Rennie Airth_John Madden 03 Page 3

  and then vanished in the darkness.

  She hadn’t far to go.

  Feeling a lot better after his break – the firemen were a

  friendly lot – Bert hurried down the museum steps into the

  buffeting wind and then tacked his way across the great

  forecourt like a ship under sail. The sirens he’d heard

  earlier hadn’t sounded again. He was ready to call it a night.

  But while sitting in the warmth inside he’d felt the prick

  of conscience, and instead of going home directly as he’d

  planned he’d decided to return to where he’d interrupted his

  round earlier and make a final inspection of his area.

  Pausing only to adjust his shoulder bag, he set off briskly

  down Museum Street, using the road itself, rather than the

  pavement. Although the blackout restrictions had been relaxed

  in recent weeks – in some districts of the capital, street lamps

  were now permitted to show a glimmer of light, creating what

  was called a moonlight effect – inky darkness continued to

  prevail in many areas, and if you wanted to avoid barking your

  shins on unseen obstacles, or, even worse, collecting a black

  eye from walking into a lamp-post, it was best to keep to the

  middle of the street.

  Bert had barely turned the corner and started down Little

  Russell Street, however, when he heard the sound of a car

  behind him. Looking back he saw its reduced headlights

  approaching, and moved off the roadway to give it passage.

  It went by slowly, the driver steering his vehicle carefully

  down the dark canyon created by the buildings on either side

  of the narrow street. Bert continued to walk along the

  pavement. He was keeping an eye on the car, ready to move

  back on to the road at the first opportunity, but before he

  had a chance to do so his foot caught on something and

  he tripped and fell headlong.

  'Bloody 'ell!’ Half-winded by the fall, he lay where he was

  for a moment, collecting his wits. 'What in the name of. . . ?’

  Lifting himself up on one elbow he peered behind him.

  The darkness seemed impenetrable. But there was something

  there all right. He could feel it when he pushed his foot

  back; an obstruction of some kind. Bert levered himself into

  a sitting position. His shoulder bag had come off, but he

  quickly located it by feeling around in the dark, and having

  got the straps unbuckled his questing fingers found the torch

  which he carried inside it. He switched on the light.

  'Christ Almighty!’

  The whispered exclamation was involuntary. Revealed by

  the wavering beam, a pair of legs was protruding on to the

  pavement. They belonged to a woman, there was no doubt of

  that. Bert could see a knee-length skirt beneath the coat

  which the sprawled figure was wearing. He shifted the light.

  His hand was shaking.

  'Ah, no … I’

  He recognized the figure: it was the young girl he’d

  bumped into earlier. Her pale face was clearly visible now

  that the hood she’d been wearing had been dragged clear of

  her head. Bert could see the basket she’d been carrying lying

  beside her. It had tipped over and he caught a glimpse of

  some strewn apples and the remains of what looked like

  broken eggs. Although he knew instinctively that she was

  dead, he stirred himself to scramble to his knees and reach

  for her wrist, which lay close to him, the hand beneath it

  clenched. He found no pulse.

  'Poor lass . ..’

  Fumbling in the pocket of his overalls, Bert got hold of

  his police whistle, and as the wind gathered in strength,

  ascending to a high keening note not unlike a howl of grief,

  he blew a long blast on it. Then another . . . and another,

  piercing the enveloping blackness around him with its urgent

  summons.

  'She was murdered all right, sir. There’s no doubt of that.

  A possible strangulation. It seems an air-raid warden stumbled

  on the body. The first officer on the scene was a woman police

  constable. She was passing by and heard him blow his whistle.

  Bow Street has some men examining the site now. Because of

  the blackout, they weren’t able to do it properly last night.’

  Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair shifted uncomfortably in

  his chair. He’d spent a sleepless night, disturbed by the

  buffeting wind and also by an attack of gout, a malady that

  had begun to plague him in recent years. As Bennett watched

  he lifted one foot off the floor and set it down gently. Aware

  that the subject was a sensitive one so far as his colleague was

  concerned, the assistant commissioner kept a tactful silence.

  Sinclair squinted at the page he was reading from. 'We

  don’t have a name as yet,’ he said. 'But she appears to be in

  her early twenties and . . . er . . . respectable.’ He frowned at

  his own choice of word.

  'Not a prostitute, then.’ Bennett nodded. Thanks to the

  blackout, assaults after dark had become commonplace in

  London. Streetwalkers, in particular, had suffered in the

  upsurge of violence which the war years had brought to

  the capital. 'Do we know why she was killed?’

  'Not as yet, sir. Bow Street rang in with this information

  overnight. They’re sending other details over by hand. I

  expect to hear from them quite soon.’

