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Synopsis
`A historically astute, skilfully developed crime drama.? Kirkus Reviews When a brilliant emigré scientist is killed by a hit-and-run driver and the body of a female employee of the American Embassy is washed up in the Thames, DCI Frank Merlin and his team investigate. Merlin's investigations soon ruffle feathers at the Foreign Office as the American ambassador, Joseph Kennedy, is a well-known supporter of appeasement, and many powerful and influential Britons favour the pursuit of a negotiated peace settlement with Hitler. The death of another embassy employee leads Merlin into some of the seedier quarters of wartime London. His investigations are hampered by interfering superiors fearful of their impact on Anglo-American relations. This at a time when, to many, America represents Britain's only hope of salvation. Capturing the atmosphere of Britain in January 1940 Princes Gate is an enthralling detective novel.
Release date: January 5, 2018
Publisher: Accent Press
Print pages: 340
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Princes Gate
Mark Ellis
London – January 1940
It was lunchtime and the Lyons Teashop was doing its usual lively trade. A pungent fug of cigarette smoke, stewing vegetables and body odour hung above the crowded tables of a restaurant whose drab wartime decor matched the general dowdiness of its customers. It was a particularly chilly winter’s day. Suddenly out of the cold came a discordant burst of colour. A pretty young woman, her golden hair flowing from under a bright red beret, hurried through the entrance and paused to look about anxiously. Catching the eye of a passing waitress, she asked,
“Is there an upstairs here? I’m meeting someone, you see, and I can’t see him.”
“Yes, the stairs is over there love,” the waitress replied with a short nod towards the back of the room.
Muttering her thanks, the young woman edged her way through the press of tables. She ignored a leering young soldier who amused his mates by pursing his lips theatrically into a kiss and reached the foot of the stairs. Just as she was about to take the first step she glimpsed her luncheon companion sitting casually with a newspaper at a small out-of-the-way table. Her heart sank. Earlier that morning he had caught her unawares when he had bounced out of nowhere and with a flash of perfect teeth asked her out. Startled, as she sat miserably at her desk, she had said yes without thinking. Now there he was, his paper set aside, grinning and waving to her. She was filled with an odd feeling of dread, but put her head down and trudged past the intervening tables of prattling diners to join him…
Later, when he had calmed down, he paid the bill. As they stepped into the street, as if all had gone well, he touched her arm and suggested a walk in the park. Instinctively, she told him to go to hell.
“Suit yourself, then,” he said and turned away.
An icy gust cut into her face and she shuddered as she watched him stride jauntily away. What a cheek he had shown to suggest a re-run. When she had refused during lunch, he had lost his temper and made threats. Now the meat pie, which he’d ordered for her, churned in her stomach. Tears, which had been threatening throughout the meal, began to trickle down her cheeks.
A grizzled old paper seller, rolling himself a cigarette at his pitch outside the tube station, paused to watch her as she turned and ran down the street. After a couple of puffs he resumed his patter: “Mr Chamberlain’s speech to the ’ouse. New rationing regulations. More German atrocities in Poland. Read all about it!”
That night the blackout was particularly dark and dense. The man hunched his shoulders as he leaned into the biting wind whistling down the invisible Mall. He wore a mackintosh which hung to within an inch of the ground and a homburg hat one size too small. In his right hand he carried a heavy black briefcase and the masked blackout torch, which for once he had remembered. In his left, because of his arthritis, he could only manage an umbrella. He turned a corner and made his way slowly across Horse Guards Parade. A distant searchlight provided only a momentary glimmer of background light. No matter. The suppressed beam of his torch was just enough to lead him over the road into the park, and then on into Birdcage Walk. Sporadically cars drove past him, their drivers groping their way through the treacly darkness with blinkered headlights. The man’s teeth were chattering now, but he comforted himself that he would soon reach the station. From there it was a straightforward journey.
