Without the Moon (19 page)

Standing on the threshold, Greenaway had another flash of Marjorie Cummins in the front room that had so clearly been furnished to her husband's taste, and instinctively he knew that this was part of what Muldoon had been doing here: finding out how the other half lives.

Mrs Cavendish-Field sat beside the fire, clutching a glass of brandy. The brown spaniel lying at her feet raised her head and gave an inquisitive whine.

“You asked me earlier if Joseph had ever given me a reason to feel afraid,” she said, staring into the flames. “Well, he hadn't. Not until Wednesday morning.”

“That so?” Greenaway moved cautiously towards her, wondering if she kept any of her own firearms tucked away about the place. “What happened then?”

“He woke me at five in the morning, throwing stones at my window. I'd never seen him in such a state – hair standing on end, utterly reeking of booze and, when I let him in to stop him waking up the rest of the house, I could see he had scratches all over his hands. I asked him whatever had he been up to,” her eyes finally rolled up to meet Greenaway's, “and he said he'd had some bad news from home, something about his sister. He'd gone drinking to drown his sorrows, apparently. Fallen asleep in a field somewhere and got injured trying to find his keys after they'd rolled underneath a barbed wire fence.” Her expression told him she did not believe it.

“His sister?” Greenaway frowned. The dog got to her feet and bustled towards him, her whine getting more insistent as she pushed her head underneath his right hand.

“I thought I'd get it out of him once he'd slept it off,” Mrs Cavendish-Field continued. “But he stayed in his foxhole until late this afternoon. I went up to see if everything was all right, I had really started to get worried by then. But he was still in a foul mood – hung over, of course. Wanted to be left alone, he said. He offered to take the dog out for a walk, so he could go straight to the pub, I suppose.” She shot the animal in question a look of disdain. “Look at her,” she said, “wanton beast. Some guard dog you turned out to be, eh, Chocolate? She's never got over the loss of my husband, you see. She's like this with every man she meets.”

The spaniel stared up at Greenaway with love in her eyes, her stump of a tail thrashing from side to side. “Ah,” he smiled, trying not to marvel at how closely her words mirrored what the Sergeant had already opined of the landlady herself. “So
you're
Chocolate, are you?” He ruffled the top of the animal's head. “Don't seem to me like you're in much need of a guard dog, Mrs Cavendish-Field. I must say I'm impressed by how well you can look after yourself.”

“Chief Inspector,” the landlady's voice turned sharper, “you still haven't told me what it is you wanted to see Joseph for.”

Greenaway looked into her green eyes, straightening up to stand to attention. “There's a few more things I need to ask you,” he said, taking out his notebook. “If I remember rightly, you told me Muldoon first stayed here on the first of March last year.”

“That's right,” she held his stare, her expression opaque.

“After that, did he come back here on a regular basis?”

“Well,” Mrs Cavendish-Field looked back towards the fire, “I suppose he did. Every couple of months he'd be back for a weekend and then, last summer, he spent two weeks of his leave here. That was the longest he ever stayed.” Her hands searched out her packet of Pall Malls and lighter.

“And what about his friend, Mr Parnell? Did they always visit at the same time?”

Mrs Cavendish-Field lit up. “No, not after that first time. Mr Parnell is a businessman, he travels a lot, so his visits were always fairly sporadic. After that first time, they were only here together once more and—” she found herself looking above Greenaway's head to the photograph of her late husband. “And I'm afraid I don't think they parted here the best of friends. They had some kind of a falling-out after they'd been to the pub one night. But don't ask me what about,” she continued swiftly, her eyes dancing away. “Neither of them would tell me. Mr Parnell never came here again and this past week Joseph really hasn't been himself at all.”

He could hear the cracks start to form in her voice. It had been a long night already, and suddenly he felt sorry for her, as capable as she undoubtedly was.

“During this past week,” he asked, “he didn't mention the case of Gordon Cummins to you, did he? Or the Blackout Ripper, as the papers liked to call him?”

Mrs Cavendish-Field shook her head. When she turned back to him, he could see that her eyes were beginning to glisten. “No, no, I can't say he did.” The adrenaline provoked by her earlier confrontation with Muldoon having left her system, she had come over feeling very tired, very old and very stupid indeed. “Look, Inspector—” her eyes were pleading, “just tell me – what has he done?”

