Instrument of Slaughter (13 page)

‘In other words, Mr Gill has an alibi.’

‘He’s not your killer, Sergeant. Look elsewhere.’

‘I never thought much of the man,’ Maud put in, ‘but I think even less of him now that I know what he did. Painting those things on a wall was so sneaky.’

‘That’s Robbie for you,’ said Crowther, moving away. ‘If you’ve finished with me, Sergeant, I need to fetch up some crates of stout from the cellar.’

‘Go ahead, sir. Thank you for your help.’

‘Mother will make you that cup of tea, if you like.’

‘No need,’ said Keedy, ‘I have to be on my way.’

He waited until Crowther had left the bar and shut the door behind him before turning to Maud. She stood up and kissed him.

‘It was so kind of you not to give me away. I can’t thank you enough.’

‘I told you that you could trust me.’

‘My heart stopped beating when you walked in.’

Keedy smiled. ‘Yes, I had a bit of a shock myself. However, I won’t bother you any longer. I’ll be on my way.’ He paused at the door as he recalled something. ‘Actually, I do have a question for you, Mrs Crowther.’

‘Be quick about it. Stanley will be back soon.’

‘When a certain person came to see you two nights ago …’

‘Name no names, Sergeant.’

‘Was he carrying a spade at the time?’

Maud was flabbergasted. ‘A
spade
?’

‘He had one with him when he left here, it seems.’

‘Well, he certainly didn’t bring it to my house,’ she said with a rush of anger. ‘If he’d dared to do that, I’d have hit him over the head with it. That certain person came as an admirer – not as a gravedigger.’

Eric Fussell had made the mistake of underestimating his visitor. The librarian thought that he could treat Marmion with the same condescension that he used on his staff. It only served to deepen the inspector’s dislike of the man. Marmion was polite but ruthlessly persistent. He kept pecking away at Fussell until he began to see cracks in his well-defended facade. Cyril Ablatt had decided that the library could be run much more efficiently if a series of changes were made. Without telling Fussell, he discussed his ideas with the other assistants
and got almost unanimous backing for them. He then stayed behind one evening to type up a report that contained some scathing comments about the librarian’s methods. When it was given to him, Fussell had been infuriated.

‘He went behind my back,’ he snarled. ‘That’s what I could never forgive.’

‘Your wife works here, doesn’t she?’ remembered Marmion. ‘I take it that he never approached her during his research.’

‘Cyril wouldn’t have
dared
to do that.’

‘Yet he did talk to librarians – correction, to library
assistants
– in other parts of the borough. His suggestions seem to have been well received everywhere.’

‘They weren’t suggestions, Inspector. They were insults aimed at me.’

‘I never saw the report,’ conceded Marmion, ‘so I can’t judge, but it’s hard to believe that someone as dedicated to his job as Cyril Ablatt didn’t come up with some good ideas for improvement.’

‘They were stale ideas,’ said Fussell, irritably. ‘I’d already considered them and rejected them as inappropriate.’

‘Yet I’m told that some of them were adopted at Finsbury library and have worked well. The librarian there clearly had more faith in your assistant.’

‘He didn’t have to work beside him.’

Marmion nodded. ‘So there was antagonism between you, after all.’

‘It was largely on his side, Inspector. For some unknown reason, Cyril could never accept my authority as readily as he ought to. That’s why he drafted that absurd report of his. It was an attempt to undermine me.’

‘Then why didn’t you sack him?’

‘I did,’ said Fussell, ‘but I was overruled by local government officials.’

‘That must have led to a lot of tension between the two of you.’

‘I tried to rise above it.’

‘How did he react?’

‘In fairness, I have to say that he did the same.’

‘But you must have nursed some resentment, sir.’

‘It was a breach of trust,’ said Fussell, ‘and that was unforgivable. What the public saw was an obliging young man always ready to advise people what to read. What I saw was – to put it no higher than this – a snake in the grass.’

‘So why did you tell me that you liked him?’ asked Marmion.

‘One should never speak ill of the dead, Inspector.’

‘But that’s just what you’ve been doing.’

‘It was only because you pressed me about that infernal report.’

‘I can see that you must have felt betrayed.’

‘Let me be more explicit,’ said Fussell, shedding all pretence. ‘I loathed Cyril Ablatt for reasons too numerous to list. When I couldn’t sack him, I tried to get rid of him another way. I’m sure that a meticulous man like you was going to check my claim that I put in a word for him with the librarian in Lambeth. You can save yourself the trouble, Inspector. It was true. I was so desperate to unload Cyril onto someone else that I traded on a close friendship.’

‘Nevertheless, he was turned down for the post.’

