Edward Marston: Instrument of Slaughter

‘It must be Cyril,’ he said, sorrowfully. ‘He always let me know if he was staying the night somewhere. When he didn’t come home …’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘I knew that something terrible had happened.’

‘The two of you lived alone, then?’ asked Keedy.

‘Yes, Sergeant, we did. Lots of people complain about sons being a nuisance when they get to a certain age but Cyril wasn’t like that. He was no trouble. All he wanted to do was to stay in his room and read his books.’ A smile flitted across his face. ‘He was a librarian, you know.’

‘Then he’d have no shortage of reading matter.’

‘You’ve seen the sort of area this is,’ continued Ablatt. ‘Most of the lads around here follow their fathers into the same trade. What else is there for them to do? Well,’ he said, holding back tears, ‘I wanted more for my son. I wasn’t having him working as a cobbler like me. It’s a good trade because everyone needs to have their shoes soled and heeled, but it’s a hard life bent double over a last all day. So I paid for Cyril to go to night school. He was educated, you see.’ His face clouded. ‘This war changed everything. Until it started, people looked up to Cyril. They admired him. Then the other lads started to join up and everyone began to wonder why my son didn’t go with them.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘I don’t agree with what he believed. Let me be honest about that. In his place, I’d have been down at the recruiting office like a shot. But Cyril was entitled to his opinion. He had principles, you see. That’s why he went to that meeting yesterday.’ He slumped back into the chair. ‘Oh, I’m so grateful his mother didn’t live to hear this. It would’ve broken her heart.’

‘We’ll need someone to identify the body,’ said Marmion, softly.

Ablatt stiffened. ‘I’ll go,’ he volunteered. ‘He’s my son. It’s my duty.’

‘There’s no rush, sir. We’ll wait until you’re good and ready. Meanwhile, there’s something you might do for us. You’ll appreciate that we know very little about your son. Anything you can tell us would be valuable. Which library does he work at, for instance? We’ll need to speak to his employers. And what about his friends — did he go to that meeting alone or was he with someone else?’

‘Oh, all four of them went, Inspector — Gordon, Fred, Mansel and Cyril.’

‘Could you give me those names again, please?’ asked Keedy, taking out a notebook and pencil. ‘We’ll need the addresses as well.’

‘They all live in Shoreditch.’ As Ablatt reeled off the names, Keedy wrote them down. ‘Gordon Leach, Fred Hambridge and Mansel Price. Gordon works at the bakery two streets away. Fred is even closer.’

He provided the addresses and explained that the three of them often came to the house. Ablatt had no young lady in his life. Encouraged by the detectives, he then talked about his son with a kind of doomed affection, shuttling between pride in his achievements and despair at his murder. They let him ramble on, garnering an immense amount of information as he did so. The corpse in the police morgue began to take on life and definition. When the recitation finally came to an end, Marmion asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue since he entered the house.

‘Did your son have any enemies, Mr Ablatt?’

The older man blinked. ‘No, he didn’t,’ he answered, resentfully. ‘Not the way you mean, Inspector. People didn’t like it because he refused to join up and some of them called him names. Then there are those things painted on the side wall. They hurt us at the time but we got used to them. But there were never any real enemies . Nobody hated Cyril enough to kill him.’ The question had unnerved him somehow and he was trembling. ‘I know you want me to come with you but I’ll need to get dressed and I’d like a little time to myself first, if that’s all right.’

‘Take as much time as you like, sir,’ said Marmion, sympathetically. ‘And thank you for being so helpful. Oh, there is one more thing. We’ll need a recent photograph of your son.’

‘I’ll find one.’

‘Thank you. Could the sergeant and I take a look at your son’s room, please?’

Ablatt was defensive. ‘Why do you want to do that?’

‘We’re still trying to build up a picture of him.’

‘But I’ve told you all you need to know.’

‘His room might be able to add a few salient details.’

‘Yes,’ said Keedy. ‘You told us that he spent a lot of time in it.’

Ablatt gazed upwards. ‘He used to read up there — and practise his speeches.’

‘You didn’t mention any speeches, sir.’

‘Didn’t I?’

‘What sort of speeches were they?’

‘The kind he was going to make at the meeting yesterday. Cyril had studied public speaking, you see. It’s what gave him his confidence. He could talk the hind leg off a donkey.’ He looked suspiciously from one to the other. ‘All that you’ll find up there is a pile of books.’

‘Their titles might tell us something about him,’ said Marmion. Well?’

It took Gerald Ablatt a long time to reach his decision. Part of him wanted to protect his son’s privacy while another part of him was eager to do anything that would help the police. In the end, realism won the battle against family sentiment. Ablatt pointed upstairs.

‘It’s the room at the back,’ he said.

Without another word, he went slowly upstairs, grief visibly weighing him down. In the short time they’d been with him, he seemed to have aged ten years.

‘I felt so rotten having to tell him the news,’ confessed Marmion. ‘It was like sticking a knife into him.’

‘He bore up very well — better than most people do.’

‘Did you believe everything he told us about his son?’

‘Yes,’ said Keedy. ‘He’d have no reason to lie, would he?’

‘Let’s go and find out.’

Having given the father time to get to his bedroom, they ascended the stairs. As they did so, they could hear the sound of sobbing coming from behind the first door they reached. They walked along the landing to the room at the rear. Marmion led the way in and put on the light. There was barely enough space for the two of them to get inside. Crammed into the room was a single bed, a bedside table, a wardrobe and a bookcase filled to overflowing. Books also stood on the window sill, the top of the wardrobe and the floor. Many of them were dog-eared and had tattered covers. On the bedside table was a large Bible.

Marmion’s eye went to the framed photograph on the wall. It showed Cyril Ablatt and what he assumed was his mother, both smiling at the camera. He knew that it must have been taken at least three years ago when Mrs Ablatt was still alive.

‘Nice-looking lad,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d looked like that at his age. It would have made me more popular among the ladies.’

‘Yet his father said he didn’t have one,’ recalled Keedy. ‘What does that make him — a mother’s boy?’

‘I don’t know. How would you describe someone who spends most of his time alone in his bedroom?’

‘I’d say he was a silly fool. He’s missing all the fun.’

‘This was fun to him, Joe. He loved his books.’

‘All work and no play …’

‘Why did he stay up here when he could have been reading downstairs? It would have been far more comfortable to sit in an armchair. There has to be a reason why he preferred being up here.’

‘Tell me what it is.’

‘He was secretive,’ said Marmion. ‘That’s what this bedroom says to me. There are things in here that he didn’t want anyone else to know.’

‘What sort of things?’

They conducted a quick search, opening the wardrobe to check its contents, examining the items on the little mantelpiece and even looking under the bed. Keedy reached out a long arm to retrieve a scrapbook. He flicked it open and saw newspaper cuttings pasted neatly inside it. Most related to the war and to those who campaigned to bring it to an immediate end. Ablatt had also kept photographs of people he admired. One of them showed an old, bearded man in the garb of a Russian peasant.