. I’ve never seen one either, so I’m just guessing.’
‘Well,’ said Jago to Anderson, ‘I’ll need to take that stocking. I’ve never come across one like it, so I’d like to get an expert to identify it.’
‘Can you wait until I’ve finished the post-mortem examination?’
‘Of course. Is there anything else you can tell us at this stage?’
‘No. I’ll just clear up now and get her taken to the mortuary. I’ll do the post-mortem immediately, so if you’d like to stroll up to the hospital at about six this morning I should be finished.’
‘Very well, I’ll see you then. Come along, Peter, let’s find out where that fireman’s got to with our cups of tea.’
They left the pathologist to complete his work and headed away towards the High Street. As soon as they were out of earshot Jago thought he heard Cradock make a strange noise like a suppressed chuckle, which then turned into a rather unconvincing cough.
‘You all right, Peter?’
‘Yes, sir, I’m fine. I was just wondering, though – who’s that expert you want to show the stocking to?’
‘The only person I can think of who probably knows enough about ladies’ hosiery to identify an American nylon stocking,’ said Jago.
‘Ah, yes, sir, I see,’ said Cradock in a knowing way. He said no more, turning his head slightly aside lest Jago should see his amused grin.
CHAPTER THREE
When they got to the bottom of Carpenters Road Cradock spotted Evans: he was holding a mug of tea in his right hand and two more in his left, and appeared to be deep in conversation with a small group of men in AFS uniforms. On seeing them approaching, the fireman bade a quick farewell to his friends and hurried over to them.
‘Sorry, Inspector,’ he said. ‘You must’ve wondered what’d happened to me. I was discussing the night’s fires with my colleagues, you see.’
Jago thought it was just as likely he’d been discussing the rugby results, but he let it pass. He took one of the mugs of tea that Evans was offering and sipped: it was little more than lukewarm, but he drank it. Cradock did the same.
‘Now then, Mr Evans,’ said Jago. ‘I want you to take us into the flat and show us exactly where you found that unfortunate young lady’s body.’
Evans led them round to the back of the house.
‘That gate’s still locked,’ he said, ‘so you’ll have to climb over, like we did.’
Jago and Cradock followed him over the wall and to the back door.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Jago. ‘I want to have a look at this.’
He shone his flashlight on the door and could see it was as flimsy as most of them on these cheap old houses. He gave it a push, and it swung open. Stepping inside, he saw on the back of the door a small deadlock: the key was still in it, and the bolt was protruding. The wooden door frame was splintered where Evans said he had forced it.
They moved through the scullery and into the kitchen, which was in darkness.
‘Where was the light showing?’ Jago asked Evans.
‘Here, in the kitchen. The blackout curtains were open, so the warden drew them.’
‘I see.’ Jago switched on the light. ‘And you found the body in the bedroom, right?’
‘That’s it, yes. Follow me.’
He led them towards the front of the house, where Jago quickly verified that the lock on the front door was a Yale. The door was closed and locked to bar intruders, but the latch was positioned to allow anyone to open it from the inside and close it behind them.
The door to the bedroom was open, and Evans showed them in.
‘She was here,’ he said. ‘On the floor, like, lying on her side, but awkward. Terrible shock, it was.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Jago. ‘Now, tell me, did you touch anything or move anything?’
‘No, nothing, apart from getting the poor woman out.’
‘Right. Well, thank you, Mr Evans, you’ve been very helpful. I’m sorry we’ve kept you from your duties. Please give your name and address to Detective Constable Cradock here before you go – we may need to ask you a few more questions. When might we find you at home?’
Evans gave a hearty laugh. ‘That’s a good question. I’ve been on duty now for about eleven hours, but with a bit of luck I should be finished in another four or five. Try me this afternoon. If all goes well I might have grabbed a bit of sleep by then.’
‘And I hope you won’t mind letting us take your fingerprints.’
