to you? Is that it?’
‘No, it isn’t, I assure you.’
‘Perhaps you think that the women police are a subject for amusement.’
‘Not at all,’ said Alice, firmly. ‘Had I done so, I’d hardly have been so eager to join. If you do detect a smile, it’s because we’ve had some good news.’
‘Are you ready to share it with me?’
‘It’s of no interest to you, Inspector.’
‘Everything about you is of interest to me,’ said Thelma, sitting forward, ‘because it affects the way you do your job. What is this good news?’
‘Paul — that’s my brother — is coming home on leave next week.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘It was ages ago,’ recalled Alice. ‘It’s getting on for the best part of a year.’
‘Where is he stationed?’
‘He’s in a camp near the Somme.’
‘When he gets back here, he’ll be very relieved.’
‘We’re giving him a welcome party.’
‘Is he married?’ asked Thelma.
‘No, Inspector.’
‘Does he have a sweetheart?’
‘Paul is single and fancy-free.’
‘Then you’ll be in a position to offer him some guidance, won’t you?’ Alice looked confused. Thelma had a gibe ready. ‘When you eventually discover what it is that ladies of the street actually do, you’ll be able to tell your brother to keep away from them or he may be going back to France with a nasty itch.’
It took them a long time to find the address they’d been given. There were three streets with very similar names and they went astray. Marmion wished that he’d asked Kennett to spell the name of the street. It would have saved them a lot of trouble. In the end, the car did find the right place and it nosed its way along the gutter before pulling up outside a Victorian artisan’s cottage. Herbert Wylie, they learnt from the landlady, rented a room there and was an ideal tenant. He always paid her on time and spent most evenings alone in his room. Mrs Armadale was a garrulous old woman with hair dyed an unnatural ginger colour. Having lost her husband the previous year, she’d taken in a lodger because she felt so lonely. From the way that she talked about Wylie, it was evident that he’d become a friend and did all kinds of odd jobs for her. He’d even taken over the little garden at the rear of the house.
When asked to describe him, she had nothing but praise. A picture slowly formed in the detective’s mind. Wylie was short, slim and in his thirties. Whenever he went out, he always took care with his appearance. The landlady spoke with approval of the attention he lavished on his shoes, polishing them every day and making them gleam if ever he went out of an evening. She was unaware that he’d briefly had a girlfriend named Enid Jenks.
‘When do you expect him back?’ asked Marmion.
‘I don’t know, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘A few days or so, he said.’
‘And he didn’t tell you where he was going?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
She was very happy to answer their questions until they asked if they could see Wylie’s room. Suddenly, she became defensive, wondering what had really brought them there and why they were so keen to speak to her tenant. Keedy took over and invented a plausible story concerning an accident at the factory that Wylie had witnessed and about which he’d promised to deliver a written report. The combination of Keedy’s charm and Marmion’s rank persuaded her that she should let them have their way. Once inside the room, they began a thorough search.
‘Thanks, Joe,’ said Marmion, opening a wardrobe. ‘You saved us the trouble of getting a search warrant.’
Keedy sniffed. ‘Would you want to live in room like this? It stinks.’
‘I think that Wylie came to the same conclusion.’ He indicated the empty wardrobe. ‘The cupboard is bare. What’s in those drawers?’
The sergeant opened them one by one. ‘Nothing — he’s made a run for it.’
Wylie had taken almost all of his clothing and personal items. All that he’d left behind were a few books and a grubby shirt hung on the back of the door. They could find nothing that indicated where he’d gone. Marmion was disappointed that they’d found no evidence to connect Wylie to the explosion at the pub. The man had either been careful to remove all trace of it or had not been implicated in the first place. They were about to leave when Marmion caught sight of the little shed in the garden. If Wylie looked after the lawn and the flowerbeds, he’d have free access to the shed. The landlady was puzzled by their request to go into the garden but she raised no objection. Keedy led the way and lifted the hook on the door of the shed. There was barely room for the two detectives to step inside. It was filled with garden implements. Marmion managed to trip over a watering can and Keedy’s shoulder dislodged a flowerpot from a shelf.
But the visit yielded a clue that made the pair of them grin broadly.
‘Do you see what I see, Joe?’ asked Marmion.
‘I do, indeed,’ replied Keedy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The news that her son was at last coming home on leave had filled Ellen Marmion with a delight that never faded. As she did her housework that morning, she was almost radiant. Her only complaint was that she’d not yet had time to discuss with her husband or daughter the welcome they should prepare for their returning hero. Paul’s letter had talked about his need for a long rest but there would be other members of the family eager to meet him, so there had to be a big celebration. Plans for a party began to form in her mind. Taking wartime food shortages into account, Ellen even went through the meal that would be served. It was when she got to her son’s bedroom that she felt real exhilaration. Though he’d been away for a long time, she’d cleaned the room regularly and dusted all of his trophies. Paul had been a talented sportsman. He’d won cups for his prowess at athletics and tennis, but the award he valued most was the shield his football team had acquired when winning the league title in their last full season. A photograph of the eleven players stood on the mantelpiece and Ellen could see her son smiling proudly in the back row.
Her stomach lurched slightly as she glanced at some of the other young men. Heartened by the fact that they could all be in the same regiment if they joined up together, the whole team had rushed off to the recruiting office. Some of the players had already been killed and others had been sent home with missing limbs and disturbing memories. While luxuriating in her own pleasure, Ellen spared a passing thought for families less fortunate than her own. When she picked up the photo to examine it more closely, she was struck by something that Marmion had told her about the investigation. Some of the victims were members of a ladies football team. Such a thing had never existed in her youth and Ellen was not sure that it ought to exist now. While she saw the necessity for change, she was fearful of the way that the boundaries between the two sexes were being blurred and, in some cases, eradicated altogether. Women now played football, drove buses, ran canteens and refugee centres, filled shells in munition factories, joined the police service and did almost everything else that had once been the exclusive territory of their male counterparts. Some, like Ellen herself, sewed and knitted with varying degrees of skill in order to send gloves, socks and other items to soldiers at the front.
It was unsettling for a woman with the values of her generation. Particularly worrying for Ellen was the rise of the suffragettes. Having suspended their campaign at the outbreak of hostilities, they’d devoted themselves to unflagging war work as a means of attesting their patriotism and of proving that they could match what men did and should therefore be given an equal right to vote. That was going too far, in Ellen’s view, and she was unnerved by the support that Alice gave to the notion of female emancipation, hoping that her daughter’s marriage to Joe Keedy would return her to a more traditional role. Dusting the photo before replacing it, she wondered what
