War Damage (15 page)

thirteen

M
URRAY TIMED HIS VISIT TO
Downshire Hill carefully: 5.30 in the evening. Mrs Milner was likely to be at home, but her husband was not.

He hadn't counted on a visitor. That was stupid of him, he thought as he took in the scene: the warmth of the drawing room with its fire, sparks popping, the curtains drawn and cups of tea on the low table, and the boy languidly sprawled on the chaise longue.

When Charles saw the policeman he eased himself gracefully to his feet and said: ‘I must be going … Regine.'

‘Must you? Do stay. The sergeant won't be here long – will you?'

Murray felt there was something forced and artificial about her smile and her manner, but he misinterpreted it, assuming her to be nervous at the thought of another grilling from the police, not that he intended to grill her. ‘I just need to go over one or two things.'

‘I should get along. My mother will wonder where I am.'

Regine followed Charles into the hall and Murray heard them talking about some French homework or something and the boy said: ‘Until next week, then.'

‘Do sit down.' Regine gestured at Neville's armchair and took the chaise longue herself.

‘I'm sorry to intrude on you again.'

She seemed to be miles away, looking into the fire; then sighed, sat up straighter and looked at him. ‘Yes, it is only a few days ago, isn't it.' Now he felt her manner was slightly coquettish.

‘We saw your friends, Mr and Mrs Jordan—'

‘Yes! Hilary told us.'

‘Mrs Jordan mentioned that there was someone at your afternoon party on the day your friend died, someone who wasn't on your list. It seemed odd you'd forgotten him. Ernest Appleton.'

Regine was playing with her necklace. Murray was mesmerised by the amber globules, the flashing emerald ring and red nails. ‘I didn't forget. But you must see why I didn't want his name brought up.'

‘Because he's a government minister? But that doesn't mean he's exempt from scrutiny. No one's above the law, Mrs Milner, especially in a case like this.'

‘I didn't mean that. But he's in trouble already. You must have read it in the papers, these allegations about the Board of Trade. This man, Sidney Stanley – all these questions about corruption and bribery – Mr Appleton's a junior minister in that department. To then be linked to a sordid murder as well, even if accidentally as it were, would be so damaging.'

‘No one need know. We certainly shan't mention it.'

‘But you see there's more to it than that. He's married, of course, but he came to my Sunday with his mistress.'

Murray went red with embarrassment. A mistress! No one he knew talked like that. Coarse language about women, of course, but somehow the word mistress suggested rarefied, transgressive social worlds and it surprised him to hear a lady like Mrs Milner refer to such things.

‘You're shocked,' she challenged him.

Murray felt the familiar tightening of resentment. She assumed he was just another narrow-minded, respectable, suburban policeman. And the truth was he was shocked. But: ‘I'm just rather surprised,' he said, ‘though perhaps I shouldn't be. I somehow thought this government was a bit different …' Cynicism swelled, becoming part of his objectless resentment. ‘But anyway, this is all strictly confidential. It won't go any further. There's no reason for his name to be mentioned in connection with the case.'

‘But it so easily could get known,' she pleaded. ‘If the police were to turn up at his house to question him about Freddie it would probably get into the press and destroy his career; and possibly his marriage.'

‘I assure you that's not going to happen.'

‘He didn't even
know
Freddie. Cynthia's an old friend of mine. She brought him. I was
flabbergasted
. I knew it was going on, but they've never appeared like that in public before.' She gazed at him. ‘Please – you don't need to mention it to your inspector, do you? It's got nothing to do with – what happened to Freddie.'

‘Probably not.' He offered her a cigarette.

‘I don't smoke.'

He lit one for himself, watching her surreptitiously. She'd tied her blazing hair with a black ribbon, to reveal her creamy neck. There was a round, brown mole beneath her ear. He was startled when she asked: ‘So what did you make of the Jordans?'