The laughter went out of the fireman’s voice. ‘Fingerprints? What? You don’t think I—’
‘It’s just so we can eliminate you from our enquiries. We can expect to find your fingerprints on the back door, and those of the lady you found here, so if we know they’re yours we can concentrate on any we don’t know.’
‘Well, if I must. I can’t say I like the idea, but I suppose I don’t have much choice, do I?’
‘Thank you, Mr Evans. My colleague here will see to that.’
Jago opened the front door with a handkerchief over his fingers and let the fireman out. Evans looked back over his shoulder with a hesitant expression, as if he were about to say something, but seemed to think better of it and went on his way.
Jago and Cradock went back to the kitchen. It was almost empty, with just a table and a couple of upright chairs for furniture. The table was bare, save for a single plate bearing the remains of a portion of beans on toast, with a knife and fork propped on its edge, and beside it a glass half full of water.
‘It’s like the Marie Celeste,’ said Cradock.
‘Except we’ve found one more body than they did. Check those cupboards – see if we can find out anything more about her.’
Cradock searched while Jago looked in the drawers.
‘Not a thing, sir,’ said Cradock when he’d finished. ‘There’s nothing here.’
‘Nor in the drawers,’ said Jago. ‘Curious.’
They moved to the bedroom. Jago checked that the blackout curtains were in place, then switched on the light. The room was furnished sparsely: just a bed, a single wardrobe and an easy chair, all looking as if they’d seen better days, and a threadbare red-and-black carpet of indeterminate pattern that covered three-quarters of the floor. In one corner stood the gas and electricity meters, both thick with dust. The walls were bare, except for a crucifix.
The bed was a double, covered in a green counterpane, with two pillows in pillowcases that had once been white but now looked past their useful life. Cradock moved to the far side of it and noticed a light wheel-back chair lying on its side on the floor, with a woman’s stocking crumpled beneath it.
‘Sign of a struggle, do you think, sir?’ he said.
‘Possibly,’ said Jago. ‘That stocking looks the same as the one round that poor woman’s neck – the other half of the pair, I’d say. Take it with us.’
While Cradock picked up the stocking, Jago moved to the wardrobe and opened the door.
‘Only women’s things in here,’ he said across the room. ‘That would suggest she lived on her own. And I’m no expert on women’s clothes, but these look quite smart – fancy dresses and the like. Not the kind of things she was wearing when we saw her.’
‘Maybe she was a party girl – or maybe just had to dress smart for work and was off duty when she was killed,’ Cradock replied. ‘Hang on, there’s a handbag on the floor over here.’ He picked it up and tipped the contents onto the bed.
‘There’s a purse,’ he reported. ‘Money still in it, but not much. And here – that’s handy. An identity card. It says her name’s Joan Lewis.’
‘Good,’ said Jago. ‘At least we know who she was now, although it would’ve been helpful to know whether she was a miss or a missus. I don’t know why the government didn’t include marital status on those blessed cards. All the money they must’ve spent on them and then they leave that out.’
‘This is a bit funny, though.’
‘What is?’
‘Well, we’re at 28 Carpenters Road, but that’s not what she’s got on her card. It says 166 Carnarvon Road. Looks like she didn’t live here. But what was she doing here if she didn’t, and with clothes in the wardrobe?’
‘Interesting. We’ll need to check the other address.’
Cradock put the items back into the handbag and shut it. He stepped back from the bed and looked down at the floor: something had caught his eye. He crouched down and pulled it out from under the bed.
‘That’s odd too, sir. Funny thing to find in a young lady’s bedroom, I mean.’
He held it up so that Jago could see. It was a round navy blue cap encircled by a black ribbon bearing the letters ‘HMS’.
‘So, the navy’s here, eh, sir?’ he said with a grin. ‘That’s what they said when they rescued those prisoners in Norway, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, very amusing,’ said Jago. ‘All very well when it was Jolly Jack Tar seizing the Altmark, but what’s this tar been doing in Carpenters Road, Stratford?’
‘Hang on, there’s a name stamped inside – it says E. G. Sullivan. Must be a careless fellow to leave his cap behind. Friend of Joan’s, do you think, sir?’