As he walked slowly on, the details of the incredibly annoying meeting he had just concluded at the Ministry replayed in his mind. Why wouldn’t they listen to him, those pinstriped idiots? Ach! Why did he bother? He could feel his blood pressure rising. “Count to twenty. Be calm. Count to twenty.” That’s what his friend Spinoza had always said to him when he could see the temper flaring. He was too old to have such a short temper and he started counting. He had reached the end of his second twenty, when he stumbled on a crooked flagstone and the torch and the briefcase fell from his hand. The torch light dimmed still further as it settled against the briefcase. As he bent down he heard a car engine revving in the distance. He grasped the torch, and stood up with creaking knee. As he bent again for the briefcase, he was aware that the engine sound was growing louder and louder. Suddenly there was a high-pitched screech of brakes and he felt a massive thump on his shoulder. A searing pain scorched his spine and he fell forward into the gutter. Briefly he heard the sound of car doors and the sound of approaching footsteps. Then nothing.
As the two big men hurried across Trafalgar Square towards the Strand the pigeons squawked in irritation. They turned right past the station and headed towards the Embankment. The drunks and tramps sleeping under the arches knew better than the pigeons and made no complaint as the men nimbly picked their way through them. These were the Wiseman brothers, still known down the Commercial Road as “The Knockout Twins” due to their youthful prowess in the boxing ring. The brothers had found some easy pickings down here before Christmas. It was dangerous, of course, with Scotland Yard so close and there was the occasional roaming defence searchlight on the Thames to watch out for, but they had been working Kensington and Mayfair for the past couple of weeks with surprisingly little success and had decided on a change of scene.
They were both over six feet, but Stan was the burlier. He led Sid across the road and leaned over the river wall. The searchlight beams were concentrating on the sky over the City and the east, and their chosen patch was dark enough.
“Hush. There’s someone.”
The sound of steps and muffled laughter came to them from about seventy yards away. It sounded like a man and a woman. Stan squeezed his brother’s arm. “Let’s do it.”
Keeping their heads down, they moved silently along the pavement. A half-moon dipped in and out of the clouds above. A few yards ahead a match was struck. They could see the glow of cigarettes. The couple had stopped under a tree and were looking out over the river.
“I’ll take the man, you do ’er,” Stan whispered.
He found the cosh in his pocket as he pounced. His arm flashed through the night air. The man fell heavily to the ground as Sid put his arm round the woman’s shoulder and clamped one hand on her mouth. His other hand held a knife with which he stroked her neck. “Keep your mouth shut darling and everything will be alright.”
The woman squirmed and he nicked her. The clouds parted and he could just see the thin scarlet trickle on her pale skin. She became still.
Stan knelt down beside the unconscious man and, in business-like fashion, went through his pockets. A thick wallet, several notes and coins and a pocket watch emerged. He chuckled as he rose to his feet, pulled the woman’s handbag from her hands and looked inside. “Our lucky night” – he removed more notes and coins, a compact and a cigarette lighter – “and take a butcher’s at this.” A pearl necklace was roughly removed, as were her rings and bracelets. Stan stuffed their pockets with the takings. The man on the ground was breathing heavily.
“A big one, ain’t he? Good job I caught him proper.” Stan turned his attention again to the woman. He unbuttoned her coat and ran his hands over the smooth fabric of her dress. “This one’s quite a sweetheart. Perhaps we’ve got time for a bit of fun before we go. Her boyfriend’s going to be in the land of nod for a while yet. Let’s…”
The sound of a car’s brakes screeching nearby interrupted him. He thought he could see a car up towards the bridge. The moon came out of the clouds again and now he could see figures at the side of the car. There was a flash of red and then of white. He could hear a man’s voice shouting and a woman’s responding. Then a man’s voice again. Was it the same man or another? He couldn’t tell and he couldn’t make out any words. A woman’s voice started again, a strained and anxious voice. Sighing, he turned back to his female victim and stroked her cheek. “Better not push our luck, eh, darlin’? You’d have enjoyed it, though.” He patted her bottom. “Let’s hop it.”
Sid released his grip on the woman, pulled back his fist and hit her hard in the stomach. As she slipped to the ground they ran off as fast as they could, their pockets jangling with their takings. They didn’t stop until they reached the gardens in front of the Savoy Hotel. They fell onto a bench and, when they’d recovered their breath, they could hear nothing except the light snoring of a tramp in the bushes behind.
