The Year of the Gun Read online

  ‘I don’t know any,’ she admitted. It was time to set him straight. Whatever impression he had of her, it was probably wrong. ‘Look, I don’t know how you see me, but I’m not the type to gad about. I do my job and I go home. Sometimes I’ll pop off to the pictures with one of my neighbours.’ She looked at him. ‘I lead a very small life, Cliff, and I like it that way. You’re the first chap I’ve done anything with since Geoff died. And friends, like we agreed, remember?’

  ‘Maybe you need to come out of your shell a little more.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Lottie gave a small smile. ‘I’d better tell you, though, it’s a very comfortable little shell.’

  No nightclub. A meal out and conversation was a big enough adventure for one night. He offered to give her a lift home but she refused. Instead, he waited at the bus stop with her until the number seven arrived, the vehicle felt rather than seen as it lumbered through the blackout with just a slit on one side for a headlight.

  ‘Would you like to do it again?’ Ellison asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied after a moment. ‘I think I would. Just don’t expect anything from me. Friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Nothing more than company,’ he promised.

  McMillan was waiting at the entrance to Millgarth when she arrived on Monday morning. It was still dark, an acrid fog clinging in the air to make people choke and cough. He tossed her the car keys.

  ‘Where, sir?’

  ‘Holbeck.’ A single word but he filled it with darkness. It must be bad.

  She followed his directions, parking a street away from the fake Egyptian bulk of Temple Mill. Even there she could hear the machines of the day shift already hard at work, churning out uniforms for the troops.

  Lottie followed McMillan round one corner, followed immediately by another, until they reached an anonymous brick building. A copper stood outside; he saluted as soon as he recognised the chief superintendent, and opened the door. Muttered voices came from a room at the end of the corridor. In the harsh electric light she saw Inspector Andrews, DC Smith close behind him as always.

  The temperature cooled as they approached and Lottie noticed the fur coats hanging on racks along the walls of the room. Cold storage. She felt goose pimples forming on her skin and wished she’d worn gloves.

  Closer, she could see a man’s legs. He was kneeling on the floor, examining something.

  ‘What—’ she began, but McMillan held up his hand.

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said to Andrews.

  ‘About two hours ago, Wilkins, the beat man, was going by and saw the front door open.’ The inspector ran a hand over his hair. ‘He thought maybe Sid Cohen had come down to pick up a fur coat for one of his customers – he keeps them down here, nice and cold. Wilkins came in, said hello. Then there’s a shot, he’s lying on the floor with blood coming out of his shoulder and someone’s running off.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘At the infirmary. He was lucky, just winged, really.’

  ‘Shot.’ McMillan’s voice was icy.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Andrews nodded. ‘That’s not the worst of it. Take a look.’ He moved aside. The police pathologist was still on his knees, examining the body of a young woman. She lay in the middle of the room, still wearing her smart WRNS uniform. Only the hat was missing.

  The doctor turned his head.

  ‘If you’re hoping for quick answers, you’re out of luck. The only thing I can say for certain is that she was shot. I can probably tell you more after I’ve had her on the slab.’

  ‘How soon?’ McMillan couldn’t take his eyes off the girl and Lottie knew he was thinking about his daughter, a Wren stationed on the south coast.

  ‘I can have a report to you by dinnertime.’

  ‘Any identification yet?’

  ‘That’s your department, Chief Superintendent.’

  McMillan glanced at Andrews.

  ‘I’m leaving it for the evidence men.’

  ‘Fine.’ A few more minutes wouldn’t make any difference. He cleared his throat. ‘Lottie,’ he whispered in her ear, voice close to cracking, ‘please can you see if she’s wearing underwear.’

  She didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to touch a corpse. But they had to be certain. Taking a deep breath, she gently lifted the hem of the skirt. A quick glance.

  ‘No, sir, she’s not.’ Lottie blushed and kept her eyes on the floor.

  He moved away, pulling out the packet of Four Square and lighting one, standing by a small pool of dark liquid in the corridor. When they entered she’d thought it was water. Now she knew. A copper’s blood.

