Five Dead Canaries (8 page)

Ellen was not simply worried about their safety. She was alarmed that her daughter was, as she saw it, being bullied at work by a jealous superior. There was nothing that could be done to alleviate the situation. She was also disturbed by her husband’s reluctance to fully accept Alice’s choice of husband. While Ellen had been thrilled at the news, it had been an unpleasant surprise for Marmion and his unspoken objections remained. Most troubling of all, of course, was the eternal anxiety about their son, Paul, stationed in France near the Somme and sending infrequent letters that complained of boredom and bad living quarters. Some of the friends who’d joined up with him at the start of the war had either been killed or sent home with missing limbs. She prayed daily that Paul’s name would not be added to the casualty list.

Trying to subdue her nagging concerns, she soon had something
else to worry about. It started to rain and she had no umbrella. Almost without warning, the skies opened and the downpour began. Ellen had a coat and hat but they were inadequate protection against the driving rain. She was soaked within minutes. The storm put more speed into her legs and she practically sprinted over the last fifty yards. When she reached the shelter of her porch, she paused to get her breath back. Having spent its fury, the storm now abated and patches of blue sky peeped through the clouds. It was too late for Ellen. She’d been well and truly drenched.

When she let herself into the house, however, she saw something which banished all of her anxieties at once. It was a letter with distinctive handwriting on it. Paul had written to them again at long last. With a whoop of pleasure, she snatched up the letter from the floor. Dripping over the hall carpet, she tore it open.

‘When were you told the news, Mr Jenks?’

‘It was when I got back from work last night.’

‘You have my utmost sympathy.’

‘Thank you, Inspector.’

‘Is that a photo of Enid on the piano?’

‘Yes,’ said Jenks. ‘If she wasn’t practising on her violin, she’d be sitting at the piano. Music was everything to Enid. She could play anything. It was because she was so well taught. My wife was a wonderful pianist as well. She wanted one of the children to learn how to play and the boys weren’t interested. Enid was. She had enough interest for both of them.’ He touched Marmion’s arm and lowered a voice as if about to impart a secret. ‘The vicar approached us, you know. He asked if Enid would be interested in learning the organ.’

‘I daresay she’d have been proficient at any keyboard instrument.’

‘Are you musical, Inspector?’

‘No, sir,’ replied Marmion. ‘The only piano I could play is one with a handle on the side.’

Once the joke about the barrel organ had slipped out Marmion regretted it but the other man found it amusing enough. Jonah Jenks was quite unlike Neil Beresford. Where the latter had been knocked senseless by the enormity of what had happened, the former had merely accepted it and sought to carry on. He loved his daughter deeply but her death was not going to become an obsession. Having already lost a wife and a second daughter to diphtheria, he knew all about pangs of grief. Another child had died, leaving him to look after the two surviving boys. That’s what mattered most to Jenks. They were the ones who were really suffering. Though they’d argued constantly with their sister while she was alive, they were dumbstruck at her death, all the more so because it had been as a result of a crime. Jenks had kept them home from school and they were upstairs in the bedroom they shared.

‘I just wanted to assure you that the investigation is well under way,’ said Marmion. ‘I have a team of detectives working under me.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘You’ll appreciate that I’m under a slight disadvantage. I don’t know anything about the five victims. I’m trying to find out all I can about each one of them. I’ve spoken to Agnes Collier’s mother and to Maureen Quinn’s family.’

‘Agnes came here once or twice. She was a nice girl.’

‘What about Maureen?’

‘Oh, I’ve never met her.’

‘Who was Enid’s best friend?’

‘That would be Shirley Beresford. She used to go and watch her play football. Enid was very clever but she was hopeless at sports. Her
brothers used to tease her about it. Shirley, on the other hand, was a good all-round athlete.’

‘So I’ve been told. I called on her husband earlier.’

‘I see.’

Jenks glanced at the photograph on the piano then sat opposite his visitor. He was a spare man in his fifties with hair neatly slicked back over a domed head. His spectacles gave him an owlish appearance and he had a scholarly air that inclined Marmion to think that he was a teacher. The well-stocked bookshelves indicated a reading man. In fact, however, Jenks was the manager of a large hardware store. Wearing a three-piece suit indoors, he kept his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat.

‘What do you want me to tell you, Inspector?’

‘Describe your daughter, please, if you will.’

‘Enid was a lovely girl. I can’t speak too highly of her.’

