‘How many of them live at home?’
‘I’m not sure, Ellen — two at least.’
‘Then she won’t get lonely. When you go off, I’m entirely on my own. I can’t blame Paul for not being here but I do miss Alice. It wouldn’t be so bad if she spent the odd night or two here.’
‘She values her freedom, love.’
‘Well, it’s not doing her health any good.’
Marmion was worried. ‘How do you know? Have you seen her?’
‘Alice called in early this morning,’ said Ellen, ‘and we had a cup of tea together. She looked so thin and drawn. She claims that she’s put on weight but I couldn’t see it. There was a sense of fatigue about her.’
‘Like father, like daughter!’
‘It’s not a joke, Harvey.’
‘It wasn’t meant as one,’ he said. ‘I was being serious. Alice is like me. When she takes something on, she gives it every last ounce of her energy.’ He used a hand to suppress a yawn. ‘Up we go. I’m dropping.’
After switching off the light, he put the fireguard in the grate then followed her upstairs. When he’d been to the bathroom and changed into his pyjamas, he clambered into bed beside her.
‘What sort of a case is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s a very baffling one at the moment.’
‘Do you have any suspects?’
‘We might have. It’s too early to tell.’
‘And is this the sort of time you’ll be coming home from now on?’
‘Think yourself lucky, Ellen,’ he said, snuggling under the bed sheets. ‘Your loving husband will actually get some sleep tonight. That wouldn’t be the case if you were married to Joe Keedy. He’s got to stay awake until dawn.’
When he left the Weavers Arms, Keedy had first walked to the lane where the body had been discovered. The police had gone now, so it was possible to go to the spot where Cyril Ablatt had lain. By the light of his torch, he saw that the blood had been washed away to deter sightseers from finding the exact place. He imagined the shock that the courting couple must have felt when they stumbled on the corpse. It might have had an adverse effect on their romance. Before he returned to his vantage point, he walked around the vicinity to familiarise himself with it. These were the streets that Ablatt and his friends knew by heart. Hiding in one of them, he believed, was the killer. Their job was to root him out.
The Haveron sisters were delighted to see him again and pressed food and drink on to him. They were like a pair of eccentric aunts who’d just encountered a nephew they never knew they had and wanted to make up for lost time.
‘Do you do this kind of thing often?’ asked Rose.
‘As it happens,’ said Keedy, ‘I don’t. This is an exception.’
‘Well, it’s certainly an exception for us,’ Martha chimed in, ‘isn’t it, Rose? Who’d ever have thought that we’d play host to a detective?’
‘It’s rather exciting,’ said Rose.
‘I do hope it’s not a waste of time.’
‘So do I,’ said Keedy, touched by their sweetness. ‘But at least I’ll be comfortable in your front room. The last time I did this all night, I had to hide in the back of a cattle truck and look through the slats. You can imagine the stench.’
‘Oh dear!’ said Martha.
‘You won’t have that problem here,’ Rose assured him.
Fortunately, the sisters went to bed early every night and even the presence of a detective did not alter their routine. They wished him well, then withdrew upstairs. When he adjourned to the front room, Keedy could hear one of them walking about in the bedroom above his head. He’d politely declined their offer to light a fire for him. It was evident that Rose and Martha Haveron were ladies of limited means. He didn’t wish to make inroads into their coal supply nor did he want to make the room too snug. A warm fire might send him off to sleep. Cold air would keep him awake. Even with the blankets around him, he could feel a bracing chill.
The Ablatt house was diagonally opposite. When he sat beside the window on an upright chair, he could look through a chink in the curtains. It would be impossible to miss anyone who came to add something to the already well-decorated wall. Keedy settled down for what might be a long and fruitless wait. He staved off boredom by going through all the evidence so far gathered. He thought of the conversations he’d had with Hambridge and Price, young men of fundamentally different character who’d been united by a single purpose. He’d liked the carpenter and distrusted the cook on sight. When they came before a tribunal, he suspected, the quiet certainty of the Quaker would be more effective than the Welshman’s truculence. The person who really interested him was Horrie Waldron. How on earth had such a reprobate aroused affection in Maud Crowther? Given the size and muscularity of Stan Crowther, both of them were tempting fate. The discovery that Waldron was making secret visits to his mother would enrage the landlord. If he dared to put his head into the pub after that, the gravedigger would need his spade to defend himself.
Hours drifted by and tiredness slackened his muscles. Every so often, his eyes would close for a couple of minutes and he’d have to shake himself awake. Having lost all track of time, Keedy stood up, walked around the room and took off the blankets so that he could feel the piercing cold. It served to galvanise him just in time. From outside the house, there was a loud yell then he heard something thud onto the pavement. Charging across to the window, he pulled back the curtain. A ladder was standing against the wall of the Ablatt house. Beside it was an upturned tin of paint. In the middle of the road, two figures were grappling wildly. Keedy jumped into action. He ran to the front door, let himself out and raced across to the two men. In the course of a fierce struggle, one of them threw the other to the ground and dived on top of him. Keedy grabbed him from behind and pulled him off.
‘That’s enough!’ he shouted.
The man on the ground leapt to his feet, punched Keedy in the face and pushed him against the other man. He then fled off down the street and vanished around the corner. Before the second man could run after him, he was overpowered by Keedy and held in a vice-like grip.
‘You silly bastard!’ howled Mansel Price. ‘You let him get away.’
CHAPTER TEN
Knowing that he wanted to make an early start, Ellen Marmion was up before her husband in order to make sure that he went off to work with a cooked breakfast inside him. When he came down from the bathroom, it was waiting for him on the kitchen table. He gave her a smile of gratitude and sat down.
‘How much did you eat yesterday?’ she asked.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Not enough, if I know you.’
‘I grabbed something on the hoof,’ he said, picking up his knife and fork and attacking a sausage. ‘Regular meals are a luxury in my job.’
‘You must have food, Harvey.’
‘I survive somehow.’
Ellen sat opposite him and clicked her tongue when he began to wolf it down. She poured two cups of tea and added milk and sugar to both before stirring them. Marmion laughed.
‘I
‘I was only trying to be helpful.’
‘Then you can eat my breakfast for me as well.’
‘Harvey!’
‘There’s no need for you to be up this early,’ he said. ‘It’s not six yet.’
‘I can’t lie in bed when you have to be fed. It’s my contribution to this case. I know that it’s on your mind. You were talking about it in your sleep.’
He was jolted. ‘Was I? What did I say?’
