8,39 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: London Underground Station Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
December, 1940. With the Luftwaffe pounding the city nightly, Londoners seek refuge in underground stations. Aldwych has been taken out of service to provide shelter for the British Museum's priceless Elgin Marbles, as well as civilians escaping the bombing. When the body of a young man is discovered on the tracks, wearing evening dress but barefoot, Detective Chief Inspector Coburg and Sergeant Lampson are on the case. Before long, more bodies are discovered, and Coburg's wife Rosa becomes a target for the brutal killer. Caught up in a world of underground jazz clubs, abandoned tube stations and looters, Coburg and Lampson must track down the ruthless murderer before it's too late.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 400
Ähnliche
MURDER AT ALDWYCH STATION
JIM ELDRIDGE
To Lynne, without whom there’d be nothing.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Tuesday 3rd December 1940. 1 a.m.
Bombs rained down on London from the fleet of German bombers, pounding the city and sending flames of destruction across it, just as the Luftwaffe had done for the past three months. It was estimated that about fifteen thousand Londoners had been killed since the start of the Blitz in September, with another twenty-five thousand seriously injured. Much of London had been razed to the ground, whole streets flattened.
Deep below ground beneath central London, two figures emerged from the entrance to a narrow tunnel into the larger one where the Underground railway line ran between Aldwych and Holborn stations. The electric current to this section of the line had been switched off. The two carried the body of a young man. Between them, they headed towards Aldwych station until they came to a barrier that had been set up across the tracks, protecting the treasures from the British Museum stored there. They laid the young man’s body across the railway tracks, then made their way back to the smaller tunnel from where they’d come and vanished into the darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
Tuesday 3rd December 1940. 6 a.m.
The shrill wail of the all-clear sounded across the city, signifying the night raid by the Luftwaffe was over. There were no more German bombers headed for London, at least for now. In Knightsbridge Underground station, those who’d taken shelter from the bombing began to make their way to the surface. Among them were retired former general Cedric Walters and his wife, Phyllis. Although Phyllis had been able to fall asleep on a rug on the platform, General Walters had spent most of the night awake, as he did most nights, bitterly regretting that because of his age he couldn’t enlist and take an active part in the war. He remembered his time in the trenches during the First War. Yes, he’d been wounded, but he’d survived, unlike many of his comrades. For him, his time at war had been glorious, every emotion heightened, facing the enemy and the prospect of dying every day. This business of spending his nights skulking like everyone else below ground galled him, but he had little chance of doing anything else if he was going to keep Phyllis safe. She wouldn’t go down to the Underground for shelter if he didn’t.
‘We’ve been together for forty years,’ she told him. ‘I couldn’t be with you in the trenches but I’m with you now, and we’re going to stay together. I won’t allow it that you get killed on your own. If you die, we both die.’
And so, every night, when the air raid warning sounded, they sought shelter on the platform of Knightsbridge station, among other locals, many of whom had become friends – or at least people to talk to – as they sheltered here during the past three months, until the all-clear told them it was safe to return to the streets above them.
Each time, they wondered what those streets, the city itself, would look like. How much would have been destroyed during the night’s raid? Would their home be standing, or would it have been flattened like so many others?
When the general and his wife approached the small block of flats where they lived, their own flat being on the top floor, they saw that the building had indeed been hit. It was still standing, but it looked as if the roof had been struck. A fire engine was parked outside the block of flats and there were pools of water flooding across the road and pavement. Thick fire hoses ran from the engine up the steps to the entrance of the flats, and continued onwards up the concrete staircase.
Walters and Phyllis hurried up the stairs until they reached the top. They saw at once that the door to their home had been broken open so the fire crew could gain access.
Inside their flat, four men in fire crew uniforms switched off the valves on the fire hoses and laid them down, then stood, surveying the damage.
‘What happened?’ demanded Walters.
The four men turned and looked at the couple warily.
‘Who are you?’ asked one of the men.
‘We’re the owners,’ said Walters. ‘This is our flat.’
The man pointed towards a hole in the ceiling and said, ‘The explosion tore off part of the roof and set the rafters alight. Luckily we got here in time or you’d have lost the lot.’
Phyllis looked with dismay at the state of the flat, every piece of furniture drenched in water. The carpet was so waterlogged it was like walking across a shallow stream.
‘Everything’s ruined,’ said Phyllis, upset.
The man shrugged. ‘That’s water for you. That’s what it does. It’s either that or flames. Most people prefer it wet like this than burnt to ashes.’
General Walters suddenly spotted that the door of his safe was hanging open.
‘What’s happened there?’ he demanded, pointing.
‘What?’ asked the man, and the other three began to drag the fire hoses out of the flat.
‘My safe,’ said Walters, outraged. ‘It’s been broken open!’
‘Well, don’t look at us,’ said the man. ‘We haven’t touched it. That must have been done before we got here. Or maybe you left it unlocked?’
‘No, I locked it before we went out,’ said Walters firmly. ‘I check every time we leave the flat.’