‘We understood he was Mr Buckingham's lawyer, but that appears not to be the case,' he said cautiously.

Regine leaned forward. ‘Muriel's a follower of Oswald Mosley. I had no idea – I only just found out.' Her hand pulled at her necklace again. ‘Oh – I shouldn't have told you, should I – will she get into trouble? But to be honest I can't stand the woman. And what a spiteful cat to tell you about Cynthia's beau.'

‘But they're friends of yours. How could you not know?'

‘It was Hilary who was my friend. I met him during the war. He wasn't married then. Actually we had a shipboard romance. That's how we met. On a boat.'

She was teasing him, he knew, toying with him. He flushed, angry with himself, or perhaps with her. If only she wouldn't flirt. If only she wasn't so … seductive.

He must pull himself together. ‘Let's get back to Mr Buckingham. You're not suggesting, are you, that Mrs Jordan's political views had anything to do with all this?'

‘No …' Her mood seemed to change so quickly. Now she seemed pensive, anxious even. ‘But Hilary, Hilary Jordan, came to see us right after you'd been there. He was in rather a state. Do you remember – my husband mentioned meeting Freddie on the night he died, when he went out to get cigarettes? Well, he didn't tell you that Freddie had earlier met someone we know called Arthur Carnforth, a friend of the Jordans. Freddie apparently told Neville that they'd had a tremendous row. And the Jordans were worried about him.'

‘Why was that?'

‘He's a Nazi. A crank, my husband said.'

She put her hand up to her hair and began twisting a curl that had fought free of the ribbon.

‘But how does this connect with Mr Buckingham?'

‘Well, only that he'd had a row with Freddie. And he hated Freddie's guts.'

‘Why didn't your husband mention that?' He watched her closely. There was something febrile, strange about her, one minute cold, almost hostile, the next confiding, then again mischievous. He couldn't have known it was all to do with Charles; that she was furious with him for interrupting their tête-à-tête and at the same time thinking of how their hands had touched, hers and Charles's, and of how – so young – he was such a master of ambiguity.

Although Murray suspected nothing of this, an unconscious awareness caused him to say: ‘Mr Buckingham took an interest in the boy – Charles Hallam – who was just here. Was there anything there shouldn't have been in their relationship? Might his parents have had cause to be concerned? Might they have – they saw no reason to intervene, to put a stop to it?'

‘You don't have to interview Vivienne Hallam, do you?' She was anxious now. He wondered why.

‘The people, your friends on that guest list. Who would be useful to talk to?'

‘I still don't see why you have to talk to any of them, Sergeant Murray.'

‘I know, but … it's background, partly, and, well, men he might have had relations with.'

‘Freddie kept that side of his life very separate.'

Her coldness disheartened him. He leaned forward. ‘I realise it's unpleasant,' he said, ‘but we have to look at every angle. I know you want to protect him – avoid any scandal, unpleasant stories in the newspapers, but that aspect could be significant. The photographs you say are missing, for instance. Could they have incriminated anyone? Indecent photographs?'

‘I don't know anything about them. Or if they even existed. My husband thought they did, that's all.'

‘It couldn't be – forgive me for suggesting this – but is it possible your husband removed them – or anything incriminating – from Mr Buckingham's house?'

‘Really! That's outrageous.' But she was blushing. There
was
something. She
had
taken something from Buckingham's house.

‘In order to protect Mr Buckingham's reputation – or that of other people?' he insisted.

‘If we'd taken them, we wouldn't have told you, would we,' she said with a triumphant smile.

She looked at her watch. He'd alienated her. ‘I hope I haven't offended you. You do understand we have to ask all these questions.'

‘I'm so tired of it all. It's all such a worry.' For a moment he thought she was close to tears.

‘Is there anything else you'd like to tell me? Anything at all?'

