On Mother Brown's Doorstep (31 page)

‘If you’re havin’ us on, me tad, you’re for it,’ said the desk sergeant.

‘Course I ain’t ’aving you on,’ said Freddy. ‘She was comin’ round to our ’ouse at quarter to two, an’ look at yer clock, it’s gone five.’

‘Where’s her fam’ly?’

‘I dunno,’ said Freddy, ‘except they ain’t in.’

‘Well, she’s probably with them.’

‘No, she ain’t,’ said Freddy, ‘if she’d gone with them she’d ’ave come an’ told me first. She’s me mate.’

‘What’s her name again?’

‘Cassie Ford.’

‘And her fam’ly live where?’

‘Ten Blackwood Street,’ said Freddy. He described Cassie and gave her age.

The police sergeant alerted himself then. Missing girls. Scotland Yard.

‘Right, Freddy Brown, you’re a bright lad, after all. We’ll get someone round to her house immediate.’

‘But there’s no-one there.’

‘There might be now, Freddy, and we’d like to talk to her fam’ly. They might know where she went if she didn’t go with them.’

‘But she was comin’ to see me, I told yer,’ said Freddy.

‘She might have changed her mind. Now don’t you worry, we’ll see to it. You keep searchin’, like you have
been
and come and tell us if you find her. Will you do that?’

‘All right,’ said Freddy.

‘Good lad.’

Freddy rode back home. A taxi passed him as he turned into Caulfield Place. He was in hope that Cassie would be at his gate. She wasn’t, but the taxi pulled up outside it. Freddy rode up. Out stepped a man he knew, a man he liked. It was Sammy’s eldest brother, Boots. His daughter Rosie followed him out of the taxi. Father and daughter were both laden with gift parcels.

‘Hello, Freddy,’ said Boots, and asked the cabbie to wait.

‘I got yer, guv,’ said the cabbie, and kept his clock ticking.

‘Hello, Freddy,’ said Rosie. They’d met once. They were going to be loosely related. ‘We come bearing gifts, don’t we, Daddy?’

‘Wedding gifts from various members of the family,’ said Boots.

‘Ev’ryone’s out except me,’ said Freddy.

‘Well, we’ll load them on to you,’ said Boots.

Freddy led the way into the house, and Boots and Rosie placed the gifts on the parlour table. The parlour was awash with wedding presents.

‘Mister Adams—’ Freddy hesitated.

‘What’s up, Freddy?’ Boots liked the boy.

‘It’s Cassie.’

‘Who’s Cassie?’

Freddy rushed into words. Boots eyed him searchingly. Rosie looked concerned.

‘If you’ve been to the police, Freddy,’ said Boots, ‘how can I help?’

‘I dunno, Mister Adams, honest I don’t,’ said Freddy,
‘except
I think – well, I think – Mister Adams, I dunno what I think.’ What he actually thought was that Boots was the kind of bloke he needed at the moment.

‘Daddy, you’ve got to help look,’ said Rosie, ‘we can’t just leave Freddy here on his own. He’s Susie’s brother. Well, Aunt Susie’s, I suppose. I mean my aunt from tomorrow. Daddy, buck up.’

‘Come on, Freddy, we’ll use the taxi,’ said Boots, ‘we’ll eat up the streets with that.’

‘Yes, come on, Freddy,’ said Rosie, ‘let’s all buck up.’

Thirty minutes later, they were still riding around in the taxi. They’d been first to Cassie’s house, where there was still no-one home. Boots thought that just as well in one way, for the hope was that Cassie could be found before her family were sent into a state of alarm. He had his mind on the murdered girl and the missing girls. And he didn’t doubt that Cassie was somewhere in this area, whether she was lost or someone had her.

He asked the cabbie to head for the police station. Once there, he spoke to the desk sergeant, who said he had men out searching, men who were making regular calls at Blackwood Street. Boots asked to use the phone. He had a quiet authority. He phoned home. Chinese Lady answered. He explained what he was doing and that he and Rosie would be late back. Chinese Lady said she didn’t mind what time he and Rosie got back, that Emily wouldn’t mind either, as long as he found the girl.

‘You got a tickin’ meter, guv,’ said the cabbie, as he re-entered the taxi.

‘Never mind that,’ said Boots.

‘I’m with yer all the way,’ said the cabbie, who knew what the search was all about now. ‘Let’s get goin’, eh?’

They set off again, the cabbie pulling up whenever
required
to, so that Boots or Freddy could get out and ask the relevant questions of people. They widened the search, then headed back towards Browning Street. Freddy shouted.

‘It’s ’er cat! Look! Mister Adams, look!’

