Dead of Winter

10

Joe Grace came up the steel ladder panting, blowing out plumes of frosty breath.

‘Two blokes, one older than the other and well-dressed. Pruitt said he had a silk scarf. Carrying a briefcase. The other’s short and squat. Swarthy. Pruitt reckons he had something under his coat.’

‘Something?’ Billy asked.

‘Something he was trying to keep hidden.’

Grace hauled himself up the last steps of the ladder and joined Billy and Lofty Cook, who were waiting with the senior of two detective constables supplied by Wapping in the ruins of what had once been a warehouse overlooking the Thames. From where they were they could see one side of the White Boar across a narrow lane that led down to the river from a flight of stone steps, but not the front of the building where the entrance was; nor the door through which Alfie Meeks and whoever else was attending the gathering would enter. That was on the other side of the pub.

‘No sign of Meeks yet. Pruitt’s sure. Only these two blokes. But they went in the side door all right.’

Grace took a packet of Woodbines out of his coat pocket and offered them around. Cook accepted a cigarette; Billy and the Wapping detective — his name was Hornsby — shook their heads. A match flared in the darkness. Billy looked at his watch. It was coming up for eight o’clock. They’d been there for more than three hours. Freezing their knackers off, as Joe Grace had picturesquely put it. Unable to position themselves where they could watch for the arrival of Meeks and whoever came with him, they were forced to rely on a signal from Pruitt, the second of the Wapping plainclothes men and only a recent appointee to the CID. Nevertheless, it was him Billy had chosen for the job.

‘I’m counting on no one knowing his face,’ he’d told Lofty after hearing that Pruitt, a uniformed officer until only six months before, had been transferred from Ealing. The young detective was presently hanging around a vendor who was selling roasted chestnuts in a paved area between the pub and the river bank, acting as though he was expecting to be joined there, by his girlfriend perhaps, checking his watch and clicking his tongue with impatience (at least Billy hoped so), meantime keeping an eye on an even narrower alley that led to a door on the far side of the building not used by the patrons. According to Wapping’s informant, Barrow, the cellar-man, it was through this door that anyone using the back room would enter. He’d explained the layout to Billy and Cook when they had visited the scene with Hornsby earlier that afternoon.

‘You come in and there’s a short passage with a door off it to the bar and another at the end that leads to the back room.’ A skinny, balding man, with a nervous tic, Barrow had slipped away during his lunch break to meet them in the ruined warehouse which Billy had already decided would be their observation post that evening. Anyone using the room comes in there. That way they don’t have to pass through the bar.’ Unhappy in their company, he’d paused only long enough to tell them they wouldn’t be seeing him later. ‘I’ve got a job to do, and anyway I’m not sticking my neck out any further, not for you lot.’

The problem of how to keep watch on the side door had occupied Billy for the rest of the afternoon. To post even a single man in plainclothes anywhere near it, with no good reason for being there, was bound to arouse suspicion, and by the time his forces assembled in the early evening, the best solution he’d been able to come up with was to have each of them slip out of the warehouse in turn and walk past the pub upstream for a short way and around a bend that would take them out of sight, before turning and retracing their steps. This route took them past the alley and also covered the approach to it from upstream, where the walkway continued for fifty yards or so, ending at another set of steps. After some thought Billy had posted two uniformed officers supplied by Wapping in the street above with orders to remain there, out of sight, unless they heard the blast of a police whistle. In which event they were to descend the steps and make their way to the White Boar as quickly as possible, detaining anyone they ran into on the way who might be seeking to leave the scene.

This arrangement had been in effect for more than two hours, with the detectives taking it in turn to walk up and down the riverside, before the chestnut seller had appeared, hauling his brazier and other equipment down from the street. He’d had to make two trips, but the effort appeared to be worth it since he was soon doing brisk business with the pub’s patrons, both arriving and leaving, as well as other passers-by, and seeing this Billy had dispatched Pruitt to take up his post there. He’d had orders to signal them by removing his hat if anyone entered the pub by the side door. Should he recognize Meeks he was to run his fingers through his hair. He’d given the first of these signals a few minutes earlier and Grace had gone down to investigate.

‘What now?’ Lofty asked.