‘Maybe – or a relative, or even someone she didn’t know. All we know is he’s in the navy, and it’s a rating’s cap, so he’s not an officer.’
‘Could it be significant?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, but if he left it here Sunday night it could be very significant.’
‘Should we try to find him, though?’
‘Yes. You’ll have to ask the navy. Make some enquiries later – find out where he’s stationed. If he’s at sea we won’t be talking to him for some time, but it could be he’s shore-based. And bring that cap and the handbag back to the station with you.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘That’ll do, Peter.’
‘Sorry, sir. Will do.’
‘If it turns out he’s not at sea and he left it here recently, we’ll have to find out what he was doing here, and why this Joan Lewis was entertaining a sailor.’
‘Well, they do say all the nice girls love a sailor.’
‘Yes, but the question is, was our Joan a nice girl?’
CHAPTER FOUR
Jago and Cradock let themselves out through the front door and emerged into Carpenters Road. It was almost six o’clock, and soon the sun would be rising. The fire was close to extinction, and only one AFS crew could still be seen, playing water onto a heap of smouldering timber wreckage.
‘Where’s that ARP warden got to?’ said Jago.
‘Caught up in some other emergency on her way to the post, perhaps?’ said Cradock.
‘Possibly, but we can’t wait for her. I want to see what Dr Anderson’s found out. We’ll take the car back to the station, then stroll up to the hospital.’
They set off up the road to where Jago had left his Riley.
‘We’ll catch up with Mrs Parks later,’ Jago continued. ‘I want you to get fingerprints from Evans, and Mrs Parks and the dead woman too. See what prints you can find on the door handles and windows. And when we get back to the station, arrange for someone to come and secure that back door.’
‘Yes, sir. What did you make of it, sir? The door, I mean.’
‘In what sense?’
‘Well, there’s a woman murdered in the house, but the door was locked on the inside. So does that mean she must’ve known her killer – let him in?’
‘Of course not. The fact that the door was locked when the body was found doesn’t mean it was locked when she was killed. Someone could’ve found the door unlocked and got in, then locked it behind them, killed her and let themselves out the front way, as we did.’
‘Yes, of course. And they wouldn’t necessarily have had to come in through the back door anyway, would they? They might’ve just knocked on the front door.’
‘Indeed. On the face of it that would be simpler. But there’s the question of when she was killed too. If it was after dark, she might not have wanted to risk opening the door to a stranger, in which case it might suggest she knew them, might even have been expecting them. But on the other hand, these days if someone like an ARP warden had knocked and asked to be admitted she might well have let them in.’
‘And that business of the blackout curtains, sir. It’s a bit unusual for people to put a light on without closing them, isn’t it? Especially when it means they might get fined. So maybe she came home with the murderer and switched the light on, but before she had time to realise she hadn’t drawn the curtains she was dragged into the bedroom and killed. If the murderer left in a hurry via the front door, he might’ve just forgotten to go back to the kitchen and turn the light off.’
‘An interesting theory.’
‘Or perhaps it was that thing that sometimes happens with the meters. You know – the electricity runs out and all the lights go off, so you put another shilling in the slot and they come on again, but you forget to go and turn off the ones you don’t need. Maybe she did that and never went to check the light in the kitchen was off.’
‘Yes, but don’t forget it’s possible that she came home and never got as far as the kitchen before she was killed. The murderer might’ve gone looking for something in the kitchen after he’d killed her, and put the light on without thinking, then left. Who knows? We’ve got too many possibilities to be sure of anything.’
Their route from Carpenters Road to the police station in West Ham Lane was free of obstruction, and they arrived within minutes. A little later they took the short walk back up the road to Queen Mary’s Hospital. As far as they could see, no bombs had fallen close during the night, but ambulances were still edging through the brick-and-stone entrance archway. The hospital had lost a whole wing to a direct hit in the opening days of the Blitz the previous month, but it was still functioning as a casualty centre for victims of the air raids. Dr Anderson welcomed them at the mortuary.