She looked at him, a deep, serious look. Then her silence changed and her lips curved in the painted smile that tantalised him so unbearably. ‘I don't think so. I've told you rather a lot, haven't I? I shouldn't really have said what I did about Arthur Carnforth. My husband would be furious.'

‘Why?'

‘He doesn't think it's any of your business. And he's – they were at school together, old school loyalties I suppose.'

‘Do you know where the two of them met, Mr Buckingham and Mr Carnforth?'

‘Somewhere in Camden Town, I think.'

‘We made enquiries at public houses in the Hampstead area, but we didn't think of going as far as Camden Town. The pubs down there – we didn't think they'd be the sort of place Mr Buckingham … Irish pubs, mostly.' Murray would have been shocked to hear Freddie joke with Charles about the erotic appeal of hulking great Irish labourers.

On the doorstep he said: ‘Just one last thing—'

‘Oh – you're impossible. There's always one more thing.' Her mood had lifted again. She laughed at him.

‘I have to take a friend to a restaurant – it's a celebration meal, a special occasion – next week. I thought you might be able to suggest somewhere decent, somewhere in the West End perhaps.'

‘A celebration … well, there are some nice Italian restaurants in Soho. If you really wanted to make a splash you could try Quo Vadis. That is expensive, though. Is it for your girlfriend? Perhaps you want to take her somewhere special?' She was flirting again.

‘No, no,' he lied, ‘it's just – just a friend; a colleague, actually.'

‘Bertorelli's perhaps – in Charlotte Street – that's nice. Or there's a dear little place called Fava's.'

‘I'll remember those names.' It would look too lumpish to write them down. He lifted his hat and tried to memorise them as he strode away.

fourteen

M
URRAY PARKED THE CAR
beyond the bridge and the two detectives walked towards the disused railway through soft, drifting rain that came down like the twilight. The path was screened by the trees and bushes that grew up the bank, even though the leaves had begun to fall.

A huddle of uniformed police stood at the site. In the light from powerful torches and a photographer's lamp the figures looked blacker, faces whiter, sharply bisected by hat brims.

The pathologist said: ‘Body must have been here at least a week, perhaps more. The weather's been quite damp, so – anyway, he's been shot in the head at close range, there's a burn mark … nothing to identify him …'

Whoever had hidden the body in the ditch had probably relied on its not being found for some time. Hardly anyone frequented the disused railway line or even knew about it. Boys larking around up there had only found the corpse because one of them had fallen off his bike and into the ditch. That must have been a shocking experience – put them off for some time from messing about in places where they shouldn't be, Plumer thought with satisfaction.

They stood round in the chilly autumn air for some time. When it was quite dark, they went back to the office.

* * * * *

A few days later, forensics came back with the news that the weapon was probably the same one that had killed Frederick Buckingham.

In Campbell Bunk the little knobbly-kneed boys were still playing and shouting up and down the pavement, but now with a football. Guy Fawkes Night had come and gone. They shrank back against the wall as the detectives passed, instinctively knowing themselves to be in the presence of the law.

‘Campbell Bunk,' said Plumer. ‘The worst bloody street in north London. More villains than you've had hot dinners.'

The detectives reached the house they were looking for. There was no bell. The knocker made a hollow sound and was so heavy it seemed as if it might smash the battered door. They waited.

Murray banged the knocker again. Eventually they heard slow footsteps scuffing nearer and a hoarse voice: ‘All right, all right, I'm coming.'

The woman who opened the door wore men's old carpet slippers and was dressed in a faded flowered overall. Her hair hung lankly on either side of her face. It was hard to tell her age, because her cheeks had fallen in on her toothless gums.

‘Yes?' She knew at once they were the Law. ‘About my son, is it? Been in trouble again?'

That was, in the end, how they'd identified him: a uniformed sergeant had recognised the face, and then there'd been police records: fingerprints, previous. Kenneth Barker had form.

