Blue Moon (34 page)

‘Mr Carver wasn’t expected to live,’ said the sister,
‘but it appears that someone couldn’t wait. It looks highly likely that he was murdered.’

‘Whatever makes you say that?’ Ruby gasped.

‘His pillow was on the top of the bed and there were signs of a struggle. Somehow the water jug was tipped over.’

Ruby’s mouth dropped open. ‘But who on earth would want to do away with a nice old man like that?’

‘He wasn’t that old, Ruby,’ said the sister. ‘His war injuries may have aged him and, because you’re very young, he seemed old. Mr Carver was only thirty-eight. And I agree with you. I can’t imagine why someone would want him dead.’

Ruby shook her head in disbelief. How was she going to tell her mother?

‘If you know anything that might help the police with their enquiries, I urge you to tell them,’ said the sister, bustling away.

Close to tears, Ruby said, ‘Yes, Sister.’ Poor Linton. Who could have done such a wicked thing and, more importantly, why?

The police, when they finally got round to speaking to her, were thorough, asking their questions in an abrupt and efficient manner. Ruby was utterly truthful and held nothing back.

No, she had no idea why someone would have wanted to harm Linton. No, he had never talked about his war experiences, and the war had been over for sixteen years – surely no one would hold a grudge that long. No, she didn’t come back to the ward last night. She had
seen Linton in the afternoon, and in the evening she was at home with her mother. Yes, her mother could verify that: Newlands Road, on the corner. Yes, as a matter of fact, John was their lodger. Yes, she had been in Linton’s home. She had been there the day he came into hospital. Yes, it was she who had called the doctor. Yes, he lived alone. Well, he seemed to be able to look after himself. The place was very neat and tidy. It was only when his lungs played up that he had difficulty. No, he didn’t seem worried about anything. She knew he probably wouldn’t get better, but he had perked up a bit over the last few days. Relatives? Only Aunt Mabel. No, she wasn’t exactly a real aunt – she just called her ‘Aunt’. Mabel Harris. Yes, it was a different surname. Linton was related to her late husband; he was his nephew.

When they’d finished, the policeman asking the questions thanked Ruby for her cooperation. The one taking down notes totally ignored her as they walked off. She felt a little drained by the experience.

‘Now that they’ve finally gone,’ said the sister, coming up behind her, ‘I want you to clean that room, Ruby. Give it a thorough going-over. I’ll get one of the other girls to cover your other duties.’

Ruby wished the sister had said she could take a bit of a break, but with a heavy heart she collected her mop, bucket and cleaning things. First she took the bed linen and stuffed it into a canvas bag on trolley wheels, ready for the laundry; and then she began her systematic cleaning of the room. A couple of times she had
the feeling that she was being watched, but apart from a fleeting shadow, there was no one around. She began by the door and worked her way round the room, so that nothing was missed. The walls, skirting boards, a chair, the locker, the overhead lampshade, the area around the light switches, the mattress and the bed itself – all were thoroughly washed down. It was as she turned the mattress that something, which must have been trapped underneath, fell on the floor and rolled under the bed. Ruby pushed the iron bedstead to one side and picked it up. She stared in disbelief. She’s seen one of these before. There was one in the envelope that had contained Nelson’s effects. In fact, it was identical. A home-made, imitation lead bullet. Even the inscription on the side was the same:
Victory
.

Ruby arrived back home in a sombre mood.

‘Dear, oh dear,’ said Bea when she saw her. ‘You look as if you’ve lost a shilling and found a ha’penny.’

Ruby explained what had happened to Linton.

‘Murdered!’ Bea cried. ‘Does Mabel know?’

‘I guess so,’ said Ruby. ‘She’s his only relative, so I presume someone’s told her.’

‘Murdered,’ Bea repeated. ‘How? Why?’

Ruby told her what the ward sister had said.

‘I’d better go round to Mabel’s,’ said Bea, snatching off her apron. ‘The tea is almost ready. Call John when the potatoes are done. I’ll eat mine later.’

May was playing outside with some of the other children. Ruby watched her mother leave, then checked
the potatoes, before calling John and May for their meal.

An hour later, when Bea came back, Ruby took a plate from the top of a saucepan of boiling water. She put in in front of Bea. ‘Careful of the plate, Mum.’