‘We wait,’ Billy said. ‘I’m not going in till I’m sure Alfie’s there.’

‘And whoever’s with him?’

Billy shrugged. ‘We can but hope.’

He stamped his feet. His toes had gone numb and the rest of him felt sluggish, too, his limbs dulled by lack of movement in the near-freezing air. At least there was no wind that night, which was lucky, since the warehouse — what was left of it — offered little protection from the elements. It wasn’t only the roof that had been demolished but the floors above them, and while sections of the walls remained here and there, they offered little more than cover for the detectives who were huddled together in the shadow of one of the larger bits left standing, unable to move about freely since the floor on which they stood was an unstable surface riddled with holes and broken masonry. The port of London had been one of the Jerries’ main targets during the Blitz and the whole area had taken a pasting. How the White Boar itself had escaped destruction was a mystery, since the buildings on either side were in ruins. But it didn’t seem to have suffered from its isolation, judging by the steady stream of customers arriving. Although the detectives couldn’t see in — the window facing the warehouse was covered with a blackout blind — they could hear the babble of voices coming from inside and the noise had mounted steadily as the evening wore on.

‘It’s always had a name,’ Hornsby had told him. He and Billy hadn’t worked together before, but they were acquainted. ‘Always been a thieves’ pub, but the locals use it too, and that doesn’t bother Stan Jewell. Good for camouflage. More than one job’s been set up there, I can tell you. If that back room had ears …’

Billy yawned. He was growing sleepy and he moved a few steps away, to the corner of the warehouse, so as to flex his knees, which were starting to stiffen. No trace of a wall remained there and he was able to gaze out over the river, which in peacetime would have mirrored the lights on both banks but now reflected only the faint glimmer of a new moon. The sky was clear — the day had been sunny — but there was bad weather on the way according to a long-range forecast he had heard on the wireless that morning. A depression was moving in from the Atlantic and snow was predicted for Christmas, now little more than a fortnight away.

It was news that might once have brought cheer to the population, but that year Billy sensed little joy in those around him at the approach of the festive season. The war had gone on too long. People were worn out. Only that morning, along with the news of the weather, had come a report of a new German offensive in a region called the Ardennes, in Belgium. It was clear that the fighting was far from over and normal life still a long way off. He himself had not seen his family for more than a day or two at a time in over three months, and he wondered whether they would even manage to spend Christmas together. Although the chances of him getting any leave looked remote, he was reluctant to bring Elsie and the kids down to London. The fear of flying bombs still loomed large in his mind.

Just then, like a ghostly echo to his thoughts, he heard the faint wail of a siren and a second later a searchlight pierced the sky downriver, in the direction of Woolwich. Then another, and another, lending an eerie beauty to the velvety darkness.

‘What odds it’s another false alarm?’

Joe Grace was at his shoulder, a cigarette glowing at his lips.

‘We had three the other night. The wife was going up and down from the bedroom to the basement like a yo-yo.’

Billy grunted. Since the Luftwaffe had stopped coming over it was only the V-1s that put the capital’s defences on alert — the V-2s descended from a great height and without warning — and the number of their attacks had declined in recent weeks. It was reported that the batteries that fired them had been driven out of France. But rumour also said the Jerries were now launching the unmanned craft from planes, and Londoners remained nervous and on edge.

‘Billy!’

Lofty Cook’s urgent call brought their heads round.

The Bow Street inspector was pointing down, towards the front of the pub. Billy looked that way and saw that Pruitt had taken off his hat. He was running his fingers through his cropped fair hair.

‘Right! Let’s move.’

The only way down was by a steel ladder that went to the warehouse basement. Cook led the way, stepping backwards. Billy followed. A doorway at the foot of the ladder gave on to a flight of steps that ascended to the cobbled lane beside the pub. In no time the three detectives had joined their colleague by the charcoal brazier where the air, warmer by a few degrees, was rich with the smell of roasting nuts.

‘It was Meeks, all right, sir,’ Pruitt murmured to Billy as they came up. Erect and square-shouldered, he still had something of the beat bobby about him. I recognized him from his photo. He was with another bloke. They came that way.’ He gestured upstream.

‘What did he look like?’ Billy eyed the alleyway. ‘The other man?’

