Five Dead Canaries

‘Complaints?’

‘Yes, Harv. If, as you say, Neil Beresford was their coach, he couldn’t be accused of favouritism by putting his wife in the team. Shirley was obviously their best player. I must say, I don’t envy her husband.’

‘Why not?’

‘Coaching a football team is a real headache. When I used to play as a kid, we drove our coach to distraction. He reckoned we’d taken ten years off his life. I remember him tearing his hair out on the touchline as we made silly mistakes and gave away ridiculous goals. Neil Beresford must be a tough character to take on a task like running a women’s team.’

‘That’s the strange thing, Joe,’ said Marmion as he pictured the man lying on the bed. ‘Physically, he looks wiry and he must be strong-willed to create and nurture a team that wins the league. Yet he’s more or less collapsed in the wake of the disaster. People like his mother and Mrs Radcliffe have coped far better — and so has Jonah Jenks. Why is that?’

‘Beresford and his wife must have been very close.’

‘He looked really ill when I left him.’

Keedy smiled. ‘We can’t all be like you, Harv.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’ve been where they are — losing someone you loved, that is. When your father was murdered on duty, you didn’t sit around and mope. You went after his killer and discovered that you had a detective’s instinct.’

Marmion was rueful. ‘I’d prefer to have found it out a different way. I never thought I’d follow Dad into the police force but his death changed my mind. It made me so angry, Joe. I felt that I simply had to do something.’

‘Alice feels the same. She takes after you.’

‘Let’s keep her out of this,’ said Marmion, sharply.

‘But she has the same attitude as you.’

‘That’s as maybe. Tell me about your second visit to the factory.’

Keedy puffed his cheeks. ‘It really opened my eyes.’

He went on to describe his visit to the Cartridge Section and how he felt that the women deserved far more than they earned. It was well below what men doing identical jobs took home at the end of the week. Keedy talked about the noise, the smell, the inherent dangers and how he found it difficult to reconcile the idea of a sex that created human life making shells that would destroy it.

‘It was weird, Harv — sort of unnatural.’

‘Blame the war for that. When so many of our young men are wounded, killed in action or still serving at the front, women have had to step into the breach. I applaud them for that.’

‘What about the ones who joined the police force?’ Keedy saw the glint in his companion’s eyes and quickly changed the subject. ‘Where do we go next?’

‘I’d like you to go to Jean Harte’s house,’ said Marmion. ‘I called there earlier but drew a blank. Either nobody is at home or, if they are, they’re not answering the door. Once we’ve crossed Jean off the list, there’s only Florrie Duncan left. We’ll visit her family together.’

‘What will you be doing before then, Harv?’

‘I’m going to the factory. Alan Suggs will be back soon.’

‘Oh, yes, he’s the phantom lover, isn’t he?’

‘He may turn out to be more than that, Joe.’

‘His girlfriend must be very keen on him. There aren’t many young women whose idea of a romance is a tryst in some converted stables. Most would expect something more comfortable than that.’

‘He works as a driver, Joe. He can’t afford a suite at the Ritz.’

At that moment, a waitress came to clear the plates from the table. Wearing a black dress and a white apron, she was an attractive young woman in her early twenties, the average age of the murder victims. Keedy couldn’t help noticing the sharp contrast between her and those at the factory. The waitress had pale, spotless skin and there was a bloom on her cheeks. If any of the munitionettes had applied for a job at the café, they’d have been turned down because their appearance was likely to offend customers. It was grossly unfair.

‘Right,’ said Keedy as the waitress moved away, ‘I’m ready. Is there anything particular you’d like me to find out about Jean Harte?’

‘I want you to see where she fitted into that group of friends.’

‘Maureen Quinn told us that Jean was teased a lot because she was always moaning about something. And she often had something wrong with her — not that that surprises me. That factory is an unhealthy place to work.’

‘See what you can learn about the other girls. Which one was Jean’s best friend, for example? Who did she see outside of work hours? And why was it that Enid Jenks and Shirley Beresford were so close?’

‘Is there any reason why they shouldn’t be?’

‘Yes,’ replied Marmion. ‘From what I can gather, they had little in common. Enid was a musician who spent all her time practising while Shirley was a real sportswoman. One was single while the other was married. One was still under the thumb of her father while the other lived with her husband. I suppose you could call it an attraction of opposites,’ he went on, getting up, ‘but it seems odd somehow. I would have thought that Enid and Maureen Quinn were more natural friends.’

‘Why is that, Harv?’

‘They’re both religious.’

‘How are you feeling now, Maureen?’

‘My mind is a blank most of the time.’

‘That’s understandable. You’re still in shock.’

‘It’s just so painful to remember what happened,’ said Maureen, ‘so I’ve tried to block it out. But I can’t do that for ever, Father.’

‘Indeed, you can’t.’

‘Sooner or later, I’ll have to face their families. They’ll detest me.’

‘That’s not true at all,’ said Father Cleary, gently squeezing her hands. ‘They’ll be glad that — by the grace of God — someone managed to escape the horror of that explosion. It’s only natural that they’ll wish that it had been their daughter, of course, but there should be no antagonism towards you.’

‘Yes, there will,’ said Maureen, thinking of Mrs Radcliffe.

‘What brought you to church this morning?’

‘I needed to be alone.’

‘You’re never alone in God’s house.’

‘I know that but I wanted …’

‘A place of sanctuary?’ he asked as her voice tailed off. Maureen nodded. ‘Well, you came to the right place. We haven’t seen as much of you or of your family as we’d like recently and I’m sorry that it’s taken a tragedy like this to bring you back here. But you’re very welcome, Maureen. You were much brighter than everyone else at Sunday school — especially your brothers. How are they, by the way?’

‘We don’t know. They’re still at the front somewhere.’

‘We’ll remember them in our prayers.’

In obedience to her husband, Diane Quinn had already turned many callers away, both inquisitive neighbours and persistent reporters. The one person in whose face she couldn’t shut the front door was Father Cleary, a stringy, old man with a biretta that he never seemed to remove perched on a mop of silver hair. When word reached him that Maureen had spent hours in St Alban’s church, he paid her a visit. Seated opposite her, he held her hands and offered sympathy and understanding.

Maureen was bewildered. ‘Why was I spared, Father?’

‘God moves in mysterious ways.’

‘It’s what I keep asking myself. In one way or another, they were all better than me. Florrie was our leader, Enid was a brilliant musician, Agnes had a gorgeous baby son and so on. Unlike me, they all had full lives.’

‘Don’t underestimate your importance in the scheme of things, Maureen,’ said Cleary, peering over his