Kith and Kin Page 4

  Mickey grinned at him. ‘And now they’ve made fools of us …’ he said.

  ‘Oh, you can be sure I’d bear a grudge for that,’ Henry said.

  FOUR

  The rain had let up a little by the following morning. Mickey and Henry were up just after five, and in the dark supervised the transfer of the bodies into the local delivery van. One of the constables rode up front with the driver and another kept the bodies company in the back. The arrangement was that they would be met at Gillingham station, at which point the driver would be freed for his normal rounds.

  They went back to the Crown for an early breakfast and Constable Hargreaves joined them. The mood was subdued, Henry still smarting from the break-in and also from the sense that they had missed the obvious the day before. Mickey, as usual, was more pragmatic about events. There was in the sergeant’s view no sense in regretting; you learned and you moved on, and the only thing that was bothering him that morning was that he was now short of film and completely out of chemicals for processing.

  Breakfast with home-made sausages, fried potatoes left over from the previous evening and fresh eggs. Mickey and Constable Hargreaves did it full justice and even Henry ate well – for Henry. The single police car owned by the Kent Constabulary was not available that morning but the constable had managed to procure the loan of the vicar’s Austin Seven, the vicar now being back from his death-watch and not likely to be needing it that day. The car would be able to take them some way, but there would still be a good walk ahead for everyone, through mud and across rough ground.

  By eight thirty they were back at the place where they had first seen the bodies the previous day. A stiff breeze was keeping the rain at bay, the clouds were gathering out to sea and the sky was a leaden grey.

  ‘You see,’ Henry said, ‘if the boat had been moored at the mouth of the creek we would have seen it, even on a day like yesterday. Visibility was bad, but not that poor early on. We just failed to look. Our focus was purely on the bodies and we didn’t look past the end of our own noses.’

  Constable Hargreaves looked uncomfortable. Mickey simply shrugged. ‘What’s done is done,’ he said. ‘We’ve got descriptions out all along the Medway and I’ve sent my negatives back with the bodies with instructions that pictures of these two should be circulated as widely as possible. As we discussed last night, the chances are they told us half-truths, so we know where we should be looking for them.’

  ‘The only difficulty,’ the constable said, ‘would be that the boatmen look after one another. They watch out for each other’s interests and can be close-mouthed when it comes to the authorities. It might take some time to track the little beggars down.’

  Henry nodded. Everything that could be done was being done, he knew that, but it still rankled. ‘Why here?’ he said. ‘We have to assume that at least part of the story is false. They could not have seen the bodies in the dark; they would not have been able to make them out, so …’

  ‘Unless they were moored, and the bodies bumped up against the hull,’ the constable suggested. ‘As a lad I spent some time on the boats, the rivers, Medway and Thames, they’re full of debris, full of floating obstacles. It’s not uncommon to hear something hit the boat at night. You have to look to see what it is in case it fouls the anchor.’

  ‘Unless that,’ Henry agreed. ‘But my gut is telling me otherwise. It’s telling me that these men were killed, then held somewhere, probably in water, for a day or two. That this Garth and his boy were then charged with bringing them ashore and informing the authorities. Why this should be done I have as yet no idea, but my feeling is that it was done in such a way.’

  ‘So, if you are right, the question is, as you say, why here? How many other places along this coast would have been a good site to dump bodies? Except,’ Mickey continued, ‘they weren’t dumped, were they? They were brought here with the express intent of their being seen, and specifically seen here. Perhaps a message is being sent, after all. As we discussed last night, Bailey likes to display his dead; he likes his works to be known and to be recognized.’

  ‘Though I’ve never known him to go to so much trouble,’ Henry said.

  For a little time the three of them prowled among the reeds, disturbing water birds and sinking their heels into the mud, but there was nothing to be seen and nothing to be found and nothing to be gained from remaining, so they headed back to the car and then to Cooper’s farm.