He went to the broken safe and opened the door wider.
‘They’re gone!’ he said, shocked. He turned to the four men. ‘My wife’s jewels. My medals. And cash.’
‘Like I said, nothing to do with us,’ said the man curtly. He turned to the other three and said, ‘Get those hoses out into the street and back on the engine.’
‘Oh no you don’t!’ barked Walters, and he stood between the men and the door, barring their way. ‘My safe has been robbed and you’re the only people who’ve been in here. I insist on searching each of you.’
The men stared at him, indignant.
‘You what!’ shouted one, the biggest and burliest. He dropped the hose he was holding and advanced on Walters. ‘Are you accusing us of nicking the stuff from your safe?’
‘As you ask, yes I am!’ retorted Walters. ‘You can prove your innocence by allowing me to search you all.’
The men stared at one another, outrage writ large on their faces. The burly man scowled and turned back to Walters. ‘You’ve got a bloody cheek!’ he barked, and suddenly his fist flew out and struck the general hard on the side of the face, sending him down to the squelching carpet. ‘We risk our lives saving your bloody flat, and this is the thanks we get!’ He bent down over the fallen general, bringing his fist back to strike another blow.
‘Hold it, Joe!’ said the man in charge. ‘He’s learnt his lesson.’ As the man called Joe stepped back, still scowling, the man who’d stopped him glared at the general and at Phyllis. ‘Don’t think we won’t remember this,’ he said angrily. ‘Next time we get a call out here, you can handle it yourselves.’
With that the four men left, dragging the hoses with them. General Walters pushed himself to his feet.
‘The thieving swine!’ he said. ‘They’re not going to get away with this. I’m going after them.’
‘No, Cedric!’ said Phyllis, and she grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back from the door. ‘There are four of them. You wouldn’t have a chance against them. Let the police handle it.’
‘The police!’ said Walters scornfully. ‘They’re not going to do anything. They’re too busy going around arresting people for breaking the blackout and other petty things.’
‘Breaking the blackout isn’t petty,’ said Phyllis. ‘It leads to loss of lives.’
‘Yes, alright,’ admitted Walters grumpily. He put his hand to the side of his face where a bruise was showing. ‘But they won’t do anything about this. They’ll just say there’s a war on and they’ve got more important things to deal with.’ He gave a vengeful scowl towards the stairs where the men had vanished. ‘But I know someone who’ll get something done about this. Those thieving scum won’t get away with it!’
CHAPTER THREE
Tuesday 3rd December 1940. 10 a.m.
Detective Chief Inspector Edgar Walter Septimus Saxe-Coburg, accompanied by his detective sergeant, Ted Lampson, walked along the currently disused railway track of the Aldwych Underground station, deeper into the tunnel. Just three months before, this branch of the Piccadilly line to Holborn had been an active part of the London Underground system, but the Blitz in September changed all that.
The Blitz had begun in early September, the intensive bombing by the Luftwaffe of London and Britain’s other major cities, but primarily London. Before that there’d been daytime bombing raids by the Luftwaffe, but the small Spitfires and Hurricanes from the airfields in Kent and Essex had kept most of them at bay during the period from mid-July until early September that became known as the Battle of Britain. The death toll had been high during the Battle of Britain, especially among the young fighter pilots who’d been sent up day after day to confront the giant German bombers and engage in aerial battles with their German fighter Messerschmitt escorts, but the death toll for the Germans had been even higher. Finally, the Germans had to admit that the RAF had defeated the Luftwaffe in these daytime attacks, so the Germans had switched to night-time attacks, when the small fighter planes could not defend the city.
The docks in the East End had been among the first to suffer, the whole area ablaze, and then more and more of London had become a target. On 10th September, Buckingham Palace itself had been hit by a German bomb, proving that no one and nowhere was safe. The block of flats in Hampstead where Coburg and his wife, Rosa, had lived had been completely demolished during a raid. Fortunately for the couple, they had been out when it happened, but everyone else in the block who’d sought safety in an Anderson shelter in the grounds had been killed.
Coburg and Rosa had relocated to another flat in central London, this time ensuring that it had a strong shelter in the basement.
Coburg’s sergeant, Ted Lampson, a widower in his early thirties, lived in Somers Town, a major target area for the Luftwaffe because it was right next to Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross stations, all main railway termini. For him and his ten-year-old son, Terry, Euston Square Underground station was their nearest shelter.
At first there had been panic among Londoners when the Blitz began, then, as it went on night after night, and occasionally during the day, a kind of unhappy acceptance had settled in. Daylight raids were less frequent because the RAF were still battling in the skies above Kent, downing the giant German bombers when they could, while at the same time engaging in aerial dogfights with the German bombers’ Messerschmitt fighter escorts. Now, in early December, the bombing had been going on for fourteen weeks, with no apparent let-up. And life in the capital went on. Shops were open, although in the case of butchers’ and some grocers’, with limited supplies due to rationing. People still went to work. Coburg’s wife, Rosa, a well-known pianist and jazz singer, also worked part-time driving an ambulance for St John Ambulance. Nearly everyone volunteered to help the war effort as air raid wardens and auxiliary firemen to battle the blazes from the bombing. Many former soldiers and retired people joined the Home Guard, ready to resist the Germans when they invaded, as everyone expected them to do. Reports of German troopships and landing craft moored off the French coast just twenty-five miles from the Kent coast were common knowledge. It was not if the Germans launched their invasion, but when.