‘Good morning again, gentlemen,’ he said breezily. ‘I trust you’ve had some breakfast.’
‘Yes, thanks,’ said Cradock.
Ah, so that’s why you were late, thought Jago, but he declined to voice his suspicion. The very mention of food in close proximity to the human remains that lay in the mortuary was enough to make him take kindly to the idea of fasting. If the bombs hadn’t mutilated those bodies, the forensic pathologist soon would – and with an unfathomable air of enthusiasm, if Jago’s experience was anything to go by.
‘Not yet, thank you,’ he replied. ‘I’ll get something later. I want to know what this woman died of.’
‘Very well, that’s simple,’ said Anderson. ‘Come in here and I’ll show you.’
They followed him into the post-mortem room. It was cold and forbidding, the very opposite of what a hospital should be, thought Jago – but this was a place for the dead, not the living. The chilling array of saws, chisels and scalpels laid out beside the table gave notice that this was the final destination for those who were now beyond the reach of hope.
‘There you are,’ said Anderson, gesturing towards the body. ‘She died from asphyxiation caused by strangling, as I said at the scene. But you were right to challenge my initial judgement – the presence of a ligature such as that stocking doesn’t necessarily confirm strangulation. I’ve had a look inside now, though, and I’ve found damage to the larynx consistent with strangulation.’
Jago looked down at the dead woman.
‘Poor kid,’ he said. ‘It’s not fair, is it? Here we are fighting a war so people can be safe in their own homes, but nowhere’s safe when there’s someone creeping around ready to kill a young woman like this. And we’re supposed to be the country that’s pulling together.’ He turned back to Anderson. ‘No question of doubt, then?’ he added.
‘No. There are also some tell-tale signs in the lungs. Would you like to see?’
‘I’d rather not, thank you.’
‘Very well. As you may know, they’re marks under the pleural surface that are caused by the rupture of the air cells – very characteristic of violent asphyxia. And then finally we have the tiny spots you may be able to see on her face.’
‘Petechiae?’
‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’
‘Too many times. I don’t take as much joy in it as you seem to.’
‘Ah, well. One man’s meat, as they say …’
‘Exactly, although perhaps not the most delicate way of putting it. Where did they train you?’
‘At Guy’s. In fact it was the clinical tutor who recommended I go into pathology – he said I had just the right bedside manner for it.’
‘Very amusing. Now, what about the time of death?’
‘Well, allowing for the initial rise in temperature, as I said, and then the usual decline, I estimate that death occurred sometime between five and seven hours before I took her temperature. In other words between about nine o’clock and eleven o’clock last night. I’ve also taken into account the fact that the body was moved outside and left in the open air on a cold pavement before we got to it. But in any case, a dead body doesn’t cool at a consistent rate. It can vary considerably according to the conditions. Establishing a time of death is inevitably an approximate affair – it could easily vary by half or three-quarters of an hour in either direction.’
‘Good – thank you. Now, have we finished here?’
‘Yes, I think that just about covers it.’
‘And there’s no possibility that she did it herself?’
‘Suicide, you mean? I don’t think so. It’s possible, of course – you can’t strangle yourself with your hands, because you start to lose consciousness and release your grip, but you can if you use a ligature. In this case, though, I think someone killed her.’ He pointed at the woman’s neck with a scalpel. ‘Look at those scratches – they could’ve been made by her as she struggled to pull the stocking away. And there’s also some bruising that I didn’t notice when we looked at her on the street – some on her arms, which would be consistent with her having been grabbed or held, and one on the left side of her face, which is less easy to be specific about.’
‘Could she have got that from falling? The body was found lying on the floor.’
‘Yes, she could have, but it would also be consistent with, say, being slapped. You have to bear in mind that women bruise much more easily than men, so it wouldn’t necessarily take much force to have that effect.’
‘Is it right that dead bodies don’t bruise? It’s just that she was carried out of the house after she’d been found dead. I understand a fireman was involved and it was an emergency, so it may not have been the most delicate of operations.’