  Mrs Cooper welcomed them into a warm kitchen. Something that smelt of herbs and rabbit was cooking on the range and clothes hung to dry on a rack above the window.

  They too would end up smelling of herbs and rabbit, Henry thought.

  ‘My husband isn’t here,’ she told them, ‘but I can tell you what went off yesterday.’

  She sat them down with tea and cake and settled with them at the kitchen table, but Henry had the impression that they were interrupting her day and she’d like them gone. Ledgers lay open on the table top and she had apparently been dealing with the farm accounts.

  She saw him looking. ‘I have to keep the numbers straight,’ she said. ‘You don’t keep your numbers up to date and you won’t know where you are. I try to get them done once a week and I usually wait until Coops is away, otherwise he tries to help and then we’re in a right pickle. We all have our strengths. This is one of mine.’

  Henry nodded. ‘My sister is the same,’ he said. It was the first thing that came into his head and he wasn’t sure it really applied, but the woman seemed satisfied by the remark.

  ‘We’ll not keep you long,’ Mickey assured her. ‘So, what happened yesterday?’

  ‘Well.’ She straightened her cup on the saucer. Imari pattern, Henry noticed absently. She’d brought out her best china for them. ‘It was a little before eight o’clock and this man and boy came hammering at the door, telling us that they’d found bodies in the creek and would we call for the constable. They saw the telephone wires so they knew we had a phone here.’

  ‘At about eight o’clock. You’re sure of that?’

  ‘I am. In fact it was a quarter to. The clock had just chimed. I told the man to wait up in the porch and then I telephoned to Constable Hargreaves. The man didn’t want to bother with taking off his boots, and mired up to the elbows he was, so he wouldn’t come inside – and I wasn’t sorry about that, I can tell you.’

  ‘And your husband was here?’

  ‘Yes, he spoke to Hargreaves and was told that the constable would send a message and then come back to us, tell us if Coops would have to go with the cart. We both knew, you see, you’d not get a motor vehicle down that close. It would have to be horse and cart.’

  ‘And then the man and boy left.’

  ‘Yes. I gave them a bit of bread and dripping to take along and I’d given them mugs of hot tea while they waited, even if they didn’t come in.’ She paused. ‘The porch is closed in, you know. They were out of the wind for a bit.’

  ‘Mrs Cooper, what time did they leave?’

  ‘Just after Coops had got off the phone. Just a bit after eight, I suppose it would be.’

  She looked to Constable Hargreaves for confirmation.

  ‘I was calling to London by a quarter past,’ he said. ‘We was all at the crime scene by noon. You did well to get down here so fast,’ he commented, glancing at Henry and Mickey.

  ‘We were lucky with the trains and lucky that you’d managed to arrange transport from the station,’ Mickey told him.

  Mrs Cooper was glancing anxiously at her housekeeping ledgers and there was nothing more anyone wanted to ask, so they departed soon after.

  ‘So, they were at the farm by seven forty-five,’ Henry commented as they returned to the car. ‘How long would it take to walk here from the shoreline?’

  ‘I’d say a good half an hour,’ Hargreaves postulated.

  ‘Which means they must have finished their task and had the bodies ashore by, say, seven o’clock, allowing for a few minutes to catch their breath? A
nother inconsistency in the story, I think. More and more I doubt there is any truth in it.’

  Once back at the Crown, Henry announced his intention to head back to London, but asked that their rooms be kept available since they would undoubtedly return.

  ‘There’s no more we can do here,’ Henry said as he and Mickey ate their lunch. Crusty bread and ham and pickle beside the fire. ‘But it bothers me, Mickey. To pick a spot like this, inconvenient and far from anywhere, there must have been a reason for it. There is a narrative here that I can’t read, but mark my words, there is history to it.’

  1918

  It had only been a few miles to Dalla’s destination, but it felt like for ever, tramping the cold and snowy roads in the dark. The children were shivering and her own hands were blue despite the thick, hand-knitted mittens that she wore.