Crime also carried on in the capital. The black market thrived in these days of rationing: sugar, bacon and especially petrol, along with many other products that were not freely available without coupons restricting how much anyone could buy at any one time: a limit of four ounces of bacon per person, and eight ounces each for sugar, butter and cheese, with meat purchases restricted to one shilling’s worth. As a result, butchers’ shops and warehouses had become prime targets for thieves.
Murder, also, seemed to Coburg as bad as ever. Along with the daily count of dead bodies from the bombing came reports of dead bodies found in places where the bombs couldn’t reach. Like now, with the report of the body of a dead man discovered deep in one of the tunnels at Aldwych station, close to where the famous Elgin Marbles were being stored, following their removal from the British Museum.
Although the electric current had been cut to the rails, it still powered the overhead and side lights in the walls of the tunnel, but the lighting was dim and they had to walk carefully to avoid stumbling over the rails and sleepers. Finally, they came to a long, low flatbed wagon on the tracks, on which lay a massive length of carved marble. Beyond that was a second identical flatbed wagon containing another length of marble, and then another, and another, each of them covered with a length of cloth.
‘The Elgin Marbles,’ said Coburg. ‘Or, more properly, the Parthenon Sculptures.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Lampson, impressed. ‘They’re enormous! How many of them are there?’
‘The whole thing is 246 feet long, when laid end to end,’ said Coburg. ‘Didn’t you see them when they were on display at the British Museum?’
‘I’ve never been to the British Museum,’ admitted Lampson.
‘Ted, I’m shocked,’ said Coburg. ‘It’s one of the greatest museums in the world, and you live within walking distance of it.’
‘Yeh, well, museums were never my thing,’ said Lampson. ‘They reminded me too much of school, which I was never fond of. If I had an afternoon off, I went to football. White Hart Lane.’ He looked at the lengths of carved marble. ‘They must be bloody heavy.’
‘A hundred tons, I’m told,’ said Coburg. ‘They were moved here at the start of September.’
‘How?’ asked Lampson.
‘A low-loader lorry from the British Museum to the London Transport depot at Lillie Bridge in Kensington, then transferred to rail wagons, and then here. It’s not the first time this station’s been used for hiding valuable treasures to keep them safe. In September 1917, because of the threat of German air raids during the First War, the National Gallery sent most of its paintings here to be stored, and they were kept here until December 1918.’
‘All this stuff’s more important than people, is it?’ said Lampson sourly. ‘I remember the scenes of people clamouring to get into the Tube stations when the Blitz started to try and get somewhere safe from the bombing, and the gates were locked and the people were actually beaten back to stop them coming in.’
‘I was told that was because the government were worried that once people came below ground to seek refuge, they wouldn’t go up top again, which would mean no workers,’ said Coburg. ‘No firemen, no plumbers, no bus drivers, no one to keep the city operating.’
It had been the invasion of the Savoy Hotel by angry East Enders on 14th September that had changed things, reflected Coburg. Furious that the people of the East End were being killed in their hundreds by the German blitzkrieg because the public were barred from seeking safety in the Underground stations, but instead had been left to go to the street-level brick public shelters, which invariably collapsed when a bomb went off near one of them, a crowd of people from Stepney had descended on the Savoy, brought by the Savoy’s advertising campaign in which it boasted of its basement air raid shelter, extolling its virtues, its luxury, the guarantee of safety. The Savoy’s Swiss night manager, Willy Hofflin, had allowed them in and they spent the night in the hotel shelter. This invasion by the proletariat sent ripples of unease through the ruling classes, many of whom were at the Savoy that night, and shortly afterwards the government relented and allowed London’s Underground stations to be used as shelters.
Aldwych station had been closed down as a passenger station early in September and electricity to the line disconnected to allow safe storage of the British Museum’s valuables, not just the Elgin Marbles but part of the British Museum’s collection of rare books and some oriental antiquities. Towards the end of the month, it had been handed over to the local authority, Westminster City Council, for use as a public air raid shelter, with people using the platforms and for 320 yards into the tunnel towards Holborn. It was estimated that two thousand, five hundred people sheltered in it. Most of them went back to the surface during the day, but there had still been a few people on the platforms when Coburg and Lampson arrived, surrounding themselves with chairs, mattresses and small tables, creating subterranean homes from home.
A uniformed constable stood behind a barrier that had been placed in front of the wagons. Next to him was a man in the uniform of a British Museum attendant. The constable saluted when he recognised Coburg.
