Kith and Kin Page 2

  ‘You’re thinking about Albert Lines.’

  Mickey nodded. Lines had been a pawnbroker, one of many who acted as fences and middlemen. He had tried to fiddle his payments to Bailey and Bailey had him killed. Sent his men to cut the hands off Albert Lines and leave him to bleed out in the street, threatening similar treatment to anyone who made to help the unfortunate man.

  ‘Among others. Lines was unlucky. There are signs that Bailey’s hold hasn’t been as tight recently as it once was. Ted Grieves tried a similar trick and seems to have survived the exercise.’

  Ted Grieves had been suspected of skimming a little too much profit. ‘Ted Grieves has also dropped off the face of the earth. He could be dead as well, for all we know.’

  ‘But not made an example of. Even before Bailey himself went on the run, there were indications that there was less iron in his fist.’

  ‘And not a hide nor hair seen of him since October,’ Mickey added ruefully. It grieved him severely that they’d had Bailey in their hands and then lost him. The last sighting of their man had been an unconfirmed report of him getting on a train at Paddington station. There had been no word of him getting off said train, and Mickey was now inclined to view the report as at best a mistake and at worst a case of mischief-making.

  ‘We’ll get a better handle on things once we know who the other fellow is,’ he said.

  They had reached Upchurch and the driver pulled in at the door of the Crown Inn.

  ‘I drove back here while you were seeing to the bodies, sir,’ he said, addressing Henry Johnstone. ‘Sorted out accommodation for the both of you. The landlord, Mr James Falkner, he’s getting two rooms ready for you, said he’d get the fires going and a meal for this evening.’

  ‘Thank you for that,’ Henry said. ‘Constable Hargreaves and the rest of the men, do they have further to go?’

  ‘Constable’s local, sir. Lives in Upchurch. I’ve sorted out a van and driver to take the rest back. I hope that was appropriate, sir.’

  ‘Very appropriate,’ Henry told him. ‘And the bodies will be taken to the church?’

  ‘Room is being made in the sacristy,’ the driver assured him.

  Content that nothing more could be done, Henry helped Mickey with their bags and they hurried inside. He felt chilled now, his back aching and his hands numb, despite the gloves and the warm coat Cynthia had been generous enough to buy for him. He did not deal so well with cold and damp these days. Too much of it in the trenches seemed to have lowered his resistance and as he got older, so the damp seemed to settle further into his bones.

  Older, Henry thought wryly. At forty-two he was hardly decrepit as yet, but there were days when he felt as ancient as Methuselah. Smaller and squarer than Henry, Mickey seemed as inured to the chill as the brick wall he resembled.

  James Falkner came to greet them as they came into the bar. The Crown was not yet open for evening trade but Falkner had a fire going and offered tea and hot toddies, both of which Mickey accepted on their behalf.

  ‘And I can rustle up some bread and cheese, maybe a bit of home-made pickle? It’s a while till supper will be ready.’

  Mickey thanked him. ‘That would be very welcome,’ he said. He steered Henry towards the fire and dumped their bags, removing his coat and dropping it over the back of a chair to dry. ‘Off with your coat,’ he told Henry, who had slumped down into one of the two wing chairs set beside the blaze and looked disinclined to move.

  Henry, miles away, looked up in surprise.

  ‘Your coat,’ Mickey said. ‘It needs to dry out, and so do you.’

  Henry sighed and shrugged out of his overcoat. Mickey hung that beside his own, the steam already rising and a smell of wet dog permeating the air.

  ‘How much sleep have you had this past week?’

  ‘Enough,’ Henry replied sharply. Then he relented. ‘Not much,’ he admitted.

  Mickey nodded. ‘Anniversaries are hard,’ he said.

  ‘And there are too many damned anniversaries.’

  ‘Isn’t that the truth.’

  The landlord and a girl bustled in and set food and drink on tables beside their guests and then left them alone. ‘Eat,’ Mickey ordered. ‘I’m bloody starved. You must be too.’