  She was proud of her children. Kem and Malina made no complaints and only twice did Kem ask if they were almost there yet. It was some years since she’d been into the campsite on Ash Tree Lane in Gillingham, but she knew that it was still there, and that it still thrived and that she still had family among the people who lived there.

  Despite what she had told her children, she was less confident about her welcome than she had sounded. She’d been gone for so long and, at Manfrid’s insistence, had largely cut ties and even while he’d been away at the Front, her fear of him had been such that she had not completely gone against his directions. Her mother and sisters had written a few times, her sister Sarah being the scribe for the family because she had the best hand, and Dalla had written back. On one occasion she had talked about Manfrid’s violence, but she had been careful what she said. Manfrid, for all that he had wanted to break contact with his past, was also still kin. There were many who would not take kindly to her speaking out against a husband who had been chosen for her, though she had married him gladly enough. Time was when she’d been taken in by the glamour of him, darkly handsome and a renowned bare-knuckle fighter, and she’d not looked further than that.

  Dalla hoped that Malina would be wiser in her choices than she herself had been.

  It was two in the morning by the time they arrived and all three were chilled to the bone. Malina stood with her hand on the five-bar gate and looked askance at her mother. ‘We came here before, when I was just a little thing. Have we arrived, then?’

  Dalla nodded and Malina unhooked the latch and the three of them entered the camp. Dalla felt an unexpected sense of relief. Whatever people might think, whatever they might say and whatever Dalla might be answerable for would wait till morning. No one would turn them away on a night like this.

  The caravans and cabins were dark for the most part, and no one was obviously on watch, but she was not surprised when, after a moment or two, a man stepped out of the shadows and asked what their business was. He held a lantern and shone it on their faces, and she identified herself and told the man that these were her children and that she was looking for ’Tan Fuller. ‘He’s my uncle. His wife is Lizzie, and she’s my mother’s sister. I don’t think me mam’s here, but she’s Annie Cooper.’

  The man studied them for a little longer and then he turned on his heel and beckoned them to follow. He led them between rows of vans and then knocked on a door. Lights showed and the door opened and Dalla breathed real relief. ‘Sarah! My God, Sarah, I couldn’t be happier.’

  Her sister stared at her and then stared at the children, and then she opened her door wide. ‘What the ’eck are you lot doing out, night like this? And where is your man? Is he not with you?’

  Dalla urged the children up the steps and into the caravan. ‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘Crossed the wrong man once too often and they had him killed. I don’t know no more than that. Men came in, they just told us to go, burned our cottage down.’

  The man who had escorted them shifted restlessly. ‘All well, is it, Sarah?’

  ‘Reckon it is,’ she said. She closed the door and they all stood uncertainly in the tiny space. Sarah pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and shivered. ‘You look frozen ’alf to death,’ she said. ‘We’ll find you somewhere to bed down for the night and then in the morning we’ll talk about this. You’ll have to explain yourself, you know that. The old people will want to know.’

  Dalla nodded. That was to be expected, but she was more certain of her welcome now. Sarah was well respected, well on the way to being a matriarch in her own right, and women were listened to, where women and children were concerned.

  ‘Is Ma here?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet. She’s not been well, so they’re takin’ the journey slow. Another few days and she will be. She’s missed you, Dalina, we all have.’

  Dalina. It was a long time since anyone had called her that. Dalla felt that she wanted to cry.

  Sarah and her eldest bustled round and sorted out sleeping spaces. Dalla would sleep with her sister and the children were tucked in beside Sarah’s own. It was cramped, but it was warm and that was all that mattered right now.

  ‘I always thought it would be you that did for Manfrid,’ Sarah said as they settled down to sleep. ‘I’m glad it wasn’t. I’d never want to see you hang, not for the likes of him.’