‘Couldn’t make out his face. He had his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled down. They went straight in. Didn’t hang about.’

Billy glanced at Cook, who was at his elbow.

‘We could go in ourselves now, or we could wait, see who else might be coming. What do you think, Lofty?’

Cook pursed his lips, considering. Beside him, Joe Grace had turned his gaze away from the pub and was staring into the darkness downriver. Billy followed the direction of his glance and saw the night sky lit up, not only by searchlights now but by the flash of anti-aircraft shells exploding. It seemed they were too far off to be heard, but then he caught the faint pop-pop sound of the guns firing. The sirens continued to wail in the distance.

‘Why not wait?’ Lofty said. ‘See what develops. This is the only way out.’

‘Joe?’

Grace shook his head. ‘I say go in now. We’re sticking out like sore thumbs standing around here.’ He caught the chestnut vendor’s eye: the man, bundled up in a coat and balaclava, was cocking an ear to their murmured conversation. What’s your problem, sunshine?’ His smile was unfriendly and the man looked away quickly.

Grace hawked and spat.

‘The thing is, guv — ’he spoke to Billy — ‘if we wait for them to come out, one or two may make a run for it and we might not catch ’em all. In that back room they’re cornered. Rats in a trap.’

Billy thought for a moment longer, then nodded. We’ll move in now. We’ll detain them on suspicion.’

‘Suspicion of what?’ Grinning, Grace threw his cigarette into the river.

‘Conspiracy to commit a crime. Or anything else that takes your fancy. We can sort it out at the station.’ He turned to the two Wapping detectives. ‘The three of us will go in — it’s our case. You stay out in the alley, by the door. If any of them makes a break for it, nab him. Have you got a whistle?’ he asked Hornsby.

The detective nodded.

‘If things look like they’re getting out of hand, give a blast and those bobbies will come running.’

He paused for a moment, looking at the circle of faces around him.

‘I don’t want to be an alarmist, but watch yourselves, specially with this pal of Meeks’s. We don’t know how dangerous he might be. Stay on your toes.’

While he was speaking a piano had struck up inside the pub and it was soon joined by a number of voices. The song was ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’ and Joe Grace could only shake his head in disbelief.

‘A bunch of villains having a sing-song? What next …?’

His words were lost in the sudden wail of a siren. Coming from close by, the long keening note rose swiftly in pitch and volume until the air around them throbbed with its urgent clamour. The singing inside the pub stopped; the piano, too, fell silent. As one they looked downriver. It was Billy who spotted it first.

‘There —!’ He pointed.

‘Crikey!’ The whispered word came from Grace’s lips.

Suspended above the city, a thumb of bright orange flame glowed in the night sky. It appeared to hover motionless, but after a few moments they saw it was coming nearer, the stationary effect due to the lack of any solid background against which to gauge its movement. As they stood there, transfixed by the sight, the siren was cut off — the sudden loss of volume hinted at an electrical flaw — and in the silence that followed they heard the familiar stuttering drone of the flying bomb’s engine.

‘Coming our way, do you reckon?’ It was Hornsby who put the question.

We’ll soon know,’ Grace muttered.

The lottery was understood by all. Even the chestnut vendor stood riveted, his eyes fixed on the approaching craft. It was a question of when the doodlebug’s motor cut out: that would determine where it would fall.

The flame of its engine had grown brighter and it seemed to Billy it would pass over them, but then, all at once, as though a switch had been pushed, the fiery glow in the sky went out. There was a pause. The motor coughed … once … twice … and went silent.

‘Down!’ he yelled. ‘Get down.’

Dropping to his hands and knees, he was about to throw himself flat on the stone pavement when he saw that the vendor was still staring at the sky, open-mouthed. Reaching up, he grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him to the ground where his four colleagues were already spread out on their stomachs, faces pressed to the stone.

The hush was unearthly now. To Billy it seemed that the whole world was holding its breath.

But the next sound he heard was not the explosion he was expecting. It was a single gunshot, muffled, but unmistakable: then two more in rapid succession.

‘Christ Almighty!’

Joe Grace reared up from the ground, Lofty with him.