CHAPTER 1
Monday January 22nd 1940
Patches of snow covered the riverbank and small ice floes drifted along in the river. The sky was a brilliant blue and the Colonel wished he’d brought along his old military goggles to shield his eyes from the glare. His next-door neighbour, Thompson, a city broker, had told him over a friendly sherry the night before that his office colleagues were running a book on it proving the coldest winter since 1900. The freezing weather meant that his regular morning walk had been brisker than usual and, by his reckoning, as he approached Barnes Bridge he was probably ten minutes ahead of schedule.
The ugly metal latticework of the bridge sparkled in the sun as he strode along the river path, thinking happily of the bacon and eggs awaiting him at home. When he was almost under the bridge, a large boat chugged by creating a wake. It was high tide and, before he had time to take evasive action, several waves had splashed over the bank onto his best tweed trousers. Cursing loudly he turned to wave his walking stick angrily at the unconcerned working barge heading up river. He bent down to mop his trouser legs with a handkerchief. As he rose stiffly, having made little improvement to his sodden turn-ups, his still sharp eyes registered something odd in the flotsam gently pushing up against the riverbank. There was the usual mixture of empty tin-cans, beer bottles, newspaper, reeds and branches. However, in an area of water near the bridge, at the point where the sharp glare of the daylight was subsumed in the dark shadow of the bridge, the Colonel’s attention was again caught by something repeatedly caching the light as it bobbed.
He reached out with his stick and tried unsuccessfully several times to bring the object closer. Edging towards the water’s edge, he grasped a stanchion of the bridge for support, then heard the engine of another boat. To avoid a further soaking he jumped back but it was only a small cruiser passing under the bridge on the far side of the river. As there were no waves to worry about this time he quickly moved back and holding on again to the bridge for support, got a better look at the floating object. Suddenly he recoiled, his heart pounding fiercely, as he recognized a human hand. Now the attached body was slowly rising to the surface. He took a couple of very deep breaths. The body was female and clothed in pale pink underwear. A bloated face appeared and the empty eye socket decided him against further close examination. Taking another deep breath he headed for the police station, which was just a short distance up the road.
Detective Chief Inspector Frank Merlin stared angrily out of his window at the barrage balloon drifting aimlessly above the London County Council headquarters over the river. It was only lunchtime, but it was a dark winter’s day and the light was on. He was thinking again of his meeting with the A.C.. He had clearly been unfortunate in the timing of his discussion with Assistant Commissioner Gatehouse. As he had entered his superior’s office the deep red tinge to the A.C.’s cheeks should have warned him that something was amiss. Instead he had proceeded to enquire :
“May I have a few words with you, sir?”
“Yes, but ‘a few’ means ‘a few’ and be sharp about it.”
“I wondered if you’d given any further thought to my request of three days ago?”
“Request? What request? Oh, you must mean your request to leave me in the lurch and enlist?”
“Er – yes sir. As I said, I should very much like to volunteer as soon as possible.”
“I am afraid the answer is an emphatic no, Merlin., I have just come from a deeply unpleasant meeting with not just the Commissioner but the Home Secretary as well. In public Sir John may appear to have the animation of an elderly Scots Presbyterian undertaker, but I can tell you that today he was full of vim. He had me on the carpet and berated me for over an hour on what he chose to call the numerous failings of the section of the Metropolitan Police under my command.
He chose to lecture me on how our nation currently stands at its greatest ever peril, and how he would sleep better at night if we, or rather I, would get off my backside and get a grip on, in no particular order of importance, Irish republican bombers, pilfering dockers and factory workers, Mosleyite fifth columnists and the numerous villains taking advantage of the blackout. Then for good measure he added the rocketing accident statistics caused by the murderous driving habits of most after-dark drivers. This, Merlin, he expects me to do when I have already lost many of my brightest younger men to the forces, while on top of that several of my best senior people have been seconded to the Government for security purposes, as you well know. At this moment you, the finest detective left to me, having already done your bit for King and Country in the last show, want to bugger off to be killed with the British Expeditionary Force. You should know better than to ask.”