  Bennett grunted. 'What else?’ He gestured towards the

  typed sheets held together by a paper clip which Sinclair had

  laid on his knee. A summary of all crimes reported in the

  Metropolitan area during the preceding twenty-four hours, it

  was delivered to the chief inspector’s desk each day in time

  for their morning conference, which took place in Bennett’s

  office overlooking the Thames embankment.

  'Just the usual. Balham organized a raid on a premises in

  Brixton last night. Two printing presses were seized. They

  were being used to turn out fake identity cards and ration

  documents. No arrests as yet.’ The chief inspector paused.

  'And we’ve had another report of looting in Stepney. They

  took a pounding over the weekend. Two V-2s came down in

  the district. The police are trying to keep an eye on damaged

  houses, but the looters slip in at night.’

  'I want them caught.’ Bennett’s face darkened. 'Put the

  word out. If more men are needed, we’ll find them.’ In

  common with most policemen, he regarded looting as a

  particularly loathsome crime. It was taking advantage of

  others’ misfortunes in the worst possible way and offenders

  could look for no mercy from the courts.

  'One bright spot, if you can call it that.’ Sinclair glanced

  up. 'The Stockwell police stopped a lorry they thought was

  suspicious in the early hours. It turned out to be filled with

  frozen carcasses of beef. Fresh from the Argentine, I’ve no

  doubt.’ The chief inspector lifted a grizzled eyebrow. 'Two

  men were arrested. They’re still being questioned.’

  'It could be that hijacking gang we’ve been after.’ The

  assistant commi
ssioner tried to sound optimistic. 'Perhaps

  they’ll lead us to the rest.’

  'We can always hope,’ Sinclair agreed, though without

  much conviction. 'So far all they’ve said is they were offered

  a tenner each by a man they’d never met before to drive the

  lorry to London. I doubt they’ll change their story.’

  He brooded on his words. Five years of war had brought

  a new dimension to lawbreaking, one which had stretched

  police resources to their limits. The thicket of regulations

  designed to control the distribution of food and other scarce

  resources issued by the government at the start of the conflict

  had opened fresh avenues for the criminal world, and it gave

  the chief inspector little satisfaction to know that several of

  the capital’s most dangerous gangs, formerly employed in the

  business of extortion and notorious before the war for their

  violent conduct at race meetings, had long since moved into

  new spheres of activity linked to the flourishing black market.

  Even worse, the virus had spread to the general population.

  Prompted by shortages and driven beyond endurance by the

  tendency of authority to poke its nose into every corner of

  life, ordinarily decent citizens now broke laws they no longer

  respected without compunction, taxing the police still further.

  The telephone on Bennett’s desk rang and the assistant

  commissioner picked it up. While he was speaking, Sinclair

  allowed his gaze to stray to the windows, where a sky the

  colour of dishwater could be glimpsed through panes crisscrossed

  with tape to minimize bomb blast. Try as he might,

  he could no longer bring the same passion to his work he had

  once felt. In truth, he found it only a burden now, a duty he

  accepted as necessary for the good of the force he had served

  for half a century, but one he could hardly wait to relinquish.

  The mortal struggle which his country had been engaged in

  these past five years had demanded sacrifices from all, and

  Sinclair’s own contribution had been to defer his plans for

  retirement, already in place when war had broken out, and

  answer the appeal which had come from Bennett’s own lips.

  'Angus, I need you. This war will be fought to the death,

  and it won’t be over by Christmas.’ This had been in late

  1939, following the German invasion of Poland and before its

  assault on France, when peace had still seemed a possibility

  to some. 'The Metropolitan Police will suffer along with

  everyone else. We’re already losing men to the forces and no

  fresh recruiting will be allowed until the fighting’s over. It

  won’t be long before we feel the pinch.’

  Unable to refuse the request, or deny the necessity behind

  it, Sinclair had agreed to stay on, but with a sinking heart. By

  refusing several offers of promotion and clinging to his rank

  as chief inspector he had managed to prolong his career as an

  investigator beyond its normal span. His name was associated

  with some of Scotland Yard’s most famous cases and his

  reputation, particularly among the younger detectives at the

  Yard, was close to legendary. But as he well knew, those days

  were over: he had turned seventy; it was time to retire

  gracefully and leave the world to others to bustle in.

  The post he held now as special assistant to Bennett gave

  him supervisory authority over all criminal investigations, but

  no active role in them. With it had come yet another offer of

  promotion, to the rank of superintendent. As the assistant

  commissioner himself had pointed out, it might seem anomalous

  for a mere chief inspector to give direction to officers

  senior to himself. But at that point Sinclair had dug in his

  heels. Before the Met’s plainclothes staff had been expanded

  in the years leading up to the war he had been one of only

  four chief inspectors on the Yard’s strength, men who had

  been seen as an elite group, specialists assigned to handle only

  the most difficult cases. He had been proud of the distinction

  he’d earned, and the fact that there were now a round dozen

  men holding the same rank was neither here nor there to

  Angus Sinclair.