Tabby was whisking away down the shabby street, the street in which sagging timber gates guarded the entrance to a destroyed factory.

‘Pull up,’ said Boots.

The taxi came to a stop outside the gates.

‘Mister Adams, the cat, it came out through the gates!’ shouted Freddy. ‘I saw it!’

Tabby was disappearing fast. A moment later the street was deserted except for the taxi. The derelict ruin of the factory brooded in the evening light of Good Friday, a day given over to religious rites. Boots alighted, followed by Freddy and Rosie.

‘Mister Adams, there’s a place in there where Cassie might be, honest there is,’ said Freddy, and told Boots of the time he’d been here with her, looking for her cat, and how he’d found it in what was left of the factory. He said there was a room that looked as if it was sometimes used by a night watchman. It had a bed, a table and cupboards.

‘Right, Freddy, we’ll go in,’ said Boots.

‘I’ll come with yer, guv,’ said the cabbie. He switched off his meter and climbed out.

‘All right, troops,’ said Boots, ‘it’s the first lead we’ve had, so let’s see what we can make of it. Perhaps Cassie got herself locked in.’

Freddy thought what a great bloke he was, and as calm as you like. He’d been a sergeant in the war. Freddy reckoned he ought to have been a general.

Boots squeezed his way through the gap in the gates and brought Rosie through after him. Freddy and the
cabbie
followed. Boots saw the standing section. It looked gaunt and forlorn. He led the way around the mounds of brick and rubble. Feet made crunching noises. They reached the barred and padlocked door. Boarded windows stared blankly. Freddy shouted.

‘Cassie? Cassie? You there, Cassie?’ He banged on the door with his fist. They listened. There was no response, not a single sound. Boots examined the padlock and the stout metal bar.

‘Anything in your taxi that might help?’ he asked the cabbie.

‘I reckon there is,’ said the cabbie, and returned to his taxi at speed.

‘Daddy, could she be in there?’ asked Rosie, hopeful but uncertain.

‘We’ll see, kitten,’ said Boots, thinking that if the girl was inside or had been, then she hadn’t got in by herself. The padlock was evidence of that. Apart from his set mouth, he hid his feelings, which were all to do with a murdered and buried girl, and what might have happened to Freddy’s young friend, Cassie.

The cabbie returned with a wrench. Boots took it and used it to savage the bar and burst it from its timber bed. That allowed him to open the door. Silent gloom seemed to actually stare at him.

‘It’s upstairs, the room,’ said Freddy. Boots went in. He turned.

‘Rosie, stay there,’ he said.

‘But, Daddy—’

‘Stay.’

‘Yes, all right,’ said Rosie. She wasn’t afraid, not while he was present, but there was no way she would go against him.

‘I’ll stay with ’er, guv,’ said the cabbie, ‘you just holler
if
you need me.’ But he knew, as Boots knew, that the only person who could possibly be inside this standing section was a girl who had been locked in. A girl who might or might not be alive.

‘Come on, Freddy,’ said Boots. The lad plainly was not going to stand and wait himself. Boots, however, did not let him lead the way. If there was only a body to be discovered, he was not going to let Freddy see it. He walked through the passage, stopping to open doors on either side.

‘No, it’s up the stairs, Mister Adams,’ breathed Freddy.

‘It’s as well to take a look down here first,’ said Boots. Reaching the wooden stairs in the gloom, he began to climb them, Freddy behind him. The stairs did not creak, but the landing did, just a little. Boots halted, the silence a lonely and discouraging one.

‘It’s that door,’ said Freddy pointing.

‘Right, Freddy, guard the other doors.’

‘Guard ’em?’ Freddy wanted to rush into that certain room. Boots wasn’t going to let him.

‘Just in case,’ he said. He advanced, turned the handle of the door in question and quietly opened it. And there she was, a girl, a young girl, on a truckle bed, untidy blankets beneath her. She was seemingly asleep. Freddy deserted his post. He had to look. He appeared at the open door as Boots entered the room. He gave a yelp of joyful relief.

‘That’s ’er, Mister Adams, that’s Cassie!’

‘Stay there, Freddy.’ Boots moved to the bed. The girl, was she asleep or dead? He went down on one knee and gently turned her head. He looked down into her face. Cassie sighed, but her eyes remained closed. Well, praise be to God, thought Boots, and the steel inside him became less cold and rigid. Freddy appeared beside him.

‘’Elp, she’s asleep,’ he said.

Boots caught a faint odour then. It pervaded the air around the bed.

Chloroform.

He thought then that there were other smells as well. He came to his feet.