‘Your son, Kenneth Barker? I'm afraid so. If we could just step inside for a moment …'

The front room smelled stale, but was reasonably tidy and clean. Mrs Barker gestured them towards the broken-down sofa that lolled against one wall.

Plumer cleared his throat. ‘I'm very sorry to have to tell you …'

The woman showed curiously little emotion at the news of her son's untimely death. She sat motionless. Then: ‘I'll make us a cup of tea,' she muttered. Plumer tried to demur, but she had shuffled off into some nether region before he could stop her. Murray dreaded the thought of dirty cups and sterilised milk, but she returned with a tin tray on which clean, though cracked, china and a metal teapot were arranged. The milk was sterilised. Fresh milk was one of the few luxuries Murray's mother insisted on.

‘Ken was in with them Mosleyites, blackshirts, y'know. Real wrong-uns. Went off with one of them last time I saw him.'

‘When was that, Mrs Barker?'

‘Oh … couple of weeks ago … maybe longer.'

‘Weren't you worried when he didn't return home?'

‘Ken weren't living here. Or only off and on. 'E stayed over from time to time, but I never knew when I'd next see the lad.' Now a few tears oozed from her dark eyes.

‘This was the address recorded at the time of his last conviction. For affray,' said Plumer prissily. ‘Can you give us a current domicile?'

‘He moved around a lot, see. This was 'is address, official like, but he didn't actually live 'ere, leastways not most of the time.'

‘How did you know the man you saw him with was one of Mosley's lot?'

‘I didn't, not really. It's just he's always knocking around with them lot. Trouble-makers.'

Plumer tried to extract further information about the dead man's associates, and especially a description of the man last seen with her son, but she wouldn't, or couldn't, be drawn. Murray met a lot of women like her in the course of his duties; worn out by the war, by poverty, by her menfolk. She would only denounce the British Union of Fascists – or whatever they called themselves now – adding, ‘Mind, I don't like the yids no more 'n anyone else, but you 'ave to put up with them when all's said and done, they never done me no 'arm – poor things, and those camps – and now it's the darkies coming over here. They're worse, they look dirty to me, saw one up the road the other day, black as yer 'at …'

At least, reflected Murray, she'd soon be fitted with National Health Service dentures. The woman's flaccid fatalism filled him with a kind of horror. It was as if the slings and arrows of life had not only wrecked her sagging body, but deadened her soul as well.

‘Ken wasn't a bad boy, y'know, just got in with a rotten lot.' She sat on the sofa with her feet apart, gazing into space. ‘Hadn't seen much of 'im lately, but … it's hard to believe …'

Murray couldn't help feeling that Ken, whose reasonably, or at least intermittently, successful criminal career during the war he'd read up in the police records, could have provided his parent with a bit more in the way of worldly comforts, but he kept this thought, like many others, to himself. And anyway, perhaps she did have dentures, but badly fitting ones, or just didn't bother to put them in.

After twenty minutes, all they'd established was that a man had called for Ken, tallish, but she hadn't been able to see his face because he'd been wearing a hat with a rather wider than normal brim and had had his coat collar turned up ‘almost as if he didn't want to be seen'.

‘D'you mind if we just have a look at his room, Mrs Barker?' Plumer was as polite with her as he had been with the Milners, perhaps more so.

They didn't expect to find anything and the upstairs bedroom, clean and tidy, contained little of a personal nature: no pictures, no magazines, no sports gear. Murray opened the drawers of the chest that stood against one wall and found only a few articles of clothing neatly folded. A string suspended across the recess by the fireplace held a jacket and a raincoat on wire hangers.

However, when Murray looked under the mattress he found a folded garment: a bloodstained shirt.

Plumer did not want to upset Mrs Barker unnecessarily, so he contrived to show her the shirt while concealing the bloodstains.

‘Ken never wore a shirt like that. Stuck to white; or blue. Checks – never.'

‘You don't mind if we take it away? It may help our enquiries.'

‘Must've belonged to that friend of his. Stan.'