‘The word had got out about him.’

‘What word was that, sir?’

‘Cyril Ablatt was a disruptive influence. Nobody wants that.’

The portrait was changing even more. When Marmion took charge of the case, Ablatt was a murder victim with a steadfast belief in the tenets of Christianity and with a job in which he excelled. Darker elements had intruded. He’d not only had an intimate relationship with a married woman, he’d had the gall to challenge the librarian’s authority by producing a critique of him. Marmion scratched out the mental note to visit Lambeth. Fussell was being honest for once. He’d
tried to shift a burdensome assistant to another library and had failed.

‘I can see why you won’t be attending the funeral,’ said Marmion, ‘but, when all is said and done, he did work under you for some while. I daresay that you’ll be sending your condolences to his father.’

Fussell was brusque. ‘No, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I’ll send no card. I’ve washed my hands of the entire Ablatt family.’

There was a steady stream of customers at the forge on Bethnal Green and, because Percy Fry was there by himself, they either had to wait in the queue or be turned away. Things had eased by mid morning and Fry was able to snatch a few minutes’ rest. He was relieved to see Dalley striding in.

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, Jack,’ he said.

‘I came as soon as I could.’

‘No need to come at all. I can cope.’

‘If truth be told, I was glad to escape, Perce. All that misery was getting me down. Not that I’m hard-hearted,’ said Dalley, keen to correct any misunderstanding. ‘I’m very upset at what happened to Cyril, but I’m a practical man. I’ve a job to do and a forge to run.’

‘How’s the wife?’

‘Nancy is worse than ever this morning.’

‘Don’t forget that offer we made.’

‘Later on – when the worst is over – Nancy might be glad of Elaine’s company. But that time may be weeks away.’

‘Where is she at the moment?’

‘I took her over to her brother’s. She can’t bear to be apart from him.’ He took off his hat and coat and tossed them onto a stool. ‘Everyone knows now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s in all the papers, Perce. The one I saw even had a photo of
Cyril. As we walked to my brother-in-law’s house, people were already pointing and whispering. I’m not a blacksmith any more,’ complained Dalley. ‘I’m the uncle of the lad who was battered to death.’

‘That will pass,’ said Fry.

‘Not for a long while. If he’d been killed in the war, everyone would have showered us with sympathy for a day or two. This is different. Cyril is a murder victim. That makes him a sort of freak. People won’t forget that,’ said Dalley, sourly. ‘As long as the hunt for the killer goes on, the event stays fresh in the mind.’

‘They’ll catch the bastard eventually.’

‘London’s got millions of inhabitants. Where do the police start looking?’

‘That’s up to them, Jack. Let them get on with it, I say. The only thing you need to worry about is Nancy. She’s the one who needs help.’

‘Too true – she was awake for most of the night again.’

‘Might not be so bad when the funeral is over and done with,’ said Fry.

‘I’m not looking forward to that,’ confessed Dalley. ‘It’ll be harrowing. Nancy and her brother are bad enough now. They both look ten years older. What are they going to be like when they actually bury Cyril?’

From the time that she got there, Caroline Skene had endeavoured to be useful. She made tea, passed round biscuits and offered what solace she could. Her presence was so comforting to Gerald Ablatt and his sister that Dalley had felt able to leave them and return to work. Caroline was in charge. She was tirelessly helpful and full of compassion. When they wept, so did she. Neither of them realised that she had as much cause for anguish as they did.

‘It was good of you to come, Caroline,’ said Ablatt.

‘I felt I might be needed.’

‘You are – and we’re grateful.’

‘Yes,’ said Nancy with a woeful smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘How is Wilf?’ asked Ablatt.

‘He’s fine,’ replied Caroline. ‘He sends his love.’

‘Is he still having that back trouble?’

‘Oh, let’s not talk about him, Gerald. What are a few back pains compared to what you have to suffer? You can forget Wilf. Think of yourself for once.’

‘He can’t do that,’ said Nancy. ‘Gerald always puts other people first. His son has been killed yet he still worries about his customers.’

‘I hate to let anyone down,’ said Ablatt.

‘Do you know what he did last night?’

He was embarrassed. ‘There’s no need to mention that, Nancy.’

‘I think there is. Caroline deserves to know.’

‘Know what?’ asked Caroline.

‘When Jack took me back home last night,’ said Nancy, glancing at her brother, ‘Gerald should have gone straight to bed. He was as exhausted as we were. Instead of that, he went to the shop and started mending shoes.’

‘Never!’

‘I simply had to
do
something,’ he declared. ‘I thought it might take my mind off Cyril. I needed to be occupied. Can’t you understand that?’

