The Year of the Gun Read online

‘Maybe her friends will know where she was going.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ He sighed. ‘We’ve got enough with the Jerries and the Japs trying to kill our troops. We don’t need our own people doing it, too.’

  On the way back into town she passed a pair of bombed-out buildings. Almost three years since the last raid and they hadn’t been pulled down yet. Leeds had been lucky; not even a dozen visits from the Luftwaffe and very little damage. Not like the footage of London and Liverpool and Hull that she’d seen in the newsreels. Or the devastation that had once been Coventry. And she was grateful.

  There were two other WAPCs in the canteen. Lottie carried her tea over to join them. Helen was a telephonist, handling the switchboard, while Margaret worked as a records clerk. Stuck in offices all day, they envied her the freedom of being a driver.

  ‘At least it’s never going to be boring,’ Helen said. ‘And you get to see what’s happening.’

  ‘All that fun out there in the cold and wet?’ Lottie said. She wasn’t going to mention the murder. They’d hear about it soon enough, anyway. ‘The heater in that car hardly works and I’ve been trying for a fortnight to get the garage to put on new back tyres. No rubber, that’s what they tell me.’ She shook her head from side to side. ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’

  They began to giggle, ducking their heads together. Ten minutes later Lottie was sitting there alone as the others returned to work.

  But they were right, it was a good job. She enjoyed working with McMillan, they had an easy relationship that had built over the years. For the most part the work was interesting. Her fifty-five hours a week passed quickly, almost before she realised it. And she was doing her bit. It was certainly more satisfying than the volunteering at the nutrition centre she’d done before.

  But this was going to test her, she knew that. Kate Patterson’s dead face came back into her mind.

  ‘Tell DC Smith I want him to check all the taxi companies and see if they had a fare out to the abbey last night,’ McMillan said when she returned to the office. ‘If he can drag himself away from Inspector Andrews, that is.’

  Lottie’s mouth twitched into a smile. If Smith stuck any closer he’d be following the other man home at night.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘After he’s done that he can talk to the conductresses on the Kirkstall Road buses. See if anyone remembers a young couple.’

  ‘Will you be needing the car again today, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I’m meeting Private Patterson’s CO at the ATS headquarters in an hour.’ His voice was quiet, very sober. ‘Then I’m going to talk to the girls she shared a room with in the barracks. I want you with me for all that.’

  Standing back from Clay Pit Lane, Carlton Barracks looked cold and imposing, the Victorian brick black with years of soot. Lottie had never been inside; she’d never had a reason. It carried the air of an institution, everything regulated and ready to stamp out all traces of individuality. McMillan showed his warrant card to the sentry at the gate. Lottie eyed the rifle hanging from the soldier’s shoulder, polished and menacing.

  She trailed behind the superintendent, through an office where a harassed lance-corporal muttered to herself as she rummaged through a stack of paper. A door was open and beyond it, an officer. She was a smart, alert woman in her early forties, hair neat and short, her uniform tailored, eyes an unusual deep blue, intelligent and questioning.

  ‘I’m Captain Hayes.’ She stood and extended a hand. ‘Private Patterson...’

  ‘We’re going to find whoever killed her,’ McMillan said before she could continue. Not a trace of doubt in his voice.

  The captain paced behind her desk. She wanted to understand, Lottie thought, to try to make sense of it all. To give it some order and reason. But how could you, when it was so senseless?

  ‘I just don’t see…’ the woman began, then, simply: ‘Why?’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’ His voice softened. ‘I’ve been doing this job for a long time and it’s always bad when there’s a woman involved. I’m sorry, I truly am. Have you told the other girls what happened?’

  ‘Just that she was murdered. That was hard enough. I didn’t tell them how.’

  ‘Thank you. I need that to stay quiet. You understand.’

  Hayes nodded. ‘I’ve never lost any of my girls before, Superintendent. I didn’t imagine I would, not up here. This is supposed to be a safe posting.’ She gestured at the pen and paper on her desk. ‘Now I have to write to her parents. I don’t even know what to say.’

  ‘It’s hard, I know that,’ he agreed. ‘I served in the last war.’