  ‘I want Sid Cohen down at the station as soon as you can get him there,’ McMillan ordered. ‘Where’s the evidence crew?’

  ‘On their way,’ Andrews said. ‘I’m sending Smith to the hospital to get Wilkins’s statement.’

  ‘I want people scouring the area. I know it’s isolated back here, but was anyone seen running off. The usual.’

  ‘Driving,’ Lottie said, and he nodded.

  ‘Or driving. Any cars parked. You know what to do.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  It was a cold, damp February day, but outside seemed balmy after the hard chill inside.

  ‘Do you understand it?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ Angry. Curt. His jaw was set, eyes hard.

  It had to be the same murderer. Shot; the MO fitted perfectly. But… the other bodies had been left once they were dead. Patterson had died at the abbey, Goodman had been dumped there soon after. They hadn’t been stored anywhere. This was different. It didn’t fit.

  ‘One thing,’ she said. ‘Whoever did this knows Leeds. He didn’t just stumble on that cold storage.’

  He took a few more paces. ‘It rules out Americans, is that what you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said in frustration. Probably. Whatever it was, she felt on the verge of tears. A woman, killed, left there like meat in a freezer, as if she was nothing. Wasn’t there already enough death in the world without all this? She blinked and rubbed at her eyes, knowing he was watching her. McMillan put a hand on her arm.

  ‘Why don’t you walk back to Millgarth? Take your time. I can drive myself.’

  ‘All right,’ she agreed after a moment. ‘Thank you.’ She turned away, then quickly back. ‘Cohen. He’s a furrier?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You should get a list of everyone who’s worked for him.’

  ‘I’d already thought of it,’ he told her. ‘But two heads are better than one.’ The expression on his face turned bitter. ‘Pound to a penny it’s the girl from the house on Shire Oak Road. I can feel it.’

  ‘But how? If she’d been with an American up there, how had she ended up here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ McMillan said emptily. ‘I’m starting to feel like I’m drowning in questions.’

  Lottie took her time. With all the paperwork he wouldn’t need her for a little while. She needed to let her mind clear, if it ever could. When she agreed to be McMillan’s driver she’d never bargained for this. He’d said he wanted her brain as well as her ability behind the wheel. But even long ago, when she was a copper, she’d never seen anything quite as bad as this. That poor girl, left there…

  Three murders now. Three women, all from the services, dead in a few days. It seemed impossible, it was… she didn’t know the words to describe it. Insanity, it had to be.

  ‘Are you all right, luv?’

  ‘What?’ A hand on her sleeve and she turned to see a small woman looking up at her.

  ‘You’re stood there crying. I thought you must have had some bad news.’

  ‘I…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know, maybe I have.’ She could feel the wetness of tears on her cheeks and swiped at them with the back of her hand. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You don’t look well. Do you need something?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Lottie assured her and attempted a smile. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘If you say so
,’ the woman said doubtfully, then moved on, arm weighed down by her shopping bag.

  Lottie kept a small compact in her uniform pocket. She dabbed at the last of the tears with her handkerchief and repaired the damage. At least she’d look presentable when she reached the station. It was stupid, letting the job affect her that way. She couldn’t have stopped those women being killed. All over the world people were dying, every day, every minute. What she could do was help find the killer.

  Crying had helped; a little, anyway. The worst of the sorrow was out of her system, but the determination remained.

  The door was closed but she could hear voices from McMillan’s office. Cohen the furrier must have arrived. She picked up the telephone and asked Helen on the switchboard to connect her to the Area HQ at Castle Grove. Finally she reached Ellison’s office.

  ‘Have you heard yet?’

  ‘Heard what?’ He hasn’t, she thought.

  ‘One of ours has been shot, and we found another body.’

  ‘What?’

  Lottie heard the disbelief in his voice. She gave him the bare bones, what little she knew. ‘The boss thinks she might be the girl from Shire Oak Road.’