‘Get down!’ Billy yelled again, and at that moment he felt the ground beneath him shudder as the air was rent by an ear-splitting explosion followed at once by a blast of hot air that swept across the open pavement where they were lying. In its wake came a shower of stones and broken brick enveloped in a cloud of smoke and dust that swirled about them, filling the air and blinding them. Covering his head and neck with his arms, Billy waited till the rain of debris had ended, then looked up. To his right, in the middle of the warehouse, angry red flames burned in the midst of a black cloud that was ascending through the open roof. In front of him, the pub doors had been flung open. Although the smoke was still thick, Billy could make out the figures of two men who had come staggering out, one of them holding a bloody handkerchief to his head. Beside him, on the ground, Hornsby groaned.

‘Jack …?’ Billy lifted his head to peer at him. There was a gash on Hornsby’s neck that was bleeding freely. Hold still,’ he said.

Cook’s face appeared like a ghost’s in the billowing smoke.

‘Did you hear those shots?’ he gasped.

‘Yes … three.’

‘No, the others … three more.’

‘What-?’

Billy looked up. He’d bent over Hornsby to examine the wound in his neck, which didn’t seem too bad. A nasty gash was all.

‘Right after the bomb went off. Joe heard them, too.’

Grace, on the other side of Cook, was already on his feet. He was batting his hat against his leg, knocking the dust out of it.

‘We’d better get in there, guv.’

Billy clambered to his feet. He saw the backs of his hands were bleeding from the rubble that had come down on them. ‘Pruitt … where’s Pruitt?’

‘Here, sir.’

The young constable was bare-headed. The sight of his cropped hair made Billy realize his own hat had gone missing in the blast.

‘Stay here with Hornsby. See to him.’

He blinked at the chestnut vendor beside him. The man was sitting up. He seemed unhurt. There was no sign of his brazier and pan.

‘Three more shots, you say …?’ He struggled to get a grip on his scrambled wits. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go.’

The smoke had thinned and a stream of people, a few in uniform, but most in civilian dress, was issuing from the pub’s doors. Though there was blood to be seen on faces and hands here and there, they didn’t look to be too badly hurt. Just shaken up. Billy saw Grace was ahead of them, making for the alley at the side.

‘Sir … sir!’

Two bobbies had appeared as if from nowhere, out of breath and panting. Billy recognized their faces. They were the men he’d posted up in the street. He realized they must have run down when they’d heard the bomb go off. He looked about him. There was quite a crowd in front of the pub now. One or two had sat down on the paving stones; they were shaking their heads, probably surprised to find themselves still alive, he thought. Then he noticed that others were drifting off, leaving the site.

‘Did anyone go by you?’ he asked the constables. ‘When you came down?’

‘Sir …?’ The older of the two answered him. ‘I’m not sure, sir. We couldn’t see, not with all that smoke.’

‘Never mind. Wait here. Come if we call.’ Billy looked for Grace and Lofty, but they’d vanished: gone inside. He started down the alley himself and came to the door, which was open. As he moved to enter it, Lofty Cook’s tall figure materialized out of the dust-laden gloom inside.

‘Jesus. Billy …! You’d better come and see.’

Lofty’s eyes were wide, his face pale. Without saying more he turned and led the way back down the unlit passage to the door at the end, which was open and where there was a light burning. As they went in he moved to one side, giving Billy a view of the interior, where the bodies of two men were sprawled on the floor close to a table in the centre of the room. Joe Grace was on his haunches beside them.

‘We’ve a couple over here, guv.’ His eyes seemed unnaturally bright. ‘Old friends, these are. But guess who that is …’

He pointed and Billy saw a third body propped against the blood-spattered wall near the door, head askew, eyes empty and staring. The narrow features looked familiar.

‘It looks like Alfie Meeks,’ he said.

‘It’s him, all right.’ Grace rose to his feet. He caught Billy’s eye and grinned. ‘Bastard made a clean sweep. He topped ’em all.’

‘Solly Silverman, did you say? Well I never.’