‘Yes,’ soothed Caroline, ‘I think I can. It seems ridiculous but what you did was right. It fulfilled an urge.’ When there was a knock at the door, she got up at once. ‘You stay here. I’ll see who it is.’

She went to the front door and opened it. The vicar was standing on the doorstep and he asked if he might come in. Caroline would have turned anyone else away but both Cyril and his father had worshipped regularly at the nearby church. She’d heard them speak well of the vicar, an elderly man with a kind face and wisps of white hair curling down
from under his hat. In the hope that he might be able to alleviate grief and provide some spiritual sustenance, Caroline stood aside to let him in. When she took him into the front room, Ablatt and his sister looked up with gratitude, pleased to see the old man. Removing his hat, he set it aside and offered a consoling hand to each of them. Caroline put the hat outside on a peg and went into the kitchen to make yet another pot of tea. When she returned, she saw that the vicar had already lifted the morale of the mourners.

It was the chance for which she’d been waiting. After pouring the tea and handing the cups around, she excused herself to go to the bathroom, making sure that she shut the door of the front room behind her. She then scampered upstairs and went straight to Cyril Ablatt’s room, opening the door and gazing around with a mixture of sadness and nostalgia. She needed minutes to recover.

Caroline then began a frantic search.

After a hectic morning in the lorry, Alice Marmion drove it back to the depot and brought it to a juddering halt. She looked across at Vera Dowling.

‘I don’t like the sound of the engine.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Vera. ‘Something is wrong.’

‘Let’s see if we can find out what it is.’

Alice switched off the engine and got out of the lorry. Vera went to fetch the toolbox in the back of the vehicle. By the time she brought it to her friend, Alice had lifted the bonnet and was peering underneath it.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ warned Vera. ‘It will be piping hot.’

‘I’m afraid that it could be something serious.’

‘We could always go to that garage and ask the mechanic to help us.’

Alice was derisive. ‘Ask a man to bail us out?’ she said. ‘This is the WEC, Vera. We sort out our own problems.’

‘Well, don’t expect me to do anything. I don’t know the first thing
about engines – except that they get very hot after a while.’ She wiped perspiration from her brow. ‘They’re a bit like me.’

They’d spent several hours delivering bedding to various emergency accommodation sites. It had meant loading and unloading the lorry a number of times and they were tired. While Alice continued to scrutinise the engine, Vera leant against the side of the vehicle. Hannah Billington emerged from her office and marched across to them.

‘What seems to be the trouble?’ she asked.

‘We don’t know, Mrs Billington,’ replied Vera.

Alice was more positive. ‘We’ll soon find out when the engine cools down,’ she said, turning to the newcomer. ‘It was starting to pull and making a funny noise.’

‘It was a bit scary.’

‘There was no danger, Vera.’

‘You never know. It might have been sabotage.’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Hannah. ‘Who would sabotage our lorry?’

‘I was only thinking of what my friend told me about the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps.’

Hannah was reproachful. ‘Oh, come on,
please
. You should have mastered the initials by now. And what did this friend from the WAAC tell you?’

‘Well,’ said Vera, discomfited by the rebuke, ‘when she first started driving a thirty-hundredweight van, the men were very jealous.’

‘Why aren’t we surprised?’ asked Alice, jocularly.

‘They did all sorts of things to slow her down. They cut her petrol pipe halfway through, they unscrewed valves, they even changed over the leads on the sparking plugs. What upset her most, however,’ she went on, ‘was that they emptied the paraffin out of her lamps. When it got dark and she tried to light them, nothing happened. That was a cruel trick.’

‘Nobody would
dare
to do that to my drivers,’ said Hannah. ‘Any vehicles parked here are watched carefully day and night. Luckily, we’ve got enterprising young women like Alice who can turn their hand to vehicle maintenance as well as to driving. You should follow in her footsteps, Vera.’

‘Not me – I’m all fingers and thumbs.’

‘Learn from Alice. It’s only a question of application.’

‘I’ve tried, Mrs Billington, I really have.’

‘You must make more effort, woman,’ said Hannah, curtly. She summoned up a smile. ‘Anyway, what have the pair of you been up to this morning?’

Alice delivered her report and earned a nod of approval. Vera was too nervous to venture anything more than the occasional word. Hannah looked from one to the other as if weighing something up.

‘You’ve done well,’ she said. ‘You’ve done very well, in fact. I trust that the lorry will be ready for action again this afternoon.’

‘Yes,’ said Alice, confidently. ‘I’ll have that engine singing like a bird.’

‘That’s the attitude – every problem can be solved.’

