A Commonplace Killing (15 page)

“He didn’t go into combat?” Cooper was not surprised, just irritated that the snivelling little wretch had succeeded in convincing him otherwise.

“Walter? Combat?” Mrs Jackson laughed humourlessly. She really was a terrible bitch. Cooper almost felt sorry for Walter Frobisher. “He was in the Service Corps.”

“Still did his bit,” Cooper said.

“The man’s a complete failure, Inspector. He worked for years in insurance, but never made anything of himself. To be quite honest, we’ve often wondered if he was all there.”

“Was your sister happy with Mr Frobisher?”

“Oh, she used to say how he got on her nerves, but then everything got on Lillian’s nerves. She was very highly strung. They rubbed along, I suppose. His people were quite
respectable
– his father was a bank manager on Canvey Island. They paid for Walter to go to school. She used to put on airs and graces, swank about the place – make out that they were better than the rest of us. But I tell you, Inspector, they never had two ha’pennies to rub together.”

“As far as you know, was Mr Frobisher ever violent towards your sister?”

Mrs Jackson’s eyes stretched at the implication of what he was driving at.

“Walter? He wouldn’t say boo to a goose,” she said. She thought for a moment. “But I dare say worms do turn…”

Cooper went to his office and telephoned Lucas. He
reckoned
he was looking at a blank wall: back with a random,
apparently
motiveless killing.

“Funny,” said the DI, “I was just about to telephone you, guv.”

“Please say something’s turned up.”

“Two things, as a matter of fact.”

“Thank God.”

“A bloke’s just walked in with the handbag. Says he came by it on Sunday morning – found it behind a wall close to the house where the identity card was found. He took it home with him, but when he saw the description in the newspaper this morning he thought better of it. And before you ask – it’s empty.”

“There’s a surprise…”

“I’ve sent it off to have it checked for fingerprints, but I’ll lay odds to evens the only ones we’ll turn up’ll belong to the bloke who found it.”

“And what do you make of him?”

“He’s telling the truth, if that’s what you mean. And he has an alibi. He spent the whole of Saturday evening in a drinking club in Camden Town. Dozens of witnesses.”

“And the other thing?”

“A fellow says he saw a couple on Saturday evening, about half past ten, standing on the pavement beside the murder site. Obviously because there’s no street lighting there the chances of him making any sort of positive identification are slim, to say the least; but he says they were both quite short: the man maybe not much more than five seven or eight.”

“Did he say anything about how they appeared?”

“Well, they weren’t quarrelling or anything like that… As a matter of fact, he assumed they were a courting couple, though he says he didn’t really pay them much attention. And it was dark.”

“How tall would you say Frobisher is?”

“About five seven.”

Cooper rubbed his brow.

“What time have we asked him and Miss Wilkes to come in to give their statements?”

“Half past four. By the way, I’ve found someone else to help with the investigation,”

“Oh?”

“Policewoman Tring – the girlie who’s been driving you around.”

Cooper was surprised by the sudden burst of life in the region of his heart.

“Yes, I know who she is.”

“She’s very keen. Apparently she was in the WAAFS and seems to have done alright.”

“It was the ATS, actually.”

Lucas digested this fact.

“I know she’s only a slip of a girl,” he said, “but beggars can’t be choosers. I’ve cleared it with A4 Branch.”

Cooper had a Spam sandwich and a cup of tea and considered doing something reckless; not that he had any real desire to do so: his appetite for such things had long since been abated, and it disturbed him that this was the case – pained him, as a matter of fact. He thought of the time with Marjorie, when an afternoon of lovemaking had been a matter of such consequence he would have pursued the possibility at all costs: risking the
disapprobation
of his superior officers, jeopardising entire investigations and never thinking of the misery he might cause to Bill, his pal; to Marjorie; to himself. Well, he was paying for it now. He was suffering, had been suffering since 1939. He very much doubted that Policewoman Tring would be able to put an end to his suffering, even if he could persuade her to entertain the
possibility
, and he knew that he would not be able to summon the energy for that. He was long out of practice with women, could not for the life of him remember what you did or said; and then, of course, it was most likely that any beautiful young woman of sense would take one look at him and run a thousand miles in the opposite direction. The stark truth of it was: he had not the energy to redeem himself; he was exhausted, starving; hungry for love and devilled kidneys; tired of waiting for someone to come along and fill up the emptiness at the core of his being. He washed down the dregs of the sandwich with the last of the tea and decided that he could not bear to see her every day; that he would have to think of endless excuses not to go to Caledonian Road. And then he berated himself for being such a fool. Put it out of your mind, old man, he thought. Put it out of your mind. You’re done with all of that. It’s over. Over.

As it turned out, the reckless thing he did was take himself off to Holborn – to Gamages – to do the one thing he knew that he was good at: old-fashioned detective work. Frobisher was, naturally, on compassionate leave, but his fellow doorman spoke well enough of a shabby little failure of a man who didn’t seem to make much of an impression on anyone. In the gents’ department the manager knew all about the Westmoreland, and raised his eyebrows when Cooper asked whether any members of staff had purchased one recently.