‘Where’s May?’

‘In the scullery, having her wash,’ said Ruby. ‘John ate and went back into his room.’

John had got into the habit of keeping himself to himself. Bea often invited him to sit by the fire and he sometimes did, but not all that often. Ruby guessed he was still struggling to get over his homesickness and the loss of his wife and child. Tonight he had played a game of Snap with May while Ruby did the clearing up, but when the child was told to get ready for bed, he made his excuses and left.

Bea ate her meal slowly. It wasn’t until May was tucked up in bed that the two women had an opportunity to talk. Ruby was hoping to hear more about her natural father, but first they had to talk about Linton.

‘How did Aunt Mabel take the news?’ asked Ruby as she poured them some tea.

‘It wasn’t unexpected,’ said Bea, ‘although she was a bit shocked when the police told her somebody had murdered him.’

‘Did she have any idea who might do that?’

‘None at all,’ said Bea. ‘The poor man had a terrible life. He was barely in his twenties when he was gassed. He never had a lady friend, never got married, and he was ill on and off all his life.’

‘Mum,’ said Ruby, ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ She got up from the table and went to her coat, which was hanging on the nail on the back door. When she put the lead bullet on the table in front of her, Bea gasped.

‘I found it on the floor when I was cleaning Linton’s room,’ Ruby explained. ‘It’s like the one in the brown envelope they gave you when Nelson died, isn’t it?’

Bea went to the dresser and opened the drawer. Coming back to the table, she tipped the contents of the brown envelope onto the table. The grey bullet rolled towards its mate. They compared the two of them.

‘They both look hand-made,’ said Ruby, ‘and they are almost identical. What can it mean?’

Bea shook her head. ‘Perhaps it’s something to do with the war?’

‘It seems a bit odd that Linton had it in his hospital room,’ said Ruby. ‘I packed his bag to go to hospital, and he certainly didn’t have it when he left home.’

‘Someone could have brought it in.’

‘As far as I know,’ said Ruby, ‘I was his only visitor.’

Bea looked up. ‘So, what are you saying?’

‘I think the murderer gave it to him.’

Bea picked up one of the bullets and held it in the palm of her hand. The silence between them grew, until it was punctuated only by the slow tick-tock of the clock on the mantelpiece. They heard it whirring, and then came the dulcet chimes for nine o’clock.

‘If the murderer left this bullet for Linton,’ said Bea slowly, ‘and Nelson had one in his pocket …’ She looked up at her daughter.

Ruby finished the sentence for her. ‘Then Nelson was murdered too.’

‘I’ve seen another one,’ said Bea. ‘Mabel’s got one. She found it in Jack’s pocket after he died.’

‘Was Jack in the war?’ asked Ruby.

Bea nodded. ‘He was a mechanic. He was stationed with Linton for a bit. I remember Mabel telling me that he used to keep a weather eye on Linton.’

Ruby chewed the inside of her bottom lip. ‘How did Uncle Jack die?’

‘He didn’t die in the war,’ said Bea. ‘He was run over by a truck on the Littlehampton Road, when you were a little girl.’

‘Then do you think …?’ Ruby began.

They both held their breath, hardly able to comprehend where this conversation was going.

‘You’ll have to go to the police,’ said Bea.

Ruby shook her head. ‘It’s all a bit vague, though, Mum. I mean, what proof have we got, apart from these funny bullets?’

‘You must admit it’s a bit odd,’ Bea insisted.

Ruby nodded and, picking up one of the bullets, studied it more carefully. ‘What’s going to happen to Linton now? Is Aunt Mabel able to bury him?’

‘They’re hoping to arrange the funeral sometime next week,’ said Bea. ‘I don’t suppose he left a will, so everything will go to Mabel.’

It was then that Ruby remembered the envelope Linton had given her the day he went into hospital. ‘I
think I’ve got his will,’ she said, giving her mother a brief explanation.

She had propped the envelope against the mirror in her bedroom and had totally forgotten it. She hurried upstairs to get it now. It had slipped down the back and fallen on the floor. Sitting back down at the kitchen table again, she opened it and took out a flimsy sheet of paper. The lettering was typed and was clearly done by an inexperienced typist. There were blotches and spelling mistakes all over the place. As Ruby read it aloud, she and Bea listened with mounting horror.