‘PC Thompson, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve been here keeping guard since I got the call about the body.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Coburg.
The constable pointed along the line of wagons. ‘It’s at the end of these wagons,’ he said. ‘There’s a bloke from the British Museum along there, checking these marble slabs in case any of them had got damaged. It was him who found the body. I’ve also alerted the duty doctor.’
Coburg nodded, then he and Lampson made their way past the wagons. They were halfway along when they came upon a man in his late forties in a long white coat who had pushed back the cloth cover of one of the wagons and was examining the marble sculpture beneath. The man turned towards them and held up his hand in greeting.
‘Chief Inspector!’ He smiled.
‘Sir John,’ responded Coburg. He gestured towards Lampson. ‘This is my sergeant, Ted Lampson. Sergeant, this is Sir John Petersham, the man responsible for the safety of the Parthenon Sculptures.’
‘And a complete headache that is,’ sighed Petersham. ‘As if the bombing wasn’t bad enough, now we have this.’
‘The constable said you found the body.’
‘Yes. I haven’t touched it. I know you policemen like to examine the scene of the crime in as undisturbed a state as possible. I’ll show you where it is.’
Petersham led the way past the remaining wagons and stopped by the last one. Beyond that was a wooden barrier, and by the barrier the body of a young man lay between the tracks. He looked to be in his late teenage years, possibly eighteen or nineteen, smartly dressed in formal evening clothes, complete with bow tie. His shoes were missing, and his socks had holes through which his toes poked.
‘Interesting,’ murmured Coburg. ‘Did he walk here like that or was he carried?’
‘Yes, I noticed that,’ said Petersham. ‘Which do you think it was? And if he walked, what happened to his shoes?’
Coburg looked back along the line of wagons. ‘Walking along there, which is quite narrow with the wagons in the way, wouldn’t be easy if someone was carrying a body.’
Petersham shook his head.
‘That’s the sort of puzzle that’s beyond my sphere of knowledge,’ he said. ‘More your sort of thing. I remember you were always a bit of a clever clogs when it came to puzzles. Wasn’t it Jefferies who called you the brainbox of the Oppidans?’
‘An exaggeration, like many of Jefferies’s utterances,’ said Coburg.
He knelt down and peeled the jacket away from the front of the body.
‘No obvious wounds,’ he said. With Lampson’s help, he rolled the body onto its front and lifted the back of the jacket. ‘No obvious wounds there, either.’ He stood up. ‘How long ago did you find the body?’
‘About an hour ago. I was here with my assistant, Wellington Porter, and we were walking along checking the sculptures, something we do regularly since they’ve been down here in case there’s any damage to them. We’ve put up a barrier manned by attendants from the museum who keep guard over them, but we still get people coming along trying to look at them. Or, in some cases, looking for somewhere private to do whatever they want to do. I always come to the end of the line first and then make my way back, and that’s when I saw him lying there, just as you see him. I sent Wellington to find a policeman, and once the constable arrived, I sent Wellington off.’ He gave a rueful look. ‘The poor chap was quite overcome. Never seen a dead body before. Sensitive sort of chap.’ He nodded approvingly towards the distant point where PC Thompson was still standing guard. ‘Good man, that constable. He’s arranged for the doctor to come, got a message to Scotland Yard to alert you, and he’s been rock solid at keeping people from coming down here. I believe other officers are on their way to relieve him, and also remove the body when the doctor’s finished giving it the once-over. Very efficient, especially with everything else that’s going on up top.’
Coburg then checked the dead man’s pockets, looking for a wallet or any form of identification, but found nothing. Petersham looked along the line of wagons and said, ‘Ah, here come the medicos!’
Coburg looked up and saw Dr Welbourne from University College Hospital approaching, accompanied by two ambulance men carrying a stretcher.
‘Chief Inspector Coburg! Sergeant Lampson!’ Welbourne greeted them. ‘Here we are again, gathered together over an unfortunate corpse.’ Welbourne looked down at the body of the young man. ‘How did he die? Shot? Stabbed? All I was told was someone had been murdered down here.’
‘That’s what we’re hoping you’ll be able to tell us, Doctor,’ said Coburg.
Welbourne knelt down beside the body.
‘Anyone checked him for wounds?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Coburg. ‘Front and back. Nothing, as far as I can see.’
Welbourne examined the young man’s face, felt his neck, checked his wrists and arms for rigor mortis, then opened the dead man’s jacket.
‘No wounds on the front of the body,’ he confirmed. He gestured to the ambulance men. ‘Can you help me turn him over?’
With help from the ambulance men, Welbourne turned the young man over and peeled his jacket off him.
‘No wounds in the back,’ he said. He began to examine the man’s scalp closely. ‘No wounds to the head, so he wasn’t knocked unconscious.’
He gestured to the ambulance men and they rolled the young man on his back again. Welbourne leant forward and sniffed at the young man’s mouth.