  TWO

  1918

  Rainham was silent as the strange little procession – an old, beaten-up cart following a brown Siddeley-Deasy coupé – rattled into town and turned into Station Road.

  Tommy halted the cart in front of the station entrance. It was a spare, scant place, and looked deserted at this time of the evening. He helped the passengers down from the cart, just as a distant church clock struck nine. It was raining; cold, heavy drops mixed with halfhearted snow, and it was bitterly cold. The children shivered and Dalla hugged them close.

  ‘I’ll be leaving you here,’ Tommy said. ‘I expect there’ll be someone in the ticket office who can help you … Best I don’t know where you’re going.’ He placed a bag at Dalla’s feet. ‘There’s money in there. Enough to take you … wherever … and see you right until you can get back on your feet.’

  ‘Blood money,’ Dalla said flatly.

  ‘Call it what you want, it’ll still spend just as well.’

  Dalla made no reply.

  Tommy climbed back on to the cart and watched as Dalla and the children entered the station. She’d picked up the bag, he noted, but she was known to be a sensible woman and would be conscious of her duty to the living. There was no more to be done for the dead.

  He felt a certain sympathy for her and a certain interest too. Dalla Beaney was a good-looking woman, despite the two kids and the man who had been a bit too handy with his fists at times. Tommy didn’t hold with hitting women. Kids neither, if it came to that. He wondered if she’d miss her old man or if she’d be grateful that he’d gone. She’d thrived just fine while he’d been away at the war. Word was that he’d come back angrier and meaner than ever, though.

  Tommy clucked his tongue at the horses and urged them on. He wrapped the oilskin more tightly around his shoulders and tugged his scarf more snugly beneath his cap and then turned the cart back in the direction he’d come, hoping to have the cart returned and be off home again before midnight.

  He watched, enviously, as Billy Crane took off in the car, heading the other way to make his report to Josiah senior. Young Jo had wanted to come along tonight and Tommy had been a little surprised at the vehemence with which his father had ordered him to remain behind.

  Tommy glanced back over his shoulder, still thinking about the woman. If she’d the sense he credited her with, she’d be miles away by morning, put this all behind her and start over, maybe find herself another man. It wouldn’t be hard, Tommy thought, to find a better man than her Manfrid had been. He wished her luck with it.

  Dalla waited until she was certain that the men had gone.

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘Hush, child. It will all be well.’

  ‘But, Ma—’

  ‘I said to hush,’ Dalla told her daughter firmly. ‘Come now.’

  ‘Are we not waiting for the train?’ Kem asked.

  ‘No,’ Dalla told him. ‘We’ll not be catching the train.’ She straightened up, looking compassionately at both her children. They were cold and tired, and no doubt grieving. Grieving was what you did when someone told you that your father was dead and gone, even if the four years he’d been absent were so much better than those they could recall when he’d been there. She had pulled blankets off their beds and wrapped them around skinny shoulders before the children had been lifted into the cart. Brought a warm shawl for herself and tucked it around her, beneath her coat. They look like waifs and strays, she thought, as she tugged the blankets more tightly around the young boy and girl. Kem, trying to be the tough boy, wriggled away and she clucked her tongue at him in reprimand. He stilled beneath her hands and allowed her to tuck him in.

  ‘There’ll be no one to see on the road we’re taking. So best be warm,’ she
told him, securing the blanket with a large pin.

  ‘Where are we going, Ma? If we ain’t getting on the train, then?’

  Dalla shook her head at her daughter’s question. ‘We walk,’ she said. ‘Family.’ She nodded firmly. ‘When you’re in need, you go to family, you don’t take off on the first train that comes along. You don’t just run.’

  ‘Family?’ Malina asked her. She sounded anxious.

  ‘My family. Not his,’ Dalla told her. ‘We go back to where I came from. They’ll take us in. That’s what family do.’