  ‘That’s…’ For a moment he didn’t seem to know what to say. ‘It’s crazy. Do you know her name? Anything more about her?’

  ‘The evidence bods are going over everything. Wait a minute.’ She put her palm over the receiver as a police messenger boy stood holding a piece of paper.

  ‘For the Chief Super,’ he said nervously. Too old for school, too young for the service, the Police Auxiliary Messengers did the boring jobs, from filing to running errands.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She read it quickly then scribbled a note, tore it off and gave it to the lad. ‘Take that to Missing Persons, will you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘It looks as if we have a name for her – Pamela Dixon,’ she told Ellison. ‘Stationed down in Portsmouth. She must have family here. Aged twenty-three. She was a Leading Wren, whatever that means.’

  ‘Nothing on the bullet? Cartridge?’

  ‘Not yet. The pathologist will be doing the post-mortem now, I expect. No idea on the cartridge.’

  ‘I’m coming over,’ he decided.

  ‘All right,’ Lottie agreed after a minute. ‘I have to say, it’s looking less and less as if one of your chaps did it.’

  ‘The gun still came from us,’ Ellison said. ‘That makes it our responsibility. I’ll be there pretty soon.’

  She’d barely lowered the handset than a fist banged against the door jamb. Detective Constable Smith. He’d been sent to the infirmary to interview the constable.

  ‘How is he?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘He’s lucky, he took it in his shoulder.’ Smith looked stunned. He was young, in the police instead of the army. If he’d thought this was the easy option, he was learning. ‘Billy Wilkins, do you know him?’

  She did. Past conscription age but not old enough to retire. Conscientious, always a smile on his face. Poor man. At least he’d be fine.

  ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘All in my report.’ He produced the paper with a flourish and placed it on her desk. ‘They’ve already sent him home. A few weeks on the sick and he’ll be good as new.’

  ‘I’ll pass it on,’ she promised.

  McMillan’s door was still closed. She glanced at the statement Smith had given her. It was fairly complete, finished with Wilkins’s shaky signature. She already knew most of it from Andrews. The gunman hadn’t spoken, everything had happened too quickly for a proper description. All Wilkins recalled was someone tall and broad in dark clothes who seemed to block out the light. Then the shot and he was on his back as the man ran out past him. He’d seen a few cars in the neighbouring streets but there’d been no reason to remember them. Until this morning he hadn’t seen any activity around the building since Cohen had last been there, just before Christmas.

  Not that much use.

  Another five minutes passed before Cohen emerged, a squat, heavy man in an overcoat with an astrakhan collar. His face was red but there was relief in his eyes. Lottie gave him time to reach the stairs then hurried across the corridor.

  ‘This is where we stand,’ Lottie said as she gave him the reports.

  McMillan skimmed the sheets.

  ‘Thank God for small mercies, anyway; Wilkins is going to be all right. I need someone looking into Miss Dixon.’

  ‘I’ve asked Missing Persons to check on her.’

  ‘Good. Get Smith working on it, too. She must have been visiting someone up here.’

  ‘I rang Ellison. He’s on his way.’

  ‘Oh, hell. Why?’ He frowned. ‘I don’t need him around.’

  ‘With another body, I thought he should know. Was Mr Cohen able to help?’

  ‘Not really. He only goes down there when one of his customers wants her coat and no-one’s asked for one in quite a while. There are keys to the place at his shop and another set at home. He gave me a list of everyone he’s employed in the last four years. We’ll need to track them down and talk to them.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She made a note on the pad. ‘Anything else for now?’

  ‘I’ll want the post-mortem report as soon as we have it.’ He checked his watch. ‘Why don’t you give them a ring and see if they have anything yet. If there’s a bullet I want Lawton to examine it as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’ Lottie stood, hands on hips and looked at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You. You look like you haven’t slept properly in days. I’ll get you a cup of tea.’ She wasn’t going to mention her own little crying fit; no need for that.

  ‘And biscuits if they have them.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ she warned.