‘Poison is my guess,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be able to tell you more once I’ve taken a proper look at him.’ He looked around. ‘There’s no trace of a bottle near the body, so he didn’t do it to himself.’
‘When do you think he died?’
‘At a guess, some time during the night.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s half past ten now. Say nine hours ago, give or take an hour either side.’
‘So, about one in the morning,’ said Coburg. ‘When the platform of the station would have been packed.’
Welbourne lifted the man’s left hand and examined the fingers.
‘This is interesting,’ he said. He showed Coburg the grooves in the man’s fingertips, along with the hard, calloused skin. ‘I think he may have been a guitarist.’
‘A guitarist?’ asked Coburg. ‘Or possibly a violinist? They press down on the strings of the instrument. So do banjo players.’
Welbourne shook his head. ‘When I’ve seen grooves like these before they’re usually the result of steel strings. Violins use gut or nylon, as do Spanish guitars. I think you’ll find that our friend here used to play in a jazz group. The giveaway is his clothes. If he’d played country and western guitar he’d be dressed as a cowboy.’
‘You should have been a detective,’ said Coburg. ‘But then, you already are, deducing cause of death from the evidence presented. Although this deduction of him being a jazz guitarist goes one better.’
Welbourne got to his feet and gestured to the ambulance men. ‘Take him to UCH,’ he said.
The ambulance men put the dead man on the stretcher and then, with some difficulty, made their way along the railway tracks past the wagons loaded with the massive Elgin Marbles.
Welbourne looked at the Parthenon Sculptures and commented, ‘It must have been some job to get this lot here.’
‘It was indeed,’ said Petersham.
‘Dr Welbourne, this is Sir John Petersham from the British Museum. He’s the one who found the body. Sir John, this is Dr Andrew Welbourne from UCH.’
The two men shook hands.
‘Very impressive, that business of him being a jazz guitarist,’ complimented Petersham.
‘Personal experience. I used to play guitar at university,’ said Welbourne. ‘Spanish guitar, that is. Steel strings were too much for me.’
‘Can you arrange for a photograph to be taken of him at the hospital?’ asked Coburg. ‘At the moment we have no idea who he is.’
‘No problem,’ said Welbourne. ‘I’ll have it ready for you this afternoon. At the same time, I should be able to give you more of an idea about what killed him.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Tuesday 3rd December 1940
Coburg and Lampson walked back towards the platforms at Aldwych station. Once they passed the barriers and the security people from the British Museum who were keeping watch over the Parthenon Sculptures, they came to the people camping in the now defunct railway tracks. Some sat on the rails, some lay curled up between the rails, asleep, but most seemed to have moved back to the platforms now the crowds there had thinned out.
They asked those who were resting between the rails and were awake if they’d seen anyone answering the dead man’s description walking into the tunnels.
‘A young man in his teens, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and bow tie, and he had no shoes on.’
Everyone they asked shook their head. ‘No,’ was the general answer, ‘no one like that.’ Most of them also added, ‘Lots of people walk into the tunnel at night because it’s nearer than the platforms if they need to go to the toilet. Especially because there’s only a couple of Elsan portable toilets there, and they get full up.’
The response was the same from the people who were camping on the platforms. Many of them had recreated their homes there as best they could, with tables and chairs and mattresses to sleep on. Some had brought camping stoves. At one end of the platform, as distant as they could be from the Elsan toilets hidden behind hanging blankets, was a refreshment table set up by the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, with tea urns kept hot on portable stoves and some slices of bread skimmed with margarine.
Everyone they spoke to agreed that the description of the young man meant he would have been noticeable, but no one had seen him on the platform or walking along the railway tracks into the tunnels.
They returned to the barrier and the two British Museum security guards, one of whom had been on duty the night before.
‘No,’ he assured the two policemen. ‘No one like that came this way.’
‘And someone’s here at the barrier twenty-four hours a day?’ asked Coburg.
‘Absolutely,’ said the man firmly. He gestured back towards the wagons with the marble sculptures. ‘This lot are too valuable to leave unguarded. They may be too heavy for people to nick, though I wouldn’t put it past people, but there’s always the danger of some young whelp coming along and carving his name in one of them for fun.’
‘If he didn’t come through Aldwych, the only way he could have got to where he was found is if he was brought from Holborn station and carried along the tracks,’ observed Lampson. ‘But that would take two people.’
Coburg turned back to the British Museum guard and asked, ‘Is there a maintenance man who services the station? I know it’s shut, but there’s usually someone on duty.’
The guard nodded. ‘Percy Wenlock,’ he said. ‘He’s got a little place further in the tunnel, a room with a kettle and everything. Keep going and it’s the first door you come to on the left.’
‘Are there many of these rooms inside the tunnels?’ asked Coburg.
‘There are a few,’ said the man, ‘but I only know the one where Percy is. We take turns to go and have a cuppa with him, and he’s usually got some biscuits as well.’