Sinclair bent down to look at the body, which was that of a man in late middle age whose forehead, lightly coated with dust, bore the blackened circular mark of a bullet fired at close range. Silver-haired and distinguished-looking, he was dressed in an expensive woollen coat of prewar cut belted in front, and the chief inspector had to peer closely before he could make out the bloodstained patch in the dark material which showed where a second shot had been fired into his chest. A navy blue silk scarf hung loosely about his neck. His face wore a surprised expression.

‘When I think of the years I spent trying to put that old villain away …’

A second body lay close by, face-down, and the chief inspector turned to examine the back of the skull, which had been shattered, white bone showing through the mat of close-cut black hair.

‘Costa, I take it?’ he said to Billy, who nodded.

‘You can’t see his features too clearly, sir, but it’s Benny all right.’

Billy could feel himself starting to sway on his feet and he collected himself quickly. A feeling of exhaustion had descended on him in the past twenty minutes, the after-effects of shock, he reckoned, and he was having to grit his teeth to keep going. He watched as Sinclair bent lower.

‘That looks like a shotgun,’ the chief inspector remarked, peering under the body.

‘It’s a sawn-off,’ Billy told him. ‘Benny usually brought one with him on a buy. Been doing it for years, by all accounts.’

‘A buy? So you think that’s what this was about?’ Sinclair straightened.

‘It’s only a guess,’ Billy admitted. But Silverman’s a fence, after all, and I can’t think what else would have got him out and down here on a cold winter’s night. Also, he had a briefcase with him — Pruitt saw it — and it’s not here now, so whoever shot him, shot them, must have taken it. If it was a buy, Solly would have brought cash with him. That’d be the drill. And he’d have had Costa with him as a bodyguard.’

Relieved to see Sinclair’s nod — he seemed to agree — Billy shook his head to clear it. He’d rung the chief inspector from a telephone in the pub within minutes of their discovery of the three bodies, only to find he’d already left for home, and thereafter had hardly drawn breath as he’d struggled to bring order to the chaos that had soon enveloped the riverside when the rescue services, alerted to the explosion, had begun to pour down the steps on to the narrow embankment. Firemen trailing hoses had jostled with ambulance crews and air-raid wardens, their passage delayed by the White Boar’s customers, who had thronged the terrace, themselves unable to leave the area easily due to the steps being blocked. As it happened, the pub had survived the blast relatively unscathed. The V-1 had come down in the middle of the neighbouring warehouse, rearranging the debris there but causing little other damage. Only one window had been broken, and though it had been blown in with considerable force the combination of taped panes and the blackout blind had cut the amount of flying glass to a minimum. Medical teams who had arrived with the ambulances left on the street above had treated a dozen or so patients, but only two — Hornsby one of them — had been taken to hospital. Firemen had inspected the tiled roof and pronounced it safe. Gradually the crowd on the embankment had thinned.

Meanwhile Cook and Grace had secured the murder site and prepared it for the forensic squad which Billy had called for when he’d telephoned the Yard. With the aid of two lamps borrowed from the rescue services and set up in the corners, the room was lit now like a stage set; it was possible to make out every detail down to the peeling wallpaper and the thin patina of dust that had fallen from the ceiling in the aftermath of the explosion, covering the table and dulling the pools of blood lying on the bare floorboards beside it.

Presently Ransom had arrived, summoned from St Mary’s, and Billy had cleared the room so that the pathologist could make his examination undisturbed. In the meantime he’d instructed Grace and Pruitt to interview whatever customers they could find in the hope that one of them might have laid eyes on Alfie Meeks’s companion earlier and to question the landlord of the White Boar, Stan Jewell. But the effort had proved fruitless. A good many of Jewell’s patrons, aware by now of the police presence, had made themselves scarce, and although some of the others recalled hearing the shots that had preceded the detonation, none had witnessed the arrival of Meeks and his associate. As for the landlord himself, in Grace’s words he’d proved, not surprisingly, to be a wise monkey’.

‘He didn’t see who went into the back room with Meeks. Doesn’t know what happened there. Says he rents the room for private parties. Private parties …’ Joe had snorted in derision. ‘He even tried to pretend he’d never heard of Silverman, though it’s odds on he moved half the stuff he lifted through Solly when he was a second-storey man.’

‘What about Meeks?’ Billy had asked. ‘He’s the one who rented the room. Did he know him?’