“The Westmoreland is a very expensive garment, Inspector,” he said.

Cooper regrouped.

“So I gather. I wonder: is there any way of identifying any of the gentlemen who may have purchased one, say, in the past year or so?”

It took a little above an hour to go through the accounts books and extract just over a dozen names. It was a long shot, but the mackintosh was the only piece of material evidence he had. He took the list back to the station with him, resolving to have Policewoman Tring make some telephone calls until she found someone on the list who had owned a Westmoreland that they were not prepared to present at their local police station. You see, he told himself: you see how I am doing everything that can possibly be done. Everything.

E
velyn Wilkes, Lucas decided, was definitely too stupid to have had a hand in plotting a murder. She was certainly scheming, and it was obvious that she would have done just about anything for a few clothing coupons, but to cover up a killing required a certain amount of cool calculation, a facility Evelyn Wilkes definitely lacked. He and Cooper had spent an hour in her company, and as far as he was concerned they had not learned anything of any note which had not already been supposed: the Frobishers had quarrelled a great deal since Walter returned from the army; the victim wasn’t all there…

“One time she flung a cup of tea in his face and told him he was a selfish bloody pig,” she told them. Cooper, judging by the sudden flexing of his jaw, had evidently seen something of significance in this revelation, but Lucas thought it was exactly the sort of thing a wife said and did from time to time. “She used to say he got on her nerves.” Again, there was no real surprise there. “If you ask me, I don’t think she wanted him to come back from the army.”

“Why do you think that?” Cooper had asked.

Evelyn shrugged.

“She told me she felt like he was suffocating her. We had a bit of fun during the war: she let her hair down. We’d go dancing and she nearly always got off with someone. She told me that she’d been with a coloured fellow when she was down in Jaywick. And one time she picked up a man in a café.”

“Did Mr Frobisher know about her carrying on?” Lucas asked.

The girl shrugged again.

“Why did Mr Frobisher introduce you as his wife’s cousin?”

“Did he?” Evelyn laughed. “He ain’t half old-fashioned…”

Cooper frowned.

“How long have you been seeing each other?” he asked.

She picked a shred of tobacco from her bottom lip.

“Not long.”

“And did Mrs Frobisher know?”

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed as she considered her response.

“She found out on Saturday.”

“I see. And how did she take that?”

“What do you think?”

“Is that why she went off?”

Evelyn shrugged again.

“She was always threatening to sling her hook. I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t as if she cared all that much for Walter…”

Cooper and Lucas had a brief exchange in the corridor before going on to interview Frobisher.

“What if she riled him?” Cooper averred. “You know, made him feel unmanly – persistently mocking him until it all became too much and he snapped.”

“She was a woman of easy virtue, guv, and you know as well as I do, they invariably end up dead.”

“There have been quite a few cases where returning servicemen have assaulted, and even killed their wives when they’ve discovered infidelity…”

“Did these fellows take their wives to a bomb-site for a spot of how’s your father before doing them in?”

“I’ve been thinking about that: what if she was murdered in the house and the body was moved to the bomb-site?”

Lucas did not discount the possibility, and, Lord knows, he was close to agreeing to any scenario, however ludicrous, if it meant drawing a line under the case; but the fact of the matter was, when he looked at Frobisher he did not feel the fellow’s guilt in his bones, and he had learned to trust his bones over the years. Rather, there was something about Frobisher that invited pity, and the DI believed wholeheartedly that if the wretched fellow had strangled his wife with his bare hands, he, Lucas, would not be feeling sorry for him…

“Let’s keep an open mind and see what he tells us, guv,” he counselled. But he had already decided that Lillian Frobisher had been the architect of her own demise. It was a sad fact that women like her had a habit of ending up throttled, and their killers invariably got away with it – most often because the more you went into the matter, the more likely suspects you turned up. There had been a case a couple of years back where a tart had been found dead in her bed-sitting room. The place had been full of fingerprints, which were easily traced to a nearby Yank base, and the matter should have been easily resolved, were it not for the fact that the fingerprints in question belonged to half a dozen GIs. One of them was almost certainly the killer, but it was nigh on impossible to prove which of them had been the last to see the victim alive. Of course, that had been during the war, when trained servicemen carried more value than a common prostitute, so nobody pushed too hard for a hanging. He had to admit that the murder of Lillian Frobisher was of a different order, even if it was a hopeless case.

“You know, Inspector,” Frobisher said. His pale eyes were disturbingly large, darting about the place insanely. “I’ve been thinking about something. Lillian always carried a police whistle in her handbag. Don’t you think it’s a bit odd – I mean, why didn’t she use it?”

“Perhaps she didn’t have the opportunity; or she didn’t think there was any need until it was too late.”

Frobisher considered this for a few moments.

“Do you think it’s possible that she might have known the person who – who did this to her…?”

“That’s one possibility we’re considering, Mr Frobisher.”

Frobisher’s eyes grew even larger before returning to their pallid cast, contemplating that desktop. Cooper sighed; he and Lucas exchanged a look.