“But sir …”
“No. The answer is no. Your country and, more specifically, I need you here and that’s final. Don’t think I don’t appreciate the sentiments but if I lose any more of my best officers, chaos will ensue – and chaos, Frank, is worth a hundred divisions to Herr Hitler. Just think of it that way. Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
As he pondered this injustice in his office, Merlin fumbled in his jacket pocket for his packet of Fisherman’s Friends. He had become strangely addicted to these powerful menthol lozenges over the past year. As he took his fix, his eyes refocused on his reflection in the glass of the windowpane. A lock of jet-black hair hung over his forehead. He needed a haircut. His dark green eyes stared back at him. His hand rose unconsciously to his cheek. A few more creases there. Eight years to go till he was fifty. His father had been an old man at that age. Still, he didn’t look so bad. He had a long, narrow elegant nose and a full mouth. His laughter lines remained despite his recent tribulations. He was lean and he had the same collar size as when he was eighteen. Suits hung well on his athletic frame, as Alice had often remarked.
Behind him in the reflection, he could see the room which had become his second home. He’d had it since his promotion to Detective Chief Inspector just over three years ago – that had been just six months after he got married. There was the solid oak desk he had picked up for next to nothing on the Portobello Road to replace the rickety Scotland Yard standard issue. The desk was always swamped with papers. Tidiness had never been his strong point. His comfortable battered leather chair sat behind the desk, facing two less comfortable companions on the other side. In the corner was a small table and another chair mostly used by his trusty Sergeant – someone else whose military ambitions had been thwarted, though for different reasons. When Merlin had moved into the office, the walls had been a dreary green colour and he’d insisted, to the irritation of the A.C., on having them repainted off-white. On the wall facing the window was a large-scale map of London, beside an ornate cuckoo clock acquired on a fraud goose-chase in Switzerland a couple of years earlier. Behind him was a picture of a 1924 police football team, featuring a blurry picture of him at the back right-hand corner. On the wall facing his desk were two van Gogh prints – he loved the post-Impressionists and the mad Dutchman most of all. He had a Goya print too – a firing squad in action somewhere in Spain, or was it Mexico? He had never found out. This was to the left of the office door which, half-paned with frosted glass, was in turn to the left of the London map. The floor was linoleum but he had put down a couple of intricately patterned red Persian rugs to liven things up a little – again modestly-priced acquisitions from the Portobello Road.
He shook his head and looked down at the lunchtime throng trudging through the snow and ice beneath him. Time for a walk to clear his head, he thought.
Turning out of the Yard on to the Embankment, he made for Parliament Square. It was as cold as he could remember and the Thames was beginning to freeze in several places. His navy overcoat was getting a bit threadbare and the wind shearing off the river hit him like a knife as he rounded the corner at Westminster Bridge. He needed a new overcoat really, and some new suits, shirts and shoes would not go amiss. Once he’d been quite fussy and proud about his clothes and appearance, but since his wife’s death he’d let himself go a little in that department – well, no, if he was being honest, he’d let himself go a lot. His brother’s wife Beatrice nagged him about this and other things, and had recently started making small contributions of her own. Fortunately she had good taste.
The news posters outside the tube station had dropped the most recent parliamentary cause célèbre, namely the forced resignation of the War Minister, Hore-Belisha, and were now trumpeting Russia’s invasion of Finland. “Russians press forward. Finnish resistance fighting fiercely.” Merlin smiled to himself as this brought to mind his good friend, Jack Stewart, staunch socialist and supporter of the Soviet experiment. He looked forward to hearing him tie himself in knots trying to justify Stalin’s motives for the attack on the hapless Finns.
After a quick circuit of Parliament Square, the bitterness of his disappointment at the A.C.’s rebuff began to lessen and he stepped into Tony’s Café for a hot drink.