  No Wrens reported to Missing Persons. The evidence crew had recovered a cartridge at the cold storage; Lawton was already checking it under his microscope. Nothing yet from the doctor carrying out the post-mortem. One of those times when everything felt in limbo, Lottie thought as she sat with McMillan and Ellison.

  The conversation was going nowhere, simply words to fill the silence. They all stopped and turned at the knock on the door.

  Lawton, looking as dapper as ever. His suit could have come straight from the tailor, no grime on the white shirt collar, the knot in his tie perfect. Hair Brylcreemed, parting immaculately straight.

  ‘I’ve done the best comparison I can manage with our equipment,’ he said.

  ‘Well?’ McMillan asked.

  ‘It’s the same as the cartridge we discovered at Kirkstall, sir. I’d go to court and swear on it.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me.’ He looked at the American. ‘Any questions?’

  ‘I guess not.’ Ellison looked thoughtful. There couldn’t be any doubt that one man had killed all three girls. And now he’d shot a policeman. The only good thing was that the copper had survived.

  ‘How do we keep it out of the papers now?’ Lottie asked.

  The superintendent gave a deep sigh. ‘We can’t. Not about Wilkins, anyway. The women, though… it would hurt morale. If it comes to it, the Home Office will issue a D-Notice.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Ellison asked.

  ‘The government stops all the papers publishing anything about the case.’

  ‘But how can that help?’ the American said. ‘People might have seen something. They could come forward.’

  ‘And in the meantime we have a population panicking because three women have been murdered here, and service girls singled out.’ McMillan shook his head. ‘We’ve weighed it up and made our decision.’

  ‘Your choice. But I think you’re wrong.’

  ‘It’s the way things are and we have to work with them. The question is, where do we go from here?’

  ‘You’ve probably already figured this out,’ Ellison said, ‘But where this happened and with the body stashed there, it has to mean that none of my people
are involved.’

  ‘There’s still the gun.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he admitted sadly. ‘I know.’

  ‘If this happened in Seattle, how would you approach it?’ McMillan asked.

  She knew what that meant. He had no ideas, he was digging for a fresh approach. For anything at all that could provide a spark.

  ‘Right now I’d be hauling in everyone who knew about that cold storage place,’ Ellison replied after a moment.

  ‘We’re talking to them all.’

  ‘Sweat them properly.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We will.’

  ‘Any connection between the dead women?’

  ‘Not that we can tell, but we don’t know anything about the third yet.’

  ‘I don’t know, then. All I can do is keep pushing from my end. I’m looking at a quartermaster’s assistant. With a little luck I should be able to start roasting him tomorrow. If he wants to escape a long time in the stockade, he’ll talk. Then we can follow the gun from the other end.’

  ‘If he talks,’ Lottie said.

  Ellison turned to her with a smile that held no warmth. ‘This is the army. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll talk.’

  ‘The sooner, the better,’ McMillan said. ‘Come in,’ he shouted to a knock on the door.

  The post-mortem report was exactly what they’d expected. Pamela Dixon had been shot, no bullet left in her body, but the wound was identical to the other murdered women. She’d had vaginal intercourse prior to death. Estimating the time of death was impossible; there was no way to tell how long she’d been in cold storage. The pathologist refused to even guess.

  DC Smith had contacted the Admiralty about Pamela Dixon. Eventually he’d been put through to her CO in Portsmouth. Leading Wren Dixon had been given a week’s compassionate leave for the funeral of her parents in Birmingham.

  ‘Birmingham?’ McMillan asked in astonishment.

  ‘That was my reaction, too, sir,’ Smith said. ‘She’s from there. Her story was that an unexploded bomb had gone off. No reason to doubt it. She wasn’t due back until tomorrow.’

  The chief superintendent lit a cigarette and took a long, deep drag. ‘Right. Talk to Birmingham CID. Find out if she really does have family there and if there’s any truth in the story. Then you can get on to Portsmouth CID. They need to talk to Dixon’s friends, anyone she might have confided in. She didn’t end up in Leeds by accident.’