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

a following because of what happened in the Great War, and I think it was all about what people wanted to hear. They’d listen to anyone who promised them a better world to come, whether it was in this life or not.’

‘You can’t blame them for that.’

‘I don’t. It’s just that I’m a bit sceptical about politicians who make big promises, and when it comes to all that psychic stuff I find it even harder to swallow. I’ve seen too many con tricks in my time – from hustlers playing Find the Lady on the streets to business fraud and embezzlement, you name it. Did you ever hear about the photographs of fairies that some girls in Yorkshire took during the last war? They said they were real, and even the great Conan Doyle believed them.’

‘Oh, yes, I think that story went around the world. We certainly heard about it in the States.’

‘Psychic photography, that’s what they called it – quite a craze. Someone even took a picture of the Cenotaph on Armistice Day that got in the papers. That was in 1922 as well, I think – and it showed extra faces that were supposed to be spirits of the dead or something. People got very excited, but it was obviously a fake.’

‘So I’m guessing when you went to that seance yesterday you weren’t expecting to be impressed?’

‘What do you think? Look, my dad died when I was a boy. I loved him and I still think about him every day, but I don’t believe he can speak to me through some woman in a sitting room with the lights off in Stratford. As far as I’m concerned, life is life and death is death, and never the twain shall meet.’

Dorothy thought for a moment. ‘I don’t buy it either,’ she said. ‘But you know, Conan Doyle said something in that talk that really shocked me. He said ten members of his family went off to the Great War, and not one survived it. His own son died. I’m sure he must’ve desperately wanted to speak to his boy again, to be in contact with him, and if someone came along and said they were speaking on his behalf from beyond the grave, he’d want to believe it was true.’

‘People who’ve suffered want a better future,’ said Jago, ‘and some of them will believe anyone who promises it. That’s probably how even Hitler got elected.’ He paused. ‘Sobering thought, eh? Still, it’s the here and now that matters. And all things considered, I must admit it’s a whole lot more enjoyable to be here at a concert with you, eating nice moist fruit cake, than it is chasing cranks and criminals round West Ham.’

‘Well, congratulations on finishing the case. You must be very pleased.’

‘I am. But to tell you the truth, I feel a bit bad about it too. I think we did her a disservice – Joan, that is, the woman who was killed. There were things about the case that made it look as though she might’ve been involved in immoral goings-on, as they say.’

‘What my mother would’ve called a lady of negotiable virtue?’

‘Exactly. And we were quick to assume that the circumstances of her death meant she was. But she wasn’t – she was just a lonely young woman earning an honest living as a cinema usherette. Her life had got complicated, but I think that was just because she’d been disappointed in love and was trying to find the real thing.’

‘Like we all do.’

Jago hesitated. The way Dorothy spoke so freely about her emotions was both enviable and disturbing.

‘Well, er, yes, I suppose. Her best friend said all she wanted was to have one person in the world who knew her deep down as she really was and loved her all the same. But in the end what she got was the opposite – murdered by someone who wouldn’t accept her for who she was. As far as her mother-in-law was concerned, Joan was a big disappointment – she wanted the perfect wife for her son, so she tried to control Joan and make her into something she wasn’t.’

‘But it’s over now. You’ve got justice for Joan.’

‘Maybe, but I still don’t feel like celebrating. Pretty much a whole family’s been wiped out. Joan’s dead, her husband Richard’s missing in action and very likely killed, her mother-in-law may hang for murder, and her sister-in-law’s marriage looks finished. It’s the war that’s done it, isn’t it? I mean, supposing Richard hadn’t joined the Territorials and gone off to fight in France. Would his marriage have survived? Because if it had, none of this would’ve happened. It seems unjust.’

‘You’re right – there’s precious little justice in war. But we have to believe we can make something better after it, otherwise we’d have nothing to hope for. It’s like Rita said, isn’t it? “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”’

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

A tall young man in army officer’s uniform strolled into the sandwich bar with a woman of similar age who was bemoaning how stuffy the gallery’s basement was. Jago himself was feeling too warm and had a sudden desire for fresh air. He also wanted to be somewhere he could talk without being overheard.

‘Shall we go outside?’ he said. ‘We could go and sit on the steps at St Martin-in-the-Fields.’

They left the gallery and crossed Charing Cross Road to the neoclassical church building which had stood there since the early eighteenth century. Now a sign outside advertised a canteen it was running day and night in the crypt for members of the armed forces.

‘I remember they always gave a welcome here to soldiers in the last war too,’ said Jago. ‘The vicar called it “the church of the ever open door”. There’s plenty of space for us to sit out here and have a quiet chat without being bothered by anyone.’

He took off his overcoat and spread it on the stone steps so that Dorothy could sit on it.

‘Thank you,’