‘It certainly can – even if it means oily fingers and a lot of tinkering.’

The older woman gave her braying laugh then promptly changed the subject.

‘What do you think of the food here?’

‘It’s all right, Hannah.’

‘Do you agree, Vera?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said the other. ‘It’s better than I expected.’

‘But it’s rather bland and repetitive,’ said Hannah. ‘We can’t blame them for that. We’re subject to rationing like everyone else. I just wondered if you’d like a chance to eat something more appetising for once.’

‘We’d all like that,’ said Alice.

‘Then you and Vera must come to tea sometime. Cook makes the most wonderful scones and her chocolate cake is almost sinful.’

‘Thank you, Hannah. We’d love to come.’

Vera was less certain. ‘Yes … thank you for asking us.’

‘I’ll find a time when we’re not so busy and let you know.’

After flashing a smile at them, she turned on her heel and marched off. Vera waited until she was well out of earshot. She could be honest with a friend.

‘I don’t want to go, Alice.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable,’ said Vera. ‘I’ve never been to a house with a cook before. Mummy and I make the meals at home. I’d be on tenterhooks. I’ll find an excuse not to go. I hope that won’t stop you.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Alice. ‘I’d love to go. I’m much nosier than you.’

They met in Marmion’s office at Scotland Yard and were able to review what they’d learnt that morning. Marmion talked about his visit to the library and his conviction that Eric Fussell had enough hatred inside him to drive him to murder. Keedy told him about the second encounter with Stan Crowther and how the landlord had confirmed the alibi given by Robbie Gill. Marmion was more interested in the information that Crowther’s mother had been there and that she’d hotly denied that Waldron had arrived for a tryst with his spade.

‘So where did he leave it?’ wondered Marmion.

‘Maybe he took it back to his digs before he went to Maud.’

‘Why bring it home in the first place? Surely he keeps it at the cemetery. It would have been a bit late to do some gardening.’

‘P’raps he used it to bash Ablatt’s head in.’

‘You’ve met Waldron. Can you imagine him doing that?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Keedy. ‘He’s mean and dangerous. When he’d had
enough beer inside him, I can well imagine him killing someone. What I can’t believe is that he’d do that and then go off for a rendezvous with a lady.’

‘He could have done it
after
he’d seen Maud Crowther.’

‘Her son told me he looked unusually clean when he got back to the Weavers Arms. That doesn’t sound like a man involved in a brutal murder. There’d have been specks of blood over his clothing.’

‘That’s speculation, not evidence.’

‘It’s all we’ve got.’

‘So where does that leave us, Joe?’

‘We’re still very much in the dark.’

‘There are only two possible suspects so far and, although they were known to each other, they’re the most unlikely accomplices. Waldron may have been in the right place at the right time but all he was thinking about, I fancy, was knocking on Mrs Crowther’s door.’

‘What about the newspapers? Did they bring in any witnesses?’

‘They brought in much more than that,’ said Marmion. ‘I was wading through the messages when you go back here. There were two cranks who claimed that they’d actually done the murder, but then we always get bogus confessions at a time like this. One woman reckons that her husband was the killer because he came home with blood on his face and there was a man who insisted that he witnessed the murder even though he was in Stepney at the time. He must have the most amazing eyesight.’

‘We ought to arrest them for wasting police time, Harv.’

‘Leave them to their weird fantasies.’ He noticed the signs of weariness in his colleague. ‘You look as if you’re ready to fall asleep, Joe. Take the afternoon off. Get some sleep and start fresh again tomorrow.’

‘I don’t want to miss any of the fun.’

‘What fun?’ Marmion’s laugh was mirthless. ‘If you think it’s fun to
go to another press conference this evening, you can take over from me and have the superintendent breathing down your neck.’

‘No, thanks – keep Chat well away from me.’

‘We’re going to release a few details about the post-mortem.’

‘Not too many of them, I hope. I saw the corpse, remember. We both know the effect it had on Mr Ablatt. When’s the inquest, by the way?’

‘No date has been set for it yet.’

‘The family will want the body as soon as possible.’

‘That’s always the case,’ said Marmion, ‘but we have to follow protocol. The inquest must come first.’ He picked up the newspaper beside him. ‘Have you had the chance to see this?’

‘Is that the
Evening News
?’

‘They sent over a copy of the early edition.’ He handed it to Keedy. ‘Just read the first paragraph. The tone has changed completely since yesterday.’

Keedy looked at the front-page feature. ‘I see what you mean, Harv.’

‘Yesterday, he was a murder victim deserving of sympathy. Then we told them about Cyril Ablatt’s background and they latched onto the fact that he was a conscientious objector. Today, he’s a different person altogether.’

