The Black Mile Page 26

  “I was just curious.”

  “Well don’t be. You stick your nose where it’s not wanted, you’re liable to have your feelings hurt when you get told to shove off. Alright?”

  “Of course.” He rose. “Sorry. Thanks for the money.”

  “Same time next week. And come up with something different, alright? The same old schtick, it’s getting a bit stale.”

  53

  FIVE MONTHS OF WAR. Pentonville looked battered, bruised and tired. The bombers had done their worst and the capital had survived, but the long drudge of conflict had sucked the life away. Most districts still bore the evidence of the battering they had endured––plenty had empty patches where buildings had been hit and the wrecks pulled down, weed-choked spaces where children played. Here was no different. Every street had suffered some sort of indignity: houses flattened by direct hits; windows smashed by shrapnel and boarded up; shop fronts scarred and tatty with no paint to freshen them up. There wasn’t the money or time or will to start to make good the damage.

  Protestors had gathered at the gates of the prison. Frank looked straight ahead as he waited for the gates to open, ignoring their chants and hymns. Liberal nonsense.

  Frank knew what he thought.

  An eye for an eye.

  You got what was coming to you.

  He drove through the archway and parked the car next to his father’s. The old man was waiting for him, sitting in the passenger side, smoking his pipe through the open door.

  “Francis.”

  “Father.”

  “How are you?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Your leg?”

  He had winced as he put his weight down. “Getting better.”

  “Doesn’t look it.”

  “It’s a bit sore, now and then. But I’m fine.”

  They set off towards the main block.

  “What about Eve?”

  Frank shook his head.

  Eight months now, and all they had had of her were scraps and whispers, street rumours from prostitutes and snouts, unreliable witnesses who would tell a bogey anything if they thought he could grease the wheels for them. The picture on the crumpled handbills was a dagger to the gut; a snapshot of a happy girl in a gingham dress, an ice cream, the penguins at London Zoo. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? He wondered: she was at that age where they grew up fast. The cusp of womanhood. It changed the way they looked. Would he even recognise her if she passed him on the street? He didn’t know.

  “We’ll find her, son.”

  Frank nodded. People had always said that––but he knew they were starting to doubt it.

  “What time are they weighing him off?”

  “Midday.”

  “Press here yet?”

  “Plenty. Not that he’s said anything. Still denying it.”

  “He’s still saying it’s a fit-up?”

  “The same old story.”

  “You’d think he might want it off his conscience.”

  “You’d think.”

  They went inside, passed through security and into the main wing.

  William Murphy looked at his pocket watch. “He’s got fifteen minutes to unburden himself. After that, it’s between him and God.”

  o o o

  THE EXECUTION PARTY GATHERED OUTSIDE THE CELL DOOR just before twelve. There were seven of them: the hangman and his assistant; the governor; the prison chaplain; two guards; Frank and his father. The hangman waited until the clock tower’s final chime before giving a single nod; one of the guards unlocked the door and they all followed inside. Johnson was sitting with his back to them, reading a newspaper. He got up suddenly at the commotion, turned around, took a step backwards.

  “Oh God,” Johnson muttered.

  The hangman moved quickly, with a firm authority born of practice; he took Johnson’s wrists behind his back and pinioned them with a leather strap. Johnson’s eyes bulged, darting around the room, from face to face. “Help me,” he said. He fastened on Frank. “I didn’t do it. On my mother’s grave. I swear it wasn’t me.”

  Frank thought of eight dead women, choked and sliced.

  He thought of his daughter.

  Johnson disgusted him.

  The guards lifted a bookcase away from the wall to reveal a hidden door.

  They opened it.

  A noose hung down beyond it.

  Johnson saw it and started to babble: “I didn’t do what they said I did, I know I’ve done bad things but I never did that, I swear on my life, please, sir, you have to help me, help me, please, I didn’t–– I didn’t––”

  He was so panicked Frank didn’t even know if he recognised him. Johnson was a different man now. He’d been at Death’s door for two weeks after Charlie had shot him, the surgeons saving him so that they could kill him at a time of their choosing. Physically, he was a shell of his former self. Mentally? The sass, the braggadocio, the contempt; the terror had sucked it all away. He was like a lost child.

  The hangman went into the execution chamber. The guards, one on either side, nudged Johnson forward. He staggered, his legs weak. The guards took an arm each and held him upright.

  They moved him into the centre of the room, standing him on a white painted T.

  Right over the drop.

  “It was a fit-up. My gas mask, someone must’ve nicked it off me, I’d never even worn it, never took it out of the house, so how could it have been where they said it was, and that stuff they found in the house, I’d never seen it before, I swear I hadn’t, never in my life, I don’t know how it could’ve been there unless someone put it there, I swear, oh God, please––”

  The hangman took a white hood from his pocket and draped it over Johnson’s head.

  “Please God, please God, please God, please God.”

  He put the noose over his head and tightened it.

  “Please, please, please, please, please, please, please––”

  He yanked the handle.

  The trapdoor opened.

  Johnson disappeared through it.

  The body jerked, the legs kicking.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Stopped.