‘It’s not strictly correct. It is possible to bruise a dead body, but bruises formed before death are quite different. All I can say is that in my opinion the bruising that I found took place at about the time of death. I can’t be more precise than that.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
‘And the stocking, by the way – whether it’s nylon, as DC Cradock said, or something else, I’ve noticed that it seems to stretch more than normal stockings. Silk or rayon ones, I mean. It would’ve been hard work to kill her – asphyxiation isn’t immediate, and it’s difficult to strangle someone to death if they’re fighting back. So it’s possible the murderer may have needed an accomplice, to help hold the victim down while she was strangled.’
‘Thanks, that’s helpful. Can I take the stocking, if you’ve finished with it?’
‘Of course,’ said Anderson. ‘I didn’t find anything on it to help you.’ He handed the stocking to Jago, who slipped it into a buff envelope and gave it to Cradock.
‘There are one or two other things I’d like to ask you,’ said Jago, ‘but we don’t need to be in here. Could we step outside?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
Anderson led them out of the post-mortem room and into his office.
‘What else can I help you with?’ he asked.
‘Well, it’s just that there’s something about this case that’s bothering me,’ said Jago. ‘It’s the thought of that poor girl fighting for her life – and losing. Ever since we saw her I’ve been thinking about some other cases a few years ago. Do you remember the Soho Strangler?’
‘Vaguely. There was something in the papers a few years ago, wasn’t there? It was probably when I was a junior doctor, working all hours and not having much time to read the news.’
‘Yes, there was. It was a pretty grim tale. Four women were murdered between 1935 and 1937, and as far as I know we’re no closer to working out who did it now than we were then. Most of them were what we used to call ladies of desire, and they were all found dead in their flats. The first one was known as French Fifi, but that was only her working name, of course, and she was strangled with a stocking. The others were all strangled too.’
‘And all in Soho?’ said Cradock.
‘Three of them had flats there, I believe, and the other was somewhere else in the West End, so that’s why the papers called the killer the Soho Strangler, but one of the women was originally from East Ham.’
Cradock’s face registered surprise. ‘Really? A local connection, then. So he might’ve struck a West Ham girl now? You think this Joan Lewis could’ve been on the game?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well, a good-looking young woman, living on her own in a little flat, found strangled. It’s possible.’
‘And then there’s the furniture in her bedroom.’
‘Furniture, sir?’
‘Yes. There wasn’t much of it, was there? Nothing fancy. I’ve noticed in the past that some of these girls don’t like to make their place too comfy. They keep things a bit spartan. They say that when they’re bringing men back, if it looks too much like home it’s not good for business. Also, there’s the bed. It’s a double. Not necessarily what you’d expect a single woman to have.’
‘But if it’s a furnished flat, sir, it might just be an old bed the landlord decided to stick in it.’
‘Absolutely, there could be a very good reason for it. But two pillows? I could imagine it being annoying enough for her to have to wash and iron double sheets when she’s sleeping on her own – so why would she want to iron an extra pillowcase for nothing?’
‘An interesting observation,’ said Anderson. ‘A detective’s observation rather than a medical man’s, but a good point, I would think. I did notice she didn’t have any rings on her fingers. Could that be significant?’
‘Possibly,’ said Jago. ‘As a matter of interest, did you find any tattoos when you were examining her?’
‘No, I didn’t, but then I wouldn’t normally expect to find tattoos on a woman. Why would that be of interest?’
‘The absence of them wouldn’t be significant, but if she had some, it could be – it’s a bit of a tradition among prostitutes to have them, especially on their arms and chest.’
‘Well, this body doesn’t have any. So does that mean she was a respectable lady?’
‘Not necessarily, but in any case I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I’ve known a lot of these girls over the years, and it’s not their fault that that’s how they make their living. Some of my superiors would disagree, but I say it’s not our job to divide women into respectable and unrespectable. If someone’s arrested and charged and goes to court, it’s their alleged offence that they’re on trial for, not their character, but all too often that type of woman seems to be convicted just because the court decides she’s “unrespectable”.’