  “I prefer to remain as I am, sir. And since I’ll be speaking

  in your name, I don’t imagine I’ll encounter any problems.’

  Left unsaid by him was the fact that many of those

  promoted above him had learned their trade at his hands and

  it had become commonplace at the Yard to refer to him

  simply as 'the chief inspector’ without further identification.

  Beached at last, a slave to paperwork, to somehow making

  ends meet, Sinclair had quickly discovered the truth of the

  assistant commissioner’s prophetic words. If the Yard had felt

  the pinch of war at the outset, it was now close to being

  trapped in a straitjacket of diminished resources. The Met’s

  prewar strength of 19,500 had shrunk to a mere 12,000, and

  while the situation had been alleviated somewhat by the use

  of auxiliaries known as Specials, it had coincided with a sharp

  rise in crime. As though in response to some Malthusian

  principle, lawbreaking had increased in proportion to the

  number of laws added to the statute book. (Issued under the

  all-embracing Defence Regulations, there’d been no end of

  them.) Far too many policemen were engaged in pursuing

  petty offences, wasting both their own and the courts’ time,

  adding to the store of national irritation and impatience with

  authority. It had been the chief inspector’s aim throughout

  the war to counter this trend towards the trivial, to keep the

  plainclothes branch insulated from it as much as possible and

  engaged in the fight against genuine crime. But it was a battle

  he could never win entirely and the effort had exhausted him.

  Nor was he alone in his suffering, Sinclair reflected, as

  he watched Bennett, who was saying little but still had the

  receiver pressed to his ear, stifle a yawn. As assistant commissioner,

  crime, Sir Wilfred was responsible for all CID

  operations in the Metropolitan area, a position he had held

  for many years and one that now hung like an albatross

  around his neck. Indeed, if the chief inspector sometimes

  mourned his own decline into bureaucratic impotence, he was

  able to spare more than a thought for his superior, who had

  nursed the ambition, even the hope, that he might one day

  ascend to the commissionership. The summons had never

  come. Throughout Bennett’s career the government had continued

  its tradition of appointing a senior member of the

  armed forces to the post. (The present incumbent was an air

  vice-marshal.) And now that he, too, was preparing to retire – he’d already made it known that he was only waiting, like

  others, for the war to end before offering his resignation he’d

  been forced to swallow a final irony. Word had come

  down from on high that the authorities had decided to make

  a break with the past: once hostilities were ended a new

  commissioner
would be named, a civilian appointee.

  The call over at last, Bennett replaced the telephone

  receiver in its cradle. He removed his reading glasses and

  rubbed the bridge of his nose. A slight, vital figure in his

  younger days, he had begun to put on weight lately and his

  dark hair, never abundant, was thinning to the point where

  what little of it remained barely covered his pale scalp.

  'Well, Angus? Is there anything else?’

  'Not for the moment, sir.’ With an effort Sinclair brought

  his mind back to the business in hand. 'Apart from this

  murdered girl, of course.’

  'What do you plan to do?’ The assistant commissioner

  frowned. 'Will you make it a Yard investigation?’ He was

  referring to a state of affairs relatively new in the capital,

  where in the past most serious crimes had been assigned as a

  matter of course to detectives stationed at the Yard, but

  where now, thanks to staff shortages, more cases were being

  farmed out to the various divisions.

  'No, I don’t think so, sir.’ The chief inspector began to

  gather his papers. 'It sounds straightforward enough. Of

  course, it depends . . .’

  He was interrupted by a knock on the door, which

  opened. Bennett’s secretary put her head in. 'Excuse me, sir.

  I’ve just had a call from registry. They’ve received some

  information from Bow Street which Mr Sinclair is waiting

  for.’ She glanced at the chief inspector. 'It’s a woman’s name

  and address.’

  'Come in, Miss Ellis.’ Bennett gestured her forward and

  took the sheet of paper she was carrying from her hand.

  Slipping a pair of spectacles on, he studied it for a few

  moments.

  'She’s a land girl, I see. A Polish refugee.’ He slid the piece

  of paper across the desk to Sinclair. 'You can bring in my

  letters now, Miss Ellis. And a cup of tea, if you would . . .’

  Bennett went on speaking to his secretary, but stopped when

  he saw the look of astonishment on the chief inspector’s face.

  'Angus . . . ?’

  Sinclair seemed not to have heard. He was staring at the

  piece of paper in his hand.

  'What is it, man?’

  'I’m sorry, sir.’ The chief inspector collected himself. 'It’s

  this young woman who was murdered. I know her. Or of

  her, rather . . .’

  'Are you sure? A land girl?’ Bennett seemed unconvinced.