The London Blitz Murders

FEBRUARY 12, 1942

H er mother was expecting her.

That was what confused Mary Jane Lowe, who had taken the tube from Charing Cross station to meet her mother, Margaret, at the second-floor flat on Gosfield Street, a narrow side street just off Tottenham Court Road. Mary Jane was fourteen, a tall, dark, brown-eyed brunette with a blossoming figure the boys were noticing; right now she was boyishly dressed herself-navy blue coveralls and a matching corduroy jacket-partly because that was the style, but also due to the chill, snowy weather.

Mary Jane did not wear makeup-her mother didn’t approve-but her features were so pretty, her brown eyes so big and long-lashed, her smile so wide and white, her lips so full, she didn’t really need to. She was proud of her good looks, which she’d inherited from her mum, who had just enough Spanish blood in her to make both mother and daughter seem vaguely exotic.

Someday, perhaps, she would be as beautiful as her mother.

Before the war, Mary Jane’s mum had kept a boardinghouse in the coastal town of Southend, and the girl had fond, vivid memories of sunny blue-sky mornings and running along the sand with their Scottie terrier. But Southend tourism was a thing of the past these days-barbed wire strung along the beach, aimed to keep out the invading German hordes, kept out holiday fun-seekers, as well-and then the boardinghouse, which was on the verge of going broke anyway, got commandeered by the military.

Mum had left Mary Jane in Southend with Uncle Rodney and Aunt Grace-whose restaurant business had survived, thanks to the soldiers-and, while Mary Jane carried on with school and all, Mum had found a position as a banker’s secretary, in London.

This, at least, was what Mary Jane’s mother had told her. But Mary Jane had suspicions otherwise. First, Uncle Rod and Auntie Grace gave each other funny looks, whenever Mary Jane-receiving monthly envelopes of cash from London-commented on Mum’s secretarial situation. And Mary Jane herself knew Mum had never had anything like training in that line of work.

She wondered if Mum were a waitress or a cleaning woman or such like, and was ashamed to say so to her little girl, particularly after they’d had such a nice life at the Seaside Inn. She also wondered, sometimes, if her late father had really died when Mary Jane was two; she was at an age where the thought did occur to her that her father, who was just a grinning face in some faded photographs, might have simply run off and left Mum and her to fend.

When the girl came to London, once every six weeks or so, to spend a weekend with Mum (and Scottie, who Uncle Rod had not welcomed), Mary Jane longed to ask her mother these and other related questions. But somehow Mary Jane could not bring herself to do so. Mum seemed so sad, these days.

Funny thing was, Mum didn’t say she was sad or act sad, and in fact, around Mary Jane, she smiled rather too much, if anything. Mary Jane sensed something forced about Mum’s good mood, and her over-involved anecdotes about herself and co-workers at the bank, and how she was the bank president’s “right-hand gal.”

Now, as she knocked on the door for the twentieth time, with Scottie on the other side, yapping and yowling (despite the girl’s assurances: “It’s only me, love”), Mary Jane trembled with an intermingling of frustration and fear….

Outside the door, next to where Mary Jane had set down her little tan suitcase, was a wrapped parcel addressed to her mother. Its presence, this late in the day, on the doorstep, struck Mary Jane as odd.

Mum had said in her letter that she’d be taking Thursday and Friday off, to spend with Mary Jane, who had a long weekend because of end of exams. Staying in Mum’s flat was always rather harrowing-it seemed to Mary Jane little more than a glorified prison cell, really.

Mum said nice rooms were hard to come by, ’cause of the war and all, though Mary Jane suspected her mother was living so close to the bone so’s she could send Mary Jane (and her uncle and aunt) all that money. But the girl always had a wonderful time, visiting Mum, and this weekend would be no exception. They would do all sorts of fun things together-take Scottie to the park, go to the cinema, perhaps spend an afternoon at Harrod’s, pretending they could afford to buy something.

But with an unclaimed parcel on Mum’s doorstep, and no response to ardent knocking, and Scottie going simply mad barking, Mary Jane felt herself teetering on the edge of panic. She knew she was being silly, but she couldn’t help imagining the most tragic things… particularly with what the newspapers were saying about a Blackout Ripper and all….

Absurd! Ridiculous! That fiend targeted streetwalkers, not bank secretaries… or waitresses, even, or charwomen. Her mum had simply got called away, had to go in for work, last minute. Probably the bank president himself. How could Mum say no to him?

