Blood on the Line

Three things set Helen’s untimely death apart from that of the others. First, she was a woman. The daughter of a financier, she was young, beautiful and well educated. Second, she posed no physical threat to Oxley. The jeweller had chased him with the intention of overpowering him and the two policemen had him handcuffed. Even had she’d wished to do so, Helen could not hurt Oxley. Nor was she in any position to defend herself against a violent attack. She was too slight, frail and vulnerable. But it was the third factor that weighed most with the inspector. In the course of the various meetings with Helen Millington, coaxing, advising and supporting her, Colbeck had fallen in love and his feelings had been requited.

‘You were summoned here,’ Tallis said, eyeing his visitors with disdain, ‘so that we could demonstrate that we have made progress in this investigation.’

‘Have you made any arrests?’ demanded a voice.

‘Not as yet, I fear.’

‘Then no real progress has been made. For once, it seems, your much-vaunted Inspector Colbeck has come off the rails.’

The titter of amusement brought Colbeck out of his reverie.

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘there has been an arrest. I must correct the superintendent on that point. During our visit to Wolverhampton, we discovered that a Constable Marner had been tricked into giving away information that led to the escape of Jeremy Oxley. He accepted a bribe of five pounds. He is now in custody and, as you may imagine, reviled by his colleagues. One of the murder victims, incidentally, was his brother-in- law.’

The reporters started to write excitedly in their notebooks. During the brief lull, Colbeck mimed a message to Tallis that he should be less aggressive and hand over the task of talking to them. With obvious reluctance, the older man agreed to the request.

‘I will make way now for Inspector Colbeck,’ he said, continuing the laboured metaphor, ‘who – I think you’ll find – has not come off the rails at all but is steaming along the track at full speed.’

Some muted jeers were hidden away in the polite laughter.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Colbeck with a nod at Tallis. ‘As a result of visits to Manchester, some important new facts have come to light. They relate to the female accomplice who assisted in the escape. The post-mortem on the remains of the two policemen established that one of them had been shot through the skull at close range. The person who fired that shot was a young woman by the name of Irene Adnam.’

He spelt the name for them and set the pencils off again. Colbeck praised Inspector Zachary Boone for the help given him in Manchester and explained how he had tracked down the woman’s father. He told them that Irene and Oxley would be hiding somewhere together and that their newspapers could be the means of catching them. The large reward on offer would, he hoped, encourage anyone who had spotted them to come forward.

‘The description of Irene Adnam that I’m about to give you,’ he said with easy authority, ‘is based on conversations with two people who knew her well – her father and a former employer. Her criminal career began in Manchester where, as you will hear, she left a number of victims in her wake.’

Colbeck went on to give details of her age, height, build, weight and hair colouring. He also mentioned that her voice had traces of a Manchester accent. Her father had described her as very lovely, and even the embittered Ambrose Holte had conceded that she had both physical appeal and natural charm. What had fooled the mill owner was her abiding air of innocence. As he offered them additional details of the woman, she began to take shape before him and did so in such clear outline that he was jolted. Colbeck had met her before. If he omitted the list of her crimes and her local accent, he could be talking about someone else entirely. The coincidence was so unexpected that it brought him to a sudden halt.

Age, height, build, weight and hair colouring – it was uncanny. Even the air of purity was an exact match. In every particular, he had just been describing Helen Millington.

CHAPTER NINE

Having taken a train to Euston, they hired two cabs to convey them to Trafalgar Square. It was carpeted by pigeons whose strutting boldness amazed Irene. Instead of taking to the air as she approached, they simply dodged her feet and continued to hunt for food on the paved slabs. One even perched on the knee of a beggar as he lay propped in a stupor up against a wall. Younger and his wife had visited the square too often to be overwhelmed by its scale and magnificence. Oxley, too, had seen it many times and was once again assessing the opportunities afforded to pickpockets by people gazing fixedly up at Horatio Nelson and therefore off guard. To Irene, however, the whole area was a thing of wonder and she was mesmerised by the fluted Corinthian column of Devonshire granite. She stared up at the statue of the nation’s great naval hero.

‘How on earth did they get it up there?’ she asked.

‘Very slowly, I should imagine,’ said Younger.

‘It’s so high.’

‘They built a wooden scaffold to help them erect the column, then they must have winched up the statue.’ He pointed to the bronze bas-reliefs at the base of the column. ‘Those were cast from cannon taken from enemy ships captured by Nelson in battle.’

‘Gordon can even tell you which battles they represent,’ said Susanna, fondly. ‘He loves that kind of detail about the past.’

‘History has always been my passion,’ he agreed.

‘Well, I always look to the future instead of the past,’ said Oxley. ‘I want to know what tomorrow holds for me and not what a one-eyed admiral did all those years ago at sea.’

‘Jerry!’ chided Irene. ‘You should show some respect.’

‘Why?’

‘Nelson was one of the greatest sailors of all time,’ Younger reminded him. ‘He defeated the French at Trafalgar even though his fleet was outnumbered. Unfortunately, he died during the action.’ He tossed a glance upward. ‘If anyone deserves to be honoured, it’s Nelson.’

Oxley was no longer listening. His attention had shifted to an urchin who’d been mingling with the crowd and who was in the act of removing a wallet from an unsuspecting sightseer. Oxley had no desire to warn the victim. He sided instinctively with the criminal. He wanted to step forward and advise the boy to take more time. Sudden movement would alert the man. The urchin was too hasty. His final snatch of the wallet made his victim turn round and clap a hand to his pocket. The boy darted off into the throng. Yelling in outrage, the man went after him, but Oxley came to the lad’s aid. Stepping sharply to the left, he deliberately collided with the victim to slow him down then showered him with apologies. By the time the man continued his pursuit, it was too late. The boy had vanished. Oxley smiled at what he considered to be a good deed. Irene was puzzled.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Oxley, innocently.

‘Someone just robbed that man,’ said Younger.

‘No wonder he seemed so angry.’

‘He ran straight into you.’

Irene was sympathetic. ‘Were you hurt, Jerry?’

‘No,’ said Oxley, holding his lapels to straighten his frock coat. ‘I hardly felt a thing. The truth of it is that he came off far worse than me because I’m bigger and stronger. Come on,’ he added, ‘let’s walk down Whitehall to see Scotland Yard. That’s far more interesting to me than Nelson’s column.’

He led the way through the crowd, wondering how long it would be before the irate man into whom he’d just bumped realised that, in the process of doing so, Oxley had deftly relieved him of his gold watch.

Colbeck had been impressed by Ian Peebles. To begin with, the new recruit was unfailingly polite. It was not always the case with those whose formative years had been spent in the army. Edward Tallis, for instance, had no truck with politeness. It was a foreign concept to him and foreigners were, by definition, creatures to be shunned. The habit of command had deprived him of conversational niceties. He issued orders with the splenetic zeal of one