The face beneath the hood was a white blur. Bert noticed she had a bag in each hand.
‘Bitter night,’ he remarked, drawing his own coat closer about him, resettling the helmet on his head.
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ The relief in her voice made him wonder if she’d felt nervous walking through the blackout on her own.
She’d put down one of her bags for a moment, and he saw now that in fact it was a basket, heavily laden, its contents covered by a cloth. He tested its weight and then held it ready for her while she wiggled her fingers to get the circulation back.
‘Thank you so much.’ She took the basket from him.
‘I hope you haven’t far to go with those.’ He nodded at her burdens.
‘No, it’s only a short walk.’
‘I’ll give you a hand if you like.’
She looked over her shoulder. ‘No, really. It’s not necessary.’ He caught a glimpse of her smile in the shadow cast by the hood. ‘Goodnight, and thank you for your help.’
She plodded on, and as he watched her figure disappearing into the darkness Bert wondered if he shouldn’t have insisted. She seemed like a nice girl. But his bones ached from the cold and whatever faint impulse he felt to follow her faded at the thought of the hot cup of tea awaiting him.
She would manage, he told himself as her figure grew faint and then vanished in the darkness.
She hadn’t far to go.
Feeling a lot better after his break — the firemen were a friendly lot — Bert hurried down the museum steps into the buffeting wind and then tacked his way across the great forecourt like a ship under sail. The sirens he’d heard earlier hadn’t sounded again. He was ready to call it a night. But while sitting in the warmth inside he’d felt the prick of conscience, and instead of going home directly as he’d planned he’d decided to return to where he’d interrupted his round earlier and make a final inspection of his area.
Pausing only to adjust his shoulder bag, he set off briskly down Museum Street, using the road itself, rather than the pavement. Although the blackout restrictions had been relaxed in recent weeks — in some districts of the capital, street lamps were now permitted to show a glimmer of light, creating what was called a moonlight effect — inky darkness continued to prevail in many areas, and if you wanted to avoid barking your shins on unseen obstacles, or, even worse, collecting a black eye from walking into a lamp-post, it was best to keep to the middle of the street.
Bert had barely turned the corner and started down Little Russell Street, however, when he heard the sound of a car behind him. Looking back he saw its reduced headlights approaching, and moved off the roadway to give it passage. It went by slowly, the driver steering his vehicle carefully down the dark canyon created by the buildings on either side of the narrow street. Bert continued to walk along the pavement. He was keeping an eye on the car, ready to move back on to the road at the first opportunity, but before he had a chance to do so his foot caught on something and he tripped and fell headlong.
‘Bloody ’ell!’ Half-winded by the fall, he lay where he was for a moment, collecting his wits. ‘What in the name of …?’
Lifting himself up on one elbow he peered behind him. The darkness seemed impenetrable. But there was something there all right. He could feel it when he pushed his foot back; an obstruction of some kind. Bert levered himself into a sitting position. His shoulder bag had come off, but he quickly located it by feeling around in the dark, and having got the straps unbuckled his questing fingers found the torch which he carried inside it. He switched on the light.
‘Christ Almighty!’
The whispered exclamation was involuntary. Revealed by the wavering beam, a pair of legs was protruding on to the pavement. They belonged to a woman, there was no doubt of that. Bert could see a knee-length skirt beneath the coat which the sprawled figure was wearing. He shifted the light. His hand was shaking.
‘Ah, no …!’
He recognized the figure: it was the young girl he’d bumped into earlier. Her pale face was clearly visible now that the hood she’d been wearing had been dragged clear of her head. Bert could see the basket she’d been carrying lying beside her. It had tipped over and he caught a glimpse of some strewn apples and the remains of what looked like broken eggs. Although he knew instinctively that she was dead, he stirred himself to scramble to his knees and reach for her wrist, which lay close to him, the hand beneath it clenched. He found no pulse.
‘Poor lass …’
Fumbling in the pocket of his overalls, Bert got hold of his police whistle, and as the wind gathered in strength, ascending to a high keening note not unlike a howl of grief, he blew a long blast on it. Then another … and another, piercing the enveloping blackness around him with its urgent summons.
2
‘She was murdered all right, sir. There’s no doubt of that. A possible strangulation. It seems an air-raid warden stumbled on the body. The first officer on the scene was a woman police constable. She was passing by and heard him blow his whistle. Bow Street has some men examining the site now. Because of the blackout, they weren’t able to do it properly last night.’
Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He’d spent a sleepless night, disturbed by the buffeting wind and also by an attack of gout, a malady that had begun to plague him in recent years. As Bennett watched he lifted one foot off the floor and set it down gently. Aware that the subject was a sensitive one so far as his colleague was concerned, the assistant commissioner kept a tactful silence.
Sinclair squinted at the page he was reading from. ‘We don’t have a name as yet,’ he said. ‘But she appears to be in her early twenties and … er … respectable.’ He frowned at his own choice of word.
‘Not a prostitute, then.’ Bennett nodded. Thanks to the blackout, assaults after dark had become commonplace in London. Streetwalkers, in particular, had suffered in the upsurge of violence which the war years had brought to the capital. ‘Do we know why she was killed?’
‘Not as yet, sir. Bow Street rang in with this information overnight. They’re sending other details over by hand. I expect to hear from them quite soon.’
Bennett grunted. ‘What else?’ He gestured towards the typed sheets held together by a paper clip which Sinclair had laid on his knee. A summary of all crimes reported in the Metropolitan area during the preceding twenty-four hours, it was delivered to the chief inspector’s desk each day in time for their morning conference, which took place in Bennett’s office overlooking the Thames embankment.
‘Just the usual. Balham organized a raid on a premises in Brixton last night. Two printing presses were seized. They were being used to turn out fake identity cards and ration documents. No arrests as yet.’ The chief inspector paused. ‘And we’ve had another report of looting in Stepney. They took a pounding over the weekend. Two V-2s came down in the district. The police are trying to keep an eye on damaged houses, but the looters slip in at night.’
‘I want them caught.’ Bennett’s face darkened. ‘Put the word out. If more men are needed, we’ll find them.’ In common with most policemen, he regarded looting as a particularly loathsome crime. It was taking advantage of others’ misfortunes in the worst possible way and offenders could look for no mercy from the courts.
‘One bright spot, if you can call it that.’ Sinclair glanced up. ‘The Stockwell police stopped a lorry they thought was suspicious in the early hours. It turned out to be filled with frozen carcasses of beef. Fresh from the Argentine, I’ve no doubt.’ The chief inspector lifted a grizzled eyebrow. ‘Two men were arrested. They’re still being questioned.’
‘It could be that hijacking gang we’ve been after.’ The assistant commissioner tried to sound optimistic. ‘Perhaps they’ll lead us to the rest.’
‘We can always hope,’ Sinclair agreed, though without much conviction. ‘So far all they’ve said is they were offered a tenner each by a man they’d never met before to drive the lorry to London. I doubt they’ll change their story.’
He brooded on his words. Five years of war had brought a new dimension to lawbreaking, one which had