‘Very interesting,’ said Anderson. ‘But you haven’t asked the obvious question.’
‘No, but I was about to. I assume you’ve examined the body for evidence of sexual activity?’
‘Of course, and I think you’ll find it interesting. There was evidence of sexual experience.’
‘There you are, then,’ said Cradock.
‘But,’ Anderson continued, ignoring him, ‘no evidence of recent sexual activity, so if she is a murdered prostitute, she wasn’t working last night.’
‘That doesn’t mean she wasn’t on the game, though, does it?’ said Cradock.
‘No, of course not, but it’s worth noting. And there’s something even more interesting I’ve discovered.’
‘What’s that?’ said Jago, his eyes fixed on Anderson’s face.
‘I checked for any sign that she’d experienced childbirth. There was none, but that was going to change. She was expecting – about twelve weeks pregnant, in my estimation. She would probably have known for some weeks, but she’d reached the stage when it was just beginning to show.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Where to next, guv’nor?’ said Cradock as they left the hospital. ‘Any chance of a bite to eat on the way?’
‘You said you’d already had some breakfast,’ said Jago.
‘Yes, but that was just a quick snack on my way out of the section house, and it was hours ago. These early starts always make me hungry.’
Jago checked his watch in the morning twilight. It was ten to seven. The sun wasn’t up yet, and the blackout still had about a quarter of an hour to run. Besides, the all-clear siren had only sounded about half an hour before, so it was perhaps a little too early in the morning to go knocking on doors.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll nip back to the station and get something in the canteen. But no dawdling.’
Jago himself felt sufficiently recovered from the ordeal of the mortuary to tuck into a breakfast of egg and bacon when they got there, but he was surprised at how much food Cradock managed to pack away.
‘Not expecting to eat again today, are you?’ he enquired.
‘Yes, sir – I mean no, sir. I mean, it’s just that you never know in this job, do you, sir? Got to keep your strength up.’
‘You have to be able to move, too. Supposing you have to chase someone down the street as soon as we get out of here?’
‘Don’t you worry about that, sir. I fancy my chances.’
‘Right, well let’s just hope we don’t have to put your confidence to the test. Now finish that – it’s time to go.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Cradock, cramming in a last mouthful. ‘Where to?’
‘I think we need to check that address on Joan Lewis’s identity card – Carnarvon Road’s only about five minutes’ walk from here, so it shouldn’t deplete your energy stores too much.’
Five minutes proved to be an optimistic estimate. They stopped when they saw a house on the way that looked badly damaged by fire, and an elderly couple standing on the pavement outside it amidst a jumble of salvaged possessions.
‘Incendiary,’ said the man. One word was enough to tell the whole story, now that incendiary bombs had become familiar nightly arrivals: little silver cylinders crashing through roof tiles in a dazzling white flash of magnesium that turned to yellow as the flames took hold.
‘If I’d been twenty years younger …’ he added disconsolately.
Yes, thought Jago, twenty years younger and he could have scrambled into the loft with a bucket of earth or a stirrup pump and saved the day. Another twenty years and he might have been up in the sky shooting the bomber down before it could do its deadly work. These were not good days to be old. The woman said the local council was sending a van to collect their remaining things and put them in storage, and she asked if they could help stack them neatly so they wouldn’t block the pavement. The sort of people you’d want for neighbours, thought Jago, as he and Cradock shifted the couple’s pathetic belongings into some sort of orderly pile.
It was all done in minutes, and by just after eight they were knocking on the door of 166 Carnarvon Road.
The house was large, solid and Victorian, with a patch of garden in front of it and stone steps up to the front door. Four or five bedrooms, if not more, Jago guessed, and worth a bob or two. He rapped the substantial brass knocker on its plate and heard the sound echo down what was presumably a spacious hallway. He hoped he wasn’t waking anyone. The door opened, and he realised his concern was groundless. The woman standing before him had clearly not just got out of bed, nor did she look about to busy herself with housework.