‘The sympathy has dried up almost completely.’

‘That’s why we have to redouble our efforts. There are far too many people who think that conchies ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered. They’d be quite happy if the killer got away with it. We’re going to disappoint them.’

‘How do we do that?’

‘Something will turn up.’

‘I’ve heard that phrase before.’

‘It comes from Mr Micawber in
David Copperfield
.’

‘But he wasn’t a detective, was he?’

‘Oddly enough, he was. It was Micawber who exposed Uriah Heap’s villainy and saved the day. He turned out to be a hero in the end.’

‘Things don’t happen like that in real life.’

‘We’ve had to rely on luck before,’ said Marmion. ‘Solving a murder is not entirely a matter of logical deduction. Take that anonymous letter I had this very morning. It came out of nowhere.’

‘But did it get us any closer to the killer?’

‘It might have done, Joe.’

Keedy put the newspaper aside. ‘All we’ve managed to do so far,’ he said, disconsolately, ‘is to arrest a useless plumber.’

‘You did more than that. You stopped him venting his spleen on the wall of the house. Mr Ablatt will be grateful and so will a lot of people in Shoreditch. Most of them are decent folk who’d think what Robbie Gill was going to do was in bad taste.’

As they were speaking, a young woman knocked on the open door and came into the office. She spoke with deference.

‘This came for you, Inspector,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ said the other, taking a piece of paper from her.

The woman walked away. Reading the message, Marmion grinned broadly.

Keedy was curious. ‘Well?’

‘I told you that something might turn up,’ said Marmion. ‘This could be it.’

Caroline Skene had never been inside a police station before and she didn’t relish the experience. It was so bare and comfortless. When she showed the business card to the duty sergeant, he rang Scotland Yard and asked for Inspector Marmion. He was told to wait while the inspector was found. Caroline, meanwhile, was kept sitting on a high-backed wooden bench. The fact that desperate criminals must have sat on it
over the years only deepened her sense of guilt. She had the urge to leave but, since the phone call had been made, she had to stay there. It seemed an age before someone came on at the end of the line. The sergeant spoke to him then offered the receiver to Caroline. She crossed to the desk on unsteady legs and looked at the instrument warily. Unfamiliar with a telephone, she took it gingerly from him.

‘Hello,’ she said, meekly.

‘Is that you, Mrs Skene?’ asked Marmion.

She was reassured. ‘Yes, Inspector – you told me to contact you.’

‘Do you have some information for me?’

‘Yes, I do, but I don’t want to talk on the telephone.’

‘That’s fair enough,’ he said. ‘I was told that you’re ringing from Shoreditch police station. Is that correct?’

‘It is.’

‘Then I’ll meet you there. You stay put.’

She looked around. ‘I’d rather not talk here, Inspector.’

‘I understand. A place like that can be rather intimidating for someone as law-abiding as you. Not to worry,’ said Marmion. ‘I’ll come as soon as I can. Then we’ll find somewhere else to have a chat. Is that all right?’

‘Yes, Inspector – thank you.’

‘Goodbye, Mrs Skene.’

Before she could bid him farewell, the line went dead. Handing the receiver to the sergeant, she went back to the bench and perched on the edge of it. She was not at all sure that she was doing the right thing but the decision had been made now. Still stunned by the death of her young friend, Caroline’s grief would only be softened by the arrest of the killer. It was time to be more honest with Marmion.

After finishing work, Mansel Price left the hullabaloo of the railway station and made his way to Fred Hambridge’s workshop. The carpenter
was stacking a door against a wall when the Welshman arrived. Price was glad to see that his friend was alone.

‘Where’s the boss?’ he asked.

‘Charlie went off to price a job,’ said Hambridge. ‘He won’t be back for ages.’

‘Good – it means we can talk. I’ve got news for you, Fred.’ ‘What’s happened?’

‘I almost caught the man who painted things on Cyril’s wall.’

He described the incident during the night and was enraged that he’d been robbed of the chance to overpower the man. Having lurked in the dark for so long, Price felt that he deserved the kudos of catching him.

‘I blame Sergeant Keedy,’ he said.

‘What was he doing there?’

‘The same as me – only he had the sense to stay indoors. He was in the front room of a house nearby. He had a feeling that the man might come back again with his paintbrush. I was mad at him for interfering but the truth is that it was probably just as well. If he hadn’t come along, I’d have torn that man to pieces.’

‘Then
you’d
have been in trouble with the police as well.’

‘The sergeant said that they’d soon find him at daybreak. He left his ladder and his paint. Both could be traced back to him.’