The Stratford Murder by Mike Hollow (best thriller novels of all time .TXT) 📗

said Rita. ‘I don’t think I’m clever enough to answer a question like that. All I know is we’re at war again, and that means nothing but sadness and grief. I just want it to finish, and if someone says it’s going to end, even if it’s not till 1943, that gives me hope.’

Jago thought of his conversation two days earlier with Audrey Lewis, a mother clinging to the hope that her son missing in France had escaped or at worst had been captured – anything rather than killed. A hope that both sustained and consumed her.

‘I’m sorry, Rita,’ he said. ‘I was wrong to speak like that. I do understand how you feel.’

‘That’s all right, Mr Jago,’ she said. ‘I know you mean well.’

There was an awkward silence, and Dorothy judged it was time to rescue both Rita and Jago from the difficult territory into which their conversation had strayed.

‘You’re right, Rita,’ she said soothingly. ‘We all need a little hope in our lives. They say hope’s like a star – you can’t see it when the sun’s shining, only when everything around you is dark.’ She paused, and gave Rita a warm smile. ‘So what do you hope for, Rita?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Rita, her face brightening a little. ‘An end to this blasted war, and a good husband for Emily.’ She looked at Jago and began to rub the table slowly with her cloth. ‘Trouble is,’ she continued, ‘when you’ve got hope, the stronger it gets, the more it hurts when you don’t get what you hope for. That’s when you find out hope and grief come very close together. It’s like it was with my Walter – I hoped and hoped he’d come back from the war, but he never did. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” That’s what they say, isn’t it? Well I can tell you, that’s the truest thing I ever heard in my life.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jago and Cradock walked back from Rita’s cafe with Dorothy until they reached the police station, where she said goodbye to them and continued on alone to catch the train back into the centre of London. Jago knew it might be embarrassing to wait and watch until she was out of sight rather than go straight into the station with Cradock, but there was a stronger fear in his mind too – a common one these days. The fear that at any moment, any day, a bomb could change a casual goodbye to a final and irreversible parting. So he stayed where he was, standing on the pavement and watching her back as she made her way up the street, despite the fact that Cradock waited beside him. He hoped she might turn round, and she did. They exchanged a brief wave, and Cradock sportingly waved too. Then she was gone.

‘Right, Peter, let’s get down to work,’ said Jago briskly as they returned to the CID office. ‘Any news on those fingerprints?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Cradock replied, mustering his most formal tone to reassure Jago that his waving to Dorothy would be treated as confidential. ‘We’ve got a print confirmed for Evans, the fireman, on the back door handle, but nowhere else. We haven’t found any for the ARP warden, Mrs Parks, but she said she was wearing gloves, so that’s not surprising. By the time the two of them had been all over the back door handle there was nothing else identifiable left, and we’re probably lucky that Evans’s print survived.’

‘So there’s no other prints we can make use of?’

‘That’s right, sir. Oh, and by the way, sir, did you find out anything useful about those other cases – the Soho ones?’

‘Yes, I spoke to Detective Superintendent Oates on C Division, where some of them happened. He said the first victim, Josephine Martin, who was known as French Fifi, was strangled with a silk stocking. The second one was strangled with a silk scarf, the third with a piece of wire, and the fourth with some blind cord. That’s what made the detectives investigating think it was all the work of one man, but they haven’t found a single clue to link them. What’s more, they’d had a different suspect in each case, and one of them was actually in prison when another of the women was murdered, which obviously put him in the clear. They’ve come to the conclusion that even though most of the victims were prostitutes, it wasn’t one man committing all the murders. In fact they think there was probably a different killer in each case, and the murders were actually crimes of imitation. The superintendent said it was possible, of course, that one of them had also been involved in our case, but he reckoned we might as well assume that our killer is a different person altogether.’

‘So it could be anyone?’

‘That’s right. It could be anyone.’

‘But still the kind of person who’s likely to murder a prostitute?’

‘As I said, it could be anyone.’

Cradock sat silent for a moment, lost in thought.

‘I’ve been thinking, sir,’ he said at last.

‘Well done, Peter. About what?’

‘About Bert Wilson, and about his jobs and all that. What he said yesterday about working for Charlie Lewis for two years without ever seeing Richard, who was his old mate. He wriggled out of it when you challenged him, with that business about not being in the office and Charlie not wanting him to talk to Richard, but I’m not convinced he was telling us the truth. And he must’ve known going round collecting debts for a man like Lewis was a pretty shady business. Supposing he’s not the upright citizen he’d like us to think he is? If he’s not, I could easily see him using his keys to help those safe-breakers get into the cinema.’

‘That’s possible, but you’re not suggesting he could be involved in the murder, are you?’

‘I don’t know, sir. What if Joan found out he was going to let those thieves in and threatened to tell Conway