Not sure what else to do, Mary Jane knocked on the door of the neighboring flat, Scottie’s yapping sounding pitiful now.

The woman who answered was pretty, in a haggard sort of way, and was wearing a dark blue dressing gown; her platinum hair was up in pin curls, and she seemed to have just about applied half of her makeup-one eye, a beauty mark and her roughed-in lip rouge. She had a cigarette in one red-nailed hand and smoke curled like a question mark.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Mary Jane said, for she had never met her mother’s neighbor before, “but I’m Mrs. Lowe’s daughter, here for a visit….”

“I’m Alice Wick. You must be Mary Jane! The good student I keep hearin’ so much about. Pearl’s right proud of you.”

“Pearl? My mother’s name is Margaret.”

“Just a nickname, love. Whatever’s wrong?”

When Mary Jane had finished explaining, the neighbor frowned and said, “Y’know, love, I noticed that parcel there, myself, this mornin’.”

“She might just not be back from the bank, yet….”

Miss Wick frowned. “Was she goin’ to the bank, dear?”

“That’s where she works.”

“Is it now?… Let me slip somethin’ on, and we’ll go find ourselves a constable.”

And within minutes a bobby was shouldering open the door to the flat, and the little dog flew onto the landing and jumped into Mary Jane’s arms, the girl kneeling to meet the dog halfway. She looked up and into her mother’s sparsely furnished one-room flat-no sign of Mum. On the bed, which hugged the wall lengthwise, a black comforter bulged, probably with tangled bedclothes. At the foot of the bed, some of her mother’s apparel was scattered, a dress, her coat, a little feathered hat.

Some other things were distributed around on the throw rug, near the side of the bed, but Mary Jane couldn’t make out what they were, exactly. She caught a glimpse of steel catching light from somewhere, though the curtains were drawn.

Funny. Her mother usually kept the tiny flat tidy-a holdover from her landlady days.

It just didn’t look… proper in there, somehow. The very stillness of the flat seemed unsettling to the girl.

“Officer,” Mary Jane said, as the little dog licked her face eagerly, “would you mind terribly, going in and checking for me?”

“I was going to insist, miss,” the bobby said, holding up his hand as if conducting traffic. “So if you’ll just wait here….”

The constable had an oval face with dark eyes set too close together, and wasn’t much taller than Mary Jane, a fact amplified by the tin hat he wore in place of the traditional tall helmet. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty. But his voice was both kind and firm, and he had a commanding way about him.

He entered the flat and Mary Jane saw him go to the bed and-though his back was to her, she could tell what he was doing-lifted up the black quilt. His head was bowed as he studied whatever it was on the bed; then he gently lowered the quilt and slowly-watching where he was going-came back out, his face very white.

“Mary Jane,” the bobby said, his voice soft, kind, which oddly enough frightened her, “that’s your name, isn’t it? Mary Jane?”

“It is.”

“Mary Jane, could you wait next door, with your pup, for a few minutes?”

He looked toward the neighbor, who nodded her assent; Miss Wick was wearing a white and pink housedress now, but her platinum locks were still in pin curls.

Then to the girl, the constable said, “There seems to be a problem in your mother’s flat.”

“What kind of a problem? What was under the quilt?”

The bobby turned to the blonde neighbor. “Do you have a phone, miss?”

“No.”

“I’ll use the box ’round the corner, then. Neither of you are to go into that flat. Is that understood?”

Miss Wick nodded.

He repeated it to Mary Jane: “Is that understood, miss?”

“Yes, sir.”

Miss Wick slipped her arm around Mary Jane’s shoulder; the girl was cradling the terrier in her arms like a baby.

The bobby’s footsteps were echoing down the stairwell as Mary Jane entered Miss Wick’s flat.

“Everything will be all right, love,” Miss Wick said, again and again, as she paced and smoked and occasionally looked at the wall separating this flat from the next. Early on she asked Mary Jane if she wanted a glass of water-“It’s all I have that’s suitable, dear, I’m afraid”-and Mary Jane politely declined the offer.

Sitting on the couch, playing with the terrier, Mary Jane pretended to herself that her mum would be showing up any time now, from work. From the bank.

But at the same time the girl could not banish from her mind’s eye that bulging black quilt on her mother’s bed, and the terrible white face of the constable who’d seen what was under there.