Coburg and Lampson walked past the wagons with the Elgin Marbles on, then to the place where the young man had been found, and then continued on into the tunnel. The lighting set into the walls of the tunnel had been left on, though it was dimmed. Here, away from the people on the platform and camping between the rails, away from the loaded wagons, it was spookier, emptier, the sound of their shoes crunching on the thin layer of gravel between the rails echoing back at them as they walked.
They found the wooden door and knocked at it, and it was opened by a man in his fifties wearing a pair of overalls. They introduced themselves, and he introduced himself as Percy Wenlock and invited them in.
It was a small room, with tools of different sorts hanging from hooks in the wall, and pieces of equipment on the shelves. There was a bare wooden table and two chairs. In one corner was a portable paraffin heater, atop which sat a kettle. A teapot and cups, and a bottle of milk, were on one of the shelves.
‘Terrible, what happened,’ said Wenlock. ‘The dead man.’
‘When did you find out about it?’ sked Coburg.
‘When I came on shift about an hour ago. The guard at the barrier told me. Can I offer you both a cup of tea?’
‘That would be very nice, thank you,’ said Coburg.
They stood as Wenlock poured water from the kettle into the teapot.
‘Sit yourselves down,’ he said.
‘Thanks, but we won’t take your chair,’ said Coburg. ‘That wouldn’t be fair.’
Wenlock pulled a wooden crate from the wall and placed it by the table. ‘This’ll do me,’ he told them.
They sat down while Wenlock poured the tea for them, and then opened a small tin. ‘Biscuit?’ he asked.
‘Thank you,’ said Coburg. ‘Very much appreciated.’
They each took a biscuit from the tin, as did Wenlock.
‘We’re wondering where the dead man could have come from,’ explained Coburg. ‘He didn’t come through Aldwych. This track goes to Holborn, so we’re wondering if he was brought here from there.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Wenlock. ‘But there’s other places he could have come from.’
Coburg frowned, puzzled. ‘Are you saying there are other places between Holborn station and here where someone can gain access to the line?’
Wenlock chuckled. ‘Oh, bless you, yes!’
‘So there’s another tunnel that connects with this one?’
‘Not just one. This whole place is a maze of tunnels. When they were digging the Kingsway tram tunnel that runs parallel to this one, there were all manner of connections made. Then there’s the old post office line. It operates between the sorting office at Paddington and runs to Whitechapel delivery office. What’s fascinating about it is it uses driverless trains, so the trains and carriages that carry the mail don’t have to be very tall. It serves seven stations between the two end ones, and the one at New Oxford Street ain’t far from here. Again, while they were building it, they sank all manner of shafts and dug service tunnels criss-crossing between other existing tunnels.’
‘Where were the existing tunnels built?’ asked Coburg. ‘Is there a plan of them, showing where they are?’
‘Some,’ said Wenlock, ‘but only the recent ones. Mainly the tunnels that were dug for cables and such. Not the old ones. Remember, this city’s been here since Roman times, and the Romans dug tunnels under it. Then later on people built on top of what the Romans built, making other tunnels, making a series of cut-and-cover tunnels. Then you’ve got the rivers that run under London with their own tunnels. And the sewers. And the catacombs.’
‘The catacombs?’ asked Lampson.
‘Burial chambers,’ interpreted Coburg.
‘That’s them.’ Wenlock nodded. ‘And not just places where people were interred. One of the biggest catacombs in London that’s known is in Camden, near the canal. They were originally used as stables for horses and pit ponies working on the railways. There’s even an underground pool for canal boats.’
‘What about around here?’ asked Coburg.
Wenlock shrugged. ‘Sure to be. After all, there’s been enough churches around this area. They was always digging tunnels beneath ’em. And whenever a tunnel was being dug, like for the Underground railway, many’s the time they crossed one of the old catacombs.’
‘So this young man could have arrived here from almost anywhere?’
Wenlock nodded. ‘That’s about right,’ he said. ‘But whoever brought him here would have had to know their way around the tunnels.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Tuesday 3rd December 1940
As they made their way back to Scotland Yard, with Lampson driving, Lampson asked, ‘What was all this Oppidan stuff that museum bloke was going on about? What’s an Oppidan?’
‘Sir John and I were at Eton at the same time, although he was a couple of years above me,’ explained Coburg. ‘There are two sorts of scholars at Eton: King’s Scholars or Oppidans. King’s Scholars attend on scholarships awarded by examination each year. The name goes back to the original school, which was founded by Henry VI in 1440. The original school consisted of seventy scholars who were educated and boarded at the foundation’s expense. As the school grew, other students came in who paid their own fees and lived in boarding houses in the town of Eton. They were known as Oppidans from the Latin oppidum, meaning town.’
‘And who was this Jefferies bloke he mentioned?’
‘Our housemaster.’
Lampson shook his head, amazed. ‘You old Etonians get everywhere. Have you noticed that nearly every case we get drawn into, there’s usually another of your old schoolmates involved?’
‘That’s because the powers-that-be at Scotland Yard seem to think just because of my name, and the fact I went to Eton, that these people will talk to me.’