  Hayes nodded. ‘Do you have any clues at all?’

  ‘Not so far. We’ve just started. We will, though. And I’ll make sure her killer hangs.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She tried to smile but there was nothing behind it. ‘I prepared her file for you.’ The woman hesitated. ‘I hate to speak ill of her when she’s barely dead, but I’d better tell you: Private Patterson wasn’t exactly a model ATS girl. She’s been up on charges several times: reporting back late to barracks, sometimes drunk.’

  ‘I understand she was a kinetheodolite operator?’ McMillan asked, and the woman nodded. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s an instrument that lets us track the trajectory of shells,’ she explained. ‘Quite skilled work. Very specialised.’

  ‘Was Patterson good at it?’

  ‘Very. That’s why I was willing to tolerate a lot from her. If her behaviour had been better she’d have been a corporal by now.’

  ‘Do you have the girls from her barracks here?’

  ‘I do. They’re waiting in the canteen, the far side of the square.’ She pushed the folder across the desk. ‘This is a copy for you.’

  ‘Interesting woman,’ he said. They walked around the edge of the square as a sergeant-major with a voice that could reach across the Pennines was putting recruits through their drill.

  ‘Sounded like she was trying to appear concerned when she didn’t really have a good word to say about Kate,’ Lottie said.

  ‘She did make Patterson seem like a bit of a wild one, didn’t she?’

  ‘Maybe her friends can tell us more.’

  They were gathered at the far end of the canteen, three young women, heads close as they talked, sadness in their eyes.

  ‘You get the teas, I’ll make a start,’ McMillan said, and passed her a sixpence.

  By the time she arrived he was already talking to them. The girls all had that pale, sober beauty that sorrow brought. Losing a man overseas was one thing; that was the risk of war. A friend murdered in the safety of home was entirely different. Too close, too real.

  ‘She always got to know about parties and that,’ a blonde woman with a Birmingham accent said. Her fingers twitched at a cigarette. ‘If she was going somewhere you knew it was a fun place. Kate was like that.’ She glanced at the other faces, receiving nods of confirmation. ‘She didn’t deserve anything like this.’

  ‘Did she have someone special?’ McMillan asked. He took out a packet of Four Square cigarettes and offered them round.

  ‘No,’ a brunette with a hard face told him. ‘She didn’t want none, neither. Lost her fiancé in North Africa a couple of years ago and decided she wasn’t going to get tied down again. Not until it’s all over, anyway.’

  ‘Was she a popular girl?’ Lottie wondered, and the eyes turned to her.

  ‘How do you mean?’ the blonde asked.

  ‘With the other girls. With men.’

  The three girls looked at each other and began to laugh.

  ‘Blokes couldn’t get enough of her,’ the brunette said finally. ‘She knew what she wanted, if you get what I mean.’ She blushed slightly. ‘I know she’s dead and that, but it’s the truth.’

  ‘She liked to live up to her reputation, too,’ the blonde added with a smirk.

  ‘What did the other girls here think about that?’

  A shrug as a response.
/>   ‘She didn’t care.’ The last girl spoke slowly. She looked almost too young to be in uniform, still very thin, her skin smooth, features not yet fully formed. Her face was pale, as if she’d been crying. But her voice sounded older, wiser. ‘That was the thing about Kate, you see: she didn’t give a monkey’s. She was good at her job, but as soon as it was over, she was out to enjoy herself. Whoever wanted could come along.’

  ‘And did you?’ Lottie watched them all. ‘Go along, I mean.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ the brunette admitted. ‘She’d be off on her own if no-one else was interested.’

  ‘What about last night?’ McMillan asked, looking at their faces. ‘Did any of you go out with her then?’

  ‘I took the bus into town with Kate.’ The young one again. ‘We both got off on the Headrow.’ A long silence, then she spoke with a catch in her voice. ‘That was the last I saw of her.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’

  ‘No. I don’t think she knew. She just wanted to be out and doing something. Feeling alive.’ She realised what she’d said and her face crumpled.