‘Stan?'

‘Pinelli. Nasty little Eye-tie.'

‘That's very helpful, Mrs Barker.' And with that Chief Inspector Plumer explained the formalities for the release of the body; and that under new legislation she could claim a death grant to help pay for the burial. The two men took their leave. On the doorstep Plumer donned his hat, then raised it in leave-taking and said: ‘If you think of anything else useful you could tell us, I urge you to contact us. We do want to bring your son's murderer to justice.'

Her look expressed the greatest cynicism on this score.

As they walked away down the street, Murray said: ‘So he was in with Mosley's lot. That's what the conviction for affray was about then – one of those running battles in Dalston.'

‘Mmm, but this looks more like an underworld business to me. The blackshirts don't usually go running round shooting each other.'

‘I don't know about that, sir. They're always falling out, splintering off into rival groups.'

Plumer frowned. ‘I think we'll go easy on that. I don't want Special Branch poking their noses in. They try to be too bloody clever if you ask me. No need to complicate things by dragging politics into it. We'll get the blood analysed and see where that takes us. And what about Stanley Pinelli? I know that name.'

The policemen reached their car. ‘She didn't seem too upset about her son,' commented Murray.

‘Shock,' said Plumer tersely. And: ‘I need a beer.'

Plumer regularly drank at a mock Tudor establishment by Hackney Marshes, near the police station where he'd served his time as a junior detective in the thirties. In both saloon and public bar useful contacts were still to be found. On this particular evening he encountered no familiar faces, but only the previous week he'd received information about the black market in weaponry from occupied Germany and the two detectives now returned to the subject.

‘It was the same gun,' began Murray, ‘the same German gun.'

‘The hand of the underworld,' said Plumer.

‘But in that case, why should the queer have been killed? He'd nothing to do with the underworld.'

‘Ah – that's not quite true, is it? Remember – he was outside the law himself. Common or garden villainy, that's the most likely explanation.'

But the adrenalin was coursing through Murray. At last they had exciting information; a significant connection. ‘This blackshirt business, sir. I saw Mrs Milner again. She said the Jordans are in with Mosley's lot. And the man they gave as an alibi – Carnforth, he's one of Mosley's lot too.'

‘Mmm.' Plumer smoked and sipped his beer, deadpan as usual. Murray couldn't understand why he wasn't more excited.

Finally Plumer said: ‘Whether Kenneth Barker ran around with a few clapped-out Mosleyites is beside the point. Mosley's a spent force. A yesterday's man.'

‘They're still going round the East End making trouble.'

‘I grant you that,' conceded Plumer, ‘but it's not like last year. Hard to credit, really, you'd think everyone had had enough of the Nazis – yet they all came crawling out from under their stones when Mosley returned. But I still think the main point is Kenneth Barker was a villain. We need to see this Pinelli. I know some of them have Mosleyite connections. But that's a side issue. At bottom they're thugs.'

‘Don't they hate queers, though? Couldn't it be that—'

‘Could be, I suppose. But I still think it was some twisted little pervert or a cosh boy. I know we've turned nothing up so far. In the end someone'll come forward. At the end of the day someone always boasts or spills the beans to their mate. If we twist enough arms.'

‘It didn't have to be a male prostitute, sir. It could have been someone Buckingham picked up who was a bit slow on the uptake, didn't twig what it was all about and then panicked or got in a rage.'

‘We've been through all this. That sort of idiot wouldn't have had a weapon.'

‘You're right, sir,' said Murray diplomatically, ‘but don't you think what Mrs Milner told me could be important?'

‘Could be. You have to ask yourself though, why did she come up with all that stuff? It may just be a red herring, something to put us off the scent.'

‘Why should she do that?'

‘We need to find out. The Milners acted suspiciously, going round to the house like that, whatever they say. But … I still think it'll turn out to be some murderous little toerag who's gone mad with a revolver.'