was about cleaning his shoes.’ He glanced down at the man’s dirty boots. ‘Oh, you’ll be arrested and charged, I promise you, but not as the killer you’re pretending to be.’
It was too much for the man. Pulsing with fury, he jumped up and swung a fist at Marmion. It was easily parried. Before he could throw a second punch, he was overpowered by Keedy who leapt up and grappled with him before slamming him against a wall. It took all resistance out of the man. The commotion brought two uniformed constables into the room.
‘Lock him up,’ said Keedy, handing him over. ‘And find out his real name.’
The man was still yelling at the top of his voice as they dragged him out.
‘I had a horrible feeling that we’d find someone who simply craved attention,’ said Marmion with a resigned smile. ‘His statement gave him away.’
‘How?’
‘He was so eager to convince us that he set off that bomb that he listed all five victims. The real Herbert Wylie wouldn’t have done that. He probably didn’t even know all the names. The one person he was interested in was Enid Jenks. The others didn’t matter.’
‘I should have realised that,’ admitted Keedy.
‘Yes, Joe, you should have. As a penance, you can be the one to ring the superintendent to break the bad news to him.’ Marmion gave him a friendly pat. ‘Don’t forget to wear ear plugs. He can be vindictive.’
At the end of a taxing day, Alan Suggs clocked off at the factory and walked home. Having driven his lorry considerable distances at work, he was glad to be back on his feet again. As he was going through the factory gates, another shift was streaming towards him. He spotted a pretty young woman with dimpled cheeks and a full figure. When she saw him grinning at her, she turned away and quickened her step. Their friendship had been brief and, on her side, demeaning. Suggs, however, had stirring memories of their time together and he celebrated them with a guffaw. It was a long walk back to his house but he moved along with alacrity. Behind him was the world of work; ahead of him was a night of pleasure.
His route took him past the Golden Goose and he saw Royston Liddle lurking nearby. He couldn’t resist the opportunity to taunt him.
‘Shouldn’t you be at home feeding your rabbits?’ he asked with a smirk.
‘I can’t,’ said Liddle, ‘and you know why.’
‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Royston.’
‘You killed them.’
Suggs feigned righteous indignation. ‘That’s a downright lie!’
‘I can’t prove it but I know it.’
‘You’d better be careful what you’re saying.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘Come out with nonsense like that and everyone will know that you’ve lost what little sense you have. That means only one thing,’ he said, menacingly. ‘They’ll lock you up in the lunatic asylum. Best place for you, if you ask me.’
Liddle was wounded. ‘I don’t belong in an asylum.’
‘Then stop making stupid accusations.’
‘Everybody talks to me proper, Alan. Why can’t you?’
‘Because I think you’re a streak of shit with as much use as a dead rabbit.’
‘That’s cruel!’ whined Liddle, backing away.
‘Keep out of my way.’
Pushing him roughly aside, Suggs strode on, his derisive laughter echoing along the street. In the gathering gloom, he didn’t realise that Liddle waited for a while then followed him at a distance. The driver went through his usual routine. He let himself into his house, washed in the kitchen sink then went upstairs to get changed. When he came back down, he cooked himself a frugal meal then spent minutes in front of the mirror with a comb, slicking his hair down and admiring himself. Slipping on his coat and hat, he left the house and went straight to the pub. Over a pint of beer, he was soon trading coarse jokes with some of the other patrons.
Offered a fresh drink by a friend, he glanced at the clock on the wall and declined the offer. Suggs drained his glass in one last gulp and left. As before, he checked to see that nobody else was about. His walk became more furtive now and he kept glancing over his shoulder. When he reached his destination, he had one last look up and down. Satisfied that he was unobserved, he was about to knock on the door when he saw that it was slightly ajar. The invitation could not be more obvious. Responding to the show of readiness, he let himself in and shut the door behind him before bolting it. He walked down the passageway and went into the room at the rear of the house. Back turned to him, she was waiting. Suggs was disappointed. She was fully dressed. He clicked his tongue.
‘Somebody forgot her promise, didn’t she?’ he said, warningly. ‘You’ll be sorry for that. You know I love to look before I touch.’
As he walked towards her, she turned slowly around to face him. The sight of her face stopped him in his tracks. Both eyes were blackened and there were dark bruises on her temples. A trickle of blood from her nose had dried in place.
Hearing a noise behind him, he tried to turn round but he was too slow even to see his attacker. The first blow sent him reeling and the second battered him to the ground. He was kicked, stamped on and belaboured with a pick handle. Long before the assault had ended, he lost consciousness. When it was all over, he was dragged along the passageway. The front door was opened and Suggs was thrown out bodily onto the hard pavement, collecting fresh wounds on impact. He lay there in a pool of blood that slowly increased in size. It was the last tryst at that particular address.
There was quiet laughter in the darkness.
After their futile visit to Rochester, they returned by train to London, then were driven out to Hayes again. Herbert Wylie remained their chief suspect but Marmion wasn’t ready to discount the other two people who came into the reckoning. Niall Quinn still interested him and there was the putative father of Florrie Duncan’s child. Since the pregnancy was not confirmed, the detectives decided to call on a person who might be able to help them. Reuben Harte gave them an ungracious welcome but he did at least let them into the house. However, he took care not to invite them to sit down. The conversation took place in the middle of the living room with the three of them standing in a triangle.
‘What do you wish to know, Inspector?’ he asked.
‘How close was your daughter to Florrie Duncan?’
‘They were very close. I told you that.’
‘Did Jean often talk about her?’
‘Naturally,’ said Harte. ‘They worked side by side and spent a lot of their spare time together. Jean talked about her all the time. Florrie was always up to something, not least trying to organise the women into a union.’
‘Was there much opposition to that at the factory?’ asked Marmion.
‘A great deal of opposition, Sergeant. No boss likes to be told that he’s not paying his workers enough or that their working conditions are appalling. It would be bad enough coming from a male employee. Coming from a woman, it would have been even harder to take.’
‘Mr Kennett implied that,’ recalled Keedy. ‘He and Florrie had a couple of brushes, apparently. While he liked her as a woman, he probably detested her as the spokesperson for the other women — even though he’d be too polite to show it.’
‘I’m more interested in what Florrie did away from the factory,’ said Marmion. ‘If the photos of her are anything to go by, she was a striking young woman. Is that correct, Mr Harte?’
‘Oh, yes — no camera could catch her vitality, Inspector.’
‘That must have made her a target for the men at the factory.’
‘She was always getting approaches from them but Jean said that she just shrugged them off with a laugh.’
‘Did that go for
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, her husband died some time ago,’ said Marmion, ‘and she’d got used to the idea of being a widow.