  Feeling alive. Lottie let the words echo in her mind. Treasure the moment because who knew if there’d be another. Like so many these days. Who could blame them? It had been the same the last time around. Grasping those few minutes, knowing they couldn’t last.

  Even if the Allied landings in Italy had put the first scent of victory on the air, the end was still a long way off. Plenty more would die before any armistice.

  ‘What about you?’ Lottie asked. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I was meeting a chap. We went to the Odeon, saw To Have And Have Not. It’s very steamy.’ She reached into the breast pocket of her uniform. ‘This was in Kate’s locker. I thought it might be useful.’

  An address book. It might be valuable. Lottie took it.

  A few more questions but no more information they could use. A pair of detective constables would go through the rest of Patterson’s belongings.

  ‘Kate sounds like she was desperate to be the life and soul,’ Lottie said as she drove cautiously out of the barracks.

  ‘Or she was drowning her sorrows,’ McMillan grunted.

  IN the office she dropped Patterson’s ATS file on the tottering pile of papers. That was the thing about a murder case: in just hours the paperwork grew like Topsy. But it was still too soon for the results of any searches or the post-mortem.

  ‘I’ll fetch us some tea,’ Lottie offered and McMillan nodded absently as he started to glance through the reports.

  ‘No, wait,’ he said before she’d reached the door. ‘We’re going straight out again.’

  ‘Him?’ Lottie asked. ‘He’s got to be sixty-five if he’s a day.’

  ‘His name’s George Chadwick,’ McMillan told her. ‘And I doubt there’s anyone who knows this area better.’

  She’d parked by the blue police box on Kirkstall Road. They could see the constable approaching. He looked sound enough, with a firm, easy gait, but the bushy white whiskers, thick moustache and the deep lines on his face gave away his age. McMillan rolled down the window.

  ‘George. Over here.’

  The bobby squinted, trying to make out who’d spoken, then his face broke into a wide grin.

  ‘Mr McMillan. Not seen you in donkey’s years, sir.’

  ‘I heard you were back for the war.’

  ‘Colin Selby joined up. I wasn’t doing much and me missus wanted me out of the house more, so I became a Special Constable…’ He shrugged and gave a hearty laugh before his face turned sombre. ‘I hear you want to talk about tramps out this way.’

  ‘I’ve got an ATS girl who was shot to death at the abbey. I wondered if anyone dossed down there who might have heard or seen anything.’

  ‘I heard about her. That’s…’ He couldn’t find the words, shrugged his shoulders and collected himself. ‘There are two who spend time out there. I’ve been looking for them since I got the message but there’s neither hide nor hair today.’

  ‘Is that normal?’ McMillan asked. He had his head cocked, listening attentively. Lottie was paying attention. The copper might be knocking on a bit for the beat, but he sounded sensible enough.

  ‘They come and go,’ Chadwick said. ‘No telling really. There’s Harry Giddins, he’s scared of his own shadow. Took bad in the last war and never got himself right again. And Leslie Armistead, he’s as gentle a soul as I ever met. If you want my opinion, sir, they’ve probably made themselves scarce, what with all the attention round there.’

  ‘I’ll still need to talk to them both. Find out if they saw anything.’

  ‘Fair enough, sir.’ The constable nodded. ‘I’ll try to track them down for you this afternoon. You might do better if I’m there when you question them, if you don’t mind me saying so. They trust me.’

  McMillan smiled. ‘I can probably arrange that. Call in as soon as you find them.’

  Lottie turned the car and began the drive back into Leeds.

  ‘Back in 1912, George Chadwick took on a man armed with a knife,’ McMillan began. ‘Chased him for a mile then brought him down. Stabbed in the arm. Joined the Leeds Pals, survived the Somme. Wounded twice, decorated for gallantry. I’ve plenty of time for someone like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt chastened. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘I trust his judgement.’ He lit a cigarette and stared out of the window.

  They passed a US Army lorry that was parked at the side of the road. Three men stood at the back, laughing and smoking. They all looked so… Lottie struggled to find the right word. Fresh. Clean. Scrubbed.

  Happy.