‘We won’t wake her, Freddy. Let her come to by herself.’

‘But we ought to wake ’er, Mister Adams, an’ find out ’ow she got ’ere,’ said Freddy.

‘Well, I’ll carry her down, Freddy. The open air will help to wake her.’ Boots stooped and lifted Cassie up into his arms. ‘Right, here we go.’

Freddy, following him out of the room, said, ‘Mister Adams, I told yer I didn’t know how you could ’elp, but I think I just knew you could.’

‘No, you did it, Freddy old chap,’ said Boots, carrying Cassie down the stairs. ‘You spotted her cat. It meant nothing to me. It meant everything to you.’

‘But I wouldn’t ’ave spotted it if I ’adn’t been with you,’ said Freddy. ‘Mister Adams, I can’t think why Cassie’s asleep and ain’t wakin’ up.’

‘She’ll come to in the fresh air,’ said Boots, and Cassie sighed again as he brought her out into the light.

Rosie stared and the cabbie looked a happy man.

‘Good on yer, guv,’ he said, ‘good on yer, me lad.’

‘Yes, we got ’er,’ said Freddy, ‘but she’s asleep.’

‘Maybe that’s just as well, poor little kid,’ said the cabbie, catching Boots’s eye. Boots gave a little nod.

‘We still need your taxi,’ he said.

‘It’s all yours, guv, all night, if yer want it.’

Rosie, her eyes shining, said, ‘Bless you, Daddy.’

‘Bless Freddy,’ said Boots, holding Cassie close to his chest. He spoke to the cabbie again. ‘Will you take Cassie
home
? Her family must be back by now, and if the police have seen them, they’ll be worried sick. Freddy and Rosie will go with you. Then will you let the police know and ask them if they can get a doctor to Cassie? I think she’ll need a sedative.’ He hoped that was all she would need.

‘Ain’t you comin’, guv?’

‘No, I’m going to wait,’ said Boots.

‘But what for?’ asked Freddy.

‘Because whoever locked her in will be coming back,’ said Boots, ‘and he might arrive before the police get here. Come on.’ He carried Cassie to the gates. The cabbie exerted himself and widened the gap, allowing Boots to get through with the girl. Then he took off his jacket and Boots let him place it around Cassie. Freddy and Rosie climbed into the taxi, and Boots leaned in to settle the unconscious girl between his daughter and Susie’s young brother. They held her. Her head lolled and a little sighing murmur escaped her. ‘Take care of her.’

‘You bet,’ said Freddy, ‘she’s me mate.’

‘Daddy, you watch out,’ said Rosie, not liking the thought of him coming up against some horrible man.

‘I’ll meet you at Cassie’s home,’ said Boots, and watched as the taxi moved off. Then he went back to that room. The faint smell of chloroform still lingered. On the table was an oil lamp, a box of matches and a white paper bag. He picked it up. It was empty, with a peppermint smell. He examined cupboards, of which there were two. One was empty. In the other was a large plate camera, a wooden tripod, a box of photographic plates and a T-shaped flash contraption.

He was conscious of smells. He thought again of young Ivy Connor, murdered, then buried under the floorboards of a shed. In the gloom, he inspected the bare wooden floor of this dolorous room. None of the boards seemed
to
have been disturbed. He went downstairs. About to examine the rooms, he checked as a sound reached his ears. It was faint but perceptible. He knew what it was. Feet moving over ground littered with chips of mortar and brick. He took himself quickly to the only entrance into the place. The door, its metal bar wrenched free, was closed. He had closed it himself. He waited behind it. The sounds of a moving man were closer. They stopped. He heard a strangely petulant exclamation. He pulled the door open.

Mr Ponsonby stared at him.

‘You bugger,’ said Boots.

A rolled umbrella was instantly levelled at him, and from its point a six-inch shining blade leapt and clicked into place.

‘Interfering busybody!’ hissed Mr Ponsonby, and made a lightning-like thrust. But he had picked the wrong man. Boots had prepared himself for a murderous reaction. If Mr Ponsonby was quick, he was quicker. He knocked the umbrella aside before the blade reached his chest, and with his left fist he hit the man savagely on his right jaw. Mr Ponsonby fell stunned. Boots reached, picked up the umbrella, and with the man flat on his back, he bent over him and slipped his left hand into the capacious inner pocket of his frock coat. He drew out a bottle with a glass stopper. He put the umbrella under his arm and pulled the stopper free. He sniffed.

Chloroform.

He replaced the stopper and stowed the bottle in his jacket pocket. The man stirred. Boot stood over him and placed the blade of the umbrella against his chest. Then he waited for the police to arrive.