‘A member of the royal family.’ Lampson grinned.
‘I am not a member of the royal family,’ said Coburg firmly. ‘The original name of the royal family before they changed their name to Windsor was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. There may be some distant connection, but very distant. I repeat, I am not part of the royal family.’
‘Maybe not, but you’re titled,’ said Lampson.
‘My brother, Magnus, is titled,’ Coburg corrected him. ‘He’s the Earl of Dawlish, because he inherited the title from our late father. I am not titled.’
‘You will be when your brother falls off the perch,’ said Lampson. ‘He’s got no kids. So it’ll be you as the earl, and your missus as Lady Dawlish.’
‘Magnus is not going to fall off the perch any time soon,’ said Coburg. ‘And, if he did, it would be my brother Charles who’d inherit. He’s the second son.’
‘And he’s currently in a German POW camp,’ said Lampson. ‘So you’re in with a chance.’
‘I am not in with a chance,’ insisted Coburg. ‘I do not want to be in with a chance.’
‘Oh come on, guv.’ Lampson chuckled. ‘Just think of it, a detective in our department who the superintendents and even the commissioner will have to call sir, or Your Grace, or whatever it is.’
‘I refuse to have this conversation any more,’ said Coburg. ‘We have a dead body in a tunnel. That’s what we should be concentrating on.’ Then, thoughtfully, he added, ‘Dr Welbourne said that jazz guitarists use steel strings. Maybe Rosa might know who our dead man is.’
Rosa, at that moment, was up to her elbows in grease, making sure that all the moving parts of the ambulance were in working order and wouldn’t let them down when they were out on an emergency call. Her co-driver, Doris Gibbs, a nurse in her fifties who worked at Paddington Hospital and volunteered with St John Ambulance in her time off, was washing the outside of the ambulance using a sponge and a bucket of hot soapy water. Rosa had volunteered to be responsible for the mechanical side of the ambulance, including the intricacies of the engine. ‘When I was a kid in Edinburgh, my dad had a vegetable business and he taught me to drive his lorries, and along with that, I watched him as he did the servicing, and then helped him.’ She shut the bonnet of the ambulance. ‘I never thought I’d be using what he taught me this way.’
She plunged her hands and arms into the bucket of soapy water and began to scrub the grease off.
‘Right,’ said Doris, ‘shall we make sure it’s working okay? If you get behind the wheel, I’ll turn it over with the starting handle.’
They’d been given one of the older ambulances that had been out of service for a while to get it back into proper working order and cleaned. The more modern ambulance they’d been using with pull-switch ignition to fire it up had been badly damaged in a night call when it had been hit by a bus during the blackout. Fortunately for both Rosa and Doris, another crew had been driving it at the time of the accident. The two men who’d been the crew had escaped with minor cuts and bruises, but the front of the vehicle had been crushed and it had been towed away to a garage for repairs.
‘Careful with that starting handle,’ warned Rosa. ‘If it kicks back, it’ll break your thumb.’
Doris chuckled. ‘Don’t you worry about me, Rosa,’ she said. ‘My old man’s car only started with the handle. Doing this is second nature to me.’
She took the starting handle from the cab and pushed it into its slot beneath the radiator grille.
‘Ready!’ she called.
Rosa pulled the lever to start enough fuel flowing for ignition, then shut it off and raised a thumb to let Doris know it was ready. Doris cranked the handle sharply, keeping a tight grip on it: once, twice, then on the third crank the engine fired up. Doris pulled the starting handle out and Rosa opened the fuel flow, revving it up. She was just about to turn the engine off when she saw their supervisor, Chesney Warren, running towards them, a piece of paper in his hand.
‘Looks like a shout!’ she said loudly, over the noise of the engine.
Doris turned and saw Warren, who handed her the piece of paper, then backed off and hurried back to the single-storey brick building that was his office.
Doris climbed into the cab and settled herself in the passenger seat.
‘What have we got?’ asked Rosa.
‘Woman and a baby hit by a car in Lisson Grove,’ Doris told her, looking at the details on the paper Warren had given her.
‘Right, get the bell going,’ said Rosa, and she put the ambulance into gear and drove across the yard towards the entrance to the main road, while Doris pulled the rope that set the bell clanging, warning other drivers and pedestrians that they were on an emergency call and wouldn’t be stopping.
CHAPTER SIX
Tuesday 3rd December 1940
Dr Welbourne had a head-and-shoulders image of the dead man ready when Coburg and Lampson arrived at the mortuary at University College Hospital.
‘We didn’t have time to use make-up to make him look more alive,’ he said.
‘Even with make-up, dead people tend to still look dead in photos,’ said Coburg, pocketing the picture. ‘The main thing is he’s recognisable. Thanks for that.’
‘And as to the cause of death, it was strychnine poisoning. I’ve had it confirmed by our Mrs Mallowan.’ He smiled as he added, ‘And if anyone would recognise the symptoms of strychnine poisoning, it’s her.’