  That was it. They always seemed to be smiling, as if they didn’t have a care in the world and nothing could touch them. So different from the British, ground down by the years of war, rationing, walking around with grim, grubby determination. Hanging on. There’d be time for joy after the job was done.

  She was waiting. Only to be expected, she supposed, working for a senior officer, although she’d rather be doing something than sitting on her behind. Lottie had never been one to relax easily.

  She’d learned to carry a book with her, something from the library. Along with the newspaper, it filled the time. A Peter Cheyney thriller, or maybe James Hadley Chase. Georgette Heyer if she was in the mood. And there was always Daphne du Maurier – she’d read Rebecca seven times since it was published. But McMillan always seemed to interrupt just as things were becoming interesting. As if he knew and wasn’t going to let her become too comfortable.

  ‘We’re going to Headingley,’ he announced as she slipped a bookmark between the pages. The Power and the Glory would have to wait.

  ‘Whereabouts?’ she asked as she nosed the car through the traffic on the Headrow. Blast walls protected the large glass doors of Lewis’s, and the huge water containers of the National Fire Service still stood on the central island in case of air raids. They were empty now, rusting, unused; please God they’d never be needed to put out fires.

  Lottie turned on to Woodhouse Lane, then out past the university and the moor. The sky was grey, the threat of sleet in the air. Past a rag and bone man, trundling along, the horse drawing his empty cart. But who threw things away any more? The government had taken everything worthwhile.

  She turned on to Shire Oak Road and within a few yards she was in a different Leeds. Large, spreading trees. Big houses, expansive gardens. Room to breathe, it seemed, nothing cramped. The humps of Anderson shelters showed in a few places, disguised until all that was visible was mounds of sod.

  ‘We’re looking for a house called Woodmarsh,’ McMillan told her. ‘Strange name.’

  She scanned the words carved into the stone gateposts. No iron gates now, of course; they’d long since been fashioned into Spitfires or Hurricanes. Finally she spotted it, at the far end of the street, set apart from all the other buildings, looking down the hill over Meanwood Valley.

  The house looked abandoned, in need
of attention. She counted four slates missing from the roof, the garden was overgrown, and weeds poked through in the drive.

  ‘Park on the road,’ he told her.

  ‘But it looks empty.’

  ‘I know.’ He was smiling. ‘Come on.’

  The front door was unlocked, the wood warped. He pushed at it with his shoulder until it gave, swinging open. Inside, the rooms were bare boards and empty walls. Anything that could be carried away had long since gone.

  The house smelt of decay. But there was more. An empty gin bottle that had rolled into a corner. A pair of knickers tossed on a windowsill, a torn handkerchief bunched up against the skirting board.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘Someone came here to enjoy themselves,’ he answered wryly. ‘Can’t you tell?’

  ‘It looks… miserable.’ How could anyone find pleasure here? Lottie glanced around. A couple had found an empty house for a good time. ‘I don’t understand. What does any of this have to do with the Patterson case?’

  ‘We had a telephone call from a neighbour this morning,’ McMillan told her. ‘He said he glanced out about midnight two nights ago and saw someone carrying a girl in his arms to a Jeep. She looked as if she was passed out. His words,’ he added carefully. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how that connects to Patterson. Was she wearing an ATS uniform?’

  ‘He didn’t see. I don’t know, it’s a hunch,’ he said, as if that explained everything. ‘As soon as I saw the message I got a feeling in my gut. I just wish he’d rung when he saw it happen, instead of thinking it over for so long.’ McMillan rolled his eyes in frustration. ‘The public.’

  ‘There’s not too much to see in here now.’

  ‘Enough, though. We’ll take a nosey around,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll look in the bedrooms if you want to search here and out in the garden.’

  The clean-up must have been quick, probably done in the darkness. A few items still remained. Not just the abandoned knickers, the handkerchief, and the empty bottle. Cigarette ends. She stirred them with her fingernail. Player’s. Lucky Strikes. People had been here, they’d had sex. But it didn’t look like the aftermath of a party. Outside there was nothing. A rusted spade, a fork, and an empty cup, all caked with dirt as if they’d sat there for months.