  The body swung beneath the gallows.

  The only noise was the creaking of the rope.

  It had taken less than twenty seconds.

  Frank stared at the rope, swinging to and fro.

  “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” his father said.

  54

  A PICTURE ON A STAND AT THE FRONT OF THE CHURCH: George Grimes graduating from Detective School at Hendon, in uniform, a big boyish grin on his face. Charlie sat on a pew at the back, the vicar instructing them to open their hymn books, the opening bars to “The Lord is My Shepherd” rising from the organ. He mouthed the words, not really concentrating. The memorial service was well attended. The parents were at the front with an older brother and younger sister. A dozen other relatives––grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins––were behind them. The remaining pews held friends and acquaintances. A quick headcount said sixty people liked George well enough to mark the two years since he died. Charlie had only ever seen him as an abstract problem for him to solve: a bent slip who died in circumstances that didn’t make sense. But Grimes had a family, and plenty of friends. The human side of things. He thought back to the interrogation: the young D.C. he’d expected to play the tough guy, the façade slipping when he realised he was bang to rights. Career over, life in ruins. For the first time, Charlie thought about what that really meant.

  Charlie had been there when they put him in the ground, had stood at the graveside as the cheap pine coffin crested with a cheap bouquet of flowers was splattered with wet clay. It couldn’t even begin to compare to the funerals of the lads who died at Savile Row. No Bishop of Westminster to read the eulogy. Not even the Force chaplain. No brass––Grimes had died in disgrace, the inquiry Charlie started convicting him of extortion. A handful of lads from the nick were there but suicide was nothing compared t
o death in the line of duty. Laurels for the poor bastards who got bombed, ignominy for Grimes. They died as heroes; he was buried as a crooked slip.

  The anniversary was today. A date on Charlie’s calendar, double-ringed in red: September 6th, the day he found George Grimes with his brains blown out. Five months and he’d never got that scene out of his head. A copper with a hundred reasons to talk, who said he wanted to talk, putting a service revolver to his head and pulling the trigger; it hadn’t made sense then and it didn’t make sense now.

  He hadn’t been able to forget about it. It lurked at the back of his mind, too many unanswered questions for him to consider it solved. For a time he had been busy enough to ignore it. He’d settled into his Inspectorship and had been distracted with making his mark. Another couple of months down the line and he was established. Case after case after case, his reputation was being defined and then underlined: London’s smartest Detective, the man the crooked policeman feared. Newspaper reports were fawning, his annual report borderline hagiographical. Even his inability to fit in with the others was now seen as a strength––he was independent, aloof, an untouchable.

  But George Grimes was still there, an itch he needed to scratch.

  Five months down the line and he couldn’t use distractions to ignore him anymore.

  He called the file up from storage and went through it again. Albert Regan had been put in charge after Charlie’s transfer to the Murder Squad and the Ripper case––the investigation had been short-shrifted. Charlie’s notes were full of detail. Bert added three scanty reports, recommended suicide and closed the file. No follow-ups with the men at the station. No checks into Grimes’ background. Nothing. Bert’s final report was so brief it would have been laughable if it wasn’t so desperate: Grimes was obviously depressed by the investigation into his Soho dealings, it was obviously a suicide. There wasn’t even a little scraping below the surface.

  Unsatisfactory. Not nearly good enough.

  Alf McCartney had signed everything off.

  But he couldn’t leave it like that.

  So he changed tack. A call to A Department secured Grimes’ records.

  He went through his Personnel File with a fine-tooth comb. Born, 1915. Father worked on the docks, mother was a char. Joined the Force in 1935. First posting on M Division; he showed promise, enough to bag a switch to plainclothes. Trained under McCartney in 1940 and obviously made an impression: Alf took him to West End Central when his six-month tour at Hendon was over. A strong record quickly went spotty: arrests went down, suggestions of an incipient booze problem, minor disciplinary infractions that Suits smoothed over. Something was going on: previous fitness reports suggested a strong, efficient bobby. He scored well in the detective exams. But six months at Savile Row had made him go bad.

  Charlie thought: that doesn’t happen on its own.

  He went through his notebooks from the time until he found the conversation with Jackie Field: Grimes and another copper had been extorting him.

  Another copper.

  Two of them.

  He hadn’t had the time to follow it up.

  What if there were more bad apples?

  o o o

  A SMALL AFFAIR HAD BEEN ARRANGED in the function room of the local boozer. Charlie followed them upstairs, put a sausage roll and a scotch egg on a paper plate. Photographs had been pinned to corkboards at both ends of the room, George beaming out from all of them: George with his football team; George in an apron with a paper hat on his head, carving the Christmas bird; George in a running vest; half a dozen of George as a boy. Charlie scanned the room and found the parents: an old boy and girl, her working on a G&T, him a pint of IPA. He bought one of each from the bar and an orange juice for himself and took them over.

  “I’m detective Inspector Charlie Murphy,” he said, putting the drinks on the table and shaking hands. “It was a lovely service.”