Coburg returned his knowing smile. Mrs Mallowan was better known as Agatha Christie, the crime novelist, who was currently working in the pharmacy department at UCH, doing her part for the war effort.
‘Yes,’ said Coburg. ‘It does seem to occur in quite a few of her books. The Mysterious Affair at Styles; “How Does Your Garden Grow?”; “The Coming of Mr Quin”.’
‘You are obviously a fan of hers, Chief Inspector,’ said Welbourne.
‘I am,’ said Coburg.
‘Out of curiosity … as a policeman, do you always work out who the murderer is in her books?’
‘No,’ Coburg admitted. ‘Have you any idea how it was administered?’
‘I’m afraid not. Either it was added to a drink or some food, or it was forced down his throat. The fact that there was partly digested food in his stomach and intestines suggested he didn’t vomit it up. You know how strychnine works?’
‘Sadly, yes,’ said Coburg. ‘Death comes any time after ten minutes, and can be as long as three hours, depending on the circumstances. If medical aid is given, for example. And depending on the amount of strychnine used. Death is from asphyxiation or inner tissue paralysis.’
‘A textbook definition,’ said Welbourne.
‘And that’s exactly where it came from,’ said Coburg. ‘The amount of murders committed that way meant I needed to read up about it. Anything else about the victim?’
‘I assume you mean were there any drugs in his system because of the suggestion that he was a jazz musician?’
Coburg gave a rueful smile. ‘I know it’s an archetype, but I’m wondering how he came to be poisoned. Was he overpowered while he was under the influence of something?’
‘If so, it certainly wasn’t drugs,’ said Welbourne. ‘He hadn’t eaten anything for some time before he died. There were small traces of whisky in his system, but nothing that would have rendered him drunk and incapable.’
That evening at their flat, over a supper of Spam and mashed potatoes, Coburg and Rosa related the events of their separate days’ high spots and low spots.
‘The high spot was a shout we had about a woman and a baby being hit by a car. We thought the worst, but fortunately we were able to patch them up and get them to the hospital. The baby was actually unharmed, the mother had managed to push the pram out of the way, but she suffered a broken leg and arm. The real casualty was the driver of the car. He was dead. Heart attack, though whether it had happened before the crash and been the cause of it, or afterwards because he was shocked at what had happened, we don’t know. What about you? How was your day fighting crime?’
‘A strange one,’ said Coburg. ‘A body was found in the tunnels leading from Aldwych station. The line’s out of use at the moment, so the station and the tunnel to it are used as an air raid shelter, and also for storing important items from the British Museum. The body seems to be of a very young man. He was dressed in evening clothes, but without shoes. The doctor who examined him reckons he was a jazz guitarist from the grooves in his fingers.’
‘A jazz guitarist?’ said Rosa. ‘Who is he? I might know him.’
‘We don’t know.’ He took the photo of the young man from his pocket and pushed it across the table to her. ‘The same thought about you possibly recognising him struck me.’
Rosa looked at the photograph, then said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Benny Martin. I played with him.’ She gave the photograph back to Coburg. ‘This is awful! A real tragedy! How did he die?’
‘Poisoned with strychnine.’
‘But … why? Who’d do something like that?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Now you’ve given us his name you’ve made our job a whole lot easier. What do you know about him?’
‘He was nice. Good guitarist, not like some of them who can get a bit precious.’
‘Precious?’
‘Resentful of other musicians who they think get a bigger profile. You know, saxophone players. Trumpet. Drums. They’re the big instruments that the major people play. Guitarists are often seen as just supporting players. But Benny wasn’t like that. He didn’t crave fame like some people; he just loved playing with other musicians, good musicians.’ She gave an unhappy look at Coburg. ‘He was only nineteen. He was waiting to be called up. He was so eager to get into uniform and fight.’
‘Where did he play?’
‘Everywhere he got a chance to sit in. He had a great ear so he could pick up whatever the group were doing, or whoever he was playing with, and just take it.’
‘Where did you play with him?’
‘At the Buttonhole Club in Frith Street. It wasn’t a formal gig, more of an impromptu jam session after I’d done my set. That often happens after a gig: whoever’s about comes up and joins you onstage, if you’re happy to do that.’
‘And you are?’
‘Indeed I am. You often pick up new tunes, and meet talented people you wouldn’t otherwise know about. Like Benny.’
‘You haven’t worked with him since?’
‘Seen him, but not worked with him. About five months ago I went to the Pink Parrot, a jazz club in Soho, to talk to the owner about doing a gig there, and Benny was playing there with this quartet. So I stayed and listened.’
‘You didn’t talk to him?’
She shook her head. ‘No, it was already late by the time his group came on, and I needed to get some sleep. I doubt if he even knew I was there.’
‘Do you know where he lived?’
‘No, but the owner of the Pink Parrot will know. His name’s Gerry Matthews.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wednesday 4th December 1940. 10 a.m.