Frank Merlin had been born Francisco Diego Merino, the eldest of three children, in the Limehouse district of East London, in September 1897. At the age of 17 his father, Javier Merino, a shepherd’s son from northern Spain, had managed to escape a life of back-breaking rural poverty by making his way to the bustling port of Corunna and going to sea. After twelve years of circling the globe on merchant vessels small and large, he had tired of the seaman’s life and had dropped anchor in the port of London. After a brief unhappy period when he had to scratch his living on the streets as a dancer and singer of romantic ballads, his dark good looks had caught the discerning eye of Agnes Cutler, daughter of Alfred Cutler, the proprietor of Limehouse’s largest chandlery store. Javier was personable and good with figures and his wife, as Agnes swiftly became, soon ensured that he was installed as her father’s right-hand man. In due course Alfred Cutler had retired, entrusting the business to Javier. Three children had arrived in quick succession – Francisco, Carlos and Maria. Shortly after his daughter was born, Javier, tired of the laboured efforts of friends, neighbours and customers to pronounce his name correctly, decided to Anglicise it. He became Harry and his children Frank, Charlie, and Mary. Merino reminded him of those damned sheep he’d had to chase around those arid Spanish crags when he was young. An intelligent, self-educated and well-read man, he had always loved the Arthurian legends. So Merino became Merlin, and ‘Cutlers Chandlery’ became ‘Cutler and Merlin’s Chandlery Emporium’.
Merlin returned to his desk and was stirring his tea when a tall, burly young man with a mop of fair hair pushed through the door. The sight of his trusted sergeant never failed to raise his spirits. Despite his earlier disappointment, DCI Merlin could not restrain a smile at the sight of Sergeant Sam Bridges lolloping clumsily towards him. The smile was quickly checked and replaced with feigned irritation as Merlin commented. “‘See the conquering hero comes, sound the trumpets, beat the drums’ Huh! So much for my little moment of peace.”
“Sorry sir, but something’s happened in Barnes.”
The Chief Inspector sighed loudly and put down his spoon.
“That’s a turn-up for the book then. Normally nothing ever happens there, excepting the final gasps of the Boat Race that is. What’s up?”
The Sergeant scratched a cheek. “A body, sir. They want us to go round there straight away.”
“By ‘they’, I suppose you mean the not-very-competent local constabulary?”
“Inspector Venables called me. Said he thought it looked suspicious and that we might want to take a look. He might be wrong but remember you gave him a hard time about that Martins case in Richmond when he didn’t get us involved at the outset. I suppose he’s just being cautious.”
Merlin grunted and sipped his tea.
“The body’s that of a young woman so far as they can tell. Fished her out of the river. Not a pretty sight apparently.”
“Never are, are they? Can’t one of my inspectors handle it?” “They’re all out on cases, sir. We’re the only ones available and…”
“Alright, alright. Have you got a car outside?”
On the journey, Merlin studied his Sergeant’s face as he concentrated on the road. He was pleased to see that Bridges’s ruddy features had resumed their customary happy-go-lucky cast and the shadow that had darkened them recently seemed to have disappeared. He now appeared to be back to his normal self and yet Merlin wasn’t completely sure. The rejection had humiliated him, reinforcing the insecurities of a miserable childhood, which Dr Michaels at Barnardo’s and, more recently, his new wife had done so much to help him overcome. Despite all the traumas of his upbringing he had turned out to be a bright, diligent, kind young man. Now the Army Board had made him feel like a freak again. Perhaps it was a freakish thing to have six toes on one foot, but did it really make him unfit for military service? Of course, now that Merlin had suffered his own rejection, he could not help but feel rather selfishly relieved that Bridges would continue by his side. But he would have to keep a close eye on him.
A band of policemen were milling around at the river’s edge when their car pulled up. A haze of tobacco smoke shimmered in the icy air above them. Merlin spotted Venables’s bald head jerking up and down in animated discussion with one of his men and pushed past the small crowd of onlookers on the towpath.
Hector Venables was a large, ungainly man, whose prominent Adam’s apple jumped around his neck as if it had a life of its own. “There you are, Frank. I don’t quite know what to make of this one.”
“Now there’s a surprise,” Merlin muttered to himself under his breath before saying, “Well, let the dog see the rabbit.”
