Chapter 13: Breaking and Entering

OUTSIDE the estate agents’ premises I gently took Mary’s arm, fearful that she might faint. She looked close to tears.

“Do you want to sit down? There’s a tea shop open over there.”

She shook her head, but seemed unable to speak.

“Do you still want to go to the shop and try and look at the flat next door?”

She nodded.

We were there in a minute or so and the mainly glass door covered in whitewash opened quickly using the key and I pushed her inside. As soon as I closed the door behind us she put her arms around my neck and cried with huge racking sobs onto my shoulder. I patted her back and stood there while she worked through her anguish.

She was a strong woman, and had held up well to the pressure she was under, but now she was confronted with finding out that her missing husband had been living here in this very street almost immediately before his disappearance a month ago.

It appeared to bring all her emotions to the fore. I gently rubbed or patted her back by turns while she worked her way through the released emotions.

After a while the sobs stopped and she asked, “Didn’t you visit some lodging house where Brad was said to have stayed for a few months until he disappeared?”

“I did. That was the address that Cummings gave me at the Yard. I will have to check my notes, but I think it was the address the War Office gave as his last known address. It is possible, that her guest was a completely different Brad Gold and there has been a file mix up at the War Office.”

“Odd coincidence, that this other Brad Gold was also a Flight Lieutenant, don’t you think?”

“I do, and I even checked through the pockets of his uniform, but it could have been any officer of that rank. His landlady didn’t supply Gold with meals as his hours were erratic and she noted that he never wore his uniform after his initial arrival some months before.”

“Aren’t enlisted men supposed to wear their uniform at all times?” she asked, “I’m sure that you mentioned that yesterday.”

“I did. Usually that is the case during wartime, even for airmen on leave, but if he was at the time we believe transferred to Military Intelligence, and under their orders to work undercover for them in the East End to gather intelligence, so that rule would not apply. It could be that Gold divided his time between the East End and Denmark Hill, using his home here as a refuge against playing a challenging role of deception for several months. I think I will check that lodging house out again tomorrow, Saturday, when the daughter, who apparently does all the cleaning and bed-making for Gold’s room, is not at school.”

“Can, can I come too?”

“Of course, Mary,” I said gently, “right now though, we now have a concrete lead, Curly Cavenagh.”

“Why is Cavenagh not in uniform?”

“It could be that he was over the age of 41, the upper age limit on 3 September 1939, or he may have some disability. I was just short of 41 at the time, but with my foot I was not considered fit enoiugh for call-up. Cavenagh might have some physical defect, be in a reserved occupation, or have a friendly doctor prepared or bribed to sign him off as unfit for service.”

“Isn’t it curious that Cavenagh is still around since helping Brad get this apartment in ‘39?”

“Yes, this Curly Cavenagh fellow clearly knows your husband and not just for employing him to buy the barber shop and flat above to live in, probably while he was waiting for the War Ministry to decide to allow him to sign on for the Royal Air Force. Then, when he transferred to Fighter Command, he was based in Kent, which is only a short drive from here, so Gold must’ve moved back here and resumed collecting the rent himself. Now that this Curly Cavenagh chap has come back on the scene on a regular weekly basis, he has made himself a target for us to grab and interrogate, on the grounds he has information leading to the whereabouts of a possible deserter. It is possible that he may well know where Brad Gold is holed up.”

“Yeah, you are probably right,” she said, trying to hold herself together. “It is the best lead we have and I’m on board with it. What do we do next?”

“We check the shop next door, to make sure the barber is occupied with a customer and then we pay a visit to your husband’s flat.”

“But we don’t have a key.”

“I don’t need a key, Mary. One thing about being a copper, that is being a fair copper who gets the respect of the villains he comes across...”

I showed her a little pouch sewn into my overcoat lapel, from which I pulled a couple of what looked like dental inspection tools. “I was given these by a retired old lag when I first became a private detective, and shown by an expert in how to use them. Actually, over the years, of dealing with goings on behind hotel doors, I’ve become quite skilled myself in how to use them. With these tools I can pick virtually any lock, not as quickly as a professional criminal, admittedly, but quick enough.”

With the windows whitewashed so that people couldn’t easily see into the shop, it made it quite dark. I tried the electric light switch near the front door, but it looked like the power had been turned off. We made our way through to the end of the shop. The second of the three keys on the key ring we’d been given opened the back door. It led out into a small paved yard, with a brick-built privy added to the back of the building. Against the outer wall of the yard was an empty coal-bunker. It had a clasp on it intended for a padlock, which was now missing but, as all the coal had been removed, any padlock was unnecessary and I assumed the owners had taken it with them. There were six-foot high brick walls between the shops.

“I’ll take a look out the front door and see if the hairdresser is occupied,” she said. She was back in less than a minute. “He’s shaving a customer now and he has three men reading newspapers and waiting in line for their haircuts. He’ll be occupied in the front of the shop for a while.”

“Right, we’ll go for it now,” I said, “Let’s see if we can get inside while the coast is clear.”

The back gate for No 75 just had an inside latch, which was repeated on No 77. I was easily able to unhook it using one of my lock-picking tools, and I poked my head in to look around. All was quiet, so I waved for Mary to come in and we climbed quietly up the steel stairway to the front door of the flat.

“You pick the lock, Ed, while I act as look-out,” Mary said.

I was pleased that she was sounding more like her usual self, after her brief emotional breakdown. I crouched down and swiftly moved the tumblers of the lock until they were all out of the way and I could release the mortise lock, after which the latch lock took less than a second.

We slipped inside and closed the door behind us. It was a light, airy flat, with a small hallway, off which were the sitting room, tiny kitchen and dining room on this level and three bedrooms and bathroom on the next, with an attic room at the top of the building.

Mary immediately started opening drawers in a sideboard in the lounge.

“What are you looking for?” I asked in a whisper.

“Clues,” she said, keeping her voice low, “Anything that will identify this as Brad’s ‘home from home’.”

“Check the pantry first, see if any food has gone off, or if there’s anything fresh been put there recently. How recently could be important.” I said, as I headed for the stairs.