‘He admits they were “acquainted”.’ Grace curled his lip. ‘I could tell Jewell didn’t think much of him, though. He all but said he couldn’t understand what Alfie was doing there. But he won’t help us, that’s for certain. Like I say, he’s a wise monkey.’

Grace had also had a word with Barrow, but learned nothing from him. The cellar-man had been below broaching a fresh keg of beer when the bomb had gone off.

Feeling the need for a breather, Billy had gone outside at that point, and it was while he was leaning against the stone parapet overlooking the river, smoking a cigarette, that he’d caught sight of a familiar figure advancing briskly, though with a slight limp, along the paved walkway towards him. It was after ten; he hadn’t expected to see the chief inspector that night.

‘I rang the Yard before I went to bed,’ Sinclair informed him. It seems you’ve had a busy evening.’ He had looked at Billy closely. ‘How are you feeling, Inspector?’

‘Oh, I’m all right, sir.’ Billy had grinned, though the truth was his legs still felt wobbly. In the few moments he’d had to himself since the explosion he’d found himself thinking about his family: wondering how they would have managed without him. We were lucky. It could have been worse. Apart from Hornsby’s cut, none of us was hurt.’ Seeing the direction of Sinclair’s glance, he held up his hand, wrapped in a bloodstained handkerchief. It’s just a scratch, sir.’

Nevertheless, he’d taken a grip of himself then. There was something he had to tell the chief inspector and there was no point in delaying it.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but if I’d had my wits about me we could have nabbed this bloke. He took off right after he’d shot them. Ran along the bank to the steps, I’d guess.’ Billy pointed in the direction Sinclair had just come. We heard the shots. We should have grabbed him then and there.’

Sinclair had said nothing, but Billy could see he was paying attention.

The two bobbies I posted up on the street missed him, too. I don’t know how that happened, except they were reacting to a buzz bomb coming down, not to a police whistle. They must have thought anyone going by them was trying to get away from the explosion. And then there was the smoke and dust … clouds of it. I don’t want to lay any blame on them.’

Nor do I, Inspector,’ Sinclair had responded briskly. And you’re not to hold yourself responsible either. You’d just had a close call. I doubt you were thinking clearly. We’re not machines, any of us.’

I suppose not.’ Billy had been reluctant to agree. He still felt he’d come up short. ‘But it didn’t seem to bother him, did it — that bastard? The buzz bomb wasn’t part of his plan, but he went about his business just the same. Even took advantage of it, I reckon. He shot them just after the siren had sounded — when they must have been waiting like the rest of us to see what would happen next — and then afterwards, when we were trying to gather our wits, he finished the job. Didn’t blink an eyelid.’

‘You paint a disturbing picture,’ Sinclair had remarked drily.

His words returned to Billy now as he watched him slowly scan the room, his glance eventually coming to rest on the third body — that of Meeks — which was partially hidden by the burly figure of Dr Ransom, who knelt beside it peering closely at a wound in the dead man’s temple.

‘Chief Inspector…!’ Sensing Sinclair’s gaze on him, the pathologist looked round. A little late in the season to be out with a gun, wouldn’t you say, but a good bag nonetheless. It’s one corpse after another with you fellows these days. I’m tempted to remind you there’s a war on.’

‘Thank you, doctor.’ Billy could see his chief was not amused. ‘In the meantime, perhaps you could tell me something about the wounds?’

‘The wounds …? Ransom pursed his lips.

‘And spare us your wit this once.’

The pathologist flushed. He peered at Sinclair from beneath his bushy eyebrows. ‘Well, they were caused by bullets, which is plain enough. Small calibre. From a pistol or revolver, I’d say. Each man was shot twice. First in the body — in the chest — and then in the head. At least, I assume so.’

‘You assume …?’ The chief inspector scowled.

‘I mean, I assume that was the order in which the shots were fired. The ones to the head were all from close range — the powder burns are visible. It looks as though he put them down with body shots first, then gave them the coup de grace.’

‘And what do you deduce from that, doctor?’ Sinclair regarded him, head cocked to one side.

‘Why, the same as you, I dare say.’ Ransom shrugged. ‘What was done was quite deliberate. It was an execution, pure and simple.’