  She hefted the two larger bags and left the children to divide up the smaller packs between themselves. Sometimes, she reflected, it was best that you didn’t own much. At least there was less to carry. She led them out of the station and studied the road. It would be a long walk and the night was filthy. Best be starting, then.

  Dalla set off, striding out with more confidence than she actually felt, knowing that her children needed her strength. ‘We’ve a good way to go,’ she said, not quite certain just how far. ‘Be brave now, I know you can both do this, my loves.’

  Brother and sister looked at one another, reluctant to leave the shelter of the station for the blasting wind and chilling rain. Kem reached out for Malina’s hand, suddenly more child than man. His sister, two years older, took her lead from their mother and clasped his fingers, lending what strength she had left. The streets were empty, anyone who had a home now tucked up inside with doors locked and curtains drawn.

  No one saw them leave.

  THREE

  1928

  It had taken Henry a very long time to warm up. He’d still been shivering when he and Mickey went up to their rooms and Mickey’s advice had been to partake of a second hot toddy and then get some rest before supper. The bodies had been laid out on trestle tables in the sacristy – the constable had popped into the inn for long enough to tell them that – and they had arranged to inspect them later in the evening, but there was little of use they could do until the morning. It was then only a little after four in the afternoon but the darkness was absolute. Dusk and rain blocking the light like a sodden blanket. The sacristy was lit only by paraffin lamps, the constable told them, not really adequate for carrying out a detailed inspection.

  On the plus side, he had managed to obtain a van and driver to take the bodies to the station the next morning.

  ‘So long as it can be done early,’ the constable added. ‘Jack has his rounds to do after, deliveries to make.’

  Henry had been chilled and weary enough to take Mickey’s advice. He had even slept for a time, waking after an hour, still tired but at least no longer chilled. He was fully aware that he would probably not get back to sleep again that night, especially not in a strange room and a strange bed.

  The small room at the Crown was comfortable enough. A single bed with a thick counterpane and a chest of drawers, a washstand with a tiled splashback no longer used for its original purpose but now doubling as dressing table or desk. The bathroom and toilet were down the hall, as was Mickey’s room. The faint scent of developing chemicals drifted under Henry’s door and he guessed that Mickey had probably commandeered the bathroom to use as a darkroom. He hoped Mickey would remember to move the crime scene prints elsewhere to dry. In Henry’s experience, people were oddly averse to seeing images of murdered bodies in their bathrooms and sculleries; his sergeant frequently had to make use of any conveniently available space when they were away from home.

  Home, Henry thought, realizing that for him central office in Scotland Yard was as much home as his little flat.

  Henry’s small flat looked out over the Thames and he rarely closed the living room curtains, preferring to be able to see the lights and activity of a thoroughfare that was never really silent and certainly never still. At night, it was mainly steam vessels that made their way upriver; the sailing barges that still came this far upstream would wait until daylight, moored up until the tide turned or until the tugs could bring them safely under the bridges, mainsails down and masts lowered. He thought about the man and boy who had found the bodies and wondered idly if they had reached their destination and unloaded their cargo. Once they’d offloaded, they were bound for the Blue Circle cement works in the Medway, Mickey had told him, shipping their cargo to the West Country and most likely bringing china clay back. It must be a strange life, Henry thought, these small ships, crewed by a man and boy or a captain and two hands, one usually still technically a child fresh out of school. They plied their trade up and down the coast, sometimes even venturing across the shipping lanes to the coasts of northern France.

  Childhood, Henry thought, ended all too swiftly for most children, especially the children of the poor. Henry and his sister, though his family had endured no such acute financial pressures, had also had their own childhood curtailed, in their case by a father who saw no value in creatures who could not contribute to his own wellbeing. Then the father had died and it had just been Henry and Cynthia and, all things considered, they had done well; in their case it was better to be parentless than so badly parented.