Greenaway decided against mentioning the newspaper pages, annotated with Muldoon's ramblings, that he had also recovered from the room. The Canadian's little commentary on the Blackout Ripper's progress could wait for the interview room.

“I'm afraid it's murder,” Greenaway said, putting his notebook away.

22
DRY BONES

Friday, 20 February 1942

“What you doin' there, son? Lost something besides your marbles?”

Bobby put the dustbin lid down and turned to face Soapy. “You still got any of yesterday's papers?” he asked.

Soapy shook his head, chewing thoughtfully on the toothpick that habitually protruded from between his canines as he took in the shadows under the boy's eyes, the tousled mop of hair. “You know how it works, son, they all go in the boiler at the end of the day. You helped me clear them up yourself last night, if you can remember that far back. What you doing here at this hour anyway? Shouldn't you be in school?”

Bobby shrugged, rubbed his eyes. He couldn't find any easy excuses to explain himself. “Soapy, what's a woman of the night?” he asked instead.

“Not something you want to be losing sleep over at your age,” said Soapy. “Now go on, clear off to school. And comb your hair while you're about it.”

– . –

Greenaway drained the last dregs of the chicory grounds being passed off as coffee from the station canteen while he typed up his notes on Muldoon. The bitter taste went with the picture he was formulating of the man he had left in the cells at Bow Street court prison the night before, adding to the report he had taken from the Canadian's RSM to what he had found in the room in Mole Cottage.

Muldoon, it appeared, had been taking a keen interest in the story of Gordon Cummins. He had collected cuttings of every murder – preferring the
Daily Mail
's coverage, but with a few
Herald
s,
Daily Mirror
s and an
Evening Standard
thrown in – underlining the words “strangle”, “stockings” and the myriad allusions to “working girls”, “ladies of the night” and “ladies of easy virtue” in red pen throughout the copy. Evelyn Bettencourt's murder seemed to have excited him the most, but perhaps that was because all the papers had managed to get hold of glamorous publicity pictures she'd had taken in her actress days, her hair in marcel waves. WHORE he had written across her forehead, adding a drawing of a bow tied around her neck and further amateur cartoonist's attempts at splurges of blood and flying daggers. A further SOCK IT TO HER, BUDDY!!!! in the margin.

On the one hand, this was evidence that could lead a jury to believe that Muldoon had been an admirer of Cummins, and had set out to murder a prostitute in imitation of the techniques he had been poring over in the papers, by strangling her with her own stocking – perhaps even in tribute to his now captured hero. But, on the other, it could equally well convince them that Muldoon was stark raving mad.

The crux of Greenaway's dilemma was how easily a clever barrister could apply the M'Naghten Rule as defence of temporary insanity – which, should it be accepted, would mean Muldoon avoided a date with the gallows. The script for this practically wrote itself: the aftershock of the carnage Muldoon witnessed in France unhinging his mind, the lack of any subsequent action in the field leaving those horrors to fester in the bad company he kept in barrooms – the drunks, the prostitutes, the smooth-talking likes of Raymond “the Maestro” Parnell – all taking advantage of a man not in his right mind. In this scenario, the jury would be invited to consider Muldoon as a war hero, the killer himself a victim of cruel and capricious circumstance.

A hat Muldoon seemed to have already tried on. He hadn't invented his sister in Quebec; shortly after his return from France, his CO had received a petitioning letter from her, begging for Muldoon's discharge on grounds of his delicate mental health. She referred obliquely to an incident in his youth for which “he should have received proper treatment” without actually stating what this was. But it had, she said, caused previous “temporary lapses” from his “normally kind and gentle nature”.

Muldoon's CO was having none of it. Twenty-mile runs in full pack and nights in solitary in the barracks' slammer were his way of dealing with the pernicious Private's regular post-France acts of insubordination. That none of these measures seemed to have had much effect on him would only strengthen a defence barrister's argument in favour of M'Naghten, Greenaway feared – especially if that barrister were to get his hands on the sister's letter.

His defence against that line took the form of a six-foot-two pinstriped spiv. Raymond Parnell might not initially play well for a jury, but if Greenaway could get his testimony that Muldoon had tipped him off about the cigarette lorries in Leatherhead then Muldoon could be shown to have a well-hinged criminal mind that acted at all times entirely out of calculated self-interest.