Venables shook his head before leading the way under the bridge. A constable carefully pulled back the top of a white tarpaulin. A body lay on a basic stretcher. Merlin tasted something unpleasant at the back of his throat. The woman’s left eye was closed and the other was missing. Her lips had contorted in death into a quizzical smile. Venables bent down to pull the tarpaulin completely off. The woman’s petticoat had ridden up her body and the policemen stared down uncomfortably at the grey-white flesh of the woman’s legs topped by her pink underwear. Merlin’s eyes slowly travelled upwards from the large bruise on her right thigh to the livid mark poking out from beneath soggy strands of fair hair on her forehead.
Venables scratched his nose thoughtfully. “Not so pretty now, but she might have been a bit of a looker.”
Merlin tried unsuccessfully to imagine the living face.
“Quite a young thing too, Frank.”
They heard steps echoing under the bridge and Venables said with some relief, “Here’s the sawbones.”
A portly old gentleman in a battered deerstalker approached and nodded his greeting. After a cursory examination, Dr Sisson made a few notes, paused to take a pinch of snuff, then spoke in a surprisingly high staccato voice. “I’ll take her away now if that’s convenient and I’ll give you my detailed views tomorrow morning.”
“What do you think, Doc? What about the eye. Think it’s …?” The doctor clucked his tongue at Venables.
“No premature guesses, gentlemen. I’ll do the work and then I’ll let you know.”
He tossed the tarpaulin back over the body, which two constables then carried carefully into the police ambulance parked nearby. The waiting crowd jostled for a view and there was a collective sigh when an arm slipped out from under the cover as it was being manoeuvred into the back of the vehicle. The ambulance drove off and gradually the murmuring onlookers dispersed.
“Who found the body, Hector?”
“Colonel Trenchard. Local man.” Venables nodded towards a riverside bench a few yards beyond the bridge, where the old man had been waiting with increasing impatience. They strolled over to him and Merlin made his introductions.
“Just tell us as simply as you can what happened, sir.”
“I was taking my morning constitutional, as always, down to the brewery and back. Done it pretty much every morning for the last fifteen years since I packed it in with the regiment. Leave at 0730 and back to Mrs Trenchard at 0900 on the dot. Never late. Never. Until today that is.”
“And Mrs Trenchard would be where?”
“We have a place near Hammersmith Bridge on this side of the river. Lived there for years with the wife. Since the last shindig in fact. Bought the house in ‘nineteen. Got a great bargain. Bought it from this French chap. He thought he’d done very well on it but I’ve…”
“So you walk every morning from Hammersmith down to the Watney’s brewery in Mortlake and back, is that correct?”
“That’s it. This morning I set out at the usual time. Bloody freezing morning. It’s going to be the coldest January for years apparently. My neighbour…”
“Just stick to the walk if you please, Colonel.”
“Right-ho. Anyway, got down to the brewery in good time. Then on my way back encountered this dreadful sight. Poor dear!”
The Colonel’s eyes watered and he produced a purple handkerchief into which he blew noisily. “Awful sight. I wasn’t sure what it was at first. A boat passed by and drenched me. I was trying to dry myself when something somehow caught my eye. Thought it was a piece of wood, well I hoped it was. Her hand that is, which is all I could see at first. Then the rest of her came to the surface. Seen worse sights at Ypres, but still…”
“Could the body have come from the boat, sir?”
“Well, do you know, I don’t know, Sergeant. I suppose it might have. There was a lot of splashing, when the waves hit the bank and soaked my legs. I didn’t notice what turned out to be the body until after the boat had passed, so it’s possible.”
“What kind of boat was it?”
“Just a normal old river barge. Didn’t really get a good look as I was attending to my soaking trousers. Couple of fellows on the back of the boat but I couldn’t really describe them. Think there was a flag, now was it blue or blue and white? Blue and white I think.”
“Did you see anyone else around?”
“No. Another boat passed a little later on the other side. I was the only one on the towpath straight after I found her. I walked along to the local police station over there. First person I saw was the bobby at the desk. I told him what I’d found and after that there’s just been a lot of bloody tedious waiting around.”
“Sorry about that, sir. I think we can. . .
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