“We know about you and Miss Wilkes,” the DI said.

The fellow’s face crumpled.

“I’ve been a bloody fool,” he sobbed.

“How long has it been going on?”

“Not long.” He sighed deeply, the breath shuddering out of him. “A couple of weeks…”

“And when did Mrs Frobisher find out?”

“Saturday,” said Frobisher, his voice reduced to a croak.

“And is that why you quarrelled?”

Frobisher blinked back tears. “The truth is, Inspector,” he said, turning his eyes beseechingly upon them, “Lillian and I have not got on for some time. I thought that when I came back from the army things might be different, but she made it very clear to me from the off that she didn’t want that.”

“But you decided to stay by her in any case…” Cooper said.

Frobisher surprised him with the force of his response.

“I stuck by the old girl – what else was I supposed to do!” he cried. “Divorce – sneaking off to Brighton with a prostitute – is not for people like us, Inspector. Do you think I like living in her mother’s house?” He ran his hands through his thinning hair. When he spoke again he was less agitated. “We both thought it was better to keep up appearances,” he said. “For the boy’s sake. Try and make a go of things.”

Cooper sighed heavily. The whole matter depressed him.

“You must see, Mr Frobisher,” he said, mildly, “that this does not look very good for you.”

From his shocked expression it was immediately apparent that Frobisher had not seen this.

“Oh God,” he said in a hoarse whisper, as the implication of what Cooper had just said dawned on him. “But I could never harm a hair on her head. Oh, she could be very difficult, but I wouldn’t do a thing to hurt her! You must see that. You must!”

Cooper was implacable.

“Why didn’t you report her missing?”

“I’ve told you: she said she was going to her sister’s in Jaywick Sands.”

“And you didn’t think it strange that she didn’t take anything with her?”

“She’d stayed there before – in the war. I just supposed she had things there… I don’t know…” He looked helpless and small. “Oh God, I don’t know… I – I didn’t really think much about it…”

“Your situation is very serious, Mr Frobisher,” said Lucas. “I would urge you to be completely honest with us. For your own good.”

Frobisher let out a long sob-racked sigh.

“I’ve told you all I know! You must believe me!” he said. He was a man in deep, deep pain. “You must…!”

“It’s not in your interest to defend anyone, you know,” said Cooper.

“I’m not defending anyone – I’ve told you everything I can… I don’t know any more.”

“Did you know that your wife consorted with other men?”

Frobisher was crying now.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Yes… I knew… I knew…”

“Do you know the names of any of the men she might have gone with?” asked Lucas.

Frobisher did not appear to have heard him. He fell silent for a moment or two, staring at the desktop.

“Will it go into the newspapers?” he asked in a horrified whisper. “Only… Douglas, you see… I couldn’t bear for him…”

Cooper assured him that there was no need for the
newspapers
to know anything at this stage. Frobisher asked for a glass of water. He sipped from it slowly, his eyes still fixed on the desk. When he spoke again it was as if he was in a daze.

“When we hadn’t heard from Lillian on the Monday, I was a bit concerned. I said to Evelyn, I know she’s angry and wants to punish me, but I’d have expected a wire or something regarding arrangements for her mother. At the very least I’d have expected word from Mavis, her sister. Mavis is a terrible bitch. She’d have been cock-a-hoop, and to be quite honest, I was surprised that she hadn’t turned up on the doorstep to turn me out of the house. I wanted to go out and telephone, but Evelyn told me that Lillian had met some fellow in a café. A spiv…”

Cooper felt his heart quicken.

“A spiv?”

“Yes. Evelyn said he’d taken a shine to her, and she reckoned Lillian had gone off with him, as she put it. She said he was very well appointed and Lillian wouldn’t want for anything. He’d give her the world… All the things I couldn’t…”

“Do you know his name, this spiv?” asked Lucas.

Frobisher, overcome with grief, shame, humiliation, had evidently lost the power of speech. He shook his head before subsiding into another flood of tears. Then he took out a
handkerchief
from his trouser pocket and blew his nose.

“Evelyn said Lillian often went off with men while I was away,” he said. “It wasn’t unusual for her to stay out all night…”

“Why the dickens didn’t you say all this before?” thundered Cooper.

“I – I couldn’t… You must see. The shame… Oh God… Will it be in the newspapers? There’s Douglas, you see. I don’t want Douglas to know…”

When they questioned her again, Evelyn Wilkes told them that all she knew about the spiv was that he was a good-looking boy, very well dressed, and his name was Dennis. She would know him if she was to see him again. She had no idea how tall he was. They’d met him in a café on the Seven Sisters Road – the one opposite Woolworths. He’d been in company with a woman called Nesta who knew how to come by things: there had been talk of tinned soup, peas… She had invited them to go to the Feathers public house that evening with her and Dennis. Dennis had been giving Lillian the eye all the while and it wouldn’t have surprised her if that’s where Lillian had gone.

“Didn’t it occur to you to tell us all of this at the beginning?” asked Cooper.

The kid shrugged.

“You never asked,” she said.