She stepped past him without a word and went into the scullery. It was dark, but beneath the door leading to the kitchen she could see the light glowing. She went on, with Evans following her. The kitchen was empty too. She drew the blackout curtains across the window, leaving the light on, and went into the hall. There was an open door on the left, leading into what must have been the front room. This was in darkness too, but as she went in she swept her flashlight quickly round it. The first thing she saw was a dazzling reflection of her own light from a tall mirror – a wardrobe. As the realisation dawned that this was the bedroom, her light picked out a bed.
She stopped, and let out an involuntary gasp. On the floor beside the bed there was the unmistakeable shape of a body dressed in a jersey and slacks, curled on its side, face to the bare polished floorboards. It was lying unnaturally, one arm twisted behind it. The head was shrouded in a tangle of blonde hair.
‘Look,’ she whispered to Evans. ‘It’s a woman.’
She knelt down beside the body and gave it a gentle shake, but the woman did not stir.
‘She must be unconscious,’ said Evans. ‘Passed out, by the look of it.’
Sylvia gripped the woman by the shoulder and rolled her onto her back, and gasped again.
‘Worse than that,’ she said. ‘Look at that thing round her neck. I think she’s been strangled.’
CHAPTER TWO
It was a quarter to four in the morning when Detective Inspector John Jago arrived at the scene. He was not in the brightest of moods. When the bomb blasts ceased and a measure of silence fell, he’d tried to settle down in the damp tomb of his Anderson shelter for some belated sleep, only to be roused by the noise of what proved to be a uniformed constable rapping his truncheon vigorously on the shelter’s corrugated iron wall.
‘Sorry, sir,’ his unexpected visitor had said. ‘You’re wanted in Carpenters Road. A body’s been found in a house next to the old jute works by the railway bridge.’
‘What?’ said Jago, struggling out of his uncomfortable bed and sticking his head out of the shelter.
‘Foul play suspected,’ the officer added in a theatrically gloomy tone. ‘PC Gracewell’s down there waiting for you, sir, guarding the scene.’
Jago thanked him as courteously as he could. Not the best start to a Monday morning, but the poor man was only doing his duty. He threw some clothes on and dragged a comb through his hair, then set off in his car to the scene of the crime.
He found PC Gracewell waiting for him in Carpenters Road, but there was no sign of Cradock.
‘Morning, sir,’ said Gracewell. ‘I’m sorry we had to disturb you, but it looks like a suspicious death.’
‘Where’s Detective Constable Cradock?’ said Jago. ‘Did you get him out of bed too?’
‘I contacted the station, sir – the phone box down the road’s still working. He’s living in the section house, isn’t he? I expect they’ll have told him. They said they’d try to get hold of the pathologist at the hospital and get him down here as soon as possible, but he hasn’t arrived yet. They said they’d get the police surgeon too, but apparently he’s not been very good at answering his phone in the night of late.’
‘Don’t tell me – I assume he hasn’t turned up either.’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ said Jago. ‘What do you know?’
‘It’s a young woman, sir. Looks like she’s been murdered. She was found in that house there by an air-raid warden name of Mrs Sylvia Parks, but she’s had to go off and make a report. I told her you’d want to speak to her, but she hasn’t come back.’
‘So what did she have to say before she disappeared?’
‘She said there was a light on in the downstairs flat and no answer when she rang at the door, so she got a fireman to break in and they found the woman dead. The fireman’s still here – Evans, he’s called. I told him to stay until you got here. He’s waiting just across the road there.’
‘Good work. I’d better get in the house and have a look at the body.’
‘I’m very sorry, sir, but it’s not there.’
‘Not in the house, or not anywhere?’
‘Not in the house, sir. I’m afraid it’s been moved from where it was found.’
‘Wonderful. That’s just what we need.’
‘I’d have made sure nobody touched it or moved it before you came, but unfortunately by the time I got here they’d already done it. It’s just over there on the pavement, by the wall. They covered it with a blanket.’
Jago was about to give vent to his feelings about members of the public who thought they were being helpful by moving bodies when he spotted Cradock hurrying down the street towards him.
‘Good morning, Peter,’ he said when Cradock arrived. ‘Good of you to join us.’
‘Very sorry, guv’nor. I had to—’
‘Never mind. You’re here now, and we’ve got work to do. Tom Gracewell’s just told me the body’s already been moved, and there’s a fireman that we need to talk to.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I think we can manage without you now,’ said Jago to the uniformed constable. ‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than hang around here waiting for the CID to arrive. Thanks for your help – you’ve done everything right.’
‘Thank you, sir. I think the fireman’s keen to get away – he’s been on duty all night.’
‘Very well, we’ll have a quick word with him straight away. That’ll be all.’
PC Gracewell nodded, thanked Jago again and set off down the road in the direction of Stratford High Street.
‘Now, then, Peter,’ said Jago to Cradock, ‘to work. The victim’s a young woman, strangled it seems. She was found by an air-raid warden and a fireman, but the warden’s had