  “I’m Nancy,” the woman said. “George’s Mum. It’s very kind of you to come. Did you work with George?”

  “Yes,” Charlie lied, feeling bad about it. “Cracking bloke. Very popular.”

  “I was hoping a few of his other colleagues might come. He was fond of them.”

  “I’m not sure how many of the men knew this was happening.”

  Nancy sniffed. “They knew. I sent a letter to Mr. McCartney. George was always on about him, how he was learning so much. Didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. Still, I shouldn’t be surprised. I know what they said about him. You know––in the end.”

  “You mean the investigation?”

  “I know he got into trouble.” The second corkboard rested on a table behind them. She spoke straight to her son, a picture of him grinning with a rugby ball. “You weren’t a bad boy, Georgie. No worse than anyone else.” She turned back to Charlie: “I didn’t raise a thief, Inspector. He just lost his way.”

  A mother’s perspective. “I understand.” He nodded to the board. “Lovely pictures.”

  “These ones are my favourites. Look.”

  Charlie scanned the board. His eye caught on one: Big George and a blonde, arms linked, backs against Waterloo Bridge, Big Ben behind them.

  The other pictures faded away.

  His skin prickled.

  “Who’s the girl?”

  Nancy squinted. “His lady friend. They’d been courting for a few months before he died.”

  “Do you remember her name?”

  “Constance something. What was Connie’s second name, Joseph?”

  “Began with W. Wilson?”

  Nancy shook her head. “No.”

  “Watson?”

  “Worthing. Like the place. Constance Worthing. Pretty little thing, but I never took to her. Bad egg, I thought. Didn’t I, dear––didn’t I always say she was no good?”

  “You did say that.”

  Skin prickles became goose bumps, up and down his back. He recognised the girl and the name confirmed it.

  The Ripper.

  “She was a gold-digger, Inspector. You can tell, can’t you, the ones who are only after money. I told George tactfully, as best I could, said she had expensive tastes but he wouldn’t hear it. I believe he told me to mind my own business. His own mother. What can you do in a situation like that? You do your best, that’s all; you hope they come to see the way things are before it’s too late.” She wiped tears, took a pull on her G&T, a little unsteady on her feet. “If you ask me, I’d say it was her who pushed him towards the funny business. George was telling me how she had expensive tastes: fancy restaurants, new clothes, jewellery, what have you. How could a lad like him afford that kind of extravagance? You’ll know––a policeman’s salary only stretches so far, doesn’t it?”

  “Do you know where they met?”

  “Can’t say I do. But it was after he started working in the West End.” She emptied the glass and started looking for another one.

  “Her and George seemed to get on ever so well,” the old man said, shaking his head.

  “Not here today, though, is she? Never came to the funeral, neither. What do you make of that?”

  “That certainly is strange, madam.”

  He thought: she was probably already dead.

  “We had some of her things at the house but she never came to collect them.”

  “What things?”

  “It was after the inquest. The bank wanted to sell George’s house––the lawyer said anything left there was ours so we went and cleared it out, put everything in boxes and took it home. I remember some of her things were there.”

  “What?”

  “Some clothes.”

  “Do you still have them?”

  “Do we, Joseph?”

  “I believe so. We gave George’s things away but I didn’t feel we ought to get rid of hers, in case she came back. I put it in the loft, I think. For safekeeping.”

  “I don’t suppose I could have a look?”

  “Why ever would you want to do that?”


  Charlie squeezed the old girl’s shoulder. “I know it was a long time ago, but it might help answer some questions. About why George did what he did.”

  She brightened. “Well then you must. You must.”

  FRIDAY, 7th FEBRUARY 1941

  55

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR FRANK MURPHY took Henry up to his office. He had left him for half an hour in the dingy waiting room downstairs. Long enough for him to rehearse what he was going to say, fret whether he was going to be in trouble for not saying it sooner, fight second thoughts to open the door and run into the daylight.

  “Sit down, Mr. Drake.”

  “Thank-you.”

  Murphy sat and stared at him: cold, bored.

  “I’m very grateful,” Henry started.

  “You said it was important.”

  “I think it is.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “It’s part of it.”

  “Part of what, man?”

  “The Ripper case.”

  Murphy gave him a derisive look. “Johnson was hung yesterday morning. It’s finished. It was in the papers.”

  “There’s something I need to show you.”

  Henry took the magazine out of his bag.

  Murphy took it, flicked through the first few pages. “What is this? Pornography?”

  “Turn to the middle.”

  Murphy thumbed pages. He paused.

  Jenkins.

  Worthing.

  Stokes.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “You see?”

  “This better not be a joke.”

  “No, sir. It isn’t.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I write for the magazine. I took a piece in to be published yesterday. There were magazines there––I hadn’t seen it before so I took one.”

  “We assumed they were random. Like the others. If we’d known this––”

  “What?”

  “We wouldn’t have hung Johnson.”

  “Last year, before the murders, I got a telephone call. A fellow said he had a story for me. He said he was selling pictures.”

  “Like these?”

  “Do you know Viscount Asquith? He makes aeroplanes.”

  “I’ve read about him.”