The handsome, saturnine face of Sammy Lehmann flashed through Greenaway's mind as he formulated his plan, giving him a cocksure little wink: “I might be in the Moor thanks to you,” the gesture seemed to imply, “but my boys are still running things nicely, you mug …” Greenaway batted him away with the return of his typewriter carriage. Before getting to that, he first had to make sure the murder charge stuck. It was time to meet Muldoon in the cold light of day.

– . –

“How's he spent the night?” Greenaway enquired of the Duty Sergeant at Bow Street.

“Quietly,” the other man replied. “Didn't ask for anything, other than a paper. I was finished with mine so I give it him. Thought it'd be nice for him to see his handiwork splashed all over the front page.”

“You're right about that,” said Greenaway. “Give him something to add to his collection. I found quite a pile of Penny Dreadfuls in his kitbag already.” The clippings were stowed in his murder bag, awaiting further discussion.

Arriving at Muldoon's cell door, he opened the hatch. The noise was enough to send the prisoner up from the bunk that took up half the width of his place of confinement and onto his feet. He stepped sideways towards the door and saluted as it opened.

Greenaway and the Duty Sergeant exchanged glances.

“At ease, Muldoon,” said Greenaway. The Canadian dropped his hand but not his gaze. In contrast to their previous meeting, his expression had altered from hostility to something approaching deference – though he hadn't been so mindful of the rest of his appearance. The pencil moustache was now virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the thick stubble that shadowed the lower half of his face, and the cloying smell of his cologne seemed to intensify with the underlying musk of unwashed hair.

“Had a good night's sleep?” Greenaway enquired.

“Sir,” Muldoon said.

“Ready to have that little chat now, son?”

“Sir,” Muldoon repeated, “are you the same Detective Inspector Greenaway who caught the Blackout Ripper, sir?”

Greenaway moved closer to the Canadian, looking hard into his dark eyes. “Why?” he asked. “Do you fancy him or something?”

Muldoon flinched, took a step backwards. “Say what?” he said, frowning.

“Cummins,” said Greenaway. “I found all those clippings you kept in your room at Mole Cottage. Bit of an unhealthy interest you were taking in him, don't you think? Or do you find him as dashing as those poor, unfortunate women did?”

The furrows deepened on Muldoon's forehead and he gave a little laugh. “Gee, I don't know what you mean, sir. I always take an interest in murder mysteries. I read all the Edgar Wallace and Sherlock Holmes books in the barracks library, got a big collection back home. Everybody loves that stuff, don't they? And you took a real life Ripper down. Man, you're a hero. It's an honour to be arrested by you.”

It was Greenaway's turn to frown. “
Me
the hero? Funny, I had the idea it was Cummins you were looking up to. Thought maybe it was him who gave you the idea. I mean, Peggy Richards was strangled with her own stocking, just the way Cummins liked to do it.”

“Peggy Richards?” Muldoon maintained his expression of incomprehension. “Who's she?”

“The woman you threw off Waterloo Bridge,” said Greenaway. “The woman whose handbag you stole and tried to fence in the Running Horse last night.”

Muldoon laughed as if Greenaway was telling him a joke. But his cheek twitched and his eyes shifted their focus from Greenaway's to a space a few inches above his head.

“You're telling me I killed somebody?” he said. “What, are you nuts?”

“I've got her body down the morgue and her ration book in your kitbag,” said Greenaway. “You're such a murder-mystery fan, you tell me what it looks like.”

Muldoon's eyes came back to him, narrowed. “You've got her body at the morgue?” he said. “Well I guess then you should show her to me.”

Greenaway's eyebrows shot up and nearly didn't come back down. “You what, son?”

“I want to see her.” Muldoon stared defiance. The twitch in his cheek grew more pronounced and beads of sweat started to form on his forehead. “I want to see the body.”

Greenaway turned to the Duty Sergeant so he didn't have to look at this unsavoury show of mounting excitement before he'd had more chance to gather his thoughts.

“Now there's a request you don't hear every day,” he said.

“Indeed,” said the Duty Sergeant, looking like he'd caught a bad smell. Something worse, even, than Muldoon's aftershave.