Jenks spoke in a low, measured voice. He talked fondly about his daughter’s achievements and about his ambitions for her. A religious man, he took all three children to church every Sunday, then the family visited the graves of its missing members. A new one would now be added. Instead of being in regular use, the piano would act as a memento to Enid. Marmion was at once interested and saddened by the effect that factory life had had upon her. Putting her music aside, she’d dedicated herself to the production of arms. Jenks was a mild-mannered man who seemed at variance with the image of him that Maureen Quinn had conjured up. She had recalled the help given by Florrie Duncan at a time when Enid was having terrible rows with her father. Yet Jenks was giving his visitor a detailed picture of a household where perfect harmony prevailed. He even boasted that he never had to raise his voice to Enid.

Jenks became practical. ‘Isn’t there something you’ve forgotten?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Where foul play is involved in a death, I thought that next of kin would be asked to identify the body.’

‘Ordinarily, that’s the case, sir,’ said Marmion, ‘but the remains are not really recognisable. When a bomb goes off in a confined space, it causes the most unimaginable injuries. We wish to spare the families such a disturbing sight.’

‘That’s very wise of you, Inspector – wise and considerate.’

‘Identification will have to be made by items they owned, by watches, bracelets and so on.’

‘Enid wore a silver crucifix.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘When will the bodies …’ Jenks gave an apologetic half-smile. ‘When will the remains be released to us?’

‘Very soon,’ said Marmion. ‘The post-mortems have not yet been completed. When they have been, the undertakers can take over. They’re used to this sort of thing. Not that they’ll have seen many victims of a bomb blast, of course, but they can take a dispassionate look at … human remains in whatever form.’ He looked across at the photograph of Enid. ‘She was a very pretty young lady.’

Jenks was nostalgic. ‘She took after her mother.’

‘Enid must have had a lot of admirers.’

‘Everyone liked her. She was so outgoing.’

‘I was thinking of boyfriends, Mr Jenks,’ said Marmion. ‘I have a daughter of my own so I know what happens when they reach a certain age. Was there anyone special in Enid’s life?’

‘No, there wasn’t,’ snapped Jenks.

‘Are you certain of that?’

‘Enid had no room in her life for that sort of thing.’

‘Then she’d be most unusual.’

‘There was nothing unusual about my daughter. Haven’t you been listening to what I said? Enid was a good girl.’ Hearing the anger in his voice, he tried to control it. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. You’re entitled to ask such a question. But I’ve given you the answer. Enid was just not interested in young men. It probably stems from the fact that she had two brothers. All she wanted was her music.’

‘Then we’ll leave it at that, sir.’

Getting up from his seat, Marmion took a step nearer the piano so that he could have a closer look at Enid Jenks. She was not simply pretty. When the photo was taken, she was beautiful. Marmion simply couldn’t believe that none of the young men at the factory had failed to notice the fact.

They met by prior arrangement at a café not far from the Golden Goose. Having sacrificed lunch in the interests of advancing the investigation, they were having an early tea. Keedy munched a pasty and Marmion sipped his tea while eyeing the cakes on the display stand and wondering if he should have one. It was time to compare notes. Marmion talked about his visits to the respective homes of Shirley Beresford and Enid Jenks and how differently their families had responded to the untimely deaths. As the inspector was talking, Keedy opened the folder given to him by the works manager.

‘Everything you say about the two of them accords with what Mr Kennett found out,’ he said. ‘Shirley was the captain of their football team and Enid was good enough as a musician to make a living at it. They were both well liked by the others, Shirley in particular.’

‘That’s not surprising, Joe. She was their goalscorer.’

‘At least that would have killed off any complaints.’

‘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 spectacles. ‘You were spared for a reason. These things are never random. The Almighty chose you for a purpose. It’s only a matter of time before that purpose is revealed to you.’ He sat back. ‘Will I see you in church on Sunday?’ Maureen hesitated. ‘Yes, I know that your father keeps you away but I’ll talk to him about it. If I do that, will you attend Mass?’

‘Yes, Father,’ she said with passion. ‘I will, I promise.’

Joe Keedy knew that someone was inside the house. He could not only hear them moving about, he caught a glimpse of someone through the net curtains on the bay window. Since he failed to get a response from several knocks on the front door, he took out his notebook, wrote his name and rank on it, then tore out the page and posted it through the letter box. After a long wait, the letter box opened and a reedy voice came through it.

