hair. His wife seemed as blissfully happy as he did. Though a dozen or more years had passed since the event, she had not aged significantly.
She was adamant. ‘He doesn’t know and he must never find out.’
‘I’ve no intention of telling him,’ said Marmion. ‘Let’s turn to Cyril Ablatt. Did he ever mention any enemies to you?’
‘Cyril had no enemies,’ she replied with a sad smile. ‘He was a lovely young man and he got on well with everybody.’
‘That’s hardly borne out by the facts, I fear. Anyone who declares himself to be a conscientious objector is bound to attract criticism. As you may know, someone painted abusive words on the wall of his house.’
‘He told me about that. He said he’d simply turn the other cheek.’
‘You have to admire his bravery.’
‘He was brave and good and honest,’ she said, effusively. ‘He didn’t deserve this. It’s wicked, Inspector. Cyril wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘So what reason could there be to kill him?’
Her face was a study in hopelessness. ‘I don’t know.’
She was still trying to absorb the impact of the devastating news. Marmion felt that it would be harsh to put any more pressure on her. At the same time, however, he sensed that she knew things about Ablatt that might be relevant to the inquiry. This was not the moment to search for them. She needed a breathing space. After dabbing at her eyes, she put the handkerchief away.
He rose to his feet. ‘I’ll see myself out, Mrs Skene.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And thank you for being so … well, you know.’
‘I told you. I didn’t come to pry. However,’ he went on, ‘I believe that you may later think of things that might be of use to the investigation. Anything we can learn about his character and movements will be helpful.’ He took out his wallet and extracted a business card. ‘This has my number at Scotland Yard,’ he said, slipping it into her hand.
‘We don’t have a telephone,’ she bleated.
‘There’ll be one at your local police station. If you tell them that you wish to contact Inspector Marmion with regard to the inquiry, they’ll put you in touch with me.
She didn’t seem to have heard him. ‘I’d like to be alone.’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Skene,’ he said, moving to the door. ‘I’m sorry to bring such bad tidings but, on reflection, you may find that hearing them from me is preferable to reading them for the first time in the newspaper.’
Leaving the room, he opened the front door and let himself out. On the drive back to Scotland Yard, he found himself wondering about the true nature of the relationship between a mature woman and a young man. How had they first met? What had attracted them to each other? When had they moved on to a degree of intimacy? Was their friendship a pleasant diversion or did they hope for a future together? What had impelled her to take such dangerous risks? Why was nobody else aware of the romance? As the questions multiplied in his mind, there was one that dominated all the others.
What other secrets had Cyril Ablatt kept so carefully hidden?
Joe Keedy’s visit to the police station was productive. He not only met and interviewed Mansel Price, he was able to use the duty sergeant’s local knowledge to advantage. When he confided that he needed to maintain surveillance on the Ablatt house that night, the sergeant recommended the nearby home of a pair of elderly sisters. They’d been burgled recently and would welcome the presence of a policeman to guard their property during the small hours. The front room of their house, Keedy was assured, would give him a good view of the wall that had been daubed with white paint. He was very grateful. If he’d had to knock on doors in search of a place in which to hold his vigil, there was always the danger that he might alert the artist. Since he (or she) was almost certainly a neighbour of the Ablatt’s, it would be ironic if there was a forewarning from the police. Staying with two old ladies obviated the danger of inadvertently coming face to face with the very person he wished to apprehend. It was a piece of good fortune that partially atoned for the evening out that he’d had to sacrifice in the interests of solving a murder
Keedy also learnt that Price was known to the police. He’d been arrested during an affray the previous year but had not been charged. The fractious Welshman had also been involved in two other incidents, one of which — refusing to pay for some groceries — had resulted in a fine. Price detested authority. Each time he’d been brought to the station, it transpired, he’d been awkward under questioning. It helped to explain why he’d been so prickly during his session with Keedy. The carpenter, Fred Hambridge, had been far more amenable and — according to Marmion — so had Gordon Leach. It would be interesting to learn how Price fitted into the quartet that included Cyril Ablatt. Since the latter was the undisputed leader, to what extent had the Welshman accepted to the authority vested in his friend?
Time was rolling on and there were decisions to be made. It would take Keedy far too long to go all the way to and from his digs so he resigned himself to remaining in Shoreditch. He first walked to the recommended house and made the acquaintance of Rose and Martha Haveron, two anxious ladies in their late sixties who confused their recent burglary with an attempt of their long-preserved virginity. Reassured by his status and by his easy charm, they were at the same time appalled to hear about the murder. They had nothing but good to say about Ablatt and his father and had been friendly with his mother until she died some years earlier. Even though it would be the first time that a man had spent a night under their roof, the sisters willingly offered up their front room as an observation post, ready to break with tradition if it would help the police. Indeed, they both revealed a hitherto hidden maternal instinct, offering Keedy food, providing him with blankets and generally trying to make his stay there as comfortable as it could be. He had difficulty escaping their urgent hospitality in order to go shopping.
As he left his two temporary landladies, he looked up at the side of the house on the corner. Nobody was left in any doubt as to who lived there. Amongst other things, Cyril Ablatt was described as a coward, a rat, a rotten conchie and a traitor to his country. The lettering was large but hastily done. Keedy decided that it must have taken the artist a number of visits to complete the work. His sympathy for the dead man welled up. Much kinder words would be etched on Ablatt’s gravestone. While the exterior of the house had been defaced, the real damage had been caused inside it. Keedy wondered how the family was coping with it.
‘Shall I make some more tea?’ asked Gerald Ablatt, getting to his feet.
He’d done little else from the time that his sister and brother-in-law had arrived. They come to offer him comfort but it was Nancy Dalley who most needed it. Between bouts of tears, she kept dredging up fond memories of her nephew and asking her brother to endorse their accuracy. Ablatt readily agreed with everything that she said, trying to ease her pain as a means of relieving his own. Dalley was forced into the position of an onlooker, watching them suffer and listening to the endless repetition of the same empty phrases.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said, reaching for the tea pot.
Ablatt came out of his reverie. ‘You don’t know where the tea is, Jack.’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘There are biscuits in the larder.’
‘I couldn’t touch food,’ said Nancy. ‘Even a biscuit would make me sick.’
‘You haven’t eaten anything since we got here, love,’ said her husband, solicitously. ‘There’s no need to starve.’
‘All I want is some tea.’
‘But we’ve been here for hours.’
‘Tea, Jack — nothing else.’
‘I’ll get it.’
As soon as Dalley left the room, Ablatt sat beside his sister and they embraced impulsively, letting the tears gush yet again. The murder had completely disoriented them. They’d lost all sense of time, place and purpose. All that they could do was to sit there and offer each other a degree of succour. When the blacksmith returned from the kitchen with the teapot and biscuits, he found them still locked together.
‘I’ll have to go soon,’ he warned. ‘It’s unfair to leave Perce on his own all day. He’ll wonder what’s happened.’
‘Go when you want to, Jack,’ said Ablatt.
‘Will you stay here, Nance?’