The streets of London were a far cry from the relative peace and quiet of Worthing. Percy loved it. There was always something to do and it seemed that London never slept.

The night before he began his new posting, Percy made a decision to throw himself even more fervently into the cause. He told himself he wouldn’t care about the poverty; he would forgo the pictures and the pub with a happy heart because, from now on, he had a cause to fight for and a driving force in his life. He would make the BUF his whole reason for existence. It would be better than the choicest meal to him – its hold on him stronger than any family bond – and he would be happy to sacrifice the chance to have a sweetheart or a wife if that interfered with his purpose. He climbed into his bed with a warm glow. He’d show them. One day he would march down the streets of Worthing carrying the BUF flag, and every head would turn in
his direction. They’d say, ‘There’s a man to be proud of.’ He took in a breath and let his chest swell. Right there and then he was in deadly earnest and, if necessary, he would be willing to die for his ideals.

He had been plunged in at the deep end when he’d arrived in the East End, but he mastered quickly whatever he was asked to do. If he stood on a soapbox at the corner of the street market, he had no trouble at all in gathering a crowd of eager bystanders. The working-class man felt downtrodden and neglected, feelings with which Percy was well acquainted. Successive governments had talked of disarmament and had put forward plans for growth, but it hadn’t filtered down to the ordinary man in the street. That man didn’t care for world politics; all he wanted was decent housing, and food on the table. Most of all, he wanted a job.

As part of his new role Percy had to check that the new recruits who had pledged to give five nights’ active service to sell the patriotic workers’ newspaper,
The Blackshirt
, fulfilled their commitment. He also helped with some of the other organizational jobs. It was he who found some old furniture vans and had them converted, so that they could move groups of stewards to the different venues quickly and cheaply. Mosley himself was making upwards of 150 speeches a year, so finding a way of getting supporters to attend the meetings as unpaid stewards was no mean feat.

To begin with, Percy basked in the euphoria of it all. Where else would a dustman’s son rub shoulders with the son of a duke, or a rich playboy use the same
washroom as a plumber? But, as he became more familiar with the inner workings of the movement, another side began to emerge.

The BUF had acquired the nickname ‘the Biff Boys’, and there were times when Percy wasn’t surprised. He recalled one meeting when the crowds sang the national anthem and a man, standing just in front of him, bent down to pick up his small child. Having put up his hands several times to be picked up, the little boy suddenly changed his mind and sat down on the floor to play with his toy train. As the strains of the music faded, two stewards marched towards the man and began to eject him from the meeting.

‘What have I done?’ the hapless man cried.

‘Disrespect to the king,’ was the angry reply and, with his little boy following behind crying bitterly, the man was hauled out of the meeting.

Such dictatorial behaviour seemed totally unreasonable to Percy, as did the segregation of party workers. He was among the leadership, but before long he discovered there were certain places where he wasn’t welcome – not because of his lack of training, but because of his class. The officers’ club, for instance, was the domain of the public-school members, and men like Percy were banned. For a movement that prided itself on equality, some members, it seemed, were more equal than others.

‘We must set the example,’ Mosley exhorted them, one evening back at HQ. The applause and table-banging thundered around the room. Percy sat smugly nodding his head until his leader said, ‘I picture family life, with
a man master of his own home, caring for his wife and children, and enabling his aged parents to live out their last days with dignity. This should be the sole aim of every member of the party.’

Percy squirmed in his seat. That wasn’t a picture of
his
family life. He’d left home in a rage. He’d excused it to himself by saying that he was confused and had felt betrayed. Every memory he had of trying to please his father – from the pictures he’d drawn in his first class at school, to his joy at catching a huge cod that realized nearly ten pounds when it was sold – made him even angrier. The old man had said nothing. As a little boy, Percy had lain awake for hours trying to fathom out why his father rejected him; and now he lay awake at night eaten up with shame and embarrassment. He was angry that he’d belittled himself for years by trying to make Nelson proud of him. Why had his mother never told him? Why had she carried on letting him believe that Nelson was his father? And who was this unknown man she had taken to her bed?

‘We must lead this nation with integrity,’ Mosley told them. And yet everyone knew the man was a notorious womanizer. Once again, it was a question of one rule for the rich and another for the working-class.