‘How do we know that you’re a detective?’ asked the man.

‘I’ll show you my warrant card.’

‘We had someone earlier who claimed that he was from Scotland Yard.’

‘That would have been Inspector Marmion, who’s in charge of the investigation. He told me that he called here.’

‘I didn’t like the look of him. He was shifty. I thought it was another one of those reporters trying to trick his way in here so we ignored him.’

Keedy was amused at the idea that Marmion had been repelled on the grounds of his appearance and he vowed to taunt him about it later. Showing his warrant card to the pair of suspicious eyes in the open letter box, he finally pierced the defences at the Harte household. The door swung back just wide enough to admit him and he went in. Reuben Harte quickly shut and bolted the door. He was a slight man in his fifties with thick, dark hair and a bushy moustache. He wore shirt, trousers and a waistcoat that was unbuttoned. His eyes were pools of sorrow.

‘What do you want, Sergeant?’

‘Do we have to talk in the passageway?’

‘Yes,’ said the other, firmly.

‘As you wish,’ decided Keedy, removing his hat. ‘As for reporters, they’ve been warned to leave you alone. Next time one of them bothers you, make sure that you get his name and we’ll make a point of reprimanding him. At a time like this, the last thing you need is the press baying at your heels.’

‘Thank you – I’ll remember that.’

‘However, since we wish to catch the person who set off that explosion, we need to learn as much as we can about the victims. Do you understand that?’

‘No, I don’t, but go on.’

Keedy glanced towards the living room. ‘Is there a Mrs Harte?’

‘My wife is staying with her sister, who used to be a nurse. She’s not at all well, Sergeant, and this has only made her condition worse.’

‘Tell me about your daughter. I believe that she was plagued with minor ailments. Is that true?’

‘They weren’t minor,’ said Harte. ‘Jean had some serious problems.’

Mother and daughter clearly didn’t enjoy the rude health that Harte seemed to show. He was slim, straight-backed and looked younger than his years. There was no trace of grey in his hair. Keedy learnt that he was a bank clerk. When his daughter had wanted to work at the munitions factory, he opposed the idea at first but was eventually talked around. Paradoxically, her health seemed to improve slightly in the harmful environment of the Cartridge Section. Harte ascribed it to the reassurance of having such good friends. In previous spells of employment, Jean had always been the odd one out. Her father talked selfishly rather than fondly about her, recalling what he’d done for her throughout life instead of what she’d achieved on her own. It was almost as if he were trying to justify his role as a parent.

The verbal photograph he was given was recognisably that of the woman described in Kennett’s notes. Jean was an integral part of a tight group, liked for her cynical streak and mocked for her endless whining. Her closest friend, it emerged, was Florrie Duncan. On the strength of what he knew about them, they seemed an unlikely pair to Keedy. While Florrie was an irrepressible optimist, Jean always feared the worst in any given situation.

‘They got on famously,’ said Harte. ‘We liked Florrie.’

‘Did they have much in common?’

‘They had the most important thing, Sergeant.’

‘Oh – what was that?’

‘They both lost the person they loved most. Florrie’s husband died at the front and so did Jean’s young man. They got engaged during his last leave, then he went off and got himself killed. Florrie managed to
get over it,’ said Harte, enviously, ‘but it cast a shadow over Jean’s life. Maurice – that was his name – worked at the bank with me. I taught him all he knew.’

Harte came close to smiling without actually managing it. There was a possessiveness about him that made Keedy feel sorry for his daughter. It was as if he’d only allowed Jean to embark on a romance because he’d chosen and groomed the young man in question. Harte was not unintelligent but had obvious limitations and Keedy could see why he’d never risen above the level of a bank clerk. At a time in life when his contemporaries had become managers, he stayed in the shadows.

‘How well did you know the other girls?’ asked Keedy.

‘Oh, I met all of Jean’s gang,’ said Harte, ‘and encouraged her to invite them here. My wife and I are creatures of habit, Sergeant. We always go out on a Saturday night to visit my sister-in-law and her husband. Bert is disabled so walking all the way here is out of the question. Anyway, Jean often had one or more of her friends around. Florrie Duncan was always here and so was Enid Jenks, She used to play our piano and they’d have a sing-song. We’d join in when we got back.’

‘What about Agnes Collier and Maureen Quinn?’