  Sarah, she remembered, had tried to talk her out of the marriage. But Dalla had been fifteen – and rather stupid, in retrospect. Flattered by the attentions of this much older man who promised her the earth and delivered nothing. Sarah leaned over and kissed her sister on the forehead, just as she often had when they were both children and she, as the eldest, was left in charge. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing so dark it can’t be solved by daylight.’

  FIVE

  1928

  Henry Johnstone had returned to London with Mickey that afternoon, and evening found him back in his own flat. His sister, Cynthia, telephoned and suggested he come for the weekend. She and her husband were having a house party and she would love him to be there.

  Henry smiled. ‘And how many of your friends will be offering me jobs?’ he asked. It was a standing joke between them that Cynthia thought he should be something other than a policeman. Something that didn’t involve so many dead bodies, but she knew he would not leave his job and he knew that she would not quite give up on trying to make life ‘better’ for him. Even now she still played the Big Sister role.

  ‘I’ll try and come on Sunday,’ he said. ‘It would be good to see you all, and Melissa and I must arrange another shopping trip.’ Melissa was her middle child, wedged between two boys; she was serious and bright and loved books and Henry regularly took her out on trips. He tried to be even handed and arrange treats for the boys too, but his only success so far had been the occasional cricket match. The truth was, the boys preferred the company of his sergeant, Mickey. Mickey talked about sport and boxing and aeroplanes and photography, and although Henry was interested in all of those things, he recognized he did not have Mickey Hitchens’ natural ability to communicate that interest.

  The truth was, although Henry loved his sister’s children deeply, he did find children in general a little difficult. Melissa was something of an exception.

  ‘Melissa will love that,’ Cynthia said. ‘Do try to come, Henry. It’s been weeks since we last had a catch-up.’

  Henry assured her that he’d do his best, that he would try and get away for a few hours at least.

  He replaced the receiver and went to sit in his favourite chair looking out over the river and wondered if he would actually manage it. On returning to London, Mickey had taken his remaining film for processing and the fingerprints he had lifted after the break-in at the Crown for inspection and comparison. Henry had been involved in compiling a list of known associates of Bailey and his people. There would be raids the following morning, bright and early, before anybody was awake. The press had not yet got hold of the story, the area was so remote and the bodies not yet publicly identified, and so the central office at Scotland Yard felt it still had the element of surprise on its side.


  Henry had expressed his niggling feeling that the scene had been set up in some way, that there was planning behind it and that more people than they expected might know about the death of Billy Crane and whoever the other man might turn out to be. If he was a known associate, then the likelihood of quick identification was high, there would be a mug shot of him somewhere in the files.

  Henry watched the traffic on the river and wondered where the man and boy had fetched up. How deep in this mess were they? Or was it just that they’d been paid to dump the bodies on the shore?

  He fetched his journal from the pocket of his coat and sat down, pen in hand, trying to gather his thoughts.

  There is history to this, he wrote. I sense it, something deeper and older than a recent argument between Josiah Bailey and his men. I can’t shake the feeling that a message is being sent but who that message might be for is another matter. A message to the police would be writ more plainly. I think this is something that only a handful of people might understand and until we find out who they might be, we might make no headway with this.

  He laid his book aside and reached for the photographs that he’d brought home with him, the shots that Mickey had taken on the mud flats. He studied them again, looking at the faces of man and boy, the constables working, the bodies lying on the foreshore at the markers which the constable had told him delineated the reach of high and low tide and, visible in the distance, the wooden wharves that boats tied up to for loading and unloading in the creek.

  There were no boats visible close by apart from the small rowing boat that had been used to tow the bodies ashore. The man and boy were unremarkable, in their work clothes. The man wore a heavy jersey and, Henry guessed, multiple layers beneath. The boy a similar jersey beneath what had once been a good quality Norfolk jacket, now much mended. He had a scarf wrapped around his neck and a knitted hat pulled down over his ears. Mickey had guessed he was about twelve, but he looked small and wiry and could have been two or three years either side of that.