Edward Marston - Instrument of Slaughter

‘I’m not entirely sure why,’ he admitted as he tried to work it out. ‘There was just something about him that nettled me. He looked genuinely shocked when he heard about the murder, yet the moment I described Ablatt as a librarian, he pounced on the mistake. Even the death of his assistant couldn’t keep his self-importance at bay. Incidentally,’ continued Marmion, ‘he’s had a brush or two with Horrie Waldron. When he’s drunk, he reckons, the gravedigger could be very dangerous.’

‘I can verify that,’ said Keedy. ‘I wouldn’t like to have an argument with him when he’s got a spade in his hands. He’s a very strong man.’

‘He’s obviously capable of bludgeoning someone to death but I don’t accept that he’d have the brains to plan the murder. Someone else would have to do that. Waldron might simply be the hired killer, working for another man with a grudge against Ablatt.’

‘Do you have any idea who the other man could be, Harv?’

A name trembled instantly on Marmion’s tongue and he spat it out.

‘It could be someone like Eric Fussell.’

Having started work early that morning, Mansel Price was due to finish by mid afternoon. Before he’d left the train, he’d cooked himself a meal then wolfed it down in the privacy of the galley kitchen. When he came off duty, he was astonished to see Fred Hambridge waiting for him on the station platform. Though the carpenter knew his friend’s shift pattern, he should have been working himself at that time. Price could not understand why he wasn’t beavering away in his workshop. Hambridge had a newspaper under his arm. Spotting the Welsh cook, he ran across to him.

‘Hello, Mansel,’ he said. ‘Have you heard?’

Price’s face went blank. ‘Heard what?’

‘About Cyril.’

‘What about him?’

‘I can’t tell you here. Let’s go outside.’

They picked their way along the crowded platform towards the exit. Once outside in the street, Hambridge took Price by the elbow and led him to a quiet corner further along the pavement. He opened the newspaper to show him the headline.

‘This is the early edition,’ he said, giving it to him.

Price saw the front page story in the Evening News and gasped in horror.

‘Is this our Cyril Ablatt?’ he asked, incredulously.

‘I’m afraid so, Mansel.’

‘I just don’t believe it.’

‘It’s true. My boss was the first who told me about it. Then this detective came to my house to ask me all sorts of questions about Cyril. I was too upset to go back to work. It must be years since I cried but I don’t mind telling you that I cried my eyes out earlier on.’ He pointed to the headline. ‘Now we know why he never got to my house last night.’

Price was hypnotised by the newspaper report. It contained few details but the significant one was the name of the victim. He noted that the detective in charge of the case was an Inspector Marmion. Eventually, he thrust the paper back at his friend.

‘Does Gordon know about this?’

‘He’ll know for certain by now because the police will have told him. I warned him earlier on when my boss said there’d been a murder last night but I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that it was Cyril. No doubt about it now.’

‘I’ll kill the bastard who did this!’ vowed Price.

‘No, you won’t,’ said Hambridge, a calming hand aloft. ‘You don’t believe in killing anybody. That’s why you’re a pacifist.’

‘I’ll make an exception for this man.’

‘I felt the same at first, Mansel, but it’s not our job to get revenge. We must let the police hunt him down.’

‘Well,’ said Price, venomously, ‘at the very least, I’ll be dancing outside the prison when they hang the swine. It’s awful. Who would do such a thing?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘Do the police have any idea?’

‘Not as yet,’ said Hambridge. ‘By the way, they want to talk to you. Sergeant Keedy — he’s the detective who spoke to me — was going to call at your house and, if you weren’t there, leave a message.’

‘What can I tell them?’

‘Much the same as me and Gordon, I suppose. They want to know everything they can find out about Cyril.’

Price was defensive. ‘Well, there’s nothing I can add. You knew him better than we did because you used to play in the same darts team as him. I hardly saw anything of Cyril until the war broke out, and Gordon, of course, spent most of his time with Ruby. No,’ he said, ‘you’re the one the police should talk to.’

Hambridge nodded soulfully. ‘I’ve been wondering about his father.’

‘What about him?’

‘Well, should we go to see him?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. Mr Ablatt’s a nice enough man and I feel sorry for him but I’m not sure what we could do — not at this stage, anyway. He’ll have family around him and we don’t want to be in the way.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Let’s leave it for a bit, shall we?’

‘You’re probably right, Mansel.’

‘I want to know more details first.’

‘So do I. But we mustn’t leave it too long,’ said Hambridge. ‘We owe it to Cyril to show Mr Ablatt what his son meant to us. He must be really upset.’

‘ We may not want to visit the house just yet,’ said Price, meaningfully, ‘but someone else might.’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘I’m talking about whoever painted those things on Cyril’s wall.’

‘Yes,’ said Hambridge, ‘they were vile.’

‘He’ll be gloating when he hears the news.’

‘Think of those names he called Cyril.’

‘I don’t know why they were left there. If it was my house, I’d have hidden them beneath a coat or two of whitewash. I’d love to meet the man responsible,’ growled Price through gritted teeth. ‘He deserves to hang alongside the killer — and I’d like to be the bloody executioner!’

With the newspaper rolled up in his hand, the man walked briskly along the street before turning the corner. He looked up at the wall of the Ablatt house and smiled inwardly. The bold lettering he’d painted there took on a new meaning now and it was one that gave him immense pleasure. Without breaking stride, he held the newspaper up as if it were a weapon and fired an imaginary bullet at the wall. Minutes later, he reached his own home and let himself in. The first thing he did was to go into the garden to check how much paint he still had locked away in his shed. The death of a conscientious objector was something to be celebrated. It was time for some more nocturnal art.

The photographer’s studio was in a side street in Finsbury. Several examples of his work were on display in the shop window. Marmion and Keedy looked at three different married couples, standing outside their respective church porches with broad grins and expressions of unassailable hope. Poised over a many-candled iced cake, an elderly couple were marking an anniversary of some kind. There were photographs of young men in uniform and one taken at a children’s party. The youngest person in the exhibition was a baby, cradled in the arms of a doting mother while the proud father looked on. Vernon Nethercott catered for all the family.

Entering the shop, the detectives learnt that Nethercott was busy so they were forced to wait. Childish laughter from the next room suggested that the photographer knew how to amuse his customers. The young woman who acted as receptionist had only been with Nethercott for six months and she was unable to identify the woman in the photograph that Marmion showed her. But she boasted that her employer had a remarkable memory and that he’d certainly recall her name. It was some time before Nethercott eventually appeared, shepherding a mother and her two little children out of the shop. All three of them had clearly enjoyed their visit.