‘I like them.’
‘Yes, but you’ve liked rather a lot of them, Joe.’
‘They’ve always liked me in return,’ he countered. ‘I’m not a philanderer. I’ve only ever had one girlfriend at a time.’
‘That doesn’t matter. To my father, I’d only be the latest in a long line.’
‘Come off it, Alice. It’s not all that long.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s just say that I’m not the first.’
‘But you might be the last.’ He beamed at her. ‘That’s much better.’
Alice was taken aback by the sudden announcement. Was it some kind of covert proposal? Or had it just popped out? From the expression on his face, she couldn’t tell if he was serious or merely joking. Her emotions were in a whirl. She liked Keedy very much and believed that he was extremely fond of her. But her feelings had never been any deeper. The mere hint that he was declaring his love for her made her heartbeat quicken. She had to make a supreme effort to control herself.
‘There’s another reason why Daddy would be angry,’ she said.
‘You don’t need to tell me what it is, Alice.’
‘It would be a real blow to his pride.’
‘That’s easy to understand,’ said Keedy, wrestling with a clash of loyalties. ‘Harvey Marmion is one of the best detectives I’ve ever worked with. Imagine how he’ll feel if he discovers what’s been going on. It was right there in front of him but he didn’t even see it.’
Though evening had long since evanesced into night, Marmion was still at his desk in Scotland Yard, crouched over a map as he tried to plot the possible routes that Ablatt would have taken to get from Lambeth to Shoreditch. The fact that he’d made a detour to Caroline Skene’s house in order to tell her about his achievement at the meeting of the NCF showed how important she was to him. Caroline came first. The three friends waiting for him would have been deeply upset to realise that. Keeping the truth from them would be an act of kindness. It would lessen Ablatt in their eyes.
Marmion had even outstayed Claude Chatfield. When the superintendent found him still there, he urged him to go home. They both needed rest. Marmion waved him off, then worked for another twenty minutes before his neck started to ache and his eyelids began to droop. When he struggled to his feet, he felt twinges in his back and his legs. It made him feel grateful that he hadn’t stayed up all night in the front room of a house owned by two maiden ladies. Marmion recognised his limits. That sort of duty was for younger detectives. Putting on his coat and hat, he switched off the light and left the building.
Ellen had made a valiant effort to stay awake for him but she kept dozing off. It was the sound of a key in the front door lock that brought her out of her slumber. She sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. Though she strained her ears, she could hear nothing. Marmion had taught himself to move about the house with the stealth of a burglar. Ellen often teased him about it. When he finally put his head around the door, he was sad to see that she was still awake.
‘No need to apologise,’ she said. ‘It’s what any wife would do.’
He kissed her gently on the head. ‘But you’re not any wife, Ellen. You’re one in a thousand.’ He began to undress. ‘In any case, you’re wrong. When some of my colleagues get home late, there’s a torrent of abuse waiting for them. Not every wife has your tolerance.’
‘It’s not tolerance, Harvey. It’s fatigue. I’m too weary to complain.’
‘How was your day?’
‘It was rather lonely. What about you?’
‘Oh, I’m never short of company. I seem to have done a hell of a lot today but I don’t have much to show for it. However,’ he went on, ‘I won’t bore you with the details. I’m still trying to make sense of them myself.’
‘If you’d got that promotion to superintendent, you’d be home earlier.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ he said, undoing his laces before kicking off his shoes. ‘Claude Chatfield left just before I did. He works all hours.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but he doesn’t use as much energy as you. He stays at Scotland Yard all day while you and Joe Keedy have to charge all over the place. Being a superintendent wouldn’t have been as dangerous as going to some of the rougher areas of London. There’d be no risks to take.’
‘That’s exactly why I didn’t want the job, Ellen,’ he confessed. ‘In fact, I made sure that I didn’t get it by giving the wrong answers at the interview. With all its headaches and frustrations, I love the job I do. There’s nothing to touch the sheer thrill of a hunt for a killer. You’re going to have to put up with a mere detective inspector for a little longer, I’m afraid. I hope you won’t be disappointed.’
Ellen patted the pillow beside her. ‘It suits me fine.’
The man was singing a hymn to himself as he strolled along the road. When he turned down a lane, he had to walk along a dark corridor between the gardens of the houses on either side. Having used the route so often, it never occurred to him that he might be in jeopardy. He was therefore completely off guard when someone leapt out from his hiding place, knocked off the man’s hat and clubbed him viciously to the ground. Blood was everywhere but that didn’t satisfy the attacker. He was there to kill. He managed to get in a few more heavy blows before he heard someone coming down the lane.
‘Hey!’ yelled a voice. ‘What’s going on?’
Abandoning his victim, the attacker ran off at speed into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Attempted murder was Marmion’s alarm clock. It woke him up early and sent him off to Scotland Yard in the police car dispatched to collect him. It took him the whole journey to come fully awake. He expected the superintendent to be there before him but had not counted on Chatfield being quite so animated at that time of the morning. Almost as soon as he entered the building, Marmion was pounced on.
‘He’s struck again,’ announced Chatfield.
‘Who are you talking about, sir?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘The driver gave me no details.’
‘The man who killed Cyril Ablatt has a second victim.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s because the modus operandi is identical in both cases. He lurks in a dark lane in Shoreditch and uses a blunt instrument to smash someone’s head in. Amongst the things found on the victim was a leaflet advertising that fateful meeting of the NCF. In short, he’s Ablatt by another name. My first impulse was right,’ said Chatfield with a self-congratulatory smile. ‘The man we’re after has a grudge against conchies.’
‘It seems to me that you’re making hasty assumptions,’ said Marmion.
‘There’s too much similarity for it to be a coincidence, Inspector.’
‘Perhaps you’d let me make up my own mind about that.’
On the walk to his office, the superintendent gave him the relevant facts. A man in his late twenties was attacked in a dark lane the previous night. Before he could kill his victim, the attacker was interrupted and ran off. Help was summoned and the wounded man was rushed to hospital. He’d sustained serious head injuries and was in a coma but he was still alive. His condition was described as critical. From information in his wallet, he was identified as the Reverend James Howells, a curate at St Leonard’s in Shoreditch High Street. A letter from his father, found in his pocket, showed that his family lived in York. Chatfield had rung the police station in the city and asked them to inform Mr and Mrs Howells that their son was in hospital as the result of a murderous attack. The superintendent had also sent word to the vicar of St Leonard’s.
‘It all fits together,’ he said, almost gleefully.
‘I don’t find a violent attack a subject for celebration, sir.’
‘We’ll catch him this time. The victim has survived.’
‘Yes,’ said Marmion, guardedly, ‘but we don’t know how much he’ll remember if and when he recovers consciousness. If there’s been excessive brain damage, he may be able to tell us nothing at all. And even if he makes a good recovery, he may have no idea who tried to kill him.’