Chapter 16: Body!

I MISSED my time slot at the public telephone box around the corner from my office on Friday night, due to my debrief with Bob Cummings, so my father’s old fob watch informed me. I wondered if I had missed a call from Mary.

It was ten minutes past dinner time by the time I was dropped off by the police car at my digs at Mrs McPherson’s lodging house, but she managed to rustle up something, no doubt to avoid rebating any of my weekly rent, which included a limited amount for laundry and daily hot meals. The rest of her guests were still at the dining table, dining on the remnants of smoked haddock and boiled cabbage. This fare was all that the landlady could gather from our collective ration books, which we had long ago surrendered to her control.

As I made my appearance, the two female guests’ interest in men was suddenly piqued by the clearly bespoke quality of the handmade suit I was wearing, which amazingly fitted me like a glove. My height and build presumably close to Bradford Gold’s, even down to size 10 shoe size. No wonder she had no trouble ordering my dinner jacket from Mr Sims.

Also obvious to even the most casual observer, was the huge pad of cotton wool wadding tied around my head, to protect my damaged ear.

Mrs McPherson was actually moved to apologise for distributing my portion of dinner amongst the rest when I failed to show up precisely at the allotted time.

This apology was almost a first for the stone-faced Scottish woman, perhaps it is true what they say about the apparel maketh the man.

She had previously put some boiled cabbage to one side, which she then married up with some cold boiled potatoes left over from the previous day and, in about ten minutes or so, served me what turned out to be a more than acceptable hot plate of bubble and squeak.

I took my place at the table and duly fended off questions about my envious apparel by stating, quite honestly, that it was all part of an ongoing Police enquiry and therefore a sub judicial subject not to be discussed in public or private with anyone.

Shortly following my afters, consisting of plum duff and reconstituted powdered custard, I retired to my room and washed myself down with a flannel dipped in cold water, as Mrs McPherson only put the hot water boiler on for baths on Saturday nights, before retiring early, quite exhausted from the experiences of the day.

It had been cold, but bright and sunny on Friday, so the evening continued dry and cloudless, with a heavy dew settling almost down to ground level, which froze as a hoar frost on every roof and leafless tree by midnight.

Not long past the witching hour, the air raid warnings sounded and we wearily pulled coats over our nightwear and dragged blankets and pillows down to the nearest garden or communal Anderson shelters or underground stations of choice.

While we assumed the war of attrition went on in the air over our heads, we were finally advised that no bombs had actually been dropped in our area. This time the heavy bombers hit the docks and wharves along the river, impossible to disguise on a cold clear starry night.

The bombers only had to follow the Thames up the estuary to find their targets.

In the relative warmth of the local underground station I had a really good sleep until about four in the morning, when the all-clear sent us back to our beds for the remainder of the night.

It was already light outside on the Saturday morning and I was thinking about getting up. It was warmer that it had been any time up to now this year. I had decided that I would do some sleuthing on Saturday morning, by visiting the Isle of Dogs to speak to a couple of dock workers who I knew kept their ears to the ground. I hoped they would be able to tell me or at least make enquiries how to find out about the activities of Curly Cavenagh. I wondered how it was possible that the petty criminal could have any kind of association with an American film star from Hollywood of the stature of Bradford Gold.

It was during my cogitation that a car pulled up outside the house and one of the local coppers apparently knocked loudly on the door and asked to see me.

I hadn’t heard a thing because of my ear but was almost fully dressed by the time Mrs McPherson knocked on my door saying I was wanted downstairs in the front parlour. I hadn’t put on Gold’s suit, it was really was far too good for everyday wear.

“Mr Onslow,” the local copper said breathless with excitement.

I had to slow him down so I could read his lips, pointing out the large bandage still covering my left ear.

“New Scotland Yard have sent a car over special like to pick you up, Sir. They called in at the station first, ‘cos the driver, a cheeky young blighter called Rawlin’s, didn’t exactly know where you lived, Sir. He says they’ve found a body in the river, Sir, an’ they wants you to go see it.”

It was going to be cold by the river and my only warm overcoat was covered in blood and hopefully being cleaned by Mary’s hotel cleaning service. I only had a light raincoat on Mrs McPherson’s hall stand, so I returned to my room and pulled my warmest jersey over my shirt and vest, and hoped that four relatively thin layers would do to keep the damp cold of the river out of my old bones.