  Henry’s jacket hung on the bedpost and he fumbled in the pocket for his notebook and then leaned back against the pillows. At home he would have settled comfortably in his favourite chair, set beside the window. The chair was old and the leather worn soft. He fed it regularly, polishing it with a soft cloth and leather food to keep the cracked surface supple. He missed his chair and missed the soft, tartan rug he left on the arm.

  Making do, he tugged the counterpane across his legs and began to write.

  Josiah Bailey. What did he know about Josiah Bailey?

  Born in Fournier Street, if I remember correctly, and lived, until September of this year, only a few streets away from the house in which he was born. That house is now occupied by a cousin and most of the street is occupied by Bailey’s family or by those who serve his family in one capacity or another.

  Bailey was born into a life of criminality. The second of three brothers, with two sisters.

  Was that right? Henry wondered. He could recall the names of two sisters, but had a vague thought that there might have been a third.

  His older brother was lost at Ypres. The second returned but died of his injuries. Bailey served. Henry made a note to examine his army records more closely, surprised at the random details he recalled about the rest of Bailey’s family.

  So this left Josiah Bailey as the sole heir to the rackets that his father, Josiah Bailey senior, had already established, the sisters having been married to trusted associates.

  Henry paused, trying to recall what he had been told about these marriages. One sister, he thought – Pauline, if he remembered correctly – had been married at seventeen or eighteen to one of her father’s lieutenants, and the other, he thought, had actually moved away. The mother had died shortly after the war had ended. Died of grief, it was said. Henry was quite prepared to accept that; he’d seen too many men and women fade and depart, the light having gone from their lives far too soon.

  Henry paused with the pen raised above the page, thinking suddenly about his own sister. What would Cynthia do if another war were to come and her sons were conscripted? Henry knew that his sister would fight tooth and nail to keep her children safe. She had fought like a demon to protect herself and Henry, so he was fully aware of her capacities.

  Unable to cope with the impact of it, Henry thrust the thought aside. There would not be another conflict. The one in which he had fought was meant to be the war to end all wars, wasn’t it?

  He dragged his thoughts back to Josiah Bailey.

  Since about 1920, Josiah Bailey senior has gradually handed over the reins of power to his son. In the past five years this devolvement has become more rapid due to the ill health of the older man. It is reported that he has now rescinded all control and is in effective retirement, though rumour has it he can still make his wrath felt when someone displeases him. Other rumours surmise that he is already dead,
and some accuse the son of helping him on his way.

  It is not unusual to hear that one of the Bailey gang is suddenly unaccounted for. In the main, bodies are rarely found, unless Bailey junior wishes to make a point.

  Henry turned his thoughts to the man he had identified. Billy Crane was a long-term associate and known to be a favoured employee of the younger Bailey.

  Billy Crane. Housebreaker, rumoured to be a cracksman, though I can’t recall he has ever been brought in on suspicion of that particular service. Not a big or particularly violent man. Not one of Bailey’s heavies. As I recall, he is in his late twenties. Bailey himself is forty-three and his father must now be well into his seventies.

  Bailey is not a big man; not physically. Of medium height and solid but not heftily built. He is known to be strong for his size and not averse to using that strength. When he wishes to make an example, Josiah Bailey is not a man afraid to dirty his own hands.

  He must have served in the war, but I do not recall reading about his army record.

  Henry paused, his thoughts returning to the victims. Billy Crane was not a stupid man. Henry had encountered him on several occasions. He said little, implicated no one; unlike many of his associates he was not known to run off at the mouth under pressure.

  Grew up on the same street as the Baileys, as I recall. Related in some way?

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts and Mickey came in carrying two wooden trays, one stacked atop the other, the photographs laid out on each one buffered by the handles. He set them down on the bed and then plonked down beside them.

  ‘You warmed up yet?’

  ‘I am. Yes.’

  ‘Good. I thought I’d make myself busy and get these out of the way and processed. Not, I think, that they’ll be a lot of use to us, except to remind us just how bleak and drear this place is and that we shouldn’t come here looking for pleasure.’