“Let's see what we can do about that, shall we?”

– . –

Twenty minutes and one phone call to Chief Commander Peter Beverley later, Greenaway and Muldoon were handcuffed together in the back of a car, travelling towards Southwark Morgue. Having discussed Muldoon's behaviour with his superior officer and oldest ally in the force, Greenaway had decided not to engage his prisoner in any small talk, just observe his actions. He was convinced the Canadian was putting on an act. The formal autopsy was due to take place that morning. He wanted to see how much of that Muldoon could stomach.

He was also sure, as they walked the short journey from the pavement to the room where Spilsbury was preparing for his task, that Muldoon was getting a kick out of attracting attention to himself this way. His demeanour had brightened considerably since they had left Bow Street with all eyes following the pair of them. It was the same at the morgue. While Greenaway manoeuvred them past the front desk and down the corridors, he could feel Muldoon puffing himself out, his stride becoming a swagger, as if in his head he was a film star walking down a red carpet. When they entered the autopsy room, perhaps he mistook the bright lighting for the Klieg lamps of his vivid imagination, the stern form of the pathologist standing by the body on the gurney for somebody about to give him an Oscar for his canny portrayal of a Chicago hood – or maybe even a Blackout Ripper. But when Spilsbury stood aside to let him witness the outcome of his last date, all Muldoon's talent suddenly seemed to desert him.

Greenaway watched his prisoner's face as he contemplated reality. The smile fell away from his lips and the colour drained from his face as his eyes took in the livid hues of blue, black, purple and yellow that adorned the smashed contours of the body before him. Then wandered across to the row of instruments laid out ready to dissect the damage in minute detail: the saws, scalpels, tongs, blades and receptacles. Involuntarily, he raised his left hand, the one that wasn't handcuffed to Greenaway's, to shield his eyes. Then he turned away.

“Seen enough already?” asked Greenaway. “Don't you want to stay for the autopsy? It starts in ten minutes and I've got permission for you to be here. That's if you don't have any objections, Dr Spilsbury?”

“No, indeed,” said the pathologist. “Be my guest.”

Muldoon shook his head furiously but didn't say a word. He kept his thoughts to himself all the way back to Bow Street, where Greenaway left him in his cell with a bit more information to chew on.

“I'll be getting the fingerprint tests back this afternoon from the lady's handbag,” he let Muldoon know. “Then I expect I'll be back to see you. With my charge sheet.”

Muldoon stood facing the wall. “You'll get nothing from me,” he muttered, without turning around.

– . –

Greenaway had only just reached his office at Tottenham Court Road before one of his brighter detective sergeants stuck his head around the door. “That sketch in the papers has done the trick,” he said. “We've had two people come in this morning claim to know the Waterloo Bridge woman. A dockworker from Deptford says he's been living with her the past two years, and an Irish nurse from Bethnal Green thinks it's her sister.”

“Bethnal Green?” Greenaway turned over the information in his mind. All roads seemed to be leading back to the place. An Irishwoman, too – the old PC from Charing Cross he'd done his pub crawl round the Strand with had said Peggy Richards was Irish. “Well, well.”

“They both seem genuine to me,” the DS went on. “Who would you like to see first?”

“The man,” Greenaway decided. If the woman from Bethnal Green really was the sister of the deceased, then she would need to identify the body. Which had better wait until after Spilsbury had finished his work in the morgue.

– . –

He looked to be in his late thirties, had a wide, ruddy face dotted with the open pores and thick lines that come with long years of working outdoors, a thatch of thick, curly hair that once had been dark brown but was now all but frosted over. He wore a donkey jacket over blue overalls and a pair of steel-capped work boots, and he was twisting the peaked cap he carried between his hands in an anxious fashion.

“Inspector Greenaway here is in charge of the investigation, Charlie,” the DS said. “Will you tell him everything you've just told me?”

“'Spector Greenaway,” the man's bloodshot brown eyes travelled around the patchwork of maps, mugshots and paperwork that crowded the wall behind Greenaway's desk, lingering uneasily on the sketch of Gordon Cummins before finally meeting Greenaway's gaze. “Charles Beattie,” he said, raising his rough paw to briefly grip the DCI's. “Call me Charlie.”