injured after falling from a ladder and one killed when he slipped off a church roof. It can’t be much more dangerous than that at the front.’
‘Nothing ever seems to frighten you, does it?’ said Gatliffe, enviously. ‘I wish I was like that.’ A memory stabbed him like the thrust of a bayonet and he winced. ‘I also wish that we hadn’t bumped into that girl in London.’
‘Are you still worrying about that?’
‘I keep seeing her face, Ol.’
Cochran laughed. ‘I keep feeling her body and tasting her lips and remembering how I shot my spunk into her. It was terrific, Gatty, every second of it. You don’t know what you missed.’
Ruth Stein sat on the edge of the bath with the box of tablets in her hand. In her febrile mind, they seemed to offer an escape from the ruins of her life. She opened the packet, put a tablet in the palm of her hand and stared at it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
David Cohen was on the verge of tears as he stood outside what had once been his place of work. All that was left of the shop now was an empty smoke-blackened shell. A waist-high fence had been erected to keep anyone from actually entering the premises but, since there was nothing left to steal, it was largely redundant. Acting as a second line of defence was a solitary policeman. Cohen was bound to wonder why he and his colleagues had not been on duty there the day before to safeguard the premises.
Harvey Marmion had agreed to meet him in Jermyn Street rather than at Scotland Yard because he wanted to view the full extent of the damage in daylight. The two men stood side by side on the opposite pavement.
‘Mr Stein didn’t stand a chance,’ said Cohen, sorrowfully. ‘He was trapped upstairs by the fire.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ said Marmion, gently. ‘According to the pathologist conducting the post-mortem, your employer might have been dead before the fire even reached him. I’ve issued a statement to the press to the effect that Jacob Stein was murdered.’
Cohen was horror-struck. ‘Murdered — but
‘He was stabbed through the heart, sir.’
The news was like a hammer blow to Cohen. He needed minutes to recover from the shock. Dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief he plucked from the sleeve of his jacket, he looked up to heaven in supplication. Cohen was the manager of the shop, the person entrusted to run it and handle any initial enquiries for the high-quality bespoke tailoring on offer. Since the man had worked there for well over fifteen years, Marmion deduced that he was good at his job. Otherwise Stein would not have kept him. Cohen was a slim, sinewy man of medium height in a superbly cut suit. Marmion put him somewhere in his early fifties.
‘What sort of an employer was he?’ asked Marmion.
‘You couldn’t wish to work for a better man,’ said Cohen, loyally. ‘It was a pleasure to be a member of his staff. He expected us to work hard, of course, but he set us all a perfect example.’
‘Did Mr Stein follow a set routine?’
‘Yes, Inspector — he was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. When the shop was closed, he’d take any cash and cheques from the till and put them in the safe upstairs. He was very conscious of security. That’s why all the doors had special locks.’
‘So when he went upstairs yesterday evening, he would have locked the door to the shop behind him.’
‘There’s no question about that.’
‘What about his other employees? I gather that apart from you, there were three full-time tailors and one man who worked part-time. Would they have had keys to all the doors?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Cohen, anxious to stress his seniority. ‘Only Mr Stein and I had a full set.’
‘What about the key to the safe?’
‘Mr Stein had that, Inspector. He kept a duplicate at home in case of loss. However, the key alone wouldn’t have opened the safe. You’d need to know the combination as well.’
‘Did anyone apart from Mr Stein know the combination?’
‘Nobody on the staff was told.’
‘What happened to the day’s takings if Mr Stein was not there and you had no access to his safe?’
‘It was only very rarely that he was absent during business hours. On such occasions,’ said Cohen, ‘I’d put everything in the night safe at the bank. He was such a kind man,’ he continued, wiping away a last tear, ‘and generous to a fault. Who could possibly have wanted to kill him?’
‘I’m hoping that
Cohen was nonplussed. ‘How can I do that?’
‘By providing more detail about him,’ said Marmion. ‘Mr Stein was clearly well known but success usually breeds envy. Is there anyone who might have nursed resentment against him?’
‘I can’t think of anybody.’
‘What about his business rivals?’
‘Well, yes, there were one or two people who felt overshadowed by him. That’s in the nature of things. But surely none of them would go to the length of killing him,’ argued Cohen. ‘When the shop was burnt down, we’d effectively have been put out of business for a long time. Wasn’t that enough?’
‘I’d like the names of any particular rivals.’
Cohen was circumspect. ‘I’m not accusing anyone, Inspector.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking you to do, sir,’ said Marmion. ‘I just want an insight into the closed world of gentlemen’s tailoring. Nobody is universally admired and none of us look benevolently upon all our fellow human beings. We tend to like or loathe. Is there anyone about whom Mr Stein spoke harshly?’
‘Yes,’ admitted the other, ‘there were a few people whom he regarded with …’ He searched for the right word. ‘Well, let’s call it suspicion rather than contempt.’
‘I’d appreciate their names, Mr Cohen.’
‘Very well — but you’re looking in the wrong direction.’
‘I’d also like the names of any employees who might have left under a cloud. Have any been dismissed in the last year?’
‘There was one,’ said Cohen, uneasily, ‘and another left of his own accord shortly afterwards. Not because of any bad treatment from Mr Stein, I hasten to add. They were simply … not suitable employees.’
‘Yet he must have thought so when he took them on.’
‘We all make errors of judgement, Inspector.’
‘So Mr Stein was not the paragon you portray him as,’ observed Marmion, taking out a pad and pencil. ‘Before I have those names from you, answer me this, if you will. I take it that you know Mr Stein’s brother quite well.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said the other, guardedly.
‘How did the two of them get on?’
David Cohen was too honest a man to tell a direct lie. At the same time, he did not wish to divulge confidential information and so he retreated into silence and gave an expressive shrug.
Marmion read the message in his eyes.
‘Very well,’ he said, ‘let’s have those names, shall we?’
Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy had conducted countless interviews during his time as a policeman but none had resembled the one in which he took part that evening. Visiting the pub where members of the destructive mob had reportedly been drinking before they made for Jermyn Street, Keedy sought out Douglas Emmott, who worked there behind the bar. Emmott was a short, slender, ebullient man in his thirties with a swarthy complexion and shiny dark hair that gave him an almost Mediterranean look. When Keedy explained who he was and why he was there, Emmott took a combative stance.
‘Yes, I was there,’ he confessed, freely, ‘and, if you want the truth, I’m damned glad that I was.’
Anticipating lies and evasion, Keedy was taken aback by the man’s defiant honesty. Emmott put his hands on his hips.