The police driver was of the taciturn type, a thin young man with a weasel face and longer than strictly regulation hair. After saying he knew “nuffink”, just told to fetch me from my digs in Mile End, the driver never said a word as he picked his way through the dockland streets littered with debris from the previous night’s bombing, so I was left with my own thoughts.

I would think there would be only one reason for me to be summonsed by New Scotland Yard to the bank of the river Thames to examine a body, it would have to be that of Bradford Gold.

I had thought yesterday, when we heard from Mr Laws, the estate agent, that Cavenagh was collecting the rent from his tenant instead of Gold, that this was a piece of opportunism by the criminal. Perhaps he had heard that Gold was missing and unable to collect the rent, or else he had a direct hand in the actor’s disappearance.

This meant that Gold was still held somewhere and there was the risk that if Cavenagh disappeared too, that might precipitate Gold’s early release or his murder, depending solely on the desperation of those who were left holding onto Gold.

To then hear the result was the actor’s death and found in the river, be it by fair means or foul, was a likely outcome, but even so, I hadn’t expected to hear of a body being found quite so soon. The muddy River Thames was notorious for keeping its secrets.

I felt for Mary, too. I knew that she would not only be very upset, but as much as she had played with my affections as she admitted she did with everyone, I knew that she loved Gold deeply and would be devastated by his tragic end.

As the car slowed, and I could see the river close by, it looked like the Press had been tipped off too, as the crowd of photographers and reporters was enormous, even the Pathé News film cameras were present, crowding the narrow streets leading down to the river bank.

The Press’s presence at crime scenes was a subject that often rankled with me, as there always seemed to be some dirty copper who was willing to tip off the Press for a quid or as much as a fiver if something juicy, such as the death or arrest of a famous person, fell into a category of interest to the newspapers.

This part of the Thames, close to the docks, was definitely in Cavenagh’s country, and, if the death proved to be a foul deed, was possibly close by where the actor had been kept since his disappearance, and disposed of once Cavenagh was killed. Cavenagh’s accomplices possibly cutting their losses by disposing of their charge and hoping to get clean away.

On the other hand, of course, war takes its toll on the human mind and Gold could just as easily have jumped off a bridge upriver, and floated up and down on the twice daily tides, just under the surface, the cold water only holding off the natural decaying process within the body for a while, until it would bloat the body sufficiently that it could be buoyant and more noticeable. Or it could have become buoyant enough to be beached like a dead whale on the ebbing tide.

When I saw the body, I knew it was indeed Bradford Gold. I immediately thought that my latter theory was the most likely, that Gold had committed suicide. This was the plain clothed Police Sergeant from Bob Cummings’ office’s opinion too, as he expounded his theory by the side of that sad muddy beach next to the impenetrable grey water of the Thames as I arrived.

“ ... in summary,” the Sergeant continued, nodding to me and, knowing I was deafened yesterday, he considerately kept his face in my full view, except where the way down looked dodgy, as we made our way down the slippery steps to the waterside. He continued, “that it appears the actor had found that his part in the war wus not the bed o’ roses wot it looks like on the silver screen. I reckon that he found it bloody hard going, particularly after his aircraft crashed and he lost part of his crew. It looks like it ‘ad played on his mind and, out o’ guilt, remorse or his own failin’s during ‘is part in the war, he’d gone an’ bleedin’ topped hisself.”

He stepped to one side and the Coroner directed his stretcher crew to the side of the body. Bob Cummings stood with his back to me and was in deep conversation with the Coroner’s doctor. The new arrivals put down their empty stretcher and were about to roll the body onto the stretcher.

Well, I might have agreed with the Sergeant’s summary, as certainly the body, lying on its back in the mud, looked as though poor Gold had been in the water for some time, with that waxy skin that was familiar to any copper that had his beat close to London’s notorious river. I remembered all too vividly back during the financial crisis of the late Twenties and early Thirties, we were fishing poor buggers out of the water on a daily basis. And Gold was certainly had the look that one might have expected. But I instinctively felt something wasn’t right.